QMx plans 34" studio scale Abrams Enterprise from new Star Trek

[GeorgeC]

I still think the Abrams-prise is an ugly-looking ship overall.

It looks okay from the front but man is it disproportionate from the side!

The first two versions of the Enterprise were definitely better-proportioned and not overdesigned unlike the rest that followed. The only other Federation ship that I really liked was the Reliant.

I have to agree about the size of the new ship, too. I'm calling B.S. on this 2300+foot business. The visual cues we have in the film (mainly the shuttlecraft) just don't support something that big.


Then again, on the original Enterprise we had an elevator/turbo shaft on the main bridge that WASN'T in line with the miniature. There have been a lot of discussions about that little discrepancy on Trek boards.

(Honestly, it was all about staging for set shots. The turbolift WAS supposed to be directly behind the Captain's chair according to the Ship plans. It got moved due to real-world considerations and the fact that the on-set directors didn't want the Captain's seat/actors blocking the view of the turbolift door. You can't imagine how many people on the Trek bulletin boards are convinced that the bridge on the {non-existent} real-life Enterprise was rotated 15-25 degrees off-center!

(There is a point at where trying to reconcile all the discrepancies in fiction just leads to madness... I've seen my fair share of fans who need to step back and realize it's just a show when all is said and done. Problem is many are way too far gone and it doesn't make a difference what you say to them at this point in time!)

 

[Bowelrock]

You guys will complain about anything sheesh its a movie just enjoy it!!! :lol

 

[phase pistol]

I'm prepared to buy the 2300 foot length or whatever it is, because that would make the ship really really BIG, whcih you need in order to fit an entire brewery in there. :rolleyes

Re the shuttlecraft, good point but I believe the shuttle bay on this ship is smaller than you'd expect, because the secondary hull is tapered much more acutely towards the rear there. The bay doors are much smaller than they'd be proportionally if the Refit were just scaled up.

What gets ME though, is that if the ship is more than twice the length of the Refit, then the details on the saucer are all wrong. There would be windows eery OTHER deck... and huge windows at that. I guess I just chafe at the fact that they used the TMP details on the saucer at all. :rolleyes

Interestingly the new Bridge has got a two doors at the rear.. one is a turbolift, similar to the offset Port location of the doors on the Classical Bridge... but the Starboard doors lead to a maze of corridors!

 

[ave4uevoli]

I may have missed this.. but what scale is a 34" abrams enterprise?

I notice that the abrams enterprise is about twice the length of the tos enterprise... making the abrams enterprise roughly the same size as the Enterprise D.

rels 1:650 scale enterprise D is about 3 feet long right? So that'll actually make the abrams 34" enterprise 1:650?

What do you think? I did most of the analysis above by "eye" comparison on my ipod (yes, I have a ship comparison chart on my ipod touch.. i'm a geek)... but does that sound about right?

 

[Wolvster1]

Depends on " whom " you talk to... :lol

I know for a FACT that the information that QMX
was given for their " version " of the ship they
" believed " it was 350 scale...

Then again, Round 2 was at Wonderfest and THEY
have information in hand for " their " ship and theirs
is going to be just over 11 inches at 2500 scale !

The PROBLEM here is you cannot blame ANYONE who
got a License to make a ship as one after ANOTHER is
given conflicting information..

{ And yes, I cannot get into it but I know of a THIRD
scale too.. WISH I could tell, but it's another mess ! } :rolleyes


So, there WILL be this argument for a very long time
as the POWERS THAT BE that started this mess keep it
going !!!! :confused

 

[GeneralFROSTY]

I just want a BIG model of this ship. Like I said before, really crossing my fingures that Polar Lights goes with a kit that is around the size of thier monster refit kit.

 

[Mercury]

Slightly off topic, but seeing that many fans weren't too fond of the new Enterprise design, what are your thoughts regarding the design after seeing different angle shots of this model?

Still don't like it?
Looks worse?
Looks slightly better?
Growing on you?
love it?


DS

Seen it and still don't like it. The saucer is fine but the nacelles, engineering hull and pylons are totally screwed up IMHO.

This is the direction they should have gone. A more militaristic version that evolved because of the Kelvin encounter.

The one they went with is just too strange looking to me. The exaggerated nacelles, the enterprise D lower hull, and the upside down bow-legged pylons are not appealing.

 

[phase pistol]

This scale issue shows how Star Trek has really swerved over into Star Wars territory now. :lol

How big is the Enterprise? How big is the Death Star. Doesn't really matter, does it. :rolleyes

You can just hear 'em in the production office trying to figure it out... "how big is the Enterprise?" "I dunno." "Well how big was the ORIGINAL one?" (google is consulted) "Uh.. which original one? There are like ten different Enterprises.":lol

So maybe they got confused, picked a number for the Enterprise-D, and made it "a little bigger". Oops. :unsure

Or maybe they KNEW the TOS ship was under 1000 feet long, but Abrams was like, "make it bigger! TWICE as big! MORE than twice as big!!!!" And then he did a little dance to show his enthusiasm. :sleep

Or, more likely, nobody EVER bothered to figure out how big the ship would be, but in retrospect somebody pulled "2500 feet" out of the air, because they need to say SOMETHING on the merchandising materials, and that number makes the ship big enough to plausibly fit everything in there.

Somebody prove me wrong with the real story. :lol

 

[CTF]

How big is the Enterprise? How big is the Death Star. Doesn't really matter, does it. :rolleyes

It does matter. It is nice to know the size of something in relation to another.

 

[GeneralFROSTY]

I thought the size of the new E looked fine. I did not notice it looking 'way bigger' than the original or anything - we do, however, see it's scale when compared to the shuttle crafts, which does give us an idea of how big it is in relation to people.
If there is a size issue (the story of my life) then I hope the producers and Abrams will fix this in the next installment.
In the meantime, lets all take a breath and remember...it's only a movie. And if it's all for real, I'm sure the Thermians will come pay us a visit and set things straight.

 

[phase pistol]

It does matter. It is nice to know the size of something in relation to another.

I'd like to think it matters, but to the telling of that story, it doesn't really matter. The Death Star is big enough so that a giant hangar bay is just a mere dot on its equator. How come the superlaser lens is in the northern hemisphere on the model, but on the "equator" in the blueprint data tapes? And just where is that damn trench with the thermal exhaust port, supposed to be. :lol

I picked on Star Wars (probably unfairly) because I have always been bugged by what appear to be inconsistencies or lapses in science-fictional logic. How can those little X-wing fighters travel between solar systems. :lol How far from Hoth is Dagobah (and how long does Luke stay there being trained by Yoda?).

This is all stuff that bugged me while watching the films. I know folks have gone back in the 30 years since then, and figured out answers to just about every one of these questions. But in the films themselves, we just have to accept these things and forge ahead.

I don't mean to hijack a Star Trek thread and turn it into a Star Wars thread... my point was that, now Star Trek is one of those type of shows where you have to swallow inconsistencies and apparent lapses of scientific logic.

- k

 

[WinstonWolf359]

What confuses me the most about the whole scale debate is I'm not sure exactly what we gain if the ship is 1000 ft long or 2500 ft long. Is it important that the new ship is the same size as the TOS ship? Is the possibility it is bigger just yet another reason to hate it?

There are tons of scale discrepancies with the TOS E as well, but most people let those slide...

Personally, just while watching the movie the first time, with no advance idea the stated size of the ship was over 2000 feet, I already had the sense that the ship was huge. That Nu E shuttlebay looks significantly bigger than the one on the TOS Enterprise, which was only about 30' high. Or the front window/viewscreen on the bridge, which looks at least 8' tall, maybe more, but looks positively tiny from the outside.

In the end, I suppose it doesn't really matter that much to me which side of the scale debate "wins." It is what it is, and with a ship that looks like that, there are plenty of other things to be concerned about besides how long it is...

 

[phase pistol]

What it means is that I can't eagerly anticipate a "Technical Manual" for this particular Star Trek. :rolleyes

Let's face it, this sort of thing is FUN. How does the warp drive work? Where is the ship's bowling alley? :lol

Abrams has given us a HUGE new Enterprise... the size of a Battlestar. So there could be all sorts of stuff in there. I'm not impressed by the stuff he showed us IN the movie, but still. :rolleyes

And you're right about inconsistencies in the series-es and films that came before... for example, the TMP refit (supposedly the same actual vessel that was in TOS, but largely rebuilt), has a huge hangar deck that integrates an enormous cargo storage area. This takes up a good portion of the secondary hull.

But in Star Trek V, the hangar deck is suddenly back to being a little room the size of the one in the original series (although technically since the 1701-A is a new vessel, this is not really "impossible", just odd).

 

[WinstonWolf359]

Oh dear god I'd forgotten about that Trek V shuttlebay... And hopefully I will again very soon.

And I totally agree it's fun to debate these kinds of things, I just get a little weary sometimes when one side feels like their opinion has to "win."

And I do greatly appreciate it when these kinds of things are internally consistent, and I freely admit I've spent way more than my fair share of time poring over blueprints and tech manuals to completely discount the importance of the scale concerns. I guess I've just reached a point where I'm willing to take some things on faith and not whip out a ruler and hold it up against my monitor. Too much. :$

I actually am looking forward to some kind of "Art Of" or tech manual for the new movie. I'm really surprised, actually there isn't something already on the shelf. I'd like to know more and see more of what they did for the new film, see more of all of those other ship designs, and perhaps get an authoritative opinion on just how big the damn ship really is.

 

[Bryancd]

Now HERES an interesting rumor just relayed to me by someone who worked on the film (and shall remain nameless). APPARENTLY the scale issues ARE related to the interior set design specifically Engineering which was one of the last scenes shot. There was no more money for an elaborate engineering set to be built and so JJ was told to make do hence the Brewery. The brewery scenes dictated a size and scale that differed from the INTENDED size of the enterprise which even as as far back as the original trailer with the welders on the saucer indicated a size more in keeping with TMP. It seems this uncertainty from multiple AUTHORIZED sources as to the size of the ship is because they are now saying it is bigger then they had intended it to be but just not sure how much.

I think this is the most likely explanation for the size confusion. Dollars to donuts we see a proper Main Engineering in the next film.

 

[GeneralFROSTY]

"Size matters not..."
"That's a big ship!" - "Not so big as her Captain..."

 

[Bryancd]

OK, here is some scaling I can live with... This scaling would make it 450 meters.

 

[WinstonWolf359]

It doesn't seem to me you could stack those large shuttles two high (with room to spare) in the Nu E's shuttlebay like was seen in the film.

 

[Drakonnen]

Seen it and still don't like it. The saucer is fine but the nacelles, engineering hull and pylons are totally screwed up IMHO.

This is the direction they should have gone. A more militaristic version that evolved because of the Kelvin encounter.

The one they went with is just too strange looking to me. The exaggerated nacelles, the enterprise D lower hull, and the upside down bow-legged pylons are not appealing.

Everytime I see that Enterprise version, I feel like I'm watching badly done made for TV sci-fi trying too hard to look cool.

 

[WinstonWolf359]

I'm not fond of Gebe Kerner's Enterprise either. It's interesting, but I feel like it's covered with detail for detail's sake. And dare I say it, the nacelles look too small. :$

One of my biggest concerns with the Nu E is the disparity between the significantly tweaked shapes and proportions of the engines and secondary hull, and the almost exact copy of the TMP refit primary hull. I think if the saucer had been altered more it would mesh a little better, design-wise, with the rest of the ship.

Of course, I've never seen any other "reimagined" Enterprises that were able to really make any changes to the saucer either. Even Kerner's E basically has the refit saucer on top of a more tweaked secondary hull...perhaps that's the biggest problem with any updating of the Enterprise design: without that one constant, the shape of the saucer, it no longer could be The Enterprise