Spiky Death

[4thofeleven]

Trekmovie has an interview up with one of the concept artists that worked on the new Trek film, along with a lot of pictures. Nice to get some idea what the Romulan ship was meant to look like – I still don’t like the design, but I see what they were going for a lot better than the few shots in the movie itself…

From the interview:

“According to Clyne, he envisioned that because the ship was traveling through time (what he thought was back and forth through time), and that it had ‘contracted some kind of virus, so the ship became like an organism.’ As for the size of the ship, Clyne notes "there was a lot of debate about that, it is massive, but not as big as V’ger."

Uhuh. Well, I guess since the artist didn’t seem to be aware what the movie was actually going to be about, and instead came up with his own plot, the Romulan ship ended up looking a lot better than it had any right to…

And considering V’ger was meant to be as big as a good sized solar system, one would rather hope the new ship isn’t that big…

Comments

[fialleril.livejournal.com]

It's more than a little sad that my first thought was, "Hey, this is actually strikingly professional and well thought out compared to the Star Wars concept artists and some of their reasoning." Not to mention they hadn't the faintest idea what the movie they were drawing for was about, and were actually making up the plot as they went along.

Apparently this sort of thing is a plague in sci-fi franchises in general? And sadly the new Trek movie seems to have a relatively minor case of it, at least as compared to the Star Wars PT...

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

I guess maybe the idea is the artists will be more creative if they're not focusing too much on the specifics of what they're working on, and can have more freedom to invent things?

Although, if I were in their position, I'm not sure I'd be so quick to admit I got my ideas from a completly off-the-wall misinterpretation of the film's plot...

[fialleril.livejournal.com]

I have the three PT concept art books, and they all mention how George's approach was basically, "Hey guys, I have no idea what needs to happen in this movie, so draw me some cool space ships and we'll go from there!"

I'm not sure why anyone would want to claim that in print form.

[sunnyskywalker]

My first thought when I saw the ship was, "Hey, it's the Shadows! What do they want?"

I also find it hilarious that the concept art included hand rails. Somehow those never get built.

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

To be fair, if you're going to go with the dim lighting and bottomless pits and spiked consoles so beloved by evil overlords, it's not as if a few hand rails are going to make that much difference when it comes to safety...

[sunnyskywalker]

Handrails would make throwing intruders down to the next walkway harder, I suppose. But there's also the 25 years of just hanging around waiting for Spock for crew members to go tumbling, which could seriously mess up the Spock-capturing plans if too many of them get unsteady on their feet. Maybe they have retractable handrails and keep them in whenever there are enemies about?

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

There's apparently a cut scene that explains that Nero wasn't just hanging around killing time for quarter of a century - that he was captured by the Klingons, and only just escaped...

I guess the Klingons stole all his safety handrails as well.

[sunnyskywalker]

Ah, that explains the message from the Klingon prison planet! I thought they just ran across them by accident.

Maybe they needed the handrails for themselves. Or hoped their prisoners would fall to their deaths on their own?