I told you all it was big!!!! But no one would believe me!!! Well, here is the proof right off of the new DVD and out the KING, Alex Jeager’s, mouth…2379.75. So all the arguing can now stop, and all you garage kit modelers can get to work!
Blue Ray and my Mac don't get along so here is a pic from the TV screen
Eavesdropping with Johnny 
“My God, that’s a big ship.” 😉
I’m afraid this isn’t going to stop the arguing. This will rage on and on because it is way bigger than any other Enterprise we had before. With fewer windows 😉
I’m so torn over this new version of the Enterprise. There are some things that feel really off balance to me. The secondary hull often feels too squat vertically and the nacelles feel like they should be somewhat more forward. But I do love that they increased the size, it feels more majestic as a result.
macs don’t have blu ray players…yet, i don’t think.
Yeah, unfortunately, that just doesn’t jive with a lot of the onscreen footage, like the people walking on it during the construction scene, which prove that it has to be a sub-400m size at that time. (Not to mention the Kirk-ejection scene with the tiny pod giving us something to scale the hatch by, thus scaling the ship by.)
Nor does with the design of the ship itself. (Things like the monstrous 20ft phaser cannons, 7ft tall windows, 14ft wide docking hatches, etc. (The phaser cannons on the Ent-A were just 6ft wide, for reference.)) Plus, he also said that he originally built the ship at 367m long, but scaled it up for the shuttlebay scene, so he’s basically saying the ship was built to be 367m long, which fits MUCH better with the details of the design.
On top of all that, Jaeger himself isn’t always right, even about his own designs. He claims the Akira has 15 torpedo tubes, when it clearly doesn’t, even on his own model.
The argument is far from over, I’m afraid.
A minor note also, that comparison pic is VASTLY incorrect. If that size ratio was right, JJ’s Enterprise is just about 500-530m long, not 725.
How appropriate that an internally inconsistent image should be used to try and nail the size of an inconsistently scaled ship 🙂 Bridge to exterior shot, differing scales on different shuttlebay shots, placement of windows and tons of other things cloud the issue. The thing that bothers me the most is the saucer section seen in wreckage that dwarfs the Enterprise; if they want the NuEnterprise to be so huge, then how big is that thing going to be?! I don’t think there’s much artistically defensible about upscaling for upscaling’s sake.
There are scaling problems in the movie that make this one look minor. Wouldn’t Narada’s drill thing have to be thousands of kilometers long to do what it did in the movie? I don’t think even Borg technology could convincingly explain that one.
That’s true that the Akira-class starship does not have 15 torpedo tubes…it has at least 19
(But AJ was apparently counting quantum torpedo launchers separately from photon torpedo launchers)
Actually, the windows scale to about 1.5m tall, the wide rectangular ones about 5m wide (nothing you won’t find in many buildings or cruise ships in real life)
The ship has to be big not only for the shuttlebay to work, but also for the bridge window to make sense – the bridge is NOT in the dome as it is traditionally, it is below the dome, further, it is not centered on the saucer either, it would have to be shifted forward to meet up with that window. The docking ports are also not vastly bigger than the refit Enterprises – they just have a wider recess (docking collar or whatever) around the doors, and besides, surely a hatchway more than 6 feet tall would be useful for loading and offloading things?
Yes, the ship was initially a 360m design which was scaled up to improve the relationship with the internal locations/sets and also to make that bridge window work and to make the rather large shuttles fit into the bay. This is not in dispute, ILM admitted as much. Scaling the ship up 200% creates some (in my opinion) very minor detailing and design inconsistencies, but it really did solve a lot more potential scaling problems with other aspects of the film than it caused with the design of the ship. Glad they simply decided to bump up the scale of one object (the ship) than fudge the scale of dozens of other objects and locations to fit them into a smaller one. Its the lesser of two evils.
Excuse me while I hunker down to await the inevitable howl of:
THIS IS A DISASTER!!!11!1one!
Seriously, though, one thing I really like is the way the pylons blend into the hull; it makes this really cool continuous swooping shape underneath the shuttlebay.
She looks WAY better in flight, I might add.
*Runs off to watch Star Trek for the zillionth time :)*
That’s actually off the DVD? 😀
Haha, Suricata’s been going on the STO forum stating that Abram’s people recanted that the size was finalized at 366 meters.
Better link this news. 😉
I’ve had that image for weeks now, it doesn’t change any of my conclusion though, more so since the image itself is scaled incorrectly to the actual dimensions on it. I see it this way, there is evidence in the film for both a large ‘and’ a small Enterprise, I’ve merely chosen the smaller one as it fit’s better to the canon of the ship it was a redesign of. It seems pretty apparent that the ship was resceled ‘after’ footage for teh film was made.
I’d say the best example of 2 conflicting scenes is the Enterprise leaving spacedock and when it arrives at Vulcan. when it leaves spacedock, the USS Mayflower is very similar in size to the Enterprise, when it arrives at Vulcan though, the USS Mayflower is huge, which to me suggests the smaller scaled ship was used in that scene (either that or they rescaled the Mayflower).
The same goes for the Shuttlebay scenes, when the shuttles all arrive, we have very large shuttles entering the bay, but when Pike leaves the ship, in a much smaller shuttle, it’s almost the same size as the large shuttles, again suggesting a smaller ship, from that, I conclude that the scenes of the ship around Vulcan were created before the decision to upscale the ship.
Another fun thing to point out, is that during the ships construction scenes, the ship again is on the smaller scale (thanks to the people walking around it you can scale her), but, in the trailers for the movie, which would of been made later in production, the people walking on the ship allow the scaling to show a huge ship.
Basically, this argument will never be solved, theres just too much conflicting evidence, because its apparent they actually did use the 366m version of the ship during the beginning of production and then upscaled it later on. The fact that so many offical sources keep throwing out sizes that arn’t exactly the same doesn’t help the issue either.
My personal hope, it that in the next film, they use the smaller scale, it just makes more sence with the ships aesthetics, theres conflicting evidence for a large and a small ship anyway, so whatever scale they go for, there will always be the conflicts 🙂
It’s just an absurd size.
I really liked the movie a lot, but the size (or sizes) that have been stated for the 2009 Enterprise are simply ludicrous. Based on the exterior details we could see in the film it is perfectly clear that it wasn’t supposed to be that much bigger than the Enterprise from the TOS era films, until you get to the cavernous hangar bay, that is; then the issue of scale gets mighty difficult to reconcile.
I know that none of the Trek films (or any of the TV series for that matter) got exterior-to-interior scales exactly right. No sci-fi film or TV show ever has. There were always little mistakes or concessions made in order to tell the story the filmmakers wanted to tell. But if the 2009 Trek filmmakers want me to believe the new Enterprise is almost 2,400 feet long, then they’d best set about adding exterior details to the model that will prove it to me. I have no problem with the idea that the ship is that big, but if it is it needs a revamp so the scale shows up properly on screen.
Hopefully they’ll rework the model for the 2nd movie to show the true scale of the ship (friggin’ huge, get used to it) and then this pointless debate can be ended.
“On top of all that, Jaeger himself isn’t always right, even about his own designs. He claims the Akira has 15 torpedo tubes, when it clearly doesn’t, even on his own model.”
I think Jeager has better things to do than memorize Trek technical minutea. I don’t know why you need to adopt such an accusatory tone against Mr. Jeager.
I’m not accusatory, it’s a simple statement of fact. We can’t just look at Jeager and believe him because he’s Jeager, that’s all I’m saying. He’s been wrong before, so we have to make sure we verify what he says. (Verification is always a good practice anyway.) Plus, Jeager has also said himself that the ship was designed at 367m, so that should be taken into account too.
See, I read that and didn’t notice any accusatory tone.
This is just way to big.
Nothing match that size except for the shuttle bay. everything else screams this ship is smaller.
I am afered that this argument will not end untill we get a proper scaling in the next film.
I personally do not have too much of a problem with he NuEnt being that big.
What realy realy bugs me is the lack of windows. The window configuration is more in tune with a 300 to 400 meter ship, not 700+
Imagine the Enterprise D with just 50 windows each side of it hull!
The lack of windows only proves to me that they has originaly scaled the ship to be equal if not a hair bigger than the Constitution class, but the Abrams said… “NO, bigger is better!”.
All they seem to have doen is choose “Select all” in the 3D program and chose “Scale > 200%”, saved it off and went for a coffee.
I think the problem is with these offical size quotes, is that they basically just get a side view of the ship and slap a number on it as though that solves the debate, but, with all the ammount of onscreen evidence available to counter the large size, it doesn’t really do much except add more fuel to the fire
But this isn’t just any number. It was reported to Gizmodo by David B. of Bad Robot Productions, given to Bob Plant for the licensed Round 2 model kit, mentioned in Note 4 in The Art of the Movie, basically supported by Alex Jaeger (he said on the Blu-ray two times that the ship is twice the size of the original). We also saw an ILM size chart from January 2008 where the ship is 2500 feet long, having apparently shrunk to that size from 3900 feet. At this point there is no reason to believe that 2379.75′ is an unlikely figure that will fade out over time, as opposed to one that will be used again and again in upcoming movies to the point of making any smaller size shots into mere outliers.
Now, I’m not saying that the reverse isn’t possible (which is what happened with the Defiant’s 560 feet), but I don’t understand resistance to this size without _evidence_ to the contrary. At this point there is absolutely no evidence that the 2379.75′ number will fail in favor of 1200 feet, and loads of evidence to the contrary. It would be nice to contact Alex Jaeger and ask him to describe how he sees the interior at this size, but I’m not sure if he’s currently at liberty to comment on it in detail.
I would just love for one of the guys that worked with the CGI to make an article or something about the ships scale in regards to how it was designed (which Alex stated was originally to 366m) and how much footage they created using the ship at various scales, which seems pretty apparent they did, I’m not knocking the CGI guys, I mean they just make what they are told to make, it would just be nice to actually hear a more detailed story regarding how the ship was scaled up and at what stage in production it happened.
My comments about the charts were more in regards to them been just that, charts with numbers tagged onto them. Just lookt at the DS9 technical manual for example, many use that as an offical source even thoguh alot of the sizes in it contrdict onscreen evidence and previous official books, as well as even having incorrect diagrams of ships. I’m pretty sure those offical sources are correct for the JJprise with the size it was scaled upto, but that still doesn’t make the scenes in the film where a smaller scaled ship was used dissapear.
I think that few, if any, scenes use the “smaller” ship – the bridge window for one makes no sense on a smaller ship – it would be a 3 foot tall slot whereas comparing the exterior height of the window at the larger ship scale to the height it seems to be on the set it matches very closely. I know the establishing shot of the ship under construction shows people walking around on catwalks and such that suggest the small ship size, but that image was a digital matte painting – i.e. pre-rendered elements re-assembled in a paint package, enhanced, with little animated pieces dropped in to give it life – I know from experience working on digital imagery on a tight deadline that your first goal is to make it look good for the time it is on screen, not satisfy those members of the audience who brought their slide-rules. You just have to fudge stuff now and then (make that, all the time) in compositing. And this is the ONLY shot in the film that provides direct scaling to human figures, which I actually didn’t even notice until I got the blu ray. The fact that there are dozens of shots that support a bigger ship (even though we can only indirectly guess the scale of people in those scenes) is compelling evidence that the ship is meant to be 2380 feet long. Write off the few shots that suggest a smaller ship as freaks that could have happened even if the ship were always supposed to be 2380 feet long and nothing was ever changed. This kind of thing used to happen all the time in the days of optical effects and it never caused this kind of retarded debating.
And one more thing: I am very much in favour or realistic and consistent scaling in visual effects or other imagery – I don’t much like the idea that something conceived at one scale is arbitrarily made another scale at some point. But I can see how ILM got caught between a rock and a hard place here and I applaud them for attempting to solve the problem and adjust their designs accordingly even during production. Less caring effects teams and film directors would have cynically carried on with outragously obvious scale paradoxes and not given a hoot about it. But they saw the problem the industrial location shoots and shuttle sizes would cause and they took steps to address these issues. Is it a perfect solution? No. But filmmaking is about compromise and creativity being employed to overcome it. Nobody was being careless on this film. that’s for sure.
I’m fully aware of that Simon, but either way, when they remade the Enterprise, the fans were always going to assume it was a similar size, more so when it has so many similarities to the original design, the fact there are scenes that vaguely suggest a similar size was always going to cause issues.
Eitherway, I don’t see why people can’t accept each others opinions on the matter when there clearly is evidence for ‘both’ sides of the argumant. i fully accept there is alot of evidence for the large scale, as well as alot of evidence for the small scale. Hence, I prefer the small scale as it fits in better with the Enterprise that came before it. It amazes me people actually email me with walls of text to try to convince me that it can only be 700+ metres by discrediting the scenes where the ship appears smaller, whilst those arguéing the ship to be smaller discredit the scenes with the larger ship.
I really am on the fence it the middle, I believe there is clear evidence for both sizes, I just personally prefer the smaller scale for my charts due to artistic licence, which is afterall, the reason this entire issue came up when the ship was scaled up for artistic licence 🙂
Suricata: you ignore the fact that despite any variations that may have been seen, there _is_ a baseline with official support – 2379.75 feet. We haven’t exactly seen 50% of sources quote 1200 feet with reasons A, B, and C, and the other 50% quote 2379.75 feet with reasons D, E, and F, but in fact the vast majority of sources is leaning heavily towards 2379.75 feet, with actual support from Alex Jaeger, who was responsible for the final detailing. This tells me that I should pay attention to the shuttlebay scenes above everything else, since they represent the size with a future. I’m not saying they cannot change their mind, but the evidence so far strongly suggests otherwise.
Alex Jaeger didn’t actually say in the Cinefex article that the ship was 1200′ long. That’s a myth based on incorrect quoting by a poster on a forum at the time. In order to verify the quote and see if any information was missed, I subscribed to the online edition of Cinefex immediately, which is identical to the print edition, and found that the 1200′ figure is mentioned only in the main body of the article without attribution, not in the actual quote from Alex Jaeger, who only says that they increased the size based on the shuttlebay, without giving any final number, but now we can see in the Blu-ray feature that he agrees with the official line.
Still, the most likely interpretation remains that the 1200′ figure was Alex Jaeger’s original estimate, based on Ryan Church’s concepts of undefined size. It may have been used in some of the shots, but the point is that they currently want the size of the ship to reflect the shuttlebay shots, which makes the use of 1200′ unlikely in the future, except perhaps in the occassional VFX deviation from the baseline. It would make sense for a future tech manual to ensure that the shuttlebay shots remain consistent with the canon, and work out the rest of the interior on that basis, in close consultation with Alex Jaeger in order to make sure that the design intent is preserved.
Get off your high horse.
Suricata has watched the movie, seen the evidence and made up his own mind.
You clearly have made up yours. Leave it at that.
For the record; Having a number stated in an interview does not make it set in stone. Things change.
I get the feeling, the scale of this new Enterprise will shrink and expand as and when necessary for certain scenes, should more movies be made with it.
Please improve your first-grade reading comprehension before telling others to “get off their high horse” without provocation. I’ve said several times that it is possible the number may change (which you missed), and that the 2379.75-foot figure or others in that range are supported by loads of sources which are very close to ILM (which you also missed), and that it is quite likely this number won’t fit some of the shots (which you…you get the picture), but still, it appears to be the current baseline size for any dramatic alterations, which 1200 feet is not. If the figure were to become unworkable in the future, sort of like the Defiant’s original 560-foot length became unworkable, I will of course treat it as such, but at this point the vast majority of evidence suggests that it’s not a random VFX figure, but rather the final conceptual size of this ship.
A bigger question is: When will ADD-Trek jump the shark and blow up the ship just so it can be redesigned? I say next movie…
I just don’t understand why people get so passionate that they can’t accept people are entitled to their opinions. I repect the fact that the offical sources state the ship was bigger, however, my personal preferance has always been that the ship didn’t need to be scaled up, thus I will always be bias to the smaller number. I’m not ignoring any facts thrown out there, infact I’m actually looking at ‘all’ the facts out there, eitherway, the fact that people email be and insult me for been closed minded is rather amusing, since I believe my opinions have been anything but closed minded, I’ve accepted all sizes out there afterall, I just chose the smaller one for my size charts as it fit better with the rest of the ships.
Unless you’re creating fanfic, the size is not a matter of personal opinion – it’s a matter of analyzing evidence and understanding the design. I’m not 100% certain either that it will end up being 2379.75 feet long, but I try my best to understand what the designers intended, how they see the ship, since they are the ones with license to create canon, not I. I don’t get to decide what the ship looks like or how big it is, it’s just a matter of analyzing the evidence and staying factual, devoid of any personal biases. Otherwise one is just creating fanfic, as opposed to improving everyone’s understanding of the canon Star Trek universe.
If you’re saying that you think the Enterprise is smaller because you like it better that way, then it’s fanfic, and I agree that I can’t very well dispute the facts as they exist in your fanfic. Personally, I’m trying to understand how the canon alternate reality will develop from here, regardless of my personal preferences. I think the new stardates would be more consistent with the old ones if the digits after the decimal point represented the elapsed fraction of the year, but if Orci says they represent the day of the year, I have to expect that the next movie will confirm that, unless we see evidence to the contrary.
How about this theory. Since we can plainly see people walking on and near the ship that clearly point to a much smaller size than the movie producers are saying, then maybe in this alternate timeline humans are really 12 feet tall. That makes it all better, huh!
Or maybe we are all looking at it to the side (things always appear bigger that way).
Or maybe we need Rose DeWitt Bukater to point out a males preoccupation with size to the producers of the movie, just as she did to the builders of the Titanic.
Or finally, since 99% of the on screen evidence points to a ship about the same size as the TMP ship, the debate is over and the producers of the movie need a brush up on the mathematics skills.
As William Shatner once said “Oh, for God’s sake . . . get a life, will you?”
Hobbies with a lot of minutiae and investigation/prediction _are_ part of my life. Maybe you should consider taking your useless and insulting comments to a LightWave group, or a hobby modelling group, and telling members not to worry about the minutiae of making their models look correct – they should get a life, not indulge in hobbies involving attention to a myriad little details and critical thinking/experimentation. I shudder to think what your opinion may be of Andrew Probert or Rick Sternbach, who sweat a lot of details the average viewer will never notice on TV. Or maybe you believe that one can have a life only if such minutiae is part of one’s profession, as opposed to being a hobby?
I’m tired of these “get a life” comments any time a discussion starts to involve a lot of minutiae which the average audience member doesn’t care about. As noted – the size could swing either way, so I’m urging restraint based on an assessment of behind-the-scenes evidence, as opposed to campaigning either for 300 meters or 725 meters. The goal should be to keep investigating into the 725m number and see what the producers will come up with that makes sense with the size – if they can’t, then maybe the ship will end up being smaller, but I’m not dismissing anything simply based on personal views.
Well, I’ve read everything on this post and have no energy left for a full comment, so I’ll borrow EG180’s, since it’s close to my own view…
I’m not the one getting paid to produce the movie, create the design, etc. so I’ll yield to those who are. Is it perfect? No. But that’s what it is.
Part of teh problem for me with scale issue is that the JJ version has proportions very close to Matts and andrews TOS and refit, and the windo pattern on JJs saucer rim is exactly the same as the refit. Theres also a docking port on the lower hull in almost exactly the same location of the refit, so visually we are thinking it’s about the same size as the refit.
But recaling is not new to trek, the KBOP was recaled in TNG and the Spacedock from Trek 3 magically grew to accomodate the E-D.
I’m not sure the debate will stop…people are still talking about the Offical Color of the TOS Enteprrise 45 years later.
All in all, the DVD has the Johnny (what I call Abram’s Enterprise) at 2379.75 feet long. So it’s finalized and official.
And please don’t nitpick the scaling in the picture. Unless you are using a perfect tool like AutoCAD to scale perfectly, it’s just a rough estimate.
Though about the long vs short debate, I put my engineering skills to work and tried to gestimate, and I came out with with larger version. If you look at the original trailer, you can see the Johnny’s saucer is 5 decks thick, while the Connie was 1 deck at the rim. And of course the “Ejecting Kirk” scene, you see people watching out the window, which helps get the scale of the ship.
Now if you disagree with me, that’s your right. I’m just pointing out a few things.
the pic still makes it look smaller than you would think it is, i mean after all it DOES have a brewery in its belly! haha
I like to think of it as Willy Wonka in Space.
On top of everything else, the side-ejected pod made the ship look absurdly tiny (and the shuttle bay stuff didn’t bother me nearly as much as this one shot did).
Oh god, the brewery. I was completely disappointed by the ‘engineering’ section. It just didn’t jive with the high-tech nature of the the ship. The engineering room is another icon part of the Trek Universe and this just didn’t fit into it for me.
HOLY COW!!!!! look at all the arguing going on here!!! Looks like I missed out on all the fun!!!!
“Tut tut, Mister Eaves. Young minds. Fresh ideas. …Be tolerant.”
In other words, what did you expect? We’re Trekkies, it’s what we do. 😛
Didn’t you get to the part where he missed all the fun? He’s just sad he got here a bit late for joining in. 🙂
Guess that’s why I’m a Trekker, that prefers embracing the concept of IDIC in lieu of arguing over of all things, subjective-baed opinions. As far as that goes, everyone’s “right,” IMO, as one opinion is as valid as the next to me, thus no arguing required.
LLP,
deg
On another note, what the heck happened to my first comment up top about the scale of the ports and bridge making no sense to me at this scale? Oh well. Just a musing anywho…
LLP,
deg
Er…you think Vulcans believe that everyone’s opinion is as valid as the next when it comes to investigating the physical size of a solid object based on available evidence? IDIC is a philosophy, not a technique for determining ship sizes.
I’m more interested in peeps showing other peeps respect and good-will than I am in made-up fictional ship sizes, Boris. Vulcan fictional origins aside, IDIC is a very real philosophical ideal that came out Star Trek, that I feel, has grand merit and very real applicable value in one’s life, as opposed to the mere entertainment value of fictional Trek-tech.
The ideals that came out of Star Trek are at the core and soul of Trek to me. All other aspects are window-dressing merely employed to set up plays in which to display working examples of these core ideals. I feel too often these core ideals get overlooked, in lieu of superfluous window-dressing, that ultimately does not amount to anything of substance passed a good and fun entertainment ride.
As the Tao teaches; Concern one’s self with the fruit, not the flower.
But that’s just me, and as with IDIC, any other view is just as valid, to me. However, not all views are as healthy as each other either, IMO.
peace and long life | deg
So you think I’m being disrespectful to Suricata merely because I’m trying to convince him that the ship is currently much more likely to be X feet long than Y feet, based on production evidence and some of the canon? It has nothing to do with respect or IDIC philosophy or getting bogged down in unnecessary details, and everything to do with getting it right on a purely technical level, as part of a hobby which endeavors to keep this universe rationally consistent. I don’t buy the notion that as a viewer I have to ignore such details in favor of the story, “get a life” as it were, otherwise I’d be missing out on much of what the various designers and effects artists have contributed over the years.
I mean, you’re a CG artist, so I assume that you’d be perfectly OK if, say, you were to work on a post-Nemesis era show and a VFX supervisor were to insist (within reason, given a deadline) that you therefore create a model of the Enterprise-E which matches perfectly the one from Digital Domain, down to the last consumables resupply connector and escape pod label, and BTW, when animating a shot, make sure it’s always 2248 feet long as John Eaves intended unless you have a compelling visual reason to deviate from the programmed scale.
In that case, you wouldn’t exactly deviate from the specs and call it IDIC, since that’s not an area where you can be creative and offer a personal contribution. You can, however, come up with new and interesting shots, otherwise I’m not likely to be interested regardless of technical accuracy. Similarly, the available evidence makes it extremely unlikely you’d be allowed work with an alternate Enterprise that isn’t 2379.75 feet long, unless you were to find verifiable scale issues with this number which are impossible to correct.
This discussion is all about getting the technical aspects right, and in no way does it change the fact that I will only regularly watch a show that I think is well written, regardless of technical details. However, people do investigate such details because sometimes they need to be accurate, and very often there is only one correct answer. I just do it for fun, while other people sometimes have to do it professionally, though the professionals very often build on such investigations (e.g. look at the contributions of Christian Ruehl and Timo Saloniemi to Geoffrey Mandel’s Star Charts).
Oh, I have zero problem with peeps paying attention to detail and specs, Boris. Whatever float one’s boat, eh. And I’m all for technical consistency and attention to detail myself. One need only look at my own work to see stanch evidence of that.
What I’m speaking of (and I’m not pointing any fingers at anyone), as I have seen it quite a bit, esp, with XI discussions, is that these discussions often devolve quickly into disrespectful argument-based chaos, IMO. The main reason I just stay out of them, TBT. I have no desire to share or listen when peeps compulsion to drive their opinion of these stats home as truth with other peeps, doing so at the expense of doing it with respectful discussion, as opposed to wielding self-perceived righteous (for whatever reason) argument.
There’s an old saying: At times, one can be right, or one can be happy. I always chose happy or right. Seems to me some peeps jump the rails and are only happy trying to prove they are “right” tossing out respect for others’ views along the way willy-nilly without the slightest regard of the other person as a human-being, deserving of the Golden Rule, as much as anyone else.
And to be clear: This is just how I see it, based on my own perceptions. Ultimately, it has has nothing to do one way or the other with what other peeps do or do not do. Peeps can do as they please as far as I am concerned. I never point my finger at peeps or their behavior or lack thereof, attempting to hold them responsible for my feelings. My feelings are 100% my responsibility, always and ever. As such, I was merely sharing my POV on a given subject.
To each their own, IDIC.
And as a CG artist, if a producer were paying me, I’d do what he or she wants. Would I be sad if it went against my idea of the core-nature of the project sure. But then, I’m not the producer payin’ the bills. I hope I never come to that cross-road where I would have to create something that I did not believe in, esp. with regard to Trek. It would be like having to do graphic design for cigarette companies, and I passed on that client and big money on the principle that I can’t contribute to something like that, that I feel is inherently destructive and harmful to my fellow beings.
However, the entertainment industry is just that, entertainment. Would I quit if I ran into a sorta (can’t really compare the two) similar circumstance? I very much doubt it. Would I be sad, probably so. But, like I said, I hope I never have to cross that road, eh. But if I id, i would not ever resort to treating peeps poorly in an attempt to prove my point as “right.” It makes me much more happy to get along with peeps, as opposed to proven to them I’m right. That is just what ultimately feels right and ultimately matters to me, inside.
That’s just me, and/or who I am.
Always good to hear your POV, eh. Thanks for sharin’ it. 😉
peace and long life | deg
“Why so serious?” 😀
That phrase being invoked starts me worrying.
Big time.
here is a bit of fan art that i found i can’t seem to find the post where it was asked for.
“and all you garage kit modelers can get to work!”
No GKer in their right mind would touch that thing.
Right now they would get slapped with a C&D so fast, their heads would be spinning at warp drive(This has already happened).
What is a C+D?
It means “Cease and Desist”, it is a polite legal term, in real language it means stop this activity or we will sue you.
I’m going for my usual “lensing of light caused by navigation deflector(s)” explanation when it comes to apparent differences in scaling. 😛 Maybe Scotty’s predecessor, the zorched Chief Engineer Olson liked to play pranks on unsuspecting cadets and was playing around with some new holo-emitters he’d strung up in the shuttle bay and engineering. Who can say?
I was watching the film yesterday. According to the close captioning, the shuttle commanded from the Enterprise by Pike is shuttle 89. So, this ship may have as many as 89 shuttles. God, that’s a lot of shuttles.
Actually that graphic is a little misleading.
I did a cut/paste scaled them exactly per the dimensions (1 pixel = 1 foot), and the TOS Enterprise winds up even smaller!!!
I’m still in the camp somewhat that this super-sizing is more of a …………….WTF
*Though if we had gotten the proper massive Engineering that was proposed (in the artwork), then it would have been easier to accept the new size.
My only remark shall be thus: WHY DID THIS MAKE IT PAST EDITING!? HOW DID THIS MAKE IT PAST EDITING!? DID JJ DO THIS INTENTIONALLY TO SCREW WITH US!?
There. I’m done now.
Actually this graphic is a little misleading.
I did a cut/paste scaled them exactly per the dimensions (1 pixel = 1 foot), and the TOS Enterprise winds up even smaller.
I’m still somewhat in the camp that this super-sizing just wasn’t necessary.
*Though if we had gotten the proper massive Engineering that was proposed in the artwork, I think that the fan-base would of had an easier time accepting the new scale.
I have the perfect theory as to the size differences… it uses some Tardis tech, and is bigger on the inside at certain places where needed, than it looks on the outside. Problem solved, next!
The funny thing about this whole size debate for me is, while I guess I’m in the camp that would prefer a 300-400m Enterprise for tradition’s sake, after looking at some of the stills around from the movie, particularly close-ups of the E, I’m coming round to the idea that a bigger 700m-ish ship works pretty well. After all, it’s a ‘hero’ ship (and it’s essentially a reboot). But I’ve got to agree with a lot of folks here that ultimately the scale doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as maybe it would’ve done when I was younger, as long as the end product – the movie or show – is entertaining and high quality. (Makes for a fun debate though!).
I bought the art book but there has still been no credible explanation for the need to make it so big! Can you do a post on that?
a) They couldn’t afford to build a set for engineering, and they didn’t want to do it as a fake set-extension. So they found a location to serve as engineering. Problem: location was bigger than the entire secondary hull of a 300m Enterprise would be. Solution: make the whole ship bigger so the audience doesn’t question how this massive engine room fits into the ship.
b) The shuttles they designed were big. Solution: make the ship bigger so shuttles can fit into the bay.
c) Filmmaker’s vision wanted a larger, grander ship. Solution: make the ship bigger.
How much more credible an explanation do you need? Scaling the ship was a wise choice to make the film work: you’re taking care of a lot of potential scale inconsistencies by adjusting ONE item – the ship.
I have some friendly counterpoints to the producers scaling solutions.
A) Build only the portions of the sets that the actors will interact with, and CGI the rest. If they wanted to add more “Star Wars” into Trek, this is a production technique Lucas used extensively in the last three films, and worked wonderfully.
B) That can easily be resolved by subtle camera tricks. In the particular scenes where the shuttle & hangar are interacting, scale up the Enterprise by 10%, and scale down the shuttle by 10 percent. The total 20% will make everything fit. I believe this was done on the TOS EFX shuttle/hangar shots.
C) With the proper angles, detailing and photography you can make a matchbook look “grand” (along with a good soundtrack). Final example – TMP Enterprise dry-dock sequence. 🙂
I know it’s far too late now. Hopefully we’ll get a proper engineering in the next film.
All this reminds me of when I was 11 and throught the ship was a mile long!
With regards to the debris field scenes, I too thought that the saucer debris looked entirely too huge, making that ship (or its remains) miles bigger than Enterprise. However, if you watch it frame by frame, there are two shots that show the Enterprise and the saucer in the bedris at nearly the same angle. The debris is larger, but not by much. To my eye, it had more to do with seeing the Enterprise edge on, vs the destroyed saucer top down. The saucer edge on looks considerably smaller at that angle, than when viewed top down.
Completely insane size.
It’s a lil’ kooky IMO, too, Rick. I can’t help but be reminded of SUVs and the mad egoic-based rush to Hummers once they became available to the public. Can’t help it, but it feels like the; mine is bigger therefore obviously better than your starship reasoning.
Bigger is NOT always better, IMO. I liked her fine as she was. She lacked no majesty, ever, IMO. Quite the contrary, did ya see her in dry-dock in TMP?
LLP,
deg
I just don’t get the story point in making the ship so big. It becomes unrelatable to the audience, and it may create the “Superman” problem for the writers in the future. How do you put something so big, slick and powerful in jeopardy? With ridiculously big enemies? The original series used submarine and aircraft carrier comparisons so the audience could understand: It’s THIS big. It keeps it personal and the stakes high.
All this talk reminds me of the old Merian C. Cooper quote from behind the scenes of the 1933 “King Kong” when he kept telling the FX people to “Make him bigger!” Kong’s scale was all over the place based upon dramatic considerations, not accurate scale.
While I respect the artists who worked so hard behind-the-scenes to obey their director and yet sneak in touches for us ol’ fans, the new design doesn’t excite me. But heck, at my age I am NOT the audience they want for this or any other movie! There were many things about the movie I liked (casting), things I hated (the brewery sets), and things I wish they’d included, such as inserting a scene at the appropriate moment with Christoper Lloyd as Doc Brown at a chalk board at Starfleet explaining how “We’re now in the ALTERNATE 2485 timeline!” Mostly, I missed there being an idea at the heart of the movie besides franchise profits.
All in all, I enjoyed the movie and thought JJA did something great by bringing fun and excitement back to this staid universe. Manny Coto was getting it right on “Enterprise” when they stopped him short and tacked on the worst finale ever. I have hopes for the next movie because I like the cast a lot, and I can overlook fannish issues if the story clicks.
Lee
I don’t really get why the 700m size of the ship is such an issue – its not that much bigger than the Ent-D or E and is still substantially smaller than the DS9 station – or did you feel that there was never a sense of the ship/station being put in jeopardy for all the years Trek was set in the TNG-DS9 era? I just don’t see why fans and designers were accepting of those huge TNG ships can’t accept a ship the same size in the new film (which is pretty much a reboot, so does it matter that its the wrong size for its “era” ?
Its all fictional anyway, and in any case, in the real world the most powerful capital ships used to be bigger on average than they are now. WWII battleships were all substantially larger than modern cruisers but are nowhere near as efficient or effective – why can’t there have been an earlier Trek era that had bigger, less efficient ships? Seeing its all fiction and up to the director to set the “rules” of his rebooted universe, why can’t the ship be that big? I have yet to see any argument against a big ship that isn’t based on subjective things like aesthetics or whether or not it “feels right” to the viewer.
Although I’m not ready to dismiss the 2379.75-foot figure without solid arguments that are based in canon and the intentions of Ryan Church, Alex Jaeger, and whoever else was responsible for the ship, I can easily see why the alternate Enterprise is causing such debate. It’s a Star Trek hero ship, the kind that normally ends up being the most consistent of all, but so far there is no evidence (maybe it just wasn’t published yet, but I doubt it) that it was designed with the kind of attention given to the rest.
I’m thinking of the TOS Enterprise, the refit, 1701-D, 1701-E, the DS9 station, Voyager, even the NX if we ignore its similarities to the Akira, because the size is consistent and Doug Drexler fleshed out the details in addition, then published a lot of the documentation soon after the show premiered. If the designers wanted to prevent this kind of size discussion and still have the ship accepted at 2379.75 feet, it could’ve been done with just the following changes:
1) The final shape of the Enterprise shouldn’t have reused as many design elements from the refit Enterprise, which is definitely 1000 feet long. I’m thinking of the saucer rim, window spacing, phaser emitters, and similar – merely slight alterations to the detailing. Of course, you could say the same for the NX compared to the Akira, which brings us to the more important requirement below.
2) Once the designers decided that it should be 2379.75 feet long, they should’ve included clear evidence of that immediately. The easiest way would’ve been to add the necessary number of window rows suggesting a greater number of decks, or if they wanted to have double-spaced decks, they could’ve showed it in another way – a canon cutaway, a lot of sets with double-sized decks, perhaps a couple of window rows which are spaced closer together – it doesn’t matter as long as the size is totally unambiguous.
However, they handled the design like it wasn’t a Star Trek hero ship, which leaves room for people to argue that it is actually smaller, for example by pointing out that the window spacing is too low. Since the designers nevertheless seem to be set on using 2379.75 feet, it is only reasonable to expect that we’ll see more evidence of this size in the future, so one should be very careful about arguing that it is really smaller and definitely avoid campaigning for a smaller size or “fanon”. Even the Defiant ended up being 120m long mostly because of Doug Drexler’s onscreen cutaway – had the cutaway shown it at 170m in dozens of episodes, the VFX evidence would’ve been ignored by everyone.
I just bought the book, and it’s gorgeous! All the artwork is top notch, but there was a graphic that said the NuPrise is 1200 m, or over 3900 ft long. 3/4 mile. That’s something. I don’t like the fact of the engineering sets being so mechanical. It had the feel of being in a building and not a ship. The modern parts of the ship were cool. I liked how the transporter room control area reminded me of an old Concorde cockpit, 2 pilots and 1 flight engineer. Maybe they can get Scotty to redesign the enginnering section…LOL
Happy Turkey Day to all!
Yes, but that particular size chart is from September 2007, which is consistent with John Eaves’ recollection that the size was in the 3000-5000′ range while he was working on the movie (he was finished in October 2007 according to a comment on this blog). The chart from January 2008 as presented by Alex Jaeger on the Blu-ray already has the length at 2500′, and then it became 2379.75′ (also see Note 4 at the end of The Art of the Movie, which confirms this number).
One statement of responsibility and truth about the “obvious scale/visual presentation issues” in the released film by the director, visual efx supervisor, or producer would end all conflicts and animousity many exhibit.
but of course to do that would end the “hype” and it seems conflict is better than truth. ?
And so we have the new TREK ethos.
” Yeah, we have some visual efx that played loose with the scale of the items in them throughout the film. We did that because……. or We didnt notice or think that in the larger picture that…….
And BTW- Not one employee of the “enterprise” would truly be penalized in any way for a statement of truth. The fact they dont beleive this is also part of what the newest, though popcorn ready, Trek Universe is about.:)
If one cant be honest about a movie spaceships issues, one can only see why NASA management decided twice to risk the Shuttles on cold days and with aluminum showing, those errors produced real human costs of life.
BTW- i liked the image i saw on the net of a 100 foot long corvette parked in front of the cast better to make fun of this scaling thing…lol
Compositing… too easy…:)
“One statement of responsibility and truth about the “obvious scale/visual presentation issues” in the released film by the director, visual efx supervisor, or producer would end all conflicts and animousity many exhibit.”
That would be redundant, since you could probably find (for example) Voyager or Ent-D shots where their sizes are incorrect with respect to other vessels of known size, even if these two ships can only work at their intended sizes (1130 feet and 2108 feet, respectively). If they scaled the ship to 2379.75 feet because of the shuttlebay, fine, so now they should stick to this size and make it unambiguous in the future or revise it as soon as possible. The worst they could do is talk about the ship being 2379.75 feet long while not actually demonstrating the size clearly in effects shots, cutaways and similar, which is what happened with the Defiant.
“And so we have the new TREK ethos.
” Yeah, we have some visual efx that played loose with the scale of the items in them throughout the film. We did that because……. or We didnt notice or think that in the larger picture that…….”
No, the ethos is the same in a lot of places, since a lot of VFX artists sometimes ignore the scale in order to make a shot work. That’s why it is important to protect against such rescaling at design stage, by adding the necessary window rows or other features which can only work at one scale. Any impossible VFX rescaling would automatically become an error as opposed to a valid piece of evidence, and a wise CG artist will avoid deviating too much from the scale lest the rows of windows start making little sense for the viewer. If you simply protect against rescaling, there’s no size debate regardless of what a VFX artist does with a particular shot.
“If one cant be honest about a movie spaceships issues, one can only see why NASA management decided twice to risk the Shuttles on cold days and with aluminum showing, those errors produced real human costs of life.”
This comparison is not exactly funny.
What is most depressing about this whole issue is the fact that the new creators of Star Trek just don’t care about the designs making any internal sense. It’s just not even on their radar, unless they hear about it from fans–and then I imagine they laugh in pity. There used to be a sort of mental space I could crawl into and examine the ships and technology. Like there was a whole world just off screen and behind the camera, and if you were interested, you could go and explore it. It was tremendous fun, and quite profitable for those who guarded the gates.
Those days are gone.
I’ve decided that there’s no sense in me even trying to figure these technical things out anymore, since there are no creators who care.
They cared enough to rethink their design to accomodate their massive industrial location used to represent engineering. They cared enough to make sure their shuttlecraft could actually fit into the bay. They cared enough to make the bridge window scale correctly between the interior set and the exterior CG ship. Seems to me they went to a far greater effort to ensure on-screen size consistency than most Trek productions ever have.
Matching the interior correctly to the exterior isn’t relevant to avoiding size debates or the impression that the design has been left unusually vague (does the new ship have 20+ double-spaced decks or 30+ single-spaced decks at 2379.75 feet? I’m not quite sure, and I should at least know that much).
Many, if not all of the ships in my examples don’t have the interior and the exterior match perfectly, but what happens in that case is that the size of a particular interior set becomes an outlier, an error, since if it’s too big, there is often no way to scale up the rest of the ship lest everything else on a highly detailed model suddenly stops making sense – window spacing, hatch sizes, shuttlebay doors, etc.
For example, if a particular interior is too big for the exterior, we can usually increase the size of the ship as much as the window spacing allows, but after that, either the interior can be moved to another location in the ship or we have to pretend that canonically, it’s actually smaller than the exterior, or that the miniature/CG model is incorrect. The point is that in a scale-proof design, not even the occassional interior/exterior inconsistency can change the basic size idea, since all the other scale evidence hardwired permanently into the miniature or CG model won’t allow it.
it wasnt meant to be. And my post was about ethics and public displays of it. Not starships sfx shots in movies, of that I care much less.
John, isn’t that 2379.75 figure in feet not meters? That would make the reboot Enterprise 725.347 meters along according to an online feet to meters conversion that I found. Using the figure also posted on the Blu-Ray the TOS Enterprise was 288.950 (948 feet) meters long. According to my math, the reboot Ent is 2.5 x larger than the TOS Ent. Since it’s on the DVD/Blu-Ray, I assume the figure is canon but I have to agree with others that the size seems way too big and the figure 366 meters (1200.787 feet) would be a better size, but that’s just my opinion. Anyway, it’s nice to have a final figure on the size of the reboot ship.
It really is a shame for the claims of the bigness that the “supersized” Enterprise isn’t what we saw on the screen, but the 366-meter one is.
Now, to be fair, they could do a complete re-detailing of the ship’s exterior for the next film that would account for the bigger scale, but why should they bother? What is in any way benefitted by making the ship that immense? This huge number was a bad call, Ripley, a bad call. And one best abandoned.
IMHO, of course, and YMMV.
Best,
Alex
First off all I don’t buy it! Many people gave their reasons for why she can’t be THAT big.
Second – The Mayflower. It isn’t as big as you think. When you see both ships from the top the saucers are more or less the same size. I know it was purely digital shot over Vulcan but I think that they used a technique of changing the focal length. An example of what I did with my Pentax:
1) http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/jsFjsx4t7ZbDJMtMT1h63A?feat=embedwebsite
2) http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/vzBaOJO6I3cmsxyfG1Pe8Q?feat=embedwebsite
From what you can see on those pictures the Tardis is more or less the same size. It stands in the same place in relation to background which differs greatly.
I remember seeing the trailer… and all the debate that ensued. Nobody wanted to believe that this was really what we were gonna see… the scaling issues were assumed by most people to be “visual typos.”
Well, what we’ve discovered is that the whole VFX process of this flick was effectively one massive “visual typo.”
This is not necessarily an indictment of the folks who worked on it. I’m sure that they all were trying their level-best to make a design that worked, and sets that made sense, and performances that were meaningful. Ultimately, though, this all comes down to the LEADERSHIP on this film screwing up. And, in the end, it’s a MASSIVE indictment of Abrams.
Yes, we can all tell… easily… that the ship was populated by details ripped wholesale from the TMP design, merged with details ripped from a ’58 Chevy coupe. And that the ship was supposed to be roughly the same size as the TOS/TMP ship. Whether you like the “redesign” or hate it, or are somewhere in between, you have to be able to see that the folks working on it were TRYING to make it work.
And along came Abrams, who wanted to use a FREAKIN’ BREWERY for his Engineering set, because he so dramatically underestimated the audience (since HE’s never been in an industrial site in his life, he assumes that nobody else has, either!) that he thought it would be able to be “sold.”
And when his tech crew pointed out that the “set” wouldn’t FIT, he told them “MAKE IT FIT!”
And they did the best that they could. I don’t envy them, at all. The “upsizing” of the ship was inevitable and was the best solution to an insurmountable problem… that problem being “tell your boss he’s full of shit and get fired” or “do as you’re told and keep collecting a paycheck.”
Abrams underestimated the audience, and caused problems that will be with “nuTrek” for as long as it’s around.
As for me, I don’t much care… in my personal “canon,” this entire movie is a momentary hallucination experienced by Spock as he falls into the event horizon of a black-hole… no real “time travel” ever happened. This is the only way to explain the LUDICROUS bits throughout this entire film (like being able to see Vulcan’s destruction with the naked eye from a “nearby planet” which somehow isn’t also ripped to dust by gravitational stresses.)
Yep, ST’09 is a hallucination… which explains everything, including the “amazing shrinky-growy-ship.”
Boris,
Wow, I guess you didn’t get the sarcasm in my post and I apologize if I offended you. Your response “Maybe you should consider taking your useless and insulting comments to a LightWave group, or a hobby modelling group, and telling members not to worry about the minutiae of making their models look correct – they should get a life, not indulge in hobbies involving attention to a myriad little details and critical thinking/experimentation.” was disheartening. I have been a Star Trek fan through all of the series since the mid 1970’s.
What is useless and insulting is when someone new comes along and tries to blow up one of the most iconic parts of the series (i.e. Abrams). I am sure that Andrew Probert or Rick Sternbach put much effort into maintaining consistency with regards to technology. I guess being a lowly “modeler” with over 250 in my collection (most of which are Star Trek), and the care I put into detail (and the thousands of hours), and most especially proper scaling means nothing? Boris, I would suggest getting your nose out of the air and allow some of us to have an opinion. By the way, that is more sarcasm.
The producers of the movie should either keep it consistent or totally abandon the concept. I really liked the movie, even with the changes. Despite what they would like everyone to believe, the Enterprise is what it is. It’s not star destroyer size, and that’s OK. The Enterprise is just a tool and the true strength behind Star Trek are the characters.
My main problem was with the “get a life” line, since there’s nothing funny about it, even if it was meant as sarcasm. It’s quite condescending and intolerant of obscure and not-as-socially-acceptable hobbies such as analysis of fictional starships. I agree that nothing matters in the end as much as the characters and the writing in general, but this is not a discussion about characters and writing. Even a painter would recognize that the paint job on an airplane doesn’t matter as much as the engineering behind it, but to him it’s irrelevant, because his concern is the paint job, and getting the paint job exactly right.
I didn’t know your background, but if you’re a modeler, then try to imagine being asked to model this Enterprise for a licensed project. Would you do it based on your personal opinion of what the size should be, or would you be just as cautious with the scale as I am, starting with what the producers are constantly telling you, trying to figure out exactly what they had in mind and if necessary, try to convince them otherwise? This is not a good starting point for a paid modeling project: “Or finally, since 99% of the on screen evidence points to a ship about the same size as the TMP ship, the debate is over and the producers of the movie need a brush up on the mathematics skills.”
I imagine that as a serious modeler (and depending on available time, of course), you would try to fit John Eaves’ 12m shuttles so they look exactly like on the movie, then try to see how the bridge would fit in based on available views, then massage everything until you arrive with a best fit and present your analysis to the producers, informing them of what is really going on with their ship and the scale they had in mind. Without such an in-depth analysis, I can’t imagine dismissing behind-the-scenes production evidence out-of-hand, which is currently converging on 2379.75 feet. Not even in casual comments.
To me, there is nothing more comical than people who have their own personal “fanon” views, then quickly switch to the official line once they start working professionally, sometimes without even questioning that which should be questioned. That’s why I don’t believe in personal views and personal opinions when it comes to this subject – whether it’s a hobby or paid work, it should derive from the exact same canon hierarchy, because such an approach helps strengthen the official Star Trek universe, as opposed to creating a myriad alternate universes based on different fan views.
AH, that’s right, J.J. is an admitted Star Wars kid, NOW THAT explains why he wants to make E super-sized, as he (presumedly) feels only BIG ships matter for anything, ala a Star Destroyer (size). Makes perfect sense now.
Boris, you’re not living in reality when it comes to your production examples. You’re speaking out of turn, IMO. Artists are hired to do the job of bringing the producer and/or director’s vision to life. In the trenches (fan) workers don’t get to “collaborate” with the big wigs pullin’ the strings. They are told what to do by their bosses, just like you are at your job.
MAYBE, higher-ranking peeps, like art directors or co-producers, etc., get the ear of the producer(s) and/or director, but not working-in-the-trenches artists (including model builders).
As to the infamous “get a life” line, as a life-long Trekker, I think it’s hilarious. But I have always been the first one to laugh at myself, as I never take myself too seriously. Ya live longer and happier that way.
And I’d rather be happy than “right” any day of the week. And those that are only happy when they are right (or more feel they are seen as such), oh, that’s a fast-track to high blood pressure for sure, in my experience.
Either way, to each their own, IDIC, carry on, whatever floats one’s boat, eh. 😀
peace | deg
“Boris, you’re not living in reality when it comes to your production examples. You’re speaking out of turn, IMO. Artists are hired to do the job of bringing the producer and/or director’s vision to life. In the trenches (fan) workers don’t get to “collaborate” with the big wigs pullin’ the strings. They are told what to do by their bosses, just like you are at your job.
MAYBE, higher-ranking peeps, like art directors or co-producers, etc., get the ear of the producer(s) and/or director, but not working-in-the-trenches artists (including model builders).”
You’re focussing too much on my comments that there is always _some_ back-and-forth; in fact, I’m mainly talking about the need to follow the hierarchy you describe even in personal projects, so I agree with your description in principle – that is my canon hierarchy manifesting itself in an organizational structure.
First, there is CBS/Paramount as the ultimate canon creator, then there’s JJ Abrams, then there’s Ryan Church, then Alex Jaeger, then the guy who built the model, then the guy who may build a model based on that model etc. Of course, I’m even lower than the modeler in that hierarchy, since at least he gets to tweak a few details that the illustrator may have left vague, or that the producers didn’t care about. I only get to analyze what he did. I respect this hierarchy even though I’ve never worked on Star Trek in any official capacity and have no plans to do so, because that’s what it means having views which are consistent with the official Star Trek universe, as opposed to an unlicensed, fan derivation of it.
However, even with such a hierarchy, I imagine there is at least some back-and-forth between a modeler and his immediate supervisor, the immediate supervisor and his supervisor etc. If a fan modeler is prepared for that kind of hierarchy in his personal, fan projects, there is more of a chance to influence official works, because he is already in tune with the established framework, what the producers had in mind at the start of the project and what they’re planning to do in the future. Which modeller has the greater chance at fixing potential inconsistencies with 2379.75 feet – the one who has already analyzed the size question and the producers’ intent in-depth before starting on a project, and possibly prepared a few realistic solutions to the producers’ demands which they could review, or the one who is off campaigning for a 300m Enterprise?
At the very least, such a fan is much less likely to find himself in the comical situation I described, where his personal views are very much inconsistent with his official views, since he would’ve followed the same canon hierarchy both in his personal projects and in his official projects.
“And I’d rather be happy than “right” any day of the week. And those that are only happy when they are right (or more feel they are seen as such), oh, that’s a fast-track to high blood pressure for sure, in my experience.”
I’m happy when I’m right and unhappy when I’m wrong. 🙂 I see nothing wrong with that. There are some discussions that only have one right answer, or at least one correct approach to an answer, and at least we know that the size should be derived using the canon hierarchy, not the history of Star Trek or what looks right.
P.S. In short, I think you’re saying that because a modelmaker can’t influence the canon much because of his position in the hierarchy, he might as well give up, and so his personal views of Trek can be wildly different. I’m saying that having such a hierarchy is perfectly normal, because Paramount owns Star Trek, and if the modelmaker follows the hierarchy both in personal life and in an official capacity, at least his personal views will be much closer to his official views. 2379.75 feet in fandom, 2379.75 feet in the real world, or maybe (totally hypothetically) 1995 feet based on a detailed analysis in fandom and 2379.75 feet in the real world because the producer didn’t care about a fixing inconsistencies with this number – or, in a best case scenario, he gets to shrink it down to 1995 feet, because his analysis still fits the overall vision. However, in both cases, the goal is always to carefully follow the vision of designers and modelmakers with license to create canon and work within such a framework when proposing a size figure.
Now, I don’t feel you’re “wrong,” as this is the way you see it. And that right for you. And I do not believe in the concept that there is only one right answer to any or all discussions/questions. Reality is a product of consciousness, nothing more, nothing less, and thus is always and ever in flux, as is the nature of consciousness. The only constant is this reality equation is change. And yet, I digress, and suffer no illusions that others of the collective agreed-upon world-mind would vaguely see the nature of reality the way I do.
However, even from a earthly “reality” perspective; IMO, you read in and/or give this waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much consideration from a technical POV, as to your expectations of how it “should” be done, as opposed to how it actually is. You seem, as is common, to expect everyone de facto to all see it through your like-filters. You’re assuming a canon hierarchy of attention-to-detail as it exists in your mind, my friend. Fact is (as I understand it anywho), CBS/Paramount was more-or-less done with (canon) Trek (this evidenced by the fact that they wanted no-one from past Trek on board), but decided to turn it over to J.J. more-or-less carte blanche given his track record of “Wunderkid” proven success. A nothing (much) to lose venture. Let’s even trim his budget to make sure we don’t lose too much if the kid falls on his face and things go south.
Now, leave aside the fact that basically, the “size” (issue) seems to have been changed (and/or conceived of) willy-nilly on the fly after the fact. Heck, no-one even in the production knew what it actually was supposed to be, if I am reading these reports correctly.
Unhappy when you’re wrong? Waste of time and feeling, which ultimately amounts to energy that could be applied to something else, IMO.
So, yeah, I don’t think you’re “wrong,” I just don’t think you’re right either. At least from my POV.
But have fun doin’ waht it is you like to do. That ultimately is all that matters in life. Just don’t hurt or insult anyone along the way to do so.
peace | deg
“Now, I don’t feel you’re “wrong,” as this is the way you see it. And that right for you. And I do not believe in the concept that there is only one right answer to any or all discussions/questions. Reality is a product of consciousness, nothing more, nothing less, and thus is always and ever in flux, as is the nature of consciousness. The only constant is this reality equation is change. And yet, I digress, and suffer no illusions that others of the collective agreed-upon world-mind would vaguely see the nature of reality the way I do.”
We’re talking about a size in feet or meters, which means only a scientific approach to reality (even if it’s a fictional modification of our basic reality), which begins with a definition of what Star Trek is (Paramount property) and who has the license to determine Star Trek ship sizes (it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re right or consistent, but their views need to be proven wrong first, not the other way around); any other approach to reality is irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion.
“However, even from a earthly “reality” perspective; IMO, you read in and/or give this waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much consideration from a technical POV, as to your expectations of how it “should” be done, as opposed to how it actually is. You seem, as is common, to expect everyone de facto to all see it through your like-filters. You’re assuming a canon hierarchy of attention-to-detail as it exists in your mind, my friend.”
I know that there isn’t always such attention to detail or canon. I also know that the latest size behind-the-scenes is 2379.75 feet according to a lot of evidence, so the number and the intentions have to be examined carefully. It has nothing to do with what I like, just with what the people in charge of JJ-Trek are proposing according to their latest vision of the ship, since they’re the license holders of the version of Trek we’re discussing.
“Fact is (as I understand it anywho), CBS/Paramount was more-or-less done with (canon) Trek (this evidenced by the fact that they wanted no-one from past Trek on board), but decided to turn it over to J.J. more-or-less carte blanche given his track record of “Wunderkid” proven success. A nothing (much) to lose venture. Let’s even trim his budget to make sure we don’t lose too much if the kid falls on his face and things go south.”
We’re only discussing JJ-Trek here anyway (basically, from JJ down); the rest of the Star Trek canon is irrelevant to this particular size discussion.
“Now, leave aside the fact that basically, the “size” (issue) seems to have been changed (and/or conceived of) willy-nilly on the fly after the fact. Heck, no-one even in the production knew what it actually was supposed to be, if I am reading these reports correctly.”
I think so too, but now there is convergence on 2379.75 feet, which means one should be very careful with proposing 300-370m.
“Unhappy when you’re wrong? Waste of time and feeling, which ultimately amounts to energy that could be applied to something else, IMO.”
Well, it is a motivator for getting it right in the future. Who likes being wrong? 😉
“Just don’t hurt or insult anyone along the way to do so.”
“Get a life” in reply to my post was insulting, however it was intended. Ok, Greg didn’t mean it that seriously, but I didn’t know that and had to react, because I was insulted. I’ve had enough of such cliche Shat-derived comments about Trek fandom and this kind of hobby, which requires a lot of investigation, discussion, analysis and attention to detail. Other people may not find it interesting (that’s OK, it’s my hobby, they can have their own with different kinds of minutiae). If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t have posted anything on this topic today.
OK.
peace | deg
The ship failed to look larger than the TOS ship in any scene that didn’t have some very obvious scale ref, that was probably the biggest sin.
Using the factory as engineering was an assault of bullhocky on the eyes. They could’ve shot those scenes in my basement. My basement has tanks and pipes too.
Star Wars is now officially hard scifi compared to Trek.
Some things just need to be left alone.
The original scale of the Enterprise 1701 at approx. 300 m, is quite conceiveable and believeable for the timeframe. Many people can barely grasp this scale once they imagine actually being on board and walking the corridors. When one adds up the space of its 24 decks you realize that its the size of a small Military Base.
Also, I could see the advancements in technology and expansion of these designs in the 100 years between 1701 and 1701-D. In the Next Gen the scale was doubled (approx 600 m), however, entire families were now on board. It was now city-sized.
I am not sure where all of this information presented here came from but it clearly shows the NEW 1701 starship at 600 m and frankly, I just don’t see that happening. The Constitution Class Vessel (regardless of when we actually build them) was conceived as the first starship truly worthy of intergalactic space travel. I think Gene and Franz had it right.
….my humble opinion….