Aug 29 2017

Star Trek Mega Bloks: Klingon D7 Battlecruiser by Mattel

It’s been a while since I looked at any building sets, so I thought I’d mix things up today and check out another one of the Mega Bloks Star Trek sets. I built and reviewed a couple of the smaller sets way back in July of last year and since then I almost forgot these things even existed. Then I got a friendly Recommendations email from Amazon telling me they were blowing out the Klingon D7 Battlecruiser, which reminded me of the old Klingon saying: “Today is a good day to buy!” Seriously, this was a deal that would have made a Ferengi blush!

The set comes in a mostly enclosed box with fancy angled edges, and a tiny window to show the included Micro Figure and a nice illustration of the finished build firing its disruptors. This whole union between Mega Bloks and the original Star Trek series is so random and weird, but also delightful and miraculous at the same time. I’ve only seen these sets in a brick and mortar store once, but seeing any Star Trek merch on the shelf gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling, especially since it was the 50th Anniversary of the show and no one seemed to care. I keep meaning to pick up the Bridge and Transporter sets, and maybe building this one will encourage me to finally do just that.

The box contains about six bags of pieces, none of which are numbered. You also get a loose base plate, and a large and colorful instruction manual with shots of Kirk, Spock, and Uhura on the front. All together there are 351 pieces which builds the ship and the display stand. I found this to be a fairly challenging build, and I attribute that to two things. First, since the bags aren’t numbered like in LEGO sets, you have to dump all of them out, which makes for a lot more pieces to search through. Second, 99% of the pieces in the set are either gray or light gray, so sorting by color won’t help much. There are also a surprisingly large number of smaller pieces used, and hardly any specialty pieces. I’d say the build was overall pretty enjoyable, but with a modicum of frustration every now and then.

And here she is all built, measuring about twelve inches from the front of the bridge to the back of the warp nacelles, and ready to earn honor and glory for The Empire! I’ll start out by saying how cool it is that they included a buildable stand and how much I love what they did with it. It includes a rotating base so you can display the ship anyway you want. It also has a nameplate with the ship’s designation, and you get a Klingon battle flag and a little Captain Kor to stand in front of it. Obviously, the Micro Figure is not in scale with the ship, but it’s a really cool way to display the completed model. Plus, the Micro Figures in this series have all been excellent. Kor comes with a a little hand disruptor and a shoulder strap to carry it in. On the downside, my set was missing one of the clear support poles that hold the ship up. It still works with just three, but I think it stinks when they leave parts out. In the past, Mega Bloks has made it easy to automatically report missing pieces and they will ship them out, but in this case their system doesn’t even recognize the model number of this set. Let’s take a closer look at the D7 itself, and to do that I’m going to take it off of the stand. But I’m going to have to empty out a shot glass first…

Overall, I think this is a great looking rendition of the famous Klingon warship, and the fact that it does use so few specialized parts makes it all the more impressive. It’s really well proportioned and the two-tone gray blocks fit the color scheme of the ship perfectly. The disruptor effect parts are pretty cool, but you can obviously remove them if you’d rather not have your D7 perpetually firing.

I was a little worried about the integrity of the boom, but it’s reinforced quite well at both ends, and I’ve been handling the ship a lot without it detaching. I particularly love the engineering behind the way the wings attach, allowing for them to angle downward ever so slightly and yet still not be floppy. All in all, this is a very sturdy model and it’ll stand up perfectly to being wooshed around the room.

One thing Mega Bloks has been doing better than LEGO is their use of printed bricks over stickers. The D7 uses them pretty sparingly. You get the Imperial emblem on the one wing, a few blocks with Klingon script, the impulse glow on the back, and the windows and torpedo tube on the bridge module. They even accounted for using translucent green blocks on the back of the warp engines. Nice touch!

I really dig how the spaces betwen the bricks look like windows on the sides of the bridge module. It’s probably not intentional, but a cool incidental effect anyway. Also, I just noticed that I put one of the bricks with the rows of windows upside down and they’re slightly out of alignment. At least that’s an easy fix.

Overall, I’d rate this set pretty highly, especially if all things were equal and I wasn’t missing a goddamn piece. The original MSRP was $40 and if I compare that to one of LEGO’s licensed $40 sets, I find that on average, this one includes a couple dozen more pieces. Sure, the quality isn’t as good as LEGO, but it’s not really bad either. Also, I doubt LEGO could have done much better with the design at the same piece count. What’s also not bad is the price this thing is going for now on Amazon. I picked mine up for about $11 and as I write this it actually dropped down to $10, so I picked up a second one. Now if only the 3,000+ piece Enterprise would drop too, because I’d really love to pick up that thing!

Apr 2 2016

Star Trek: Acrylic Display Stands (Classic Series Phaser and Star Trek III Phaser) by Flux Dimensions LLC

For the longest time, I tossed and turned at night because of a serious and nagging problem in my life. The root of the problem? My collection of Starfleet weapons. I had no place to display them. They sat in a plastic tote waiting for me to take them out and play with them. I would feel them in my hand for a while, aim them, make some pew pew noises, and then they back into the tote they went. I longed for the day someone would come up with a solution so that I could go back to living a normal life free of worry. And now that time is here, thanks to a company on Ebay called Flux Dimensions. They make acrylic display stands for a number of collectibles, including the Star Trek ships and weapons made by Diamond Select Toys. I bought a pair of these stands: One for my Classic Original Series phaser and one for my Star Trek III phaser and I’m going to take a quick look at them today.

The stands are advertised as custom made to order and some assembly is required. These factors worried me a little, because I envisioned slow shipping and potential assembly issues. Especially the later, when the item description advises that if the fit isn’t right you might need to glue it to achieve a tight fit. As it turns out neither were issues. The items arrived in a few days, each stand comprised of three simple pieces wrapped in plastic and with protective adhesive film, and the fit of the pieces was absolutely perfect.

Both stands are fashioned from immaculate pieces of clear acrylic with custom etched bases and supports designed to cradle each specific weapon. The Star Trek III phaser stand includes the title of the movie in the familiar font along with “Type II Phaser” all flanked by two Starfleet insignia. The lettering shows some pixelation around the edges, but only when viewed up close. The tabs for the supports are the identical, so you can have the phaser face left or right and still keep the orientation of the base facing forward. This is kind of a big deal, since the DST phaser looks best when viewed with it facing right, as the screw plugs are on the obverse side.

The stand for the Classic phaser is a little different. For starters it has “Star Trek” printed in the classic series font. But more importantly, instead of two supports suspending the weapon just above the base, this one cradles the butt of the hand grip. It works just as well, save for one little annoyance: You can’t reverse the orientation on this one, so the phaser is always going to be pointing to the left if you want the lettering on the base facing forward. In this case, that means the one screw hole near the beam emitter and the faint copyright information towards the back are both going to be visible. It’s certainly not a deal-breaker for me, but the option to display this one both ways too would have been welcome.

With that little quibble aside, I have to say I’m totally delighted with these stands and very glad I purchased them. They are very attractive and great quality pieces. Granted, at $20 each (plus shipping) they are a little costly, not so much for what they are, but in relation to the collectible they’re displaying. These phasers only ran me about $35 each, which makes twenty bucks a relatively big investment to display them. That having been said, these really do class up these pieces so much that they’re well worth the price to me. Also, since the DST props are sized fairly accurately, these stands should work fine with the more expensive resin props sold at conventions. Either way, I highly recommend them.

As I mentioned earlier, Flux Dimensions sells a bunch of different stands, including ones to replace the shitty ones that DST includes with their Starships. They also make some for lightsabers, Sonic Screwdrivers, and some of the 3 3/4-inch scale Star Wars ships by Hasbro and Kenner. I do believe my next pick up from these guys will be for my Klingon Disruptor.

Addendum: Tim Sloan from Flux Dimensions was kind enough to drop me a line with a few additional details about their products. For starters, they are capable of customizing the stands to order, allowing the phasers to face left or right, which nicely solves the issue of exposing the side of the phaser with the screw plugs. Also, their products are available for purchase direct from their website tshobbies.com often at reduced cost when compared to their Ebay store. I highly recommend checking them out and browsing their product!

Mar 24 2016

Star Trek: Klingon Disruptor by Diamond Select

Originally featured in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the Klingon Type 3 Disruptor would go on to be a very familiar weapon, commonly seen throughout the rest of Trek’s TV and motion picture run. By my count, this same design has been in service for about 100 years, much like the Bird of Prey, and both instances are very conveniently cost effective for producers of the franchise who don’t have to keep coming up with new models and props. Indeed, when you consider the changing trends in Starfleet weapons, I’d dare say this design has become one of the most iconic pieces of equipment in the series. And that’s fitting, because the design is so very Klingon and I absolutely adore it. It’s not sleek or pretty, but it has a certain primitive and swashbuckling feel about it. Starfleet weapons look like sterile implements, but the Klingon Disruptor looks like it has a history behind it. It certainly resembles a standard firearm more than most of Starfleet’s weapons, or at least the ones appearing in The Next Generation era. With a traditional pistol-grip leading to a breech-like body and a beam emitter positioned at the end of three silver pylons that resembles a gun barrel, this is a design that I fell in love with the very first time I saw Kruge use it to vaporize one of his own officers. Let’s check out Diamond Select’s version of this warrior’s honorable weapon.

If you’ve picked up any of DST’s Starships, Phasers, or other gear, then the package here should be familiar. It’s a blue and black box with a bit of a starfield deco. The front panel features a window that shows the weapon and a “Try Me” hole that lets you sample one of the electronic sounds. The back has a picture of the Disruptor and a little blurb about it. This is a big box for an item that is much bigger than I was expecting. The only other Klingon Disruptor I ever owned was the Playmates scaled down version and going on just my memory, this one is huge by comparison.

Diamond’s version is perfectly sized and while it feels a lot lighter than I imagine the real things would be, it doesn’t feel cheap in the hand and it has a decent balance. The quality straddles that line between toy and replica. Some of the sculpted details are a tad soft, there are visible seams in the plastic, and the weathering is very simple, but they did take the time to plug the screw holes on one side. Mine has some scratches that are clearly not intentional, but they work toward making it look more properly used. This is a piece that looks good on display and is perfectly suited to cosplaying at a Con, assuming they still let you carry anything that’s even vaguely gun shaped any more. What this isn’t is a collector’s grade prop replica.

The electronics on this piece are very simple, especially when compared to some of DST’s phasers. There’s a silver sliding switch on the back that puts the weapon into three different modes. I’m assuming, the equivalent of Stun, Kill, and Disintegrate. Each time you move it, it registers with a sound. The trigger is appropriately placed as a thumb button up where the hammer on a real gun would be. Pressing it fires the appropriate sound and lights up the red emitter on the business end of the weapon. Normally with DST ships and equipment I record a little video to show off the electronics, but it wasn’t even worth my time here. The emitter light is sufficiently bright, but the sounds are mediocre at best and not great quality. If you’re expecting something that clearly resembles the awesome sound this weapon made in Star Trek III, you’re going to be disappointed.

While DST’s phasers have had features like removable palm units, this disruptor is pretty much just a static piece. The “breech” does slide back, but it’s designed to do that in order to reveal the battery compartment. I do recall seeing the Klingons “cock” this thing at one point (I think before beaming down to Genesis), but I think it was achieved by twisting the barrel. Still, sliding this piece back a bit and pushing it forward could achieve a similar look, I guess.

It’s no secret I’m a sucker for Star Trek Role Play Equipment and seeing as how much I love the design of this piece, I’ve had my eye on this Disruptor for a long time. I’m pretty sure it’s been on the market for well over a year. The issue for me was price and the hit and miss history I’ve had with the quality control on DST’s Star Trek items. The Disruptor originally retailed at about sixty bucks, which is quite ludicrous for what you’re getting. I’ve since seen it quite often for as low as $45 and even there I balked. Turns out the right price for me was $27 because that’s what got me to finally pull the trigger, if you’ll pardon the expression. At that price, it’s a decent piece, even if the electronics aren’t as good as I had hoped. It’ll still look great hanging on the wall alongside the rest of my sci-fi arsenal.

Sep 1 2015

Star Trek III: “The Search for Spock” Hand Phaser by Diamond Select

I’ve been an aficionado of Starfleet sidearms for as long as I can remember now. I’ve had them all from horribly cheesy Next Gen Playmates versions all the way up to a beautifully professionally-machined Classic Series prop that I bought at a Trek Convention back in the early 90’s in NY and later had to sell so that I could afford to eat while paying for Grad School. Today I’m checking out Diamond’s brand new Star Trek III phaser. Hopefully with this baby I’ll have Mr. Adventure eating out of my hand.

If you own any of Diamond’s Starships, you should recognize the deco used for the box. I’m not a big fan as it mixes Classic Trek imagery with what is a Feature Film collectible. Why couldn’t we get a picture of Admiral Kirk in his tunic on the box, or at least movie enterprise. Blah! It’s nothing special and that’s probably a good thing because mine came to me smashed to hell. Luckily it was the only thing in the box that was as it was part of my Pile of Loot and there were some pricier pieces in there.

Straightaway, let me say that this is my second favorite phaser design in all of Star Trek and second only to the “Battle Phaser” which was introduced in Star Trek V and used during the raid on Paradise City. This version takes the general design of the Classic Series sidearm, which I’m also incredibly fond of, and makes it all sleek and sexy. There aren’t a lot of details on it, apart from the blue striping down the sides, just a lot of smooths surfaces and curves. To me, this design is totally convincing as a futuristic weapon and Diamond’s version does a pretty good job of reproducing the look of the prop and even uses plugs to cover the screws on one side. There are some stray scratches on mine, which could be counted against it on a QC level, but they kind of work as weathering and don’t bother me so much.

Virtually all the detail on this piece is found on the control panel on top of the weapon and even that is very minimalist in appearance. You get an On-Off switch, which sadly looks like exactly what it is: A switch for a toy, rather than something integrated into the fictional design of the weapon. I don’t mind them using a standard switch, but I wish it was concealed a little better. The blue triangle lights the weapon’s ready status and there are four red lights and a power settings button to cycle through the four force settings.

Of course, just like with the Classic Series phaser, the top unit here is a detachable self-contained palm phaser that nests with the larger hand-grip housing. When removed and used on its own, the triangular button on top becomes the trigger. This piece looks really nice and feels great in the hand. My only gripe here is that the white on my power cycle button has some messed up paint. Again, I’ll likely just write it off as weathering, but clearly it’s a pretty big QC issue of the type that DST seems to continually have problems with.

The electronics in this piece are passable, but because the speaker is located on the bottom of the palm unit, the sounds are pretty muffled when it’s docked with the grip housing and that’s pretty disappointing. The SFX include a power up beep when it’s turned on and off, and four very slightly different sounds for each of the four force settings. Honestly, I can barely tell the difference between the first three.

As for lights, the blue power light on the top trigger button remains lit when the phaser is on. The force setting lights cycle until you choose a setting, which is done by repeatedly pressing the setting button. There’s a red light in the beam emitter of the hand grip housing and an elongated series of red lights in the smaller palm phaser’s beam emitter. Lastly, if you hold down the setting button and the trigger on the housing the phaser will prep for Overload. Pressing the top trigger button will initiate the Overload Sequence. It’s all pretty basic stuff. Nothing amazing, but adequate.

Overall, I think this thing is OK, but I wanted to like it more than I do, especially since I love the design so much. The QC issues are perhaps minor but still troublesome and I think the electronics could have been designed a little better. I can appreciate wanting to hide the speaker under the palm phaser, but why not show the same courtesy for the power button? And the emitters could have used some brighter LEDs. The LED they used for the Excelsior’s deflector dish can burn out someone’s retina and I would have loved to see something similar on this piece. All in all, it feels like a step down from DST’s Classic Series phaser that I own from quite a few years back. At $35, I’m not sorry I bought it, it’ll look great on my wall and it’s perfect for anyone looking to cosplay, but in the end I had hoped for something a little better.

Jul 1 2015

Star Trek The Next Generation: Lt. Worf by Diamond Select

Thus far the DST editions of Warp Speed Wednesday have been focusing on Deep Space Nine, so today I thought I’d mix it up with a little Next Generation action with pre-Ds9 Worf. It never fails to amaze me that a spin-off of such a classic series could have produced such iconic characters in its own right, and yet Next Gen certainly did that. Even to someone like me, who grew up watching Classic Trek before Next Gen was a thing, Worf has become as iconic to the Trek franchise as someone like Spock. And what could have easily been a throwaway gimmick, putting a Klingon in Starfleet, turned into something special. I credit a lot of that to Michael Dorn and his genuine love and enthusiasm for portraying the character. The dude is even trying to get a new series about Worf off the ground and I say more power to him.

The sculpt on this figure is one of their best. Sure, it’s the standard Next Gen uniform from the later Seasons, but that’s my favorite style, when they did away with the jumpsuits and adopted the tunic. Worf’s uniform includes his Klingon baldric, which is a separate piece made from soft plastic. It’s a great sculpt and it not only makes sense to be a separate piece, as Diamond likes to reuse these bodies, but it just works better that way too.

The portrait is also one of the best I’ve looked at so far. It probably helps that Worf’s Klingon features give the sculptors more to work with, but they really nailed Michael Dorn in the makeup, ponytail and all. The wash really brings out the detail on his forehead ridges. The paint on his beard is a little off, but nothing too bad.

The articulation here is the same we’ve been seeing all along. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs feature a t-crotch at the hips and hinges in the knees and ankles. As usual the lack of lateral movement in the hips or any swivels in the legs makes for a rather static figure. It’s a little more frustrating here because Worf is a man of action and I want to put him in all sorts of kick ass poses. Instead, this is more of a Worf to stand at the Tactical Station and get shot down by Picard every time he suggests they take reasonable precautions to protect the ship.

Worf’s accessories were advertised on the package as “Starfleet Gear” and included a hand phaser, a phaser rifle and a tricorder. He also came with two extra hands clenched into fists. I get it, Worf likes to hit things, but I remember him usually hitting people with that open hand palm attack, which must have been one of the first things they taught at the Academy . Eh, I don’t want to be too picky. Fists are fine.

The hand phaser is the same accessory I’ve alread featured with past figures. It’s a simple enough accessory and possibly a little undersized. This is also one of those cases where it’s tough to get him to hold it right. I’d much rather had a phaser-holding hand than a fist. Why can’t Diamond ever seem to get this right? I can kind of make it work, but clearly the right hand is made for his other weapon.

Yes, the phaser rifle! It’s the older, boxy style from Next Gen’s pre-movie days, which I like better than the sexy newer model. Actually, to clarify, I like the way the old one shoots with an actual phaser beam, before they turned it into a pulse “pew pew” kind of weapon that didn’t feel much like Star Trek to me. This one even has the range finder flipped up.

I’m more than a tad disappointed that Worf didn’t come with any Klingon gear, but it’s easy to just borrow that stuff from Jadzia Dax. After all, a Klingon Warrior needs his bat’leth.

Next to maybe Odo, Worf here is easily my favorite DST figure I looked at since starting this whole Warp Speed Wednesday thing. Sure, more articulation would have gone a long way, but damn if this isn’t a great figure on every other level. Diamond must really love Worf because the character also got a couple different versions out during this line’s run so don’t be surprised when he turns up here again in the future. It’s also interesting to note that DST has recently given Worf another go at the figure treatment, although the new one is one of those weird action figure-statue kind of things that has even more limited articulation and swappable parts to achieve different poses. But I have no plans on adding that one to my collection anytime soon.

Jun 24 2015

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Dr. Julian Bashir and Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax by Diamond Select

Yes, Warp Speed Wednesday is a thing now, and it will continue to be until I run out of Star Trek stuff to look at. Actually, that would probably take forever, so I’ll just keep it going until I get burned out on the subject for a while. Let’s say another month or so. Last time I looked at the DST figures I gassed on a lot about my love for DS9 and today we’re checking out a pair of figures based on two more of the show’s great characters: Bashir and Dax. My Bashir figure has a lot less interesting stuff, so let’s do him first…

Bashir’s character was loads of fun. He started out as a great Doctor and a green Starfleet Officer and his character developed quite a bit over the series. He went from seemingly shallow womanizer, who’s favorite pasttime was chasing Dax, to working for secret Starfleet organizations after we got that huge reveal that he was an illegal genetic augment! In the largely vanilla universe of Trek, this was some serious shit! And in terms of screen friendships, I think the Bashir and O’Brien relationship is a tough one to beat. ItLike most of DST’s DS9 figures, Bashir comes in his late series, TNG movie-era uniform. While I liked the more classic look, this one works too. It’s an easy outfit to reproduce as it doesn’t invovlve a whole lot of paint or detail. Apart from the usual creases and wrinkles, most of the sculpting comes in the shoulders, which featues the gray quilted look with the department color coded blue collar peaking out. Of course, you also get the rank pips on the collar and the insignia communicator.

The likeness here is a pretty damn good one to Alexander Siddig. I haven’t seen him in a lot since Star Trek, but it was cool to see him in Game of Thrones this past season. The paint, on the other hand, is a little odd. It’s like they did a wash on his face to bring out the contours of the sculpt, but really all it does is make him look dirty. Paint rubbing was also a big problem with these figures and as a result mine looks like he’s observing Ash Wednesday.

The articulation here is passable. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivel cuts in the biceps, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the wrists. Below the waist, things take a turn for the worst. He has a simple and restrictive t-crotch and hinges in the knees and ankles. Bashir can swivel at the waist and his neck is ball jointed. Like a lot of these figures, he’s got that weird thing going on with his legs where you have to bend them a little to get him to stand right.

With only four out of the original six accessories, my Bashir is incomplete. He does have two Starfleet PADDs, one large and one small. These are pretty standard pieces with stickers for the screens. He can hold them pretty well and while they aren’t terribly exciting, they are staples for any Starfleet Officer.

Slightly more fun is his raktajino mug and the coon skin cap that he wears when he goes into the Holosuite with Miles to play their Alamo program. I believe the missing accessories are a phaser and hypo. Moving on to Dax…

Dax was an interesting character because she didn’t fit the usual “I’m an outsider trying to be more/less human” Trek trope. She was indeed one of the more bizarre aliens we saw in the series, thanks to her conjoined nature, but her irreverent, fun-seeking personality made for a rather a-typical Starfleet Science Officer and I found that to be a nice departure for the series. It made for an even more interesting dynamic when she started to get involved with Worf. Once again, we get her in the late series Starfleet uniform. Dax always looked mighty fine in that uniform and the figure reflects that. Of course, apart from her curves, this is the same uniform we saw with Bashir and her articulation is identical. Dax does have a wider-cut and slightly less restrictive t-crotch and her ball jointed head is a lot looser. It’s also nice that they used the taller female buck so she looks pretty good standing next to the much shorter Kira.

As with Bashir, the likeness here is quite good. I might have preferred a more neutral expression as she looks a little two damn happy. I suppose the smile suits the character’s outgoing personality, but it looks rather out of place when you’re posing her with her weapons. The paint apps on the face are especially good, especially evidenced by her Trill spots.

Dax comes with six accessories, half are Starfleet and half are Klingon. On the Starfleet side she has a standard hand phaser, a phaser rifle, and a rather large PADD. Unfortunately, Dax’s hands are rather relaxed and not in any way suited to hold her weapons. I can get her to do some things with the rifle, but the hand phaser isn’t much use.

The Klingon accessories include a bottle of blood wine, a Bat’leth, and a dagger. She can hold the dagger and the bottle OK, and I can make a few things work with the sword, but this isn’t a figure made to be put into action poses and so while the accessories themselves are good, there’s only so much you can do with them.

When I looked at Kira and Odo, I made the comment that these figures feel dated in some respects, and that still applies here. The articulation sounds good on paper, but they still come off as stiff. Despite their limitations, however, I still dig these figure a lot. The paint and quality of sculpts are competent enough and the likenesses are certainly there. If only Diamond had endowed these figures with some lateral movement in the hips and some thigh swivels, I think they would have been heaps better. Maybe someone somewhere will pick up this license again, but for now I’m just happy to have the characters I love represented on my shelf.

Jun 17 2015

Star Trek Starship Legends: USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E (“Nemesis”) by Diamond Select

Lest you forgot, I’m doing this whole Star Trek Thang on Wednesdays now, which is convenient because I’ve also picked up another one of DST’s Starships. The sixth entry into my fleet is none other than the NCC-1701-E. First introduced in “First Contact” (because Troi crashed the “D” into a planet in the previous film) this new design really looked amazing on screen and represented a bold new look for the intrepid Starship I’ve known and loved for all my life. The Soverign Class Enterprise boldly traveled through three feature films and this newest release is based on the appearance in “Nemesis.” If memory serves, “Insurrection” and “Nemesis” were the first Star Trek films to rely solely on a CGI model of the Enterprise for exterior shots. This design strikes me more as a mash up between the Constitution Refit and the Intrepid Class (ie Voyager) and sort of passes over the Galaxy Class for design elements. This ship also has a severely minimalist profile when viewed viewed straight on, which I still think is pretty damn cool. The result is a very futuristic looking design of a ship that still retains that intangible nobility that I get from all the Enterprises.

The package is exactly what we’ve been seeing all along. You get an elongated blue window box with the classic “Star Trek” logo and a bunch of text about the ship. There’s a “Try Me” window that lets you get a taste of the electronics. The ship comes fully assembled, all you have to do is put together the two halves of the stand and plug the ball into the socket under the ship. You will need a phillips head screwdriver to undo the battery hatch and switch it from “Try Me” to “Play” in order to get the full effect, but unless this is your first DST Starship, you’ve probably been through all this before. Also included in the box is a replacement battery hatch without the socket for the stand and a folded instruction sheet. With the ship measuring just over 18-inches from the tip of the saucer to the back of the nacelles, it’s every bit as long as The Excelsior, but the design makes it look a lot slighter in every other respect.

The first thing that struck me about the “E” when I got it out and all set up was how busy the deco is. This is easily the most complex paint job of any ship in my fleet. It certainly reflects the look of the ship on screen, but with the track record of DST on these ships, more detailed paint apps lead to more potential for flubs. That having been said, the paint on mine is fairly decent, but it falls just short of having that professional look. If I bought this ship loose from Ebay not knowing what it was, I would probably assume that it was a kit that was painted by a fairly competant model builder and not a professional factory piece from an officially licensed company. My ship also had some annoying black paint speckled around the top of the primary hull. I was able to remove nearly all of it with some careful razor work, but having to take a razor to my new fifty dollar model is not something I enjoy doing. When all is said and done, probably the weakest paint is the area around the bussard collectors.

This ship uses a pearlescent plastic, which is somewhat similar to the stuff used for my “Wrath of Khan” Enterprise. While it’s not nearly as light and overall looks much better here, it still allows for some light bleed, which I’ll get to in a just a bit. I do, however, still prefer the denser stuff used for the hulls of the Excelsior and the Enterprise-D. The ship also uses several decals for the registry numbers and “racing” stripes. These are all applied with care and look straight and sharp.

The electronics feature the usual mix of lights and sound. There are lights in the primary hull, which light up bridge and the windows near by as well as the two red impulse engines. This point features a fair amount of light bleeding, which is obvious, but look enough like spot lights on the exterior that I don’t mind it so much. The deflector dish lights up a very bright yellow with virtually no light bleeding at all. Lastly, the bussard collectors on the warp nacelles light up red and the top strips light up blue. Again, you get some light bleeding on the nacelles, mostly around the seams below the red bussard collectors, but the blue nacelle strips look really sharp.The lights only activate when the sound effects are going off and sadly there’s no function to just run the lights. As for the sound effects, here they are…

The sound sampling here feels really generic and features an emphasis on sound effects rather than speech. It’s basically just Picard giving some combat orders and a lot of weapons firing and engine sounds. Granted, “Nemesis” wasn’t a great film, but there were definitely some better quotes that could have been pulled from it. On the other hand, the generic nature of the clips make this ship work for just about any of the last three movies, so I suppose that could be considered a plus.

The stand is slightly better than the standard garbage we’ve been seeing for this line. It has a two-sided triangle post instead of just one like my WoK Enterprise. It does support the ship quite well in a number of positions, but I attribute that to the relatively light weight and good balance of the ship rather than the quality of the stand.

If the scale I use for rating these ships runs from the Awful “Wrath of Khan” Enterprise to the Superb NX Excelsior and Enterprise-D, with most of my other ships falling on upper half of the spectrum, then I would probably place this version of the Enterprise-E exactly midway along the line. The only real QC issues on this piece is the black paint spray and I’ve managed to fix most of that. Yes, the paint around the bussard collectors could be better, but it doesn’t sink to the depths of some of the stuff showcased on the WoK Enterprise. Everything else about this ship (the plastic, paint quality, lighting and sound) I would categorize as quite good, but not quite exceptional. At around $30-35 I would have been a lot more satisfied with this purchase, but at $50 it feels rather steep for the quality. Nonetheless, I’m happy to add The Enterprise-E to my Starship Legends shelf and it should be only a matter of time before I break down and pick up the Enterprise-B.

Jun 10 2015

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Constable Odo and Colonel Kira Nerys by Diamond Select

Welcome to the second Warp Speed Wednesday wherein I’ll be taking the opportunity to check out random Star Trek stuff in my collection. Today we’re headed deep out into the frontier to the Bajor System. It’s been a long road… getting from… oh, wait… wrong series. Ah, Deep Space Nine! Even as a Trekkie who cut his teeth on the original series, I still regard DS9 among the most consistent of all the Star Treks. I still adore Next Gen as a complete body of work, but it’s hard for me to revisit some of those episodes or even those first couple of seasons. With DS9, I was engaged from the very first episode, and I can spin the wheel, land on an episode and almost always watch it over again with glee. A lot of that has to do with the characters, and today, I’m checking out to of them Non-Starfleet types, one of which I got in a recent box of Trek figures from my fellow podcaster and the other I’ve had kicking around for a long time now. Odo and Kira are both fantastic characters in their own right, but their relationship was one of the more satisfying and then heartbreaking threads woven throughout the series. And since Diamond never did a Quark figure, these two seemed like a natural pair to feature together. I’ve got no packaged shots to show you, so let’s just go ahead and start with Odo.

Dang, I love this guy! He was like the Clint Eastwood and Mike Hammer of Star Trek all rolled into one. I also think he was one of the most interesting alien characters in any of the series. Diamond’s only release of Odo depicts him as he appeared throughout most of the series, in his two-tone beige Bajoran Security uniform. It’s not a complex sculpt, but then the uniform was a pretty simple design. Note the high collar, which if I recall signifies this is a later season version. Also, no belt. I never remembered Odo wearing a belt, but it was a point of interest with Kira on one episode, which always made me chuckle, because the belt was in fact just part of him. What is it with DST’s figures and the legs? I’ve got more than a few of these where it feels like the legs have to be bent at a slightly awkward angle for them to stand properly. Weird.

Diamond is generally pretty good with their portraits and likenesses and Odo here is certainly one of their better efforts. The simplified features of his best impression of a human face are recreated wonderfully here as well as his dour expression. The “hair” is nicely detailed and the paintwork on the eyes is good. I can practically hear him complaining about “Federation rules and regulations.”

Odo’s articulation consists of the usual, “so close and yet so far” aspect of DST’s figures. The arms are fine, with rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists, it’s pretty standard stuff. The biggest crippling points, however, are the hips, which consist of a simple T-crotch buried under the tight plastic of his tunic. The joints are in there, but there’s almost no allowances for movement. Below that you get hinges in the knees and ankles. Lastly there’s a ball joint in the neck and a swivel in the waist. There’s definitely some poseability to work with here, but Diamond’s figures often feel unnaturally stiff to me and that’s especially the case with Odo.

Odo originally came with four accessories, but mine only has two. Missing are his bucket and a Bajoran phaser rifle. Funny enough, the two accessories that I still have are the smallest and most easily lost, and also probably the hardest two to find with the figure, so I guess I can take pride in that. There’s a Bajoran tricorder and a Bajoran PADD. Both are simple, but nicely detailed and painted pieces. I love the fact that the PADD has a picture of Quark on it. While I’m never one to turn down an extra weapon, I don’t much mind missing the rifle. Odo never had much use for weapons so including it with him was an odd choice to begin with. Let’s move on to Colonel Kira…

I could fill volumes about the characters and versions of characters that DST never got to in this line, but near the top of my list would be Major Kira in her Bajoran uniform. Instead, we got Colonel Kira in her Starfleet Uniform. It’s not my first choice, but hey, I’ll take what I can get. The figure uses a pretty standard uniformed female body. The late versions of Starfleet’s uniforms aren’t the most exciting of designs, but I still dig them a lot, particularly the grey quilted shoulders. The uniform sculpt includes a Starfleet comm badge, some folds and wrinkles and the “V” cut cuffs that drop below her boots. I haven’t looked at enough of these to determine whether or not it’s a generic body, but I’ll get to that in coming weeks. Kira didn’t strike me as a particularly tall woman and the figure reflects that with the way she scales against Odo. The articulation is the same as you get with Odo only with the addition of swivel cuts at the biceps. The T-crotch also grants a lot more range of motion for Kira than it does for Odo. Whereas Odo looks rather stiff, Kira’s got a little more of a relaxed stance that looks like it was geared to project a more feminine demeanor. It may be an odd choice for the character, since Kira tended to carry herself more like a soldier, but I can’t say it doesn’t look good on the figure.

The portrait here is decent enough and the paintwork on Kira’s face is nice and clean, but it strikes me as if they were going for simple and cartoony rather than realism. In fact, at certain angles the head sculpt here reminds me of some of the early polygon builds for Lara Croft. Possibly not so flattering, but it’s not that bad. I also wish the ridges on her nose were a little more pronounced. Her hair is swept to the side to reveal her right ear and the sculpted Bajoran earring. Like I said, it’s not my favorite look for Kira, but at least DST finally gave her some loving.

Kira comes with five accessories and this time I actually have them all! First off, she comes with the exact same Bajoran tricorder and PADD as Odo. Yup, her PADD even has Quark’s picture on it too. But we’ve already seen those, so let’s get to the good stuff…

Holy Kai! Kira comes loaded for bear with no less than three different weapons. First off is this bitchin’ Starfleet-issue phaser rifle. I’m sure Kira handled one of these at some point during the show, but it’s not a weapon I really associate with her. In early promo pictures, this figure was often depicted holding the Bajoran rifle that came with Odo and I actually had it, I’d probably give it to her and pass this rifle along to one of the other figures. Still, she’s got the uniform so I guess she might as well have the hardware to go along with it.

And by that logic, she also comes with a Starfleet hand phaser. It’s another great accessory to have, but not one that I will likely keep with this figure. Her gun-toting hand isn’t really sculpted to hold it very well. I can make it work, but if I so much as breathe on the figure, it’ll fall out of her grip.

Lastly, we have the trusty Bajoran pistol. Yeeeah, now we’re talking. I’ve always loved the design of this thing and I even had the old Playmates roleplay version, which was a really cool little toy. This is the weapon I most associate with Kira and probably the one that I’ll let her keep. She holds it really well and it’s a wonderfully detailed little piece. These accessories are such welcome treats compared to the neon plastic crap that came with the Playmates figures.

I’m thrilled to be able to have these great characters on my shelf in something better than the Playmates versions, but like a lot of this line, they’re beginning to show their age, mostly in articulation. Also, with a somewhat oddball 7-inch scale, about the only other figures I own that they can interact with would be the Farscape line, which makes for some fun crossovers. With DST focusing now on ships and roleplay toys, and those weird statue-figures, I truly hope that we can see the Trek license pass to someone who can do something fresh with it. Obviously, Funko has access to some of the license and have already begun producing Classic Trek ReAction figures (oh, don’t worry, I’m going to get to those eventually), but I’d love to see what they can do with the property in their 6-inch Legacy line.

Jun 3 2015

Star Trek Starship Legends: USS Excelsior NX-2000 (“Search For Spock”) by Diamond Select

Just a head’s up, peeps, Wednesdays are going to be all about Star Trek for the next few months. If you don’t share my borderline obsession with this franchise then I’m so, so sorry. And I don’t just mean because you’ll be bored here on Wednesdays, but because you’re missing out on a rich and wonderful universe. I’ve got a lot of figures to get through, from various scales and series, but before that I’m kicking things off with a look at a Starship that I have wanted on my shelf for a long, long time. Diamond’s Starship Legends line and me have had our share of ups and downs together. From the dismally disappointing “Wrath of Khan” Enterprise reissue to the works of art that are the Enterprise-D and Bird of Prey, this is a line that I want to collect like crazy, but I’ve been burned and so I approach it cautiously. Today’s purchase is only my fourth ship in the series, but my overwhelming excitement at finally owning the NX-2000 had me throw caution to the wind and buy this baby as soon as it was available. My friends… The Great Experiment… Excelsior!

The box is right in line with releases over the past couple of years. It’s a blue box with the Classic Star Trek logo. The front and top panels has a window so you can see a good piece of the dorsal section of the ship and there’s a cut out with a “Try Me” button that repeats a single phrase and gives you a little taste of the lights. Excelsior arrives all in one piece, with no assembly required. All you have to do is pop the stand together, plug the ship onto it, and your good to go. I can still remember seeing Star Trek III in the theaters and my reaction to seeing The Excelsior. It was amazing to see a brand new Starship design and one that looked so much more futuristic than The Enterprise. The Constitution Class Refit will always be my first love when it comes to Federation ship design, but there’s something about The Excelsior that looks totally badass. The Constitution Refit is every bit the noble explorer, whereas The Excelsior resembles nothing less than a streamlined battleship. I always squee’d a little whenever this class ship made a cameo on The Next Generation and it’s fun to scrutinize the design and see how it influenced the design of the Galaxy Class Starship. Diamond has already had the Star Trek VI version of this ship (NCC-2000) out for a little while now, but I was holding out for her original appearance. Not only for the pre-commission registration number on the hull, but more importantly for the sound clips!

The back of the box features a pretty big inaccuracy in that it shows the Star Trek VI version of the ship rather then the one in the box. Hell, it even lists it as the NCC version on the top, The biggest visible differences are the registry markings and the nacelles, which light up on the NCC version, but not on this one. I’d cry foul at this, but considering the ship comes in a window box, it should be pretty obvious as to what you are actually getting. There are quite a few other differences between the two ships, and since I’ll probably be picking up the NCC version eventually, you can stay tuned for the inevitable comparison feature!

Straightaway, I’ll just say that this is one gorgeously executed ship. It only took a few moments of inspecting it to recognize that this is one of DST’s good ones, with hardly any major QC issues to speak of. It’s kind of sad when I have to start out by pointing that out. It should be a given when buying a $50 collectible model, but as I’ve already pointed out, Starship Legends is a line of highs and lows and DST’s QC is not always where it needs to be. Anyway, the sculpt here captures the unique profile of the Excelsior splendidly and at about 18″ long, this is a beast of a ship, that really tested the limits of my toy-shooting area. The warp nacelles are beautifully aligned and even the way the ship is assembled excludes the possibility of those unsightly gaps that were apparent in my WoK Enterprise. I also really dig the coloring on this piece. The official pics show the ship with a crazy blue tint and mint green accents, but in hand, the coloring is spot on perfect and the details are applied with care. Let’s start off with a closer look at the saucer…

The hull doesn’t have the same hyper-detailed sculpted aztec pattern as the Enterprise, but I don’t think the screen version did either. As a result, you get some deep cut panel lines and concentric circles radiating out from the bridge and an overall cleaner look. The blue and grey patterns that form a horseshoe around the bridge look great as does the neatly printed NX-2000 and U.S.S. EXCELSIOR on the top of the saucer. The last four letters of Excelsior are a little off of alignment, but I’m really nitpicking there. The windows are mostly just painted on, but look fine.

You get a similar layout on the bottom of the ship. There’s a ring running around this side of the saucer with a complex blue pattern. It’s here where the only real paint flubs can be seen. The pattern looks a little smeared on the left hand side. Yeah, I’d rather the ship be perfect, but if this is the worst there is, I’m really OK with that. Everything else looks sharp and beautiful!

The ribbed neck features the two photon torpedo tubes on the front and the recessed deflector dish that is thankfully cast in clear plastic features just a blue ring around it. You can also see the ship’s only other QC problem and that’s a little scarring to the hull right above the deflector dish. I’m just chalking this up to battle damage, even though it was a brand new ship.

The detailing on the sides of the hull are all printed and that includes both the “racing” stripes and the windows. The blue ring around the top of the hull and the blue panels at the bottom look great. There are some notable screw caps on either side of the deflector dish, which are rather obvious, but still better than having to look at exposed screws. You also get the lower secondary torpedo tubes just in front of the Starfleet emblems and “racing stripes” just as a reminder that this thing was built to handle itself in a fight.

Diamond did a beautiful job printing the patterns onto the dorsal section of the secondary hull. It all looks really crisp!

The nacelles look absolutely gorgeous and the alignment is great. I’ll also take this time to point out the debate over where the Shuttle Bay is actually located on the Excelsior. I always assumed it was the recessed cavity under the secondary hull, but the silver segmented area on the tail of the ship sure look like they could be bay doors. It wasn’t until recently that I heard the theory that the recessed cavity under the secondary hull is where the original failed Transwarp Drive might have been situated and has since been removed from subsequent Excelsior Class ships. In my research, I have found images of the Main System Display indicating the Shuttle Bay is indeed recessed under the ship, and that’s good enough for me.

Moving on to electronics! The ship comes with batteries installed so all you have to do is switch it from trial mode to regular mode. Let’s start with the lights. Excelsior has four light points: The dome on the impulse drive lights up blue, the half-dome near the rear of the ship lights up blue, the deflector dish lights up blue, and the two impulse engines light up red. All the lights here are crazy bright LEDs that are quite visible even in a well lit studio environment. They also burn my eyes if I stare at them for more than a second or two. Impressively enough, there’s almost no light bleed through the plastic to speak of. If you want to just enjoy the light show you can hold down the bridge button for a second or two and they will all come on until you press it again. On the other hand, if you want to hear the SFX too, you can just keep pressing the bridge button to cycle through them all. That goes something like this…

Yes, a big reason as to why I wanted this version of the ship was so that I could get the voice clips of Starfleet’s biggest douchebag, Captain Styles, who seemed way too eager to take Kirk down a peg. The selection of clips is great, but there are two missing that I really wish had been included: “Kirk, you do this and you’ll never sit in the captain’s chair again.” and “If he thinks he can get away with Warp Drive, he’s really in for a surprise.” I also wouldn’t have minded a clip of Kirk referring to the ship as The Great Experiment. But what’s here is still fantastic, and the entire sequence with the engine’s failing (complete with flashing lights) makes up for anything that’s missing.

I should also point out that while the stands in this series have been worthy of much scorn, this ship’s stand is actually somewhat improved. Rather than relying on just one side of a triangle to support the model, it now features two, which adds a bit of stability and doesn’t look nearly as cheap. There’s a cylinder that plugs into the bottom of the ship, which then plugs into a ball joint and while I’ve had mixed results with this set up on previous ships, between cracking and just being loose, the system seems to work just fine here. Also, the base is sculpted to resemble the Starfleet insignia worn in the movie.

It’s a shame that buying these ships has to always feel like such a gamble, but in this case it’s one that paid off. I would easily rank this release up with the best of the Starship Legends line, including the Enterprise-D and Bird of Prey. In fact, my satisfaction with this ship will probably have me gunning for another one soon, but I have yet to decide on which one. Still, with all that having been said, at fifty bucks, this is pretty expensive for what you get, especially when you consider that the QC can be wildly inconsistent. On the other hand, Star Trek toys are pretty slim pickings these days and I’m mighty proud to finally be able to put this great ship from Star Trek III on my desk.

Dec 23 2013

Star Trek Enterprise: Captain Jonathan Archer by Art Asylum

Scattered throughout the last few months I’ve been posting features of stuff that I’m finding in my Toy Crawlspace, and some of that has been a cornucopia of Enterprise figures. The Crawlspace hunt has slowed down lately, partly because I’ve been too busy with Christmas coming, and partly because I’m still waiting for the chemical fog bomb I set off to kill the mutant bat infestation that has taken root up there. Anyway, it’s going to be a real struggle for me to keep daily content going this week with how crazy-busy I will be, so I’m trying to tackle some quick and easy stuff. And that’s where Archer comes in, because he’s quite similar to the Malcolm Reed and Travis Mayweather figures I looked at not too long ago. We should be able to do him justice rather briefly.

There’s the Enterprise packaging. It’s a card and bubble, but it’s huge and the clever use of printed inserts make it look more like a window box than an actual carded figure. The presentation here is great and you can tell a lot of love went into it. The inserts are printed with all sorts of panel lines to make it look like the hull of the ship and the window displays the figure quite nicely. There are even cutouts on the side panels to show off some of his gear. If you’re careful and have a razor blade handy, you might be able to preserve the packaging, but I just tore this sum’bitch open.

As I’ve noted before, I like the Enterprise uniforms. They look practical and are convincing as something our early deep space explorers might actually wear. They are not, however, the most exciting design for an action figure. Nonetheless, Art Asylum went out of their way to make it something special. The torso part of the jumpsuit is made of soft rubbery plastic laid over the figure’s buck. It’s a cool effect that adds to what could have been a rather boring figure. The suit is loaded with sculpted wrinkles, cinching around the belt, zippers, and it features the departmental piping on the shoulders and the Enterprise patch on the shoulder.

The Art Asylum inmates have always been pros at sculpting great portraits for their figures and Archer here is no exception. The likeness to Scott Bakula is quite impressive and the paintwork is pretty clean. You need to get in really close to see any tiny inconsistencies in the hairline.

If you’re the kind of person that doesn’t want your Starfleet Captain sitting on the bridge all day, you should find the articulation here pretty accommodating. The arms have ball joints at the shoulders, swivels the biceps and wrists, and they are hinged at the elbows. The hip joints are concealed by the jumpsuit, but they feel they have some kind of rotating hinge offering a good range of motion. The legs have swivels in the thighs, hinges in the knees, and ball jointed ankles. Archer can swivel at the waist and features a ball jointed neck with a generous range of movement.

As for accessories, you get the same assortment of Starfleet Gear that came with the other Bridge Officers: A phase pistol, a communicator, and a tricorder. You also get an extra pair of hands. The communicator and tricorder are pretty small and difficult for him to hold all that well, but the phase pistol is still a really cool piece, which Archer can wield brilliantly. Finally, you get the translucent blue Enterprise base stand, which looks beautiful with the figure standing on it, but inexplicably has no pegs to secure him to it. Weird!

If you’re one of the minority like me that liked Enterprise, then you need this figure in your life. He represents the usual fine sculpting and craftsmanship that I’ve come to expect from Art Asylum and he looks damn fine on the shelf alongside his fellow Starfleet Officers. My only real gripe with this line was that we never did get the entire Bridge Crew in their jumpsuits, and that makes collecting these a little bittersweet. Oh yeah, this figure was also available in a larger bridge base set, which included the Captain’s Chair and a piece of the bridge which could connect to others. I do believe I have one of those kicking around here still in the box, but I haven’t unearthed it yet!

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

Tag Archives: star trek

Star Trek Mega Bloks: Klingon D7 Battlecruiser by Mattel

Star Trek: Acrylic Display Stands (Classic Series Phaser and Star Trek III Phaser) by Flux Dimensions LLC

Star Trek: Klingon Disruptor by Diamond Select

Star Trek III: “The Search for Spock” Hand Phaser by Diamond Select

Star Trek The Next Generation: Lt. Worf by Diamond Select

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Dr. Julian Bashir and Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax by Diamond Select

Star Trek Starship Legends: USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E (“Nemesis”) by Diamond Select

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Constable Odo and Colonel Kira Nerys by Diamond Select

Star Trek Starship Legends: USS Excelsior NX-2000 (“Search For Spock”) by Diamond Select

Star Trek Enterprise: Captain Jonathan Archer by Art Asylum

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