Will DIS ever show the Constitution Class starship?

[milo bloom]

I think it would be perfectly possible to make the Connie work. Many of those fan recreations show how it could be done, and they don't have the budget of a TVshow to work with. Basically just use the basic TOS Connie shape and colours, add TMP levels of surface detailing and it would look fine (maybe give the secondary hull some of that TMP style curvature, IIRC Jefferies wanted to do it that way from the get go, but it was too difficult to model.)

And of course if it is not Enterprise but some other Connie, there is even more leeway.

I don't know why so many people resist this. The original 60's aesthetic was a massive part of why the show was popular, why do you think so many fans have either built their own replicas or even gone so far as to rescue the old stage pieces and restore them?

Just take the original design and give it a higher budget. Smooth off some of the sharp corners here and there, but leave the red railing and the multi-colored displays.


As somebody else said, we have three good reasons the classic look works with modern Trek (Relics, Trials and Tribble-ations and In a Mirror, Darkly). (And VOY's Flashback did movie era tech and it still looked good too).

 

[Mudd]

It looks plausible to Star Trek fans.

 

[Mirror Mirror]

I will never understand how anyone can look at the TOS ship and cliam it is "sleek" much less "modern" and the only thing it has in common with an iphone is thet are both shades of white.

The ship is all base shapes and 1960s art styling that will always date it. It Will alway look out of place and dated.

It looks plausible to Star Trek fans.

Not this trek fan

 

[MadeIndescribable]

Wouldn't surprise me if they just had a single shot in the final episode, in much the same way Smallville only showed Clark in the Superman suit...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I predict that Vaughn Armstrong (or Jeffrey Combs, or the number 47, or all three) will appear on DSC well before the Constitution class does.

 

[Mudd]

That's plausible.

Not that guy who played Martok, though. He's doing Axanar so he's on somebody's list.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Where is the top one from? I like it!

Here you go. The forward view has been my phone background for months.

 

[mos6507]

The ship is all base shapes and 1960s art styling that will always date it. It Will alway look out of place and dated.

I think anytime production design tries to marry itself to what is in vogue in the moment that it instantly dates. So while the TOS Enterprise is iconic, it is also very wedded to a 1960s aesthetic (mostly from car design). I think the movie-era enterprise, in contrast, is more timeless because it was not strictly beholden to late 70s fashion trends, but also drew heavily on art-deco shapes. So to some extent it was already out-of-step with the era.

So it's kind of a fool's gamble to always keep chasing a "contemporary" look. It would be better to go against the grain a bit and incorporate elements outside of what is currently fashionable and therefore it helps make the world you're building truly another world instead of just present tense and present sensibilities with a thin sci-fi veneer on top.

 

[JasonJ]

I think anytime production design tries to marry itself to what is in vogue in the moment that it instantly dates. So while the TOS Enterprise is iconic, it is also very wedded to a 1960s aesthetic (mostly from car design). I think the movie-era enterprise, in contrast, is more timeless because it was not strictly beholden to late 70s fashion trends, but also drew heavily on art-deco shapes. So to some extent it was already out-of-step with the era.

So it's kind of a fool's gamble to always keep chasing a "contemporary" look. It would be better to go against the grain a bit and incorporate elements outside of what is currently fashionable and therefore it helps make the world you're building truly another world instead of just present tense and present sensibilities with a thin sci-fi veneer on top.

^ THIS times 1000.

 

[Andru]

So it's kind of a fool's gamble to always keep chasing a "contemporary" look. It would be better to go against the grain a bit and incorporate elements outside of what is currently fashionable and therefore it helps make the world you're building truly another world instead of just present tense and present sensibilities with a thin sci-fi veneer on top.

I agree with your views. I think the USS Discovery, depending on what the final design looks like, could age much better than other contemporary ships precisely because it's not immediately fashionable and goes against the grain of current ship design canons.

 

[JasonJ]

I agree with your views. I think the USS Discovery, depending on what the final design looks like, could age much better than other contemporary ships precisely because it's not immediately fashionable and goes against the grain of current ship design canons.

Very true point- personally, I feel the Shenzou will be the old ship that's been beat to heck like an old truck and keeps chugging along, and Discovery will be a new, prototype, and/or inter/multi-species vessel designed for a unique purpose.. but to ultimately be destroyed or decommissioned, possibly seeing a refit into a more familiar ship class later on in the series. Given that, they can make the Discovery whatever the heck they want and it'll still work. Perhaps the Discovery and her class of vessel (of which I think is a one-off), is eventually redesigned and refit into what we know as the Constitution class.

On that, is there any canonnical history on the design of the Connie, in-universe? Was it an original design or a successor to a previous, but similar design? I know the NX refit is dang close, pretty much a proto-Constitution, but that isn't seen onscreen, so I'm not sure it counts.

 

[Mirror Mirror]

I think anytime production design tries to marry itself to what is in vogue in the moment that it instantly dates. So while the TOS Enterprise is iconic, it is also very wedded to a 1960s aesthetic (mostly from car design). I think the movie-era enterprise, in contrast, is more timeless because it was not strictly beholden to late 70s fashion trends, but also drew heavily on art-deco shapes. So to some extent it was already out-of-step with the era.

So it's kind of a fool's gamble to always keep chasing a "contemporary" look. It would be better to go against the grain a bit and incorporate elements outside of what is currently fashionable and therefore it helps make the world you're building truly another world instead of just present tense and present sensibilities with a thin sci-fi veneer on top.

I agree, I think the reason TMP and onward ships do not look as dated is because they do not have the real world aesthetics of the era they are made like the TOS did. Really you could take the same of TMP Enterprise, texture it like the NX or say TNG style ships and it would fit. You could not do this with the TOS era as the design elements are simply to 1960's.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Not that guy who played Martok, though. He's doing Axanar so he's on somebody's list.

Hertzler only did Prelude to Axanar. Nothing criminal about that which I can see. I don't see there being any legal basis for keeping him (or Tony Todd or Kate Vernon or Gary Graham) out of DSC.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Hertzler only did Prelude to Axanar. Nothing criminal about that which I can see. I don't see there being any legal basis for keeping him (or Tony Todd or Kate Vernon or Gary Graham) out of DSC.

He's still singing Alec's praises at every opportunity though. The rest have, smartly, distanced themselves from that clusterfk

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ If Hertzler's comments make the DSC people skittish about hiring him, that's one thing. (And it would suck.) But it's a separate issue.

CBS simply can't keep actors off DSC - there's no legal basis for that. The actors can't be blamed for anything that happened regarding that Axanar disaster. They didn't break the law. They didn't write Axanar or take part in any of that financial shell game. Hell, they're not even named as defendants in the lawsuit. They are without liability, and that's the bottom line.

 

[Ing3nu]

I suspect they will hold off showing a Constitution Class for as long as possible, just to let Disco get it's sea legs first and establish the "presence" of our new lead ship. I'm betting we get mentions, and a "control panel" framework shot or two if there is one in range rather than a redesign of the ship to match the show.

 

[Dukhat]

This series isn't focused on the top of the line such as the TOS Enterprise. It's more about the "lower decks" of the whole fleet, focused on the workhorses such as the Shenzhou and the Discovery.

Huh? How do you know that? The only thing we positively know about these ships are their registry numbers (Shenzhou NCC-1227, Discovery NCC-1031, Enterprise NCC-1701). We don't know if ships like the Shenzhou are "workhorses" or capital ships.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I predict that Vaughn Armstrong (or Jeffrey Combs, or the number 47, or all three) will appear on DSC well before the Constitution class does.

Do we know how long Andorians live? I'd love to see Shran again.

 

[Lowdarzz]

I'd like to see it at some point but would prefer it to be story related rather than a blink and you missed it cameo. I'd prefer the original design. I believe the smooth, un-greebled surface gives it a timeless look compared with all the other ships. That said, if they went with a slightly modified version, like the ones produced by Vektor or Mad Man a few years ago (search the art forum), I wouldn't mind.

 

[BillJ]

CBS simply can't keep actors off DSC - there's no legal basis for that.

I seriously hope to not see one actor from any of the Trek series or movies on Discovery. Let it start finding new talent.