Ship Porn

I do love my science-fiction. As a genre it is uniquely capable of re-telling the oldest stories while simultaneously igniting our imaginations and inventing something never before dreamt of and, by virtue of its popularity, making those concepts part of the public consciousness. How uqibuitous are ideas of "Robots" and "Teleporters" today!? From Verne, to Asimov and Roddenberry, to Whedon and Moffat... science fiction continuously redefines how we percieve and concieve of the universe! But, if you paid attention to the title, there's one particular thing I'd like to talk about today! The ever dependable choice of cinematographers on programmes and movies featuring space faring cast members to provide us with gorgeous shots of the exterior of the ship! SHIP PORN! Make no mistake, this is a fetish! There are pretty ships, and ugly ships... from a purely design aesthetic point of view. But from a much more visceral stance, there are cool looking ships, and dumpy lookin space tubs. Ships can be sexy, imposing, cute, sporty, or any number of adjectives...some of which may even be appropriate to use in describing a woman! If there is a space ship in a T.V. Show or movie, or video game, you have seen the outside of it! And the point of this post is to go through a few of my personal favorites!


The TARDIS
Featured in Doctor Who and although it's not strictly a space ship, The Doctor's Typre 40 Time And Relative Dimension In Space certainly qualifies in so far as it can move through space without moving through time! Also, technically, it falls into the category of "space tub" considering that it is beyond old! Let me put it this way! If  at he beginning of the series in which it was featured the Battlestar Galactica was recently decommissioned like, say for instance, a mid 90's JEEP... the TARDIS is like a Model T Ford! Going back to the "first" Doctor, it was a museum piece! But that doesn't necessarily make it ugly! Sure, the Chameleon Circuit got stuck on "Police Box" God knows how long ago, but that is undeniably a part of its charm! Being "bigger on the inside" makes it not unlike The Doctor himself in that there is so much more to it that may appear at first glance! And once you get inside. BOY HOWDY! Amongst "living ships", it's easily among the most impressive!

MOYA
On the topic of living ships, you can't overlook MOYA! This Leviathan (a symbiotic and servile species) serves as the ship of John Crichton and company in the glorious series FARSCAPE! She (because like all good ships, she is a "She") is really impressive! Capable of Star Bursting over incredibly large distances, Moya is more than a pretty piece of astro-tech. With the exception of a particular episode of Doctor Who, Moya is more of a character than any other ship I can think of (feel free to disagree on this point in the comments). So much so, that SHE GIVES BIRTH to another Leviathan! And if you can overlook the insect like appearance that seems to be inherent in bio-mechanoid creations, she's really quite sleek! 

SERENITY
If you didn't think I was going to move on to the other insect lookin ship that everyone loves...! That's right, The central hub of everything that happened on the cult classic (I guess that's appropriate) space opera, FIREFLY... this "Midbulk transport, standard radion-accelerator core, classcode 03-K64, Firefly" (hence title) is easily the smallest of my favorite ships...(not counting the TARDIS again...)! Captained by Malcolm Reynolds, she's a smuggling vessel, passenger/cargo transport, and a home! And for an unarmed ship (although the crew is armed to the teeth) she does a heck of a lot of damage...particularly to the pride of jack-booted Alliance muckety-mucks who just can't seem to catch this pretty little thing! 

USS ENTERPRISE NCC-1701-A
In truth, this is the one that inspired this post! I recently re-watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and I was struck by just how much time they spent showing me the ship! A good six minutes was spent, just panning across various sections of the hull! When I was five years old, Saturday morning was all about waking up early, making scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast and watching movies with my dad! This was one of em, and it's stuck with me ever since. And while Serenity may be my favorite ship (the TARDIS doesn't count as a ship in this case, it's in a class all by itself) I still have a special place in my heart for The Enterprise (not unlike Kirk himself). She's like my first spaceship love! Without a doubt, she popped my Ship Porn cherry!

So that's my short list! I left it short because A.) I'm lazy! and B.) I really do want to know what some of your favorites are! leave a comment down below!