Its up to us as fans to let companies know what works and what dosent. I used to work with the public. Ive always remembered bad news travels faster then good news. Its the nature of human beings. Being negative just to be negative is being a ass plan and simple. If you really find something you dont like about something you should say it. Money is hard to come by at least for me any ways. I want things to be as good as possible. The one thing that the negative people need to remember is that they pretty much killed Trek on tv being overly critical.
The best way to tell a company (DST or CBS) what you think of their product is to either buy it or not buy it, watch it or not watch it.
Maybe what sets Star Trek fans apart though is the inherent belief that by vocalising displeasure in something, be it an action taken by Paramount/CBS to cancel Star Trek or revive it, they'll have some kind of influence over the decision taken by Paramount or CBS or in this case, Diamond Select. Maybe its because of how much exposure and influence the Bjo Trimble (The woman who "saved" Star Trek) letter writing campaign got and had that Star Trek fans are this vocal.
I'm not suggesting for one moment Trimble didn't have any influence over the revival of Star Trek but ultimately the decision to bring back Star Trek was because the studio made a lot of money from it. It had a lot to do with the fact that the series was enjoying a resurgence in popularity through the 70's and ultimately the success of Star Wars which lead to studios searching for their own science fiction property to exploit. Paramount struck gold with Star Trek. I think Star Trek fans have maybe taken that pioneering lady's campaign to mean that Trekkies have to voice their anger and displeasure over anything or everything that doesn't fit their idea of what Star Trek should be.
That has, in turn, escalated into Trekkies being known as notorious nitpickers that perhaps feel they have more control over what is done with Star Trek than they actually do. Anyway I've gone way off topic here and I'm sorry for that but to relate this back to talking about DST's Enterprise A. It is good to voice an opinion over what you thought of a product (or film/TV series) but it has to be a balanced view weighing up both the pros and the cons taking into consideration the price of the product and what that product is going to be used for.
In the case of this ship my thoughts are...
- It's certainly a toy and this is taken into consideration on inspecting the model
- The paint application is superbly applied to the model considering the fact that this is a mass-produced toy
- On closer inspection the "NCC-1701-A" decals are slightly misaligned as are the very tiny red bands that circle the bridge module. To a casual observer the misalignment's aren't that noticeable and when displayed I don't believe this to be an issue
- The plastics used in production seem very robust and of good quality
- The manufacturing and assembly of the toy has been done to high standards (on mine at least). The saucer is slightly tilted to one side however considering the nature of this product, it's understandable
- The internal lighting for the ship is very nicely done, the deflector dish especially is very nice. The light bleed from internal LED lighting is a shame and does distract from the overall aesthetics of the model when being used however if being displayed the lights serve a limited purpose and become an added novelty to a very nicely sculpted ship
- The proportions of this ship are superb for what is essentially a lights and sound toy which has to hide a multitude of electronic components including; a battery compartment, a speaker and lights as well as wiring etc...
- The detailing and sculpt is perfect, in particular the aztec pattern is glorious when an external light source hits the plastic. This really adds a beautiful layer of texture and detail to the overall look of the ship
- The sound FX and voice clips are wonderful and add so much to this ship. The sounds are also clear and crisp
- Displayed this ship looks wonderful and should make a worthy addition to any collection.
Those are my thoughts on this ship. The problems with it are not all that bad. There are some minor issues with it but It could be that in the second run of Enterprise-A's that DST do, the issues picked up upon in this topic, will have been addressed. All in all, for the price I paid for this toy, I'm quite happy with it.
