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.
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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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275 Comments
The worse design of a starship ever. In fact everything about this movie seems air-headed, badly thought out, written and designed, the actors dont have any magnetism-charm… the enterprise was built in the wrong place and kirk is driving gasoline cars when in the TOS episodes he doesnt know how to drive. Even if the kids that dont know what Star Trek was all about, like this abomination, it will not withstand the test of time.
I would love a trekkie to throw a barilian gelatinous frozen birthday cake in JJ Abrams FACE! Who was the stupid guy who chose a non trekkie to direct this in the first place???
@ Tribbilations:
This is precisely why Trekkies never can get any dates…
Grow up, kid. In Shatner’s own words when he hosted SNL, have you ever kissed a girl? Move out of your parents’ basement and get a life!
JOHN
Actually i am 34 its just my belief those sets could never stand up to today’s standards of our digital age, Also I still cannot believe no one is taking into account as long as the characters and the original premise remain the same who cares what the sets look like and as stated the ship still has the same basic design it still looks like the big-e, I hope that insider at ILM is right that the nacelles are multi-vectoral, I guess being in space the ship should be able to do any maneuver especially in a fire fight it can evade a lot of direct fire. as opposed to next generation were the ship had to do a 360 degree full around instead of say spinning around and get the hell out of werever they were in a hurry
P.S here’s the website regarding the I.L.M insider report
http://flare.solareclipse.net/cgi2/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=001972;p=0
@Tribbilations:
For the record (and for your edificaion):
Kirk DID know how to drive, as he hinted in the episode ‘A Piece if the Action’: When Spock suggested that 20th Century autos had a device known as “a cl- clutch, I believe, Captain..”, Kirk responded, “Yes, as I recall, the LEFT PEDAL…”;
As for the original Enterprise being built on Earth (at Mare Island Navy yards, in San Francisco, clearly stated in the Star Trek Bible – I have one, don’t you?), we may be looking at the protype vessel, the USS Constitution, who knows who hasn’t seen the movie, right? Besides which, the Ent-1701 could’ve been assembled on earth to be tested & spun up, then powered down, evacuated of all reacants (hydrogen/deuterium fusion fuel, antimatter, etc), and then disassembled into more manageable sections (say, half a warp coil nacelle, a slice-of-pie section of the Command Section at a time, the bridge module & warp core, etc) then beamed up to LEO for re-assembly in space, just as we were all told it was, right?
For that matter, this is a starship! Do you really believe, even if the old girl wasn’t built with landing gear, that she couldn’t take off with those powerful fusion-drive impulse engines? You know she could! Plus, it would SOOO look cool as hell, taking off, and in the 23rd Century, it would probably be quite safe.
As for the charge that the new cast members have no ‘magnetism or charm’, if you ask me, you haven’t been paying attention – Chris Pine, Zach Quinto, and all the others – Urban as Bones (perfect!), Harold sans Kumar as Sulu, and this Pegg guy as the new Scotty, even the skinny Russian kid as Ensign Pavel Checkhov, not to mention the beautiful Zoe Saldanna as Lt Uhura – well, they all look pretty damn good to me!
I mean you no disrespect, Tribbilations, you’re probably a good kid, but for the love of IDIC, puh-leaaase, PAY ATTENTION!!!
Soldier on, pal, and do not forget what Gene Roddenberry’s original vision was all about…
JOHN
Sorry,
The new design isn’t doing it for me either. Perhaps I’m too much of a purist to appreciate the new/old look.
As for casting, has anyone noticed how much the “new” McCoy look remarkably alike to Gary Mitchell? Which reminds me, since this is a “pre-quel” to the original series, would it be too much to ask to bring gary Mitchell into the picture? Just a thought.
In this new time line Kirk’s aimless drifting delays his entry into Star Fleet.
He probably never meets Gary Mitchell, Midshipman Finnegan, Ruth, or Carol Marcus.
If they didn’t set this movie in an alternate future, they would be forced to re-live all of the original plots, including “Spock’s Brain”. This way they can make a clean break and explore strange NEW worlds.
The new ship design, though unappealing, isn’t a deal breaker. I enjoyed Next Gen even though the ship was front and top-heavy looking.
At it’s core, Trek has always been about the human adventure, not the best way to arrange a saucer and three cylinders or where to build it.
@ Cap’n Stevo:
Well spoken, Captain, well said. I could not agree more that it’s all about the spirit of the original series, exploring strange new worlds. Trek fans are lovely, hell, I’m one; but we can all become a little hidebound sometimes, and, as some of us get older, set in our ways. I know I can. This is similar to the controversy over the opening of STNG, the TOS fans vs the new fans of the Ent-D (I was one who LOVED the Galaxy class) – eventually, people accepted it, as a natural evolution of the story of Starfleet & the Federation. An alternate timeline cast & ship would be very healthy and engaging, and what better vehicle to explore that in than the Trek Universe? Everybody knows it and is familiar with it, even non-fans.
Having said that, I would like to state that the 3 stills I downloaded from a website I accessed last year, after the very first trailer hit the theaters, clearly shows what can only be described as a perfectly proportioned Enterprise, enhanced and (if you ask me) improved over what I always thought was a somewhat spindly, baroque design. So the fans may very well wind up being quite happy.
Let’s face it, with the possible exception of the Soverign class (Ent E), the ‘Refit Enterprise’ (NCC-1701, -1701/A) was probably the most graceful, powerful, perfectly proportioned heavy cruiser design among all of them; even the fabulous Galaxy class looked, from certain angles, like a lumbering, overweight water buffalo – and it was the Queen of Starfleet. Even the Ent-E was a replacement not for the Galaxy, but for the tried-&-true Excelsior class, which was getting a bit long in the tooth by mid-24th Century anyway. But the Refit Constitution class – ahhhh, perfect! It had a certain spidery beauty none of the others matched…
Am I right. people? Who’s with me??? Hahahaha!
JOHN
The replies to my comments are fair enough. I’m all for the spirit of adventure through space and all. In my defense, however, this is the forum for opinion.
Having said that, I would like to put forward why I stated what I did. The “alternate time line” argument is getting a bit old (like me). Consider this: I the TNG episode “Relics” in which Scotty shows up and start wandering about the Enterprise D, he comes across the holodeck and asks to see the bridge of the original Enterprise. And, lo and behold, there it is, the original bridge, toggle switches, button and all. Further, another episode from DS9 shows has the Defiant coming across the original Enterprise or “His Enterprise” to be precise and again, we see the original Enterprise, baroque look and all.
Next, in the new movie coming out, it seems that a lot of effort went into finding someone who, with very little effort, could easily be believed to be a young Spock.
Where is all this going? Well, put simply, things seem a little disjointed. The writers wanted to make a movie about the early days of the original crew. Adding a character like Gary Mitchell (which I would have consider awesome) or even Finnegan (briefly) might have given the movie some more depth. However, I guess we’ll just have to wait until the movie’s release to judge that.
However, no one seems to have addressed the question so let me re-phrase it. Does anyone think that the new “McCoy” looks a lot like Gary Mitchell? If I noticed it, surely the casting crew did. Perhaps they just didn’t care about that.
In any event, I do look forward with anticipation to the release of the movie only a about a hundred miles from where I live (i.e. Vulcan, Alberta, Canada) thanks to Leonard Nimoy. Live long and prosper!
@Terry Jones:
“Nobody’s perfect, Saavikam.”
– Captain Spock, to Lt Saavik, on the Phototorp deck of the refit Enterprise.
Hahaha, I take your point, though. I am very impressed with how close to DeForest Kelly Karl Urban is, not only in his appearance but in his speech, no doubt well studied: “…no first officer or captain and no one to re-PLACE him…”
If that isn’t Bones, I don’t know who is! But you’re right, the similarity to Gary Lockwood, good ole Frank Poole from the spaceshio Discovery, is nothing less than startling.
I don’t know who they might get to resemble poor, doomed self-apotheosized Gary Mitchel…maybe Bra Pitt, if he isn’t too old by now, he probably is… but it would’ve been interesting. I like the Finnegan idea too, as well as the lovelies Ruth & Carol Marcus (one of whom I believe Kirk was referring to when he excoriated Mitchell, in ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’, as the one he set Kirk up with – “I almost MARRIED her!” – but that’s just me), also, didn’t Kirk serve aboard the USS Republic in his Midshipman days? And wasn’t Spock the science officer of the Enterprise, some 13 years before his trial over violation of the Talos IV ban & attempt to save a dying Capt Pike (’Menagerie’), long before he & Kirk even met? It’s all very confusing…but the great thing about the Trek Universe, besides being there, is that all this can be worked out.
As Scotty once said, in the book of ST IV (though not in the movie, quite unfortunately), only Plank’s Constant is immutable. Lol!
See you in the next timeline, my friend,
JOHN
@ everbody:
Whoops! I misspelled Gary Mitchell & Brad Pitt, sorry about that! I sshould proofread more…
Also, I just made up a joke, inspired by that new commercial about the mad Scotsman in the snap-brim cap, selling motor oil:
What does Scotty do when he’s learned that Kirk has made love to some alien girl?
He slaps him on the back and says “Now that’s thinkin’ with your DIPSTICK, Jimmy!”
Whaddya’ll think? What could be more appropriate for Kirk, interstellar lady-killer?
Well, I’m not a comedian, but I hope U all like it.
Later, JOHN
Saw an ad in a fan magazine for a plastic toy version of this “new” Enterprise. It doesn’t look half bad when viewed from the side looking down.
We really don’t know if, when the past is altered the “original” future is erased, or the time traveler is just sent to another of many alternate time lines that exist in parallel in an infinite multiverse. There was a Next Gen episode where the barrier between time lines started to fray that would seem to suggest the latter.
It is interesting to speculate whether the NX-01 class ships were a part of the “original” time line or were inspired by Zep Cochrane and Lilly’s observations of the Enterprise E in First Contact.
This “new” Enterprise is just as likely a result of Nero’s temporal attack when the Connie class ships were still in the design stages.
It will be interesting to see her in action. Lots of spaceships are shown banking and swooping like aircraft.
If I were Luke Skywalker I would have made an “Asteroids” style coasting pirouette and let Vader have it in the face before he had a chance to call me “daddy”, but then it just wouldn’t be Star Wars, would it?
Will this vectored thrust gizmo add a new dimension? (especially with “inertial dampeners” and “structural integrity fields” in play) And if so, will it still be Star Trek?
I guess time will tell.
The only way to resolve this is if we know for a fact that there is future technology in this movie.
That said, I still don’t see why they would redesign the ship so dramatically. It’s not like they took the design of an even older ship (of that time period) and said what if the Enterprise was more based on that or what if we took some of those design cues. They just slapped the Refit saucer onto something that looks like it would make TNG’s ships look slow.
Nope. That isn’t the Enterprise. That’s the problem with Hollywood. Everyone wants to do a remake these days, but they also want to be “creative” and screw with established material.
One of the things that made “Classic Trek” such a big hit was the memorable props….phasers, communicators, and most of all, the Enterprise itself. If you are doing a prequel to the “Classic”, then the props should at least bare a faint resemblance to the originals.
This new ship looks good, I can at least admit to that, however it is not the Enterprise…it just isn’t.
Oh well. when the new Star Trek is a theatrical flop, perhaps another director will take a crack at it in ten years…AND HOPEFULLY GET THE PROPS RIGHT, DAMN IT!!
I hate to tell you this, but I think the movie is going to be a big hit.
Vic
@JP Jr:
No offense, pal, but U may be pematurely over-reacting. Remembar, none of us have seen the actual movie yet, but there is evidence that this whole plot is built around an alternative timeline scenario – a Romulan bad guy (really bad guy!) named Nero, flies his monster starship Narada back in time from the late 24th centurey, the last time we all saw a Star Trek movie – and the design of this ‘new’ original Enterprise, as well as the lives of the crew, are an empty page – until THEY timewarp back 20 or so years, to save Kirk’s father’s life, completely destroy the Narada (so it’s technology won’t unwittingly wind up in the new Constitution class heavy cruisers, like the Enterprise) and not capture but KILL this Nero badass, so he can’t escape a Fed penal colony and destroy the Earth.
It’s like, I don’t know, Star Trek meets Terminator, with ships…and there is a design for a movie Enterprise circulating the Net which is proportionally exactly identical to the TOS Ent-1701, just more exquisitely detailed – as you might expect for an updated movie prop. I can’t answer as to whether it will be in the movie, but I wouldn’t be surpried if it is, despite rumors that it is just a skilled hoax. Except for a few add-ons, like warp nacelle support braces, a new phototorp bank aft, and some 3-d surface detail, it’s the one we all know & love; I think you’ll like it, so relax, JJ Abrams knows what he’s doing, and this thing’s gonna be a monster hit.
Everybody, please, remember that it was Paramount, the keepers of the franchise, who asked him to head this thing, not only because he knows how to make a hit, but because they trust him to be faithful to Roddenberry’s original concept, and even HE wanted more detail to the ship, but in those days, with the budget Desilu gave them, they could only do so much!
How many times, as the Big E was warping out towards us, did the triple-head printer system make those engine supports almost disappear? I noticed it all the time, and if you ask me, it could a little beefing up…
JOHN
I dont’t like the new design either….
And I wonder WHY IN THE WORLD wasn’t THIS design used:
http://img.trekmovie.com/images/glamshot_0003.jpg
is is recognizable, classic, still got modern looks and forms a believable “pre-design” to the refit version….
There are so many designs like glamshot_0003.jpg that *COULD* have been used that would have kept a lot of the classic elements.
I still don’t know if I can watch this film in theaters if they don’t show a ship resembling the original enterprise at all.
@NCC-174: Thar she blows! I know, a shameless Moby Dick reference, sorry…but this is true.
NCC, I couldn’t agree with U more! THAT’S the ship I have been going on about, the one I first encountered online after seeing the very first movie trailer last year – I think it was shown with ‘Iron Man’ – with the voices of JFK & Leonard Nimoy, showing the construction of the ship at Mare Island (so I’ve heard).
Folks, this is the one they should use, right here! Trekmovie.com has this image, and I have seen it from several different angles, it’s excellent. I personally love all the daddoes & cut-outs around the engineering hull area, especially toward the stern – it always needed a little more detail, not to mention stronger warp nacelle supports, and whoever mocked this up did a really good job, if you ask me. I could even get used to the ‘cobra head’ cowlings over the Bussard hydrogen ram collectors, which, unlike the ‘abomination’, at least glow like they did in TOS.
The good news is, maybe, if there is a God, it’s possible that this is the actual final incarnation of the design the JJ Abrams movie going to use – not the one with hair-dryer-shaped warp nacelles connected to a lower hull that looks, well, squashed, let’s face it – the thing looks like a damn characiture…but the one in your link. How can I say this? Easy:
As I said above, the story plotline involves a corrupted timeline, including (just speculating, now, on my part) the advanced technology harvested from the evil Romulan Nero’s ship, the Nerada, launched from the late 24th Century. In the first permutation of the new timeline, Nero destoys the Kelvin, kills 1st Officer George Samuel Kirk (James Tiberius Kirk’s father), and is stopped in his tracks when the Nerada is disabled, but not destroyed (the Feds’ 1st mistake); this allows Starfleet engineers to reverse-engineer the Nerada, known by them to be Romulan but NOT known to be technology from a century & a half in the future; then, since the Federation is enlightened enough to forswear the death penalty (and, perhaps, also to mine Nero for information, ala Gitmo Bay, lol), they imprison, rather than terminate, Nero himself (mistake #2), allowing him, years later, to escape from prison, build a floating drilling platform, and start imploding planets (there is a movie shot of this drilling beam, presumably from the platform, clearly being observed in the distance by Starfleet Cadets on the Academy Common in San Fransisco).
Having grown up all their lives in a corrupted timeline, the crew (well, the cadets, anyway) come to realize, no doubt with the assistance of an elder Mr Spock (played by Nimoy, also from Century 24), that, to their dismay, their Enterprise is an historical annachronism, a sort of ‘chimera’, made with far-advanced technology, and that the only way to stop the implosion of Earth (if is is Earth, I dunno, maybe it’s Romulus) is for them to timewarp (the beautiful, stark scene in the trailers) back two decades, save Kirk’s dad, kill Nero, and completely destroy the Nerada. Having accomplished this, the timeline is STILL corrupted by the quandry of their very presence (should they survive), their chimera ship, and the fact that the world they left, if they choose to go back to the future (I know, I know) no longer exists…a true paradox.
Where this puts them, I wouldn’t hazard to guess, but I’d be willing to bet real foldin’ money that from this point, it gets really messy! Would they cease to exist? Would all former relationships, from friends to lovers, be now forgotten? Would Spock be bound, with Captain Pike, for Talos IV? Would he be less such a pompous ASS? Would they suddenly find themselves on the Enterprise we remember from TOS (or one very like it)? Will Scotty ever get that hair weave? Will Kirk become a better man for having grown up with his father, eventually inheriting the red Stingray? Will he find himself serving as a young Midshipman on the Starship Republic? Will he ever boink Uhura again? Is Shatner jealous? But I digress…
My point is, having restored the original timeline, the final, sequel-ready Star Trek universe may very well have a ship that looks just like the one in your link, NCC-174.
Thanx so much for putting that link up, I am too dim a bulb to figure out how to put the pics of it I downloaded onto this site, and of course I myself couldn’t find the link again…D’oh!
Also, may I remind everyone that this is just pure speculation on my part, I am merely spit-balling on alternative timeline scenarios from the experience of decades of what I could only describe as a wasted, aimless life…lol!
JOHN
God, I hate the 21st Century…
Sorry, guys – that’s a fan-designed ship. No chance it’ll be in the movie.
Vic
@Vic:
I’m sure you’re right, pal, but remember, it was the fans who resurrected Star Trek after the geniuses at NBC decided the show was too ‘brainy’ for a pre-cable-viewing public headed for Reality TV & primetime game shows; who’s to say that, if we make a big enough noise about the ‘new’ original Enterprise, and especially about continuity. that Abrams won’t change his mind?
It could happen! After all, it IS a better design, right?
Thanx to ya, JOHN
@ Vic
Right, thats what I meanwhile hate about star trek. Every wannabe-writer can come to paramount and rape this universe calling it a “re-invention” of it, totally ignoring fans and forcing people to accept what he is doing.
Star Wars hasn’t got these problems because its creator is still alive and keeps a very close look at how things are made in his movies, this still dosen’t prevent some visual shit sometimes, but at least keeps continuity up….
I think the “true” original design looks better. Sure it might not be as detailed as the Motion Picture version, but it is still a very attractive design, even if it’s inspiration was from the 60’s.
The JJ Abrams version has a few angles that make it look somewhat attractive.
I wish they would have stuck to the original, and true design of the Enterprise.
Groan,
I’ve just recently been reading Screen Rant and I need to get something off my chest. Above, Johnny-O gives a brief overview of the new movie coming out. I must say, I’m very disappointed in Paramount. It’s as though they’ve got absolutely no new ideas. It’s like they wrote yet another time line/distortion because no one had enough originality to do anything else.
It was because of this time line interference that I stopped watching Star Trek Enterprise. What’s really frustrating about the plot is the possibility that at the end, it will be as if it never happened. Can anyone say “dream sequence”? I wonder if the person who wrote this is the same person who wrote the script for “Dallas” — you know, where the entire season was a dream?
@ Purist:
Ah, yes, do I remember Dallas (Btw, I like your handle, U sound like someone who might be worth an intellegent chat or two)! I’ll go you one better: Remember the last scene of the final episode of the sitcom ‘Newhart’? Bob Hartley wakes up in bed with his original wife, played not by Mary Fran but by Suzanne Pleshette. He never ran a hotel in Vermont, never left Chicago, never stopped being the nice psychiatrist who helps people; the whole SERIES was a dream (why couldn’t Abrams have done that with Lost? Okay, I’m kidding)!
Or how about the old medical drama St Elsewhere, the vehicle that launched the career of Denzel Washington & others: In the final scene of the very last episode (does have the advantage of overruling any chance of a spin-off, I will admit that!), the hospital, St Eligius (St Elsewhere) is revealed to be nothing more than a prop building inside a snowglobe, played with by the Chief of Surgery’s autistic son; except he really isn’t a surgeon, just an ordinary, blue-collar kinda guy trying to raise his speacial-needs son.
Here’s a killjoy for you: Young James Tiberius Kirk wakes up to find the delicate, beautiful Nyota Uhura taking a shower in his bathroom, the morning after the night before, when he got the crap kicked out of him by four Starfleet cadets; he got lucky, ’cause it was a pyrric victory, and so he got the girl. Suddenly his dad calls up to bid him downstairs, informing him that his mom has breakfast on the table, reminding him he needs to try to get a move on to get his butt into town to try & find a job, since he has no desire to join Starfleet. Like his father.
He’s looking like a punching bag, he just had possibly the best night of his life, and he can’t even remember it, he’s so hungover. His dad looks like a varsity hunk, his mother is VERY blonde, and 23rd Century or not, it’s a farm, f’Chrissakes, and it IS Iowa! And he has a beautiful African girl in his shower….
What’s a boy to do, invite her to have some bacon & eggs?
JOHN
“Captain…Life is NOT a dream…” – Mr Spock, STV
Agreed that the time travel theme has been done to death in ST, and I hope it gets a long and well-deserved rest after this, along with Klingons, Romulans, and the Mirror Universe (even if I’d love to see more of Zoe)
Going back in time is a mental mastrubatory loser empowerment fantasy that is at it’s core based on regret. As much as we would like to live without any regrets, they are a part of what makes us what we are. Although I may cringe thinking about what a dork I was in High School, it is that regret that drives me to be less of a dork today. “I want my pain! I need my pain!”
You’d better have a good reason to go back in time and change history, you’d better have wrong to right that affects more than you. The great historical wrong that Paramount is trying to right with this movie is NBC’s 1969 cancellation of Star Trek.
The original crew, with all of their human faults, were much more interesting and compelling to watch than the stodgy stiffs of later generations with their PC “Evolved sensibility”
By the time of the movies, FX had advanced to a convincing level but the cast had lost their original fire. (ST5 Uhura fan dance sequence anyone?, Talk about raping my memories!)
Maybe, just maybe we can get it all to fall back into place this time.
@ Brighteyes:
“You’d better have a good reason to go back in time and change history, you’d better have wrong to right that affects more than you.”
Brother, you got that right!
I have often speculated, the ‘every-time-you-go-back-you-create-a-brand-new-timeline’ arguement notwithstanding, what would happen if you actually could physically go back to Munich in 1933, and assassinate Adolf Hitler.
There you are, right at the perfect spot as Der Fuhrher, Rudolf Hess, and General von Ludendorf come marching up the strasse, with your Mannlicher/Carcano rifle (not all that much of a stretch, really, since the company was in business, in Italy, decades before Lee Harvey Oswald ordered one from Dallas), and you manage to draw down on a perfect bead right between young Schicklegrube’s eyes, causing a nice, fist-sized crater in the back of his head; you make it back to your time machine, or beam up to your ship, or whatever, thinking that you have, surely, saved 6 million Jews (and almost 50 million others), and no matter how things turn out, now, it has to be better than the worst war in human history…right?
Wrong. Without the spur of warfare, whatever purchase that came from America’s participation in the Great War is squandered, because there is no vehicle to launch the US onto the world stage, to stay; worse, without the strain of the ‘Great Patriotic War’, the Russians’ name for the WWII conflict, Stalin stays in power, solidifying his position as the Master of Socialism, and living perhaps far longer than 1953.
Eventually, without a war-footing based United States Navy to control and contain them, the Imperial Japanese Navy has the run of the whole Pacific basin, and pushes us back all the way to the west coast, so they never feel the need to take out Pearl Harbor, or if they do, this time they get all our carriers, effectively defanging our navy.
Eventually, with the help of the two Werners (Braun & Heisenberg), the Soviets eventually develop the atomic bomb, mate nuke warheads to ICBMs, and dominate the world – which is now called The UGSR, the Union of Global Soviet Republics, eventually covering more territory than the former (now dead) British Empire. Including the United States of America.
And you thought you were so smart!
Here’s another one: While flying B-17s over Germany – if Hitler isn’t killed – Gene Roddenberry is shot down, and dies along with his entire crew. He never becomes a cop in LA, never starts producing TV series like ‘The Lieutenant’ (which starred Gary Lockwood, who later played Gary Mitchel in the ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ episode, and occasionally guest-starred Nichelle Nichols), and never dreams up & produces Star Trek, and we all something else to do with our now ordinary, boring, totally meaningless lives…talk about telling people to ‘get a life’!
This is no doubt why they came up with the concept of the ‘Temporal Prime Directive’, don’t you think?
JOHN
I am unsure if Johnny-O is being sarcastic of if he is serious. Nonetheless, notwithstanding the above, what I find really annoying with the altered time line/reality schtick is that it is completely and totally unnecessary. The best of all the ST movies is without a doubt ST2 “Wrath of Khan”. The second best (in my ever to be humble opinion) was The Undiscovered Country. No alternate time line crap in either. Surely the scriptwriters at Paramount can do better. In fact, if they’re so desparate for ideas, why not take one of the countless Star Trek novels and turn one of them into a movie (as if no one has ever turned a book into a movie before)–just leave out the ones involving time/alternate universe travel. In my youth, I read many, many of said novels. If they wanted to do a pre-quel, how about “Enterprise – The First Mission” with Captain Robert April. Believe it or not, this novel has become accepted history by Paramount. If any of you have the cutaway poster of the “Enterprise D”, you will notice in one of the bottom corners silhouettes of all the former Enterprises beginning with NCC-1701. Each one has a list of Captains for the ship. For the original Enterprise, Captain Robert April is considered to the authentic first captain of the Enterprise.
Just a thought.
@ Purist, et al:
I was being perhaps a little sarastic, Purist, but not at you. As a matter of fact, I happen to agree with you – the alternate timeline theme has been done to death (Terminator, Terminator, Terminator….ARRRGGGHHH!), like the others have said, and as engaging as it can be, it is just absolutely MADDENING! Unfortunatately, science fiction is the only medium for this, but I am like you, I loved ST II & VI, but I also loved ST IV, the ‘Voyage Home’; they saved their world by abducting a pair of humpback whales from ours, and the only timeline incursion they had to risk was, after all, introducing Mr Nichols to the wonders of transparent aluminum, pretty cool stuff I am sure someone out there is now working on…but you’re right, the fan novels are excellent, and in fact I have heard of ‘Enterprise – The First Mission’, but I would love to see who they get to play Captain Robert April – they did a fine job of casting Bruce Greenwood as Captain Christopher Pike (he’s no Jeffery Hunter, but then again, who is?).
Anyway, I think you and the others represent the core of what Star Trek – Roddenberry’s Star Trek – was supposed to be all about, a whole universe that fires the imaginations of the fans; and yes, it’s the Enterprise, but it is also the other ships and people of Starfleet – like the other 3 series proved, if you ask me. Do you recall the names of the original 12 ‘Connies’, remember? I used to be able to riddle them right off the top of my head, but it has been so long, and other names have taken their place, thanks to less skilled authors who weren’t paying attention, no thanks! Amateurs…
I, like you, would love to see good, entertaining science fiction, devoid of any time-travel stories – but then, how are you gonna break Hollywood of doing the lazy thing they do anyway, by making more sequels? They already have a crippling lack of imagination as it is, and it isn’t just Paramount.
Good thing Star Trek thrives on sequels, huh, lol?
Lemme see, Constitution, Enterprise, Exeter, Lexington, Yorktown, Hood, Kongo, Potempkin, Intrepid, Defiant, Excalibur, and…was it Saratoga?
I used to have this down, am I missing any of them? I don’t think it was Saratoga…
Anyway, all sarcasm aside, we should really tell Paramount what for, just like the fans did NBC, and they brought back STTOS back from the edge of oblivion. That would show ‘em!
I’m serious, they need to know how we feel. Anybody game? They already have a framework now, with this new movie.
Just a thought, JOHN
Hi John,
Yes, you missed one. The USS Constellation. It was destroyed in The Doomsday Machine following the death of Commodore Decker (who, btw, just happens to be the father of Will Decker – the Captain of the re-fitted Enterprise in ST: The Motion Picture (but that’s another story).
Just FYI. You mentioned you had heard of the novel “Enterprise: The First Mission” Here’s the briefest of overviews. See if you think it might be a good starting point for a movie.
Essentially, the movie is more about Kirk’s father than Captain April. The Enterprise is not fully completed but is spaceworthy. No markings yet and sections of the inside are not yet built (mostly crew quarters). April’s orders are to take the ship on an initial shakedown run (presumably to test the engines). It has only a skeleton crew.
Unbeknownst to everyone, a traitor is onboard. While the Enterprise is going through it’s paces, the traitor initiates a navigational malfunction causing the ship to be thrown deep into Romulan space. Since (at this point in history) the Enterprise represents the cutting edge of Starfleet technology. Captain April orders ship to make it back to Federation space before the Romulans get to it first. Remember, a Federation ship with no markings would be considered a spy ship and thus risk war between the Federation and the Romulans.
This is where my memory gets a bit unsure. While making its way back home, April has to employ several tactics to overcome various obstacles – not the least of which is finding the traitor. This is where Kirk’s father (Samual isn’t it?) come in since he is Acting Security Chief.
When the Enterprise gets close to Federation space, April employs a deception to fool the Romulans. He sends fake transmissions which gives a false location of the ship. Of course, the Romulans would be able to determine the absence of ship in that location in short order. So, April. in the fake transmission, speaks of a device which make the ship invisible to sensors and sight.
The Romulans, believing that since the Federation had such a device, it must also have superior military technology and set out to develop their own “cloaking device” before engaging in any conflict with the Federation.
Of course, the traitor is found, and the Enterprise makes it home.
Oh yeah, James T. Kirk is also aboard since his dad was showing him the ship when all this went down. However, at this time, Jimmy Kirk is a snot-nosed whiny teenager (although he does some growing up along the way).
If I made mistakes anywhere, feel free to correct me. As I said, I read this quite awhile ago.
Well, whaddya think? I don’t know about you guys, but to me it would make for very good movie.
Johnny-O – As far as letting Paramount know our dissatisfaction – where do I sign up?
@ Purist:
YEEEEESSSS! The Constellation, how could I ever forget that one???!!! What is wrong with ME???
Thank you, Purist, thank you so much! The little gray cells, as Belgian PI Hercule Poirot would’ve said (Agatha Christie, forgive my digression), really let me down…
Of course, it all comes back now; Captain Matt Decker (father of Capt Will Decker, who wound up, along with the beautiful Deltan woman Iliea, becoming integrated with V’Ger in STTMP), was her commmander! I can’t believe I forgot, not the least because in the real world, the actual Constellation was a sort of sister supercarrier to the real-world Enterprise (CVN-65), launched at about the same time, and although the Big E is in a class by herself (literally) and has no other sisters, and the Connie is deisel powered (like at least 4 other supercarriers built after – they were cheaper), she is commonly paired to the world’s first nuclear supercarrier; so they already had an shared history.
Yes, I remember holding the paperback ‘Enterprise – The First Mission’ in my hands, my God, it must’ve been twenty or more years ago, and reading all the squibs on the front & back! I wish I’d bought it, not surprised it was such a compelling story, by your accounting (good job, btw!). I notice, lol, you are already referring to it as a ‘movie’ – I like your optimistic attitude, hahaha! And yes, I remember clearly that the elder Kirk was named George Samuel Kirk, and in fact as I recall, young Tiberius had an older brother, named after his dad, George Samuel, Jr. Only Jim called him Sam (’What are Little Girls Made Of?’ – first season, TOS) Also, Kirk’s nephew showed up later, I forget the name of the episode, but it was the one where the Enterprise crew went to Deneb IV, a Fed Colony where Sam & family had moved to; the population was wiped out by these huge flying brain cells, who glommed onto the back of one’s neck, and eventually drove the victim insane – anybody help my flagging memory out, once again, on the title? Sorry! Anyway, Kirk’s nephew was the sole suvivor, so I guess George the Younger (Sam) and his wife didn’t make it, and as I recall, Spock got infected himself and was able to keep it together, as he was a Vulcan & had more mental discipline, and so tried to discover what if anything could kill these damn things, finally divining that a wavelength of light was their Achille’s Heel – and almost became blind in the process, sort of a preview of what he would do, almost twenty years later, in the Mutara Nebula, sacrificing his life for his crew…
I like your precis of the plot, it reminds me a similar situation from actual history: Ronald Reagan managed to convince the Soviets that we had Star Wars weapons (SDI Program, remember), and so caused them to spend such a huge percentage of their GNP that it caused the Soviet system to collapse, bringing the age of communism, at least in Russia, to a close; in this case, Captain April’s little ruse was the inspiration for the Romulan’s obsession with cloaking devices, which became their trademark…I LOVE IT!!! It has the ring of truth to it, and I wonder how many other things in history are the result of such delberate deception? Like Kruschev and his 9 missles, all the time bragging about how Russia would crank out ICBMs ‘like sausages’, thereby forcing us to mainline miniturization & solid rocket fuel for the new missile sub George Washington…it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
As for a young ‘Jimmy Kirk’ (you sound like Finnegan, lol! “Ahhh, Jimmy boy!”), running around the unfinished corridors of the Enterprise & freaking out, being forced to grow up a little early, all I can say is, Is it any wonder he was a snot-nosed, whiny teenager? Don’t such kids usually grow up to be great men – if they are tested early? I have observed this myself, and it is true, like someone once said about Anniken Skywalker growing up to be Darth Vader – of COURSE he was an overly whiny Emo kid, with issues, those are the type who wind up making history, right???
And Purist, I wish I knew where to sign up, but if you think about it, the folks who started the letter-writing campaign which eventually resurrected STTOS didn’t know what they were doin’ either, at first, did they? All they did was bury the NBC mailroom in mailbags. We start with an addrees, I guess, and nowadays, we have emails we can bombard the Paramount offices with, too…sooner or later, they have to notice! Right?
I never thought I would be an organizer, when I woke up this morning…oh well, glad for your interest, what do YOU think?
Do we have a chance? It IS for a good cause, after all, and after the movie premiers, we’ll have the imput from a lot of new fans.
Ready for the Revolution, JOHN
(hahaha!)
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