It didn't hurt that The Motion Picture was about 25% Enterprise porn with the camera lovingly caressing it for an inordinate amount of time. That's probably what did it for a lot of us right there. I'm with the refit being the best looking ship as well. One of the reasons I like it is it doesn't look like it was designed to be cool. It was designed to be a ship.
I just can't get along with that cut-off saucer section. Makes it look half-finished.
I don’t like the backside of the saucer.
There is only Enterprise!Being defiant here, I see.Nothing wrong with that. There are other Starfleet vessels that are just as noteworthy as the Enterprise. They're just off-camera, you see.
Actually, according to most sources ( all of which may be non-canon ), the Enterprise-A was not a new ship. It was the rechristened U.S.S. Yorktown, which was an old Constitution from TOS. She was refitted like the Enterprise from The Motion Picture. It was done this way because they didn't have time to build a new ship to give one to Kirk at the end of Voyage Home. Also, makes some sense given that Yorktown was also crippled in ST IV and may have needed a minor refit anyway. It also may explain why the ship doesn't work so well in ST V. Most of the new systems haven't been tested and there has been no shakedown cruise for working out the bugs. So, this ship then has the same long service life as the original Enterprise and needing a decommissioning at the end of ST VI.
I think it grew on me the more I watched it. part of what I liked about it was that it appeared more solid than the classic constitution.
It was a new-built Constitution II class ship and not a refit. Scotty states this in ST:V.
