“Star Trek” Reveals Title, First Look At U.S.S. Discovery

Megalith

Megalith

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The new series will be called Star Trek: Discovery, and we have our first look at the starring ship. It looks to me like they drew inspiration from Ralph McQuarrie’s intended design for the cancelled Star Trek: Phase II.

There will be no Captain Kirk or Picard when the new Star Trek debuts. When CBS unveiled a teaser trailer for it at May's upfronts, the promo advertised "New Crews. New Villains. New Heroes. New Worlds." The official Trek site also confirmed that the TV series will not be connected to the feature franchise Star Trek: Beyond in any way. What's more, CBS All Access' Star Trek had to be held until January because CBS has to wait six months after the release of Beyond to avoid confusion. The first episode will air on CBS with subsequent episodes available on the network's digital and VOD platform. Netflix has international rights.
 
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This ship model looks like a Kligon D7 Battle cruiser that had a saucer section grafted to it
Not a fan of the new design

d7-views.jpg
 
What Enterprise it's called Discovery.

But all I get is
This video is not available.

I swear to all that's holy if it's geolocked I'm gonna kill myself some cbs execs.
 
That's some shitty CGI, it looks terrible.

So instead of Axanar, we get this.

M76 said:
What Enterprise it's called Discovery.

But all I get is
This video is not available.

I swear to all that's holy if it's geolocked I'm gonna kill myself some cbs execs.
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I watched it directly on youtube
 
I haven't read much into the new series, but by the looks of that ship design, I'm guessing pre-TNG and post-TOS in terms of timeline. Crappy CG aside (and why only 720p?) I'm honestly very excited to get my Star Trek TV fix.
 
SPARTAN VI said:
I'm guessing pre-TNG and post-TOS
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Looks like it's registry number is NCC-1031, which would seem to imply that it is even older than the original enterprise (NCC-1701), but also certainly much older than the 24th century, where almost all registry numbers are 5-digits.

I'm hoping it isn't a "Pre-TOS" series, as we've already tried that with Star Trek: Enterprise and while I still liked the show, it was a lame concept overall. Post-TOS might be interesting. My hope has always been that it would be Post-TNG/DS9/VOY so that we might potentially see characters that we already know in familiar roles. I wouldn't mind seeing a character like Nog now as a Lieutenant-Commander or similar, or former lieutenants or commanders now as Admirals, etc. At this point I'm just holding out hope that it has any connection to the real Star Trek universe (aka not the shit JJ Abrams movies) at all.
 
nightrider said:
This ship model looks like a Kligon D7 Battle cruiser that had a saucer section grafted to it
Not a fan of the new design

d7-views.jpg
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Exactly what I thought, but it's obviously taken from the Phase II design. Definitely not an attractive ship, it very much looks like it belongs in the 70's. I'm still excited for some new ST, but that ship isn't doing them any favors.
 
Sovereign said:
Looks like this concept from the 1977 Phase II.
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It could also be from Star Trek: Planet of the Titans.

In the interview they said it's similar to Ralph McQuarrie concept art but that legal hasn't figured out yet how to handle it. "First off, Fuller answered the question of whether the Discovery, just revealed, was based on Ralph McQuarrie’s ‘70s designs for the Enterprise. Fuller said it was, but “to a point that we can’t legally comment on it until [our legal team] figures out some things.” SOURCE

Here is some other concept art by Ralph showing the asteroid. It's clearly derived from this. The ship in 'Star Trek: Discovery' was likely inspired by vintage concept art

GotNoRice said:
I'm hoping it isn't a "Pre-TOS" series, as we've already tried that with Star Trek: Enterprise and while I still liked the show, it was a lame concept overall.
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Continuity can be an issue. I think pre-TOS is a good fit because they would be allowed more creative freedom. TOS->Star Trek (2009) timeline is pretty full.

I love the ship design but the CG quality is absolute garbage. It looks like something an amateur did. I really hope they improve the CG quality.
 
Stoly said:
That's some shitty CGI, it looks terrible.


I watched it directly on youtube
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I get the same message there as well.

BTW I already watched it from an alternate source and that CGI is really bad. i just watched the same launch sequqnce from Enterprise which was released in 2001, and they're comparable in quality. This is basically at the level of 15 year old technology at a TV show budget.
 
Yeah I was just about to say that the CGI looks extremely dated and about on the level of what was featured in Enterprise. The CGI in Enterprise was fine for a TV show 15 years ago, but looks extremely dated now.
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
Yeah I was just about to say that the CGI looks extremely dated and about on the level of what was featured in Enterprise. The CGI in Enterprise was fine for a TV show 15 years ago, but looks extremely dated now.
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CGI from Enterprise was way above this teaser.
 

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I sure hope they work on the realism of the actual CGI because that was terrible, basically no better than what they have done with Star Trek: Renegades and some other fan-produced materials.

The fact that this will be on CBS just makes me think insta-fail, it's just a gut reaction to it and I can't really say for sure why. And yes the first impression I got from seeing the Discovery from underneath was the Klingon style layout of the central aspects of the ship, it's just too similar.

With Star Trek: Beyond being a practical failure (barely $90 million worldwide so far in the last 60 hours or so (to count the Thursday night pull which was like $5.5 million) and a budget of $185 million, I don't think it'll make the ~$600 million it's going to need to profit (based on the typical Hollywood 3x formula).
 
Arguably could be a first pass CGI. But yeah, that ship looks like a Klingon rip off.
 
I think Star Trek Online has better graphics then what was presented in this trailer. Also, better looking ships too.
 
I don't think it is that bad for a pre-TOS design. It looks a lot more like what I would think of than the NX--01 ever did, or even the uninspired fan designs with Enterprise parts randomly rearranged. Sure it looks Klingon (they even play the Klingon theme music as an acknowledgement of it) but I could see the early Federation trying out ship designs based on other races. I really don't like the color though.

As for the quality of the trailer, I'm sure it was something they threw together at the last minute so they would have something to show at the convention. They did say the design wasn't set in stone yet, so this was probably just low quality test footage to get fan reaction. I'm sure from all the outrage over it they will change it.
 
Yeah, my first thought at seeing the whole thing was, its got a klingon rear end. Then right at the end of the trailer, listen carefully. Cloaking sound.
 
They probably just quickly scrambled that together before SDCC to have at least "something to show" besides the series title.

I don't really care anyway if the CGI sucks, the exterior scenes have never been the real focus of Star Trek (it's science fiction, not science fantasy like the reboot films want it to be to please dumb mass audiences). And even crappy space CGI is more acceptable to me than something like Jurassic World's plastic look, which was infinitely worse than Jurassic Park's 20 years before. In space the "requirements" are lower because they are just ships and beams and whatever.

Anyway, I too hope for post TNG/DS9/Voyager period but not holding my breath on it happening :(

Well whatever happens, I do wonder if Michael Dorn somehow manages to lobby himself in again (in at least guest starring), after failing to land his "Captain Worf" series on any network and apparently not having luck in getting that going any other way round either. Yet...

Who do you think they will manage to bring over from the past series as one-off or recurring guest stars? Even Enterprise managed this (even if not that successfully - anyone remember "These are the Voyages" lol)
so I bet it will happen in some capacity here too.
 
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So, I don't mind the design of the ship: its not the best, but I'm a human being capable of non binary thought: So I am able to say "It is not great, but this does not mean it is absolutely terrible".

What IS terrible is the CGI. I'm pretty sure 1990's Next Generation had better CGI. I noticed it as soon as I saw the asteroid station. Modern video games have more convincing visuals.
 
The only thing we can be sure of will be the presence of a large-chested alien-ish female. Starship designs come and go, but thar remains constant.

Not holding much hope for this one...
 
Now now guys, I too think this is the FUGLIEST ship I've seen in YEARS. But the show still might be good, one of the greatest shows had an astonishingly ugly ship (firefly).


... But seriously, wtf guys, we REALLY need something more inspired than this.

If the theme of the show is about discovery and science, they should have taken a page from the star trek online game luna class / science vessel.

star_trek_online__uss_ascension_01_by_aliasaa23-d7e1x3x.jpg


That design without the ugly science pod on top looks super sleek and modern and lovely. Or another variant from underneath from a novel:

latest



There are so many others designs that are more inspired than that thing.
 
I saw star trek beyond. Having said that I can see how they were worried about confusion, and needed 6 months.
Without trying to spoil anything you gotta see the movie to understand the potential concern.
 
lostinseganet said:
I saw star trek beyond. Having said that I can see how they were worried about confusion, and needed 6 months.
Without trying to spoil anything you gotta see the movie to understand the potential concern.
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I saw star trek beyond also and have no idea what you're referring to. Be less cryptic ! man !
 
Koolthulu said:
I don't think it is that bad for a pre-TOS design. It looks a lot more like what I would think of than the NX--01 ever did, or even the uninspired fan designs with Enterprise parts randomly rearranged. Sure it looks Klingon (they even play the Klingon theme music as an acknowledgement of it) but I could see the early Federation trying out ship designs based on other races. I really don't like the color though.

As for the quality of the trailer, I'm sure it was something they threw together at the last minute so they would have something to show at the convention. They did say the design wasn't set in stone yet, so this was probably just low quality test footage to get fan reaction. I'm sure from all the outrage over it they will change it.
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Maybe the humans stole a Klingon ship, and reverse engineered it? This is the result?
 
tybert7 said:
I saw star trek beyond also and have no idea what you're referring to. Be less cryptic ! man !
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I really don't want to spoil the movie for others. How about the crew of the enterprise gets on multiple federation ships in the movie. New ships, and older ships. This U.S.S. discovery is similar to the older ship
 
tybert7 said:
Now now guys, I too think this is the FUGLIEST ship I've seen in YEARS. But the show still might be good, one of the greatest shows had an astonishingly ugly ship (firefly).
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Yeah but the Firefly was purposely an ugly/plain ship (due to being a smuggling ship). I don't think this ship is ugly on purpose, just lack of time/effort (which kind of makes me worry about just how much time/effort they're putting into important things like concept and script and casting and direction, etc).
 
As hinted at elsewhere I would say this was a quick slap together for some pitch meetings.
 
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