Review: Eaglemoss Star Trek Starships collection #2

Two weeks have passed and thus it's time for the second issue of the Starships Collection to be released, accompanied by a price jump to £6 (next issue it's up to its full and regular price of £10. Eep!). Since it's an Enterpise issue I've walked to the newsagent and bought it.

Sadly, after the great start with the last issue, I'm half wondering if it was worth the walk for this one.

Issue 2 is the Enterprise refit, as seen in the Motion Picture through to (spoiler!) its destruction in Star Trek III (although almost exactly the same ship was seen up until Star Trek VI but with an added 'A' on the front). The model is okay, I suppose, but the quality is lacking. One of the engine nacelles isn't on straight, there are a few gaps between sections in the hull and the overall paint job isn't a patch on the Enterprise-D. The ship is also shorter (and by its design a hell of a lot less wide), though not small enough to be to scale so it comes across more like a money-saving exercise. Standing the two ships side by side shows the refit to be a pale imitation of the D.

One (of the few) pluses is that the deflector dish is made of a transparent blue plastic, which gives it more 'life' over the rather dull one on the Enterprise-D model. On the other hand, the transparent blue engines are simply wrong - an inaccuracy made all the more obvious by the photos of the on-screen model in the accompanying magazine.

Speaking of the magazine, it maintains the standard of issue 1 - it's an interesting read and better than you'd expect, but it won't take long to get through. Having watched the films countless times I barely scan-read the 'in-universe' section, but the 'factual' half was more interesting with some nice design sketches and photos of the model being constructed. After my complaint about a lack of crew photos in issue #1, this issue does feature more in this regard.

Model and magazine come packaged on a giant piece of card which 90% of people are going to immediately fold in half to get into a bag when leaving the shop. Goodness knows how the subscribers issue arrived through the post.

I'm hoping the refit is simply a blip and future models are back to the high standard of the Enterprise-D, especially when the price goes to £10. From the pictures of the other ships, the refit does look the worst, so fingers crossed my hopes turn out to come true.

It's the Klingon Bird of Prey next issue, I wonder if I'll be buying it...