Ambassador Class Variations

[Arpy]

except that tuvok and that guy aren’t really identical, as mentioned above. Sure, same actor, but the makeup is different enough to differentiate them.

Disagree. Pointed ears and shaved eyebrows are insufficient. Again, they are completely identical except for minor Vulcan differences. For the sake of argument chop off his ears and brows, everything that remains simply does not happen in the real world.

By the way, did tuvok also commit piracy on the enterprise in starship mine?

No, that was a his brother S’tanley.

 

[jackoverfull]

Disagree. Pointed ears and shaved eyebrows are insufficient. Again, they are completely identical except for minor Vulcan differences. For the sake of argument chop off his ears and brows, everything that remains simply does not happen in the real world.

you don’t know that for certain.

No, that was a his brother S’tanley

Ah, right. Sure. Whatever.

 

[Arpy]

you don’t know that for certain.

And you don’t know that a Flying Spaghetti Monster isn’t the ruler of the Universe…but you know.

There have been a lot of globally recognized people for a long time, and yet the best professional lookalikes are easily enough discernible as different. And again, even among identical twins there are differences. And the same will likely be for clones. Tim Russ on the other hand is 100% identical to Tim Russ.

Also, all that’s leaving alone the insane unlikelihood that different species would create doppelgängers at the exact same moment in time, to both serve on Federation Excelsior Classes, and then to producing a third doppelgänger a century later to be a criminal on another Enterprise.

And, what, Spock didn’t recognize his own father’s 100% doppelgänger on the Romulan bridge? Or the insanity of Christine Chapel being Number One’s doppelgänger? Or fellow Federation Ambassador Troi being a third doppelgänger? And their voice being that of the computer? It’s a wonder he didn’t think he was mentally ill.

I’m sorry, really, but there are no real 100% doppelgängers in the real world, and neither near nor identical doppelgängers would make any of that work in Trek. It is a TV show, and if you don’t accept that, you don’t accept Star Trek.

Ah, right. Sure. Whatever.

S’tanley never got mother’s affection either.

 

[jackoverfull]

And you don’t know that a Flying Spaghetti Monster isn’t the ruler of the Universe…but you know.

i’m pastafarian.

You seem to make a point opposite to your previous point.

 

[Arpy]

i’m pastafarian.

You seem to make a point opposite to your previous point.

Care to elaborate?

Though I’m more interested in the which ships you’d replace with which question. Or reused matte paintings for that matter.

 

[jackoverfull]

I thought you were of the idea that tuvok and that guy on the enterprise-b were supposed to be the same person, but in your last post you seem of the opposite opinion for all the other instances where the same actor played two different characters.

I don’t think I would change any ship…Perhaps the huge BoPs in episodes such as Yesterday’s Enterprise, but in most cases I don’t think there are really problematic stuff.

OK, the excelsior class ship that goes against the defiant was a bit far fetched perhaps, but not by that much…also not a fan of the copypaste fleets in Picard and the lack of tos-looking ships in discovery but, again, I can live with it.

I’m a huge fan of the ent-c, so I definitely wouldn’t replace it with the previous version.

 

[yotsuya]

The resolution of TV and Film hasn't really been up to showing the level of detail that you can tell identical twins apart by. So you really can't argue that you can tell when the same actor play both and when actual twins play both (there are things about the production that you can pick out, but often the actors are so good that they can play two parts to perfection). In Harry Potter, Fred and George are actual twins. I can't tell them apart on screen. I can think of quite a few cases where they hired identical twins and you really can't tell them apart.

I count a real life doppelgänger as a case where the differences are so minor that no reasonable person can tell them apart. That does exist. As you pointed out, identical twins are not perfectly identical, but many of them manage to swap places and confuse those around them. If they do it often enough their parents and siblings start to pick up on those tiny differences and get better at telling them apart, but there are plenty of situations in the real world where two unrelated people are so identical that they can fool people. I draw the bar at what any reasonable person can detect, not being perfectly identical down to the cell. The bar you are setting is not reasonable to the concept.

 

[yotsuya]

The only thing about the special effects I would change and so I ignore are the bad scalings in so many episodes. With models in so many sizes, they FX teams were tasked with making a composite that looked good. They achieved that. But rarely were they able to achieve accurate scaling. I really don't accept that there was a larger BOP. The only inkling that it might be intentional was that the DS9 tech manual lists two sizes as different classes.

I take the wall in the Ent D conference room as canon to scale each of the classes, but what we have on that wall is the class ship for each. They obviously knew that 1701-A was the refit, but they missed that on B and C. So that is the Excelsior and the Ambassador on that wall, not Enterprise B or C. But the models are wrong in many details. And they are not full models but artistic representations. So some of the dimensions and details can be different on the actual ships represented. But Probert (and by extrapolation, the in universe artist who designed the wall) was very exact on the length of each ship represented so that dimension is accurate.

There are probably cases where they used the wrong model. We know they recycled many of the models and modified them for different appearances. But unless they do a remaster and fix it, there is no alternate but the model they used. TOS adds a complication to this because while they used a limited number of models for the Enterprise, they modified the models during the course of production from 1964 to 1968 and they used the stock footage interchangeably so you have one show that is from the pilot mixed in with one from the series. So I make some allowance for things like that. For me the Excelsior exists as the first studio model and all appearances by Greg Jein's model do not represent a variation on the class, but represent the original. The remastered TOS gave us some different ships. It added in some other appearances of the Klingon Battlecruiser, gave us actual designs where TOS originally used just light FX. Use a totally different design for the Aurora where TOS originally used a backward Tholian ship with TOS era nacelles. So I am willing to entertain different ship designs from what was originally done on budget, but I prefer there be something official to base it on.

 

[Dukhat]

TOS-R was hit or miss. In cases where there wasn't an original ship shown on screen (the Gorn ship, the Antares, etc.) I think they did a good job with making new stuff. But when they replaced an old ship with a new one (the Tholian ship, the Aurora, the Woden, the 'small scout ship' from "Friday's Child" now a D7, etc.), I think they went overboard. I would have preferred they just made the ships look exactly like how they looked originally, just with better CGI models. Completely changing the designs just didn't feel like they were respecting what came before, warts and all.

 

[Arpy]

I don’t think I would change any ship…Perhaps the huge BoPs in episodes such as Yesterday’s Enterprise, but in most cases I don’t think there are really problematic stuff.

Yup.

The resolution of TV and Film hasn't really been up to showing the level of detail that you can tell identical twins apart by. So you really can't argue that you can tell when the same actor play both and when actual twins play both.

I beg to differ.

(there are things about the production that you can pick out, but often the actors are so good that they can play two parts to perfection).

The issue isn’t that they’re not great in the parts or that you’d want anyone else in them. Just that you accept that it’s a TV show and sometimes they reuse actors, usually to our delight.

The only thing about the special effects I would change and so I ignore are the bad scalings in so many episodes. With models in so many sizes, they FX teams were tasked with making a composite that looked good. They achieved that. But rarely were they able to achieve accurate scaling. I really don't accept that there was a larger BOP.

Yeah, it would be great if remasters fixed some of the scaling issues. Modern audiences are more sophisticated and enjoy greater verisimilitude.

The remastered TOS gave us some different ships. It added in some other appearances of the Klingon Battlecruiser, gave us actual designs where TOS originally used just light FX. Use a totally different design for the Aurora where TOS originally used a backward Tholian ship with TOS era nacelles. So I am willing to entertain different ship designs from what was originally done on budget, but I prefer there be something official to base it on.

I didn’t like the “cinematography” of the remastered effects shots (wasn’t sufficiently 60’s-ish), but it was great to get new ships in the place of reused ones, especially for ones that didn’t fit the period – like the reused Botany Bay.

 

[jackoverfull]

The problem with tos-r for me was that the models just had a very CGI feel to them, they tended to look very fake, even the enterprise. I understand why they had to do it, but i wish they either had a better budget or waited a few years.

 

[Vale]

Pity the poor Ambassador class, the ugly stepchild of the Star Trek starships.

It's one of my favourites! I'd go as far as to say that the Probert original/Richter CGI version is probably my single favourite Starfleet ship design ever. Never mind the Enterprise-C, I wish the Enterprise-D had looked like that.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

But when they replaced an old ship with a new one (the Tholian ship, the Aurora, the Woden, the 'small scout ship' from "Friday's Child" now a D7, etc.), I think they went overboard.

The "small scout ship" was particularly egregious.

The Raptor-class model from Enterprise would be been a more logical choice, even they wanted to avoid using one of the KBoP models as the RBoP was "in" at the time.

YMMV.

 

[Dukhat]

The "small scout ship" was particularly egregious.

The Raptor-class model from Enterprise would be been a more logical choice, even they wanted to avoid using one of the KBoP models as the RBoP was "in" at the time.

YMMV.

I wasn’t suggesting that they use anything that didn’t look out of the ordinary for the TOS era. The KBoP or the Raptor would not have worked. I would rather they had just replicated the glowing object they used for the original shot, with perhaps showing a little more of what the structure actually looked like.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

That would also have been an option.

I was just offering alternatives for how they could have done in line with what they did better.

YMMV, but given that vessels that generally conform to the template of "Klingon Bird of Prey" and indeed "Klingon battlecruiser" existed for an extended period both before and after the TOS era, then there's no particular reason why such a vessel -- or indeed the Raptopr -- couldn't save existed during the TOS era, indeed a "small scout ship" pretty much describes the role that the KBoP has filled for most of it's appearances.

 

[yotsuya]

The problem with tos-r for me was that the models just had a very CGI feel to them, they tended to look very fake, even the enterprise. I understand why they had to do it, but i wish they either had a better budget or waited a few years.

And there you nailed my major objection. I love the composition, but when compared side by side, I think the original shots look more real and the TOS-R just look animated.

 

[yotsuya]

TOS-R was hit or miss. In cases where there wasn't an original ship shown on screen (the Gorn ship, the Antares, etc.) I think they did a good job with making new stuff. But when they replaced an old ship with a new one (the Tholian ship, the Aurora, the Woden, the 'small scout ship' from "Friday's Child" now a D7, etc.), I think they went overboard. I would have preferred they just made the ships look exactly like how they looked originally, just with better CGI models. Completely changing the designs just didn't feel like they were respecting what came before, warts and all.

I disagree with you about the Aurora. I never liked it was a backward Tholian ship with pylons and nacelles added. Though I would have designed something that had the same nacelles and pylons instead of something totally different. Like a larger version of Jefferies shuttle concept.

I also don't like that they didn't keep the Enterprise faithful to the studio model. It is for the most part, but they didn't get some of the details right (a lot of which was not uncovered until the Smithsonian restoration of 2015-16).

 

[yotsuya]

Yup.


I beg to differ.


The issue isn’t that they’re not great in the parts or that you’d want anyone else in them. Just that you accept that it’s a TV show and sometimes they reuse actors, usually to our delight.


Yeah, it would be great if remasters fixed some of the scaling issues. Modern audiences are more sophisticated and enjoy greater verisimilitude.


I didn’t like the “cinematography” of the remastered effects shots (wasn’t sufficiently 60’s-ish), but it was great to get new ships in the place of reused ones, especially for ones that didn’t fit the period – like the reused Botany Bay.

Well, on twins and dopplergangers we disagree. Not a big deal.

But I did enjoy the FX shots in TOS-R. I just hated the rendering. I think they echoed some of the classic shots and came up with some new ones. But their rendering left so much to be desired, especially along side the fan productions who were doing the same thing at almost the same time. It kind of ruined it for me. But I watched them once and I have them. But I will watch the original from here out.

 

[Unicron]

And there you nailed my major objection. I love the composition, but when compared side by side, I think the original shots look more real and the TOS-R just look animated.

I'm much the same way. TOS-R is very hit or miss for me, and a lot of the CGI does look cartoony in a less than good way. The TOS-R version of the ship battle in "Ultimate Computer" is a good example - I like that they were trying to show more mobility than what the original version could afford, but it still looks kind of silly.

 

[Dukhat]

I disagree with you about the Aurora. I never liked it was a backward Tholian ship with pylons and nacelles added. Though I would have designed something that had the same nacelles and pylons instead of something totally different. Like a larger version of Jefferies shuttle concept.

While I agree that changing the Aurora completely was not what I would have done, using the same basic shape as the Tholian webspinner with nacelles, but subtly changing the details so that it doesn't look like a blatant kitbash of parts would have been the better way to go.