EMvTW 85: Federation Holoship

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

Moving right along with the October/November set of Eaglemoss vs. The World series, I now present you with the Federation Holoship.

We are introduced to this ship in the movie, Star Trek: Insurrection where it is is planned to be used to secretly remove a group of people from thier home world and redeposit them somewhere else.  You can read more about this ship at these Memory Alpha and Memory Beta links.


Before I get into the complexities, and the down-right issues I have with this model, let's take a good look at it first.

 

 

 

 

The ship was once described by its designer's wife as the remote control.

I did some reading up on this model and quite frankly, the design history for the movie's model was rather long and complicated.  And quite frankly, the entire ship's design seems to be a bit complicated.  After all, where is the front???

Which way does it go George? 

I'm still not quite sure.

When I first un-boxed this model, I honestly got the front and back of the ship confused.  I'm used to modern day tanker ships where the con-tower and bridge are on the back of the vessel.

So naturally, when I held this obviously tanker or cargo ship like starship in my hands, and looked at the con-tower...

 

Front                                                    Back

...with those windows that look out over the ship...  ...and these red and yellow squares on the front and back of the spaceship...

 

Front                                           Back

...that looked like red impulse engines, and, I don't know, yellow intake grids...

How was I supposed to know?  I'm glad I had the magazine to set me straight.  In fact, when I initially took my PhotoShoot pictures, I had it going the wrong way, which meant, I had to re-shoot all those pictures a second time.

I was not amused.  And apparently, I was not alone.  It's pretty bad when a major motion picture's VFX department animates the ship going the wrong way as well.  You can read more about this fun stuff at the Memory Alpha LINK about the Holoship Model.

OK, I think I beat that dead horse enough, so let us move on to some constructive stuff about Eaglemoss' creation.

The model feels like it is entirely made of plastic, making it one of the least weighty ships in the collection.  It feels hollow and just doesn't feel right when you hold it.

The upshot of it being all plastic is that all of the sculpted and molded details are crisp and clear.  Sometimes, Eaglemoss models suffer from the metal parts having a rounder, software look to them, almost like the model has partially started to melt.  But this one is really well detailed.

Just look at this thing.  The details are almost overwhelming all over the top, the bottom, the sides, and...  wait, what the heck is up with the front and back of this thing.  What are these big gaps?

Front - Top View

Front - Bottom View

Back - Bottom View

Maybe a little paint in these gaps would have helped with the look, however, given the level of details on the other parts of the ship, these areas just look like they were forgotten in the design process.

Speaking of paint, the overall paint scheme of the ship is that nice militaristic grey that Starfleet has gone with for a lot of the modern ships.  Although there are some darker grey panels painted on, and some blue and yellow specked in here and there, it is not enough to help and those details just get lost in the overall size of the ship.

And I really wish that they had chose to make the impulse engines red.  I could have done without the red bussard collectors, which was a major key in me mistaking the ships actual front.

Because of how the model was designed, you can clearly see where the joins and seams are around the middle of the ship.  In fact, as you could see from those close-up shots of the front and back, the joins are a bit messy with extra plastic showing.  The seam even disrupts the nacelle grids which looks just plain tacky to me.

Which brings me to the fact that we are presented with a Starfleet starship that does not have any of the Eaglemoss' trademark clear red or blue plastics.  😠   I don't know, this may have saved the model a little bit, but the exclusion of this often anticipated feature, just makes the model come off as a cheap toy.

In the end, I am left feeling a bit disappointed in the execution of this model and how it was presented, and I really think the Eaglemoss team should be saying to themselves...

At the time that I write this article, you can get the Federation Holoship on eBay for around $26 (shipping included), but honestly, it doesn't feel like it is worth the money.  You will hold it in your hand and ask yourself, "I paid how much for this?"  That saddens me because I love the Eaglemoss line of ships, but this one is not one of those models that I would buy again, knowing what I know now..

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