Wow! Rittenhouse Does Women Right With The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary Trading Cards!

The Good: Impressive chase cards, Flashy common set, Some very cool autograph signers, Neat costume cards, Awesome sketch cards
The Bad: Somewhat irksome collectibility
The Basics: Rittenhouse Archives proves they still have a winning formula for Star Trek trading cards with their new "The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary" set!


Rittenhouse Archives has had the license to produce Star Trek trading cards for over a decade and a half and watching how the company has developed its products over the years has been fascinating to watch for both collectors and Star Trek fans. A decade ago, Rittenhouse Archives made the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek into a three-year affair, with four trading card sets commemorating the entire franchise and each of the three seasons of the original Star Trek. For the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek, Rittenhouse Archives has produced three major trading card sets, plus one boxed set focusing on the 50th Anniversary traveling art exhibition. The fourth and (final planned, at least at the time of this review) 50th Anniversary tribute set from Rittenhouse Archives is the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set.

The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set is a premium trading card set that focuses on the women of the entire Star Trek franchise. The final 50th Anniversary of Star Trek set is an obvious sequel to the very popular Women Of Star Trek trading card set released back in 2010 with a quality level meant to mimic the premium nature of the Star Trek The Original Series 50th Anniversary trading card set (reviewed here!).

The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set is a magnificent set and it is the first set since I started splitting my rating system for trading cards to achieve a perfect score. This is an impressive, beautiful, trading card set and the only (comparatively minor) issue with it is its collectibility. Even with collectibility factored in, this is a near-perfect trading card set. The collector in me (I've been a trading card collector for almost as long as I have been a Star Trek fan) finds it unshakably problematic that with absolutely ideal collation, it would take 30 cases to assemble a true master set - and with this set, there's no cheating through Archive Boxes as the Archive Boxes do not include sketch cards, metal cards, or gold metal cards!

Despite the collecting gripe - a minor one compared to the other two 50th Anniversary sets that had more sketch cards and cut signature cards! - the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set is an objectively perfect set that represents the pinnacle of Star Trek collecting!

Basics/Set Composition

"The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary" is a set of high-quality trading cards that feature a sheen to them that makes them look like foil cards for most of the surface of the card. The set focuses exclusively on the women of the Star Trek franchise and expands the autograph set from the 2010 Women Of Star Trek, while introducing a new style of costume card and presenting some incredible sketch cards of the various women of Star Trek! For a television franchise that championed women in positive roles well before the sexual revolution began, the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary treats the women of the franchise right!

Properly assembled, the "The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary" set consists of three hundred seventy-one cards. The set is made up of one hundred common cards and two hundred seventy-one bonus cards, only eleven of which are not available in the actual boxes of "The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary" cards. Boxes of these cards consist of twenty-four packs with five cards per pack and highlighted three autograph cards and one costume card per box.

Common Cards

The common card set of the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards consists of one hundred partially-foil cards. These cards were made on a premium card stock and each card features a front that has a high-quality image of the female character and a second image, in a picture window, non-sheen, that features the character paired with another character. The set is oriented entirely in landscape format and features cards for comparatively minor women in the Star Trek franchise - like Shahna, Madeline, and Erika Hernandez - and multiple cards of each of the most important women from the franchise - Uhura, Kira, Janeway, Dax, Crusher, etc. It is hard not to be thrilled with the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary common card set - after studying it, the only change I probably would have made to its composition would have been to swap one of the minor characters (my vote is Madeline!) for a card featuring Ezri Dax and Captain Sisko (the only Ezri card in the set is Ezri Dax and Dr. Bashir).

The backs of the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards are well-written and most-frequently focus upon the relationship between the card's primary character and the character they are paired with. So, for example, card 7 details well the relationship Nurse Chapel had with Mr. Spock. Not limited to a single episode or incident, the card follows the many chances Chapel took to express her feelings for Spock and it gives a very complete view of that entire relationship! The cards are very well-written and the stand-outs and cards like 7 where the writers are able to show their mastery of the long arcs for the character, as opposed to simply detailing a one-off character's arc in a single episode. Despite having some limited characters based on their airtime, Rittenhouse Archives did an excellent job at fleshing out minor characters from fan-favorite episodes. As a result, both major women from "The Inner Light" are well-represented with common cards of their own!

This is one of the best-conceived, best-executed common card sets and it is nice to see that for its Star Trek: Voyager component, Kes was not neglected!

Chase Cards

The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards have a good balance of bonus cards and for the first time in a few Star Trek sets, there are bonus sets that can be assembled in a single case of cards. The premium quality cards include 271 bonus cards, 260 of which are found in the packs and boxes of the cards. The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary bonus cards include: Metal Parallel Cards, Women In Command, Quotable Women Of Star Trek, Women Of Star Trek Gold Metal, Costume Cards, Autograph Cards, and Sketch cards.

The common card set of Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards was replicated as metal cards. This process has become more popular in recent years and the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary common set lends itself beautifully to metal card treatment. The metal cards are found only one per box, so with truly ideal collation, it would take nine cases to complete this subset! The truth, however, is that it is worth it. The metal cards are stylish and carry the images and border from the common set beautifully.

The first unique chase set for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards is the Women In Command chase set. The Women In Command chase set is a set of nine, landscape-oriented cards featuring a minor foil accent in the border that focuses on the influential women of Star Trek when they took command. Rittenhouse Archives aimed for precise with the set and, as a result, Uhura is not featured in the set - she never actually took command of the Enterprise (at best, she had command of a transporter station in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock). Number One from "The Cage" is featured and while it is odd that Saavik is card 9 in the set (chronologically, she should have been card 2), the cards are well-written and nice-looking and the set is comparatively obtainable at one Women In Command card per box.

Also found one per box are one of eighteen Quotable Women Of Star Trek cards. These cards feature a beautiful shot of the character featured on the card (different image on the front than on the back!) and a quote from the woman. The set is a good idea, but here Rittenhouse Archives is somewhat hoisted on its own petard. Rittenhouse Archives has released five different "Quotable" Star Trek sets, with additional "Quotable" cards being used as chase cards in other sets. As a result, Rittenhouse Archives has pretty well mined the franchise for great quotes. So, cards like QW9, which features Deanna Troi, has a quote from Troi that is hardly emblematic of the character. Conversely, it is somewhat shocking that the quotes for Major Kira (which provide some of her fundamental characterization) had not been used before! The Quotable Women set implicitly makes the argument that there is no point in a "Quotable" Star Trek: Enterprise set quite well, though the photography for this chase set is universally high and these cards look nicer than the common "Quotable" cards that made up the five "Quotable" Star Trek sets.

The style and quality of the Quotable Women Of Star Trek chase set is blended with the inherent value and quality of the metal parallel set for the Women Of Star Trek Gold Metal set. The landscape-oriented metal cards feature a big image of each major female character on the left, with a gold secondary image as the background on the right. These are magnificent cards and one of the tragedies of this subset is that fans can never collect this set and get them all signed (the subjects of three of the nineteen cards are now dead). Nineteen is a weird number of cards for a bonus card set, but Rittenhouse Archives makes it feel worthwhile with the quality of the Gold Metal set and the fact that they included Kes instead of culling the set at 18 major female characters.

One per box is a costume card in a new style. The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary cards feature a portrait-oriented costume card style and they succeed in a way that is the opposite of the Quotable Women chase set; Rittenhouse Archives has done an amazing job in the past of representing main castmembers' traditional uniforms in their costume cards. The fifteen primary Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary costume cards feature recognizable and impressive female characters in their non-duty uniform costumes! As a result, Dr. Crusher gets two costume cards from her outfit from Star Trek: Insurrection and Torres has two casual costumes as part of her representation in the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set. Even fan-coveted T'Pol is given a dual costume card from one of her alternate personas! The costume cards feel fresh and have some very cool variants, like Guinan's hat having noticeable variants and Vash's jacket featuring a number of different colors to her fabric swatch. Even Jennifer Sisko's costume has some cool variants! The costume card set is fleshed out by an exceptionally limited Yeoman Rand costume card that fills in a gap from the prior Women Of Star Trek set!

Each box of Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary had three autograph cards and the complete set featured 68 autograph cards. The autograph cards continued the style begun in the Women Of Star Trek set and featured some incredible signers. Vanessa Williams signed for the first time in the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set and Whoopi Goldberg provided an autograph card as well! The Women Of Star Trek set was exceptionally comprehensive for the main cast of women of the franchise - almost every major female cast member from the various Star Trek series's signed an autograph card in the (at that time) new style of autograph card back then. The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary fills in the gap of Roxanne Dawson, but leaves Nicole de Boer, Linda Park and Jolene Blalock absent from the Women Of Star Trek autograph card format. Despite that, it is hard to denigrate the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary autograph cards as they do include autograph cards from Yvonne Craig, Julie Warner, Susanna Thompson, Sharon Lawrence, Madchen Amick, and Meg Foster! First-time signers like Galyn Gorg and Laura Banks flesh out the set incredibly well, making this a must-collect autograph card set for fans of the larger Star Trek franchise!

One per case, there is a hand-drawn sketch card for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary. Thirty different artists contributed sketch cards for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set and there were some truly magnificent works from artists like Emily Tester and Kris Penix. I was impressed by how familiar sketch card artists Chris Meeks and Warren Martineck - best known for starship and technical sketch cards - adapted to the Women of Star Trek subject matters. Meeks, especially, creates some immaculate works that show he has the ability to render characters with beautiful depth and shading, not just ships! The sketch cards for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set are some of the best Rittenhouse Archives has ever presented! The sketch cards may create an issue with the set's collectibility, but tracking down 30 cases to assemble a sketch card set (if one lucks out on the collation!) creates a truly beautiful set!

Non-Box/Pack Cards

Very few of the bonus cards in the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set cannot be found in the packs and boxes, but some of the ones that are not found in the boxes this time are bound to be the most coveted! There are eleven cards (fourteen, actually) that are not found in the packs and boxes, but because Rittenhouse Archives includes the printing plates as a complete set (which is very much a decent thing to do!), I count them as one card to chase. There are two promotional cards - the general-release P1 card and a P2 card that is exclusive to the manufacturer-released Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary binder. The promo cards follow a format that accurately foreshadows the common cards in the set.

Similarly, there are 2 different casetoppers. The casetoppers are metal replications of the P1 and P2 cards and are found only one per case. Like the standard metal parallel cards, the casetopper metal cards are quite pretty.

In recent years, incentive cards have become incredibly important to collectors and the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set is no different in that regard. There is a six-case incentive autograph card that continues the Legends Of Star Trek autograph format. For the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set, the Legends Of Star Trek autograph is a Nichelle Nichols autograph, which is a great tribute to the pioneering actress.

The real drool-worthy component of the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set is the 9-case incentive sketch card. Esteemed sketch card artist Charles Hall took the image captured in the picture window portion of each common card and replicated it as a painted art sketch card for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary. Charles Hall made artwork for these cards that is jaw-dropping good in its quality. Hall picked up subtle background details and included immaculate depth and shading for these sketch cards. They are the true gem of this set and the quality of them is astonishing!

There is an exclusive Women In Command Rittenhouse Rewards cards available for die-hard collectors who exchange wrapper points for the card. The WC10 card features Erika Hernandez from Star Trek: Enterprise. Hernandez is a comparatively minor character and makes for an underwhelming rewards card. There were plenty of other women in command - many of them villains, come to think of it, like Donatra from Star Trek: Nemesis or planetary leaders who might have made an intriguing rewards cards if one had to go with obscure - but the addition of a tenth card to a nine-card set seems pretty superfluous as it is. Despite that, Rittenhouse maintained the quality of the chase set with the reward's card. It is completely Monday Morning Quarterbacking, but as I wrote this, it occurred to me that the Rewards card should have been Captain Tryla Scott. Obscure? Absolutely! But die-hard Trek fans will know that with one-line, she became an essential Woman Of The Star Trek franchise - she is the captain who beat Jim Kirk's record to become the youngest Captain in StarFleet! Furthermore, using her as an incentive card would have been particularly clever as she was a character not utilized anywhere else in the set.

The other four bonus cards are exclusive to the archive box. Found only in the archive box was a Teri Garr autograph card in the Women Of Star Trek format. Also exclusive to the archive box was a WCC27 Seven Of Nine costume card that continued the Women Of Star Trek costume card set, much the way the WCC16 card in the boxes did. Rittenhouse Archives surprised fans with an Archive Box exclusive throwback costume card that they did not announce prior to the set's release! The archive box included a variant WCC11 from the Women Of Star Trek set with a variant fabric swatch from the previously-released version! Also one per box was a set of four printing plates used to make the common cards for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set!

Overall

Ultimately, the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set is a fitting tribute to its subjects that rewards trading card collectors with a truly impressive set worth tracking down for their collections. If Rittenhouse Archives never does another set focusing on the women of the Star Trek franchise, this is a fitting way to immortalize the heroic women; if Rittenhouse Archives ever revisits women of Star Trek as the subject for a trading card set, it sets the bar impossibly high!

This set culls images from:
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Star Trek Movies
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
and Star Trek: Enterprise

This is a trading card set I proudly stock in my online store. To collect it, please check out my Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary Trading Card Inventory!

10/10 (objective), 8.5/10 (with collectibility factored in)

For other card reviews, be sure to visit my trading card review page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Better Than The Film In Which It Appears: The 2017 U.S.S. Franklin Hallmark Ornament!

The Good: Good rendering, Cool light effect, Decent balance
The Bad: Expensive, No sound effect
The Basics: The U.S.S. Franklin Hallmark ornament is a decent rendition of the starship from Star Trek Beyond, despite being expensive and lacking a sound effect.


The more I considered the Star Trek film that was released as a tribute to the 50th Anniversary of the franchise, the less I enjoyed it. Star Trek Beyond was a trainwreck in a lot of ways. So, it is hard not to feel bad about how Hallmark had to make a leap in its merchandising long before the film was released. Last year, it was announced well before Star Trek Beyond met with limited praise from fans that the U.S.S. Franklin from the film would be the 2017 Hallmark Star Trek starship ornament.

For those unfamiliar with the U.S.S. Franklin, this is the starship that Scotty and the Enterprise crew found on the surface of Kral's planet in Star Trek Beyond (reviewed here!). The ship was used by the stranded Enterprise crew to escape Kral's planet and save the nearby starbase. It was an Enterprise-era starship.

For 2017, Hallmark Keepsake released the retro-starship as its prime Star Trek ornament offering.

Basics

The "U.S.S. Franklin" ornament faithfully recreates the cinematic Federation starship in solid gray plastic. With very simple lines and generally basic, but accurate, coloring details, the U.S.S. Franklin looks just like it did in the film. The ornament, released in 2017, is an impressive casting of the StarFleet vessel with an immaculate paint job and decent-enough light feature. Measuring five and a quarter inches long, 3 1/2” wide and 1” tall, the U.S.S. Franklin ornament is a cool, if unnecessary, addition to the Star Trek ornament line. Despite cutting back the Star Trek line , Hallmark continues to bank on the Star Trek fans for revenue and charge one of its highest prices for an ornament - $32.95 – for the ornament which has a light effect, but no sound chip.

The Hallmark "U.S.S. Franklin" ornament is made of a durable plastic and has the starship on its own, as is typical for Hallmark's starship line of Star Trek ornaments. This ornament includes the batteries needed to power the ship for the light effect.

The U.S.S. Franklin is detailed incredibly, from the nacelle struts to the shape of the bridge. The U.S.S. Franklin has a few sections of baffle panels and nooks and crannies and the U.S.S. Franklin has each and every one meticulously detailed on the ornament. This ship looks weathered with a somewhat dirty finish to it, as opposed to a clean white Federation starship. Hallmark got this ship pretty right! Unfortunately, the U.S.S. Franklin features a very obviously-placed button for the feature. The bridge dome is topped by the button for the light feature. Similarly, the steel projection for the hook loop is very noticeable as it juts out of the back of the bridge on the saucer section of the U.S.S. Franklin.

On the coloring front, the U.S.S. Franklin has all of the appropriate markings, like the racing stripes on the sides of the warp nacelles. On the nacelle struts, the U.S.S. Franklin is realistically - if unattractively - colored bright orange. This starship looks great; Hallmark did a pretty impressive job with getting the details on this ornament just right for the exacting collectors and fans, despite the bridge button being problematically obvious.

Features

As a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, the "U.S.S. Franklin" has a light function, but sadly, no audio one. This was one of the many Star Trek ornaments to light up, but not play a sound clip. The ship is powered by batteries which fit into the bottom of the saucer section. There is a panel that requires a screwdriver to open. The ornament comes with the appropriate batteries and given Hallmark’s track record, it is easy to assume the one set will last at least one full holiday season.

After the batteries are installed and the battery compartment is closed, there is a button on the top of the bridge that lights the U.S.S. Franklin up, mostly on the bridge section. Pressing the button activates the light effects for the U.S.S. Franklin and as it is individually powered, it does a pretty decent job of lighting up only the two little bits that have the effect: the light effects on this starship ornament are fairly bright.

It is a little disappointing that the U.S.S. Franklin does not have any sound effect, especially for the ornament's price.

Balance

As with all ornaments, the intent of the Hallmark Keepsake "U.S.S. Franklin" ornament is to be hung on a Christmas Tree. And for those creating the ultimate Star Trek Christmas Tree, the "U.S.S. Franklin" ornament is an unnecessary addition and given how neutral many fans were to Star Trek Beyond, it is tough to believe that fans will flock to buying it up. The ornament has a longer and more obtrusive steel hook loop embedded into the top aft section of the saucer section.

From that point, the U.S.S. Franklin is well-balanced. In fact, this hangs perfectly level, without any balance issues, though it does swing easily when knocked around on the hook/branch.

Collectibility

Hallmark Keepsake began delving into the collectibles market in 1991 with Star Trek when it introduced the exceptionally limited edition original U.S.S. Enterprise ornament (reviewed here!). Since then, they have made ornament replicas of almost all of the major starships from the franchise and they have begun mass producing exceptionally minor ships like the U.S.S. Franklin. The "U.S.S. Franklin" ornament is unlikely to be a fast sell-out, making the implicit argument that for the 30th Anniversary of Star Trek The Next Generation perhaps Hallmark should have bet instead on a shuttlecraft ornament from that show. Given the price and obscurity of the ship in the source material, it is hard to bet on this being a good investment ship ornament. As a loyal fan of the franchise, I am banking on finding these after the holiday when they are put on 50% clearance.

Overview

The U.S.S. Franklin might, objectively, be an accurate and well-made Star Trek ornament, but it is overpriced and not worth rushing right out to buy.

For other Star Trek ship ornaments from Hallmark, please check out my reviews of:
2016 U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 50th Anniversary Tribute ornament
2015 U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-C
2014 U.S.S. Vengeance Star Trek Into Darkness
2013 Battle Damaged U.S.S. Kelvin (Comic Con Exclusive)
2013 U.S.S. Kelvin
2012 U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D 25th Anniversary Edition
2011 U.S.S. Defiant (New York Comic Con Exclusive)
2011 Romulan Bird Of Prey
2010 U.S.S. Enterprise (Star Trek refit)
2009 Klingon Battlecruiser
2008 U.S.S. Reliant
2006 U.S.S. Enterprise (reissue)
2005 U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A
2004 Vulcan Command Ship
2003 Scorpion Attack Craft
2002 Delta Flyer
2001 Deep Space Nine
2000 Borg Cube
1999 Runabout Rio Grande
1998 U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-E
1997 U.S.S. Defiant
1996 U.S.S. Voyager
1995 Romulan Warbird
1994 Klingon Bird Of Prey
1993 U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D
1992 Shuttlecraft Galileo

6.5/10

For other ornament reviews, please be sure to visit my Ornament Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Growing On Me Over The Years, The 2014 Star Trek Movies Trading Cards Deliver A Lot!

The Good: Generally good orientation, Fairly collectible, Some awesome autograph cards, Good writing
The Bad: Surprisingly few bonus cards, Lame parallels, Odd autographs
The Basics: The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards are a very cool collection of trading cards . . . even if the process of collecting them is very erratic.


One of the interesting aspects of trading card manufacturing is that the speed with which trading card manufacturers get material does not always allow them to generate great trading card sets during the window which the material is viable. Back when J.J. Abrams revitalized the Star Trek film franchise, trading card manufacturer Rittenhouse Archives created a trading card set based upon it that was released in the days before the film hit screens. It did not take long for trading card fans to realize, though, that the Star Trek (2009 Movie) set (reviewed here!) had a common set that was based almost entirely upon material from the film's trailer. Sadly, Rittenhouse Archives was not able to get in material from the entire film in order to make a comprehensive set for the film.

Clearly, Rittenhouse Archives learned from their mistake, when Star Trek Into Darkness was released theatrically. Rather than rush to market a substandard set, Rittenhouse Archives waited and instead manufactured a much more comprehensive set in the form of the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards. The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards are a fairly well-organized set that looks good, accurately embodies the subject and is decent when viewed as a complete set. It is, however, a set that continues the trend in trading card collecting that makes trading cards harder to collect and leaves fans with a profound excess of common card sets needed to amass the master set.

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set has 748 cards and is essentially six sets in one. As well, there is an oversized binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that barely manages to hold the entire set. The set consists of 110 common cards and 638 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though eight of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of six cards each.

Common Cards

The common card set for the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards consisted of one hundred ten modern-looking trading cards. The entire common set recaps the plot of Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!). One of the nicest aspects of the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card common card set is that the cards are consistently oriented. The entire set features images in landscape orientation with a single decent-sized image on the front and a different image on the back.

The 2014 Star Trek Movies cards have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied. The back of each card has a plot synopsis of the scene depicted on the front and the writing is decent. The 2014 Star Trek Movies common set accurately portrays the entire plot of Star Trek Into Darkness. No matter what one thinks of Star Trek Into Darkness, Rittenhouse Archives actually did a pretty awesome job of translating the film into trading card form. This is a very complete and comprehensive set for relating the story of Star Trek Into Darkness!

Chase Cards

The 629 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of 2014 Star Trek Movies essentially create an additional common set (of sorts, disguised as a chase set by its rarity) and four bonus parallel sets, in addition to more traditional Star Trek chase cards based upon some of the new films.

The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set features multiple bonus sets that require multiple cases to complete, starting with the most basic chase set. The 2014 Star Trek Movies set features a 110 chase card set that essentially replaces the previously-released Star Trek set. The 110 card Star Trek (2009 Movie) trading card chase set replicates the common card set in quality and substance, with the 2009 film Star Trek as a subject. The orange-colored backs easily help collectors differentiate the Star Trek (2009 Movie) chase set from the common cards . . . for those who might not recognize the images from the different films right away.

The 2014 Star Trek Movies set is bloated with parallel cards. The parallel cards are somewhat unremarkable as they replicate the common and Star Trek (2009 Movie) chase sets with minor foil accents. Two per box there are silver foil parallel cards and one per box there are gold parallel cards for the Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek (2009 Movies) sets. The silver parallel sets are limited to 200 cards - individually foil-stamped with the collector's number on the back - and replicate the two other sets with minor foil accents; a bar and the name of the film in silver foil on the front. The gold parallel sets are essentially the same thing, with gold foil accents on the front. The gold foil parallel cards from the two sets are each limited to 100 of each card. Given that each of the four parallel sets is comprised of 110 cards, collecting the parallels - which are comparatively unremarkable - the parallels are decent, but difficult to collect relative to the coolness of the cards.

The 2014 Star Trek Movies have remarkably few chase cards outside the parallels. In fact, at one-per-box, the Star Trek Into Darkness Foldout cards are the only set that can be complete with the purchase of a whole case. The nine Star Trek Into Darkness Foldout cards are essentially double-tall cards that feature all of the main cast of the Enterprise from the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films, plus Khan and Dr. Marcus. The foldout cards are similar to paper dolls and feature the characters in publicity shots. In fact, these seem to be the same artwork as the cardboard standees produced by another company, just with a background colored to match the character's uniform color. Unlike the common and other parallel sets, the foldout cards are portrait-oriented, not landscape oriented.

Rittenhouse Archives manufactured badge cards, which were found one in every three boxes. The over-thick cards form a twenty-four card subset that features full-sized metal pin badges embedded in each card. The badges, rank pins and insignia pins are neat and it is cool for fans to get them in trading card form. That said, the film's uniforms are not so iconic as to make the badge pins seem indispensable or instantly recognizable. Like the foldout cards, the badge cards are portrait-oriented.

Even more rare are the twelve costume cards. Found one in every four boxes, the costume cards are landscape-oriented and feature costume swatches from all of the main cast, Dr. Marcus and multiple costumes from Spock, Kirk and Uhura. These costume cards are individually-numbered on the back and all but the last three are colorful cards that look amazing and are very collectible.

Then there are the inevitable autograph cards. The 2014 Star Trek Movies set of trading cards features thirty-four autograph cards, devoted to the characters from Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness. Main cast actors like Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg and Leonard Nimoy all signed for the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set. The set is enhanced by autograph cards from Alice Eve, Peter Weller and Deep Roy, who have a lot of name recognition outside the Star Trek films and were not incredibly rare. In fact, there is something odd in the fact that Ben Cross (Sarek in Star Trek) signed as few autograph cards as the (late) Leonard Nimoy. The 2014 Star Trek Movies set is notable for being the only trading card set (to date) to feature an autograph card from Spock Prime from the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films. Genre fans are likely to be psyched that Noel Clarke of Doctor Who fame signed a card for the 2014 Star Trek Movies.

Unfortunately, the bulk of the autograph cards in the 2014 Star Trek Movies are unremarkable filler signers. Rittenhouse Archives was unable to get Tyler Perry or Winona Ryder to sign autograph cards for the set, though they did get Jennifer Morrison and Rachel Nichols to sign for the 2014 Star Trek Movies set, managing to fill two big gaps from the Star Trek (2009 Movies) set. But performers like Reggie Lee, Scottie Thompson, and Sonita Henry (among others) had such minor parts spread among the two films as to make their autograph cards virtually unchaseable. Also odd is the fact that the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set has 34 autograph cards and 32 of them are full-bleed, portrait-oriented autograph cards. The other two autograph cards are a landscape-oriented Star Trek Into Darkness autograph cards. The obscure format features a single image of a character and a heavy border that also has the future version of London in the background over which the actor has signed. The variant autograph card format is not inherently bad, but given that there are only two cards in this style and the performers who signed the cards are Joseph Gatt and Nick Tarabay, they are much more rare than they are at all remarkable or worthwhile.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set has eight cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one placed in Non-Sport Update magazine, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetoppers for the 2014 Star Trek Movies trading card set are unfortunately bland. The two casetopper cards feature the U.S.S. Enterprise from Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness with the monologue to Star Trek written on the back. The casetopper cards are not individually numbered, foil or even sealed into their toploaders with anything other than a very simple plastic seal (unlike the standard Rittenhouse gold foil seal)!

Then there are the incentive cards and these follow the trend of recent Rittenhouse Archives releases! For purchasing six cases, dealers received a Simon Pegg autographed costume card. The autograph costume card looks incredible and all of the cards I've seen have a very clear signature from Pegg. The nine-case incentive card brings Benedict Cumberbatch's autograph to Star Trek fans. Unfortunately, Cumberbatch signed a Star Trek Into Darkness format autograph card for the incentive card and that is a bit of a letdown considering how cool the full-bleed autograph style is. But, it is still impressive that Rittenhouse Archives managed to get Cumberbatch to sign. It is unfortunate that the superlative card of the set is one that is so very hard to find!

The final chase card of the 2014 Star Trek Movies set is the Rittenhouse Reward card. The Rittenhouse Rewards cards is a tenth Star Trek Into Darkness foldout card. The additional foldout card features Chekov in his red outfit for the brief time he was Chief Engineer of the Enterprise in Star Trek Into Darkness. While arguably unnecessary, the Rittenhouse Rewards card at least features Chekov for how he appeared for the majority of Star Trek Into Darkness.

Overall

The 2014 Star Trek Movies set manages to commemorate well the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films even if there is a great disparity in the quality of the autograph signers and the parallel sets seem redundant given that the more common sets are actually pretty extraordinary.

This set culls images from the Star Trek films Star Trek (reviewed here!) and Star Trek Into Darkness!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: 2014 Star Trek Movies Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Star Trek Aliens
Star Trek 50 Years 50 Artists trading cards
Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains

7/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Beyond The Hype: Star Trek Beyond Actually Sucks. (2017 Review This Again Review!)

The Good: Most of the performances are good, Amazing sets and make-up
The Bad: Very basic, formulaic plot, Visual aspects that make little rational sense, Character arcs that are frequently nonsense, Huge continuity and scientific problems
The Basics: Despite my first impression, it does not take long before the viewer recognizes that Star Trek Beyond is mostly just a mess.


[There is a big meme in the art community going around now called "Draw This Again." In the meme, artists illustrate how they have grown in their chosen medium by putting side-by-side pictures of art they created in the past and now. My wife had the great idea that I should do something similar with my reviewing. So, for 2017, I will be posting occasional "Review This Again" reviews, where I revisit subjects I had previously reviewed and review them again, through a lens of increased age, more experience, and - for some - greater familiarity with the subject. In the case of Star Trek Beyond, I ended up seeing the film only once, on the big screen, and reviewed it based upon that. Rewatching the film, my perceptions changed fairly drastically and because I do not alter old reviews, I figured this was an excellent subject for a Review This Again review. The film was originally reviewed here and I opted to not revisit that review before reviewing it again.]

2016 was a very busy year for me and I spent quite a bit of the year, sadly, neglecting Star Trek. The significance of that was that 2016 was the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek and I became a fan of the show and franchise right around the time of the 25th Anniversary. My love of Star Trek has been a lifelong love and during the 50th Anniversary, the only real things I did to celebrate or acknowledge the anniversary was rewatch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (reviewed here!) and watch Star Trek Beyond once in the theater. So, when my mother bought me the Blu-Ray of Star Trek Beyond for my birthday, I was actually super-excited to watch the film again.

Last week when I watched Star Trek Beyond for the second time, on the small screen, divorced from the hype, I felt physically sick.

When I watched Star Trek Beyond the first time and reviewed it, I wrote a review arguing that - despite its faults - Star Trek Beyond was not the worst piece of science fiction crap ever. Now on my third viewing, having watched all of the bonus features to try to get a different perspective on it, I am not so sure.

Star Trek Beyond is a mess. Watching it one the small screen, without any thought about what the film was supposed to be, uninfluenced by hype or preview trailers, the faults and issues within the film become surprisingly glaring. From pretty severe editing problems within the film to philosophical problems with Star Trek Beyond that come out when one watches the bonus features, Star Trek Beyond is unfortunately sloppy . . . even if it is often visually incredible.

It is tough to discuss Star Trek Beyond as an abstract and without some potential spoilers for those who have not seen the film. Ironically, for a tribute to Star Trek, the idea of Star Trek Beyond is most explicitly based upon events of Star Trek Enterprise (reviewed here!), which was the least-Trek spin-off in the franchise - executive producer Brannon Braga explicitly stated that he wanted to get a new audience for the show and was not worrying about things like continuity in his creation. Rather hilariously, one of the issues a lot of people had with Sulu being revealed as gay in Star Trek Beyond is far less of an issue when one looks at the franchise objectively - when Sulu is revealed to have a daughter in Star Trek: Generations, there is no reference to the family Sulu had that generated that daughter; there is no real conflict!

But, there are huge issues in Star Trek Beyond, both in basic story-telling and in the presentation of the film.

Opening with Captain Kirk trying to deliver a gift to an alien race, from the Fibonan culture, he is met with resistance from the leaders of the planet he is on. Attacked by the Teenaxi, Kirk returns to the Enterprise with the artifact (which was an ancient weapon), where he feels disillusioned with the exploratory mission the Enterprise is on. The Enterprise arrives at the Yorktown base where Spock, now broken up with Uhura, learns of the death of Spock Prime. Shortly thereafter, an alien escape pod carrying Kalara arrives and tells the StarFleet officers that she needs help; that her ship crashed on a planet within a nearby nebula. The Enterprise journeys to Altamid, where Kalara's ship supposedly has crashed. As the Enterprise approaches Altamid, the Enterprise is destroyed and its crew separated (most captured) by alien forces as they try to escape the ship.

On Altamid, Uhura finds herself in the custody of Krall, the alien who attacked the Enterprise, searching for the artifact Kirk tried to give to the Teenaxi. McCoy and Spock crash together and Spock is seriously wounded, impaled by a piece of metal from the escape pod. Scotty finds himself in the company of Jaylah, a young woman whose crew and family suffered the same fate as the Enterprise, but has survived in the wreckage of an old Federation ship. While Scotty and Jaylah repair the ship and try to find a way to rescue others from the Enterprise, Kirk and Chekov hike with Kalara to the ruins of the Enterprise's saucer section. There, Kalara reveals herself to be working for Krall and betrays Kirk while she tries to get the artifact for Krall. As the main bridge crew finds one another - or is rescued by Scotty - they find a way off Altamid, but Krall also finds the artifact he is searching for. Armed with a powerful weapon, Krall sets his sights on the Yorktown, which leads Kirk into a fight with him.

Star Trek Beyond is riddled with problematic contradictions, not the least of which is in the visual scope of the film. It is, admittedly, tough to do new things within the Star Trek franchise. Newbies might be thrilled by the visual aspect of Star Trek Beyond in the swarm drones that erupt onto the screen early in the film; fans of the Star Trek franchise will recognize it as a minor permutation of the adversaries from the Star Trek: Voyager episode "The Swarm" (reviewed here!). But beyond that, there is the huge question of should a film like Star Trek Beyond try to do something that is so visually spectacular as it does.

The films in the rebooted Star Trek universe happen at an earlier time than the adventures of Captain Kirk and his crew in the prime Star Trek universe. So, while the argument can be made that just because viewers did not see something like the Yorktown Base in Star Trek does not mean it did not exist (i.e. the Enterprise just went in a different direction in the original?), it is harder to make that argument about the alien races. There is a fairly small sphere of influence the Federation has in the 23rd Century of Star Trek, so the idea that Star Trek Beyond purposely features 50 new, different, background aliens is somewhat ridiculous. In the rebooted universe, there would be no practical reason why the Federation would have encountered so many vastly different alien races, as opposed to have places like Yorktown Base populated by Andorians, Tellarites, and even perhaps Caitians. Star Trek Beyond opts for scale over sensibility.

Even Yorktown has some oddly un-Trek issues with its generation. McCoy asks why the Federation did not make a planet-based facility and the given answer is that it could lead to political tensions. Wouldn't a vastly more-Trek response to political tensions be working through those tensions and illustrate that they did not break the alliance (i.e. that the Federation is not so fragile as to be unable to survive any single philosophical debate) than to use the massive amount of resources needed to make a moon-sized space base? Star Trek Beyond is packed with details like that that fall apart with even the most minimal tugging of the thread. And how the hell would StarFleet build such a massive base near such a large unexplored area?! Seriously, in the time it took to build the Yorktown, there weren't ships that bothered to explore the "nebula" nearby.

And really, guys, do you know what the hell the difference is between a nebula and an asteroid field?! Nebulas are made primarily of gas; asteroid fields are giant rocks. like what is shown in Star Trek Beyond. That's not nitpicking, that is basic science.

Films in the Star Trek movie series have, unfortunately, developed into a painfully repetitive series of "kill the villain" type plots and rather than buck that trend and return to something more philosophical, Star Trek Beyond tries to repackage the same, stale plot with bigger explosions, louder music and more movement. But, at the core of every "kill the villain" flick, there has to be a compelling adversary. Every Star Trek film that has used the "kill the villain" plot conceit has desperately tried to make an adversary who matches the villainy of Khan. So, what happens when you used Khan in the last film? You come up with villains like Kruge (who actually kills people as an example instead of just talking about it, as Khan does!) and Krall.

Krall is a mess who embodies many of the problems of Star Trek Beyond. Star Trek Beyond, at its core, uses style over substance - hoping the viewer will not think too much about what they are seeing. Krall is an adversary who has one of the most forced hatreds for the Federation of any villain to appear in the Star Trek canon. Krall (why did he change his name?!) is essentially a space vampire (how did he become that?!) whose physique morphs as he absorbs the DNA of alien races he encounters. So, as he absorbs more of the Enterprise crew, he becomes more and more human in appearance. That's a fine-enough idea, though it is technically ill-defined within Star Trek Beyond (visually it is clearly and cleverly rendered through make-up effects).

But conceptually, Krall is a huge problem. Krall was originally human and he found himself well outside Federation space. Regardless of the whole military backstory conceit inserted into Star Trek Beyond, the person Krall was would have known that he was well outside of Federation space and resue was unlikely . . . especially if his ship came through the same "nebula" as the Enterprise. Krall does not behave like a military officer in that he rails against the Federation for not rescuing him and his crew - even though he would have known the Federation and StarFleet did not have the resources to do so. But here's the thing, if Krall becoming less human made him forget the technical knowledge he had about the Federation, why would he bear it such ill-will? In other words, the only reason for Krall to be so angry is that he is trapped upon an alien world; if he becomes more alien and stops feeling human or attached to the Federation, why wouldn't he simply accept that he is king of his new world and rule it as such? If the physical changes for Krall did not result in mental changes, he should know that rescue was not coming from the Federation and work to survive on the planet with his crew, knowing there was no future off-planet for him . . . in short, the most reasonable character-based evolutions for Krall all have him accepting his life on Altamid instead of wanting to get revenge upon the Federation.

Then there is the swarm Krall controls, which is one of the most problematic character-based problems in Star Trek Beyond. Krall explicitly states that the Federation's weakness is its interdependence; he advocates a philosophy of growth through conflict. Okay, some people believe such things. People who believe that interdependence is a liability do not, traditionally (or rationally) use a drone army that operates on a hive mind. The swarm in Star Trek Beyond operates using a network that is entirely interconnected, which results in Spock and McCoy having to deactivate the alien fleet by disabling the drones. Krall decries working together . . . with a fleet that entirely works together. Krall implicitly proves his point that there is only growth through conflict by utilizing tools that operate entirely symbiotically (without conflict) and he stagnates in his anger for a hundred years?!

Come to think of it, Krall has a massive swarm of ships that he is easily able to use to leave the nebula and get (at least) as far as Yorktown base. Why the hell did Krall wait for the base to be done to mount an attack on it? Krall has spent lifetimes searching for the artifact that Kirk was given . . . he searched . . . where, exactly? If he hated the Federation so very much, he could have inflicted plenty of damage upon it with his swarm drone army without the specific weapon he was searching for . . .

So, Krall, despite his ultimately well-defined backstory, is a villain who succumbs to the generic conceits of being an adversary as opposed to being a sensibly-defined individual. Manas is an incredibly generic lackey character who acts as Krall's right hand without any real character of his own.

Star Trek Beyond descends into a big motorcycle sequence and highlighting playing the Beastie Boys loudly which is much more the genre for The Fast And The Furious than a tribute to the cerebral nature of Star Trek.

As for the essential characters, Star Trek Beyond has weird issues that are amplified by the bonus features. In talking about the destruction of the Enterprise, Chris Pine mentions in one of the featurettes how being a starship Captain is the most important aspect of Captain Kirk's life at this point. Hearing him say that, my first reaction was "did you actually read the script?!" My reaction comes from the fact that Captain Kirk is looking for a new job at the outset of Star Trek Beyond. Bored with space exploration, Kirk has applied to be the Vice Admiral of the Yorktown Base - if being a Captain was so important to him, why is he looking to be promoted out of the position?! But herein lays the problem; the big emotional moment viewers are supposed to see is in Kirk's reaction shot to seeing the crashing saucer section. Chris Pine's reaction is surprisingly flat, which actually plays to the idea that Kirk does not care about the Enterprise the way the viewer does (or that he is in shock). While many things are complicated, either Kirk is bored with being the Captain and is ready to move on from his position or he is emotionally invested in being captain and his ship is so important to him that losing him is enough to traumatize him. Neither aspect is fleshed out sufficiently in Star Trek Beyond to be compelling.

There are a number of editing issues in Star Trek Beyond; shots where cuts are made at odd places. As well, one of the most awkward moments in Star Trek Beyond comes when Uhura puts together the identity of Krall by looking at an old ship's log. As the footage is played backward (with Uhura rewinding it), the audio goes forward - Uhura hears the word "frontier" repeatedly as she keeps rewinding the tape!

So, what works in Star Trek Beyond?

Jaylah is an interesting addition to the mix of characters (smart money is that she could replace Chekov in the next Star Trek film following the death of Anton Yelchin) and she offers the opportunity for Scotty to talk about Federation values. Jaylah is a strong female character who has a good backstory and plays off the established characters well. Jaylah becomes a conduit for which Star Trek and Federation values can be explored and promoted. Jaylah comes to see that a crew working together can overcome immense odds; she watches as the whole bridge crew contributes to reasoning how the swarm ships work together and how their interdependence may be exploited. That is cool. Unfortunately, Star Trek Beyond turns from something philosophical to utterly generic action-adventure in that such high-minded reasoning and teamwork is not used to stop Krall in a compelling "Star Trek" way. Star Trek values would have been served by having the Enterprise crew use reason and high-minded values to convince Krall not to deploy his super-weapon, as opposed to launching the armed villain out into space. So, Jaylah learns a bit of Federation philosophy and an equal measure that some enemies need to be put down. Even in Star Trek, Kirk tried to save Nero; in Star Trek Beyond, Kirk tries to confirm that Krall is dead instead.

Most of the acting in Star Trek Beyond is fine. Idris Elba is wasted as Krall as the villain makes little rational sense ultimately and Elba is not given the chance to exhibit much emotional range in the part. In fact, the greatest moment Elba has in Star Trek Beyond is gutted when the film continues in the same vein as it has been instead of making a right turn back into Star Trek territory. Each time I have watched Star Trek Beyond now, I am shocked because there is an exceptional moment at the climax of the film where Krall sees himself in a reflection. Elba's performance in that moment screams that Krall sees himself and is upset by the reflection he sees. Each time I see that moment, I expect that this will be a moment of epiphany for Krall and that Elba will deliver a line about how he was wrong and then sacrifice himself to stop his own weapon. No, Elba is not granted a moment where his performance is rewarded with something so high-minded and character-based.

Chris Pine plays Kirk as an action hero with little in the way of an emotional journey after the initial bar scene. Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, and Simon Pegg are each predictably wonderful in their roles of Spock, McCoy, and Scotty. Star Trek Beyond minimizes the roles of Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov (Anton Yelchin's final appearance in Trek is essentially as a sidekick for Kirk), but the performers involved do fine in the supporting parts.

It is easy to read a critique of Star Trek Beyond and think "that is a whole lot of nitpicking," but the problems exist within the film and they truly do gut the movie on almost every front except spectacle. Once one pulls at the question of "If the survivors of the Franklin had access to a drone ship fleet that could get them off the planet and back into Federation space, why did they spend a hundred years on the planet (or returning to it) to scheme against their home instead of getting back to the people who had no reasonable knowledge of where they had ended up?" Star Trek Beyond becomes difficult to watch; so much in the movie is forced and inorganic. Beloved characters like Spock make disturbingly uncharacteristic decisions - Spock and Uhura's relationship is on the skids arguably because Spock considers having children . . . but why would a mixed-race person like Spock be obsessed with the "genetic purity" of propagating full-blooded Vulcans?! Kirk is bored and wants to take a more stable, more boring job? And it takes one mission where his crew is put in mortal peril for him to want to go back to the same type of exploration he found mundane?!

In tribute to fifty years of a series that challenged social stereotypes and perceptions of what humanity's future could look like, Star Trek Beyond presents a surprisingly dull action-adventure film where the plot conceits and characters are so facile that they do not withstand any serious scrutiny. That is hardly a fitting tribute to Leonard Nimoy or Anton Yelchin, to whom the film is dedicated.

For other Star Trek films, please visit my reviews of:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek
Star Trek Into Darkness

2.5/10

For other Star Trek reviews, please check out my Star Trek Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Dump The Franchise: The Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains Trading Cards Fizzle!

The Good: Generally cool common and basic chase sets, Collectibility
The Bad: Exceptionally fractured execution of concept, Some of the most obscure autograph signers, Rarities and numbering is problematic (especially for the cost).
The Basics: Rittenhouse Archives closes out their pre-J.J. Abrams movie card sets with the premium Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains set that ends the concept on an unfortunately low note.


When it comes to Star Trek trading cards, there have been some interesting trends in the various trading card sets and on the long arc of its holding the license, Rittenhouse Archives has done a pretty amazing job of producing trading cards for the fans. That said, not every concept Rittenhouse Archives has tried has worked out ideally. Retrospect is one thing and given the trends that followed, I would probably rate Rittenhouse Archives's Complete Star Trek: The Movies (reviewed here!) trading card set higher if I were to review it today. Sets that followed the Complete Star Trek: The Movies have become prohibitive to collect and Rittenhouse Archives has straddled the fence of creating and following the annoying trends of making impossible-to-collect sets.

But, well before Rittenhouse Archives effectively wittled down the possible number of Star Trek trading card collectors from twenty-five to five, Rittenhouse Archives was busy making ambitious plans to please collectors. Star Trek fans had a lot to be thrilled with, but it was hard to believe the company had anywhere left to go with the Star Trek films when they began with the Complete Star Trek Movies set. Despite starting their explorations of the cinematic Star Trek films with an ambitious and comprehensive set, Rittenhouse Archives churned out three more Star Trek film sets before committing their attention to the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek films. The final of the Classic Star Trek movies sets was the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains set and it was released originally in "premium packs." It also had the unfortunate distinction of being a set that feels like a dump of the accumulated autograph cards withheld from prior Star Trek Movies sets.

That is not to say that the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains is terrible, but the original release format - with packs that cost as much as boxes of trading cards used to! - the lack of a solid set concept and the emphasis on autographed trading cards that vary incredibly between impressive and utterly obscure performers make for a trading card set that is not particularly good.

Basics/Set Composition

The Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains was the eighth set of cards that focused on the cinematic Star Trek produced by Rittenhouse Archives. Properly assembled, the set is a collection of 109 trading cards and there is an official Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains binder from Rittenhouse. All but six of the cards are available in the box of the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains cards, making it one of the sets that is a bit easier to collect, though the way the "premium packs" were produced and released make it somewhat irksome to do so. The cards were originally released in boxes that contained fifteen premium packs of nine cards each, two of which were autograph cards. Packs tended to run in the $50 range, the boxes cost as much as a case used to cost and the boxes were guaranteed to have an autograph card from either Leonard Nimoy or William Shatner in it.

Collation in the The Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains set was quite good. To complete a true master set of The Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains cards, collectors had to purchase at least four boxes of the cards, as there was a four-box incentive autograph card. As well, there were promotional cards that were not available in boxes or cases and there was one card that was only available through Rittenhouse Archives' Rittenhouse Rewards program (though it was inexpensive in its wrapper cost). But, more than most of the other Rittenhouse Archives trading card sets, the amount of repetition to get the four-box incentive card seemed excessive.

Common Cards

The common card set consists of 54 trading cards, which are printed on standard cardstock and have a glossy UV resistant coating. The fifty-four card common set alternates the heroes and villains of the Star Trek movies, with green for the heroes, red for the adversaries. With fifty-four cards, Rittenhouse Archives caters to putting the cards in binders as the binders have standard nine-card pages.

The concept of the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains is a fairly mediocre one. While all of the cards are oriented in the landscape format and universally feature character shots, the choices for characters to focus on and images are somewhat problematic. While all of the main crew members are represented in the "heroes" half (even numbers), the heroes also include obscure supporting heroes like Commander Decker, Commander Rand, and Lily Sloane. There are both versions of Lt. Saavik (Kirstie Alley and Robin Curtis's versions) and there is a noticeable lack of Artim in the supporting hero characters. For the images, it is strange that Rittenhouse Archives utilized an image of Geordi La Forge with the character in his VISOR given that he had artificial eyes for three of the four Star Trek: The Next Generation films.

The villains section of the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains has to stretch even more to achieve its concept. Captain Terrell is characterized as a "villain" in the set (he was villainous only after being taken over by a mind-controlling parasite from Khan) and given that Kruge's obscure support staff of Torg and Maltz are included as "villains," it seems odd that Joachim is left out of the set. Similarly, that the Space Probe from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is included in the set as a villain makes it somewhat incomprehensible that V'Ger is not included.

All of the common cards in the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains set have an individual collector's number stamped on the back. With only 550 common card sets, the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains set is one of the few common sets that has high inherent value to it. Rittenhouse Archives does not waste time or space in the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains set on text; the cards merely include the character's name, which makes sense for characters like Commander Riker, but less for Gallatin (though, one supposes, if there were a character description for the character, it would be hard to write more than had already been written about him for prior card set releases!).

Chase Cards

There are fifty-five chase cards in The Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains set, with forty-nine found in the boxes of cards and the remaining six available outside the boxes and packs. The bonus cards that can be found within the boxes were the Tribute cards, Die-Cut Gold Plaque cards, autograph cards and patch cards. Given how the common card set fits perfectly into usual nine-card pages, the fact that the bonus cards are not in nine-card increments and are not universally-oriented (most are portrait-oriented, but the patch cards are landscape-oriented) is problematic.

The most common bonus cards in this set were the Tribute cards, which were found one per pack. The twelve Tribute cards were limited to 475 each and, like the common cards, feature an individually-stamped number on the back. The Tribute cards feature a large picture on the front of each card of a major actor from the Star Trek films who has since died. Major actors like DeForest Kelley, Mark Lenard and Ricardo Montalban are accompanied by the likes of Persis Khambatta, Dame Judith Anderson and Robert Ellenstein. The backs are formatted like an autograph card with the actor and character name. The tribute cards are hearbreaking in that they make fans want the cards to get them signed by the people on them, they are such nice cards!

Also one per pack in the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains premium packs were one of fourteen die-cut gold plaque cards. The portrait-oriented, limited to 425 cards, look like gold ribbons bordering a bust shot of each of the main cast members from the Enterprise crews. This is a good-looking set of cards that combines the foil borders with decent images of each of the characters from the Star Trek films . . . except Worf. Inexplicably, the front image on the H12 card features seventh season promotional shot for Worf, as opposed to any image of him from the Star Trek films! Seeing as the back features a shot of Worf from the films, it seems odd that Rittenhouse Archives failed to get an appropriate image for the front of the card.

The Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains continue the autograph style that Rittenhouse Archives began in their Complete Star Trek: The Movies. The missing prior autograph cards - A107 and A111 - were included in the premium packs. Each box of Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains was guaranteed to include an autograph from either William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy and they were two of the highlights of the set. The Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains included yet another Brent Spiner autograph and the rarest autograph in the set was from Joseph Ruskin, which was significant only in that he died two years later. Ruskin was far better known for his role in the original Star Trek than in his supporting role in Star Trek: Insurrection. The high point of the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains autograph set is that it includes a Christian Slater autograph card, which is cool. But, Slater's autograph comes up with far less frequency than less well-known performers who had even less substantive roles in the Star Trek films than Slater did, like Gary Faga and Conroy Gideon.

The Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains continues the patch card set begun in the “Quotable” Star Trek: The Movies cards, which were based upon the patches on the uniforms in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Individually numbered to 250, the two badge cards feature insignia patches made for Rittenhouse Archives for Commander Decker and Lieutenant Ilia. The patch cards were found one per box, as boxtoppers, and were unable to hold their value against the "Quotable" Star Trek Movies patch cards of much more major characters.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

As with most "modern" trading card releases - certainly the ones from Rittenhouse Archives - not all of the cards needed to make a true master set are available in the boxes of these trading cards. In this set, there are only six cards that cannot be found in the boxes. There is the usual promo card which foreshadowed the series release which is common enough to find (P1). There is also a promo card exclusive to the The Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains trading card binder (P3). The P2 card is a promotional card available only through Non-Sports Update Magazine and it might take a little work to track down (though the magazine offers back issues pretty readily).

There was one other promotional card, which was given away exclusively at the 2011 Philly Non-Sport Show. It remains tough to track down now and, outside its rarity, is nothing particularly special. All four of the promotional cards are landscape oriented and feature two headshots - one hero, one villain.

The remaining cards are the multibox incentive card and the Rittenhouse Rewards cards. For every four boxes of Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains cards a dealer bought, Rittenhouse Archives provided an A122 Nichelle Nichols as Uhura autograph card. Like most of Rittenhouse’s incentive cards, this autograph card is found sealed in a hard plastic toploader with a gold Rittenhouse Archives seal keeping it inside. This is one of the nicest autograph cards of the set and it is easy to see why Rittenhouse Archives held it back for an incentive card!

The final card in the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains set is the Rittenhouse Rewards card. Rittenhouse Rewards cards are exclusive cards that fans can get by sending wrappers from any sets in to Rittenhouse to redeem for cards not otherwise available. For this set, Rittenhouse produced a tenth Star Trek: The Motion Picture hero card of Admiral James T. Kirk. The Rittenhouse Rewards card is essentially an additional common card, which builds the common set up to an odd 55 cards. The Rittenhouse Rewards card is not individually numbered, like the common cards and it is utterly unremarkable and strangely uninteresting for a hard-to-find incentive card.

Overall

Ultimately, the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains fills in the gaps and expands the existing Star Trek movie sets . . . but it was hardly necessary. Sadly, the mundane and ill-executed nature of the Star Trek Classic Movies Heroes & Villains makes it feel like the set is a dump of material that was planned for earlier releases that just was not returned in time.

This set culls images from all ten of the classic Star Trek Movies, reviewed here!

For other Star Trek movie trading cards, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
The “Quotable” Star Trek: The Movies
Star Trek Movies In Motion
Star Trek: Nemesis

3.5/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years Is As Much A Mixed Bag As The Exhibition!

The Good: Good photography, Nice foreword, Some impressive art
The Bad: Overpriced, Some terrible artwork
The Basics: Titan Books allows those who cannot make it to the traveling Star Trek: The Exhibition experience the Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years as a coffeetable book with as mixed results as the artwork it presents!


I own very few coffeetable books. For one, I have cats, so the coffeetable is frequently used as a feline jungle gym and, frankly, I don't need to bring anything else into the house that the cats will destroy just by being placed where their name dictates. Second, coffeetable books are a tough sell with me because their pricing follows a very predictable arc; the price is usually set artificially high to capitalize on initial hype of the book's subject, then about three months after the premiere, the price of the book plummets . . . and about a year later, the coffeetable book goes into collectible pricing ranges based on its rarity, but it is virtually impossible to find truly mint copies of the book (yes, I am a snob about book condition!). So, I tend to avoid coffeetable books as a genre, though I do have a couple. When Titan Books announced that it was publishing the coffeetable volume Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years, that got my attention.

I was genuinely surprised that Titan Books could publish a coffeetable book because the last I knew Simon & Schuester/Pocket Books had the exclusive license for publishing Star Trek books (as I have come to understand it, there are differences between the fiction and non-fiction - about productions, cultural impact, etc. - publications and that allowed Titan Books to publish Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years). I also found myself thinking that Titan Books was a good choice for publishing Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years, a book based on the art exhibition of the same name that is traveling the world during the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek (which just so happens to be today!). Titan Books did an impressive job with Watchmen Portraits (reviewed here!) and it seemed like they could do right by a volume cataloging the Star Trek 50 Artists 50 Years Exhibition.

Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years is a coffeetable photography book that captures the artwork from the Star Trek: The Exhibition traveling art display of the same name. For $40, readers, collectors and art enthusiasts get a 112 page book of photographs and blurbs that is barely over a half-inch thick (not, admittedly, the way books are usually valued, but it's a lot of money for something that is physically less substantial or impressive than other Titan Books volumes in the same price point). The unique aspect of the book is a foreword by Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan director Nicholas Meyer.

As for the rest, what Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years are photographs or images of the fifty art pieces that were contributed to celebrate the 50th Anniversary Of Star Trek. The pieces range from montages that pack characters in from virtually every episode of the original Star Trek for a single shot to stylized headshots of Star Trek (franchise) aliens. There is a photo montage of (essentially) Mayim Bialik doing cosplay and photographs of toys and a theoretical starship. One of Leonard Nimoy's photograph montages was included, as well as new retro-looming movie posters and faux-recruiting posters for StarFleet!

What Titan Books got right with Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years is the book's physical quality. The foreword is a nice touch and all of the images are credited on the page opposite the work. The photographs look good and the paper stock is thick enough so there is no image bleed from other pages; each work of art is left to stand on its own. Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years is a book that looks as good as the artwork it portrays within its pages.

That said, Titan Books cannot be held responsible for the content of those pages and that is a decidedly mixed bag. Some of the artwork is cartoonish and juvenile and the purpose behind some of the pieces eludes me (Spock leaning on a classic car, for example). It is art, but it is not like the subjects of the photographs in the book Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years were all oil paintings; some are essentially doodles by famous artists. Others are immaculate works of detailed art, clever, or have quite a bit of artistic merit (like Nimoy's photography). The inconsistency makes for a very unsatisfying book and collection.

Which brings us to why Titan Books bothered to publish Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years. Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years was a massive undertaking and I suspect licensees like Titan Books and Rittenhouse Archives (which created a trading card set based upon the artwork from the exhibition, reviewed here!) had to bid and produce their products in something of a vacuum. They took a risk on the subject and, sadly, none of the licensees or museums that are hosting the Star Trek: The Exhibition knew that it would be so thoroughly spoiled online. StarTrek.com published images of all fifty works to promote the project and it completely guts the need for something like Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years. The book ends up feeling, sadly, like a cashgrab and to be fair to Titan Books, they did get screwed by startrek.com.

But, Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years exists in the same world as the internet and is attempting to appeal to the same fanbase. Unfortunately, in this instance, it makes Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years utterly unnecessary. Given the opportunity, I suspect most fans will look over the artwork on startrek.com and realize there is little thrill to be had in seeing the displays in person. Moreover, some of the artists are likely to offer prints of their work directly; that would allow fans to get the exact work or works that they loved from the art exhibition, without the works they did not. I would be surprised if there were fifty Star Trek fans in the entire world who would want all fifty pieces of artwork from the Star Trek 50 Artists 50 Years project hanging in their homes.

Ultimately, that makes the appeal of Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years surprisingly minimal, even for a coffeetable book that one glances at only occasionally.

The artwork within this book utilizes images based upon elements of the Star Trek franchise, most notably:
Star Trek
Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
Star Trek: The Next Generation

For other Star Trek reference books, check out my reviews of:
Where No One Has Gone Before: A History In Pictures
The Star Trek Compendium
The Official Star Trek Prop And Costume Auction Book

5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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