Mini-Review
USS VOYAGER & KLINGON K'T'INGA-CLASS BATTLECRUISER
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(The USS Voyager and Klingon K't'inga-class battlecuiser in their packaging and with their collectible magazines)
I had a little pinkish-orange slip in my mailbox yesterday, informing me that the USPS office nearest to me was holding a package for me. That meant one thing, and one thing only (because I usually have things shipped via UPS to my parents' house): Time for another dual installment of my subscription to Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection!
To recap...this is a series of models featuring many of the most iconic ships from our beloved sci-fi franchise, distributed by the UK collectibles company Eaglemoss. They were introduced as a subscription model, in which each installment includes a "die cast" (i.e. some die cast metal but also a good chunk of plastic, in most cases) model and a high-gloss, collectible magazine. They've been out in Europe for a while and the folks who signed up for the subscription early on are much further along in the series. But I wanted to do things old-school, so I opted for the subscription too instead of picking them up one-by-one via eBay, etc.
In my case, this gets me a monthly shipment of two "issues" (a model and magazine). As always, I'm not reviewing the magazines. They're pretty, but none of the information or graphics in them is anything you can't see in a million other places.
My latest issues (bringing my total to seven) are the eponymous USS Voyager (ST:VOY) and the distinctive K't'inga-class battlecruiser (ST:TMP).
My previous reviews include:
- Issue 1: Enterprise-D
- Issues 2 & 3: Enterprise (refit) & Klingon Bird-of-Prey
- Issues 4 & 5: Enterprise (NX-01) & Romulan Warbird
"IrishTrekkie" review of issue 6 (USS Voyager)And now, on with the
"IrishTrekkie" review of issue 7 (Klingon K't'inga-class Battlecruiser)
USS Voyager (NCC-74656)
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The sixth issue of this subscription is the much-maligned (by me) "upside-down spoon" ship: The Interepid-class USS Voyager (NCC-74656) from the television series Star Trek: Voyager.
As with my review of the Enterprise (NX-01) model (see link above), I find that a model from a series about which I wasn't all that crazy is one of the better models in the series. I suspect this has mostly to do with both ships being relatively small "in real life" (225m for the NX class, 344m for the Intrepid class) and fairly compact, and also with these models containing a larger percentage of die cast than many of the others. The other ship whose model I've received that fits those criteria is the Klingon Bird-of-Prey, and it was also an absolutely phenomenal model.
The design of the Intrepid class itself isn't bad. I like the primary hull (aka the "saucer section") and the compactness of the secondary hull (its direct connection to the primary hull without any kind of neck foreshadows the Sovereign class). It's actually a pretty solid overall design...right up until they decided to cripple it with those teeny little warp nacelles.
The design of the Intrepid class itself isn't bad. I like the primary hull (aka the "saucer section") and the compactness of the secondary hull (its direct connection to the primary hull without any kind of neck foreshadows the Sovereign class). It's actually a pretty solid overall design...right up until they decided to cripple it with those teeny little warp nacelles.
There was a conceptual design produced during pre-production for VOY that looked similar, but included a much more substantial aft section with longer nacelles. I've posted it before, but to refresh your memory here it is.
Note: This is not the model I'm reviewing. Although they do have a sketch of this design in the magazine that came with the real model.
See how much insanely, crazily better that would have been? :P
Anyway, my exceptions to the final design notwithstanding...this is a pretty good model. Although the detail on the ventral side could be better, it's not bad. It's not as good as we saw on NX-01, but it's easily equal to or better than detailing on any of the other models in the series. It's also worth noting that the filming model of Voyager (and its CGI successors) didn't include a lot of "aztec" pattern on the hull. So I can't really fault the modelers for not including it (even though I think it makes pretty much everything look better).
Anyway, my exceptions to the final design notwithstanding...this is a pretty good model. Although the detail on the ventral side could be better, it's not bad. It's not as good as we saw on NX-01, but it's easily equal to or better than detailing on any of the other models in the series. It's also worth noting that the filming model of Voyager (and its CGI successors) didn't include a lot of "aztec" pattern on the hull. So I can't really fault the modelers for not including it (even though I think it makes pretty much everything look better).
Oh, and sorry...just like the Bird-of-Prey, the moving parts of the (in this case its variable geometry nacelle pylons) do not move. It's less of a bummer than with the BoP though, for obvious reasons.
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Somewhat curiously, although the detail isn't bad on dorsal of the ship (for a model of this size, at least), it's better on the ventral. This is a trend I've seen in some of the other models (like NX-01 and the Enterprise-D, although it's more pronounced on the Enterprise-D and Voyager than it is on the NX-01 model), and I think it has to do with it being easier to get details more sharply molded in plastic than cast in metal (in each of the referenced models, the topside of the primary hull is die cast and the underside is plastic).
Still though, even on the metal sections the detail's not bad. I'd be picking nits to complain, really. Overall it's a good addition to the series. And speaking of die cast versus plastic...
Still though, even on the metal sections the detail's not bad. I'd be picking nits to complain, really. Overall it's a good addition to the series. And speaking of die cast versus plastic...
So to summarize, as I said above--very solid model overall, even if it represents the hero ship of my least-favorite Trek series that was not ENT ;)
Holding the model in your hand does really accentuate--for me at least--how imbalanced the design is with those little vestigial nacelles. But that's not Eaglemoss' fault, obviously.
Holding the model in your hand does really accentuate--for me at least--how imbalanced the design is with those little vestigial nacelles. But that's not Eaglemoss' fault, obviously.
If you're buying these individually, this definitely gets a "BUY" vote from me.
Klingon K't'inga-class Battle Cruiser
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The seventh issue is one of my favorite starship designs in all of Star Trek (not quite enough to make my top five, although it does get an honorable mention): The iconic Klingon K't'inga-class battlecruiser.
First introduced in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the design was clearly intended to be an updated version of the equally-iconic D-7 class from TOS (a newly-detailed Klingon ship to go with the newly-detailed refit Enterprise). It retains the overall shape of its predecessor, but has a more slender neck and obviously much more detail.
The design would go on to be used in one more original-cast film (when it got a new paint job and served as Kronos One, the Klingon Chancellor's flagship). It would appear in, I believe, every other Trek series produced afterward. It was seen in very large numbers (with a greenish paint scheme replacing its TMP-era grey colors) as part of the Klingon fleet during the Dominion War on DS9.
This model is meant to represent the ship's initial appearance in TMP, so it has the gunmetal grey paint scheme and lacks Klingon Defense Force insignia.
Sadly, the model of this fantastic ship is almost exactly as surprisingly disappointing as the model of Voyager was surprisingly good. For starters, my particular model's warp nacelles are entirely mis-aligned. If you view the ship from a dorsal or ventral view, they splay outward at the back. If you view the ship in profile, the nacelles are cocked at an odd angle to the main hull.
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Unfortunately, that's just a trick of the camera angle. The actual studio model has nacelles that are perfectly parallel to the main hull, as seen here in this photograph from the Christie's auction in 2006 (although this model has been repainted for its scenes on DS9, it's the same filming model from TMP).
So, that's a bummer. But it does seem to be consistent across every example of the model that I've seen, and just a flaw in the design of the model. And I can kind of see how the mistake happened, given that their primary source material appears to have been the sequences from the beginning of TMP.
The skewed nacelle angle in the profile view, however, appears to be a defect in my particular model. Other examples I've seen online don't display this issue, so if this is a deal-breaker for you then know that you may or may not receive a model with this problem. I have no idea how prominent it is, but it doesn't appear to be a flaw with the design of the actual model, as with the top-down nacelle angle issue. I don't know if it will be worth contacting Eaglemoss about it to see if I can get a replacement or not. If this were a ship I didn't care much about I might try, but I'm awfully fond of the K't'inga to have its gorgeous aesthetic marred.
The angle issues aren't the model's only problems. It has a disappointingly large amount of plastic construction, including the fragile neck (I was seriously afraid I would break it taking it out of the box). I was hoping that it would follow the precedent set by the Bird-of-Prey, for which much of the command section and neck and the entirety of the top half of the main hull and "wings" was die cast.
As you can see, the top half of the main hull and "wings" is die cast, but that's about it. Even the shuttle bay / impulse drive / aft weapons pod is plastic :(
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So that's one for two on the Klingon ships so far, with the Bird-of-Prey being fantastic and the K't'inga being kind of a dud. The Vor'cha is also in this series (I don't recall if the Negh'Var is or not), and the videos I've seen give me hope that it will be an improvement over this issue.
And that's issues six and seven! Kind of a mixed bag, sadly. With seven models under my belt, I did do a video overview of my feelings about the series to date.
And as always, you can hit up my webhost to see the full-res (whatever the default resolution for the main camera iPhone 5S is..."a helluva a lot" is the technical term, I think):
The next two issues should be the Excelsior and the Defiant, both very cool ships in their own right--and the Excelsior class is my favorite Trek design of all time. So I'm definitely looking forward to those. If the Excelsior is a bummer like the K't'inga, I will cry.
Finally, a couple of shots of my collection to date!
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