Star Trek: Starships Model/Magazine Subscription

For $1800, I expect a Studio Scale model that is accurate.

 

Yeah, that is so not $1800 accurate.

 

Problem is, accurate to which one? The first miniature? The second one? What about the many CG versions we’ve seen on-screen over the years? This is clearly an idealized version that contains pieces of some or all of them.

 

If I'm going to spend that much on a model of the Enterprise-D I would prefer that it be accurate to the size of the model it is. For example, it's just over 2' long, so I'd prefer it be accurate to that. I wouldn't want a model of someone's idealized version of it. I have to give this Build The Enterprise-D line, a pass. It's just not worth the money for me, and not accurate enough.

 

Eaglemoss' unreliability is why I'll never order one of their partsworks offerings.

Holy crap, I'm missing most of DISCO 12-25, but I think most of my original subscription has pretty much arrived.

 

I also have the BTTF DeLorean sub build and they’ve actually been pretty good about that one. There were a few shipping glitches when the COVID stuff started happening, but they’ve done a decent job filling in the holes now that things have settled down a bit. They’ve recently offered a discount to finish up the line more quickly. I have about 12 issues to go, so I went ahead and pulled the trigger on that to wrap it up so I can focus remaining Trek ships.

 

My second shipment arrived today. Three ships and a binder.

First is the Academy trainer. It's one of the few remaining Starfleet ships from the main set that I didn't yet have (apart from some of the kitbashes and concepts that I just don't like the look of). It's a lot flatter than I expected, but a nice look. In retrospect, had they made a proper filming model for this for "The First Duty", they might've been able to use it as the Maquis/Federation fighter on DS9.

I got the Suliban cell ship because I wanted all the major ships from that series, but this is the weakest of the three. There's barely any color variation, even though the magazine pics clearly show darkened corners. Not much to say about that.

The Klingon transport from "Judgment", was the last Klingon ship from the main numbered that I didn't yet have, and, I believe, the last "Berman era" Klingon ship to get a model (apart from the freighters in "Sons and Daughters" and the transport in "Rules of Engagement", which were a reuse of the Groumall and Merchantman, respectively). I learned that technically, this one was a recycle as well, apparently from the episode "The Seventh", but that was a more incidental ship in a pretty forgettable episode. (Kind of like how the derelict alien ship in "The Fight" became the Romulan drone). The detail on this model is amazing, the color, the small parts. It's just a great job all around. I've heard people complain that the obscure ships tend to be the highest quality. That was certainly the case here.

Not sure what more I want. I do think my family may be sending me a ship or two I asked for for the holidays. We'll see.

 

If you want a really decent pre-built Enterprise D with saucer seper, try to pick up one of the old Aoshima Enterprise D models. They were really sweet.

That part-work looks terrible for the price, the promo images have droopy nacelles and there are huge panel gaps. I see on The Trek Collective that Round 2 are going to be selling a 1:350 pre-built and painted TOS Enterprise - and its *only* $450!

 

None of 'em. If I am not mistaken, the look of the nacelle struts from behind doesn't match any of the versions. (That, and probably a lot of the other problem areas are almost definitely down to the build-it-a-piece-at-a-time nature of the thing, but for that kind of money...)

 

Not me, but man was I tempted to grab one of their Serenity models when they first came out.

 

I get they're still prototypes, but they don't look great, and that's a pretty slapdash way to convince people to sign up for an extremely expensive model.

I've just noticed the huge black switches on the underside of the lighted prototype too. I don't really have a good feeling about this and I think you'd be mad to commit to it at the current pricing.

 

Yeah, I noticed that too. Do you think there's some intentional obfuscation going on, trying to hide inaccuracies? It does seem a little "artsy" for a release announcement like this. Could also be a prototype that doesn't take into account final production tweaks.

 

I think these things always have a delicate balance to strike, and they need guaranteed preorders before they can even know if it's going to be viable, so a production sample literally doesn't exist.

It's pretty bad that they don't have a prototype that has both lights and the right paint job. Combined with Eaglemoss's quality control issues (misaligned windows are still a thing after over 200 models!) I wouldn't have any confidence in this sadly.

 

Agreed. Going to skip this one myself as well. The E-D was never my favorite design anyway (Mr. Probert, please don't put a hit out on me!).

Now, if they did a build-your-own-TOS-Battlestar-Galactica, that might pique my interest!

 

Finally got notice that Regula and Shiva have shipped. As usual, still no tracking info after several days.

 

So I accidentally ordered the new shuttle set twice, a month ago and a few days ago (forgot about the first order)

Holy crap the US store must only have one person answering the phones. During the holiday season. During the hour that most everyone who is still working makes their personal phone calls. No wonder they have issues.

 

Oooff! That's an expensive mistake. Those shuttle sets aren't cheap. Hope you can get it fixed.

 

Should be fixed now. I cancelled the first order, the one in which I did NOT apply a 30% discount code.

Also asked to add my name to the list of people annoyed that there are no US-available binders for DSC, STO, or the shuttles. (and no Trek binders at all in stock for months).