Unless there's some major fake-out on the way, maybe involving the wireframe NX-alike ship seen in the latest teaser, it looks like we're stuck with the delta-winged McQuariie Phase II knock-off for the show.
But if that wireframe is in fact the Shenzhou, then I'm left thinking, WTF? Is this some sort of subtle dig at ST:ENT by having the ship that isn't the show ship be so like the NX?
And there's no getting away from the fact the delta is an awful design.
The guys at Trekyards have done a piece on how it does in ftheir opinion fit into the design lienage:
In a nutshell the delta wing is depicted as a necessary logical step in the evolution/development of the secondary hull. Which is certainly a viewpoint worth considering. As for the rest... where did they get the Discovery model, that they spent so much time analysing the details of, from? I think it was a fan creation, in which case obsessing over the Bussards, the nacelles and that weird groove on the saucer is pointless. And all those phaser turrets, while thus irrelevant, are also out of keeping with what's apparently a science-y ship.
Also, they completely omit the ST '09 Kelvin from the lineage. It is NOT an Abramsverse design. That ship was part of the prime timeline until Nero's ship appeared and destroyed it, changing Kirk's history. The nacelles are a bit weird and fat like other Reboot ships but there have been many nacelle designs. And so their whole argument falls apart: put the Discovery between the Kelvin and the Constitution-class and it's a massive howler.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Nah, Kelvin's part of a whole other parallel universe.
Discovery is super yawny for me...but then if I think of it as not being an intended "hero ship" class or design, then I feel for it some.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shik: Nah, Kelvin's part of a whole other parallel universe.
How do you figure? That the universe Spock-prime came from was itself a different one from "ours?" Because that doesn't make sense, why in effect would we then care about it? And nobody in a position of influence has ever suggested this might be the case.
No, the Kelvin is a prime-universe ship. If Nero hadn't appeared, the Kirks would have made it home to Earth for JTK to be born in Iowa and grow up with a living father.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Nope. I refuse to believe. Physics are different. Stardates are different, even on the Jellyfish.
As for caring about it, I never have. Doesn't exist.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, of course. But different stardate usage is hardly rock-solid evidence of Prime Spock not actually being Prime Spock.
And the Kelvin, Robau, and George Kirk didn't just magically pop into existence when Nero exited that black hole.
And...physics?
quote:Originally posted by Lee: No, the Kelvin is a prime-universe ship. If Nero hadn't appeared, the Kirks would have made it home to Earth for JTK to be born in Iowa and grow up with a living father.
Actually, there's no canon evidence that Kirk was born in Iowa. He only said he was from there to Gillian in STIV. He could have been born on the Kelvin in the Prime universe as well.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Stardates are different... from what? Was there any previous evidence of what sort of stardate system was in place 30-odd years prior to TOS? I don't even remember what stardates they mentioned in the Kelvin scenes of that movie, but it's not like we didn't already have two different systems from different time periods to start with.
Also : Good grief, that video. It's like someone took all of us from twenty years ago and turned it into a YouTube series...
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Actually, I was referring to how Jellyfish used that system. But whatever. Anyway you look at it, I firmly believe the reboots are a similar-yet-different universe entirely from the start. So no Kelvin, no dumb-as-shit magically-expanding supernova eating Romulus, no "red matter".
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Okay, well, I suppose that if I can believe that Star Trek: Discovery will be a reboot and not actually meant to take place ten years before TOS like Bryan Fuller said, then I guess you can believe whatever you want about the Abrams films Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
Actually, Simon Pegg suggested something along the same lines as Shik:
quote:the Kelvin universe can evolve and change in ways that don’t necessarily have to follow the Prime Universe at any point in history, before or after the events of Star Trek ‘09
As for the original thread question; I absolutely loathe the design as shown in the teaser trailer. It just lacks the grace I would expect from the hero starship.
Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :
*Sigh*
Yeah, so much for last year's video of the ship only being test footage, and that that wasn't the final design...
The sad part is, after months of reflection, I like the individual parts of the ship. I still love the saucer. I think the nacelles are fine. Heck, I've even warmed to the delta.
It's how they're assembled together that I hate. The delta is so big compared to everything else that the proportions seem weird. And I'm not usually a fan of ships where the pylons attach to the back of the nacelles rather than the front. I just find such ships... inelegant.
It wouldn't really take much in the way of changes for me to like this ship, but I sense no such changes will ever be made.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
They'll have a much higher-rez CGI model of the Discovery than what we saw in the teaser, but I agree that it probably won't be changed all that much from the initial design.
But I also think that the ship will look much better on screen than most people think.
Posted by 137th Gebirg (Member # 2692) on :
I don't hate the Discovery design at all. I find it to be quite a serviceable upgrade to McQuarrie's original design.
As for the wireframe, regardless of what it winds up being, it feels like it fits nicely into the existing pantheon of ships of NX, Miranda and Akira pedigree, and seems to derive directly from several John Eaves concepts. And John knows starship design! Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
A redesign of the Discovery that I'd actually be on board with.
Reminds me of the Intrepid class. I could live with that. Would scale it down though.
[ February 09, 2017, 09:28 AM: Message edited by: Spike ]
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Ooh. Sort-of like a TOS Ambassador, really.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Thanks for the link Spike, and the support Shik. I thought I was alone in recognizing that even the Nimoy character from the JJ movies was not our Spock.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I still don't buy it. This is Pegg's interpretation to support a minor plot point in thr third film in what is to all intents & purposes a trilogy. He may be a good friend of Abrams (to whom he owes his whole career really - if not for the three of his films Abrams cast him in, Pegg would be no more than a minor comedy actor known for the Cornetto Trilogy and a few anodyne romantic comedies) but his input into the foundation of the Abramsverse was minimal to non-existent.
(Now, even I can point to little things which support your viewpoint, One is the comic released to support the 2009 film, depicting the background to Spock's mission to save Romulus. In it, Data is the captain of the Enterprise and it's never explained how. So either he's an upgraded/re-programmed B-4 - or it's a universe where he didn't die in Nemesis...)
The whole point of Old Spock being there is that he is OUR Spock. Theere's nothing there to suggest otherwise. If that was the intent, they'd have made more of it. And probably pissed off a lot of people.
And why try to say he's not OUR Spock just to explain ONE slightly-unusual ship design? OK there's also the whole storm in a teacup of whether Sulu was gay or not. Which wouldn't exist if Takei hadn't said he didn't think Sulu was gay. OK, on the one hand he played the character on and off for 30 years; on the other, Sulu's sexuality was never once mentioned (just that he had a child, well, that's still there in Beyond). What Sulu is, that he wasn't perhaps "played as gay," is irrelevant because he is in the end a great helmsman, commander, father - and human being. THAT'S the true message of Trek - that it doesn't matter he's a "different colour" or might be gay.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I don't buy the argument that Spock Prime came from a different timeline. Every appearance and reference in the three movies directly supports that he's the same Spock that we knew and loved for 50 years.
The Jellyfish stardate is a damn annoying gaffe though, especially because the JJ-stardates aren't really stardates at all, they're just disguised Gregorian calendar dates. My rationalization is that the Jellyfish computer translated the dates into the local equivalent. Obviously the computer picked up on the local Federation time beacons and adjusted accordingly. (Just like how we sometimes convert historical dates from Julian to Gregorian or vice versa.)
(Please note that the argument of Spock Prime's origin is a separate discussion from whether the JJ-verse is an alternate universe or alternate timeline. I think that's a discussion for another thread.)
And finally, to wrench the discussion back on track, have we actually seen any more footage of the Discovery? I don't recall seeing it in the last teaser... just the second wireframe with the down-slung nacelles.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I think the ending of Star Trek Beyond implicitly shows that old Spock is of the Prime Universe. He had a picture of the Enterprise crew from Star Trek VI which nu-Spock inherited. What would have been the point of that scene and image if Old Spock was not from the Prime Universe? It certainly couldn't be of the nu-crew since unfortunately we know Chekov won't make it and the image shows an older Chekov.
I like the Discovery design, it has a heavy industrial look that I usually associate with Star Wars vessels. I'm not so sure of that wireframe ship design. It looks a bit too TNG for me, like what a 24th century Miranda class should have looked like. But I reserve judgement until I see the actuall textured design.
Oh no! The Klingons from Discovery might look different from the Klingons on the JJ-verse, which looked different from the Klingons of TNG and post-The Search for Spock, which looked different from the Klingons of The Motion Picture, which looked different from the Klingons of TOS!
Makeup, like starships and other technology, is going to evolve based on contemporary production standards. Why are you surprised?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I don't know if I'm surprised,I just find them odd. They remind of the Yuuzhan Vong from ye olde Star Wars Continuity. But then again they are alien, and I guess aliens are suppossed to be y'know alien looking.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I can't find it right now, but I saw where the guy who leaked that picture admitted that he actually has no idea what aliens those are, and he just thought they kind of looked like Klingons.
Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :
Yeah, they might not be Klingons. But even if they are, I don't think that's a bad look for them.
And we don't know how many Klingons were ultimately affected by the Augment virus, nor do we know exactly when they started restoring themselves, so I don't think this blatantly breaks continuity either.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Count me in on the betting for "not Klingons", or at least not unmodified/half ones.
Posted by 137th Gebirg (Member # 2692) on :
My gut instinct says they're "proto-Klingons" from VERY long ago, that were found on that ancient "sarcophagus ship" (read - "sarcophagus" = long-term cryogenic freeze containers). This would explain how they sort-of look like Klingons, with quasi-similar costumes, but don't. Their culture and personalities could be totally different, and possibly even pre-date the Hur'q invasion by millennia - an event that likely changed Klingon culture into what we saw in the 22nd-24th centuries. Hell, these ancient Klingons may even be gentle pacifists!
Posted by Spike (Member # 322) on :
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