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Mark Renn's Bandai Movie Enterprise |
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Ever since hearing that Bandai would be coming out with their own U.S.S. Enterprise from our own CultTVMan, I've been anxiously
awaiting its arrival. Now that it's come out, I'm not completely satisfied. It's a good model, but not a great model.
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First, I was a bit disappointed in the size.
I tend to like bigger models. At 1/850th scale, it's approximately ˝ the size of the AMT/Ertl kit. But, for it's size, the detail is very nice. Still, I was expecting something a bit larger.
Bandai seems obsessed with quality. Nearly every part was sealed in its own plastic baggy.
There's a lot of cutting to be done to get at all the parts. The instruction manual is VERY nice. It has a full color cover shot of the completed model. It also has a centerfold collage of pictures of the finished model (several of which are obviously retouched or of a pre-production model - some obvious seam lines are gone in the photos). The rest of the manual is very clearly illustrated in black and white with a few gray-scale photos of completed steps thrown in for clarity. In steps where wiring is involved, red wires are highlighted in red, making sure there's no confusion.
All the parts come pre-painted. The plastic is a heavy duty black, which makes sure there's no leakage of light through it. I question their choice of finish colors, though.
The basic color is an off-white, ivory color with a second tone to simulate the Aztec pattern. The ivory, in my opinion isn't quite right as the actual ship was portrayed as being in a natural metal finish. The concept that I read about years ago was that when the original Enterprise went through its refit (according to MR. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise), the hull paint was eliminated for convenience and other reasons. Therefore, I think some sort of natural metallic finish would have looked better on this model. They also picked some funky shades of blue for the details. They range from a bright blue to an aqua color. Not much gray, as I would have expected. There's also a wild pattern on the upper part of the engineering hull, in the area where the dorsal connector and the warp nacelle pylons meet. Finally, they used a different set of colors for the deflector dish piece. I just don't think the colors match with my expectations of what the Enterprise should look like. That being said, the color and painting is sharp and clean. The small print for the "United Federation of Planets" is also very clear and legible. Very nice.
From a modeling standpoint, I have a few issues with the fit and finish.
Now, keep in mind, this is a snap kit. No tools are required, other than sprue snippers, a hobby kife, and a phillips screw driver. Bandai took great care to make sure that parts could be separated from the sprues in a way that minimizes the risk of marring the great finish. Very little trimming is required of pieces and I encountered no flash.
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The saucer section went together rather well. There's an upper hull section and a lower hull section with eight outer rim
sections and a large clear plastic part to convey light from the interior out to the rim window ports. The upper and lower halves go together well, but I had to cajole the clear part a bit to get
the whole thing to go together. Not that big a deal, really.
The rim sections tend to have rather large gaps between them.
And I would have liked a bit snugger fit. When pressing the pieces together, they never seemed to feel like they were completely together. I kept wanting to press them in further.
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Throughout the model, the use of clear plastic to conduct light was ingenious. The model has a total of six light bulbs:
two in the upper hull, two in the lower hull, and one in each nacelle.
The interior structure to mount these bulbs and conduct their light is great. The window ports in the narrow dorsal connector are very well lit, something I would have expected to be virtually impossible in a model this small. They make good use of colored clear parts, too.
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The warp nacelles utilize clear blue plastic backed by a special clear part that conducts the light from the bulb mounted at the
back of the nacelle. There is also a clear blue piece for the impulse reactor. The impulse drive on the saucer section has a clear red part. Everything else is just clear. This
includes the deflector dish. Being clear, white light comes out.
I think this should have been blue. I thought they were going to do this, based on what I read on their web site. It was slightly disappointing.
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My real issues center around the engineering hull. There's a lot of interior structure here. There's a main junction
box where power is conveyed from the base. All the wires connect to that central junction. There is an upper hull section where the dorsal connector and the warp nacelles are connected, a
left side and a right side with window ports and associated clear, light conducting parts, and a lower section where the base connects. The two sides and bottom pieces all connect to that central
junction box.
Fit tolerances are very strict here. The wires need to be kept out of the way so light is conducted to the outer window ports. It's imperative that all the wires be trimmed to a bare minimum as there's very little room in the engineering hull. I made this mistake and the pieces didn't want to go together. Once I trimmed the wires and reconnected them, the pieces finally went together, although not as snuggly as the saucer section. I could never get the pieces together as to eliminate gaps. So, despite all the work Bandai went through to prevent light bleeding, light still bleeds out some through these gaps. This is also true of the deflector dish. I pressed with all my might, but it still has a gap that allows light to escape. It's readily visible, too, detracting from the overall attractiveness of the model. My final gripe with fit and finish has to do with the connection of the warp nacelles to the engineering hull. I suppose, if I had sanded the connection points a bit, it would have gone together better. But they stick out somewhat, and that is rather unappealing to me.
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While I'm at it, I'll add my final gripe here.
Because of the size of the model, there aren't many options for running wires from the warp nacelles to the engineering hull. Therefore, the pylons just have slits in them that you have to pack the wires into. It's a snug fit and you will need a tool of some sort to press the wires in. I used the tip of the phillips screwdriver I was using.
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I slipped once and made a small gouge in the finish of one of the pylons. I urge caution here. Since the wires would
otherwise stand out like a sore thumb, Bandai chose to supply pieces of colored tape material to put over the wires.
The tape isn't the best in the world. It's sized reasonably well to fit the space, but it still looks awkward to me.
Despite my gripes, the model is still a reasonably good one, especially
considering it's a snap fit model. I'd give it a 7 out of 10 overall.
The paint finish I rate at 8. The overall fit of pieces I rate a 7. For engineering and design, I praise the concept, but berate the execution. Personally, I think everything would have gone much better with a model that was just a bit larger in scale. The tolerances wouldn't have been quite so close and would have allowed for more leeway. I'll praise Bandai for having the will and the determination to produce this model. It looks nice, all things considered. It took me about three hours to complete the model ( I was trying to watch Stargate, SG-1 at the time). If I hadn't needed to take the engineering hull apart to trim and reconnect wires, I would have finished in closer to two hours. And If I hadn't been dividing my attention with the TV, it definitely could have been done within two hours.
It makes me feel like getting back to work on my AMT/Ertl kit again. Now what did I do with all those detail parts…?
Mark Renn
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