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Your Two Cents: USS Enterprise (refit)

The following are reader's opinions of the USS Enterprise (refit) made by Bandai.

Reviewer   Aurore de Blois
Date Reviewed   Jun 24, 2003
Overall Rating       Average. Get it if on sale or you love the subject.
Comments I'll try not to repeat what everyobe else is saying, although i agree with pretty much all of them...

My take on this kit is that the feeling of 'wow, this thing is so ingeniously engineered' wears off pretty fast.

first things first:

my advice on the wiring is this: the wires themselves are remarkably fragile! if you have never stipped a wire before, be damned careful. it is very easy to cut oof the actual wires instead of just stipping off the coat. these wires are cheap.

that said, there is lots of room to stuff wires, so add a little extra length just in case you do cut the wires off while stripping them. also, strip off about 2X as much as they say to- believe me, you'll be glad you did by the time you have to put all the wires into place at the end, you'll need the extra bare wire for wrapping around the little posts. if you have big chubby fingers, may god help you trying to get those wires wrapped at the end.

i didn't like the way the instruction photos were printed. they were dull and flat, with little or no detail in order to aid in understanding the way wires go. featureless is a good way to describe them. it takes a lot of careful study to get it right.

the paint scratches off very easily, so be extremely cautious about the sprue removal, and be sure you got it all, these parts are often impossible IMPOSSIBLE! to fit together, so don't be suprised if you have to scratch the bits here and there to get them to fit.

the engine struts are one example, it took me an hour of stuggling before i decided to try scraping them a bit, and even then it still took immense effort to force them VIOLENTLY into place on the top piece of the secondary hull. this was also made more difficult because the parts are so very small that it is hard to get any grip anywhere on it in order to have some kind of leverage to actually force it in place. mine still don't look like they're in place at all, but they match the nice colour photos in the instruction booklet, so i guess they are in place.

getting the wires all together at the end takes patience, so go slow there. big fingers? good luck bub.

that bottom secondary hull piece will have you inventing new swear words. it is sheer hell to get in place. it took me an hour to get it, and even then, i was scraping bits in order for it to fit.

I managed to avoid light leak over most of it, just a tiny bit on the secondary hull, but overall it is quite light-tight.

as for the lights, it would have been nice to have some more where they count, flashing, etc. but it is still a pretty thing as is. why the sensor dish isn't the pretty blue-green like the other parts is beyond me. dumb idea. even the movie stills on the box show what colour it's supposed to be.

the engines also only have the lights on the inside edge, which is odd to me. i prefer the 'real' enterprise, so i'm not so knowledgable on the refit enterprise, so perhaps i'm wrong there.

most of all, i wish it were bigger, because much of the time i felt i was going to crush it while trying to ram parts together, (Ram? oh yes, you'll see.) Hulk Smash! even though i have tiny delicate hands, it still felt i was going to destroy it during construction. if it was bigger it would have made that bottom secondary hull part a bit easier to manage.

i do like the pre-painting, it is quite lovely although a little bottle of touch up paint included just in case would have been nice. considering it's cost (way overpriced i think) it should have included one.

it looks like only a few details were missed in the painting, but overall it looks nice, i even like that dumb ugly so called 'aztec pattern' for once.

in all, i like the little thing, it's a nice finished piece, but it was very aggravating to put together. overpriced by easily 30.00$, and too small.

i include no pictures because, well, they all look the same.


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