Wednesday 3 August 2016

USS Franklin production art by Sean Hargreaves

Star Trek Beyond production artist Sean Hargreaves is responsible for many of the most eye-catching designs from the film, and has been sharing some of his work from the production. Continue below for a look at the the USS Franklin, and how it became the ship we now know.

These first few renderings show the more or less final form of the ship as we see her in the film, including what has become quite a familiar image; the first piece of concept art that introduced us to the design months ago.




Here are some nice elevations, giving us a good sense of the ship's form:


But perhaps most interestingly some images from earlier in the design process, when the nacelles used to be under-slung and the ship was known as the USS Pioneer. As you can see, early on the ship has quite a different saucer shape, and apparently it's quite coincidental that the final form ended up looking a bit like the NX class, with the similar shapes happening to line up once the nacelles were flipped.

The Pioneer, before it became the Franklin, in a early script buried in the sand. A different design here somewhat......
There would be panels missing here, but they wanted it to appear airtight and preserved, almost mummy like.
Franklin when it was called the Pioneer, in an early script where it had to lift off vertically. Note at that time the engines and arms were flipped down.......
Here are some bridge concepts (I like the reflection of the saucer hull shape in the bridge floor area).





And here's a later iteration of the bridge, which by this time had input from other designers, Hargreaves stakes a claim to about a third of the final design.


This is the transporer room, as rendered, but not designed by Hargreaves:


And finally the engineering room:


I will be posting more of Sean's work in the coming days, looking at the design of the stunning Starbase Yorktown, and the... ship that appears right at the end of the film (who am I kidding, like anyone reading this needs to avoid spoilers by now!)

To keep track of all the latest information on the film, including other behind the scenes coverage, visit my Star Trek Beyond guide page. And of course, make sure to visit Sean Hargreaves' website; he doesn't have his Star Trek Beyond work up there yet, but you will find interesting production art from many other projects.



10 comments:

mark bernero said...

I would like it much better if Doug Drexler, JohnEaves ,Herman Zimmerman, Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda were used for these films. They would look a whole lot better!

Destructor1701 said...

This is AWESOME! Can't wait for the Yorktown and the other thing.

Fox said...

This just irritates me.

The Franklin is a cool design, and it's clear that a lot of effort went into designing its overall look (even though I, too, much prefer Eaves' style)... but the movie completely wastes it. Beyond is even worse than its predecessors about establishing shots--we only ever get to see the Franklin for what it is *after* it is wrecked and done with. Hell, even the Enterprise didn't even get a single "hero shot."

There are lots of very specific criticisms I have with the nuTrek movies--the acting, the dialog, the stories, the villains (good lordy), and so on... but my biggest pet peeve has got to be how they completely fail to respect the Enterprise (or any other ship) as a character in her own right.

When the original 1701 was destroyed, that was an emotional moment. When the nu1701 blew up, it was a, "hm," moment.

Unknown said...

Anxious to see the Starbase Yorktown and the "you know who" ship art at the end!

Unknown said...

Umm the Enterprise got a load of hero shots..is the first scene not a fly over of the ship?

Unknown said...

Umm the Enterprise got a load of hero shots..is the first scene not a fly over of the ship?

Unknown said...

It should make you happy to know that John Eaves has been involved in the reboot films then.

TW200 said...

Strange: I thought both the Franklin and the big-E looked great, and were well-displayed.

I'd really like to pick up a model of the Franklin - IMHO it is a very cool looking ship.

Fox said...

There are certainly some establishing shots of the Enterprise, and lots of action shots of both the Enterprise an the Franklin, but no hero shots.

It's not exactly a super-specific term, I more or less define a hero shot as an establishing shot that takes time to linger on the hero (in the case, the ship.)

Beyond doesn't really take time to linger on anything, least of all the heroes. Its pacing is so fast that (as I stated before) there's no establishing shots for the Franklin until its beached (literally its very last scene in the movie), and--perhaps more tellingly--the Franklin goes from utterly broken and derelict to completely repaired not only without any transitional scenes, but *also* within the in-setting span of a few seconds.

Scotty is, this time around, a literal *miracle-maker*.

But even with the movie's problems (most of which are pacing problems for which I fault Justin Lin entirely), the Franklin is a gorgeous ship. I, too, plan on getting a model. Problem is, there are so many options now! Which one should I get?

Fox said...

Meant to say, "not even the characters, least of all the ships."

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