Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Looking at the current political climate...maybe we need another fourteen years of Sesame Street for adults teaching people how to cooperate.

Exactly. Humanity really does seem to have gone downhill since the end of Trek on TV.

I blame people that leave YouTube comments! You should have to have passed anger management training before being allowed to comment on YouTube.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
The TNG/DS9/Voy era was essentially Sesame Street for adults. Seriously. Go back and look how many episodes were about someone learning to cooperate. Worf, Quark, and Neelix were little more than muppet monsters.

Pff, yeah, what rubes eh, who needs a positive story about cooperation or fellowship or science or tolerance, if it doesn't have big burly man-men in big clanky death-armour murdering half the galaxy or a leather-clad edgelord antihero reminding everyone that life is essentially meaningless and we're all going to die and be forgotten, who'd want to watch it?

*Mic drop* lol

For real though - Startrek isn't sesame street. It's just a scifi space drama and whatever else it wants to be at the same time.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Not that I don't think a split neck design looks cool. I just think it would actually hurt structural integrity compared to the sovereign class.

Well lets be fair. The structural integrity of all Federation ships is senseless. The closest they ever came to a sensible efficient design (within the confines of the "rules" established in Universe) are the Oberth and Miranda classes. And thats of course ignoring all the ships that break the rules used to justify the odd look of Federation ships, like Birds of Prey.

You make a good point - it always did bother me that federation ships are so terribly constructed and ships designed for spaceflight have wings. Though the newer DS9 and later designs seems to at least have some understanding of balance/center of gravy/ and structural integrity (at least to the point that an inertial dampner could smooth out any issue.)

I like the look of the Akira class, Saber class, Steamrunner class, and sovereign class (the first contact ships). The sovereign being a massive improvement over the galaxy in terms of balance - I'd like to see that kinda of look to continue to evolve into even more efficient shapes. How ships like the intrepid and galaxy ever made it past the draft phase just amazes me.

I seem to recall, and maybe I'm wrong since I haven't been able to find it again, but I seem to recall a group of fairly famous scientists on a TV show, youtube doc or something, talking about the aerodynamics of spaceflight, and they were talking about how Star Trek was a series that actually got it "right" insofar as they are in space and making major maneuvers/movements up there. Perhaps by mentioning it, someone else here has seen it, or knows the thing I'm talking about....


Anywho... all that said, whether their flight adjustment abilities are realistic, I find their designs to be weird from a tactics stand point. I had always thought that dealing with the larger class federation ships would be easy... but it wasn't until Beyond that we saw a group deal with them the way I thought everyone would try to: rip off the nacelles, aim for the neck, and they are literally sitting ducks.

Anywho... all that said, whether their flight adjustment abilities are realistic, I find their designs to be weird from a tactics stand point. I had always thought that dealing with the larger class federation ships would be easy... but it wasn't until Beyond that we saw a group deal with them the way I thought everyone would try to: rip off the nacelles, aim for the neck, and they are literally sitting ducks.

Thats because they have shields. You have to go through the shield to get to that effectively, and if you're strong enough to go through the shields you can generally blow the ship apart.

STOS was far better at that. While there may be secondary damage, if the shields held you were ok. Once the shields were gone they (or you) could just blow them away. While plot armor means that space battles take a long time, you'll note throughout STOS/TNG/DS9 if there is no plot armor and no shields then whatever got shot went boom in a big puffy cloud of CGI.

If you think about, they are throwing antimatter weapons around. While they used technospeak we're at least talking multimeg level damage.

Yeah, the shields are the ship when it comes to combat. It was only after years of TNG constantly having shields drop to increase drama that the physical shape of the ships really became an issue...and then we got the defiant, the first actual warship in the Federation arsenal, also the first ship with no neck or pylons.

Remember, Starfleet is not the military*. They don't make ships for war. The real story here is that Klingon ships are all designed for battle and all have longer, skinnier necks.


*Except for all the times when they are.

 Frazzled wrote:

Anywho... all that said, whether their flight adjustment abilities are realistic, I find their designs to be weird from a tactics stand point. I had always thought that dealing with the larger class federation ships would be easy... but it wasn't until Beyond that we saw a group deal with them the way I thought everyone would try to: rip off the nacelles, aim for the neck, and they are literally sitting ducks.

Thats because they have shields. You have to go through the shield to get to that effectively, and if you're strong enough to go through the shields you can generally blow the ship apart.

STOS was far better at that. While there may be secondary damage, if the shields held you were ok. Once the shields were gone they (or you) could just blow them away. While plot armor means that space battles take a long time, you'll note throughout STOS/TNG/DS9 if there is no plot armor and no shields then whatever got shot went boom in a big puffy cloud of CGI.

If you think about, they are throwing antimatter weapons around. While they used technospeak we're at least talking multimeg level damage.

Sheilds protect you from torps and phasers. They don't protect you from stresses of spaceflight/inertia forces/ gravity wells. Then also consider shields on startrek seem to fail quite often under fire - even when sheilds hold there is a massive stress on the ships structure. I still think solid structure should be included in their designs.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


Remember, Starfleet is not the military*. They don't make ships for war. The real story here is that Klingon ships are all designed for battle and all have longer, skinnier necks.

I'd argue that the desired ambush tactics of the Klingons make the necks a bit less of an issue initially... but as engagements become more protracted, and you have no cloak, yeah... I agree that can be a problem.


The Romulans actually seem to be the best designed for war and space. While the D'deridex may not be maneuverable, it doesn't suffer from having a long weedy neck, or thin spoiler wing pylons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Sheilds protect you from torps and phasers. They don't protect you from stresses of spaceflight/inertia forces/ gravity wells. Then also consider shields on startrek seem to fail quite often under fire - even when sheilds hold there is a massive stress on the ships structure. I still think solid structure should be included in their designs.

Doesn't the deflector dish create a sort of bubble that is the warp field?? Like, doesn't it sort of act as a shield against the "space wind resistance" encountered during warp speed?

Sheilds protect you from torps and phasers. They don't protect you from stresses of spaceflight/inertia forces/ gravity wells.

Here's where technobabble comes in because ST doesn't follow physics. If they did every ship ever would instantly blow apart the moment it accelerated from the godlike level of G's, hence "inertial dampeners."

What are the Gs related to accelerating to 50% of lightspeed in 30 seconds?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Doesn't the deflector dish create a sort of bubble that is the warp field?? Like, doesn't it sort of act as a shield against the "space wind resistance" encountered during warp speed?

Yes (at least, if I understand you correctly). The navigational deflector's job is to divert space dust and debris out of the ship's path so it doesn't hit the ship.

Or at least that's the theory, in practice it's role is shoot plot beams at stuff and act as a the ex machina part of "deus ex machina".

 Battlegrinder wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Doesn't the deflector dish create a sort of bubble that is the warp field?? Like, doesn't it sort of act as a shield against the "space wind resistance" encountered during warp speed?

Yes (at least, if I understand you correctly). The navigational deflector's job is to divert space dust and debris out of the ship's path so it doesn't hit the ship.

Or at least that's the theory, in practice it's role is shoot plot beams at stuff and act as a the ex machina part of "deus ex machina".

But its lame.
deflector dish
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Fileeflector_dish_firing_2368.jpg

Now a real deflector dish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_IGzV7nVWI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHDxYYHBDZE

Talking about potentially questionable design decisions:



I clipped that from the Trekyards podcast VOD on YouTube. On the right is a fan-made 3D model based on the wireframe from the teaser trailer(caveat, it was made on the assumption it was a pre-TOS ship and so when adding the hull details the author tried for a hybrid between the NX and Constitution styles and had assumed the saucer was roughly NX sized). It has been scaled based on numbers the podcast hosts were ostensibly given by actual Discovery production staff.

That right there to its left is the USS Enterprise, Constitution class, ie the premiere, most advanced, main heavy cruiser design of Starfleet in the Discovery/TOS era.

Ugh. Now I'm actually hoping the show has a stupid time travel story arc in it just to explain why a clearly 24th century ship(in terms of both design and scale) is in a show that supposedly takes place 10 years before TOS. Because the alternative is the burbling numpties have decided to use the mental HUEGscale from the JJTrek films. And that TOS design style just isn't "kewl" enough so they had to edgelord things up a little with knifeblade-style nacelles and random greebles sticking out of the hull.

 Frazzled wrote:

Sheilds protect you from torps and phasers. They don't protect you from stresses of spaceflight/inertia forces/ gravity wells.

Here's where technobabble comes in because ST doesn't follow physics. If they did every ship ever would instantly blow apart the moment it accelerated from the godlike level of G's, hence "inertial dampeners."

There's also the Structural Integrity Field, designed to help keep everything together.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Ugh. Now I'm actually hoping the show has a stupid time travel story arc in it just to explain why a clearly 24th century ship(in terms of both design and scale) is in a show that supposedly takes place 10 years before TOS. Because the alternative is the burbling numpties have decided to use the mental HUEGscale from the JJTrek films. And that TOS design style just isn't "kewl" enough so they had to edgelord things up a little with knifeblade-style nacelles and random greebles sticking out of the hull.

That reminds me of the complaints I used to read about Enterprise before it was even on the air, where people complained about how it looked too high tech, as if we should still be using 1960s-era special effects, models, and budgets. Certainly, retain the TOS-era aesthetic, but not the 1960s problems.

I thought the main complaint about the NX was that is was clearly just the Akira with a minimum effort allowed to differentiate it. (My understanding is that the producers wanted to straight-up use the Akira as is, but the SFX guys volunteered to spend time changing the ship to look at least a little bit unique.)

Nah, the "too high tech" complaint was definitely the most common thing.

After all, 99.999999% of watchers would go 'what the heck is an Akira Class?'

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

Sheilds protect you from torps and phasers. They don't protect you from stresses of spaceflight/inertia forces/ gravity wells.

Here's where technobabble comes in because ST doesn't follow physics. If they did every ship ever would instantly blow apart the moment it accelerated from the godlike level of G's, hence "inertial dampeners."

There's also the Structural Integrity Field, designed to help keep everything together.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Ugh. Now I'm actually hoping the show has a stupid time travel story arc in it just to explain why a clearly 24th century ship(in terms of both design and scale) is in a show that supposedly takes place 10 years before TOS. Because the alternative is the burbling numpties have decided to use the mental HUEGscale from the JJTrek films. And that TOS design style just isn't "kewl" enough so they had to edgelord things up a little with knifeblade-style nacelles and random greebles sticking out of the hull.

That reminds me of the complaints I used to read about Enterprise before it was even on the air, where people complained about how it looked too high tech, as if we should still be using 1960s-era special effects, models, and budgets. Certainly, retain the TOS-era aesthetic, but not the 1960s problems.

Well, for a start, the main reason people were "complaining" about Enterprise because the show didn't even try to modernise the existing descriptions of ships from the period, they just took the 3D model of the Akira class from the late TNG era, flipped it over, and re-greebled the nacelles and the hull a little.

Your last comment makes no sense. The TOS-era aesthetic is exactly what's at issue with this new ship, in that it doesn't fit within it at all. Desiging new ships that fit into that aesthetic is hardly impossible - the USS Archer from the Vanguard novels is highly unusual by the standards of what we saw in the TV show, but it looks right because it has all the appropriate design cues. Same for the USS Sentinel or the Ares class. And yes, that means smoother hulls, round nacelles with the spinny-glowy orange bussards, and a scale that's consistent with the idea that the Constitution class is a heavy cruiser. It also means blue shrieking phasers, bright primary colours, big chunky flip communicators and all the rest. We already know what the TOS aesthetic looks like with modern tech behind the scenes, it looks like the special effects on the Remastered TOS blurays, or the exterior shots from the DS9 episode set in TOS times. IE it looks a lot like TOS with a better resolution.

If the people in charge of the shows think that the TOS look is too dated, then the blindingly obvious solution was to not make a TOS era show. But they chose to do exactly that, and so now if they also choose to heavily redesign that era's aesthetic any criticism they get for that choice is not merely justified but entirely deserved.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Well, for a start, the main reason people were "complaining" about Enterprise because the show didn't even try to modernise the existing descriptions of ships from the period, they just took the 3D model of the Akira class from the late TNG era, flipped it over, and re-greebled the nacelles and the hull a little.

Many of the people I saw were complaining that the show looked too high tech, not because of the ship's model, but literally because they had 2000s technology instead of 1960s technology in the show's sets, props, etc.

Your last comment makes no sense. The TOS-era aesthetic is exactly what's at issue with this new ship, in that it doesn't fit within it at all. Desiging new ships that fit into that aesthetic is hardly impossible - the USS Archer from the Vanguard novels is highly unusual by the standards of what we saw in the TV show, but it looks right because it has all the appropriate design cues. Same for the USS Sentinel or the Ares class. And yes, that means smoother hulls, round nacelles with the spinny-glowy orange bussards, and a scale that's consistent with the idea that the Constitution class is a heavy cruiser. It also means blue shrieking phasers, bright primary colours, big chunky flip communicators and all the rest. We already know what the TOS aesthetic looks like with modern tech behind the scenes, it looks like the special effects on the Remastered TOS blurays, or the exterior shots from the DS9 episode set in TOS times. IE it looks a lot like TOS with a better resolution.

It actually makes a lot of sense if you look at what I actually said. My point is that I feel you, like many others, are confusing TOS aesthetic elements with 1960s limitations.
To make this abundantly clear (since your reply implies I approved of the design on the far right when, in fact, I said no such thing), I do not approve of that design for use in this particular era.
I do not, however, need to see any extremely dated elements. Your examples of the modern versions in DS9 and the remastered episodes are not the best examples, as those versions still had to retain all of the elements (aesthetics and even the 1960s limitations, but, as you say, just "higher resolution"), because the rest of the show was still the original.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Your last comment makes no sense. The TOS-era aesthetic is exactly what's at issue with this new ship, in that it doesn't fit within it at all. Desiging new ships that fit into that aesthetic is hardly impossible - the USS Archer from the Vanguard novels is highly unusual by the standards of what we saw in the TV show, but it looks right because it has all the appropriate design cues. Same for the USS Sentinel or the Ares class. And yes, that means smoother hulls, round nacelles with the spinny-glowy orange bussards, and a scale that's consistent with the idea that the Constitution class is a heavy cruiser.

Or, for a marginally more recent example, the slew of TOS era ships STO has come out with this last year. I don't recall hering any complaints about those looking bad (did see a few about the Perseus class being a bit too Ares-esque).

 Battlegrinder wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Your last comment makes no sense. The TOS-era aesthetic is exactly what's at issue with this new ship, in that it doesn't fit within it at all. Desiging new ships that fit into that aesthetic is hardly impossible - the USS Archer from the Vanguard novels is highly unusual by the standards of what we saw in the TV show, but it looks right because it has all the appropriate design cues. Same for the USS Sentinel or the Ares class. And yes, that means smoother hulls, round nacelles with the spinny-glowy orange bussards, and a scale that's consistent with the idea that the Constitution class is a heavy cruiser.

Or, for a marginally more recent example, the slew of TOS era ships STO has come out with this last year. I don't recall hering any complaints about those looking bad (did see a few about the Perseus class being a bit too Ares-esque).

Absolutely, indeed this discussion has just got me back into STO and playing through the Agents of Yesterday content in my dinky wee Pioneer-class U.S.S. Kelly(named for Commander Kelly of the lost Ares V Mars mission as seen on Voyager, because yes I'm that much of a nerd) was probably the most fun I've ever had in that game. They did an excellent job adding new things while retaining the original aesthetic completely.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

Well, for a start, the main reason people were "complaining" about Enterprise because the show didn't even try to modernise the existing descriptions of ships from the period, they just took the 3D model of the Akira class from the late TNG era, flipped it over, and re-greebled the nacelles and the hull a little.

Many of the people I saw were complaining that the show looked too high tech, not because of the ship's model, but literally because they had 2000s technology instead of 1960s technology in the show's sets, props, etc.

Your last comment makes no sense. The TOS-era aesthetic is exactly what's at issue with this new ship, in that it doesn't fit within it at all. Desiging new ships that fit into that aesthetic is hardly impossible - the USS Archer from the Vanguard novels is highly unusual by the standards of what we saw in the TV show, but it looks right because it has all the appropriate design cues. Same for the USS Sentinel or the Ares class. And yes, that means smoother hulls, round nacelles with the spinny-glowy orange bussards, and a scale that's consistent with the idea that the Constitution class is a heavy cruiser. It also means blue shrieking phasers, bright primary colours, big chunky flip communicators and all the rest. We already know what the TOS aesthetic looks like with modern tech behind the scenes, it looks like the special effects on the Remastered TOS blurays, or the exterior shots from the DS9 episode set in TOS times. IE it looks a lot like TOS with a better resolution.

It actually makes a lot of sense if you look at what I actually said. My point is that I feel you, like many others, are confusing TOS aesthetic elements with 1960s limitations.
To make this abundantly clear (since your reply implies I approved of the design on the far right when, in fact, I said no such thing), I do not approve of that design for use in this particular era.
I do not, however, need to see any extremely dated elements. Your examples of the modern versions in DS9 and the remastered episodes are not the best examples, as those versions still had to retain all of the elements (aesthetics and even the 1960s limitations, but, as you say, just "higher resolution"), because the rest of the show was still the original.

Either you're actually arguing for the exact same thing I'm arguing for in different terms, or I literally have no idea what you're on about.

Lets try a different tack to check that: Rogue One - in regards to using the aesthetic of the original trilogy, do you think it was good, or too slavishly adherent to the design conventions imposed by films being made in the 70's & 80's? Because that is a perfect example of what I mean when I say they should respect and recreate the TOS aesthetic. As to "dated elements" - as far as I'm concerned respecting the TOS aesthetic may well require retaining some "dated elements", but that is the price you pay if you want to use a classic IP without doing a reboot. And if they were doing a reboot, this whole discussion would be moot - people can critique the aesthetic of the JJTrek films, but you have to do that on their own merits as it's pretty clear they wanted a modernised, "Apple Store Starfleet" look and were using TOS as a jumping off point not an end point - but they're not, they are explicitly claiming this is proper, Prime Timeline, right-before-real-Kirk TOS-style Star Trek, and that means I want it to look like TOS.

They don't have to make the monsters and aliens out of papier mache, they don't have to use shonky projectors or CRT monitors for the viewscreens, but if they're not doing the geometric, primary-coloured, stark, 60's retrofuturistic aesthetic then they're not really doing TOS, that's all I'm saying.

Communicators are large, fliptop phones like sizes because they need to have quantum entanglement containers to communicate with show in real time at super luminal speeds.

Tricorders are large and body because they're an entire hospitals MRI and investigation suite... In a box.

The monitors are not super clear because they're computer generated visual representations of abstract sensor data.

Easy peasy

 Yodhrin wrote:

Either you're actually arguing for the exact same thing I'm arguing for in different terms, or I literally have no idea what you're on about.

Lets try a different tack to check that: Rogue One - in regards to using the aesthetic of the original trilogy, do you think it was good, or too slavishly adherent to the design conventions imposed by films being made in the 70's & 80's? Because that is a perfect example of what I mean when I say they should respect and recreate the TOS aesthetic. As to "dated elements" - as far as I'm concerned respecting the TOS aesthetic may well require retaining some "dated elements", but that is the price you pay if you want to use a classic IP without doing a reboot. And if they were doing a reboot, this whole discussion would be moot - people can critique the aesthetic of the JJTrek films, but you have to do that on their own merits as it's pretty clear they wanted a modernised, "Apple Store Starfleet" look and were using TOS as a jumping off point not an end point - but they're not, they are explicitly claiming this is proper, Prime Timeline, right-before-real-Kirk TOS-style Star Trek, and that means I want it to look like TOS.

They don't have to make the monsters and aliens out of papier mache, they don't have to use shonky projectors or CRT monitors for the viewscreens, but if they're not doing the geometric, primary-coloured, stark, 60's retrofuturistic aesthetic then they're not really doing TOS, that's all I'm saying.

I think you missed another, much better example. Alien Isolation. people loved that game, and praised it sticking to the original two movie's visuals and style, both of which were aggressively 80s. You can make TOS with better visuals and nicer props and whatever, but you still have to make it look like TOS.

My counter argument would be the fairly simple; TOS looked like gak.

 LordofHats wrote:
TOS looked like gak.

Sure, thanks to shoestring budgets that only got smaller. Even so, something about the production design clicked with viewers - our imaginations were/are still able to overlook or look beyond the crud, chintsy superficial level and see the sets and props and costumes on the level of what they signify. It's a bit like comparing SNES-era graphics in FFIII/VI to FF XV on PS4. Everything is so explicit with current production design and there's no getting around that. The bar is a whole lot higher. Fortunately, the designers could lean heavily on references to TOS like the Abramsverse designers do. I hate those movies but (some of) the production design is neat and it's about the only part of that series that "feels" like actual Star Trek.

No. I'm serious. TOS looked like gak. Comparing it to Alien there's a huge difference. Alien's sets looked like an actual place that carried an atmosphere. It didn't need the characters to make sense.

TOS' sets were little more than flashing light panels thrown together with mountains of plaster and bland. The set design in TOS was terrible then and it looks so much worse now. I'll never understand the obsession people have with the crude and terrible design of just about everything in TOS. Just because your imagination can overlook it doesn't change that the entire thing looked fake. It worked for TOS a bit because TOS was very campy at times, but Star Trek has largely moved past camp. It reminds me of every time a Power Rangers TV series tried to become mature and deep, and then instantly fell flat on its face because the giant robot was so obviously a guy in cardboard boxes.

You say Star Trek has moved past camp; I'd say it has moved past relevance. Star Trek only ever mattered because it was about the adventure of discovery. It didn't need to be as impressive as, for example, Alien because it appealed directly to the imagination. Alien needed realism because the point was to frighten you. The point of Star Trek was to entertain in an inspiring way.

I don't think Star Trek could get by today with the kind of budget we see these days with, for example, Adult Swim shows. I'm not advocating that anyone try. The point is, a production design inspired by TOS would not necessarily go amiss just because TOS itself was so hamstrung by its meager budget.

 LordofHats wrote:
It worked for TOS a bit because TOS was very campy at times, ...

I would say it worked for TOS because of when it was made, frankly. Peoples' expectations for the quality of TV show sets were considerably lower back then... Viewers weren't expecting Movie-quality production from TV shows in the '70s.

It also worked because the sets were ultimately just a backdrop, and stories tended to be far more about the people than the scenery.

 LordofHats wrote:
No. I'm serious. TOS looked like gak. Comparing it to Alien there's a huge difference. Alien's sets looked like an actual place that carried an atmosphere. It didn't need the characters to make sense.

TOS' sets were little more than flashing light panels thrown together with mountains of plaster and bland. The set design in TOS was terrible then and it looks so much worse now. I'll never understand the obsession people have with the crude and terrible design of just about everything in TOS. Just because your imagination can overlook it doesn't change that the entire thing looked fake. It worked for TOS a bit because TOS was very campy at times, but Star Trek has largely moved past camp. It reminds me of every time a Power Rangers TV series tried to become mature and deep, and then instantly fell flat on its face because the giant robot was so obviously a guy in cardboard boxes.

It's almost as if people can have different taste in design. But no, of course not, that's impossible, once LordofHats speaks, thus is made the law for all time and in all realities, oh woe unte ye who disobeys even in thought

Seriously though, you're pretty far off the mark. A lot of the execution of the aesthetic in TOS looked off because of the budget or the material constraints of the time, but to pretend that the actual design is uniquely awful and the show only looks the way it did because of those restrictions is farcical given the trends in futurist design contemporaneous with the show. Bold geometric shapes, bright colours, clean smooth surfaces, and minimalist computing technology were the fashion, and you see it over and over in other sci-fi TV of the 60's & 70's, on novel cover artwork of that era and so forth.

Now, you can dislike mid-20thC retrofuturism as a style, but you don't get to pretend it never existed.

Regardless though, even if we accept your hilarious attempts to argue that the TOS aesthetic is objectively bad and only exists because they didn't have or couldn't afford better - and? So? Well? How does that undermine the core point that if you're going to do a straight-up prequel - not a reboot - in an established setting with an established aesthetic(and the TOS aesthetic is well established in the fiction to extend much farther than 10 years before the actual original show's story) and you want to trade on the love that fans have for the thing you're prequel'ing, then you should bloody well respect the source material aesthetic included.

If CBS wanted to redesign established stuff they had two choices - make a post-Voyager sequel, or do a full-on JJ-style reboot of the franchise on TV. They chose instead to make a direct prequel to TOS, so they should have been willing to deal with the constraints that choice imposes on them creatively.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Now, you can dislike mid-20thC retrofuturism as a style, but you don't get to pretend it never existed.

I never claimed it didn't exist...

I said it looked like crap cause it does. It's not 1967 anymore. A giant panel of blinking lights might have seemed futuristic then, but it makes zero sense now. There were more buttons on some of those TOS consoles than an entire school computer lab. They had wood paneling right off of a Chrysler Town and Country! It's not that it's objectively bad. It's just dated. The only reason to bring it back is to write a love letter to golden age science fiction, which is something I don't think anyone involved in Discovery is going for. I'm not talking about the budget. Watching a show that supposed to be set in the future but looks like Colossus is bizarre.

Maybe Abrams went overboard with the bloom effects but at least the set pieces seemed like they were still in the future and not from the yesteryear of 1970 (I'll agree with Manchu on that). I don't understand the obsession. It's a piece of fiction, not holy Scripture. There's no reason not to update stuff to look futuristic when we've left what was once the future five decades in the past. Seriously. Did anyone here really expect that CBS was going to throw cash at the first new Star Trek series in 10 years (? something like that), and say "lets make it look like 1967"? It has nothing to do with my word being law (seriously what?). It's just the reality that it's 2017. No one was ever going to do a hard revival 50 year old aesthetics just to please the small number of hyper critical fans who are going to get worked up about that and who will probably find fault in any number of things anyway.

EDIT: At some point fans need to realize big budget productions aren't made to please them. It's made to appeal to a broader audience, and that broader audience is generally unconcerned with trivial things like whether or not a 2017 television series looks like it takes place before one from before my parents were out of diapers. It's TFA all over again. Some people complained the movie was too derivative from ANH, but the truth of the matter is that the film wasn't made for people who would take that negatively.

 LordofHats wrote:
My counter argument would be the fairly simple; TOS looked like gak.

Blasphemer! Heretic! Someone hold me back! You will pay for your many and varied blasphemies!
Context in time is a thing.

Comparable TV shows were Laugh In, Gunsmoke, Twilight Zone, and slightly later Wild Wild West (one of the unsung originators of Steampunk). budgets were not large and frankly you're comparing a shoestring TV show against a big budget film.

If doing that you should compare the ST movies to Alien.

See, I thought the bridge of ST:ENT was a decent throwback to TOS, it had dials and buttons for days. They even had the periscope thing that T'Pol used occasionally that looked like the one used by Uhura on TOS (IIRC)

Granted, the exterior of the ship didn't hold up quite as well aesthetically, but I personally thought they got the bridge right, without being cheesy about it.

Agreed, Ensis. ENT looked futuristic without making TOS look backwards. TOS looks more futuristic than ENT, probably because ENT looks more "believable" than TOS. The tech of ENT was also explicitly, self-consciously far inferior to that seen in any other Star Trek series.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
If doing that you should compare the ST movies to Alien.

ST:TMP had a production budget roughly 4x that of Alien. Visually, as well as narratively, ST:TMP is entirely forgettable - meanwhile Alien seared itself into popular consciousness. OTOH, TOS is arguably more iconic than Alien. And yet TOS was cheap as chips. The look of TOS may hold no appeal to LoH personally, but it connected to the popular imagination in a huge way. And all subsequent Trek sort of proves that throwing money up on the screen is not the answer (Wrath of Khan is the cheapest ST film).