[Steve H]

So they're reaching into the discard bin for the new show? Isn't that basically the Ralph McQuarrie Enterprise (complete with asteroid spacedock) from the early pre-pro to Star Trek The Motion Picture?

I mean, OK, fine, whatever, but really?

 

[Steve H]

Fuller Announces New Series Titled ?Star Trek Discovery? Set in Prime Timeline UPDATED ? TrekMovie.com
UDPATES: During the subsequent press interviews producer Heather Kadin exclusively told Trekmovie.com that the design for the U.S.S. Discovery is not final.

Oh wow. Man, you know, I just...

OK. Look. Stuff costs money. All the work that went into that 'teaser', that's money. Design, rendering, animating, that's all money. I know it looks like something cranked out by someone's home computer but it's not, they probably threw a couple of million Dollars at some group to get that.

And THEN they say it's not the final design? What, they're gonna change the color on (what I would believe to be) the impulse engines, or maybe dump the bronze-seeming color, or plate over the 'salad shooter in a wok' upper saucer?

Or just make a whole new ship?

I swear, these people. Do they even know how to make a TV show?

If you wanted to make a teaser clip you could have taken that same background, that asteroid dock, and put the words 'Star Trek' in the slip, and flown THAT out, and people would have gone "coooooool!" and everybody happy.

 

[Steve H]

I love the smell of a good fanboy freakout in the morning. :nerd:

I'll give the show and the ship a chance, because it's way too early to really know anything. The fact that Trek is back on TV is good. The Trek concept works best on TV and I like that they're going to tell new stories with a new crew rather than doing some sort of nostalgia reboot. That said, that the show's acronym is "STD" is hilarious. They were obviously trying to capture Trek's essence of exploration and seeking out new knowledge, but c'mon, producers need to think these things through.

It's not a freakout for me so much as just head scratching. Really odd design choice for the ship, followed by that statement "well, it's not final", then, yes, STD is the acronym for the show and geeze, shoot the OTHER foot guys.

And I'm sure I'm not the only fanboy who groaned a bit on that 'sun/planet/object' stacking ala 2001. "geddit, fanboys? DISCOVERY? HUH? Aren't we soooooo clever? huh? SEE?"

Did I miss the cast announcements and who is writing for the show and who the showrunner is (we used to just call that guy 'producer' in the old days)? That stuff is kinda important to, you know, actually make a show...

 

[Steve H]

I will say this much. Given that many feel one of the early Jefferies designs for the TOS Enterprise, the 'ball and cylinders' ship that has generally been retconn'd into canon as the Daedalus class is the predecessor of the Constitution class StarShip, they really dodged a bullet there.

I mean, given the 2001 homage the clip starts with, can you imagine the howls of laughter if the ship, the hero of the show, the first image was that big ol' ball of a primary hull with 'Discovery' plastered on it?

*whew*

(because, see, if they were really going to play around in 'original timeline' it would be logical for that ship to be...ahhhh, you can figure it out. )

 

[Steve H]

I never liked the Voyager either; looked like a shoe with warp engines. But that's the point; you're never going to please everyone and some people will love this design and some hate it (and for many who hate it, it will grow on them after a few years). The same people complaining about the VFX in the teaser would be complaining that they had nothing to show had they not shown anything. If you look at the teaser, details like windows and things are clearly pretty rough and blunt; I have no doubt the finished effects will be far superior, particularly on a 13-episode series. What I'm interested in seeing is how this show measures up to "peak television"--the original series was as good as anything on the air at the time. The other shows, while all of them had strong installments, I don't think were on the cutting edge of TV in terms of drama for the most part. That's going to be a big challenge.

And this is the thing I keep harping about in other places. OK, nice, show a rough animatic or pre-vis of the ship, cool. Now let's see some cast, let's see some writer's names, let's see some costuming, let's see that there's something to hang on to.

With a launch of next year, and even if not until Sept. 2017, they still should be ramping up. Sets being designed and constructed. Costumes, same. Props. Actors cast. Writers pitching stories. Heck, a series bible needs to be written.

Lots of work needs to be done and if they want to do the BEST job they shouldn't wait until, say, December before starting all this process.

But then again. You can't design costumes until you have a grasp on what the series is going to be and actors cast. Right now the show is nothing more than an 'elevator pitch' and not even an outline.

I wonder if they're going to follow the JJ mandate of "don't reference Original Trek or you're fired!!"* or be more flexible.

*note: I know that's a kind of blanket statement and obviously it's a variable because, you know, Carol Marcus and Kahn and blahblah, but it seems it was pretty hard line on that first movie.