Customer Reviews

Star Trek Classic Enterprise NCC-1701 by Diamond Comics

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a toy. Plain and simple. It was made for the six year old in each of us. In fact, this is the very toy I'm sure we all wished we were given on our sixth birthday. Most of us, however, probably got the old AMT model kit with the sagging nacelles that never lined up properly. But this version of NCC-1701 is the real deal we wanted to play with. It feels solid in the hands. It lights up in the right places. It has the actual sound effects from the show. Its detailing is accurate enough to evoke memory and imagination. It looks great on your desk, and for the actual kid in your home it makes a great night-light for their personal frontier, patrolling the darkness to keep unfriendly aliens from interrupting their slumber.

The adult in me is aware of the limitations indicated by other reviewers, but I didn't buy this for the adult in me, who would probably settle for nothing less than the actual Enterprise hanging in the Smithsonian. No, I bought this for the kid in me. And for the kid in you, this ship will carry you far into space, and back in time to one of the coolest spacecraft ever to streak across a television screen.

This Enterprise doesn't come with working deflectors or shields; make sure it doesn't break your personal orbit, or else it will go the way of its successor, NCC-1701 D.

Take the helm, Mister Buyer. Set a course for the planet Play!

As a Star Trek fan who has avidly collected the other 'Diamond Select/ Art Asylum' starship and prop relicas, I had awaited this long-delayed release with high hopes. Their previous models of the Enterprises NX-01, 1701A, and 1701E, were all crafted with an impressive degree of accuracy, making any quibbles over small deficiencies negligible. Unfortunately, though their heart was in the right place, this time they didn't quite achieve the same level of craftsmanship.

The positive points of this toy: The details and markings are pretty accurate. They even included the small numbers that appear in various places on the engineering hull, although, for some unfathomable reason the typeface of the name "ENTERPRISE" on the saucer changes size between the "E" and the "R", making the second half of the word larger than the first. The lighting effects are very nice, with blinking red and green navigational lights on the saucer, and very bright white lights in the bridge and lower sensor domes ( these lights are so bright you could use them as a flashlight! ). Also the pulsing red and yellow-green lights in the warp engines create a very nice effect. I also applaud their decision to create a mode where you can turn the lighting effects on, and have them run for as long as you like, without the sound effects. I wish they had done this on the previous models. The toy is also solidly constructed, with no parts to assemble ( save the two halves of the stand ).

Unfortunately, although the details are stunning, the overall model is just...well, wrong. The component parts suffer from incorrect shaping and proportions. The saucer for example is too small in diameter compared to the rest of the ship. The engineering hull is the wrong shape, flaring to a sort of oval on the sides, when viewed from front-to back, and it is 'skinny' when compared to the original, without the graceful and pronounced taper of the filming model. There are also strange oval seams, or plugs, at odd places on the starboard side of the enigineering hull, and the underside of the saucer, marring the look of the surfaces. The construction for the section of the hull that holds the warp nacelle struts in place is also awkward. Instead of one solid piece that snaps into place ( as on the 1701A ), there are two or three pieces that fit together, creating a lot of extra seams. It's too bad they didn't use the same arrangement as the 1701A, which - while not perfect- created fewer gaps in the hull.

If this was any company other than Art Asylum I would probably be less critical, but considering the high degree of accuracy of their previous releases, this one is a real let down. I had thought that this would be the ultimate, affordable replica of this classic ship... replacing all previous attempts. But unfortunately, it's just another nice try.

It's finally here! Delayed for months, and expecting a "classic", I thought this would be something finer than the previous models. I admit it is impressive, however I am disappointed by the circular plugs that are on the starboard side of the secondary hull and on the bottom of the main saucer. Do these cover screw holes? They don't exist on the NCC-1701A or other AA models, so why this one? The plugs take away from the craftsmanship, especially when they aren't even flush. There are also paint drippings that are noticable on the bottom of the saucer, in addition to other small blemishes that are more noticable than past ships. One improvement with this model is the stand. Instead of the ball joint inserting into the ship, the stand has a ball socket with a small straight plug that easily fits into the ship. This makes the stand much more durable and you can pose the ship much easier and not worry about it breaking. It will be interesting to see if TWOK ship this summer will use the new stand. There are flashing port and starboard lights on the top and bottom of the saucer, which I hadn't expected. There are the usual lights and sounds along with William Shatner's Captain Kirk voice giving orders. Overall, not bad and worth adding to the collection. I'm hoping they come out with the NCC-1701 B,C, and D models.

The ship itself is fun but the way that it connects to the base is useless. The base is unstable at best and has a tendency to fall. Mine fell of the shelf it was on and broke. I would not buy this model, it was badly designed.

Love the model of the Enterprise, but the display stand is terrible. Very awkward and does not support the model very well. However the quality of the starship is great.

This model by Art Asylum is very detailed and faithful to the original studio Enterprise model. First, I will point out the minor problems: 1)the secondary hull is a bit too cylindrical and doesn't taper toward the end as much as it should but it's an extremely small deviation that's hard to notice 2)unlike art asylum's other models, this one being slightly cheaper, also uses a slight more crude assembly method: use screws which are covered by these circular plastic plugs that are not painted right (too light) so they are visible on the side of the ship. The plastic mold is very durable though and the warp nacelles, deflector dish, and saucer section will certainly not disappoint. The windows are nicely painted in (not like AA's enterprise E and enterprise A) and the formation lights, bridge light, and nacelle light beautifully light up in the dark. Plus there's a neat display mode that lights up the ship indefinitely without the sound running on.

Conclusion: for around 25$, the accuracy you get in for a beautiful sturdy model of a classic ship, this is a bargain (way better than old Playmates crap)

Just want to say this one is for display only, really not for play cause seams fragil & might break if dropped. Beautiful lights & great sound effects, one of my favorites is that you can display the ship with the lights on. Great addition for a collector!

I own other products in this line of toys/display models, and this one isn't the best of the lot. It's accuracy to the ship from the Original Star Trek show is good, but not great. In particular, the part of the dome just behind the Bridge on top of the saucer shape narrows to a point, but that is not how it appears in the show at all, and is a rather obvious flaw. Othereise, the model is near accurate, however there are other flaws: Noteably, the raised rings where the hull plating joins on the top of the saucer section are not there at all. In fact, this is totally smooth, almost completely lacking any detail at all.

Other than the above mentioned things, the accuracy of the ship seems pretty reasonable. However, there are some obvious faults in the hull where plastic is marred by some kind of...filler...or perhaps it is mold marks left behind by the production process. None of the other ships in this series have such flaws, so it's disappointing to see this, the original ship, marred by such poor production quality. The warp nacelles are another issue, there are obvious seams down the length of them where the plastic is joined together, and the ships registry number is printed over the seams. Problem is, at least on my model, there are slight gaps, and on the left nacelle, this caused the registry numbers to be misaligned between the top half of the nacelle and the bottom.

Now for the good: The lighting on this model is very nice. And unlike the other ships in the series, this has a very desireable feature: The lights can be set to stay on for display purposes. (No instructions tell how though, I found it by trial and error: Inside the battery compartment, you must first set the switch to normal mode, it comes set to 'try me' mode. Once you have the switch to normal mode, press and hold down the bridge, after about 4 seconds, the lights will turn on, and stay on until the bridge is depressed again). This is a great feature, and makes the model display very well. Just don't get to close, or you will notice the innacuracies and flaws.

Overall, for the price spent, this is a reasonably good display toy. It's not perfect though, and if you want perfection...well...you might wish to look elsewhere.

One last note: On durability, this is the first of the ships in this series I've found that seems to have an obvious weak point: The deflector dish seems poorly mounted, you might wish to be careful with it, it seems pretty fragile. Other than that, the model is far more durable than the old AMT/Ertle models you had to build yourself. So...if you want to indulge the child inside, feel free...just be careful with the deflector dish.

I was very happy with this item. The ship is a very nice addition to my collection. I was very impressed with the lights and sound on the ship. It was cool to see all the flashing lights, it had more lights than I had expected. A must for any Trek fan.

Crisp, clear sounds - very good for a toy of this type. Nice bright lights that have never failed to work - the nacelles slightly pulsate in brightness to add to their effect. The fact that you can set it to simply do its light effects (without sounds) is great. We hung this with fish line above the table for a Star Trek birthday party and it hung there and blinked (blank?) for hours without a hitch.

I feel compelled to nit-pick for those who nit-pick, so...The red and green / port and starboard lights blink too quickly (but that doesn't bother my five-year-old who plays with it)...The hull color is too dark a shade of grey...There's a couple weird dents on the underside of the primary hull...Unlike the eleven-foot model in the Smithsonian, it topples over on its stand easily...But man, other than that, it's spot on in my opinion. Diamond Select does a darn fine job of producing above-par Star Trek stuff for a great price, and this Enterprise is another good example. Definitely recommended. Get one before they can only be found at auction for three times the price! Live Long and Nit-Pick!