EMvTW Extra 08: USS Enterprise (Matt Jefferies Phase II concept)

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

Eaglemoss has continued with thier endeavor to bring us a special lineup of ships that are either non-cannon or more recently, prototypes of well known ships.  While I was originally opposed to this idea, the fact is, Eaglemoss has brought us some very nice renditions of those ships.  The next model in this lineup is the Enterprise, as it would have appeared in the series called Star Trek: Phase II.

This ship has a special place in my collection as it is the very first kitbash that I ever built (top model).  Since that was my very first kitbash, my skillset was not good enough to build my own nacelles, so I just used TMP era ones.  Eventually, I found someone who produced a resin set of official looking nacelles and at that point, I had another go at building the model (bottom left).  And so, I thought that was it.  But Eaglemoss has come along and presented us with thier rendition of the ship and non-model builders can also enjoy this ship in thier collection.


Per Memory Alpha and Beta, "Star Trek: Phase II, also known by its official title Star Trek II (not to be confused with the earlier 1975-1976 revitalization attempts bearing the same title), was planned to be the first live-action spin-off television series of Star Trek: The Original Series. While ultimately not realized, it did serve, in more ways than one, as the starting point for its immediate successor Star Trek: The Motion Picture."  They go on to say, "The Enterprise was to be refit, and new characters were to be introduced."

Planning ahead, the series producers figured that the ship would have gone through some changes from when we last saw her.  They went and did some major discussions and eventually came up with this slightly new looking design.  They had even gone as far as starting to build an actual studio model for her.  After the series idea was dropped in favor of the movie, the designers made even more changes and brought us what is now known as the Constitution Class Refit.

If you would like to read more official stuff on this type of ship and the series that never was, feel free to check out the following links:

Star Trek: Phase II Information: Memory Alpha LINK and Memory Beta LINK
     There is a second article at this Memory Alpha LINK as well.

Since my Eaglemoss vs. The World article only focus on pre-built and pre-painted models, I will hold off sharing those hand made models of mine until the end of this article, and then, I'll only give you a taste.  Trust me, there are other articles you will be linked to, where you can check them out in all thier glory.

TRANSMISSION REDIRECT

I am going to apologize right now, as this is not how I normally do things, but something needs to be said.

Before we get into looking at the Eaglemoss model, I want to vent a complaint with my readers.  I would file the complaint with Eaglemoss, but quite frankly, my guess is that they don't really give a damn because us collectors just keep giving them our money no matter what nonsense we are fed.  Since this is my blog, I feel like I have a right to get on my soap box here to vent.

For the longest time, I avoided buying stuff right from the online Eaglemoss store because I had heard complaints about stuff taking forever to get to you once they got your money.  However, as we got into the more exotic stuff, like the shuttle sets and these more odd additions to the collection, I found it a necessary evil to order stuff directly from the Eaglemoss store, in order to dodge the price gouging that can sometime occur on eBay.  In most of these cases, I would pre-order and then wait patiently for it to be eventually released.  I do have to say that Eaglemoss has improved upon my earlier complaint, and the models seem to be getting released around the time that they promise them.

HOWEVER... When it comes to items that are pre-ordered, I find that in most cases, they send the model by itself and then I have to wait a month or more for the magazine which they claim is on back-order.

OK, hold on.  Stop the press!!!

When you look up this collection, almost every description and definition of it reads as such, "Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection is a British partwork magazine which is published by Eaglemoss Collections and is authorized and licensed by CBS Consumer Products."

That keyword is MAGAZINE.  The way it works is that you are buying is a magazine that comes with a model, not the other way around.  So we are receiving the bonus before we receive the actual item that we paid for?  OK, ok, I'm trying to get them on a technicality.

I've been asked, "Would you rather wait for both items, or at least get the model right away?"  Guess what?  My answer is "Yes, I would rather wait."  It is poor business practice to give me half of what I ordered and paid for over and over again.  I paid for both items, I expect to receive both items in a timely manner.  I don't go buy a car and just take home the body while having to wait a month for the engine.  I don't go buy a pair of shoes to only have to wait for the shoe laces to come a month later.  That's not how it is supposed to work.

As a reviewer, I like to have EVERYTHING in front of me to give the model it's fair shake down.  Although I am reviewing the model on it's own merits, I do like to have the magazine handy to use for comparison pictures.  I like to compare the pictures in that magazine, which shows us how the model should look, against what Eaglemoss actually produced for us.  Every time Eaglemoss plays these games, they hold me up as a reviewer and I am sick and tired of it.

OK, that's my rant and I'll kindly return you to the review.

END OF REDIRECT

I have had this model for over two weeks now and I don't feel like holding up the review for it any longer.  Since I don't have the magazine to work with, I'm going to go with one of the last official pieces of artwork that showed this ship.  Here is a Star Trek: The Motion Picture poster that still had the Phase II Enterprise pictured on it.  This poster was updated before the movie's release to show the correct ship, however, in this state, it makes for a good official reference photo.

Photo Credit: Memory Alpha

The following picture is artwork that was done up by the series designers and that painting was based off of Matt Jeffries actual plans for the new ship.  I also found that someone had taken that artwork and rendered into out into a 3D model which gives us a super detailed picture to utilize for a yet another official reference picture.

 

This ship falls in line between the TOS era Enterprise and the TMP era Enterprise.  There are a lot of similarities between this new ship and that TOS Enterprise, and I will be referencing Eaglemoss' work on that older model a couple of times.   In case you have never read my review article on the TOS Enterprise, or you simply want to refresh yourself on my stance with it, you can find that article at THIS LINK.

Now that we have an official base to work from, let us now take a look at the Eaglemoss model.

 

 

 

 

One of the things that I liked about this model was the sculpt work and molded details.  Eaglemoss has done a good job of showing off all sorts of panel lines and other important details.

The double turbo-lift behind the bridge was a nice touch.

When you look at the bottom of the saucer section, you can see that Eaglemoss has molded in the phasers banks, and the newer style torpedo launchers too.  I even like the molded details of the shuttle bay.  I actually think that the details of this shuttle bay are even better than the one on Eaglemoss' TOS era Enterprise.

The paint work is one of the areas where I have a problem with this model.

Since we still have the shuttle bat fresh in our minds, I feel like it should have received some sort of color variation so that it didn't blend into the rest of the ship.

This model suffers quite a bit from Eaglemoss' habit of sometimes not aligning window detail paint with the molded window details.  Along the edges of the saucer, some of those windows are not even in a straight line!

I think that one of the reasons this looks so bad is because the rest of the model is rather plain looking with it's overall grey appearance.  As such, any little painted details, and painted detail mistakes stand out in stark contrast.

I also feel like Eaglemoss could have used a little more paint and added a bit more detail to the phaser banks and photo torpedo launches so that they didn't just blend in with the rest of the ship's paint.

One last thing to point out about the paint work is that I am guessing that Eaglemoss is showing this model in a powered down state because there is a serious lack of red paint on those impulse engines.

However, referring back to Eaglemoss' TOS Enterprise, it seems that they left off the red paint on that model as well, so I am guessing that there is an underlying pattern occurring here.

I did however like the glossy white paint that was added to the top of the bridge dome as well as the sensor dome on the bottom of the saucer section.  That shiny white is rather eye catching.

The joins and seams are a lot more noticeable than on other Eaglemoss models. The bottom of the saucer section is one such area.

And then the seam line that starts behind the deflector dish and runs along the base of the engineering hull is just plain ugly on both sides of the model.

This model has areas where I want to be thrilled, but then Eaglemoss does something that just plain flabbergasts me.  And one of those areas is the nacelles.  Having built a version of this model twice, I certainly appreciate the fine molded details and excellent paint work that Eaglemoss has give us on this part of the ship.

The problem arises when we take a look at the bussard collector.  It's great that Eaglemoss used translucent plastic on those collectors, however, they are the wrong color.  I know that there are a lot of my fellow collectors who really like the red, HOWEVER, Eaglemoss is supposed to be giving us screen accurate models.  Although this ship never made it to the screen, we do have official reference paintings of the ship, and as such, it is very clear that Eaglemoss has taken some creative liberty here.  The fact is, those bussard collectors are supposed to be blue.

Whenever I review a Starfleet ship, I like to hyper-focus on the deflector dish as it usually gives me a good idea of the level of attention to details that a manufacturer puts into thier models.  Let's face it, this is a very important part of the ship and should be accurately represented.

And we now have to talk about yet another area of the model where Eaglemoss has taken some creative license.  Make sure you take a another quick look at those reference pictures again.  Truth be told, if Eaglemoss was going to be accurate, they should have made the dish blue.  If they wanted to be technically accurate, then the dish should have been copper, with blue highlight paint to simulate a blue glow in the actual dish assembly.  And last detail to point out is that the silver paint on my model is sketchy.

 

When Eaglemoss produced thier TOS Enterorise, they used clear red plastics for this area of the ship.  My only guess as to why this thing is red again, is that this was Eaglemoss' attempt to show a logical progression from thier older era model to this one.

The color issue aside, they still did a nice job with the molded details on the deflector dish.

Between the nacelles and the deflector dish, I feel like this model has me screaming...

And that is all I really have to share at this point on this class of ship.  As for pricing, 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 writing (March 2018).

Eaglemoss = $46

NOTE: Prices were researched last on March 3rd, 2018.  As of the writing of this article, you can also currently order the Eaglemoss model right from the company themselves for around $25 (shipping unknown).

We now reach the point of my article where I give my opinion on whether this ship is worth purchasing.  Eaglemoss is the only manufacturer that produces this ship at this scale in a pre-built and pre-painted format.  The model is certainly not one of Eaglemoss' best produced ships though, especially when you take in all of the issues that I pointed out.  If anything, I would even go as far as saying that this model is rather sloppy, especially when compared to thier other Extra Series models and thier Standard Issue models.  I certainly would not recommend this model to anyone if the price was more than $25 to $30, so if after all I've said, you still want to add this model to your fleet, then grab it direct from Eaglemoss while you can, or wait as it most definitely is not worth what it was going for on eBey..

If you have the other two Eaglemoss Standard Issue models, and you can get it for the right price, then it might make a nice addition 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 shared in my opening remarks that I have built two versions of this ship.  Here are some quick looks at those ships as well as some links to article about them.

USS Valley Forge (NCC-1732)

Constitution Class (Phase II)

1:2500 AMT Kitbash (v1)

 

USS Revenant (NCC-1944)

Constitution Class Phase II Refit

1:2500 Scale AMT/SciFi4Real Kitbash

 

I talk about both of these models, as well as my step by step process of building them at THIS LINK.

Back when I first started purchasing resin kits from garage kit makers, I lucked out and purchased one of the last know copies of another Phase II ship of sorts.

Constitution Class Phase II Prototype

Star Trek: Planet of the Titans

 

This model actually makes two on screen appearances which was a cool historical thing to learn while researching the model.  Although that resin model is no longer available, you can still read my review of it 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   Comparative Pictures

The Model (v1)   The Model (v2)    

Other Reviewers Take On The Eaglemoss Model:
Some Kind Of Star Trek
Star Trek Starship Collection [No Review Yet]