Check out the engineering hull on the first two pages. The deflector dish is more of a rounded cone structure with a little dish indentation in the front. And the ventral side has a little funny notch running the length of it.
While not canon by any means (any more than the 390,000 ton mass in this publication), that struck me in two ways:
1. I've never seen that before.
2. For those of us who view the Constitution Class as being a class with some history (e.g. my estimate of 2210 for the class*), this is the closest to an official indication of what an earlier version might've looked like.
Check out the engineering hull on the first two pages. The deflector dish is more of a rounded cone structure with a little dish indentation in the front. And the ventral side has a little funny notch running the length of it.
Er...that's not a model- it's just a crappy painting- same as a dozen other crapy, inaccurate depictions of the Enterprise that graced TV Guide and various magazines over the years.
Still, fun to speculate on it as a possible pre-pilot version....as though the ship was refit just prior to The Cage and again before Kirk took command.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
There are no details whatsoever on the saucer. Given the timing of the material--pre-release advertisement-- I really doubt it's a model. Maybe preproduction artwork. But this was definitely made after the second pilot filmed, so the appearance of the ship was already pretty much finalized.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: it's just a crappy painting- same as a dozen other crapy, inaccurate depictions of the Enterprise that graced TV Guide and various magazines over the years.
To me, this one has a little more street cred given that it came from NBC rather than some random schmoe. Otherwise, I wouldn't care a lick either.
That's what makes it more intriguing . . . was it just some coke-bottle-glasses wearing drunkard doing scribbles for the ad department, or an actual preliminary Jefferies concept?
After all, that front funny cone thing was a prior part of one of the Jefferies designs:
Indeed, if you look closely, there's a little white line running along the bottom of the engineering hull in that view that corresponds to the feature in the blue painting, making it an interesting middle ground between the early Jefferies rendering and the final design.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Or maybe the schmoe who was tasked to draw the artwork got it wrong. Or used pre-production references. That painting is so clearly incomplete (look at the saucer again, there's no details at all) that it can't be anything else.
If you want to imagine it's something more, that's cool. As Rick Sternbach said, "There is no canon." But this image wasn't intended to be anything important.
After all, if you told the artists (and the producers) that 45 years from then, rabid fans would be nitpicking at every tiny inconsistency on their network affiliate promotional material (not even meant for public consumption!), they would have laughed in your face.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Indeed, if you look closely, there's a little white line running along the bottom of the engineering hull in that view that corresponds to the feature in the blue painting, making it an interesting middle ground between the early Jefferies rendering and the final design.
That's supposed to be reflection- that notion of the ship would have been shiney steel colored instead of white- see the reflection on the saucer as well?
But,...if we're going to play this game, I'm all in! We could say that early Connie concepts had the lower half of the secondary hull as the detachable lifeboat in case of emergencies- it would make planetfall easier than a saucer and could even have the same (if larger) propulsion as a TOS shuttlecraft.
Reverend, work it up for us! You're the matt Jeffries of Flare! Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I seem to recall the ship was also supposed to turn invisible during warp.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: If you want to imagine it's something more, that's cool. As Rick Sternbach said, "There is no canon." But this image wasn't intended to be anything important.
After all, if you told the artists (and the producers) that 45 years from then, rabid fans would be nitpicking at every tiny inconsistency on their network affiliate promotional material (not even meant for public consumption!), they would have laughed in your face.
Are you, a Flare member active in the Starships & Technology forum, attempting to diss the "nitpicking" of "rabid fans"? I'm just askin'.
As for the imagining of something more, I said myself it's not canon by any means. I simply find it more intriguing than the run-of-the-mill erroneous third-party interpretations, because it has a better pedigree, and is more interesting, besides.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: That's supposed to be reflection-
That was always my interpretation, as well. However, depending on the origin of that blue painting, that idea might not be accurate. After all, the line doesn't show up on the warp nacelle underside at all as one would expect it to, and the idea of it as a reflection showing up on the saucer is uncertain at best.
As for the painting itself (which, just for clarification regarding your earlier post, I never thought to be a model) . . . basically, without knowing the source of this artwork, it could very well be a mid-stage Jefferies design.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Are you, a Flare member active in the Starships & Technology forum, attempting to diss the "nitpicking" of "rabid fans"? I'm just askin'.
I have no illusions that I'm not just as rabid as you. *wipes froth from mouth*
I'm just pointing out that you said, "this is the closest to an official indication of what an earlier version might've looked like." Implying that this image's differences were more meaningful than they were supposed to be.
If you think that's what the Constitution used to look like, that's cool. But there's nothing "official" about it. Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: I have no illusions that I'm not just as rabid as you. *wipes froth from mouth*
You still have some of the blood of non-believers on your lapel. I'd let you use my hankie, but it's still stained with my tears over BoP scaling inconsistencies. ;-)
quote:I'm just pointing out that you said, "this is the closest to an official indication of what an earlier version might've looked like." Implying that this image's differences were more meaningful than they were supposed to be.
If you think that's what the Constitution used to look like, that's cool. But there's nothing "official" about it.
Absolutely it's not official . . . but it is the *closest* to something official that I know of. "Fauxfficial", if you will.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: Also does anyone think that Paul Car as Lt Lee Kelso looks kind of like Connor Trineer??
And yes, disconcertingly so. It's the mouth and hair, I think.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000:
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: That's supposed to be reflection-
That was always my interpretation, as well. However, depending on the origin of that blue painting, that idea might not be accurate. After all, the line doesn't show up on the warp nacelle underside at all as one would expect it to, and the idea of it as a reflection showing up on the saucer is uncertain at best.
As for the painting itself (which, just for clarification regarding your earlier post, I never thought to be a model) . . . basically, without knowing the source of this artwork, it could very well be a mid-stage Jefferies design.
Try and make sense of these! I dare you.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Looks like a Star Wars ship with some nacelles tacked on. Hideous.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Believe me, those were the good ones! I heard there was some dispute over the rights o use the Enterprise or something due to it being liscenced elsewhere at the time and so they hired an artist that, I suppose, had never heard of Star Trek to do the covers. Possibly he had a bad cold and a broken hand as well. And bad vision. And no references.
Yes, they're horrible- the perspective of the secondary hull does not even line up with the blob-like saucer section.
Your comment is spot-on: Star Wars mania influenced the thinking of many an art director in that period.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Yeah, they had an overdeveloped sense of copyright infringement avoidance. When I was young I used to think those were crappy but now I see them as a bit of sneaky-cloning mixed with creative avoidance thereof.
They can make an interesting what-if, anyway, though I daresay people wouldn't ever have been so interested in Trek if the ships were so anti-iconic.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
That best of trek 4 cover reminds me of those Usborne books of the future with all those cool 'future' space ships and technology. I still wish I had those books.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: They can make an interesting what-if, anyway, though I daresay people wouldn't ever have been so interested in Trek if the ships were so anti-iconic.
True but if these were applied to a Trek in that "Starfleet has fallen blah blah blah" idea, then they make a sorta desperatly cobbled together sense.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Seeing that cover of "The Best of Trek #4" reminds me of a saying: a camel is a horse designed by committee.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Ahh, Best of Trek! That's what we had before the Internet.
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