🎥 The Evolution of Starship Design in Star Trek

[@augiegirl1]

You missed the Sovereign Class E!

[@Bubbleguts1964]

Why no mention of the Enterprise B or C

[@PaulPoddingham]

Thank you, a great roundup! My only quibble would be that whilst the refit did indeed set the visual language of the movies, and series, to come, it itself was a relatively minor reworking of Matt Jefferies' (original Enterprise designer) Phase II design, and I think that it deserves it's place in history.
🙂❤️🖖

[@Ljordan093]

Where’s the Enterprise E?

[@bsharp3281]

Space is so cloudy in the new shows. I miss the clean look of space in TOS. I miss the stars when they looked like diamonds on a black velvet

[@TREK-WORLD]

Understood. There was something magical about space back then. I guess it was because it so strongly resembled the way we see space with our naked eyes here on Earth. Just blackness with pinpricks of light.

[@logandarklighter]

@@TREK-WORLD And in truth - space with pretty lit-from-within nebula like the mutara nebula that are easily seen by the naked eye would be incredibly rare. Usually at best you’d have something like the Pleiades cluster with gas and dust streamers being faintly lit by the nursery of A and B type giant stars within. And that only from an outside perspective. Inside any potential solar system within that cluster the brightness of the primary star would wash out any subtle details and space would look black again by comparison.
The space sim game Elite Dangerous actually does a pretty good job of portraying this. It does compromise somewhat. Inside a planetary nebula lit from within by - say - a White Dwarf or Neutron star, you still won’t see “space clouds” but space itself will be the color of the planetary nebula. In most cases a uniform deep blue instead of black. Now - if you’re lucky enough to have a gas giant with rings inside that same system and it is close enough to either the Neutron Star or a brighter main sequence binary companion - NOW you’re starting to get into 70s “Prog Rock Album Cover” territory! 👍😁

[@TREK-WORLD]

😀

[@deepskymike767]

TOS enterprise is my favourite ship. Spent most of my high school days drawing it in my text books (never got it right). TMP refit has the best exterior look but I though they ruined the corridors. They were so narrow compared to the original. LLAP 🇬🇧

[@TREK-WORLD]

You know, I think I feel the same way. I've never liked the corridors in TMP. Everything seemed so crowded.

[@timrathbone7093]

Did you not notice the many variations of the Kelvin enterprise? Take a close look at the many variations.

[@TREK-WORLD]

Yeah, I've noticed that. The nacelles are closer together on one of them. Ironically, it's because they went to CGI that makes these things easier to happen. If they had gone with a physica; model, then basic fundamental changes in attributes would happen like this.

[@timrathbone7093]

@TREK-WORLD I prefer models to cgi much cheaper and faster to build. I have a friend Bruce McRae who built models for the movies. Here is his cv
Tim Rathbone TV Movies 4, series 13
1975 Star Watch Murder Mysteries (Magicam) TV movie
1978 Project :UFO (BPMM) TV series
1979 Big Shamus, Little Shamus (20th Century Fox) TV series
1987 Max Headroom (Image) TV series
1987 The Highwayman (Boss Films) TV series
1988 Earth Star Voyager (Boss Films) TV series
1989 HBO's Tale of the Crypt (Boss Films) TV series
1989 ST Next Generation (Greg Jein) TV series
1991 The Tower (Introvision) TV movie
1992 Deep Space 9 (Greg Jein) TV series
1992 Amazing Live Sea Monkey TV series
1993 Viper (Greg Jein) TV series
1994 Night Watch (Dave Sharp)
1994 Project Manpower (Dave Sharp)
1995 Osiris Chronicles (Dreamquest) TV series
2000 Rose Red (CPS) TV movie
2001 Enterprise TV pilot (Paramount Studio) TV series
2005 Category 7 (CPS) TV movie
2005 Passions (CPS) TV series
TV Commercials
1980 Sand Hotel model for Atlantic City, (BPMM)
1982 Mercury Car model, for Mercury (BPMM)
1983 Chevy with Bob Hope, (BPMM)
1983 Trans American model, (BPMM)
1983 Footlocker Space Ship for Superbowl (BPMM)
1983 Winston Sci-Fi, for Winston Cigarette in Japan, (Parxis)
1984 Chevy Future Factor for Superbowl (BPMM)
1987 Suez Canal, French co. (SVS)
1988 Sunkist vignettes, for Sunkist (SVS)
1989 DHL (Boss Films)
1990 Bud Bowl, Superbowl (Boss Films)
1990 Reynolds Wrap Bill Board, (SVS)
1990 Bus Stop, Phillip Morris for Japan (Boss Films)
1990 Farfigknen for Volkswagen (Dreamquest)
1991 New York Street for Sony (Dreamquest)
1991 Maxi Computer board for Cigna (Dreamquest)
1992 DHL Flying van (Boss Films)
1994 Union gas station for Union 76 (Boss Films)
1995 Taco Bell models for Taco Bell (Digital Domain)
2005 Toy Fair (Plan-B)
2005 Villains for Super Bowl (Budweiser)
Theme Park
1974 Show Ride (Trumbull)
1988 Universal Tours ride, (Boss Films)
1991 Horizons Theme park in Japan (Boss Films)
1992 Luxor 3D Ride for the Luxor Las Vegas Hotel ( Trumbull TCI)
1995 Terminator 3D for Universal, CA (Digital Domain)
1995? America? (Dreamquest)

[@TREK-WORLD]

So cool! Looks like he's been doing a whole lot of fun stuff for a *long* time! Interestingly enough, I see the Magicam credit in 75 - by any chance to you know if he was involved or at least aware of the Phase 2/TMP project when it was initially with them?

[@logandarklighter]

No mention of Excelsior or Reliant? Seems to me that those two ships are VERY important! They were the first two Federation ship designs OTHER than the Enterprise or her sister Constitution class vessels that were ever seen ON SCREEN. Yes - there had been ships designed on paper before. Starfleet Battles extrapolated MANY designs! And there were uncounted fan designs for ships. But Reliant and Excelsior were the first OFFICIAL designs other than Enterprise ever seen!

[@TREK-WORLD]

Hi there! With the exception of the JJ Connie, I wanted to limit my video to the "hero" ship of each TV series at most. So that's why you don't see any other of the major ship designs. I considered the Phoenix since it was the first warp ship - but realized I would have a video at least twice the size in the end. But you HAVE given me an idea. It may be neat to do a video that centers onlyon the various movie ships.

[@logandarklighter]

@@TREK-WORLD Aha! That makes sense. And yay! 😀

[@HunterSchoumacher]

IMO the ship design peaked in 1979. Nothing since has been as impressive.

[@obsoletebutneat]

I think it all got a lot less interesting after that.

[@Warped9]

Agreed after 1979 it got progressively ugly.

[@Anth230]

so basically just the Tmp constitution class, Tmp Klingon D7 and TOS constitution, Romulan Bird Of prey and TOS Klingon D7...everything after was not as impressive?

[@anthonyx916]

Maybe because my first exposure to Star Trek was TOS (in its original run), I never cared for the aesthetics of many of the subsequent starships for various reasons. I thought the 1979 movie "refit" Enterprise nacelles called to mind a '57 Chevy, the 1701-D just looked weird (although the interiors looked good), the 2009 reboot Enterprise had all kinds of issues from a weird exterior shape to way over-the-top lens-flared interiors, not to mention the ridiculously oversized plumber's nightmare engineering section. Defiant and Voyager were OK because they weren't supposed to be the same ship or anything like it. The NX-01 just didn't seem right because, for what was supposed to be a precursor, to me it had an aesthetic more like a successor to the TOS Enterprise. As for Discovery, I don't even want to go there.
BTW you never mentioned the 1701-B or 1701-C (each of which was represented at least once in either a movie or series episode either by itself or sister ship in its class).

[@Warped9]

From JJtrek onward the designs got truly ugly and ill-conceived. I can’t stand looking at them.

[@KnightRiderowner]

Forgot the f

[@cbspock1701]

I count zero after Enterprise ended since Kurtzman Drek is for the brain dead zombies who just slurp up the brand. Nothing makes sense in it for design etc

I like the Discovery series, however, it’s design reminds me of a pizza cutter and it’s spinning saucer section seems way too “advanced”, considering the Enterprise is considered the flagship in this series, as well.

[@RichardEKranz]

Everything after The Motion Picture Enterprise was just gibberish. )p