Saturday, March 16, 2013

Wrong Coloring Reduces The Coolness Of The Star Trek The Movies MicroMachines Set 2!


The Good: Great balance, Good detailing
The Bad: Yellowing of stands, Inconsistent scale, Klingon Bird Of Prey wings are not articulated, Coloring on StarFleet ships, No collectible value
The Basics: Galoob’s MicroMachines Star Trek The Movies set 2 focuses on the major starships introduced in the Star Trek films and falls short because of the coloring.


Given that I have unearthed my old collection of Star Trek MicroMachines and have started reviewing them, like the Star Trek: Generations set (reviewed here!) , I figured it was a good time to keep going with the series of reviews on Galoob’s MicroMachines! Today, I am considering the Star Trek The Movies 3-pack.

Fans of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (reviewed here!) and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (reviewed here!) will easily recall the three ships featured in the pack. The MicroMachines Star Trek The Movies Set includes the U.S.S. Excelsior, a Klingon Bird Of Prey, and the U.S.S. Reliant.

Basics

The MicroMachines Star Trek The Movies includes a U.S.S. Excelsior, Klingon Bird Of Prey, and U.S.S. Reliant. The U.S.S. Excelsior NCC-2000 is a 3 5/16” long, 1 3/16” wide recreation of the starship seen very briefly at the beginning of Star Trek III: The Search For Spock and throughout Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The U.S.S. Excelsior is a Make 1 model of the Excelsior Class, with the curved lower engineering hull. It is cast in a ridiculous blue plastic, which is utterly unfathomable. Even so, the U.S.S. Excelsior is sculpted immaculately and has proper highlights and red and yellow detailing lines and running lights. The name and/or ship number of the ship is printed in exceptionally small type on the top and bottom of the saucer section and Galoob even got the insignia and running lines on the sides of the engineering hull rendered perfectly!

The detailing on the Klingon Bird Of Prey is also impressive, though not as good as subsequent models. The Star Trek: The Movies version of the Klingon Bird Of Prey has big clunky guns on the wings and no coloring to the upper vent plates. The Klingon Bird Of Prey is 2 ½” wide and 1 3/4" stem to stern. It is molded with all of the appropriate surface details, including the photon torpedo tube on the underside of the “head.” It is a predominately green starship with minimal accents and the green is a bit brighter than the olive green color Klingon Bird Of Preys usually are.

The U.S.S. Reliant is a 2 3/8” long by 1 1/2” wide starship that is also ridiculously cast in blue plastic, like the Excelsior (the actual ship on screen was bright white!). Regardless of the initial coloring, the sculpt is fairly impressive with the saucer section attached to an extended engineering back and the descending warp nacelles on either side. Galoob molded the upper bow with the photon torpedo launcher in perfect proportion to the rest of the ship. Despite the awkward base coloring, the U.S.S. Reliant is accented with proper red racing stripes, yellow running lights, and gray engineering panels.

Accessories

The MicroMachines vehicles come only with stands. The stands are identical ovaloid clear plastic stands that are 1 5/8” long, 3/4” wide and 7/8” tall. Each features a small peg which fits into the vehicles. The stands are universal and fit a standardized hole in the bottom of each ship. The stands work nicely to display each of the ships, though the clear plastic has yellowed over the last decade to look disturbingly unclear.

Playability

The MicroMachines Star Trek The Movies vehicle toys have pretty limited playability, as they are entirely unposeable and are only really balanced on their stands. These vehicles have exceptionally limited play potential, largely because their subjects have limited playability. However, Galoob could have done more with them. For example, the Klingon Bird Of Prey’s wings could have been designed to be mobile (a later movie set did feature that!). The other ships are about as playable as they could be.

Collectibility

The MicroMachines Star Trek The Movies set was one of the vastly overproduced sets and the ships in it appeared on one card and with the vehicles in a several of the boxed sets. They did not appreciate in value and are unlikely ever to given how many are in circulation.

Overview

Fans of the Star Trek movies and Star Trek franchise starships are likely to enjoy how inexpensively they can find this set, but be annoyed by how Galoob managed to get the basic coloring of the ships wrong.

For other MicroMachines and smaller-scale Star Trek toys and collectibles, please check out:
MicroMachines Star Wars Set IV
2008 U.S.S. Reliant Hallmark Ornament
Playmates Toys Strike Force Maquis Fighter

6/10

For other toy reviews, please visit my Toy Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

No comments:

Post a Comment