Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of The Kelvin Enterprise You Need To Know

After facing off against Nero and trekking into darkness (and Rhianna's face), the Kelvin Timeline's USS Enterprise was prematurely destroyed by Krall's swarm ships a quarter of the way into Star Trek Beyond, paving the way for another new USS Enterprise: The Enterprise-A.

Like her predecessor, the Enterprise-A was a Constitution-class starship, this time created by Star Trek Beyond concept designer Sean Hargreaves. Hargreaves' directive was to "evolve" the design of the ship created for Star Trek (2009), but the designer incorporated details from Matt Jefferies' original 1960s starship, particularly in the configuration of the primary hull. According to Hargreaves: "I loved the saucer that Jefferies had and how the edges of it were canted in almost 45 degrees. It had a beautiful line, so when that ship passes you, it looks as if it's actually accelerating."

Hargreaves was also inspired by the death of the Enterprise from Star Trek Beyond, taking that ship's vulnerable sections and reinforcing them: "Justin [Lin] felt that this Enterprise needed to be more robust. The neck needed to be thicker and the pylons holding the engines needed to be much bigger because those were weak points. So he basically said 'Make it wider, make it thicker'".

The completed USS Enterprise-A appears on screen for less than a minute at the end of Star Trek Beyond, promising adventures for the Kelvin Timeline crew in future movies that look less and less likely to materialize. According to Hargreaves, the appearance of the ship in Beyond itself was uncertain, with the Enterprise-A being cut from the script twice before the decision was made to feature it in the movie's final moments. The USS Enterprise-A's inclusion in Star Trek Beyond was so last minute, the CGI model was unfinished – only the sections that would appear on camera being fully fleshed out by Hargreaves and the VFX producers at Double Negative.