The conceit with the newer aesthetics of the 23rd century look is that you're supposed to approach it no differently than you would with an actor taking over a role that was held by someone else with nobody commenting on how different they look. Or if you're watching an old TV show that started off as black and white suddenly convert to color in a later season. The Enterprise in "Q & A" isn't going to canonically be redesigned into what we saw in TOS and then redesigned again in THE MOTION PICTURE.clearspira wrote: ↑Sat Mar 21, 2020 10:02 pm The Enterprise looks fuck all like the Enterprise. There is ''updating'' the old design for the modern era, and then there is creating something that looks nothing like what it is based on.
I assume we are just meant to use willing suspension of disbelief that this ship would be completely redesigned for The Cage and then completely redesigned for The Slow Motion Picture, yeah? Well, balls to that. You are asking me to not think and I refuse to do that. I mean come off it... what is the point in-universe? Why not just make a completely new ship if you are going to gut the entire thing inside and out twice? We are talking a 95% total conversion here. Hull, equipment, technology, furniture, decor - the lot.
My fellow Brits may remember an episode of Only Fools and Horses where Trigger won a medal for claiming that he has been using the same broom for 20 years only to obliviously reveal that it has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in that time. Sooner or later, we have to admit that the 1701 in this episode and the 1701 that made it to The Search For Spock is no longer the same damn ship no matter what its registry says.
Starfleet's unending obsession with changing its uniform design is now at its zenith too. The STD design, this design, The Cage design and the TOS design all within months of each other. And we all thought that wearing the TNG and DS9 designs simultaneously in ''Generations'' was stupid.
My review: A great episode if we were watching a show called ''Star Adventure'' rather than Star Trek. But as it isn't, it isn't.
Of course this was going to rub off certain fans who treated past Trek as if it were an accurate docudrama of a specific time and that everything had to fit perfectly like reality, especially if it meant validating the dated 1960s TV sets that would look "hokey" for modern audiences that don't revere Trek like its fans. I'm glad Chuck at least with his reviews didn't give much attention to how different the production design looked for DISCO so that he could focus more on the writing of the story and characters.
I suspect part of the reason they decided to set DISCO a thousand years later starting with S3 was so they could get away from that era and focus on uncharted territory.
It was supposed to be an ongoing thing in TOS if Number One had remained a regular character beyond "The Cage". It was a way of making her seem mysterious, that she preferred to be referred to by her ship designation rather than her name so to only be known as an officer rather than a person. That's why she's very stoic and with a mind that's computer-like, traits that were transplanted into Spock's character starting with the second pilot. So it seems fitting that a Short Trek would put her and Spock stuck in a turbolift where they get a glimpse of who they are as persons and keep it to themselves.