The "new" Enterprise

[cmdr_zoom]

Let me start by saying that of all the designs the U.S.S. Enterprise has had over the years, my favorite is the one from the first movie and the five that followed it. (The 1701-E, Sovereign-class, looks damn good too, but let's put that aside for the moment.)

The Enterprise in the new movie should not look like that. Yes, it is a movie. But isn't this supposed to be before the five-year mission(s)? Why does it look like it's already been through the refit?

Several recent efforts have shown that with a few minor tweaks, close attention to detail, and an FX budget orders of magnitude bigger than they had to work with back in 1966, the original battleship-grey Constitution-class design can be made to look damn good, even in high definition. With its simple lines, running lights and old military font, it looks like... well, like USN ships still do today. It has mass and reality. It's a design that suits Starfleet's flagships in that era - vessels built to explore the frontier and carry the flag, but also fight if necessary.

What it doesn't look is "pretty" or "sexy" or "futuristic", and I'm sad to see that's all that the people now in charge seem to care about. Why bother calling it STAR TREK at all if, as Abrams said, it's not for fans of the series?

I didn't mind the casting (except for Pegg, who I still think was cast more because he's a "name" right now than because he can fill Doohan's shoes). I didn't mind the gratuitous sexy because Great Bird knows there was tons of that in the original series. I didn't mind Kirk being a smirking young rebel because, well, see above. But goddamnit, why did they have to mess with the damn ship?

I'm still willing to give the actors a chance. But as far as I'm concerned, the technical designers have failed. (Not that I believe they care what I think.)

EDIT for appropriate curmudgeonly quote:

"And they probably redesigned the whole sickbay too! I know engineers. They love to change things."

EDIT the second:
If this turns out to be just an incredible fake-out, and when the actual movie comes out it is a Connie... well, that would be epic and awesome. But I doubt it. There's no reason for them to go to that sort of trouble just for the sake of us old, irrelevant, never-were-cool fans.

"Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young, Doctor."

Comments

[the2belo.livejournal.com]

Agreed on the Big E from the first six films. (In fact, I liked quite a lot of imagery from that series: the naval overtones ("Admiral on the bridge!"), the quasi-military uniforms, the transporter effect, the phoooootooooon toorrrrrrpeeeeeeeeeedoooooooooooes, even the warp field.)

But I'm going to have to give them the benefit of the doubt when they try to recreate a show made 40 years ago. This was originally a low-budget 1960s program made for small television screens. When you're producing the same thing for 2008 movie theaters, stuff is bound to be messed with.

I figure I'll think positively: if Abrams gets it right, he'll be able to visualize things and ideas that Roddenberry never had the technology -- or the budget -- to achieve. I can only hope.

*watches new trailer*

Hang on a minute. There are canyons in Iowa?

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

I hoped too. I really did. This is the result.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Why bother calling it STAR TREK at all if, as Abrams said, it's not for fans of the series?

No reason I can think of.

I'm still willing to give the actors a chance.

After watching the preview, I'm not willing to give the director a chance.

I'm planning a TOS episode fest at my house on the day of the opening, in silent protest.

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

Why does it look like it's already been through the refit?

It doesn't, if you look more closely; it looks like an extrapolation backward from the refit to what an earlier model of the ship might've looked like with similar production values, as opposed to a 1965 television budget.

I thought it was rather clever, actually.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

I get that. It's certainly less radical of a transformation in look than we got from the Block I Constitutions to what has been, at times, called the Enterprise-class. It looks like the same technological generation, rather than two different ones.

Am I odd for thinking that's wrong, somehow?

It's like this - the ship, the bridge, and all the rest of it - was made by people who had only ever seen the movies, and didn't even know the show existed.

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

No, it's not odd; I see where you're coming from. I just think that in the modern era of "reimaginings", we ought to consider ourselves fortunate that whoever designed the new old Enterprise even looked at pictures of the earlier versions and made it more or less the same shape, much less quibble over whether it's painted grey and looks like it was made by AMT. :)