Customer Reviews

Star Trek Ships Of The Line 2004 Wall Calendar

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For several years now I've been purchasing and enjoying the various Star Trek calendars and have especially enjoyed the beautiful imagery displayed in the "Ships of the Line" calendars. For all of the years that the "Ships of the Line" calendars have been published, Paramount and Andrews McMeel Publishing has had the respect to use imagery from all of the television series, that is not the case with this 2004 calendar.

With all due respect to the powers that be when it comes to Star Trek, the lack of just a "single" image from Star Trek Deep Space Nine is just another slight against Star Trek's best overall series which in this reviewer's opinion was the richest character and plot driven series to date! One would've thought that the successful sales numbers throughout this last year on the DS9 DVD sets and Pocket Books DS9 re-launch series would've garnered DS9 some more respect, apparently not though. I guess DS9 and its multitude of fans can and will continue to wear the "red headed stepchild" hat proudly!

Although there have been some rough spots in the Star Trek Enterprise endeavor over the last two and a half seasons, I've stuck with it just as I had with all of the other series. Having said that, I would say that the number of images in this calendar devoted to Star Trek Enterprise suggests to me that they should've just finished it off with all of the images being from Enterprise and called it the Star Trek Enterprise calendar because this one is clearly aimed at improving that series image and hopefully increasing its viewer ship.

Since there is no link providing any of the images for this calendar they are as follows:

Strangely enough, the cover art here on Amazon is an image from Star Trek Enterprise, the calendar in my hand has some extraordinary imagery from Star Trek to include the Enterprise NCC-1701-A, an Excelsior class starship and three Klingon battle cruisers.

January - Star Trek Enterprise
February - Star Trek
March - Star Trek
April - Star Trek Voyager
May - Star Trek
June - Star Trek Enterprise
Centerfold - Star Trek Enterprise
July - Star Trek Voyager
August - Star Trek Enterprise
September - Star Trek The Next Generation/Nemesis
October - Star Trek Enterprise
November - Star Trek The Next Generation
December - Star Trek

Had I reviewed previous years "Ships of the Line" calendars all of them would've received a five star rating, had this one had just one image from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, it would've received a five star rating. Overall, this is another beautiful "Ships of the Line" calendar but it loses one star for the slight against Captain Sisko and crew! {ssintrepid}

This year's calendar has some truly nice artwork. Still, there are two important things that I must point out about it. I used the term artwork because some of the renderings look more like perfectly hand-drawn paintings instead of CGI. I can overlook this out of respect for creative license. However, The most annoying aspect about this calendar, is that it completely overlooked Deep Space Nine... Not one single picture was inspired from that show. That "oversight" is compounded by the overabundance of renderings dedicated to Enterprise (the series, not the ship). There are 5 pictures inspired from the show Enterprise. The rest of the shots are broken down like this: 3 Original Series Movie Era shots (counting the cover), with two additional shots of the Original Series 1701, two shots dedicated to Voyager, and one shot each dedicated to the Next Generation in both series & movie incarnations. I strongly request that in future calendars, Deep Space Nine not be overlooked again, especially in favor of the clearly inferior series Enterpise.

In general I think this is the best calendar of this series since the initial outing. Many of the renderings are finished with filters that give them a slightly painterly look - a refreshing departure from the unnaturally crisp appearance of some raw CG work. For me the stand out piece was the "Doomsday Machine" rendering, giving us a unique and updated glimpse into a familiar TOS event. I hope to see more TOS work in future calendars, as this "publication" presents a perfect opportunity to revisit and refine the dated FX shots of the original Trek.

I'd like to chime in with others in voicing disappointment that there was not at least one DS9-related image in the collection. In addition I'd like to express my disappointment in the fact that five of the thirteen images are from "Enterprise". I understand that it's the current focus of the franchise, but it's a show I have zero interest in. With such a deep fictional history to draw from, I hope we can look forward to more varied subjects next year.

This is simply an awesome calendar...the best of the series since 2001. I liked the combo cgi/painted look of it and the land-scape format which gives us sort of a mini-poster in the true paranomic wideescreen format. I think there is no merit for people who are complaining about vertical full-screen version. I mean no one is going to buy a ships of the line calendar to write stuff; we are buying it for the most detailed art we can proudly display in our offices as long we can see the dates for the month. Most of the images in this calendar are epic in nature and the cgi/painted rendering helps them in my view. I agree...there is an over-emphasis on enterprise but I am not complaining as long as I get cool, sharp and epic images of the capital ships of the star trek line which vows my colleagues at work. But still some Ds9 images would only help(I think having 4 images of enterprise instead of 5 and devoting atleast 1 image to Ds9 could have pleased some people).

Ignoring my star wars pun; Impressive....most impressive

"Ships of the Line" offers some beautiful artwork. I'm just getting back into "Star Trek" and this is the first actual calendar I've ever purchased from the show. I don't really care how many scenes are from "Enterprise" or the fact that there are no "DS9" images here. I'm just interested in the beauty of the artwork.
I can see where hardcore fans of "Star Trek" may be offended by certain things in the calendar, but overall I have no complaints. Having the birthdays of the actors and actresses involved with the shows is a nice touch. I also love the panoramic view that each month is set in.
This is some very nice work to me. I don't have any other "Trek" calendars to compare it to, but I believe that this is a fine product.

I have purchased every "Ships of the Line" calendar since its incarnation and have been very satisfied with the series...save 2002 when they went to a standard vertical-calendar format. Anyway, this year's calendar has some impressive images as always, but they are nowhere near as "realistic" as in past versions. The most notable example of this is the March rendering of "The Doomsday Machine". It looks more like a comic book illustration instead of the clean CGI work from the past.

Still, this year's calendar is a wonderful series of images as always and would highly recommend it to any Trek fan. Disappointing to see no DS9 images and five "Enterprise" images from the worst of the series, but still worth the money.

No nitpicks here, but where is the associated book that was supposed to come out from this line? Also, I have to say that I'm glad to see Enterprise well represented. Sorry, but the ragging on Enterprise just doesn't wash anymore. This season is almost as good as the third season of the Next Generation, and these images are beautiful.

Nothing from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine appears within the new Ships of the Line calendar? I suppose the critical acclaim, fan devotion and two Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo nominations (no bloody long form or short form here - take that Enterprise) mean nothing to the folks at Paramount. You can keep the calendar, I'll stay with the DVD sets.