Re: JJ AMBRANS Enterprise
To preface this, I should say that I'm a Trek fan, but not a Trekkie. I own the whole original series and enjoy it both for its excellent sci-fi stories and for its cheesy campy fun. When I watch TOS, I watch it on the first "color case" DVD releases because I like seeing the old effects. For their time they were pretty damn good and I appreciate that. I also really enjoyed TNG. Past that point I pretty much stopped watching. Didn't watch DS9 or Voyager except for the occasional episode, and didn't watch much of Enterprise after the first few episodes of the first season. I loved First Contact, although I recognized that it broke a lot of continuity stuff -- but that's something that I've come to expect from a universe as sprawling as Trek.
In my opinion, Trek needs a "Crisis on Infinite Worlds" to rectify continuity, or someone has to take a friggin' stand about what's in and what's out. The development from TOS and the TOS movies through to TNG made sense. As with the developments in DS9, Voyager, and the TNG movies (which sucked in the last two, by the way). Enterprise broke things, for me, though in that it seemed more futuristic than TOS. And therein lies your problem. You have, at the core, a 1960s era design sensibility in TOS clashing with 1990s-and-beyond design sensibilities and as far as I can tell, visually speaking, there is no way to explain the differences given what is now "canon" as what came before. With Enterprise, you open the door to pretty much chucking TOS out the window.
So, I go into the Abrams film expecting a complete reboot, which, in my view, negates all that came before (much like with the Bond series and the Batman series). Go ahead and watch the originals, but don't expect Abrams to be anything but a full reboot that maintains ELEMENTS of the original.
Ok, that said, here are my thoughts:
1.) On the ship design, my take is...meh. I'm totally neutral about it. I agree that it looks less functional and more stylish for the sake of being stylish. I accept SOME of that, but I agree that the doctored photos look way better than the official one.
2.) When did "red" cease to be futuristic and only "blue" or "green" counted? I think it might've been with The Matrix and their whole "green" theme. Or maybe apple with its iMac white and "blue" theme. Anyway, don't throw "red" out, in my opinion.
3.) The proportions DO look funky. Like, "hot rod" Enterprise with those suped-up engine nacelles. The saucer is really really big, but the engines are even bigger. Some of that strikes me as the "change for change's sake" issue, but again, given that I see this film as a total reboot, I don't expect anything else.
I think the biggest problem with "Where the hell does THIS fit in the continuity?!" issue is the inclusion of Leonard Nimoy. By including him, it's as if the producers are saying that the new film SOMEHOW connects to the original TV series (and TOS films), without explaining how you reconcile all the OTHER obvious differences.
My advice? Rather than go through mental contortions over fitting the new film into the old continuity, try looking at it from a different angle. Namely, that Leonard Nimoy's inclusion is purely a marketing ploy. That's it. His presence does not denote ANY connection to the original series or the overall continuity. Any statements to the contrary are LIES designed to placate fans who can't handle a reboot.
IF you can accept the concept of a reboot in general, then it's far easier to look at Nimoy's presence as little more than a marketing ploy, and treat everythign else as brand new continuity from her on out. Much like Judi Dench's appearance in Casino Royale, the new Bond films have no continuity with the old ones. None. Whatsoever. She's there, yes, but it doesn't actually mean anything. Just a familiar face to perhaps make the transition a little less jarring. Same thing with Nimoy in this new Trek film. He's just a familiar face to ease the transition into AN ENTIRELY NEW CONTINUITY.
Now, all that aside, if you STILL think the design looks fugly, I can't say I disagree with you too much. It certainly looks less oriented around function and far more oriented around style. To me it's like this. Imagine the era of wooden ships. Sure, they had some aspects that were PURELY for style or looks (IE: the ship's figurehead), but mostly the beauty of the ship's design came in how elegantly you could do something for functional purposes. You sure as hell weren't going to NOT do the functional thing, but if you could do so elegantly, you would. That's where this ship seems to lose it. It's TOO "pretty" (perhaps "stylistic" is a better word) with no real reason behind the styling except "Uh....it looks cool." Yes, it may look cool, but it also seems to contradict function. If they can explain it away, then fine, it's just a question of aesthetics then. But I think they could've paid more attention to function over form, or at least tried to blend the two better.
Outside of that, like I said, treat the whole thing as a 100% reboot and it may make it easier to handle.