First Look At J.J. Abrams’ New USS Enterprise
Nov 11, 2008 by Vic HoltremanLet’s hear it: Do you LOVE the new Enterprise from the new Star Trek movie or HATE it?
Thanks to Entertainment Weekly, you are looking at the first full image of the redesigned USS Enterprise from the new Star Trek movie (you can head over there for a larger version).
As a long time Star Trek fan, whose favorite series is the original, my from-the-gut reaction when I first came across this was:
That is one ugly ship.
Here is what J.J. Abrams had to say in regards to the new design vs the original:
“If you’re going to do Star Trek there are many things you cannot change. The Enterprise is a visual touchstone for so many people. So if you’re going to do the Enterprise, it better look like the Enterprise, because otherwise, what are you doing?”
I don’t know… maybe it’ll grow on me or it will look awesome while in flight on the big screen, but at the moment it’s not doing it for me. While he went pretty “classic” with the saucer section (that’s “primary hull” for the Star Trek fans out there) the connecting pylon and the secondary (lower) hull just look… incongruous.
If I had to pick one word that comes to mind when I look at that image, it would be:
Taffy.
You know, that stretchy carnival candy? You get it warmed up and then you can pull on it and it stretches and thins? That’s what the secondary hull and the nacelles look like to me. The lower hull looks like it was molded out of clay, rolled between two hands and rolled narrower at one end.
Almost exactly one year ago I wrote a speculative post asking “How radical is the USS Enterprise Redesign?”
Pretty damned radical, it seems.
Here are some comparative images from that post to help put things in perspective:
The Original USS Enterprise NCC-1701
JJ Abrams’ Redesigned USS Enterprise NCC-1701
The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A
Tell me the new design doesn’t look like the movie Enterprise saucer section tacked onto some completely different alien ship.
In another post, I tried to guess how a redesign of the Enterprise might equate to the modern trend of doing design updates of classic cars. As it turns out, I think my 1960s to 21st century Camaro comparison turned out to be the closest in design ideology:
Classic Camaro
Modern Camaro
At the time I wrote:
“Let me say that I think the new Camaro is really, REALLY hot and from a design standpoint pays homage to the classic version, but that degree of change for the Enterprise would be completely unacceptable.”
Oh well.
Or… is it just me? Do I need to give it time to sink in and see it in action? I’d like to hear opinions from both Star Trek fans and non-fans.
[UPDATE: Thanks to "Spockboy" check out this minor change to the design via Photoshop that makes the new NCC-1701 look FAR better by adding some bulk to the lower part of the ship.]
Star Trek opens on May 8, 2009.
Source: EW.com via FirstShowing.net
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@ atseyes:
Glad I could brighten your cloudy day, ‘Eyes; yes, I have been called something very close to that – usually it’s just two words – ‘cynical bastard’, lol!
I admit, I have a hard time buying into human motives when it concernes making money, but not in humans’ ability to survive & make the most out of life through problem solving.
For all my cynicism, I can honestly tell you that it would’ve deteriorated into full-blown depression if not for that Franchise.
Seriously, for all the inspiring words that have come down thru’ history from real, live people – Edmund Burke on the triumph of evil over the complacency of good men, Bertram Russell on the ultimate prevalence of mankind as a function of survival, even Lincoln on the better angels of our nature – the words that have given me the most comfort & hope for the future, even after we here now are long gone, came from James Tiberius Kirk, spoken to an alien on the meaning of our people:
“We are of a race born to strive. We cannot grow, or even survive, without the challenge of adversity…”
I am glad I could make you smile, but this movie DOES have meaning…
But then. yo already knew that, didn’t you?
JOHN
Just curious … I didn’t read all the comments, but given that this movie is based on an alternative timeline, how could we expect the ship to look the same at all?
@ Bob D:
You got that right! We’re lucky the Enterprise doesn’t look like the Protector from ‘Galaxy Quest’…
Thanx for reminding us to look on the bright side, Bob.
JOHN
@ All:
Btw, did any of you ever hear the story of the original struggle Gene Roddenberry had to put up to get the original Jeffries starship design?
He got a visit from the head of the studio there at Desilu, a bit piqued that Roddenberry was still waiting for Walt Jeffries to finalize the design. He just couldn’t understand what the holdup was.
“It’s a show about people on a spaceship, right?” he says to Roddenberry. “Well, just take a cigar shape, put some windows on it, and there’s your spaceship! Simple, right?”
Wrong. Roddenberry had to fight to get Walt Jeffries’ design to be accepted, and that’s why it took so long (1964-’67, also two pilot episodes).
It could be that we are all being too hard on JJ Abrams – it is possible that his efforts to save the original Enterprise design, to any extent, are nothing less than heroic.
After all, stupidity, just like anything else, skips a generation, right???
JOHN
What I really found amazing about the film was the weird new take on the viewscreen sound effects … it has kept me up at night…I want to hear it again! Sounded so alien and yet brought me back to the old series …
@ All:
Whoops! I meant Matt Jefferies, dunno who the hell Walt Jeffries is, sorry!
Not to sound like Time Magazine, but as they would say, I regret the error…
JOHN
@ Steve, Katherine, Fury2701, and my buds Purist & K Bone:
The ‘Screen Rant Spoiler’ afficitonadoes can now gather at the thread called, simply, ‘Star Trek Review’; Ken & I found our ways there okay, and so can you. Just follow the links to ‘Star Trek Review’, and you’ll land there just fine – if I can find it, anybody can, lol!
JOHN
I can think of a hundred things that is WRONG with this design, both in and out. The worst of which is the bow legged effect of the nacelle pylons, that are attached to the Hangar Deck, instead of Engineering… who ever came up with this design, did not think of the internal layout and mechanics.
The technology, through out the ship is inconsistent, from the ultra high-tech Bridge to the “Grain Combine Cylinders” with a Radio-active sign posted on it, in Engineering. Then comes the plexi-glass 19th century water reclamation room. ugh…
Not to worry, with enough people ranting, they’ll blow it up by the end of the next movie, and replace it with Gabe Koerner’s design, the way it SHOULD have been.
I like Gabe’s design. Let’s hope for the best. Oh, but I’d prefer the design by Dennis Bailey….much more attractive:
http://img.trekmovie.com/images/drbenterprise_1.jpg
http://img.trekmovie.com/images/drbenterprise_3.jpg
Joe
@ Joe:
That IS cool, thanx for sharing that with us.
Kinda like the transitional design between the TOS ship & the Refit/Ent-A, sorta like what they were gonna do with the series that never happened, ‘Phase II’ – have you ever seen that design? It is almost the Refit, but not quite – with just enough of the TOS original to, you know, connect.
I did like these pics by this Dennis Bailey guy, very professional. I copied them both for my Pictures file.
You guys, uh…DO understand that all we saw in TOS is safe in its own timeline, that this new Abrams movie is a BRAND NEW timeline and that there is therefore no connection between the world of TOS ever sice Nero sailed out of that wormhole, right?
Probably, it was changed back in Bozeman, Montana, as soon as the Ent/E had to follow the Borg Sphere to 2163 and ensure Cochrane’s first contact, if you ask me; that is the origins if the whole ST/Enterprise series with Archer & the NX-01. Love it or hate it, that wouldn’t have happened without First Contact, they had repercussions. That’s how T’Pol, not Spock, became the first Vulcan Executive Officer in Starfleet, get it?
When Zef Cochrane & Lily Sloane started comparing notes, combined with the earthshaking common knowledge of these aliens called ‘Vulcans’, it changed EVERYTHING!
On a related Screen Rant thread, there is a guy who wrote a fanciful synopsis of what happened after the Vulcans came & went, having listened to ‘Scooby Doo’ on ol’ Zef’s juke box –
Apparently, both Cochrane & his assistant Lily became writers (eventually); his was entitled ‘Saucers & Nacelles: The Way to the Future’, by Zefram Cochrane, and Lily’s was called ‘They’re Out There, and They’re NOT Swedish: An Interstellar Call To Arms’, by Lily Sloane.
Very amusing, I thought!
~Johnny-O
@ All:
Come to think of it, I believe the person responsible for the above clever fabrications about Cochrane & Sloane is someone from on here, whom I would like to credit for his cleverness: Brighteyes.
I’ll see if I can find that post, I found it very enlightening.
~Johnny
Some person stated that the new Enterprise in the film was 725.35 meters long
twice the size of the old one…Idiot… who ever said that, plus made it comparable in size to Battlestar Galactica if not bigger….what a plonka…!
If you look at the size of the bridge in the new film and the old films of the late 70's mid 80's they are almost the same size in the top dome..
Plus the port hole windows around the saucer section are exactly the same as the
old film ones, I like that, as is the phaser banks on the top and bottom section.
Plus they kept the self lighting of the hull from the base of the dome section.
Now if the new ship was twice to three times as big all the details would be smaller and spaced out. In the film when they do cut away shots zooming out of the bridge to the hull you can see yourself it is not to such great scale. even when the shuttles enter the cargo bay and when Kirk is ejected out of the escape pod.
I like that they paid homage to the old film Enterprise on the saucer section not much has changed, they kept the light arrangemets around the saucer, the phaser banks in sets of three groups of two on top and bottom plus the kept the self lighting of the saucer….. great!!!!!
The engines look like they have been intergrated into the “borg collective” horrible.
and the main hull, well with the way it has thinned out whats the point of having one
but it does make it look sleek.
As one person on this thread said, its like the new and old enterprise had sex and came out with a ugly baby.. well its not that ugly.
just different….?
Some idiot said the new ship was 725.35mtrs long almost three times the size of the old one and the film one as bigger that Battlestar Galactica.. ha.ha.ha..
what an idiot.
When you see the film and compare the size and equate the scale of people to windows and the shuttle bay and the life pod that Kirk is fired out off, you can see
it is not that big, it's the same size as the old film, this is justified in the pull out cut away zoom shots as the camera pulls out of the bridge to the out side hull.
So there you go a mish mash of crap from others, who get it wrong.
Mind you I love Andy Proberts / Matt Jefferies original designs, and I am happy with it to some extent.
but the brigde interior is a serious health hazzard, very Apple store.
the engine room, is a Joke…. err does the ship run on water….??
My biggest problem with the new ship is the nacelles, they look like they came from a cartoon. Matter of fact, the with the bobbed secondary hull and the cartoon nacelles, I just can't take this thing seriously.
My biggest problem with the new ship is the nacelles, they look like they came from a cartoon. Matter of fact, the with the bobbed secondary hull and the cartoon nacelles, I just can't take this thing seriously.
I hate the moonshine eiegines. Give me the old ones.