4Game

edit uhhh sorry about that title, i didn't mean to imply "RIP visual design of ED"

I’ve sometimes thought that ED is sort of like “Douglas Trumbull: the Game”, what with the designs of the stations and megaships. I mean, without Trumbull (and Kubrick, and J. Strauss), we wouldn't have our whole autodock sequence!

Now Trumbull has gone to be with Kubrick and Strauss.

Anyways, this made me think about various design references in ED, how some visual ideas seem to trace clearly back to some classic sci fi media. These are what come to mind for me – any others?

Orbis station (& the whole ‘mailslot’ concept): Space Station V [2001: A Space Odyssey]

Megaship design features: Douglas Trumbull (Discovery 1 from 2001, Valley Forge from Silent Running – including those nonsensical outward-facing biodomes)

Trumbull also had a lot to do with the now-ubiquitous (in ED and everywhere else) neon-industrial-cyberpunk aesthetic of Blade Runner.

Other random things I always notice, but wonder how true they are:

• Eagle: Klingon Bird of Prey (?) (or too generic, with the forward-swept wings? i mean, it comes in green)
• Eagle engine sound: TIE fighter [Star Wars – pretty obvious]
• Fleet Carrier bridge external design: Space Battleship Yamato [obv? lots of battleship/carrier bridges sort of look like the FC bridge, but the Yamato looks exactly like it]
• Krait mk2 aesthetic: Millennium Falcon