This past weekend I made sure I saw the first possible showing of the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace, not so much for the movie… I wanted to be sure I caught the new Star Trek trailer on the big screen as soon as I possibly could. Being a huge Star Trek fanboy I have been waiting for the first “real” trailer for what feels like, well since I walked out of the theater after the last Star Trek movie.
I thought I’d get my obsession on, and talk about some of the new things I noticed with the new “revisioned” movie version of the Enterprise.
Over all I’d say it looks sleek, modern but has a big retro-feel to it. The few things that really jump out at me is the addition of the phaser emitters and the photon launcher that better matches what we see on the Enterprise re-fit from the original movies.
There’s no denying the great classic design of Matt Jefferies’ NCC-1701. Sure it does have a dated feel and look to it. Specifically with the main deflector dish, and the warp nacelles. We all grew up with this ship, but the truth is, it’s a dated (awesome dated, but very 60s). Even though I’ll always love it, I can see the areas a movie would want to modernize for today’s audience. It’s a fine line they have to walk between modernizing and keeping the classic retro look for the fans.
Let’s talk about the bridge for a few minutes. Always the nerve center of the Enterprise, and probably where we will see the bulk of on-ship scenes take place.
Here is a shot of the new bridge, obviously very flash, and much much larger than any bridge we have probably ever seen, even in the previous movies. Note the white arm-rests on the captain’s chair… Not sure how I feel about the look of those.
Just for some perspective, here is the classic bridge that we all know, obviously a much smaller set, as was their budget back then.
Also note the new big fancy 16:9 big screen action upgrade the Enterprise bridge is getting in the movie.
And of course, what was big for back in the day, the classic 4:3 main viewer:
The last thing I’ll make note of, at least in this post, is what I suspect is the new “warp effect”. I think we might be trading the streaking stars for a more “subspace tunnel” graphic. Here is the new, at least that I suspect. Notice that effect appears in the main view screen shot above as well.
There’s plenty more that I’ve noticed in my 100 viewings of the trailer, new transporter effect, Kirk driving a car off a cliff as a kid, new shuttles, some notes about the building of the Enterprise, etc etc. As the movie approaches and we hopefully get some more trailers I think I’ll vent some more pent-up geek energy by writing a few more posts that touch on those things.
