USS Enterprise, Tholian Web Edition

[Smiffy]

USS Enterprise

The Tholian Web Edition

1:650 Scale AMT/Round 2

Star Trek’s season three episode “ The Tholian Web”, opens with the Enterprise searching an area of uncharted space for one of her sister ships, the USS Defiant, which disappeared three weeks earlier. It is quickly established that this region of space is highly unstable and dimensional fractures cause the engines of the Enterprise to begin losing power.

They soon come across the Defiant, adrift and emitting a strange green glow. A survey of the ship discovers the crew dead, seemingly killed by one another. Dr McCoy theorises that the crew were driven mad, due to the effects of exposure to the spatial fractures. Stranger still, the Defiant appears to be dematerialising around them. After ordering the away team back to the Enterprise, Captain Kirk becomes trapped aboard the Defiant as it vanishes into an inter-dimensional rift.

Spock determines that in a further two hours, the Defiant will inter-phase back into their dimension. He orders the Enterprise to a dead stop, suspecting that any movement of the ship may disturb the fragile fabric of the surrounding space, jeopardising their chances of retrieving Kirk. Matters are complicated however by the arrival of the Tholians, who claim the territory as their own and they order the Enterprise to leave. After a break down in diplomacy, the Tholians begin weaving an energy web around the Enterprise, trapping them inside.

With time running short, Spock must find a way to rescue Captain Kirk and escape from the Tholian web before it is completed, which would spell certain doom for the Enterprise and her crew.

The kit

The AMT 18” Enterprise is one of the best selling kits of all time. It was first released while Star Trek was in it’s second season, with the kit even being used in “The Doomsday Machine” episode, to represent the USS Constellation. The tooling has been modified a little, here and there over the years, but basically the same classic kit has remained. Round 2 have chosen to reissue the kit once again, although this time, with a rather neat little twist. The box proclaims “USS Enterprise as seen in the Tholian Web episode of Star Trek“. The artwork is a rather nice retro looking affair and shows the Enterprise, with the Tholian ships weaving a web around her. Flipping the box over, we have a picture of the kit finished as the inter-phasing Defiant. This gives a clue as to what makes this edition of the kit just a little different. In order to authentically replicate the Defiant as she was seen in this episode, the kit is moulded in a very groovy glow-in-the-dark plastic.

Inside the box we have 34 parts moulded in a distinctive greeny-grey colour and two pieces moulded in clear. Considering the kit’s age, the parts are very crisply moulded, with only a minimal amount of flash in a few little areas. Being that the Enterprise has a fairly smooth exterior, the surface detail for the most part is restricted to some fine raised lines representing windows. These could be removed though, in favour of the window markings which are present on the decal sheet (more on this later).

Construction shouldn’t be too taxing. The instructions are on a single, double sided sheet, with four assembly steps. As is common with kits of Federation craft, assembly commences with the saucer section. The saucer in the old kit used to have a very prominent raised grid pattern moulded on it, but it now comes with a nice smooth finish. There are some fairly hefty sprue gates though, which will need careful removal and clean up. With that done the two halves can be cemented together and the impulse engine unit attached to the rear. The instructions would have you add the upper and lower clear domes at this point, but these could be left off until final assembly.

The secondary hull is built up from five parts. You have a single lower half, to which you add the rear shuttle bay doors and the forward deflector section. The upper half of the hull is split into two parts. Once they have been joined, they can be brought together with the lower assembly. After giving the hull ample time to set, the saucer can then be added to the top of the neck.

Step 2 deals with the warp engines. Each engine is built up from two halves, with the pylons integrally moulded. After cementing them together, you add the one piece rear end caps and the forward collector domes. Unlike more modern kits of the Enterprise, these domes are moulded in solid plastic, so aftermarket clear alternatives will have to be sourced if you are planning to light the kit. The engines are completed with the addition of the intercoolers and control reactor pieces. The pylons then slot into the lower hull and that is the major construction done with.

Step 3 sees you add the deflector dish and then build up the three piece stand. All that’s left to do in the final step is to assemble the two Tholian web spinners. Each one made from three parts. I believe I’m correct in saying that this is the first time that these Tholian ships have been represented in injection plastic kit form.

Round 2 include a very comprehensive set of decals with this boxing. The decal sheet is almost as big as the box and is a massive improvement on what was previously supplied with the older issues of this kit. The decals themselves look very nice, with colour and registry appearing spot on. There are a mass of options with this sheet and you are going to have plenty of spares left over, once completed. It is possible to finish the Enterprise in any one of four different versions. You have the choice of first pilot, second pilot, series production or the Mirror Universe ISS Enterprise. If that wasn’t enough, we also have markings for twelve other Constitution class ships. The decal placement guide makes note of the fact that this is a vintage kit and the layout of the moulded windows is not entirely correct. They recommend sanding them off and using the supplied window decals, which are far more accurate.

The last item supplied inside the box is a thick cardboard fold-out, measuring almost 18” x 13”. It features a colour image of the Tholian Web. The perfect finishing touch to display behind the completed Enterprise and web spinners.

Conclusion.

What a fantastic package. Since they obtained the licence for the AMT brand, Round 2 appear to be putting a lot of effort into looking after the needs of the many Trek modellers out there. Not only have they been going through the old back catalogue and re-releasing kits that haven’t been available for a number of years, but they have been steadily improving them and fixing many of the faults that appeared in these old kits, too.

The idea to release this kit as a glow-in-the-dark model, is frankly, a brilliant one. It has a really charming retro appeal, with the look and feel of some of the cool kits that were available in the seventies, surely when many of us were in our youth. The biggest problem I can foresee with this kit, is choosing which way to finish the model. A display with the Enterprise, Tholian ships and card back-drop would look great, but I suspect the option to leave it unpainted and do the Defiant in all her glowing green glory may prove too strong a temptation to resist.

Top marks to Round 2 for doing things a little differently and injecting a real sense of fun into the mix, as well.

Review sample courtesy of

UK distributors for