Another spoiler-filled bunch of comments on the new Star Trek movie -- this time, focusing exclusively on questions of visual design. Not surprisingly, it turns out that I have a lot to say about the design elements in the new movie. I make no promises about any of this being remotely interesting to anyone, as usual.
The SPOILER WARNING might not be totally necessary, since I don't really discuss the plot at all, but I'm doing it anyway, because if you haven't seen the movie you probably don't want to read lots of descriptions of the "look and feel" of the new Star Trek universe.
2 comments:
1) The first Star Trek movie without ANY "miniature" work, which makes this new Enterprise the very first Starship Enterprise that doesn't exist in physical reality. Every time you see any of the spacecraft, you're looking at digital models.They never built the Enterprise! Nobody can ever hang it in the Smithsonian!
2) The new Space Dock is a reasonably-sized station, rather than the ridiculously large floating chess pawn in Star Trek III, IV and VI. Having that unbelievably huge garage (so big that Starships can fly around inside) never made much sense, but it was a necessary part of the Search for Spock plot; there needed to be a "set of doors" for Kirk to get through in order to make that part of the story work. The "Space Dock" wasn't even a "dry dock" in the conventional sense, since that cavernous interior wasn't pressurized (the doors opened directly out to space). The whole thing made no sense, but it looked great. More the kind of thing you'd find in the Star Wars universe, in which oversized spacebound structures are de rigeur.
3) The windows! For the first time ever in any Star Trek, the bridge has a fucking set of windows so you can see outside! Big sheets of curved glass (or "space plastic" or "transparent aluminum" or whatever) through which you can see the top of the saucer section and even the huge "NCC-1701" on the hull. If you need to see a tactical display or get on the phone with someone, that image just appears on top of the window as a translucent superimposition. Brilliant! You can actually see out of the Bridge. It's the kind of thing that Lucas & Co. have been doing since 1977, but, for some reason, Star Trek's always kept up the tradition from the original show, where the bridge crew are looking at a single viewscreen no larger than a modern plasma TV (and there are no windows anywhere else on board, despite what you see on the outside of the ship.) (They fixed this in Next Generation; Ten-Forward etc.). Thanks to ILM for making it work. (They perfected the "window with a fictional view" trick for Revenge of the Sith.)
4) The shuttlecraft remain as clunky and angular as they've always been. That's obviously deliberate, since the new Enterprise has more compound curvature than any previous Enterprise. It's really got curves like a racing boat or an Italian sports car. Fantastic. (And tubular engines, like on the show!)
5) The interior spacecraft design meets with my approval for the first time since the original 1966 show. This has been a point of contention with octopunk: I regard nearly all Star Trek set design as tacky beyond words -- especially the rooms from The Next Generation, where pink chairs, purple carpeting, beige-striped walls, spherical fishtanks, chrome lamps etc. make the Enterprise D look like a Holiday Inn. Star Trek always rejected the Alien/Star Wars trend of industrialized tech interiors (with rubberized floors and pipes and wires everywhere), but the look they've come up with here (bright lights everywhere, minimalist consoles, flat-panel heads-up displays, gooseneck microphones, chrome-handled throttles (like on a speedboat) and the aforementioned windows) combines with ILM's visuals to create an amazingly real-looking and functional-seeming environment. When you go back and look at the older interiors (even in the later movies) they're hopelessly fake-looking (but well-intentioned) by contrast. I was not expecting this movie's design elements to be as totally innovative and superb as they are.
6) So, apparently they built the Enterprise on the ground. Does that mean it can take off and land from a planet? Beats me. Geeks are objecting to this.
7) Last word on design: the original font, the "real" Starfleet insignia (without any circles or ovals or other embellishment), and, of course, the original uniform designs (with skirts for the women!) are all wonderful touches, and I welcomed them all back. Why would everybody be in jumpsuits, anyway? (Or red dentists' tunics over white turtlenecks, designed to hide the age of the actors?) I never really liked that.
I'm way too intimidated by you, Jordan, to discuss design. That would be like Beethoven discussing music with Liberace.
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