I have this under a “Geek Cool” category, but for me it’s a bit geek uncool. They have released a photo of the design for the Enterprise from the upcoming Star Trek movie.

I’ve been a fan of Star Trek since the days of the original series. I’ve been told stories by my older relatives of how I was mesmerized by the show when it was first on TV when I was 4, 5, and 6 years-old although I was completely uninterested in other stuff on the tube at the time.

Among the first fiction I read oriented towards adults were novelizations of the episodes. One of the first books I ever bought on my own was through the school, where we could order in a class, was a book that promoted upcoming TV shows. Back then, in the 70s, they didn’t try to protect the supposedly tender sensibilities of elementary school kids so much as they do now from commercial promotion. I bought the book because of the photo of the Enterprise on the cover, which intrigued me.

I remember hiding paperback copies of the novelizations of the episodes behind my notebook during classes in elementary school when we were supposed to be studying, reading about the adventures of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. My imagination and curiosity were stimulated in a way that I haven’t experienced in years, energized in a way I miss terribly as an adult.

I have fond memories of the ship design, and the modifications made for Star Trek: The Motion Picture just made it more real in my mind.

Unfortunately, even though I’m not a “canon” freak, I’m a bit disappointed in the redesign they’ve come up with for the next movie, which sounds like a “reboot” of the series in all but name.

Here’s the design I find most appealing:

Redesign of the Enterprise for the movies in the 80s

And here’s what we’ll be seeing in the Spring of 2009:

NCC-1701 redesigned for the reboot movie

These small images don’t really convey the changes in proportion that to me make the new design look very unbalanced and, to put it simply, just off kilter.

You can see bigger images of the new design at Entertainment Weekly. Many images of the original movie design can be found at Ex Astris Scientia along with an extended commentary by the very thoughtful site creator on the design for the reboot movie.

While I will be happy if they make a movie with a good script that doesn’t end up looking cheesy, because in the end the hardware isn’t important as long as it doesn’t distract from the story, the unappealing aesthetics of the redesign takes away from part of what first captured my imagination 40 years ago.

So I’m a bit bummed.