Star Trek: Starships Model/Magazine Subscription

It didn't seem to me there was anything to fix on the Defiant for me. It's one of my favorite models. I know some people had a backwards pennant on theirs, but mine didn't have that problem. Voyager is one of the few "hero" ships I don't have and from the pictures I've seen, I'm not impressed. I can get over the lack of moving nacelles, but the noticeable seam lines on the side and the wrong font for the registry on the hull really don't sit well with me.

Regarding binders, it seems like all the ones currently on eBay, either have obscene prices (~ $30 Canadian) , obscene shipping rates (some over $30) or both. It's a piece of cardboard, for Pete's sake! How can it cost more to ship one of those from either the UK or the US than it did some of the models I bought??? This is why Eaglemoss really needs to make a store available to Canadians.

 

I wonder if that's because we haven't seen a zillion images from every conceivable angle of the obscure ships to realize there are any mistakes.

 

^^^ Y'know, there may be something to that...

 

Definitely. The main Enterprise hero ships are probably the best known, and most studied, fictional spaceships ever. Has any ship appeared in more episodes and films as the Enterprise-D?

 

On to some of your comparisons. The NX 01 is a much more fully detailed CGI model then the intrepid which was designed only for background scenes, not close up shots.

The while the stargazer is based off of the design of the reliant the ship doesn't have the full quality of the reliant model.

The enterprise E is possibly the most detailed small model they have put out.

Now of course this doesn't explain everything, not even close. But they models are all based on models that have a huge variation in quality.

Now of. Purse there are models that clearly lack a certain level of quality. The Runabout is a great example. The form is solid. But lacking any aztecing at all. And it was quite visible to the Naked eye.

Many ships based solely off of physical models have had several major short comings. I actually wonder how much reference material was provided to the artist building the CGI file for those had. It wouldn't surprise me if we fans had access to more.

I mean even the fx houses made some rather huge mistakes translating the physical ships to CGI files (sime From errors some from limits in time). Or the actual errors on both physical models and CGI models made by the professionals.

So I can certainly understand some of the issues, but then you get the Negh'var and no matter what this model should never have made it to production as is.

 

#95 the New Orleans-Class USS Kyushu was out in the UK today, picked it up this morning. Nice to be buying an issue again after 8 weeks! (and 3 shoddy issues in between)

Love this one! I know there are some less than stellar releases lately (namely why I skipped said 3 issues in a row), but quality releases like this and the recent Enterprise-J and Romulan Scout Ship always make up for it

 

The TARDIS.

 

True! But the thing that appears is a police box, which isn't a fictional design.

 

Actually a model (be it real or CGI) that has limited details is the full quality model of that ship. I don't think most people expected same level quality in a ship that was design to be filmed or used hundreds of times, in a wide variety of ways to the quality of a ship that was created as background. Or a model the that was made for a movie screen should have higher quality then the model used on TOS.

Models can have a huge level of difference in the care and design that was used in making them. If Eaglemoss is attempting to produce quality models off these designs then clearly the ships that have more detail is going to give the models they chance of being better. I mean take something like the Equinox where the detail is sharp enough to have the individually numbered life boats. Thankfully due to that ship being rather small to begin with, if another model wasn't done to that level of detail that level isn't going to be in the ship Eaglemoss creates.

They also advertised these models to be screen accurate for the scale, that also means using the errors that are on the ship. I can't think of single correction that they have made from a model that had a spelling error, a pennant done wrong, ect. Something like how the Akira does't have a name on it, because the CGI model was created with out one. Now they have corrected some of the images used for the magazines, but I can't think any corrections made for the model itself.

Now of course there are a host of errors that have been in ships that are from Eaglemoss themselves, things that weren't part of the production, but it really doesn't surprise me. As again if the professionals who made these ships and designs could make errors, then certainly others could as well. And then we have things like details never put on the models for Eaglemoss, not errors, just not matching. I assume those are primarily due to time, and production costs. In minor ships I can certainly imagine not getting enough reference material. The best example I know for that is the Pasteur. Something they don't have a ton of reference for. But what happened right around the time it got released. About 20 High quality close up images of all the various angels for the Pasteur was released. They had none of those. Another great source for fans, as been all the close up high quality images various fans took of the ships at the various auctions that occurred after production stopped and Viacom got rid of all the production materials of the various shows. I assume that they just have some photo references sent by the license holder as well as the CGI file database (which we have seen Ben show on his computer). And while they have to get approved by the license holder before they get released, I am very curious if the license department does anything more then just give them a quick glance (after all I have seen a huge host of crappy looking merchandise that bears on a small resemblance to the source material).

I get more upset about ships that get released of poor quality when the source material was significantly higher, and there are many of these, but for the most part they aren't the CGI ships. Though how the Negh'Var could have been such a poor job, I just can't imagine, unless for some reason it was a CGI model that was corrupt or they didn't get (it was done by one off the FX houses that they did have files from though). Things like the seem on the Nebula class on the aft section and no other detail on that aft section. This was based on the CGI file, and those details are absolutely there. I can understand the seem, those normally don't bother me that much. But the full absence of detail on a file that had detail??? Those are the type of issues that I get most upset about.

 

So it'd be even more well know, then.

But fair enough, If it must be a fictional spaceship that has appeared on screen more times than the Enterprise D, I nominate the Satellite of Love from MST3K.

 

The A, the B, the C, the D or the E?

 

In "Let's Kill Hitler", it has the designation "TT Type 40, Mark 3".

 

I've got to admit, ships that really weren't on my radar I have gone out of my way to get from my local Forbidden Planet - particularly the Aeon, the Enterprise J and the Romulan Scout (part of me only got the latter because it's an iconic Next Generation ship, and I felt it would just look wrong not to have it as part of my collection, and I did regret my completism for a little while after I got it, I didn't even open it for about a month or so...and now I absolutely love it!). The Kyushu was another I wasn't entirely sold on, I don't really like the Wolf 359 kitbashes, but the model is gorgeous.

No idea if I'm mis-understanding you here (apologies if I am), but they definitely corrected the pennant on the left warp nacelle of the Defiant (I have two corrected ones...sadly, the first had a really askew nose section), and it has been reported that the [screen accurate] spelling errors on the Akira and Equinox were also corrected (if you check the German Tafelrunde blog for the Equinox, the close-ups of it's registry clearly show it now being spelt with an 'O' rather than a 'D').

 

I can. The photographic model used as the Centaur was actually labeled the USS Buckner (after the VFX worker who made it), as it was built for a young fan, rather than for filming.

Yeah, my Defiant has the right pennants too,

 

Not only that, the original filming miniature had a bunch more detailing on it, a Reliant-scale bridge module and a really trippy palette with brilliant blues and golds and all the fluorescent paints they used to "light it up" with a black light (windows, engine glows, etc.) and there were two of them - IIRC, the first one went to the kid, and the second one was used on-screen.

 

For me the biggest disappointment in terms of accuracy is the Stargazer. The Primary hull is just completely wrong and it changes the entire look of the ship. If they had only built up the hull thickness instead of cut-and-pasting a standard Connie hull into their model mesh.

It is sad for me because this was one of the ships I really wanted to have in my collection. It is an unusual design and one which is almost impossible to find as a model kit or replica unless you have a lot of cash.

I am hoping they revisit it later with a corrected version