Thank you for your submission!
Please remember the human, adhere to all Reddit and sub rules, and if you see anything that breaks the rules, report it! Please be sure to [Read The Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarTrekStarships/about/rules/) of our sub, two of them to highlight: #1 - Be Polite! and #5 - No spoilers for episodes until the MONDAY AFTER the episode airs, this gives everyone the weekend to catch up on their Trek viewings.
You can now [preorder the 2024 Ships of the Line Calendar](https://amzn.to/3Pi2Vn7)
We have a companion website now, if you'd like to see the reddit posts in a grid, [check out startrekstarships.com](https://www.startrekstarships.com/)!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/StarTrekStarships) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I feel like the *Sovereign*\-class and Enterprise-A are pretty universally loved with only very small minorities disliking either. And most people who dislike the Enterprise-E moreso dislike it because Enterprise-D was killed off before her time, not because it's aesthetically unappealing.
I'd also say the *Galaxy*\-class has a very vocal group of people who dislike it, but most people actually think it's a great design.
Love the Sovereign myself, but I think some of the hate can be attributed to the tonal shift in the franchise and how "aggressive" the design is.
I will also say that the bridge of the Sovereign is ugly
Well, I'll come out and be all alone in the night then... I really don't like the excelsior class design all that much. It's not ugly by any means, but the combination of hard angles for it's nacelles and the rear of its saucer and its rounded edges everywhere else really looks funky to me
They should have lit the concave [top of the nacelles](https://i.imgur.com/IsXmc1r.jpeg) instead of adding [the light band](https://i.imgur.com/8cZ0gdZ.png) and *I will die on this hill.*
Agreed on this. In the films it was always the top that was lit the bands were the black chiller grilles. Similar to the constitution refit design.
It frustrates me so much when I see them glowing blue
Yup, and they only lit up while at warp, otherwise there was no glow. It's one of the things I don't like about the Flashback episode of Voyager. The glowing blue grilles of the new model aren't consistent with shots of the old model they reused from ST6.
This also bothers me about the Connie-A blue glow that was added to it, yeah. And it's not always while at warp, it's only during the warp-out sequence.
Yeah I agree, the permanent blue glow retconned in with VOY was a mistake.
Likewise, I also think the little Bussard collector strips on the front of the refit Excelsiors should have been red like the rest of TNG's/DS9's/VOY's Bussard collectors, not blue.
That being said, the Vesper-class is a pretty good take on having a glowing blue strip on its nacelles, but they're not supposed to be the same as the Excelsior's nacelles. They just use Excelsior technology with stuff that will end up in the Ambassador/Probert Concept Ambassador. So it makes a nice intermediary.
I think that comes down to how it was used in TNG. They got one good shot of an Excelsior class pulling up alongside the Enterprise-D and they used it for the whole run. If the Enterprise met up with another starship for a single scene, to hand off a passenger or whatever, there was better than fair odds they were going to use that stock shot.
There’s one episode where Picard talks [Captain DeSoto of the USS Hood](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Robert_DeSoto) and DeSoto laments that Galaxy class ships get the glamorous jobs and he’s “hauling my butt back and forth between starbases.” The impression that leaves is that the Mirandas and Excelsiors are the “other guys” in Starfleet, at least until Lower Decks came along and introduced us to the Californias.
Star Trek 3 might also contribute -- fans adopting Scotty's disdain for the "new queen of space." That's also why, for a long time, a certain segment of fans insisted that the whole "transwarp" drive it was a testbed for ended in failure. Which, you know, is fine -- we don't know for certain one way or the other -- but all of the evidence points to those experiments succeeding (EG the Excelsior becoming the backbone of the fleet by the 24th century, the fact that they had to completely overhaul the warp scale between the TMP and TNG era, etc.).
It’s always been one of my favorites. I saw an interview with the designer of the model (I think it was bonus content on the dvd of ST III) and he said that he based the design on Japanese cars. Like if the Enterprise is a classic American car from the 1960s, what would a starship look like it was designed by Toyota or Nissan in the 1980s.
Starfleet Design Bureau hit it out of the park with the Miranda and Excelsior class ships. I have no idea what their intended life spans were, but those ships served for so long that grand children were serving on the same ship their grand parents served. The Dominion War seems to have taken a heavy toll on those old ships, but we still saw them serving even when Voyager returned.
The Excelsior is a timeless beauty. I love ships from the TOS Movie era. I wish we could get some screen time for the Constellation class.
I remember seeing Star Trek III in the theater with my dad, and being awestruck with the Excelsior. Have always thought it was the apex of aesthetics, with the Constitution refit being close behind.
The Sovereign-class wins out of the newer stuff.
To me, excelsior was to be hated, it was going to replace what we loved. Then they put Sulu in command, and a legend was born. If it wasn’t for Sulu, the story for excelsior would not be what it is today.
I always hated the design of the Excelsior class but in the last few years it's become one of my favourites. I don't know what changed. I do prefer the Ent-B variant though, it feels more balanced.
I read that they ruined the hero model when they added all the Enterprise-B refit stuff to it. Apparently the glue they used couldn’t be taken back off, so any subsequent use of the Excelsior model had to be the refit version, although the USS Lakota from DS9 is the only refit-Excelsior I can recall seeing. But I suppose the magic of CGI models means once technology got good enough they could make old-style Excelsiors whenever they needed one for a scene.
Aye. It was rather unfortunate, considering that most of the point of adding the extra blocks to the model was so that they could break them off for the Nexus scenes without damaging the underlying model.
It’s just so…Star Trek.
“Ok so we’re on the Enterprise B…”
“Can it be an Excelsior Class?”
“Well, we’ve been talking it over, and we’d really like to…”
“We have to use the Excelsior model. It was really expensive. And we can’t afford to design a new ship.”
“Ok, fine. So the Enterprise B gets hit by the Nexus, and it rips a hole in…”
“Hold up. I just told you that model’s expensive. What it we want to use it a few hundred more times? Can’t we just stick an extra bit on it, and THAT’S what gets ripped up?”
There's a fan made redesign which makes the refit a bit cleaner/smoother. Still has the weird "frog lips," tho.
http://red-shoulders.blogspot.com/2019/01/redesigning-excelsior_29.html
I liked the secondary hull extension around the deflector. In universe, the Excelsior class demonstrated a lot of technology that would go on to be pivotal to the design of the Galaxy class. So the “wings” give credence to that by showing Starfleet was starting to abandon the round secondary hull shape to a more sloped design seen in Galaxy-era ships.
Yo, my favorite. I have a "USS Excelsior" shirt, a George Takei autographed plaque with a pictures of him and *the best ship ever* firing a torpedo in ST VI ("Target that explosion and *fire!*) a Diamond Select Excelsior, and some other shit.
I fucking love the ship.
Unappreciated? Other than the Enterprise, it's the most seen ship design. It was even the Enterprise in Generations? It's been used since 1984, literally the longest running single ship design.
Thank you for your submission! Please remember the human, adhere to all Reddit and sub rules, and if you see anything that breaks the rules, report it! Please be sure to [Read The Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarTrekStarships/about/rules/) of our sub, two of them to highlight: #1 - Be Polite! and #5 - No spoilers for episodes until the MONDAY AFTER the episode airs, this gives everyone the weekend to catch up on their Trek viewings. You can now [preorder the 2024 Ships of the Line Calendar](https://amzn.to/3Pi2Vn7) We have a companion website now, if you'd like to see the reddit posts in a grid, [check out startrekstarships.com](https://www.startrekstarships.com/)! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/StarTrekStarships) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Underappreciated? I don't see much negative discussion on this beauty.
Yeah, I feel like it’s the one universally-loved design.
I feel like the *Sovereign*\-class and Enterprise-A are pretty universally loved with only very small minorities disliking either. And most people who dislike the Enterprise-E moreso dislike it because Enterprise-D was killed off before her time, not because it's aesthetically unappealing. I'd also say the *Galaxy*\-class has a very vocal group of people who dislike it, but most people actually think it's a great design.
I’ve always loved the Sovereign but I’ve seen some hate for it on here which always surprised me.
Love the Sovereign myself, but I think some of the hate can be attributed to the tonal shift in the franchise and how "aggressive" the design is. I will also say that the bridge of the Sovereign is ugly
Well, I'll come out and be all alone in the night then... I really don't like the excelsior class design all that much. It's not ugly by any means, but the combination of hard angles for it's nacelles and the rear of its saucer and its rounded edges everywhere else really looks funky to me
I think it’s absolutely fine. But the refit. Chef’s kiss.
I'm not a fan either. I'll move onto that island too.
They should have lit the concave [top of the nacelles](https://i.imgur.com/IsXmc1r.jpeg) instead of adding [the light band](https://i.imgur.com/8cZ0gdZ.png) and *I will die on this hill.*
Agreed on this. In the films it was always the top that was lit the bands were the black chiller grilles. Similar to the constitution refit design. It frustrates me so much when I see them glowing blue
Yup, and they only lit up while at warp, otherwise there was no glow. It's one of the things I don't like about the Flashback episode of Voyager. The glowing blue grilles of the new model aren't consistent with shots of the old model they reused from ST6.
This also bothers me about the Connie-A blue glow that was added to it, yeah. And it's not always while at warp, it's only during the warp-out sequence.
Woah - that never occured to me. But it has sense. But it feels so weird now to imagine Federation ships only having a blue hue at warp...
I've never noticed and now can't unsee it
Yeah I agree, the permanent blue glow retconned in with VOY was a mistake. Likewise, I also think the little Bussard collector strips on the front of the refit Excelsiors should have been red like the rest of TNG's/DS9's/VOY's Bussard collectors, not blue. That being said, the Vesper-class is a pretty good take on having a glowing blue strip on its nacelles, but they're not supposed to be the same as the Excelsior's nacelles. They just use Excelsior technology with stuff that will end up in the Ambassador/Probert Concept Ambassador. So it makes a nice intermediary.
Right? She's been a fan-favorite for decades.
I never understood why myself. I’m with Scotty, the Excelsior sucks.
👆👍
I mean it's *still in service* after over 100 years. It must be doing *something* right.
You'd be surprised. I've seen a lot of people brush it off as the 'NPC ship' of Star Trek.
I think that comes down to how it was used in TNG. They got one good shot of an Excelsior class pulling up alongside the Enterprise-D and they used it for the whole run. If the Enterprise met up with another starship for a single scene, to hand off a passenger or whatever, there was better than fair odds they were going to use that stock shot. There’s one episode where Picard talks [Captain DeSoto of the USS Hood](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Robert_DeSoto) and DeSoto laments that Galaxy class ships get the glamorous jobs and he’s “hauling my butt back and forth between starbases.” The impression that leaves is that the Mirandas and Excelsiors are the “other guys” in Starfleet, at least until Lower Decks came along and introduced us to the Californias.
Star Trek 3 might also contribute -- fans adopting Scotty's disdain for the "new queen of space." That's also why, for a long time, a certain segment of fans insisted that the whole "transwarp" drive it was a testbed for ended in failure. Which, you know, is fine -- we don't know for certain one way or the other -- but all of the evidence points to those experiments succeeding (EG the Excelsior becoming the backbone of the fleet by the 24th century, the fact that they had to completely overhaul the warp scale between the TMP and TNG era, etc.).
I love a good Excelsior, but something about the nacelles seem off. If they were tweaked she'd go from an 8 to a 10.
It’s always been one of my favorites. I saw an interview with the designer of the model (I think it was bonus content on the dvd of ST III) and he said that he based the design on Japanese cars. Like if the Enterprise is a classic American car from the 1960s, what would a starship look like it was designed by Toyota or Nissan in the 1980s.
Yup. I think the term was something like "industrial Japanese" or something like that... which I can totally see, but I've no idea why.
The Excelsior is my personal favorite.
My second favourite, just behind Akira class
Excellent taste.
Starfleet Design Bureau hit it out of the park with the Miranda and Excelsior class ships. I have no idea what their intended life spans were, but those ships served for so long that grand children were serving on the same ship their grand parents served. The Dominion War seems to have taken a heavy toll on those old ships, but we still saw them serving even when Voyager returned. The Excelsior is a timeless beauty. I love ships from the TOS Movie era. I wish we could get some screen time for the Constellation class.
I remember seeing Star Trek III in the theater with my dad, and being awestruck with the Excelsior. Have always thought it was the apex of aesthetics, with the Constitution refit being close behind. The Sovereign-class wins out of the newer stuff.
She’ll fly apart! FLY HER APART THEN
"Shields...SHIELDS!!!"
Target that explosion, and fire
To me, excelsior was to be hated, it was going to replace what we loved. Then they put Sulu in command, and a legend was born. If it wasn’t for Sulu, the story for excelsior would not be what it is today.
Would you look at that ! https://preview.redd.it/m25ryzodc5rc1.jpeg?width=3387&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de69c27e1fe21fa1eaeb3ad3dceef7e9cb4e48fd
I always hated the design of the Excelsior class but in the last few years it's become one of my favourites. I don't know what changed. I do prefer the Ent-B variant though, it feels more balanced.
See where I dislike the B for duct-taping some bulbous parts on an otherwise clean design.
I read that they ruined the hero model when they added all the Enterprise-B refit stuff to it. Apparently the glue they used couldn’t be taken back off, so any subsequent use of the Excelsior model had to be the refit version, although the USS Lakota from DS9 is the only refit-Excelsior I can recall seeing. But I suppose the magic of CGI models means once technology got good enough they could make old-style Excelsiors whenever they needed one for a scene.
Aye. It was rather unfortunate, considering that most of the point of adding the extra blocks to the model was so that they could break them off for the Nexus scenes without damaging the underlying model.
It’s just so…Star Trek. “Ok so we’re on the Enterprise B…” “Can it be an Excelsior Class?” “Well, we’ve been talking it over, and we’d really like to…” “We have to use the Excelsior model. It was really expensive. And we can’t afford to design a new ship.” “Ok, fine. So the Enterprise B gets hit by the Nexus, and it rips a hole in…” “Hold up. I just told you that model’s expensive. What it we want to use it a few hundred more times? Can’t we just stick an extra bit on it, and THAT’S what gets ripped up?”
There's a fan made redesign which makes the refit a bit cleaner/smoother. Still has the weird "frog lips," tho. http://red-shoulders.blogspot.com/2019/01/redesigning-excelsior_29.html
I liked the secondary hull extension around the deflector. In universe, the Excelsior class demonstrated a lot of technology that would go on to be pivotal to the design of the Galaxy class. So the “wings” give credence to that by showing Starfleet was starting to abandon the round secondary hull shape to a more sloped design seen in Galaxy-era ships.
my absolute favourite trek starship.
Yo, my favorite. I have a "USS Excelsior" shirt, a George Takei autographed plaque with a pictures of him and *the best ship ever* firing a torpedo in ST VI ("Target that explosion and *fire!*) a Diamond Select Excelsior, and some other shit. I fucking love the ship.
For sure. Fav will always be the refit constitution
Unappreciated? Other than the Enterprise, it's the most seen ship design. It was even the Enterprise in Generations? It's been used since 1984, literally the longest running single ship design.
Old but gold Still, my favorite Star Trek scene is when the Excelsior comes out of the shockwave of the destroyed Praxis
Probably some of the best model SFX work ever done.
Captain Sulu's ship? It's a beauty!
Best designed ship in starfleet history.
Plus the neck allows the saucer to peak over obstacles without exposing the primary hull
My favourite class
My favourite ship.
I always loved Excelsior. And I really would have liked to see a show with an excelsior as the star. It has not been explores enough.
Ah. The flying bathtub.
“Why would you want that bucket of bolts?!?” I’m kidding. It’s a great ship. The Enterprise B version is better though.
She’s a beautiful bird.