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 warboss wrote:
Well... I suppose if it's good enough for DISCO then it's good enough for TNG/VOY/DS9.

https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/137293

How the hell did they not notice the problem even after taking the picture? The box art makes it super obvious that's not what it's supposed to look like XD

The box and the model might well have been photographed separately and then put together in editing. That would at least make it easier to control the light and shadows so that the model didn't cast a shadow onto the box and vis versa. So they might only have spotted it in editing - perhaps too late to do a reshoot.


Plus you'd be amazed what can slip through at times. There's a thread around here somewhere talking about GW's mistakes, some of which are still up. Even the case when they photographed and printed a whole load of writhguard photos where they'd not put the weapons on the model (GW models are often not glued together for promotional photos - weapons and such are often held in with bluetack and such - which sometimes you can even see if you go looking for it)

The marketing team are likely not Trekkies and only have a passing familiarity with the shows in the same way the general public do. To most of those types of people the nacelles go on top, just like the Enterprise.

Stupid and unprofessional, but kind of understandable.

What's an "akira" class?

The ship pictured on the box. Iirc it debuted in First Contact and made the occasional appearance in the latter tv shows (Voy and Ds9).

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Akira_class_model

 chromedog wrote:
What's an "akira" class?

*the fanfic writer closed the door and then sat down, leaning forward*
“What do you want it to be?”



Basically, it’s the Boba Fett of TNG ships, and the NX-01 Enterprise is kind of its Jango.

Never could figure out why they made the NX an "Akira-prise", as it was often called.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Never could figure out why they made the NX an "Akira-prise", as it was often called.

because the akira was popular with the fans so they hoped aping it's design would make people scream "KEWL!" and watch the series.

The link explained a little.

I didn't bother watching Voyager after the first few episodes. It bored me.

I haven't seen the episode of DS9 that the akira class was in, and that battle in First contact had fed ships exploding all over the place. I couldn't keep track of what was what.

Here’s a short video about it from a YouTube channel I can recommend.

Whoa! Quadruple post! Apologies folks!

Tum ti tum!

Sorted.

I love the movie spoofs they did. The ship flyby, the lens flares, just perfect.

Having exhausted most of the Original Series, and having watched each movie over six consecutive nights, I'm left with only one show that I haven't yet cracked open, Enterprise. I watched the pilot last night. I was pleasantly surprised. It was really well done. The overall narrative of humanity putting aside Xenophobic tendencies and looking to the stars feels really comfortable - it's not more grimdark revisionism like Picard. The main cast so far each put in an adequate performance, with particular standouts in Scott Bakula, Linda Park, Dominic Keating, and Jolene Blalock. I felt like I was watching a really tight made-for-TV movie (which is really what it was, I suppose). The Temporal Cold War is a really cool concept, it reminds me of one of my favorite short stories, "The Big Time" by Fritz Leiber (Wikipedia says it's a short novel, but I read that thing in like half an hour).

So, I'm pretty eager to keep watching. I'm trying to temper my expectations; the vibe I get from reading reviews of Enterprise online is "actually had some pretty good ideas, not as bad as its reputation, but had a few stinker stories, maybe one or two dud main characters, and got mired in episodic storytelling in the early seasons."

What are other people's thoughts and opinions? Do I have my expectations properly hedged? I can handle a lot of schlock (I think any Star Trek fan can). Are Enterprise's lows really any worse than say, Voyager, or Season One TNG?

I think Enterprise has a great pilot, but I found most of the first two seasons to be very forgettable. There's a small handful of good episodes. The Temporal Cold War plot line really drags the series down hardcore, mostly because it rarely makes any sense and has no meaningful payoff, even in the third season when they tried to resolve it.

Season 4 has a number of excellent episodes though, several of them two parters that really build the Star Trek universe in meaningful ways. And one that was utter gutter trash but I often find I'm alone on the opinion than the Klingon's different appearance never needed an explanation, let alone the dumb feth one the series provided.

Really the worst part of Enterprise though is probably how it squanders most of its characters. Really only the main three (Archer, Tucker, and T'Pol) ever do anything important and the rest of the cast is just along for the ride and occasionally entertains or excites. The shows overall ensemble was poorly managed.

It's definitely better than initial reactions to the series would suggest, but I'd still rank it as the weakest of the original line of Star Trek shows, and I'd definitely say it's worse than Voyager.

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:
Having exhausted most of the Original Series, and having watched each movie over six consecutive nights, I'm left with only one show that I haven't yet cracked open, Enterprise. I watched the pilot last night. I was pleasantly surprised. It was really well done. The overall narrative of humanity putting aside Xenophobic tendencies and looking to the stars feels really comfortable - it's not more grimdark revisionism like Picard. The main cast so far each put in an adequate performance, with particular standouts in Scott Bakula, Linda Park, Dominic Keating, and Jolene Blalock. I felt like I was watching a really tight made-for-TV movie (which is really what it was, I suppose). The Temporal Cold War is a really cool concept, it reminds me of one of my favorite short stories, "The Big Time" by Fritz Leiber (Wikipedia says it's a short novel, but I read that thing in like half an hour).

So, I'm pretty eager to keep watching. I'm trying to temper my expectations; the vibe I get from reading reviews of Enterprise online is "actually had some pretty good ideas, not as bad as its reputation, but had a few stinker stories, maybe one or two dud main characters, and got mired in episodic storytelling in the early seasons."

What are other people's thoughts and opinions? Do I have my expectations properly hedged? I can handle a lot of schlock (I think any Star Trek fan can). Are Enterprise's lows really any worse than say, Voyager, or Season One TNG?

The lows aren't really worse. They just... ramp up and go on for long periods of time.
Personally, I think the first season is the high mark, it gets to the point that the season openers become incoherent gibberish, most of which is the time travel stuff. When they're focused on getting 'out there' into space and doing Star Fleet stuff for the first time, its decent to pretty good.

Still hate Archer though. Just absolutely despise the man.
You don't take a dog out into the unknown and subject it to also sorts of potential horrors, diseases and problems. You especially don't take a dog to First Contact meetings. You also _really_ shouldn't constantly feed a dog cheese. Even if you're lucky and they're not lactose intolerant, it isn't good for them and can cause a lot of problems down the line.
Archer is a horrible pet owner and should have been punished for that.

Its difficult to say which is better - Voyager or Enterprise - although a good point is made about 1 st season of Next Gen

I enjoyed episodes of and charcters in both but there are some truly awful episodes - the boxing episode in Voyager is hard to beat as terrible television.

Enterprise has an insulting ending but a absolutely wonderful Mirror Universe two parter where everyone appears to be having great fun - something I never really saw in Voyager.

Enterrpise did get away with the notorious deconmination scenes which matches anything 7 of 9 did

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:
Having exhausted most of the Original Series, and having watched each movie over six consecutive nights, I'm left with only one show that I haven't yet cracked open, Enterprise. I watched the pilot last night. I was pleasantly surprised. It was really well done. The overall narrative of humanity putting aside Xenophobic tendencies and looking to the stars feels really comfortable - it's not more grimdark revisionism like Picard. The main cast so far each put in an adequate performance, with particular standouts in Scott Bakula, Linda Park, Dominic Keating, and Jolene Blalock. I felt like I was watching a really tight made-for-TV movie (which is really what it was, I suppose). The Temporal Cold War is a really cool concept, it reminds me of one of my favorite short stories, "The Big Time" by Fritz Leiber (Wikipedia says it's a short novel, but I read that thing in like half an hour).

So, I'm pretty eager to keep watching. I'm trying to temper my expectations; the vibe I get from reading reviews of Enterprise online is "actually had some pretty good ideas, not as bad as its reputation, but had a few stinker stories, maybe one or two dud main characters, and got mired in episodic storytelling in the early seasons."

What are other people's thoughts and opinions? Do I have my expectations properly hedged? I can handle a lot of schlock (I think any Star Trek fan can). Are Enterprise's lows really any worse than say, Voyager, or Season One TNG?

The biggest trek-purist complaints that I remember about the show is how "space racist" supposedly Archer was and the liberties it took with trek tropes and canon. I found all of those complaints personally overblown and in fact refreshing that I got to see humanity as viewed through prism of the main characters evolving further in actual practice rather than just theory/ideology in the relative safety of earth. My biggest complaints was actually with the two overarching (pun intended) plot lines of the Temporal Cold War and the Xindi superweapon. My favorite episodes were generally the one offs or two/three parters especially in the fourth season when the show really grew into its own thing. I enjoyed it more than Voyager and possibly more than TOS (although I haven't watched that in its entirety in 30 years so I can't be sure) and IMO is much better than Picard and STD overall.

During its original run, I stopped watching in the second season due to the timeslot shennigans as well as my initial mediocre opinion of the Temporal Cold War plot. When it was put up at the exact same day/time as Stargate SG-1 during its SciFi Channel heyday, I chose SG-1 instead and after a few weeks didn't bother recording ENT on my VCR. By the time I rewatched it a few years ago, my memory of the episodes was quite hazy and it was like almost like a fresh watch for me. From a technical perspective, it streams fairly well as IIRC it was filmed in 1080p at the time but the effects were done at a lower resolution so some of those look a bit crappy at times during the first season or two.

I stopped watching Enterprise during the second season. Then I caught a few random episodes in the third and fourth season, and they were pretty good. I do miss the positivity, the sense of striving, that the series maintained. Compared to newer Trek, it feels more like a spiritual successor to the good Trek series.

If you finish the series and want to find out more about the Temporal Cold War, I suggest the book Watching the Clock. It’s not canon, but it does an excellent job tying together all of the Star Trek time travel episodes into a cohesive whole. (There’s a side plot about rookie DTI agent and her mentor that you can probably skip over, although it has some interesting payoffs for fans of TOS/TNG’s circus of dead supercivilizations. If you like that section, the author’s The Buried Age explores Trek’s deep past in a way that explains a lot of random “but why” questions of the setting, from dilithium crystals to warp currents to the preponderance or angry energy beings.)

The earlier topic of the Akira class got me thinking of trying to make a TMP-ish version again. I'd long ago found a cool looking TOS one in graphical form (and a very low poly/detail 3d model) but a full 3d model of a TMP variant eluded me. I found nicely detailed version that looked inspired by STD asthetics and I combined it with some classic FASA style TMP parts. Does this look Akira-ish and TMP-ish enough? I wanted it to be an obvious nod to the Akira in TMP form but not an exact copy/paste given that I'm not a 3d modeller myself so I can only kitbash stuff together. It's admittedly more gribbly than the clean lines of classic TMP.

Do you have a view of the back?

I think the main structure looks like an excellent “ancestor” for the Akira class. The main hull being of-a-piece, with the hint of TOS styling around the bulges and the shuttlebay(?) places it firmly in that era.

However, the TMP ship actually has a lot more detail, with the Aztec lines and the Art Deco features. I think your model could use a bit more of that, especially on the relatively featureless side bulges. I also might recommend changing the pod to be more it’s own thing, although keeping it as a Miranda pod keeps with the setting’s modular ship design ethos. It might be worth trying something out.

And don’t forget to glue on some Robotech model parts.

Thanks for the feedback. I should be able to post a rear picture tonight although fair warning that it's less TMP there largely due to a corrugated shuttle bag door that I will try and swap out tonight. I'm limited in that I can't really model much myself beyond simple shapes for gap filling so I'm limited to the Miranda tactical pod (which I may delete some of the bits from like the top cone) or possibly a refit Enterprise neck torpedo launcher upscaled significantly.

I'll have to look into how to add panel lines as I'm not sure at this time. I was more referring to the raised panels and escape pod-ish covering with my gribbly bits comments as I don't remember many of those from my long ago scale model building days. I'm guessing that these surfaces will barely be visible when printed at tabletop scale.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I will indeed consider adding a veritech surfing on the top as per your suggestion. Khyron riding it like the MAC II in the show might be a bit much though.

The escape pods are fine, although I don’t know if they’re I. scale with the bridge, not that that matters. The rim could use some windows (that do not correlate to interior decks at all), and the tops of where I think the impulse engines are might use some gribblies. The Enterprise might not have had many noticeable gribblies, but the Reliant had a lot.

I was much the same and lost interest once the Temporal War started up. To me it was annoying because I could see that it was means to have loads of things happen and yet nothing in the end would happen. They'd resolve the temporal war and then bam everything that mostly happened before wouldn't have happened or somesuch. to me it was a pain because what I really wanted to see and what it should have been was the rocky and rough and getting started with the Federation. What it really began with in the early Episodes. When Vulcans were superior and mysterious; when aliens were unique the universe over and when humans were still working out what they were going to do in space. When Klingons weren't just cuddly warriors lazing around drinking bloodwine and dreaming of the Empire - they HAD an empire and were powerful they were a threat and a risk etc...

I also hoped it might have dipped more into other lesser seen species and such that are well established and yet not as often focused upon.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The escape pods are fine, although I don’t know if they’re I. scale with the bridge, not that that matters. The rim could use some windows (that do not correlate to interior decks at all), and the tops of where I think the impulse engines are might use some gribblies. The Enterprise might not have had many noticeable gribblies, but the Reliant had a lot.

That's a good point. It might not be beyond my abilities to add some small detail to the saucer rim. I'll pm you with the results so as not to spam the thread.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
What it really began with in the early Episodes. When Vulcans were superior and mysterious; when aliens were unique the universe over and when humans were still working out what they were going to do in space. When Klingons weren't just cuddly warriors lazing around drinking bloodwine and dreaming of the Empire - they HAD an empire and were powerful they were a threat and a risk etc...

I also hoped it might have dipped more into other lesser seen species and such that are well established and yet not as often focused upon.

I enjoyed the relative superiority of the Vulcans and their status as basically the 19th century British (minus the Empire part) of the Galaxy. Starfleet's best struggling against the galactic equivalent of minor powers and bannana republics was a big plus for me and I liked seeing hints of how trek staples like the prime directive came to be. On the other hand, I thought that the Romulan and Ferengi story arcs felt forced even though I enjoyed the exploration of the Andorians and Tellarites though and wish there had been more of that instead of the Xindi.

So, after watching a few episodes mentioned by Memory Alpha, I've come to the realisation that the Akira class is ST's boba fett.

Mostly shows up in "blink and you miss it" flybys, or blows up.

I'm not seeing why it's so loved apart from fans latching onto small things and squeezing them to death.

 chromedog wrote:
So, after watching a few episodes mentioned by Memory Alpha, I've come to the realisation that the Akira class is ST's boba fett.

Mostly shows up in "blink and you miss it" flybys, or blows up.

I'm not seeing why it's so loved apart from fans latching onto small things and squeezing them to death.

I don't think it has the mystique that Boba Fett has (whether deserved or not) in its respective community. It has its fans for sure but I wouldn't say it garners any more attention than others like the Prometheus or even the workhorse Nebula in all its variants.

Because every single thread can always do with more silly.....

 Mr Morden wrote:
Its difficult to say which is better - Voyager or Enterprise - although a good point is made about 1 st season of Next Gen

I enjoyed episodes of and charcters in both but there are some truly awful episodes - the boxing episode in Voyager is hard to beat as terrible television.

Enterprise has an insulting ending but a absolutely wonderful Mirror Universe two parter where everyone appears to be having great fun - something I never really saw in Voyager.

Enterrpise did get away with the notorious deconmination scenes which matches anything 7 of 9 did

 warboss wrote:
The biggest trek-purist complaints that I remember about the show is how "space racist" supposedly Archer was and the liberties it took with trek tropes and canon. I found all of those complaints personally overblown and in fact refreshing that I got to see humanity as viewed through prism of the main characters evolving further in actual practice rather than just theory/ideology in the relative safety of earth. My biggest complaints was actually with the two overarching (pun intended) plot lines of the Temporal Cold War and the Xindi superweapon. My favorite episodes were generally the one offs or two/three parters especially in the fourth season when the show really grew into its own thing. I enjoyed it more than Voyager and possibly more than TOS (although I haven't watched that in its entirety in 30 years so I can't be sure) and IMO is much better than Picard and STD overall.

During its original run, I stopped watching in the second season due to the timeslot shennigans as well as my initial mediocre opinion of the Temporal Cold War plot. When it was put up at the exact same day/time as Stargate SG-1 during its SciFi Channel heyday, I chose SG-1 instead and after a few weeks didn't bother recording ENT on my VCR. By the time I rewatched it a few years ago, my memory of the episodes was quite hazy and it was like almost like a fresh watch for me. From a technical perspective, it streams fairly well as IIRC it was filmed in 1080p at the time but the effects were done at a lower resolution so some of those look a bit crappy at times during the first season or two.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I stopped watching Enterprise during the second season. Then I caught a few random episodes in the third and fourth season, and they were pretty good. I do miss the positivity, the sense of striving, that the series maintained. Compared to newer Trek, it feels more like a spiritual successor to the good Trek series.

If you finish the series and want to find out more about the Temporal Cold War, I suggest the book Watching the Clock. It’s not canon, but it does an excellent job tying together all of the Star Trek time travel episodes into a cohesive whole. (There’s a side plot about rookie DTI agent and her mentor that you can probably skip over, although it has some interesting payoffs for fans of TOS/TNG’s circus of dead supercivilizations. If you like that section, the author’s The Buried Age explores Trek’s deep past in a way that explains a lot of random “but why” questions of the setting, from dilithium crystals to warp currents to the preponderance or angry energy beings.)

 Overread wrote:
I was much the same and lost interest once the Temporal War started up. To me it was annoying because I could see that it was means to have loads of things happen and yet nothing in the end would happen. They'd resolve the temporal war and then bam everything that mostly happened before wouldn't have happened or somesuch. to me it was a pain because what I really wanted to see and what it should have been was the rocky and rough and getting started with the Federation. What it really began with in the early Episodes. When Vulcans were superior and mysterious; when aliens were unique the universe over and when humans were still working out what they were going to do in space. When Klingons weren't just cuddly warriors lazing around drinking bloodwine and dreaming of the Empire - they HAD an empire and were powerful they were a threat and a risk etc...

I also hoped it might have dipped more into other lesser seen species and such that are well established and yet not as often focused upon.

Thanks for everyone's comments on ST:Enterprise. I decided to keep going with the series, with all your feedback in mind, and do as I did with TOS; keep going until I'm no longer having fun. I've only seen the first four episodes so far, but they are coming strong out of the gate. The only character I didn't like from the pilot (Trip) has become a delight, with Connor Trinner showing a surprising amount of range. The stories have been mostly small-scale and character-driven, with very little violence, used as a last resort. Two of the episodes don't have a single character death in them!

One thing that I didn't realize I was missing from new Trek was that the characters are all so damn excited to be in space. You are watching passionate people explore and learn and grow, actively discussing and trying to put aside their biases (however imperfectly). That's wild. Remember when Star Trek used to be fun? My favorite part of any TNG episode is when they encounter a new life form and snap zoom on Picard, and he whispers "remarkable." That thread has been woven throughout the fabric of the show. Again, only four episodes in, and preparing myself for an amicable separation once the relationship starts to break down, but I'm really enjoying the show so far.