posted
Yes, most of the new ships turned out to be quite ugly, even though they looked good in the three quarter sketches.
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
You think the Nimitz-class is ugly? I have a contender for you - the Hoover class. You can see its side profile at Ex-Astris-Scientia. Man, this thing is fugly.
There are only three decent or good looking Federation ships - the Crossfield, the Walker, and the Shepherd (an inverse Walker).
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
No, only Shepard & Walker, & those belong post-Dominion War without bridge windows (& they need better names). All the rest are fucking awful & John Eaves needs his starship designibg & naming licenses revoked.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
I'm still torn myself about whether those ships are completely awful, or just awful because they share so little of the classic Starfleet design aesthetic. I read that someone else demanded angular nacelles (maybe Bryan Fuller, but I'm not certain). Though Eaves has definitely had a thing for angular nacelles since the beginning (Enterprise-E, Jem'Hadar battlecruiser, Klingon Raptor and D5...).
I second the vote for Hoover being the fugliest. It's just an unbalanced, disproportioned mess. Dishonorable mention to the Magee, for having those huge-ass nacelles embedded straight into the saucer. It looks like somebody stepped on it.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Greetings fellow curmudgeons! Hope all are well!
For my part, I don't see what's wrong with the DSC ships. As with ENT before, they may flout our preconceived expectations of what the pre-TOS era "should" look like, but we simply have to readjust our perspective as to what this so-called "classic Starfleet design aesthetic" actually is based on what it shows.
I found the KT ships much less aesthetically pleasing, personally (apart from the Kelvin herself, which is quite decent except for the "rocket nacelle" feature). And DSC's new-old 1701 in particular is infinitely more so than the one(s) from the Abrams/Lin films, to my eye.
I would not find a bunch of stuff that looked more like the Franz Joseph ships or the Loknar to be any sort of improvement. (Apologies if that's a straw man.)
The Klingon ships I'm far less enthusiastic about, but not because they break with any previous design aesthetic. That "green bird" thing got way tired; good riddance, for a while at least. There's always room for a diverse variety of aesthetics in any era, IMO.
posted
Well that's the problem. There is no common design aesthetic. They all look like they're from different aeras.
Registered: Mar 2000
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From FASA to Masao's Starfleet Museum and from the Constellation and Soyuz classes to the Nebula and Intrepid (old or new), there has been a consistent effort to make ship designs fit known designs of an era
Masao's Museum backstrapolated the simple shapes of the Constitution and Daedalus into even simpler, more primitive forms. Enterprise came out with the NX Class and set a new aesthetic that seemed to suggest an early high era of design, akin to the shuttle popping up amongst a bunch of space capsules. Taken in that way and thanks to the chronology of early efforts versus later mass production in wartime and early Federation expansion and cold war this all could still fit and make sense.
Discovery ships don't fit even that adjusted paradigm. None of them match even TOS design aesthetics, instead representing a complete kludge of features from all eras.
Far from inspiring (or even making possible) a reasonable explanation, the set of vessels suggest a hard break from any explanation, with the modification to the Enterprise herself as nail in the coffin demonstrating that this is a reboot (or "visual reboot", as if you can separate that in an audio-visual storytelling medium).
The Disco fleet makes no sense with the rest of Trek because it wasn't really intended to.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: ...FASA...
...was chock full of batshit crazy, buttfuck ugly designs that made no consistent "sense" nor took any effort to "fit" with anything beyond straight-up cutting and pasting Connie or Excelsior saucers and nacelles onto random hull shapes.
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Masao's Museum backstrapolated the simple shapes of the Constitution and Daedalus into even simpler, more primitive forms...
...which was always a flawed (if understandable) approach in that it was reliant upon only those few such scattered examples that were thereto available to work and draw inferences from. We now have many more diverse examples in all eras to consider in our extrapolations and interpolations as to just how many design lineages there have been, how their progressions went, and to what extent they are or aren't interrelated and do or don't overlap. It is up to us to let go of our preconceptions and re-evaluate our previous assessments and interpretations with the revelation of new data. It is not to be required that the makers of the shows and films conform to them.
Things do not always have to go in a straight line (nor even follow a smooth curve) from simpler to more complex; they can also go the reverse, or back and forth, taking many left turns down blind alleyways, bouncing off the walls and looping back, etc. Thinking otherwise has always been a fallacy.
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Discovery ships don't fit even that adjusted paradigm. None of them match even TOS design aesthetics, instead representing a complete kludge of features from all eras...the Disco fleet makes no sense with the rest of Trek because it wasn't really intended to.
They fit fine and make plenty of sense, considering that the Bonaventure, Franklin, Sarajevo, Kumari, and Kelvin are all part of their past, and the Reliant, Grissom, Excelsior, and all the BOBW and FC fleet ships are part of their future, to cite just a few diverse examples apart from the various Enterprises and other "hero" ships. It's a big tent, and DSC merely reinforces that it always was. TOS and TAS only showed us a tiny sampling of what was out there in the larger universe. If their aesthetics are cast as unique and unusual, or throwbacks, or otherwise "special"—which was probably Fuller's intent in specifically telling Eaves not to use round nacelles on his DSC ships—that poses no big problem for me. They can all coexist within the same continuity (as the FJ ships apparently do with the movie-era designs, for that matter).
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Far from inspiring (or even making possible) a reasonable explanation, the set of vessels suggest a hard break from any explanation, with the modification to the Enterprise herself as nail in the coffin demonstrating that this is a reboot (or "visual reboot", as if you can separate that in an audio-visual storytelling medium).
It has been clearly stated by Eaves that the thinking behind the redesign of the Enterprise is that she will be refitted, whether gradually piece by piece, or all at once as in TMP, into her TOS configuration. Of course, we probably won't actually see this transformation play out (at least not completely) onscreen...but then, who knows at this point? Who would have thought that we'd end up seeing the Defiant so faithfully recreated (yet even in this, with the liberty taken of introducing subtle updates in the details) as we did in ENT...until it happened?
And speaking of the Defiant, similarly to Eaves' statements of the Enterprise, Ted Sullivan has confirmed that the intention behind its different configuration in "Despite Yourself" (DSC) was that it had been modified by the Terrans...which comports entirely with what is outright stated in "In A Mirror, Darkly" (ENT): she was already in the process of being "stripped to the bulkheads" by the Tholians when they found her, and their prospective intent was to "tear it apart, try to learn its secrets" and then in time "figure out how to put it all back together"! (BTW, it seems clear to me that having Lorca bellow in mock confusion about how the Cooper-Prime was "supposed to be undergoing a refit" before showing us that wireframe of the Defiant was meant to prepare the ground for the new-old 1701 in the first place...silly them, thinking that would be sufficient explanation without them having to lay it all out step by step for us!)
Nearly all of us here already accepted that the Enterprise had refits between each of the two pilots and series proper, due to changes made to the filming model. Retconning these alterations as more substantial than they "actually" were is not that great of a leap, if that's in fact what they have done here...especially considering that anything and everything we see in "The Cage"/"The Menagerie" could ultimately be regarded as merely a Talosian illusion, if we really require an in-universe explanation for updating a rejected pilot (or "television document" as Roddenberry described it in his bookends that were tacked on to it when finally released many decades later) from which segments were cannibalized to save production time...but if we want to, we are also equally free to simply say the DSC configuration interposes itself in between, a wartime modification later undone, or whatever.
In any case, we're talking about a change no greater than the TMP refit was. If the TOS configuration could, in-universe, be transformed into the TMP one in a span of only eighteen months, then the first pilot configuration can just as readily have been transformed into the DSC one within the past few years, and that can in turn be transformed into what we see in TOS (allowing for variance in the finer details as required by today's production values over 1960s ones) over the next several, for whatever reasons we can (or can't) imagine. This whole "(visual) reboot" thing is a tempest in a teacup.
-MMoM
[ September 05, 2018, 11:45 PM: Message edited by: The Mighty Monkey of Mim ]
Registered: Jun 2001
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
That is the biggest pile of justificationary bullshit I have ever seen. Have you found a PR job in the current White House administration? Because your reaching is as complex & constructed as their output.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim:
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: ...FASA...
...was chock full of batshit crazy, buttfuck ugly designs
True enough, but fixating there rather ignores the point that FASA, along with fans and canon designs, generally tried to stick to an overall look consistent with the times. The designers even said as much. We would not expect a curvy Intrepid Class hull beside the Excelsior in Star Trek III, for instance, any more than we would expect a TOS-styled saucer as the front end of the Galaxy.
Are there outliers? Probably, especially among the background ships that were hardly meant for close scrutiny. However, the concept of chronological design ethos is at least as sound as chronological registries, if not moreso.
quote:
It is up to us to let go of our preconceptions and re-evaluate our previous assessments and interpretations with the revelation of new data. It is not to be required that the makers of the shows and films conform to them.
I'm not suggesting they need to conform to our *speculations*. I am suggesting they should've conformed to existing *canon*.
quote: Things do not always have to go in a straight line (nor even follow a smooth curve) from simpler to more complex; they can also go the reverse, or back and forth, taking many left turns down blind alleyways, bouncing off the walls and looping back, etc. Thinking otherwise has always been a fallacy.
Did I not make the same point regarding the space shuttle?
I agree completely that there is no need to presume a purely linear progression. Our own space program basically looks like capsule-capsule-capsule-capsule-motherfrakkingspaceplaneWTF-capsule-capsule.
However, there is a logic to it just as surely as there is a logic to the outlier that is the shuttle. There is no logic, however, to the Disco fleet, or the Discoprise.
You reference the Sarajevo and Andorian Kumari as prime-canon evidence of a diverse design lineage, yet the point is about Starfleet designs. I could certainly accept more alien ships brought into Starfleet or periods of alien influence (say, a Vulcan/Andorian/Terran fusion in early Starfleet ships), but that's not what we are shown.
quote: It has been clearly stated by Eaves that the thinking behind the redesign of the Enterprise is that she will be refitted,
Rubbish. That makes as much sense as having Star Trek IV's new Enterprise be the TOS version from stem to stern, inside and out. Nobody would've taken that seriously, any more than your paragraphs of anti-"hysteria" apologetics (up to and including the absurd "Talosian illusion" bit) should be. It would've been universe-breaking, shark-jumping fanservice, and not something we should have to turn ourselves inside-out trying to justify.
quote: In any case, we're talking about a change no greater than the TMP refit was.
Debatable, but even if we stipulate to that you're asking for a refit back to TOS from TMP circa Star Trek II. It's patently absurd.
quote: This whole "(visual) reboot" thing is a tempest in a teacup.
On the contrary, it is the only way to maintain logical consistency, provided one recognizes that you cannot half-ass a reboot.
Discovery, like the JJ films, only make sense as a completely separate universe unto itself. Once you recognize that, understanding it becomes much simpler and far less convoluted. There's no need to twist yourself in knots and insult others as hysterical for recognizing that.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
quote:Originally posted by Shik: No, only Shepard & Walker, & those belong post-Dominion War without bridge windows (& they need better names). All the rest are fucking awful & John Eaves needs his starship designibg & naming licenses revoked.
Eaves has a book of designs out now. I ruminated on Twitter if there'd be a discount since most of the pages will look the same.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim: They fit fine and make plenty of sense...It's a big tent, and DSC merely reinforces that it always was. TOS and TAS only showed us a tiny sampling of what was out there in the larger universe. If their aesthetics are cast as unique and unusual, or throwbacks, or otherwise "special"—which was probably Fuller's intent in specifically telling Eaves not to use round nacelles on his DSC ships—that poses no big problem for me.
I've heard this before, and I think it's a load of horseshit. Why would Fuller care what shape nacelles are? How does that impact the story he was trying to tell?
Considering that most, if not all, of these ship designs look exactly like typical John Eaves, I'm guessing the Fuller thing is just some made-up bs.
quote:It has been clearly stated by Eaves that the thinking behind the redesign of the Enterprise is that she will be refitted, whether gradually piece by piece, or all at once as in TMP, into her TOS configuration. Of course, we probably won't actually see this transformation play out (at least not completely) onscreen...but then, who knows at this point?
First I've head of this, but it sounds like more after-the-fact bs to me.
quote:Nearly all of us here already accepted that the Enterprise had refits between each of the two pilots and series proper, due to changes made to the filming model. Retconning these alterations as more substantial than they "actually" were is not that great of a leap, if that's in fact what they have done here...
Putting aside the exterior of the ship for a moment, I'm pretty sure that what we will see on the inside of the Discoprise will look far more advanced than what we see in TOS. Are you suggesting that the inside of the ship will go from looking like 2019 sets to 1966 sets?
quote:...especially considering that anything and everything we see in "The Cage"/"The Menagerie" could ultimately be regarded as merely a Talosian illusion, if we really require an in-universe explanation for updating a rejected pilot...
Christ, now you're starting to sound like Timo.
quote:In any case, we're talking about a change no greater than the TMP refit was.
I've heard this before as well, and I call bs also. It's one thing to call this show a 'visual reboot." It's another thing entirely to say that what we see in this visual reboot will eventually segue into what we see in TOS. It's either a visual reboot of the TOS era, or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
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