Shiny-Looking Spaceships: Difference between revisions

** Especially [[Egregious]] for ''[[Voyager]]'' since the ship was far, far away from support facilities and starbases. Outside of a few special episodes, the ship spent most of the series looking fresh out of drydock. Glad to know they're using their replicator rations for paint.

** Was averted in the Xindi arc of ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Enterprise]]'', where the ship keeps (most of) its battlescars from episode to episode.

* ''[[Andromeda]]''

* The Minbari in ''[[Babylon 5]]'', in keeping with their [[Crystal Spires and Togas]]/[[Our Elves Are Better|Space Elves]] characteristic. The Centauri, in keeping with their pompous [[Bling of War]], has elements of this. [[All There in the Manual|Narns have exotic looking ships to make them look more advanced than they really are]]. Human vessels on the other hand, are rather more functional-looking.

** At least a few Minbari like to poke fun at the humans for taking this entirely in the opposite direction, claiming that humans think the only colors that should be anywhere on a starship are green or grey. The Narn and Centauri ships at least can back up their flashy looks with actual performance, although the Centauri tend to come out on top, presumably because their use of [[Artificial Gravity]] allows their ships to be much faster <ref>Compare the sluggish movements of the Earth and Narn ships, with their reaction drives, versus the Minbari and Centauri ships, which use gravity-based drives</ref>

** The Eagle, workhorse spacecraft of Moonbase: Alpha, was eminently functional in form, but it was also usually squeaky-clean. This seems incredible considering the amount of moondust kicked up by its engines every time it takes off. The real Apollo astronauts had to frequently wipe the moon dust from their helmets just to maintain visibility.

*** In behind-the-scenes photographs it's obvious that the miniatures were heavily weathered. Unfortunately, it just didn't show up very well on TV.

* An odd juxtaposition of Shiny-Looking Spaceships and [[Used Future]] can be seen in the ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'', episode 820 - ''[[Space Mutiny]]''. The control room of the ''Southern Sun'' seems white, pristine and shiny (like a movie set), and the action scenes in the rest of the ship look as though they were filmed in a grungy, 50-year old bottling plant. (With brightly lit exterior windows to boot. Hmmmm....)

** That would be because the Cylons meant for the Basestars to be more straight-up aircraft carriers ([[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE!!]]), relying on their Raider wings and long-range missiles to attack their enemies, while the Colonials with their less sophisticated technology preferred to built their Battlestars as... well... [[The Battlestar|Battlestars]], using their Vipers to protect the mothership while she pressed the attack at closer ranges with heavy cannons.

** The blacker-than-black spaceship they stole from the Restaurant's parking lot was even shinier—an amazing feat for a surface that absorbed all incident light.

*** Actually, Hotblack Desiato's ship was perfectly frictionless. The light just sort of... slid off it.