Just for the heck of it, and to give Brian Rubin something to do, I thought I’d create a topic for ranking the various Enterprise designs from the Star Trek shows and movies.
Here’s my ranking, which should be accepted as canon. You’re of course welcome to post your own lists below and argue unsuccessfully why the Enteprise-D should be higher on the list. :)
Edit: Here’s Wikipedia’s reference list of Enterprises, in case you can’t remember some of them. Wow, Ralph McQuarrie’s version for ST:Phase II was horrible. Glad that ddin’t happen.
This is one case where I have to let nostalgia get the vote: I like the Enterprise refit from The Motion Picture the best, mainly because that was my first real exposure to Trek. I’m not a fan at all of TNG designs, it made the Enterprise look like an ergonomic chair. I like the exterior of the 2009 version but I don’t like it’s bridge at all. I think Wrath of Khan had the coolest Enterprise bridge design. And there’s your stream of consciousness post, Pogue out.
Growing up watching the Next Generation, that is my favorite ship. I also remember the 'Oh wow cool!" moment of seeing the 3-engine version fly vertically up in the battle it debuted in. Blew my mind at the time.
The first time I saw the TNG Enterprise moving onscreen, my reaction was “WTF? It looks like a flying office building.”
But the three-engine version with the external phaser/photon turrets is awesome. I actually own a model of that one. :)
To me, the 60’s version just feels “functional.” I think it’s the detail they did on the warp nacelles, with the spinning fronts, the “piping” details, etc.
If you’re a serious Trekkie (and Brian Rubin obviously isn’t, by his silly ranking of Enterprises), you should watch the last half of the final season of Enterprise. Once they heard they were cancelled, they turned the show into total fanservice. At least watch the two-part “In a Mirror, Darkly,” which ties into both “Mirror, Mirror” and “The Tholian Web.”
