126 replies to this topic

[CaptainArcher47]

If someone doesnt I will try and post a video tomorrow showing all lights and sounds. It is great to have voices and effects, even if the voices really dont sound anything like Kirk and Spock, but you can probably guess who it is. Nothing like the great sounds in the most recent DST ships, but then thats expected.

[egoing]

If someone doesnt I will try and post a video tomorrow showing all lights and sounds. It is great to have voices and effects, even if the voices really dont sound anything like Kirk and Spock, but you can probably guess who it is. Nothing like the great sounds in the most recent DST ships, but then thats expected.

I have to disagree with the sound quality as they are nice and clear. That is Pine and Quinto saying the lines as with the communicator roleplay toy.

[slayerone76]

I saw these in Wal-mart last night.

[JonWes]

I think the sound effects and voices turned out great. You can definitely tell it's Quinto and Pine. I made a quick video of this just to show the sound and lights.

[CaptainArcher47]

^ Theres a good video of it thanks. I thought the effects sounded great, and Quinto is ok, but I still find it hard to tell that its Pine at all. Maybe its mine, but id be interested to see if im in the minority with that.

[Hermey the Elf]

I think the sound effects and voices turned out great. You can definitely tell it's Quinto and Pine. I made a quick video of this just to show the sound and lights.

JonWes,

Very nice video, thanks for making and posting. Can't wait to get mine from Newforce.

[tribble]

Just on a whim, I went to a Toys R Us in Omaha,Ne. today and was pretty much overwhelmed with the amount of Trek stuff! I feel like a kid again! And that is saying a lot. I picked up the big E, along with the phaser, communicator, and tricorder. Without having seen the movie yet, it's hard to say about the sizes, but overall I'm impressed.With exceptions...As has been stated before, the writing and disclaimers all over this ship. No extra play cover, as well as the usual visible screws on it. There were a few Minor paint flaws and glue blotches, but nothing that can't be fixed. A few seam gaps(again minor). I think for the money, this a great ship! I can overlook the flaws easier than I could with DST's product. This is after all a toy to be played with. The plastic is definately beefier than my DST Enterprise. The stand is great. The lights and sounds are clear. Before I had it in my hands, I always thought the nacells looked too bulky, but out of the box, they look a lot more in proportion to the rest of the ship. I was surprised. The picture on the box doesn't do her justice. The fins and engine cowls don't look as bulky as any picture I have seen. For some reason, photos of it make them look a lot fatter and oversized. But they say the camera adds ten pounds to you. LOL As I said, overall I am really impressed. It all really is making me want to see this movie now, more than ever, just to see this baby in action! My reviews on the tech role play items will be posted in the appropriate threads. Trekkies ,get out there! This stuff is showing up early and is out there now. Keep this stuff in stores and theaters again! BUY, BUY, BUY!!!!!!!! Trek is back! I will now hand over the pulpit to someone else. LOL

[Hermey the Elf]

Not related to the toy, but I find it strange that here we are less than a month away from the release of the movie and there have been no specs released on the ship. We don't know anything about its size, dimensions, number of decks, etc. Didn't the Enterprise used to be essentially the main character in Star Trek? Did I miss something?

[flw]

No, Hermey, I haven't seen anything either - and you're right that the Enterprise was always a "character" of a sort - intended to feel like a real, living environment for the crew. I can't see how it can possibly be as big as the original series Enterprise - if that one had 21 decks and was 289 meters long, this new one can't be more than about 17 or 18 decks and about the same length. Just a guess, but if you put them side by side that's pretty much what you get. Go to Bernd Schneider's site, www.ex-astris-scientia.com, to see what I mean. He's got some discussions of this.

By the way, HAPPY EASTER to all on the boards!

[Dilithium1]

I got two Enterprises from Target, and they are great! But one had the deflector broken off, right out of the packaging. Has anyone else had this problem? I contacted Playmates, requesting a replacement piece, as that Enterprise is pristine, otherwise. Does anyone know if Playmates is likely to send me a replacement?

[knightone]

Did you try taking it back to Target? They are usually very good at replacing broken items.

[knightone]

I was also able to pick up an Enterprsie today. Looking at it in person, it does still have a bit of a "chunky" quality to it. It's not nearly as bad as the old Playmates ships, but it is still there, especially the saucer section. It's a bit light in the effects department. Only four sound sequences and are all fairly short. A constant on feature would have made up for it, but as it is, it's weak as far as electronics goes. Mine also has a wierd quirk: the sounds sometimes activate if I grab the right sight of the saucer. The detail is decent. Not great, but decent. QC is a bit sloppy with some glue and paint splotches in a couple of places. While, overall, it looks to be well made, I expected more from it. It is in the same price range as DST's ships, but doesn't quite measure up to the bar set by AA and DST. It's not a bad toy by any means, I just think the price point doesn' match the product. The tricorder I picked up seems to be a bit more full featured for half the price, so I expected more from this ship. Also, at the quantity they are producing them, I would think they would either be cheaper or higher in detail and effects. The ship seems extremely sturdy, though, and well built. The stand is heads and shoulders above the AA TOS stands, on par with the TNG stand that came with the Enterprise-E, good and solid. Don't get my wrong, I like the ship and am enjoying, it. I just think it could have been a lot better and there is a lot of potential that was left unfulfilled in this toy. Maybe, when the second movie comes out, Playmates might redo the ship entirely rather than just doing a rerelease.

[Zodou]

I too picked up an Enterprise today. It was all they had, no figs, props, playsets, just the ship. I must say after holding it in my hand, viewing it from all angles--I hate it even more.

The paint application on mine is very sloppy, worse than anything I have from DST. Also there are numerous glue runs and spots. On top of all that the screw for the bottom battery compartment was stripped, so it took me a half an hour to get the batts in and replace the screw. I have to say I am pretty dissapointed, not enough to return the thing but really this toy could have been made to a better QC standard. Also, it seems a bit small.

The real strength of this piece is probably it's construction. It feels sturdy, which is nice for those that get one for the kids. I also like the detail work, when you consider that this is a mass market toy the fact that they got the pattern in the impulse exahust, detail at the bottom of the neck and pho-torp detail is rather suprising.

[Dilithium1]

I like the fact that it is smaller. Also, Playmates is helping me with the broken deflector.

I too picked up an Enterprise today. It was all they had, no figs, props, playsets, just the ship. I must say after holding it in my hand, viewing it from all angles--I hate it even more.

The paint application on mine is very sloppy, worse than anything I have from DST. Also there are numerous glue runs and spots. On top of all that the screw for the bottom battery compartment was stripped, so it took me a half an hour to get the batts in and replace the screw. I have to say I am pretty dissapointed, not enough to return the thing but really this toy could have been made to a better QC standard. Also, it seems a bit small.

The real strength of this piece is probably it's construction. It feels sturdy, which is nice for those that get one for the kids. I also like the detail work, when you consider that this is a mass market toy the fact that they got the pattern in the impulse exahust, detail at the bottom of the neck and pho-torp detail is rather suprising.

[knightone]

I think it's still to scale to the DST TOS E, though. It's think the new E is smaller than the original, so the size should be appropriate.

[flw]

I think it's still to scale to the DST TOS E, though. It's think the new E is smaller than the original, so the size should be appropriate.

Yup, it's the same scale - the saucers are exactly the same size. The new Abramsprise is a bit smaller than the original Jefferiesprise!

[TheHSBR]

My review of this ship is up on the reviews page. Im a bit harsher than most of the things Ive read thus far.

[flw]

I agree with most of your observations, Andy. Mine has most of the defects you listed, and you didn't mention that the battery cover on the underside of the saucer doesn't fit flush with the hull, but sticks out. However, the price point on this toy is 1) lower than those for DST (at least a little) , and 2) lower than any of Playmates' ships from the '90s. The standard price point for those was about $40. For what we get for a lower price, I think it's a relative improvement - and the registry markings are painted on, not stick-'em-on-and-mess-'em-up self-service decals. They also got the registry number on straight, unlike DST's original-series Enterprise. So, not great - but not a disaster, either, all things considered.

Just my two cents. Thanks for a thorough and thoughtful review!

[Zodou]

I think it's still to scale to the DST TOS E, though. It's think the new E is smaller than the original, so the size should be appropriate.

Yup, it's the same scale - the saucers are exactly the same size. The new Abramsprise is a bit smaller than the original Jefferiesprise!

I'm not convinced this ship is smaller than the original. Especially based solely on the scale of two toy ships from two different toy companies that are most likely in two different scales.

When you talk starship scale you have to look at the common elements, windows, thrusters, docking hatches, etc. Looking at the various ships including the TOS E, TMP refit and the JJprise. The most obvious size similarities are between the Refit and the JJprise including everything mentioned above. With that in mind we know the refit saucer has a larger diameter than the saucer on the TOS E, since the JJprise basically lifts the saucer right from the refit it is only logical to surmise that the JJprise is roughly the same size as the TMP refit which is longer and wider than the original E. Therefore the JJprise is slightly larger than the original.

Remember, just because elements of the toys match up does not mean that they alone can be used as reference. Afterall, they're only toys.

[JonWes]

My review of this ship is up on the reviews page. Im a bit harsher than most of the things Ive read thus far.

It seems like a fair review to me, but I will see it really seems like you got an especially bum one. Mine has no smudges at all. There is one SLIGHT bit of misplaced gray paint on one nacelle and that's about it. I don't have any glue problems. I'm a huge fan of the toy. But then again I went into buying it not to expect anything like DST's work, which overall I've very much enjoyed (but again I seem to be uncommonly lucky there as well, not having any warped nacelles or horrible paint jobs on the Enterprises I own so far) and was actually very pleased with how well it turned out.

Now, it is very much a toy, as you mention. It seems sturdily made. The screw holes and the battery compartments (I too wondered why they had two compartments... surely the wiring could have run easily throughout the ship?) are annoying. The legal copy is too. Mine does have some visible seams, but I didn't notice those before people said anything. But for the most part all of that stuff just fades away for me and I'm left with an awesome looking Enterprise with amazing lights. Sometimes light bleed does sort of annoy me (like on my Character Options Flight Control TARDIS) but on this one it doesn't. I think it's because, to me, the parts where the light does bleed sort of just looks like the reflecting light on the ship. Especially around the white lights. I guess I just have the ability to overlook what I see are some necessary evils of toy making but I understand how it could annoy a person. The thing is, toy companies are having to get a LOT better about legal markings these days. I sadly know from personal experience. Especially in the international market. I deal with mostly hobby-grade stuff in my job so we don't have to deal with as much as another toy company might, but even then there's a LOT of extra crap we've had to recently work into our products and packaging just recently. I'm guessing the legal copy couldn't be on the inside of the battery cover because a lot of this stuff is checked visually before toys are allowed to leave China and they're not opening battery covers.

About the price point, I think the comparison to DST is a little unfair because there are a lot of mitigating factors. It depends on the company, but sometimes the cost of a whole line is balanced out not just item by item. DST is obviously very much an item by item company. So each ship's cost is set only by the manufacturing and development costs of that one ship. But with Playmates they probably price things based on the whole line. That way, say, if they know that they really need to charge $40 for the Transporter to be profitable but they ALSO know they can probably only charge around $30 for it they might cut the electronics out of the Bridge and still charge $25 for the Bridge. But that money saved on the Bridge can make-up for the Transporter being less profitable. So the Enterprise might have had some corners cut in this way and it might be making up the cost of some of the other bits of the line. If that makes sense. Another thing to consider is that the licensing fee for the new Star Trek movie is probably MUCH higher then the rights to the older shows. So that might factor in too.

Now, I say all of this but the big question is... does that matter to the consumer? If you get a smudgy gluey toy with no alternate battery cover (almost certainly a victim of cost-cutting) that suffers in comparison to other similar products in the market (even if those products are arguably in a different market altogether technically)... well, I'd say your review is pretty on-target. But I guess I'm giving them a lot more leeway then some because I genuinely enjoy it and I have a LITTLE bit of an idea of why they made some of the decisions they did. My hope is that if this line is a big success that maybe they'll be more comfortable sinking a little more money into the Enterprise for the sequel and addressing some of this.