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TrekTek:
White Handled Phaser and Communicator
Wave: Released
August of 2008
I have just recently
been trying to rewatch all the episodes of TOS and trying to
figure out which ones I haven’t seen before. When I first
became a Trek fan in about 1995 when I was in 7th
grade, TOS didn’t really have much appeal for me. The
pacing of the episodes seemed too slow in comparison to
modern programming and it was just hard for me to sit
through an episode. I’ll admit it….I was and still am a
Voyager guy (DST get on making those figures!!!). Now that
its almost 15 years later, the TOS series has much more
appeal. I still think the pacing is slow, but the fact that
most of the episodes have been referenced in modern Trek
series or in the expanded universe makes it critical to
watch these early programs and get a feel for the
characters. One of the coolest aspects I think TOS had was
that the producers took simple technical designs that were
clearly 1960s-ish and made them feel futuristic. Two of the
best designs were the phaser and the communicator.
The phaser and the
communicator go beyond TOS as well. If you ever get the
chance check out “How William Shatner Changed the World” I
would. I think it was on the History Channel and it
explains how all of the cool stuff that Trek did in the
1960s had a lasting impact on the scientists of today who
grew up watching the show. The perfect example is the
communicator where our current “flip” phones are directly
modeled to look like the original prop used on the show.
Obviously it changed slightly to be workable and to have a
more modern look but the same basic functions are there.
Now I’m just waiting for the phaser to be developed so the
next time Mark or Jeremy irritate me I can just vaporize
them and be master of this board….Bwahahahahaha…Ahem oh
excuse me…back to the review.
This particular review is
about the DST re-release of the phaser and communicator
which they conveniently packaged together. The first thing
that I should state is that I am going to approach these two
role play toys as toys and not as screen accurate models.
Obviously DST has come pretty darn close in recreating what
was onscreen but there are many inaccuracies as opposed to
maybe a Master Replicas version that has far fewer. What
really makes these stand apart from a Master Replicas
version or high end model kit is 1. the price point which at
around $40 is a pretty decent price and 2. the playability
factor. Throughout this review I am going to try to show
some comparison pictures to show what a screen accurate prop
looks like and compare it to the DST version, but I’m not
going to center the whole discussion around that.
The packaging for this
set utilizes the new color and logo scheme that Paramount is
trying to get all Trek products to uniformly follow. I
really like the way the packaging looks even though I may be
against the idea of having your entire product look exactly
the same. I think the style fits well for the TOS and movie
products but I’m still unsure if they are applying it to the
other lines as well (DS9 and TNG). If they are I think some
MOC collectors may be a tad bit angry with the packaging
change because the uniformity of their collection will go
right out the window. In any case, this arrangement has the
newly stylized “Star Trek” that is basically just a
recoloring of the old 1960s title screen logo. It also has
Shatner as Kirk prominently displayed on the front of the
packaging. Finally it has the old 1960s enterprise in the
corner firing its phasers. As usual, DST does a good job in
packaging the product to display all the cool features of
the toys inside. Here the communicator is shown in its
flipped open mode to accentuate the dials and buttons
located under the great cover. The back of the box shows
off some of the upcoming products that DST has coming out
such as DS9 Wave 2 and the Enterprise-D (yes!). Once again
DST does a great job with packaging the product in a way to
make me feel bad for taking it out of the box.
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Let me start with the
communicator. The first aspect of this toy that I was
surprised by was the fact that it had a metal grate cover.
I had never picked up any of the TrekTek releases made by
Playmates, Master Replicas, or DST. I really did not expect
any part of this toy to be made of metal. Needless to say I
was quite impressed by this right of the bat. The
communicator itself is a reasonable facsimile of the one
seen on the screen. When the grate cover is flipped open,
the center dial is automatically activated the starts to
spin and the classic activation sound is heard. The
graphics on my dial are a bit thin and dark so its hard to
see the moving appearance. In a dimly lit room one might
now notice it at all. From what I recall the TV show had a
more blatant effect. I’m not sure if its a matter of the
lines being too thin or the covering being to dark, but on
this particular toy, the effect is very difficult to
discern. However, the three LED lights really stand out.
Both the yellow and blue are automatically activated and the
blue flashes immediately when the sound starts.
Periodically, the yellow light will blink as the device is
left open. The left button activates the red light that
will remain blinking until the button is pushed again or the
right voice activation button is pushed. The voice clips
selected for this toy are perfect for what most collectors
will want…a little from Kirk, a little from Spock, some more
from Scotty, and of course the lovely Uhura.
The communicator seems to
be a pretty sturdy toy. The addition of the metal grate
cover is a must because I’ve had to have flipped it open at
least 20 times when I first pulled it out of the box. I
could easily see a plastic covering breaking pretty easily
with the constant flipping (just like my current flip phone
that always tends to break when I’m pretending to be
Kirk!). Overall this is a really nice toy that to the
common observer is screen accurate. What really makes this
piece stand out is the playability factor.
Positves:
Use of LED lights
Use of a metal grate
cover
Sound clips are great
choices and clear
Overall playability is
great
Negatives:
Center spin disk is hard
to see
I’m trying out a new
rating system so please bear with me!
Rating:
 out
of 5 pips
Onto part two of the two
pack…..the Phaser! This once again is a great toy to have
if one is NOT looking for something that is perfectly screen
accurate. Here is what a more screen accurate phaser would
look like in comparison to the DST version (thanks to Roger
for the pic)
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To the common observer, the differences aren’t much
besides the use of better materials. The most glaring
difference is the use of metal on the front of the phaser,
trigger, and back dial as opposed to silver plastic on the
DST toy. I also prefer the solid black styling because it
is what I remember more from the TV show as opposed to the
blue-ish color. Once again for the price point I can accept
these differences. Like the communicator, this is also a
toy that has a lot of playability designed into it. One of
the coolest features that this toy has is the different
sound effects for the different settings of the phaser. As
you move the setting dial from zero to 20, the sound effect
gets more intense. I just thought this was the coolest
feature ever for some reason and still like to fiddle around
with it. It basically boils down to five separate sound
settings including one that is powering up and shooting.
There are also a lot of movable parts on the phaser such as
the two dials on the power pack, the back dial, the trigger,
the phaser barrel, and the front side button…not to mention
that the power pack is completely removable. This leads me
to my first complaint about this toy…the power pack has a
hard time staying in its place. Every time I hit the
trigger button, the power pack rises slightly from where it
is supposed to be. After using it a few times it got pretty
annoying. I finally tinkered with it enough that the power
pack doesn’t move all that often. It is also sometimes
difficult to get the dial to move because they are pretty
stiff within their compartments. My other complaint comes
from where the LED light is located. The light itself is
located in the power pack and the light is then transferred
by means of transparent plastic to the tip of the phaser
barrel. The purpose I believe is to keep all the
electronics in one central area but the effect is a pretty
weak light/flashing when trying to use it a moderately lit
room. Even in the dark the effect isn’t all that
impressive.
Once again for the price point this is a great toy to
have if you don’t want a totally screen accurate version. I
also think the play features on this completely make up for
it not being perfectly screen accurate.
Positives:
Different sounds as you adjust the settings
Various movable parts have an effect on what sound is
made
Close to screen accurate to the common observer
Negatives:
Hard to tinker with the dials sometimes
Power Pack takes some fiddling to get to stay
LED light effect in the barrel is weak
Rating:
 out
of 5 pips
Overall this was a very
nice packaged set that any Trek collector would be proud to
own. Obviously those collectors who only want screen
accurate props would not want to pick this up. However, I
believe the addition of various sound clips and action
features totally make up for the toys not being screen
accurate. Keep in mind these are designed to be toys anyway
and I think DST has once again given us two really cool
pieces that succeed in accomplishing what they are meant to
be looked at as.
As Always
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