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
‘Anchorman 2′ Trailers Tease the Return of Ron Burgundy’s News Team [Updated] 
Hugh Jackman Reveals Summer Start Date for ‘Wolverine 2′ 
Chris Hemsworth Talks ‘Thor 2′; Mads Mikkelsen Circling Villain Role [Updated] 
‘Walking Dead’ Season 3 Preview Reveals The Prison & Michonne [Updated] 
Loading ...
“You cannot fire phasers at Warp speed, physical fact…..”
Ummm other than the fact that the refit Enterprise channeled the phasers through the warp reactor to increase their effect and they were cut off by the engine imbalance, they would have normally been perfectly usable on the asteroid in the wormhole. If you look at the phaser turret nozzles they link directly to the anti-matter/matter plasma stream.
@ rumbeard…
As far as I recall in the first movie the Enterprise was still accelerating to Warp 1 when that malfunction happened….
and if not, its a movie mistake. Just think about it, Phasers are a beam weapon, a phaser beam travels at the speed of light. I dont know what would happen if you have them fired from a platform moving inside a warp field at 100 x light speed or something. But this must have an odd effect if the beam exits the warp field.
Torpedoes are a different story, the speed of the Ship is added to the projectiles speed, which is variable because they are self-propelled (and have to be, in order to turn in for homing).
However, this should make it very difficult for a ship moving at warp speed hitting an impulse-running ship, the torpedo comes extremely fast and theoretically, if it turns it would crush itself and explode…or it has to slow down, which by physics law requires brake thrusters…
@ Rumbeard:
“Just think about it, Phasers are a beam weapon, a phaser beam travels at the speed of light. I don’t know what would happen if you have them fired from a platform moving inside a warp field at 100 x light speed or something. But this must have an odd effect if the beam exits the warp field.”
-NCC-1704 (Who I will hereafter, very respectfully, refer to affectionately as ‘Yorktown’, or York for short, with his/her permission)
What Yorktown said!
Of course, you may well be right, Rumbeard, we don’t even know what would happen at all in hyperspace (subspace, null-space, whatever you wanna call it); but York is right, there really is no getting around the fact that phasers, like light-pumped lasers, are restricted to the speed of light, and are BEAM weapons – they are aimed, directed, whereas missile weapons are fired and targeted. Can you bend a phaser from it’s source, anymore than you can a laser? Or even a flashlight? Maybe refract it, but remember all a phaser amounts to is a very sophisticated particle beam. We have those, of a sort, already. They’re in labs, maybe, but…
No. Phasers, if I understand what they are supposed to be correctly, can’t exceed light velocity.
Whatever U say, I’m not digging my heels in on this, but what Yorktown says makes sense to me.
But I’m not gonna get in your arse about it. I don’t wanna wind up with egg on my face, if perchance an astrophysicist (or some other PhD a LOT smarter than me – which isn’t hard, believe you me!) chimes in, in support of your position, which they well may.
At any rate (even 300,000 kps, lol), it seems to me not worth arguing about; let’s all agree not to take the fun out of all this.
I for one am having way too good a time.
Maybe you’re right, ‘Beard…
JOHN
The Enterprise-A is my favorite ship from a purely artistic view, but my overall favorite ST vessels to date belong to the newer Defiant class. Why? ST charted a different course with NX-74205 and her sister ships. There were no flimsy pylons, no secondary hull, no primary saucer, no luxurious quarters or holodecks. Structurally. her overpowered systems and heavy armor built into a compact construct appeared to make much more sense. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t meant to be pretty, but it worked and it was an exciting ship to watch. It was a pure combat, er, um, escort vessel. If you had a Defiant class vessel on your tail and her crew was mad, you were probably sweating some mighty big bullets. Her design followed her function.
That is the way real ships are designed and engineered. Gene Roddenberry made many decisions about the appearance of his starship based on a mix of artistic appeal and scientific intuition. He wanted a design that would appear sensible and realistic enough that his 1966 audience would buy into the idea that man could travel faster than light (and so many of us did buy into it). It’s amazing that with all the advances in science, engineering, and movie special effects of the last 43 years that the basic Constitution Class layout is still found appealing enough to continue using it. I think back to all those old, old, Buck Rogers/Flash Gorden movie serials with those now silly-looking flame spitting rocket ships. Today’s audience expects much more scientific and functional realism than ever before,(witness these comments) and the aesthetics of the past may not necessarily fill that bill.
I am going to see the movie and see what new course ST has charted. Maybe I will believe once again that man can travel faster than light.
@ Bradford:
I liked the Defiant too. NX-74205 (and its replacement, NCC-75633, originally named USS Sao Paulo, you will remember, renamed Defiant by special command dispensation) was a ship that looked liked something carved by a bored whaler seaman out of a chunk of ivory – warp engines as mere oblong casements projecting angularly out of the sides of the ship, a sensor module on the bow shaped like a coal scuttle, and only surface detail elsewhere – but you said it very well -
“…it wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t meant to be pretty, but it worked and it was an exciting ship to watch…”
Dead on. I like most people did not know what to think of this little ship (“Little?” Worf once responded indignantly, and he was right – it FOUGHT big), but there was no denying that it seemed like the difference between the original USS Monitor ironclad and Old Ironsides. Do you think it was just by accident that Roddenberry named the Enterprise’s class ‘Constitution’? They were tall ships, and yes, they already had that antiquainted feeling, didn’t they?
I was impressed, as time went on, that the ST/DS9 team had the vision to add this ‘little’ craft to it’s starship inventory. The ‘Rio Grande’ Runnabouts, for example, may have been classed & numbered as starships, but let’s face it, they were little more than high-warp, very comfortable shuttlecraft. The Defiant class, however, filled a specific niche, not so much exploration but as a sort of protectorate vessel. You wouldn’t want to be marooned on the other side of the galaxy in one, like Voyager; but no matter what kind of hostilities you may encounter, the Defiant class could handle it.
I was particularly impressed with the arrangement Starfleet made with the Romulans to install a cloaking device onboard; although Sisko’s people could legally use the cloak on the other side of the Bajoran Wormhole (against the Dominion), they weren’t supposed to employ it in the Alpha Quadrant! They even sent along a snippy, guarded female officer to ensure this. And the cloak made it almost unbeatable – along with pulse phaser cannon, rapid-fire photon (or quantum) torpedoes, and ablative armor, it was as comfortable as it needed to be – even with double-up bunks!
As you say, not pretty, but that was okay. It got you home.
JOHN
@ Bradford:
Forgot to mention, Brad, have U ever seen the patch for the Defiant (I believe from ‘Antares Shipyards’)?
It’s quite cool – a low-angle forward 3/4 shot charicature of the ship, with a ‘Flying Tiger’-like shark mouth & eyes on the sensor pod, not painted on but an articulated one, the mouth wide open, engines blazing.
Along the top rim of the patch are the words “Assimilate THIS!”
I wish I could put up a pic here, it’s very hip for an official shipyard patch from Star Trek (also the words of Worf in First Contact, if you remember).
It’s viewable on the Memory Beta site Purist & I were talking about; a LOT of good stuff on there. Check it out.
Thought U might wanna know,
JOHN
“and if not, its a movie mistake. Just think about it, Phasers are a beam weapon, a phaser beam travels at the speed of light. I dont know what would happen if you have them fired from a platform moving inside a warp field at 100 x light speed or something. But this must have an odd effect if the beam exits the warp field.”
The Cerenkhov radiation and warp clap happened… then 2 seconds later and you get the wormhole. Ship-borne phasers are a sub-space tube down which is poured reactor mix excited to various frequencies. Sub-space is basically a field of tachyons or faster than light particles. Communications would never happen in Star Trek without sub-space.
The frequencies used are similar to the hand-held phaser in that the low-end is a heat setting, and the top is as close to dematerialize as you can get.
I may be mistaken, but I believe the warp reactor powers the phaser confinement and the actual reactor mix is from the impulse engines… i.e. it’s not anti-matter/matter plasma. The anti-matter/matter weapons are the photon torpedoes.
@ Rumbeard:
U know, ‘Beard, I think you may be right, since you are hanging on to this like a dog with a bone (don’t take that as a put-down, I admire your tenacity), as IRRITATING as it may be to some people, in fact, U remind me of me!
I’m very impressed with your knowledge of tachyons and subspace communications (I remember that too, from the first Star Trek paperback book I ever bought, oh, hell, 40 years or more ago), and I commend you for doing yur homework, really.
What the hell is ‘Cerenkhov radiation’, anyway? It rings a bell, U are obviously very smart, and I won’t fence with you, but really, enlighten me? I know I have heard that term somewhere. I think O heard it somewhere – is it pronounced “Cher-EN-kov”?
And to be honest, I apply to whatever you say (based on logic and what seems sensible) the same standard I ever applied to anything I see or hear on any of the artifacts of the ST Franchise:
If it sounds good, it’s logical & there is no natural law against it (like, say, Max Planck’s Constant), then what the Hell, why not?
I still say phasers cannot be used effectively in hyperspace (I sort of like the idea of a natural limitation, just to be like in our world), but who knows?
Maybe Scotty (or Geordi, B’Lanna, or Chief O’Brien – there’s a sharp one – or Trip Tucker) could figure out a way to get around it.
And as to you ‘maybe being mistaken’, I just do not know, Rumbeard, but I do have this to offer, “with all appreciation for your obvious intelligence” to paraphrase Scotty when he tried to turn down stewardship of the Excelsior’s engine room:
As I recall, the warpcore (also called the warp reactor) produces a spacewarp (subspace field) as a result of the harnessed, confined annihalation of two tuned plasma streams, one from the top, of matter (deuterium plasma), the other from the bottom, of antimatter (contraterrene deuterium plasma), into a fist-sized crystal of an incredibly rare substance formed by the addition of an extra atom of lithium, called, I’m sure you will remember, dilithium.
So much for the warp core.
As for the impulse engines, they are energized by a group of ingot-shaped reactors (5, as I recall), mounted internally but (on the Refit, anyway) easily ejectable – and therefore visible – from the strip of what looks like panels on the Refit’s impulse unit centerline, on top, right behind the big round dome (the impulse deflection crystal), which is apparently connected by a massive power tranfer tunnel (PTT) directly to the warp core.
I am only speculating, but in ST/TMP, they did mention how significant it was that the phasers were routed through the warp engines, and if that is true, then it wouldn’t matter if the phasers were fired in warp, they would still work.
Having said that, NCC-1704 is absolutely right; I watched my tape of ST/TMP again, and believe me, the ‘wormhole effect’ happened when they were still in sublight, BEFORE the ship went to warp. They had to use the phototorps because the phasers were now tied in through the unstable warp nacelles, which caused the wormhole in the first place. They wereunbalanced, and therefore the phasers wouldn’t have worked, Rumbeard.
In other words, I don’t see that this is an example of the phasers’ usual function, Rumbeard.
JOHN
@ Rumbeard:
U know, ‘Beard, I think you may be right, since you are hanging on to this like a dog with a bone (don’t take that as a put-down, I admire your tenacity), as IRRITATING as it may be to some people, in fact, U remind me of me!
I’m very impressed with your knowledge of tachyons and subspace communications (I remember that too, from the first Star Trek paperback book I ever bought, oh, hell, 40 years or more ago), and I commend you for doing your homework, really.
What the hell is ‘Cerenkhov radiation’, anyway? It rings a bell, U are obviously very smart, and I won’t fence with you, but really, enlighten me? I know I have heard that term somewhere. I think I heard it somewhere – is it pronounced “Cher-EN-kov”?
And to be honest, I apply to whatever you say (based on logic and what seems sensible) the same standard I ever applied to anything I see or hear on any of the artifacts of the ST Franchise:
If it sounds good, it’s logical & there is no natural law against it (like, say, Max Planck’s Constant), then what the Hell, why not?
I still say phasers cannot be used effectively in hyperspace (I sort of like the idea of a natural limitation, just to be like in our world), but who knows?
Maybe Scotty (or Geordi, B’Lanna, or Chief O’Brien – there’s a sharp one – or Trip Tucker) could figure out a way to get around it.
And as to you ‘maybe being mistaken’, I just do not know, Rumbeard, but I do have this to offer, “with all appreciation for your obvious intelligence” to paraphrase Scotty when he tried to turn down stewardship of the Excelsior’s engine room:
As I recall, the warpcore (also called the warp reactor) produces a spacewarp (subspace field) as a result of the harnessed, confined annihalation of two tuned plasma streams, one from the top, of matter (deuterium plasma), the other from the bottom, of antimatter (contraterrene deuterium plasma), into a fist-sized crystal of an incredibly rare substance formed by the addition of an extra atom of lithium, called, I’m sure you will remember, dilithium.
So much for the warp core.
As for the impulse engines, they are energized by a group of ingot-shaped fusion reactors (5, as I recall), mounted internally but (on the Refit, anyway) easily ejectable – and therefore visible – from the strip of what looks like panels on the Refit’s impulse unit centerline, on top, right behind the big round dome (the impulse deflection crystal), which is apparently connected by a massive power tranfer tunnel (PTT) directly to the warp core.
I am only speculating, but in ST/TMP, they did mention how significant it was that the phasers were routed through the warp engines, and if that is true, then it wouldn’t matter if the phasers were fired in warp, they would still work.
Having said that, NCC-1704 is absolutely right; I watched my tape of ST/TMP again, and believe me, the ‘wormhole effect’ happened when they were still in sublight, BEFORE the ship went to warp. They had to use the phototorps because the phasers were now tied in through the unstable warp nacelles, which caused the wormhole in the first place. They were unbalanced, and therefore the phasers wouldn’t have worked, Rumbeard.
In other words, I don’t see that this is an example of the phasers’ usual function, Rumbeard.
JOHN
Whoops. It looks like I didn’t wait for the update on this last one, sorry.
I lost my connection just as I posted this, but it seems to have taken it anyway.
Sorry, folks.
JOHN
Our review is up, gang:
http://screenrant.com/star-trek-reviews-vic-7347/
I’d love to hear what you think!
Vic
Did anyone catch the mention, over on WIKI, that the new Enterprise is 3,000 feet long? That’s 914.4 Meters, and I find it hard to believe that this number is accurate.
The Star Trek back story is a lot like that old AMT kit; you have to do a lot of filling in to make the pieces fit.
Scotty designing the Ent-E is conjecture on my part, as is most of what I have written here. When a state-of the art ship with 50+ year service life ahead of it is suddenly superseded by a new model, you have to wonder what happened.
Scotty’s path after being revived would not have been to some obscure retirement planet, but back home to Earth, if only to have a look around to see what had changed. His arrival would have been cause of great sensation and media publicity.
The inevitable question at the inevitable interviews would be “So what do you think of the starships of today, Mr Scott?” You can only imagine his response, but I’m sure he would work in the phrase “designed like a garbage scow” in there somewhere.
This would prompt some snot-nosed Galaxy team member to respond with “So you think you can do better, old timer?” The gauntlet would be thrown and the rest pretty much writes itself.
Back to the model kit, you not only had to fill in the gaps, but you also had to shave away stuff that didn’t belong. Other posters have mentioned that there much written material with the Star Trek name that simply isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
This was especially true back in the ’70′s when Paramount didn’t know what they had, and assumed it to be merely a failed TV show with a cult following willing to buy anything. This attitude was doubtless encouraged by the fact that that God-awful plastic kit became the best-selling model of all time.
The worst offender in this regard was Franz Joseph designs. I remember a Christmas long ago, my eager little hands tearing the wrapping of of my new Starfleet Tech Manual, and how quickly my joy turned to dissapointment “WTH is Engineering doing in the saucer section, that’s where the impulse deck should be, didn’t these clowns even watch the show?”
It only got worse when the Star Trek Bluprints came out two years later “That’s no ship of the line, thats not even a cruise ship! where are the structural supports? the machinery? The Photon Torpedoes?, that’s just an outline of a ship with a bunch of empty rooms!!”
For those of us who weren’t fortunate enough to own a copy of the Star Trek Bible, the only reliable reference was Roddenberry’s own “The Making of Star Trek” which showed a cutaway deck plan much different than the “Blueprints” here is an enhanced version
http://www.strekschematics.utvinternet.com/cutaways/orginalcut/orgentcutaway.jpg
I promised myself not to go geeking out on this thread, but sometimes the urge to separate the Trek from the dreck is just too strong.
You know, you guys are making me look real bad. In my neck of the woods, I’m the Trek authority but you guys have been talking about stuff that makes me feel like Ensign Gomez listening to Geordi.
@ Jake:
I think you’re probably right, based on two details on the picture of the new ship above – there are two docking ports, one about halfway up the side of the dorsal pylon, the other one down on the side of the of the engineering hull, just below the beltline – do you see them?
If the Big E (a REALLY Big E!) is actually 914.4 meters long (3000 ft, kudos to you for using your metric/imperial slide rule, hahaha, I have one too!), these portals would be more than six meters high, which would be almost forty feet, a little HIGH for a starship deck!
Plus, the windows (what few there are, on the edge of the saucer section – THAT they duplicated perfectly, just like the impulse pod!) would be each the height of a man, not impossible, I suppose, but they are LONGER than they are wide, just ridiculous in scale.
No, I think the folks at Wikipedia screwed that up; my guess is, somebody wrote it down wrong and flipped meters for feet – 300 meters long, approximately – and that was mistyped & translated to 3000 feet.
Hey, if it happened to NASA with that Mars probe, ANYBODY can do it, right? Lol!
@ Brighteyes:
As I indicated earlier, I really love your idea of a ‘re-rezzed’ Scotty rejoining the Starfleet ASDB, but I would like to share a couple of my notions, if I may:
I always assumed, since, as you say here, that the Galaxy class was designed for missions of twenty years, and a lifetime of at least 50 years (I think I read somewhere, officially, it was more like 100 years before replacement), that when the Enterprise D was destroyed/crashed (depending on which hull, you remember) on Veridian III, that the replacement for the Enterprise would be, simply, just the most advanced, and at the same time the latest, fastest capital ship to come out of the Bureau; this is only speculation on my part, but the excellent opinions of Cmdr Scott notwithstanding (I’m sure yoiu’re right about that), Starfleet would hardly end the whole Galaxy/Nebula line of superstarships simply because of the loss of the Flagsip Enterprise, right? They would continue apace, for perhaps the next 93 years (43 years, whatever), wouldn’t they? After all, they must represent quite an investment, don’t you think? I mean, the whole Federation doesn’t revolve around the Enterprise, does it?
Anyway, as I say, this is just me: I believe (based as much on the degree to which it reminds me of the earlier, vintage vessel, from certain angles, as much as anything else), that the state-of-the-art Sovereign class design became the new Enterprise because, quite simply, it was the first ship out of the box, it was faster, more maneuverable, leaner & meaner, than the admittedly bloated but ideal (for twenty-year missions) Galaxy class. What ship class was it intended to replace? To me, this answer was obvious -
The redoubtable Excelsior/Excelsior II class, the B-52 of Starfleet. Think about it – along with the amazingly adapable Miranda class (the DC-3 of Starfleet, later reclassed, virtually unchanged in its design, as the Avenger class), the Excelsior was a remarkably usefull ship – modular in design, logical in layout, and very, very long in the tooth. It needed to be retired & replaced, a process that no doubt thakes years, if not decades. As I say, the Sovereign even LOOKS like the old Excelsior from some views, but it is not nearly as, well, frumpy.
I always just assumed that rather than replace the D with another Galaxy (they did that with the Ent-A, right?), they subtly redefined the Enterprise crew’s mission – fewer if any families on board, maybe shorter missions like the old days, and much, much better handling, especially in a firefight.
What do you think, Brighteyes? You know how jazzed I am with your ‘thawed out Scotty’ idea, I think you ought to be writing for Paramount, and if they ever heard your idea, I’m sure they’d go ahead & use it (and probably rip you off for the credit, too, but then I am by nature cynical). I think that one idea alone is the mark of a genius (like I told Vic, I am not above ass-kissing, lol!), and if you ask me, this is the great thing about fanfiction, it’s like the Borg Hive Mind (credit to you, I believe).
Anyway, just wanted to add my light to the sum of it all, the brightest – in accordance with your handle – being yours, so far (although there are some SHARP folks on here!); which brings me to the next subject -
@ ‘Kahless’:
Just wanna thank you, for what you just said there, buddy. That’s what Treknology is all about. You might wanna check out http://www.shipschematic.net, http://www.captainmike.org/Galactopedia/a1.html, and http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles.htm, they are FAN-TASTIC, and there are no doubt more, many many more. Star Trek is alive & well on the net, believe that like Jesus!
Yes, I remember the very pretty Sonia Gomez – sharp l’il gal, wasn’t she? LaForge believed in her, though; stick with it, eat this stuff like a kid locked up overnight in a candy store, and you’ll blow all the rest of us away!
JOHN
“What the hell is ‘Cerenkhov radiation’, anyway? It rings a bell, U are obviously very smart, and I won’t fence with you, but really, enlighten me? I know I have heard that term somewhere. I think I heard it somewhere – is it pronounced “Cher-EN-kov”?”
It’s the bright rainbow effect they had when 1701 refit went to warp in ST I… the long tunnel of stripey lights, the streamer trail and the flash clap. It’s also the rainbow trail in subsequent films through Star Trek VI… and if you ask me what was the best effect they should have kept from the Motion picture from then forward I’d say it was the ST TMP warp effect followed closely by the Star Trek II transporter sound and effect. (And maybe a bit of the ST II phaser, megaphaser, and torpedo sounds and effects). It’s also real:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
So yes… you are mistaken minorly… rainbow tunnel… flash clap… Warp I sir….Kirk looks smug… turns around… viewscreen shows wormhole. Red alert klaxon fires.
And the TMP special edition f*’s up the alert klaxon too because it’s supposed to sound like Star Trek II but the guy went and f’ed with the soundtrack in the Director’s cut. Anyone have a Laser disc copy they want to transfer to DVD pretty please?
– According to the tech manuals I have read, dilithium is not produced in the reactor… in fact Scotty admits that not even in the 23rd century can they re-crystallize dilithium (Star Trek IV). It is a trans-stator similar to quartz crystals that takes one type of energy and converts and focuses it into another… In this case the anti-matter/matter heat/light/energy into electricity. The electricity is used to power the warp nacelles which are large graviton field generators… they pull a field of tachyons around the ship… which makes a bubble of realspace inside realspace… the tachyon bubble slips along like a wet bar of soap squeezed between your hands. If you elongate the field, the faster you go.
As pretty as it looks, however, the impulse engine is just a 23rd century Tokamak. It is a toroidal fusion reactor with the crystal dome in the center. The engines simply vent that plasma out the shutters right behind it.
Speaking of non-canon books that were actually worth the pages they were printed on, check out Ships of the Starfleet by Calon Riel.
and a final note on a later post… it’s all about special effects budget… that’s why there were no refit-A’s on TNG (except for a brief moment at Wolf 359). The refit-A was every bit as modern as the Avenger class… and more modern than the design of the Pasteur… yet… we don’t see any in TNG… shame really … but the easiest models to use for ships were the Excelsior and the Reliant. I personally like the Excelsior. The only cool TNG ships we saw otherwise were the Stargazer (a later Constellation class), the Phoenix (Nebula class), and the Enterprise C (Ambassador class).
@ Rumbeard:
“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation”, heh? Thank you, ‘Beard! I will check this out.
Like you, I loved the whole ST/II transporter sequence, visual and sound, especially the sound effect! It was cool, so overpowering, so – tecky! It reminded me of a FASA fan mag (ship recognition manual) article I read later, where the authors mentioned how the Klingon transporters had something like, a ten percent mortality rate because, among other things, their transporters were designed to operate silently, and therefore didn’t have things like eight pattern buffers(!) & other safety devices, so they could use them for boarding; I remembered how loud & bright (but how cool!) the Starfleet transporters were in that movie, and I remember thinking, “YE-AH! Ours were a loud light show, but BOY, were they impressive!”
I also liked the photon torpedo sound effects, they just scream-asmed outta there.
Not so sure I feel the same as you about the warp effect, I guess I can take it or leave it – as long as it looks believable. For all that, the dead-COOLEST effect of that type, if you ask me, was the original Borg/Rogue Borg Transwarp Conduit effect, if you remember: A sort of tear in space, as if the vessel was swallowed up by a dimension filled with light – you could see the light leak out, remember? Well, I though it was cool.
Oh, concerning your statement about dilitium, I agree, but I remember a conversation from the TNG episode of when they found & de-rezzed Scotty: Scotty was, just like you said, adamant about the impossibility of recrystallizing dilithium (still), reiterated when Geordi gave him a tour of the Enterprise D’s engineering room, focusing on the warp core.
Geordi assured him that in the, what, 80-some-odd years since the elder had been out of the picture, they had found a way to ‘recomposite’ the dilitium (probably an extension based on the same process Scotty had himself been forced to pull out of his arse, back on Earth in 1987), thereby making replacement unnecessary until convenience dictated.
I’m gonna check out the ‘Ships of Starfleet’ by Calon Riel, thanx for that, too, I appreciate it.
I liked all the ships of STG, as you did, including the great Galaxy class, don’t know why folks are so hard on it; I know it wasn’t exactly bristling with weapons but as far as I was concerned, she was the true Queen of Starfleet – but maybe not all that good in a firefight, admittedly.
I liken the Enterprise D to what Henry Hill said about Paul Sorvino’s character in the movie ‘Goodfellas’ –
“For a man as important as he was, Pauly didn’t move very fast, but then, he didn’t have to…”
That’s the way I felt about the Galaxy class. She was the 500,000 gross metric ton gorilla in the galaxy. She could do any damn thing she wanted to.
Even so, she was dwarfed by a Romulan D’diderex class Type II Warbird, so it’s really a matter of perspective, I guess.
Thanx for those links, I will study them both.
JOHN
Okay, seriously. Can someone post a [comparison] video of the STII transporter, because I don’t remember the difference off the top of my head.
@ Troy:
Yeah, I’d like to see that, too.
Can’t help ya, but I can describe it for ya:
For one thing, if you remember, it was a lot more intense, a lot more electrical, like the loud, overwhelming power of a giganic electrical generator – the feeling was that you were witnessing matter being defly ripped apart, converted into pure energy, and made ready for transmission to somewhere else. It looked amazing, too – a bright ‘node’ spreading out from the middle (on departure), up & down, and then, at the destination, this bright node, starting from the bottom & the top, pulsing together again in the middle, then again spreading out vertically to form the final form upon completion.
And if you were lying there in the same room on the couch fast asleep, it would wake you up, no question about it. It was that powerful.
Not a very clandestine way to board a ship..
The closest thing I can think of as a parallel to it was when, in the original TOS episode “Errand of Mercy’, about the Organians, a primitive, peaceful people the Enterprise was trying to protect from the Klingons, when the Organians revealed who they really were – pure energy beings who could take care of themselves just fine, thank you very much, and their transformation before Kirk, Spock & Commander Kor was so bright they had to close their eyes and look away. It was not quite as bright as that.
For another, unlike in ANY of the series, you could hear & see people talking WHILE THEY WERE FORMING, like Kirstie Alley & Willinam Shatner, discussing Kirk’s ruse to Spock within communicator range/earshot of Khan – “hours would seem like days: By the book, Lieutenant…”
It was just very believable, is all. But YEAH, I would love to see that, too.
Anybody out there know where to find such an audio-visual sequence on line? I’d kinda like to see it to.
JOHN
PS: seems like they used that same sequence in STIV, with the whales & all.
L8r…
It’s just a ship and tv changes to suit its time. If you’re going to complain that it’s not the original, you’re right. Did you expect it to be? If you did, you’re way too nostalgic about something so trivial. If you look at it as a form of art, it simply reflects the need to round edges and dispell lines of sight so as to not draw attention to flaws.
@ ‘n’:
I take your point, so far as it goes; there are a lot of otherwise, well-balanced, peace-loving people here who would take your characterization of ‘trivial’ as fighting words!
Hahaha, feelings run strong about the Starship Enterprise, and a lot of people are saying “Who’s the is sumbitch JJ Abrams think he IS, anyway?”
The Big E is a form of art, that is true, in it’s most classic sense, as a focal point of our shared dreams & inspired ideas, and as a specific platform of (in our minds, anyway) a particular set of shapes, sizes and dimensions, the question is: Has Abrams gone too far? His Enterprise is a lot closer to the original than, say, Ron Moore’s reimagined Galactica, for example. I just saw the film and I think it rocks, and while certain things (like the internal engineering spaces, for example) kinda bugged me, I must confess, overall it was a singular cinematic experience (not to mention outstanding box office receipts) on the order of the original Star Wars. That’s not bad for a film submitted as a prequel to an original TV series of which the creator/producer, his wife, and two of the series’ main stars are all dead from old age.
Having said that, it should be remembered, in the words of the old Texas truism:
“You can put your boots in the oven, but THAT don’t make ‘em BISCUITS!”
JOHN
Just saw the flick. Despite the alternate timeline motif, I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it. By the way, in my opinion, Karl Urban nailed McCoy down to a T.
ok- as a fan of Star Trek from TOS to Enterprise – each incarnation has had redeeming characteristics- ST-redo – has some too – at first glance the new ship looks clunky- but in reality it is better designed based on current space science than the original- the interiors – what few we saw well were a bit “cheap” looking – other the overly engineered bridge- the lack of finish in the engineering section was “disturbing”- the new characters were like-able – and the new Kirk – does look much better in briefs than the original- I have watched all the fan web series, and everyone changes the timeline a little bit so that didn’t bother me- will I see the movie a second or third time yes- will I see a sequel? yes… was it entertaining and worth $7.50 cents? hell yes. Any Star trek is better than no Star Trek–
@ dr Phlox
Ive seen the movie now too, and I dont think the redesign has something to do with the current state of science….more with current state of fashion.
The Film is quite cool except or the already known design crimes on the Enterprise and its bridge (I liked the engineering, and if you remember, the engineering room in ST2 also looked very “industrial”)
and on the Romulans.
What I dont understand is, after watching the film, it became clear to me that that this mistakes wouldnt have been nessecary for it to be good. A more matching Version of the old enterprise like the one in the render I posted earlier WOULD STILL ROCK the same way in those really nice exterior scenes.
The Bridge is just a bit too “white” for my taste, fitting, like I said, current fashion for electronics (I-pod). I liked the touch screens and displays, but the whole environment was too bright to be a believable ships bridge. If you ever have seen the bridge of a navy vessel, you have a rather “grey” environment or the nice “red-lights” what makes the orange or green displays perfectly readable.
Anyways I really liked the interior design of the USS Kelvin, the atmosphere in the beginning of the Film felt right from the old films St 2 – 6.
But….btw…..what kind of romulans are those….!!!????
1704, The Romulans shaved their heads and tattooed their bodies in order to mourn the loss of Romulus. This was mentioned in the “Countdown” comic book series which connects TNG with this new movie.
OK, this makes sense….but what about that ship they use. It seems to be far beyond every technology we know from TNG, using strange weapons and more looking like a B5 shadow ship than a romulan mining vessel….
Honestly, I have only read the plot summary on the comic’s Wiki page, so I am probably missing some key details. Wiki said that the Narada was a,rather large, mining vessle. After the destruction of Romulus, Nero took the Narada to a secret Talshiar base, and had the vessel outfitted with recovered Borg technology. Nero’s crew then began to assimilate Vulcan, Starfleet, Klingon, and Cardassian vessels.
A fleet of Starfleet vessels then engaged the Narada. Most of the starfleet ships were destroyed, and the Enterprise-E was badly damaged. This is when Ambassador Spock comes flying in with his “jellyfish ship”, and manages to pull the Narada, as well as himself, into a black hole.
@ Vic, et al:
Vic, forgive me, but in view of all this discussion about a comic book necessary for proper understanding of the new JJ Abrams movie, I just had to share the text of that cartoon I sent you.
The following is a supposed compilation of a series of meetings between the Paramount Motion Pictures Chairman of Scripts & Development and staff which must’ve taken place back in, I figure, early 2007 at the latest, regarding the original enterprise (pun intended), TO WIT:
CHAIRMAN: Gentlemen…We’re making a new Star Trek movie.
GIRL WRITER (throwing hands in the air): All right! “Star Trek XI: The Search For Data”, here we come!
CHAIRMAN (ruminating): Hmmmm…
CHAIRMAN: You’re all fired.
THREE WEEKS LATER…
CHAIRMAN: Gentlemen…We’re making a new Star Trek movie. And this time…it’s gonna have Kirk & Spock.
JJ ABRAMS (one of a whole new batch of writers): Sir, they, uh, kinda killed off Kirk in ‘Generations’…
CHAIRMAN: It HAS to be about Kirk & Spock. No one will go see it othewise.
ABRAMS: But LOTS of people went to see ‘First Contact’ –
CHAIRMAN: KIRK AND SPOCK!
ABRAMS: Well, I guess we can remake Star Trek, like they did with ‘Battlestar Galactica’…
CHAIRMAN: NO, NO, NO, if we do THAT, we’ll lose the hardcore Trek nerd crowd. They’ll get all upset about their ‘canon’…and then come the death threats…
ABRAMS: We…we, uh…could cast younger actors, and call it a ‘prequel’.
CHAIRMAN (brightening): Gettin’ warmer…but if we do that, then it will limit the potential for making ENDLESS SEQUELS. We’re trying to create a new CASH COW here.
(Abrams & other writers look at each other)
ONE MONTH LATER…
CHAIRMAN (looking over proposal, with JJ Abrams standing at attention at the table): “Alternate timeline”? “Quantum theory of parallel universes”? Hmmmm…This reads like bad fan fiction…
CHAIRMAN:(reading quietly)
CHAIRMAN: I LOVE bad fan fiction! Here’s a blank check!
I hope that’s clear…
JOHN
One word, Johhny-O, – ‘Cynic’, lol!!!
Well, okay, I know, one person’s cynic is another person’s realist; and the truly worrying thing is, you may well be right!!
And it raised a smile on an otherwise grey and gloomy day!!