KYLE Hi, Brandon.
BRANDON No time for pleasantries, Kyle. We have a level five emergency. You still got the utility systems walk-through, right?
KYLE Yeah. I've got sectors one through twenty-eight. I think Hollister has the upper levels.
BRANDON Great. I'll get everybody on-line.
Someday somebody is really going to need this data, you'll see.
I love this website. It is a throwback to the old internet I grew up with. It has it all. Packed with esoteric information gathered and curated by a passionate group. Designed for desktop only with its own unique aesthetic. Not covered with ads and cookie banners and newsletter popups. I remember spending many evenings exploring such things at 33.6kbps.
On topic: I have watched every episode on TNG more than once and never noticed this. How embarrassing!
I get the vibe but is that really what you'd want on deck? I can't imagine giving a command and having it be ignored because it didn't bounce back to the people behind you.
You'd very likely want acoustic treatment. You'd hear the command from the direction it was given in, not bouncing around, echoing, and interfering with itself.
There's probably a practical set-design aspect to this. The acoustic tile as backdrop also makes a better sound stage, I would think.
Imagine if the walls were thin resonant panels and every time the Captain says "make it so" it will reverberate and sound like a commandment from God !
Looking at science fiction sets, I always wonder why they have to look so "spacey"; Foundation is a good concurrent example of this, but even my highly regarded Expanse, which avoids a lot of inaccuracies usually, is not innocent here. Irregularly shaped doors, flashy lights in useless places, patterned backgrounds, round halls, windows on spaceships, and so on.
I mean, I get it, I watch a space opera, it’s set in space. But why do the designers have to shove it in your face that much? My guess would be that the future rather features sublime technology that disappears into the background when not needed, environments designed for efficiency, not wasted space—especially on vessels.
> even my highly regarded Expanse, which avoids a lot of inaccuracies usually, is not innocent here.
I can forgive a "hexagon everything", but The Expanse has these transparent displays and low contrast holograms, which really get me upset. I mean it's just obviously idiotic and absolutely wouldn't be a thing.
Then again, my iPhone looks and feels almost exactly the same front and back, save for the camera, which results in me tapping the back's decorative glass panel several times a day, before I realize it's not the display. A real-world, omnipresent design choice nearly as idiotic.
I'd argue that TNG embodies your guess in many ways - many of the corridor and living area sets look like relatively normal, comfortable spaces. The computer is exactly that sublime technology - it's there when they need it (through a wake word) but otherwise completely invisible.
True, although I’d argue that the relative normalness is probably also a necessity due to TNG being a very long-running show, where you cannot devise bespoke design for every episode in an economical way.
Yet, I still find the textured blinky walls very immersion-breaking, for their artificial appearance. It’s nit-picking for sure; TNG did an amazing job at creating an interesting universe.
I’d just wish for some actually bold yet believable vision of the future.
My only beef with Foundation, is calling it Foundation.
When I watched the LOTRs movies, I recalled several saying that it diverged from the books. And sure, it did. It had to. You cannot convert mediums and not have change. Yet the easy way to conceptualize it, is that you're listening to two different people's telling of the same tale.
Both people will perceive the world as a different place, will even be standing in different places during events, may not have been at all events, and so on. Once that's in the pocket, a movie such as LOTR does quite well I think. It captures what it should.
But move to Foundation, and I really have no idea what book anyone read. I feel that someone read the books, and wrote a 1000 word summary of it... then someone used that to write the scripts, which was heavily edited. Massive, vastly important concepts are completely dropped from Foundation. It's not even remotely the same story.
Again, it's not bad. I just hate they stole the name, and character names.
The reason I'm on about this, is that the people designing sets are typically "touchy feely" types, which is of course fine. However often these types have a really hard time with static, unchanging facts or things, very specific details, and caring about function over form. This of course can extend to world building by an artist, as opposed to a sci-fi author.
Here's one example... in the books the Empire had 25 million planets. In the series it's under 10k galaxy wide. There's no real reason for the change, other than "don't care" or "Oooh, that's a confusing number". Even the size of the galaxy was off in series 1.
So when it comes to sets? Bear in mind these people think "Ooooh, space!" and go into a flutter of excited re-design. They're not approaching it from an intellectual perspective, but instead from emotion. And space is strange, and cold, and blah blah.
Perhaps I'm unkind, I've met artist types which were more cognitive of their art. Sometimes. When they were drunk.
I finished season two literally an hour ago. And have to say it's a pretty bad show overall. I love a few concepts like the generic dynasty. And the empire overall. But the typical sci-fi trope of people dying and then not really dying is so damn prevalent. I think I'm at 5 character deaths who aren't really dead. Then a few really bad actors (savor) and mediocre plotlines. I want to like it but can't get myself to continue.
I have a theory that it is a lack of artifacts/detail. Take most living or working environments from the present or past, and you'll see a lot of "things" adorning walls or placed on furniture, some accumulated over years of occupation and use. Sets of non-sci-fi shows or movies can use the real world as a reference and replicate these environments. When you do it for sci-fi shows, set designers probably stop when it starts looking "good enough", or they overdo it with details such as flashing lights or textures. I recall the Battlestar Galactica CIC being an exception.
Interestingly, this is something the spaceships in Starfield (the Bethesda game) did get right: There are things scattered, photos on the walls, tools lying about, coffee cups on counters, and so on. It really looks like a living space, not a set piece designed to make a point.
I think with future technology designers almost always overshoot on capabilities and undershoot with UX. The former is very easy to get pie-in-the-sky about and ignore limitations, while the latter you often only can improve with experience. Honestly even if you are designing couch cushions I think it is hard to hit 'different' and 'looks good on camera' without dipping into 'wildly impractical'.
If you consider a TNG tricorder, it is a magical device with 600 different functions, but to use it looks more awkward than even a 1st gen iphone. Definitely designed for the camera's eye first.
It's not the colour scheme, it's the shapes and architecture. Everything is plastic and coded as either technology or efficiency. Straight lines, industrial curves, blinky lights, holographic panels or touch displays. Clean, shiny, geometric, emphasis on shape and space. Form follows function. No superfluous decoration. No dirt on the ground.
Textbook modernism.
The alternative is the industrial-warehouse-in-space Alien aesthetic - all unlit metal gantries and dripping chains - which is a different kind of efficiency. But still utilitarian.
When you get an organic incursion of veins, branches, or tendrils, it's either a self-contained Memory of Home arboretum, or a signifier of danger and a Very Bad Thing.
Tarkovsky's Solaris has a standard-ish aesthetic - white padded walls, round corridors with tech greeblies, round windows - and then adds a wood-panelled library in space.
Can't find it now but there's a website that documents the use of Ikea furniture in Star Trek. I first started to notice when the courtroom lamps in TNG's Devil's Due were the same lamps as in my loft.
Galaxy Quest captured this so well.
Someday somebody is really going to need this data, you'll see.I love this website. It is a throwback to the old internet I grew up with. It has it all. Packed with esoteric information gathered and curated by a passionate group. Designed for desktop only with its own unique aesthetic. Not covered with ads and cookie banners and newsletter popups. I remember spending many evenings exploring such things at 33.6kbps.
On topic: I have watched every episode on TNG more than once and never noticed this. How embarrassing!
I get the vibe but is that really what you'd want on deck? I can't imagine giving a command and having it be ignored because it didn't bounce back to the people behind you.
You'd very likely want acoustic treatment. You'd hear the command from the direction it was given in, not bouncing around, echoing, and interfering with itself.
There's probably a practical set-design aspect to this. The acoustic tile as backdrop also makes a better sound stage, I would think.
[dead]
Imagine if the walls were thin resonant panels and every time the Captain says "make it so" it will reverberate and sound like a commandment from God !
I love how they have documented the wall coverings from all the TNG episodes in minute detail.
DS9 used plastic pallets - one type could be seen in the infirmary [1] and IIRC ceilings were made from different ones
[1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/Thatsabooklight/comments/twunb5
Looking at science fiction sets, I always wonder why they have to look so "spacey"; Foundation is a good concurrent example of this, but even my highly regarded Expanse, which avoids a lot of inaccuracies usually, is not innocent here. Irregularly shaped doors, flashy lights in useless places, patterned backgrounds, round halls, windows on spaceships, and so on.
I mean, I get it, I watch a space opera, it’s set in space. But why do the designers have to shove it in your face that much? My guess would be that the future rather features sublime technology that disappears into the background when not needed, environments designed for efficiency, not wasted space—especially on vessels.
> even my highly regarded Expanse, which avoids a lot of inaccuracies usually, is not innocent here.
I can forgive a "hexagon everything", but The Expanse has these transparent displays and low contrast holograms, which really get me upset. I mean it's just obviously idiotic and absolutely wouldn't be a thing.
Then again, my iPhone looks and feels almost exactly the same front and back, save for the camera, which results in me tapping the back's decorative glass panel several times a day, before I realize it's not the display. A real-world, omnipresent design choice nearly as idiotic.
I'd argue that TNG embodies your guess in many ways - many of the corridor and living area sets look like relatively normal, comfortable spaces. The computer is exactly that sublime technology - it's there when they need it (through a wake word) but otherwise completely invisible.
True, although I’d argue that the relative normalness is probably also a necessity due to TNG being a very long-running show, where you cannot devise bespoke design for every episode in an economical way.
Yet, I still find the textured blinky walls very immersion-breaking, for their artificial appearance. It’s nit-picking for sure; TNG did an amazing job at creating an interesting universe.
I’d just wish for some actually bold yet believable vision of the future.
Even the red alert klaxon is calming in TNG
For me it's the shuttle bay door opening alert. Should I build my dream underground home that is going in the garage.
My only beef with Foundation, is calling it Foundation.
When I watched the LOTRs movies, I recalled several saying that it diverged from the books. And sure, it did. It had to. You cannot convert mediums and not have change. Yet the easy way to conceptualize it, is that you're listening to two different people's telling of the same tale.
Both people will perceive the world as a different place, will even be standing in different places during events, may not have been at all events, and so on. Once that's in the pocket, a movie such as LOTR does quite well I think. It captures what it should.
But move to Foundation, and I really have no idea what book anyone read. I feel that someone read the books, and wrote a 1000 word summary of it... then someone used that to write the scripts, which was heavily edited. Massive, vastly important concepts are completely dropped from Foundation. It's not even remotely the same story.
Again, it's not bad. I just hate they stole the name, and character names.
The reason I'm on about this, is that the people designing sets are typically "touchy feely" types, which is of course fine. However often these types have a really hard time with static, unchanging facts or things, very specific details, and caring about function over form. This of course can extend to world building by an artist, as opposed to a sci-fi author.
Here's one example... in the books the Empire had 25 million planets. In the series it's under 10k galaxy wide. There's no real reason for the change, other than "don't care" or "Oooh, that's a confusing number". Even the size of the galaxy was off in series 1.
So when it comes to sets? Bear in mind these people think "Ooooh, space!" and go into a flutter of excited re-design. They're not approaching it from an intellectual perspective, but instead from emotion. And space is strange, and cold, and blah blah.
Perhaps I'm unkind, I've met artist types which were more cognitive of their art. Sometimes. When they were drunk.
I finished season two literally an hour ago. And have to say it's a pretty bad show overall. I love a few concepts like the generic dynasty. And the empire overall. But the typical sci-fi trope of people dying and then not really dying is so damn prevalent. I think I'm at 5 character deaths who aren't really dead. Then a few really bad actors (savor) and mediocre plotlines. I want to like it but can't get myself to continue.
I have a theory that it is a lack of artifacts/detail. Take most living or working environments from the present or past, and you'll see a lot of "things" adorning walls or placed on furniture, some accumulated over years of occupation and use. Sets of non-sci-fi shows or movies can use the real world as a reference and replicate these environments. When you do it for sci-fi shows, set designers probably stop when it starts looking "good enough", or they overdo it with details such as flashing lights or textures. I recall the Battlestar Galactica CIC being an exception.
Interestingly, this is something the spaceships in Starfield (the Bethesda game) did get right: There are things scattered, photos on the walls, tools lying about, coffee cups on counters, and so on. It really looks like a living space, not a set piece designed to make a point.
I think with future technology designers almost always overshoot on capabilities and undershoot with UX. The former is very easy to get pie-in-the-sky about and ignore limitations, while the latter you often only can improve with experience. Honestly even if you are designing couch cushions I think it is hard to hit 'different' and 'looks good on camera' without dipping into 'wildly impractical'.
If you consider a TNG tricorder, it is a magical device with 600 different functions, but to use it looks more awkward than even a 1st gen iphone. Definitely designed for the camera's eye first.
SciFi has to be the laziest aesthetic in existence. Oh your color scheme is grey-blue? Because of muh tech? How very cerebral and rational.
Star Trek: TNG's colour scheme is warm orange, maroon, burgundy, and cream.
Yes its an exception that proves the rule.
Give me 5 examples of your typical "sci-fi" aesthetic... what you mean is dystopian aesthetic.
It's not the colour scheme, it's the shapes and architecture. Everything is plastic and coded as either technology or efficiency. Straight lines, industrial curves, blinky lights, holographic panels or touch displays. Clean, shiny, geometric, emphasis on shape and space. Form follows function. No superfluous decoration. No dirt on the ground.
Textbook modernism.
The alternative is the industrial-warehouse-in-space Alien aesthetic - all unlit metal gantries and dripping chains - which is a different kind of efficiency. But still utilitarian.
When you get an organic incursion of veins, branches, or tendrils, it's either a self-contained Memory of Home arboretum, or a signifier of danger and a Very Bad Thing.
His comment was about the color scheme...
Tarkovsky's Solaris has a standard-ish aesthetic - white padded walls, round corridors with tech greeblies, round windows - and then adds a wood-panelled library in space.
It's very jarring, in a fascinating way.
Right, theres a third aesthetic besides the clean industrial grey/blue and grimy Alien / Star Wars one: the stylish white Odyssey 2001 one.
Can't find it now but there's a website that documents the use of Ikea furniture in Star Trek. I first started to notice when the courtroom lamps in TNG's Devil's Due were the same lamps as in my loft.
https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/database/chairs-trek.htm
[dead]