Star Trek: The Next Generation Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D is a British partwork that debuted in March 2021 in the UK, the US, select EU countries[1], and Japan[2].
Available by subscription from Eaglemoss Collections' websites[3] and published under its Hero Collector imprint, collectors can build their own seventy centimeter-long (~27.5 inch-long) replica of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D, constructed from hand-painted ABS and die-cast metal parts, and featuring electronic lighting.
Each four-week period, subscribers typically received with each issue four kit "stages" with parts (save for issues 1 and 31, which each had only two kit stages) for the model and a (220 × 284 mm) 32-page magazine containing the relevant sections of the assembly instructions.
Special Issues featuring art prints and die-cast shuttlecraft models were also developed by Eaglemoss for the line.
The 1:916-scale model was designed as an amalgam of a number of the USS Enterprise-D studio models that appeared in TNG episodes and on film.
Its sculpting most closely followed the six-foot studio model's design while its paint applications approximated the four-foot studio model's on-screen appearance.
The assembled Galaxy-class model could have been displayed in saucer separation mode with fully illuminated lighting, allowing both the primary and secondary hulls to remain lit when displayed separately. Both nacelles contain independent lighting units and were also to be powered by AAA battery packs.
Kit parts were designed to easily snap together and only a screwdriver, included with the first issue, was required for (some) assembly.
Simon Hugo, a contributing author to the project, added that the magazines include "a complete TNG episode guide, with behind-the-scenes insights, rare concept art, and whatever other interesting nuggets we can get our hands on. They’re really fun to research and write, and hopefully a lot of fun to read, too!" [8]
Ben Robinson, a veteran of the Star Trek Fact Files and a number of other popular Star Trek publications and partworks, had been the senior project manager for this line.
A sister publication of the Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, Star Trek: Discovery The Official Starships Collection, Star Trek Online Starships Collection, and Star Trek Universe: The Official Starships Collection, it was authorized and licensed by Paramount Consumer Products.
On 5 August 2022, Eaglemoss was declared bankrupt, after all company activities had already been suspended indefinitely the previous month. This meant that all Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D partwork customers were left with an incomplete model – as were all Eaglemoss' other franchise "build" partwork customers incidentally – , no matter how early they had started with the collection. Robinson has confirmed that the earliest partwork subscribers were close to completion as they had been sent issue 25 of the planned 31 issues shortly before Eaglemoss had to cease all its activities. Having been caught entirely unawares, as Eaglemoss kept their customerbase completely in the dark about their difficulties, frustrated customers complained bitterly on numerous social media outlets about their models now remaining incomplete, perhaps forever. The now-jobless Robinson sided with these customers, stating that he hates, "the thought of anyone being left with an incomplete model." He furthermore divulged that he was on personal title in the process of talking with third parties interested in taking over some of the Eaglemoss product lines with the buildup lines (such as the Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D collection) given absolute priority, though conceding that he was unable to give any guaranties, merely that he was "hopeful" and "optimistic". [9]
On 21 January 2023 it was announced that DeAgostini (Italy) had taken over The Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D program as part of their "Fanhome" line, and the company expected delivery to customers to resume in February for Europe, followed a month later to those in the USA. Collectors had to take out new subscriptions with DeAgostini though. [10] The Japanese subsidiary could continue to coach along with the mother company, and its official website has therefore never gone dark. While Fanhome restarted the collection from issue 1, using the exact same assets from its defunct predecessor, former Eaglemoss subscribers were offered the option to choose from which issue they wanted to resume their collection. [11]
Eaglemoss Collections/Hero Collector publications |
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Starship collections: Official • Discovery • STO • Universe • Lower Decks |
Other collections: Build the Enterprise-D • Busts |
Book series: A Celebration • Designing Starships • Graphic Novel Collection • Nerd Search • Shipyards • Illustrated Handbook |
Other books: Mr. Spock's Little Book of Mindfulness • Star Trek Cocktails • The Book of Grudge |
Issues[]
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Special Issues[]
Special Issues could be purchased (or declined) by subscribers and some were exclusive to company web shops. Scheduled for the milestones listed below, they were slated to reoccur every three (standard) issues.
Limited Edition art prints included Certificates of Authenticity signed by the artist(s) and were produced in limited editions of 1,500 units each. The graphic for the first release measured 19.5 × 26.5 cm and is printed onto a 30 × 40 cm sheet of 310 gsm Hahnemühle German etching paper.
As Special Issues, models of the USS Enterprise-D's shuttles were also manufactured in die-cast metal and ABS, similarly sized (120-140 mm) to the Standard Edition starships from the company's first starship collection. [12] [5]
No. | Delivery | Date | Title | Release |
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1 | Fourth | 11/06/2021 | "USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D" print by William Budge |
Pin badge set[]
In March 2021, the USS Enterprise 1701-D metal pin badge set was offered to retail by the company's US webshop.
Enterprise D Shuttles Packs[]
Double-model packs offered exclusively to subscribers of this particular partwork alone (and therefore never offered through the company's webstores), which, while coined as "bonus", had to be paid for nonetheless by those subscribers who opted to receive them. Larger scaled than the ones from the Official Starships Collection, each shuttle model came with its own 20-page magazine, which was actually twelve pages longer (and larger) than the ones that accompanied those from the Official Collection shuttle sets. The extra content is taken up with production background information that was not included in the Official Collection shuttle set magazines, which only contained in-universe information. Each individual model/magazine combo came within their own "Collector's Edition" format style packaging as introduced in 2018, two of which included in a box set.[6]
Issue | Set box/Title/Magazine Contents | Magazine | Model |
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Set 1 | |||
Type 15 Shuttlepod El-Baz
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Type 6 Shuttlecraft Goddard
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Type 6 Shuttlecraft Hawking
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Captain's Yacht Calypso
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Set 3 | |||
Type 7 Shuttlecraft
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Type 9A Shuttlecraft
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Deluxe display base[]
Subscribers who opted for a premium subscription could receive a LED-illuminated mirrored base for the model, measuring over two feet long, for a small additional ongoing fee.
[]
Gift premiums were delivered to subscribers at specific subscription milestones. These intervals (and the products offered) varied in different countries. Unlike the above listed "Special Issues", these were free of charge.
Description | Delivery | Gift |
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Eight-page magazine (intro "boost") |
First | |
"Life-Size Model Photography" poster (685 × 990 mm) |
First | |
Collector's binder | First | |
Screw box | Second | |
"USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D" photo print[7] | Third | |
USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D Development Project metal mug[8] | Fourth | |
USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D Development Project t-shirt | Fifth | |
Enterprise display stand | Fourteenth | |
USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D pin badge set | Twelve months pre-paid bonus |
Background information[]
After the limited release of two test issues to retail in select areas of southern England, on 25 March 2019, the UK division of the company announced that the partwork had been suspended but stated that it hoped to resume publication "soon".
UK collectors who had purchased the test issues at retail were given the option of returning them for a full refund, [13] while UK subscriptions were not dispatched before the suspension of the partwork. This type of test release is a common practice for partwork publishers, in order to gauge consumer interest.
A second message was sent to UK subscribers on 9 May 2019, stating that the line was still suspended and that further upgrades would be made to the Enterprise-D model, adding that a "special gift" would be sent to early subscribers, if the partwork resumed. [14] Issues for US subscribers were ostensibly scheduled to ship in late March 2019 but did not reach customers.
In September 2019, Ben Robinson stated that the partwork would re-launch in "about a year", following further refinements to the model. [15] A retooled model (and a revamped magazine design) appeared on the partwork's US website in December 2020 and a 2021 relaunch date was announced.
This publication and its model were not directly related to De Agostini's similar (but short-lived) The Official Star Trek The Next Generation: Build the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D partwork from 2011. The Japanese publication's model was executed at about the same scale as Eaglemoss/Hero Collector's but was an entirely different build that involved the participation of Rick Sternbach. Ironically, those Japanese customers who had invested in the (test-)issues were also left with an incomplete model, as that collection too was cancelled prematurely, though for extraneous reasons outside the control of the company instead of the self-inflicted business failure as had been the case with Eaglemoss eleven years later.
Test issues[]
The two released test issues and associated promotional artwork from 2019 featured images of an early USS Enterprise-D model prototype. Included with the first (sixteen-page) test issue, a folded (685 × 990 mm) glossy poster (not shown) depicted a life-sized dorsal image of the model. An additional USS Enterprise-D poster was also offered to early subscribers. [9]
Appendices[]
Footnotes[]
- ↑ As of 8 June 2021, the line had been available to the following EU countries: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Czechia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and Spain.
- ↑ Available only to select regions of Japan, test issues (in Japanese) were launched in March 2021 by Eaglemoss' mainstay sub-licensee for Japan, DeAgostini, bearing its imprint on the packaging and magazine covers. Following this successful test run, the line was fully launched to all of Japan in September 2021.
- ↑ Eaglemoss had been the sole distributor of the line outside of Japan, where it (as of 2024) is still carried by De Agostini.
- ↑ The line's senior project manager reported that an opaque replacement for the translucent orange part behind the Bussard collector (from Stage/kit pack 2) would be included with a future issue. [1]
- ↑ Following its full launch in 2021, the line's UK website's Terms and Conditions stated that a "2 Shuttle Sets" special issue was slated for release with the seventh delivery, but this did not occur as scheduled. On 7 September 2021, a UK service representative confirmed that the shuttle set had been delayed due to global shipping issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Customers though, confirmed that they started to receive them (by then it were three sets) the following year despite continued delays for the regular issues. [2]
- ↑ After Eaglemoss had gone bankrupt, leftover Shuttle Pack stock was acquired by (new) Master Replicas, not DeAgostini. When Set 2 went up for resale on 26 May 2023 in their webstore, Master Replicas made it appear that it concerned a previously unreleased one which had never reached market (conceivably because they had not realized that it had originally not been part of any of the other usual Eaglemoss Star Trek model/magazine partworks, of which it were they who had acquired the remainder stock), [3] though customer YouTube review videos had already proven that assertion wrong. [4] [5] Master Replicas set the record straight for a subsequent offering. [6] The shuttle packs are therefore no longer part of the renewed offerings of the partwork on DeAgostini's Fanhome website.
- ↑ The photo print is printed onto a 40 × 30 cm sheet of paper and includes a backing sheet and a framing matte with a 31 × 21 cm cut-out for the graphic.
- ↑ The metal mug's box identifies it as a Starfleet Corps of Engineers Beverage Container.
It only turned out after the Eaglemoss bankruptcy, that there had been a third variant metal mug release (the second variant concerned a gift premium for the Star Trek Universe partwork) planned with a Starfleet Academy logo, but the bankruptcy prevented its release. It was left to remainder stock owner (new) Master Replicas to start selling the 2,600 already produced mugs through their webstore. [7] - ↑ An A3-sized (297 x 420 mm) poster of the USS Enterprise-D was offered as an additional gift premium to early subscribers to the test release. The CGI art was created by Robert Bonchune and originally premiered on the magazine cover of issue three of the abandoned 2011 Japanese USS Enterprise-D partwork, and was later reprinted in the 2019 reference book, Star Trek: The Next Generation: The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D Illustrated Handbook.
See also[]
External links[]
Official sites[]
- Star Trek: The Next Generation Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D(X) – defunct UK website
- Star Trek: The Next Generation Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D(X) – defunct US website
- Star Trek: The Next Generation Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D(X) – defunct Europe website
- Star Trek: The Next Generation Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D – live Japan website
- HeroCollector.com(X) – defunct official collector portal
- Build the Enterprise-D – official YouTube playlist with promo and build videos - defunct
- Ben Robinson (project manager) at X (formerly Twitter)
- Ben Robinson on the Return of the STAR TREK ‘Build The ENTERPRISE-D’ Model Subscription at TrekCore
- Build The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D at Fanhome.com – DeAgostini's successor official partwork website (valid only in the UK, US and Germany)
Collector sites[]
- HeroCollector Star Trek & Sci Fi Collections Fan Group unofficial fan forum at Facebook
- "Eaglemoss Build the USS Enterprise-D part work launches" article at TheTrekCollective.com
- "Eaglemoss/Hero Collector Build the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701- D" at Wixiban.com
- R T Ralph at YouTube - Eaglemoss model reviews