The Enterprise is Already Under Attack! By Fanboys of Course…
Despite the speed of my RSS reader I first learned about the Enterprise redesign via an angry chain email from a fellow fanboy who was quite pissed that J.J. Abrams was ruining everyones beloved starship. Well it seems the reaction was so bad to the new designs that movie production designer Ryan Church posted a online defense of fan criticism:
“I’m not going to get involved in the mud slinging, here, but needed to assure you guys and gals: we’ve built you a fine ship. To clarify: there’s a slight optical illusion occurring here, consequence of the “camera” angle. For Rick and others who worry the nacelles don’t have a clear line of sight over the disc — they, in fact, do. We were hardly working in a vacuum. I raided ILM reference photos like a madman. We were deferential to “inviolates” of Star Trek design vocabulary. Additionally, the profile here isn’t 100% representative, because, as you’ve noticed, the Bussards are dimmed. The true profile of the nacelles may or may not be revealed here, and that’s all I’ll say.”
As for me I don’t think the design looks that bad — at the end of the day the real question for me is if J.J. Abrams can pull off bringing the series back to life for a new audience. The fanboy in me wishes that they’ll stay true to what made the series great, and on a sentimental note I would like to see a Williams Shatner cameo too.
However being a Star Trek fans since the 70s I’ve had my ups and downs with the series, and I find myself not always agreeing with my fellow fanboys. For example for many folks today Star Trek: The Next Generation is THE show that they grew up with — however I still hate it to this day. And while I loved Deep Space Nine and Enterprise many a fanboy hated those two shows. So my hope is a modest one: Not that this should be the best Star Trek film ever produced (hard to top Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan anyway), but that it allows the series to “live long and prosper” so to speak…