81 replies to this topic

[JonWes]

Yeah, I think it looks much better then the toy. I think the toy is a good way to go to appeal to kids, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a collector who wouldn't rather have this. I suppose part of what prompted Playmates to go the route they did for the toy was toy safety laws. They made the phaser look very unrealistic and avoided the orange safety nozzle, I suppose. They might have had to have it if it was more screen accurate, and at least the toy we're getting seems to capture the flavor of the movie better then something with a big orange nozzle on it.

[egoing]

Here is someone demoing the toys. Bit of warning he spills a spoiler during the communicator demo. Just fast forward it after he plays the voices and you should avoid spoilage.

Youtube Star Trek roleplay toys demo

[NickyTea]

After playing with the phaser for a few hours, I'm having trouble getting the red nozzle to rest pointing directly forward. I may take it apart to see what it happening.

Anyone else experiencing this?

[JonWes]

Here is someone demoing the toys. Bit of warning he spills a spoiler during the communicator demo. Just fast forward it after he plays the voices and you should avoid spoilage.

Youtube Star Trek roleplay toys demo

Very cool. I did skip after the voices so no spoilers for me. I have to say everything looks a lot more fun then I thought they might be. The Tricorder is great. Love all the lights and sounds.

[tribble]

Where to start? Well, without seeing the movie for a size comparison, I'll skip any remarks about that for now, except to say that these toys look like a reasonable size for an adult hand, and not grossly over or undersized. The communicator I think closely resembles the pics of the actual movie prop. The weight feels right for this item. The lid is kept closed with an embedded magnet, but is not so strong as to keep you from flipping it open easily. The lights are nice and bright. The sounds are very clear. Better than DST's comm. (But then, so is the Hallmark comm ornament). Too much company writing on it, same as on the Enterprise, but at least it's on the back. You rarely see the back anyway, so it's easier to overlook. It comes with a holster, which to me seems pretty useless. Don't know if that is used in the movie or not. The comm fits rather loosely in it, but it could be modded to fit it better,perhaps with another magnet in the holster. I still don't have any idea what that spherical part is for on the front of the comm. It looks cool, but on the toy at least, it doesn't seem to have any function. I could speculate that it replaces the spinning moire pattern, or has a view screen function, but who knows. Some of the ads for this toy say that the inside of the lid has a lenticular picture of Kirk and Spock, but this is absent on the toy I got, which I don't mind at all. There is a UFP symbol on it that appears in most of the ads and I prefer that anyway. Overall score... 4 out of 5 Deltas!

[knightone]

The lenticular sticker was supposed to be part of the sphere in the center, but I guess they omitted it as part of the final product. Probably looks better without it anyway, as it can now be any Starfleet communicator rather than only an Enterprise communicator where you are talking just to Kirk or Spock. It helps if you are trying to turn this into a prop replica since you don't have to mess with the sphere unless you want to now.

[tribble]

The tricorder...Again without a reference to it's use in the movie , it is hard to make a comparison for accuracy. I like the sounds and the lights. It feels a little small for its practicality. It takes a lot of it's look from the TNG tricorder, in as much as it has no view screen like TOS, and has similar readout do-dads and lights to TNG. I like the pop open lid design. The thing I think I dislike the most about it is the use of chrome on the outside instead of a brushed metal finish. The chrome is just way too shiny, and the more you play with it, the worse it will look, I think. Maybe it will take on a more realistic used look, but I fear it will just look crappy in the long haul. It fingerprints way too much. A different finish would have swayed me more. This should have come with a holster, instead of the comm, IMO, Something they did for TNG later on. Overall score...3 1/2 out of 5 Deltas

[tribble]

The phaser...looks and feels correct in size, could weigh more, feel heavier, have a more weapon-like heft to it. Don't know if the sounds are accurate or not. I will assume they are. Not sure about the overall design aesthetic of this one. I still don't know about the logic behind the spinning nozzle. I like the fact that it takes some design elements of TOS phaser, and the assault phaser from Trek V and VI. Should have a dark pistol grip, rubber or other. Too slick and slippery. Now the worst thing about it....All That Chrome!!! I just can't get past that super shiny look! After seeing the prop from the movie, why didn't they make this a darker gun metal two tone color! I could overlook the glowing nozzle if they hadn't used that mirror finish. And all those visible screws! There are nine, count'em Nine obvious screws on one side of this thing! I can see this as a customizers dream. And then there are those company logos and symbols again. Including one regarding not disposing of the batteries in the trash! Do we really need this on these toys? Couldn't that have been on a removable sticker? Or on the package? And one thing I forgot about the tricorder, why is there a sticker on the unit that says "Tricorder"? Is that to ease confusion as to what the item is? They didn't label the other items in this way. The top of the phaser is somewhat less shiny than the handle, in maybe some half-hearted attempt to do a two-tone finish, but it still leaves me less than enthusiastic about it. Overall score....3 out of 5 Deltas. (Did I mention this thing is REALLY shiny?) LOL Best of all these toys is the Enterprise ship, and second is the communicator. All of this is just my opinion, of course. Now, I would like to hear what the rest of you think. And what do you think about the blister packaging instead of the boxes from the past? I have saved all the boxes from the trek tech in the past, but the blister pack on these is pretty much trashed when you open these. Except for the ship, which still comes boxed.

[knightone]

Spray some matte or satin clear coat on the shiny parts.

[Hermey the Elf]

Spray some matte or satin clear coat on the shiny parts.

One fan took some steel wool to the chrome parts (lightly) and painted the blue part silver and it turned out beautiful.

[joemolis]

After playing with the phaser for a few hours, I'm having trouble getting the red nozzle to rest pointing directly forward. I may take it apart to see what it happening.

Anyone else experiencing this?

I also am having that problem. My kill emitter does not point directly forward, but the stun emitter does. I am too chicken to take mine apart right now, but let me know if you figure this out!

[JonWes]

That's disappointing to hear about the phaser. I don't know if there's an easy fix for it. A similar mechanism in a Transformers movie toy that was part of the auto-change feature did that to me and it was impossible to fix.

[Gothneo]

Yeah after seeing the Phaser, Tricorder and Communicator in person, I have the most hope for the Phaser, I will pick one up to try and customize like Hermey described.

The communicator was ok, better then I thought, especially when you activate it, but the TriCorder seems small. Maybe that 's to scale, but I think it should be larger.

[knightone]

Once you hold the tricorder in your hands, the size actually feels nice and handy. I quite like it. It feels more like a TNG era tric, of course, but it fits the hand nicely. The actors were shown the TOS tric and everyone felt it was too large and bulky, so they made a smaller unit when they went to redesign the tric. It works, though, and fits in with the lineage of modern era trics from TMP onward.

[Gothneo]

Although, I think it could have been slightly larger, the size isn't my main hangup.

It's the display.

I'm pretty sure even the TNG era ones had some sort of LCARS display.

Look at this Hero TNG tricorder of FHC's...


Now look at the New design... here

[JonWes]

But the TOS tricorder didn't have a display, right... unless you count the spinny thingy.

[knightone]

The TOS tricorder has a screen. Quite a large one, actually. If you watch "City on the Edge of Forever", you can see Spock using it to view the history created by saving Edith Keeler. It's on the top panel that folds out, to the left of the speaker and three lights. You can't miss it.

The TMP tricorder did not have a screen, however, just lots of blinkies and a number pad. Maybe it communicated information through Morse-like code flashing of the blinkies, I don't know.

The new STXI tricorder actually does have a screen of some kind. It has a long, thin readout screen on the very top panel, You can't see it very well in the above pic as the detail isn't good in the photo. It's the multicolored strip at the top of the top panel. It looks like, on the real prop, it should have a small readout screen and a bank of blinkies on top. The screen looks like it shows a wavelegth reading of some kind. I guess it's supposed to be similar to the bar graph we saw on all the Mark IX science trics and also the Mark XI engineering tric used by Geordi in Nemesis.

[Smitty]

I like them all and they will be the first ones I put in my shopping basket when they hit the shelves/pegs. But my favorite has to be by far the tricorder.

I love that thing!

-cs™

[Gothneo]

Knightone is correct. For some reason most of the Tric's during the TOS movie era didn't have displays...

Then again I have the same beef!

I think I really need to see it in action, and if your correct about that actually being an early LCARS type of display, it may be salvageable!

[sallah]

Got the Tricorder today...pretty sharp, but man that chrome picks up prints and scratches REALLY easily...I've had it for 5 minutes and it's already showing spots of wear...

Anybody tried spraying them down with dullcoate yet? Or does anyone have a pic of the actual prop to see if it's not quite this shiny?

Sallah