Having said that, I do understand that some glaring “mistakes” (mistakes they should have learned to avoid in film school) on the part of the creators can distract from the story (which of course is the whole point of making a film; to tell a story, not to make an engineering feasibility study). Their worst flaws keep me from immersing myself in the story, something you guys seem to do intentionally. For example, the dirty, industrial, and yes, pipe-filled look of “Alien” was one of the first things I noticed, in a direct and unbidden comparison to Trek, and that increased the realism tremendously for me (ships have pipes! And it set a great ambience for a dark film, all those greasy pipes for evil things to maybe be hiding behind). Having machinery covered with walls in the Trek tradition was something I’ve noticed since the original series came out, along with the nonsense bits glued to the blank sheetrock, but has been easy to forget about when the story is well crafted. I’m about as hardcore a Trek fan as I know, and barely even noticed the new movie’s engineering section, to be honest. I was too busy being irritated by all the damned lens flares. Lens flares remind me of cameras, and that it is only a movie, and break the fourth wall. Good film makers eliminate lens flares; they don’t add more.

But arguing about how much water we’ll need to run a ship in the 23rd century is like arguing about the aspect ratio and wing-loading of Batman’s cape. I mean c’mon, you can buy a friggin’ guy in a bat costume, but not the fact that he holds his altitude way too well for a 200 pound man with 20 sq. feet of wing? THAT’S what kills the realism?

If you want something to bitch about, how about their changing the classic Enterprise for no reason except that they thought “it would look cool” (they were WRONG). Putting scoops on the nacelles like some kid with his dad’s credit card and a J.C. Whitney catalogue putting blank hood scoops, useless spoilers and downright dangerous blue light bulbs on a Honda Civic (dorkmobile). If you want something to complain about, how about the absolutely horrible camera motion in the space shots? The only way to even get a look at the new ship is in stills. The majesty and size of a large spaceship has always best been shown with the slow close range flyby, a’ la the opening scene in Star Wars. A ship the size of the Enterprise is not going to fling itself around like an X-wing, I don’t care how good your inertial dampeners are. Momentum is momentum, inertia is inertia, and “ya canna change the laws of physics”. Battles between large ships are all about positioning, bringing your guns to bear while keeping the enemy from bringing his to bear. You’re not gonna dodge weapons that travel at the speed of light. The battle in Wrath Of Khan is still the best Trek battle ever. There was tension created, instead of the short-attention-span, flashy-but-impossible-to-watch music video we got with the new film. Hold the damn camera still so we can see the damned ship! :)

But the dif is that TWOK had Joe Jennings and Mike Minor designing stuff for ILM. BIG dif … (and even there, ILM screwed up MInor’s eden cave, leaving out all the other volcanic bubbles.)

Sorry, Herkimer… you’re mistaken.

Chambliss was responsible for the look of the entire film. ILM followed the design generated from the art department in Los Angeles… Church worked under Chambliss’ direction.

Afterwards, you can market all that design work in posters and illustrated books, tech manuals, etc.

The TMP engine room we see on screen does not fit. The hallway we see that leads into the engine room would actually be outside the ship.

If it does not fit, you must omit.

Then there’s what look like the exposed ceiling beams in the briefing room and Kirk’s quarters, where the wall slopes down at an angle.

Also watched what part of TMP I could before falling asleep (every scene in the movie is at least twice as long as it needs to be), and holy schnikes, did they blow a quarter of their budget on that engineering or what??? It was enormous.

But if you want to ask logical questions, why now did the blue fire tube go from the top all the way down, and split in the middle where it went back to where it forked up towards the nacelles?

The same sorts of questions that apply to the water pipes apply here. It was a beautiful set, but it doesn’t look like something that really works. It looks exactly like a set in a sci fi movie. Whereas the bridge has a readily discernible functionality, the TMP engine room does not. It looks ad hoc, like it was designed to make Star Trek fans get all watery eyed and quivery lipped.

But it sure was purty.

It’s not his design or his call to change it. He worked on the sets, IE the interior design of the Enterprise, but had really nothing to do with the exterior.

That particular task fell to Ryan Church and ILM.

Still, I get that they wanted to throw a joke in there and have Scotty do something funny. So, it worked, kinda.

What still bothers me is all that exposed pipes criss-crossing through engineering. To me, I just does not look like futuristic 23rd century technology. I don’t think that the ISS or space shuttle have areas that look like that. It looks even more old fashioned than today’s tech.