Customer Reviews

Star Trek Stardate 2003 Block Calendar

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What is it with the folks who design these calenders? Each year the pictures get smaller. I understand you need room to write but how about making the calender larger so you can see the picture on your desk? The photos should not be the size of a postage stamp. I used to get three of them for each room in the house. I will be getting the Simpsons block calender this year. At least they have interesting facts and cartoon characters from each season on the page.

The 2003 Star Trek desk calendar features a lot of unremarkable shots of various characters standing or sitting or posing for the unit photographer. Apparently all the "good" pictures have been used in previous years' editions. No ships or planetscapes this time, just dull unit photographs taken during rehearsals (one photo shows Sisko, Nog and a large black boom microphone). Little care was taken in design or in production, many of the photos were printed backwards (a quick flip through and I've found six already). To make matters worse the accompanying captions border on the ridiculous. For example the caption for a shot of Tuvok regarding an origami swan informs us that "The Vulcan Tuvok is often intrigued by challenging puzzles." Another shows an expressionless Sulu standing, stiffly holding a tricorder. The caption reads "Sulu narrowly escapes death while exploring a seemingly uninhabited Class-M planet". The majority of these shots have appeared in magazines, on trading cards, etc. dozens of times over. There is little action or drama in this selection, it's more akin to a collection of snapshots from some discarded family photo album. What do you expect with such exciting scenes as "Seven consults with Kim in a hallway". There is nothing here to indicate that Star Trek is even remotely interesting. In fact, just staring at this dull calendar day in, day out is making me rapidly lose interest as well.

I haven't bought one of these for a couple of years but was quite excited to get one when I heard that it would be the first to feature scenes from "Enterprise". Fortunately I got it in a sale for a fraction of the retail price and just as well too !!! Quite frankly this is one of the worst ... pieces of Star Trek merchandise in recent years. Many of the pictures are just ones they have used before and for the most part are quite boring. There is no picture of Captain Archer's Enterprise, in fact the only starship pictured is from the Original series featuring the old NCC-1701 caught in the Tholian Web. While I like this image it has been printed a million times and most Satr Trek fans probably see it in their sleep. However worst of all ... and boy this really bugs an Original series fan like me ... a large portion of the Original series pictures have been printed the wrong way round !!! Sorry but there is no excuse for this, all the printers had to do was look at the insignia on the uniforms to figure out which way round the images should be. With this kind of lousy quality control it is clear that this was just a cheap rush job, and the makers were only concerned with getting it out in the shops to make a quick profit. Shame on Simon & Schuster and shame on Paramount who don't seem to care about the slide in quality of recent Star Trek products. "Warp speed Scotty, I see another cash cow on the horizon to butcher !!!"

Quite nice in fact! Star Trek Stardate 2003 calendar
has now daily memo lined space and more text..Ideal
for the work desk!!

I have had a "Stardate" calendar on my desk ever since they started issuing them in 1997 and have enjoyed every year...except for this 2003 edition. I myself am a graphic designer and can not understand what... Paramount/Pocket Books has doing their designs but the dates on this version of the calendar are entirely too small! The purpose of a box calendar is for one to quickly be able to read the current date at a glance. This year's calendar has the numbers so small in the lower left corner that by the time you find it, you might as well have just searched for it on a wall calendar.

Also, enough of this centering the entire Star Trek universe around this pethetic excuse for a show called "Enterprise". I buy the Stardate calendars for the Star Trek aspect, not the new "Enterprise" show logo on every page!

Take it from a graphic designer and a 20 year Star Trek fan...don't waste your money on this year's Stardate Calendar.