What's up with modern ship designs?
- Thread starter astroboy
- Start date
Very happy with the above ships. The ranger is one of the ships I would love to have in a larger scale like 2 ft long.
I have seen them being referred to as toilet seats :lol
I never personally thought of them as that though
I just saw them as big lethal ships that one want to get away from Hallowed are the Ori
The JJprise is a slap in the face of everyone who worked on the original idea of the Enterprise, they knew having those giant ships on a planet made no sense on top of being hard to do effects wise. Heck Voyager only did it once and that was a gimmick to get people to watch.
Well, there was also that time Voyager crashed landed onto Hoth, or a similar ice planet at least
I guess what happens is that writers tend to forget about basic things like gravity, thermodynamics etc
Writer: "Uh 2+2 equals 67"
Nerd: You can't do that
Writer: "I just did"
Nerd: But, why?
Writer: "Makes the story better. More exciting!"
Nerd: What? No, it doesn't. Quite the contrary, makes it worse, and more dumb.
Writer: "Na-na-na-na-na I cannot hear you! Na, na, na"
You know when you are watching a film and something happens that make no sense what so ever in the context of the story but hey yes it looks really cool? Watch this art panel from Celebration 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBymKM8y0q0. Visuals ARE driving story rather than the other way around a bit more often than in the past.
It kind of explains why the stories we get are often weaker than we might expect and why certain scenes just feel like they are stuck in there against all common sense. Pay attention to the guy at 12 minutes in where he gives his reasons why the B Brick was designed as it was and it also shows just how aware of feedback from the public forums production staff are these days,
It kind of explains why the stories we get are often weaker than we might expect and why certain scenes just feel like they are stuck in there against all common sense. Pay attention to the guy at 12 minutes in where he gives his reasons why the B Brick was designed as it was and it also shows just how aware of feedback from the public forums production staff are these days,
astroboy
Master Member
The original are probably the scariest bad guy of all time. Even scarier than the Borg.I have seen them being referred to as toilet seats [emoji38]
I never personally thought of them as that though [emoji14] I just saw them as big lethal ships that one want to get away from
Hallowed are the Ori
I loved those two seasons so much. The good guys just kept losing.
So much that when they finally took out a ship in "Atlantis" it was actually a celebratory moment
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At least when it comes to Star Wars, it's fantasy, so, they basically get to do anything. Just look at our beloved lightsabers. Totally unrealistic and impossible in the real world. But still an awesome weapon/prop
I loved them too. I watched season 9 as it aired as a rerun on Swedish television, and right when it ended which was on a Thursday I jumped to my computer and ordered the season 10 dvd, which I got the following day. And I finished watching season 10 before that weekend was over
Been sad it ended ever since
Loved the movies.
Wolfsburg
Master Member
100% this!
Also totally agreed! There was a lot of creativity seen in the PT but almost all of it missed the mark for me. A lot of the ships were obviously meant to show some lineage to the later OT stuff but very little really made much sense. So much of it also looked far more advanced than what we got 20 years later in the OT.
Besides McQuarrie, I would also heavily credit Joe Johnston and Nilo Rodis-Jamero with the "look" of SW.
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After the Prequels and Clone Wars, and we had a chance to look at it all as a whole, my more "industrial designer" worldview was trying to rearrange it all into something that made more sense than what they gave us. Have the V-19s around as some sort of system-defense craft -- maybe even part of the Alderaanian Guard. A design evolution from V-Wing (still in use in some places) through the various pointy-type Jedi starfighters (not for the Jedi), eventually to the A-Wing. The Z-95 Headhunter around for over a century, evolving along the way from the bubble-canopied, swing-wing transatmopheric fighter described in Han Solo at Stars' End to something one step removed from its successor, the T-65 X-Wing. The Eta Jedi starfighters as the fighters actually flown by the clone army, as predecessors to the TIE Fighter (with the Inquisitor's TIE from Rebels as an in-between step). Keep the Y-Wing and ARC-170 (without the pointless "S-foils")...
--Jonah
How much sense does the Millennium Falcon's shape make? Or the ESB medical frigate? Or the Y-wings? Slave-1 Does the rebel blockade runner look like it could have done the Falcon's job?
Many of the classic OT ships don't make the slightest sense for their jobs. Some aren't very elegant. Some aren't even symmetrical.
Having OT cred means we will bestow them with rationalized excuses. But it's BS. We tear down the PT ships over far less.
Many of the classic OT ships don't make the slightest sense for their jobs. Some aren't very elegant. Some aren't even symmetrical.
Having OT cred means we will bestow them with rationalized excuses. But it's BS. We tear down the PT ships over far less.
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Moreorless37
Active Member
batguy, the Rebel Blockade runner was actually the Millennium Falcon at one point with the hammerhead bridge replaced by the Falcon's cockpit, then Space 1999 came out and they decided to redesign so as to not make it seem as they emulated the Eagle (just thought you would find that little nugget of info interesting if you didn't already know )
As for modern designs, I believe it is kinda boils down to the "Apple Effect", sleek, rounded, compact, and simple being what is seen as modern/futuristic, thanks in part to Apple products (well, that is what most associate with that look anyway lol). Just look at what people call the JJprise bridge, it is constantly referred to as looking like an apple store. And some of the costume designers from TFA referencing apple as somewhat of an inspiration behind the new Stormtrooper armor (I know, not a ship, but the principle still applies). Oh, and let's not forget Hollywood's recent obsession with the color blue :wacko
)As for modern designs, I believe it is kinda boils down to the "Apple Effect", sleek, rounded, compact, and simple being what is seen as modern/futuristic, thanks in part to Apple products (well, that is what most associate with that look anyway lol). Just look at what people call the JJprise bridge, it is constantly referred to as looking like an apple store. And some of the costume designers from TFA referencing apple as somewhat of an inspiration behind the new Stormtrooper armor (I know, not a ship, but the principle still applies). Oh, and let's not forget Hollywood's recent obsession with the color blue :wacko
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Yeah. My observation some posts prior was that the tech is so long established in the Star Wars universe that the designs are far less tied to function than they probably were twenty thousand years earlier. The designers and engineering firms and garage tinkerers can follow whimsy and the ships will still work just fine.
--Jonah
--Jonah
I think the thing that made a lot of the original Star Wars ships work was that at one point in time, someone looked at a real world design and said, 'Hey, that would look great as a space ship!' Take the AT-AT's, a person was looking at the huge cranes loading cargo ships in SF bay. IIRC Slave One was originally conceived from a lamp Post. The Tie's, X-Wings Falcon went through a lot of back and forth before the final designs were approved. The Battlestar Galatica and Vipers both new and old hold up well. As I mentioned before, the Ranger from Interstellar and Milano also hit a home run. FWIW, TARS from Interstellar also was mind blowing from a visual standpoint. Another testament to the design team they knew their ***** in spades. There are also some ships from GOTG, like the mining ships that were great. Ya see, a good design team will put egos aside and play off each other to make something better and better. The better the talent, the better the design. The better the design the better the visual.
Oblivion also had some great designs, specifically the bubble ship. The DropShip and Sullaco from Aliens rank up there in my head. Heck, as long as im at it, Blue Thunder, Firefox, the helicopter form The Sixth Day, and fighters from Stealth. All great designs that showed thought and skill.
As much as it pains me to say, nothing from the new SW movie grabs me besides the new trooper helmet and Tie Fighter Pilot helmets. The rest was a compromise.
Check out Alienscollections thread about movie shorts. There is some really good designs regarding ships, vehicles and costumes there. Best part is they were conceived from non Hollywood people. Just good designers with a vision of what can be......
Oblivion also had some great designs, specifically the bubble ship. The DropShip and Sullaco from Aliens rank up there in my head. Heck, as long as im at it, Blue Thunder, Firefox, the helicopter form The Sixth Day, and fighters from Stealth. All great designs that showed thought and skill.
As much as it pains me to say, nothing from the new SW movie grabs me besides the new trooper helmet and Tie Fighter Pilot helmets. The rest was a compromise.
Check out Alienscollections thread about movie shorts. There is some really good designs regarding ships, vehicles and costumes there. Best part is they were conceived from non Hollywood people. Just good designers with a vision of what can be......
@batguy, the Rebel Blockade runner was actually the Millennium Falcon at one point with the hammerhead bridge replaced by the Falcon's cockpit, then Space 1999 came out and they decided to redesign so as to not make it seem as they emulated the Eagle (just thought you would find that little nugget of info interesting if you didn't already know
Yep, I know about the RBR's backstory. That's why I compared it to the Falcon back there.
As goofy as the Falcon looks for a "cargo ship", the RBR (in its originally intended form & size) would have looked even less right for it.
TFA was such a determined retro-job that I don't even think much about that. Most of the movie was filled with one OT vehicle or another. There were a few token changes to some of them but nothing big to speak of. I'm not even gonna judge the next round of SW ships until they are ready to do something that's supposed to be fresh.
astroboy
Master Member
I remember feeling very disappointed in the Phantom menace designs. They didn't fit in the same galaxy as star wars.
But then I had this realization that the reason is that those cultures we saw in the Phantom menace aren't around any more by time to the OT. they exist. But they aren't manufacturing anything.
Those movies were for us to bear witness to a society that slowly morphs into north Korea. a culture where only the militarized government is manufacturing anything.
The prequel designers knew what they were doing. As the prequels went on, we saw glimpses of the militarized government that led the OT.
(We also have to note that both cloud city and the calimari has strikingly different designs. Both would had worked very well in the prequels)
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But then I had this realization that the reason is that those cultures we saw in the Phantom menace aren't around any more by time to the OT. they exist. But they aren't manufacturing anything.
Those movies were for us to bear witness to a society that slowly morphs into north Korea. a culture where only the militarized government is manufacturing anything.
The prequel designers knew what they were doing. As the prequels went on, we saw glimpses of the militarized government that led the OT.
(We also have to note that both cloud city and the calimari has strikingly different designs. Both would had worked very well in the prequels)
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