EMvTW 21 - USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E (Sovereign class)

NOTE:  You can click on most pictures to get a larger view of them.

Welcome to the 21st article of my Eaglemoss vs. The World series.  I use these articles to provide a comparison of Eaglemoss ships to other small scale manufactured models.  When I first started collecting small scale starships, I always wished for a resource that would show me how different manufacturers ships compared to others of the same classification.  Now that I've amassed a bunch of models, I figured I would share my comparisons and my thoughts on those different models.

This article is going to focus on the USS Enterprise E.  We first meet this ship in the movie, "Star Trek: First Contact".

My current collection consists of an Eaglemoss, a Furuta, and Hallmark and a MicroMachine model.  It has been a while since I had a Hallmark model in these reviews so this will be a nice addition to the series.


Per Memory Alpha and Beta, "The Sovereign-class was introduced during the early 2370s, and was, at the time, the most advanced starship design in the fleet, though not as large as the Galaxy-class starship. The Sovereign-class USS Enterprise-E was built at the San Francisco Fleet Yards and was launched from that facility on stardate 49827.5."

If you would like to read more official stuff on this type of ship, feel free to check out the following links:

Sovereign Class Information: Memory Alpha LINK and Memory Beta LINK
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) Information: Memory Alpha LINK and Memory Beta LINK

Since I have been sharing some quick close-ups of the MicroMachine models in my collection, I'll do the same for this ship as well.

 

There is something off with the MicroMachine representation of the Sovereign class.  Not to mention, the Galoob rubber causes my nacelles to be warped (no pun intended).  The ship just looks a bit odd to me.  This is also one of the more rare MicroMachine models and thus is rather expensive.  And that is all I'm going to say on that model, so, let us move on.

Eaglemoss vs. Furuta vs. Hallmark

As is usual with my articles, I will now give you the "gravy shot" which will give you a side by side size comparison of all three of the ships.  These pictures alone are why I write these articles.

Eaglemoss vs. Furuta vs. Hallmark 

Eaglemoss vs. Furuta vs. Hallmark 

Hallmark comes out as the largest of the three ships, with Eaglemoss coming in second, to be followed by Furuta's ship.  From a detailing perspective, all three have thier own charms.

Eaglemoss

 

 

 

 

It is funny how a little separation can affect a person's judgement.  When I first wrote this article back in January 2015, and then later gave it some slight tweaks, I said the following of the Eaglemoss model, "On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best ever, Eaglemoss scores an eleven on this model.  I could not find anything wrong with my model.  I even went online and checked out other people's reviews and they all pretty much are of the same mindset, this is one great model."  Here we are, a few years later, and over a hundred plus reviews under my belt, and I find myself feeling a bit different these days.

As I confessed in that last paragraph, I do read a couple other people's reviews, and check out thier takes on the Eaglemoss' models.  This allows me to get a feel for whether I missed something or to see if my model has something out of the ordinary.  I state this because, I must be an anomaly or I got a model that was different than other collectors.  I'm going to mention some stuff that either didn't bother them, or this stuff wasn't present with thier model.

The sculpt and mold work on the Eaglemoss model is very well done, with it accenting all the important parts of the ship.  The model sports lots and lots of windows and panel lines.

The paint work is a bit over the top, and I'm not saying this in a good way.  The entire model is covered with an aztec pattern, and while in some cases, this is a good thing, Eaglemoss made thier pattern a bit dark so that it gives the ship a dirty and blotchy look to it.  

I like the fact that the key components like phaser strips and RCS thrusters were painted and detailed and there were some nice paneling highlights done.  

Eaglemoss went way overboard on painting the windows and escape pod hatches.  All those red and black speckles detract from the overall look of the model.  The window detailing is further ruined by the fact that the paint does not align with the molded windows.

I will say that Eaglemoss did a nice job on the ship's shuttle bay.  This area shows that a little paint can go a long way.

Another important area of the ship that received some attention was the Captain's Yacht.  Unfortunately, the attention was not well executed when it comes to the paint.

captain's yacht?

All of the painted on details help distract your eyes and you might actually miss the join and seam along the engineering section.  Eaglemoss did do a good job of hiding the join on the bottom of the saucer and nacelles though by blending it with the natural lines of the ship.

This model is chock full of Eaglemoss' trademark clear plastic parts.  The impulse engines have been highlighted with these parts, and they even used some orange plastic for the deflector dish.

The nacelles are a delight to look at.  Eaglemoss went all out on this model with thier use of the molded clear plastics on this part of the ship.  Besides the blue nacelle grids, they chose to use red for the ramscoops.  The ship's registry and Starfleet pennant were nice touches as well.

For those familiar with this series of articles from me, you will know that I typically go in for a close-up of the Starfleet ship's deflector dish.  In my opinion, you can tell a lot about a company's attention to details by just looking at this area of the ship.

The orange plastic was not cut so evenly on my model, giving the deflector dish a bot of a messy look when viewed up close and personal like.  That being said though, it is still a better deflector dish than what we have seen on other Starfleet vessels from Eaglemoss.

I'm going to guess that with all the backlash Eaglemoss may have received for it's rendition of the Constitution Class Refit, they decided that they needed to explode the WOW Factor all over us with this Enterprise.  Unfortunately, not all explosions are cool, and in some cases, can create quite a mess.  From a distance, the model looks great, but up close, it is just way to busy looking.  I know it seems like I made a complete 180 degree reversal, but I do still think this is a good model.

Furuta

 

 

 

 

I always like to point the following out for my first time readers.  Furuta is a Japanese company that produced a series of gashapon toys.  Gashapon toys are meant to be nothing more than cheap little $1 to $5 bubble gum machine prizes.  I like to remind my readers of this fact so that they can take any critical reviews I may make in the spirit it is given.  I am in no way expecting these toys to be on the level of a Hallmark, Eaglemoss or Hot wheels toy.  I found a neat video about these types of toys and you can check that out at THIS LINK.

Furuta actually did an OK job on thier model of this ship.  There were lots of well executed molded on details

 The painted on details needed some work.  

Right off the bat, looking at the top side, the registry number on my model is messed up because the "E" is printed onto a seam.  They tried to bring out some details by painting the escape pods.  I think they could have painted less of these and added a smidgen of paint to the bridge.  The saucer is also missing the rear set of RCS thrusters.  

In other areas of the saucer, the paint just plain looks smudged.  And, I almost missed this until I had started looking at the Hallmark ornament, but the phaser strips, although have been molded on, are not painted, which means, they just blend in with the rest of the model.

The bottom side of the ship pretty much holds par with the top side.  The saucer is completely missing the RCS thrusters down here.  And certain areas still bear the smudge effect.  and there is still that lack of painted on phaser strips.

The Captain's Yacht must have been deployed on this model as there is no sign of it on the bottom of the saucer section.

The shuttle bay doors did receive some molded details, however, the lack of paint makes it just sort of blend in with the rest of the rear of the model.

I do like the paint work on this model's impulse engines.  Although, while looking at this area of the ship, we are having a issue finding the Conference Room windows.

Furuta did a pretty decent job with thier nacelles.  While not as detailed as the Eaglemoss model, it still gets the point across through it's detailing.

And that brings us to the close-up of the deflector dish.  All I can say is "Yuck!".  Apparently. the Furuta model has an outy "belly button" while every other manufacturer's version is an inny.  And the paint is weird too.  I can't give this part any more justice by talking about it any more.  Time to move on.

When this model first came out, it was a cheap little toy.  While it was still cheap, it made for a nice rendition of the Enterprise E.

Hallmark

 

 

 

 

In 1998, Hallmark released thier version of the Enterprise E.  This rendition of thier model required it to be plugged into a strand of lights in order to allow it to power up.  Unfortunately, I cut the power cable off of mine in order to allow it to show better in my display cases.

Although Hallmark's model is not as detailed paint wise as Eaglemoss' model, the Hallmark ornament still holds it's own.  

The molded details on this model are actually well done and the model is covered with lots of details.  The model does suffer from some area of the ship being slightly disproportionate, which is probably caused by the fact that wiring had to be run through the model to allow it to light up.

Looking at the top side of the model, Hallmark made sure to paint all the major components so that they stood out.  I think the model would have really benefited with a couple of the windows painted in too, but this usually is rather difficult to do for mass produced works.  

The bottom pretty much holds to this painting formula.  

The painted paneling carries to the bottoms of the engineering section where you can see where I took my wire cutters to removing the wires.

While there is some sort of detailing where the Captain's Yacht is supposed to be, there is not enough details to actually make you believe that it's really there.

I am very pleased with Hallmark shuttle bay door.  It is molded well and the extra paint allows it to stand out.

I like the work that Hallmark did with thier glowing impulse engines.  And they even did a nice job of painting the confernece room windows too.

While the warp grill does not light up, the bussard collectors do.  Even without the extra glowing parts, Hallmark did a nice job producing the nacelles.

Of the three manufacturers models, I really like Hallmark's deflector dish the best.  The molded in details are great when the model is powered both on and off.  The golden color is a nice touch that allows this part of the ship to stand out even when you are not powered on.  When the model is powered, it of course glows as well.

Overall, Hallmark did a good job with thier rendition of this ship.  I really don't have any major complaints about it.

Conclusion

And that wraps it up for the comparison and review part of my article.  Which brings us to the pricing portion of my article.  As usual, I will continue with the tradition of rounding up the most inexpensive Buy-It-Now prices from eBay at the time of this article's (re)writing (May 2018).

Eaglemoss = $40

Furuta = $31

Hallmark = $17

Micro Machine = $65

NOTE: Prices were researched last on May 1st, 2018.  As of the writing of this article, you can also currently order the Eaglemoss model right from the company themselves for around $23 (shipping unknown).

My articles always conclude with me giving you my opinion of which model would give you the "best bang for the buck", which is my rough way of telling you which one is the best buy.  Since you can easily get this model right from Eaglemoss at a very decent price, I have to actually lean towards recommending that model over the Hallmark one.   You won't be disappointed if you add thier model to your fleet.

BONUS ROUND!!!

Every once in a while, I'll have a little extra stuff to share with you that sort of fits in with my comparison articles.

I did a lot of looking for the Captain's Yacht on the bottom of each of the saucer sections in the models we just looked at.  It just so happens that Eaglemoss would eventually produce thier own model of this ship and I can share that review at THIS LINK.

As always, I hope you found this article useful and informative.  If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to comment below.

So for now, "Live long and prosper!!!"



Additional Links To Photos Of My Collection:

Eaglemoss     Furuta     Hallmark
MicroMachine     Comparative Shots

Other Reviewers Take On The Eaglemoss Model:
Some Kind Of Star Trek
Star Trek Starship Collection