MegaBloks Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 Collector Construction Set

I should establish some preliminaries here. I am a huge Trekkie (I run a Trek blog and everything), I own all of the other “Trek 50” TOS Mega Bloks sets, and I am a moderate fan of Lego-style building (like, I enjoy it with my kids but I’ve never bought a crate of one color of Lego).As a lifelong Trekkie, I had dreamed of a set like this often when I was a kid. I had built my own Trek-style ships out of my 80s Space Lego sets. And I had geeked out on the other TOS sets Mega Bloks has put out.Who is this set for? At this price and at 3,000-plus pieces, it’s not for young kids, I can tell you that. My five-year-old, who has built a few superhero themed Lego sets on his own, thinks it’s way cool, but did not have the patience for sorting through hundreds of identically colored pieces to make a warp nacelle. It’s also not really for someone who wants to “play” with their Lego/Mega Bloks sets. It’s way too heavy and unwieldy, and the body of the ship itself has a large protuberance that fits into its stand (pictured), so it can’t really be removed and “flown” around. The whole set (ship, stand, figures) once built weighs 9.3 pounds but it feels heavier due to the shape.I kind of wish there were a smaller model that would be more appropriate for a younger kid (say 6-10) and could stand up to harder play. This is for an adult with a lot of patience who has dreamed of building a realistic Enterprise since he or she was a kid. So… me!The package is very nice looking. It weighs about 13.6 pounds, and has a handle on top like a suitcase. In it are two long boxes printed with Mega Blok Enterprise CAD images, and a monstrous instruction book (~170 pages) that requires a clear tabletop to open completely. The book should have been broken into 4 separate books, as was done in other TOS sets – by the end of the build, I had several pages falling out, and I am relatively careful about such things. It’s just too heavy and bound too cheaply. The exterior box is printed with glamour shots of the model dressed up with various backgrounds from episodes – which do a good job of showing how perfect the proportions are to the studio model.Inside the long boxes are dozens of bags of bricks. They are separated roughly by size and occasionally also by color – 2 dot sides, 4 dot sides, 6 dot sides, etc. Fascia pieces are in their own bags, and any group of pieces printed with decals (no stickers, hooray!) is also cordoned off in its own bag. I have noticed other reviewers saying there is no organization – this is not true. I used the groupings of the bags throughout the whole build. It was still an organizational challenge, to be sure, and I’m certain more than a third of my 19-hour build time (!) was spent finding pieces. The instructions, though shoddily bound, were excellent in guiding me through this challenging build. Mega Bloks shows which dots should be placed upon by coloring them, and alternates the color schemes when bricks are places adjacent to each other. VERY helpful.I counted three missing pieces – two black 2x2 bricks which were to be placed inside the saucer to support face plates, and one long dark gray plate that was to go into a warp nacelle. For the former, a different brick was included (a black 2x6 brick), while for the latter, I cobbled together a reasonable replacement using the “temporary” pieces that were included to hold up the secondary hull while you work on it. Thankfully, no crucial exterior pieces were missing.Some things that impressed me: the LED blocks that go on the nacelle tips (Bussard Collectors, if you’re that kind of nerd) have multiple colors of LED that pulsate between orange and yellow (for about ten seconds), as if the engines are really working. The decals, all of which are printed on the piece, are lovely and accurate to the CG model from the TOS remaster. Each element of the ship is extremely solid, and I found the way the saucer section latches into the neck of the secondary hull to be particularly clever. The included Kirk and Spock mini-figures have dress uniforms that are quite accurate to the show.Some criticisms: The shuttle bay is rather weak – the two round plates holding it up only attach with one dot apiece, so if you try to lift the model by that back plate, you risk tearing it off and having to rebuild. The aforementioned inability to separate from the stand without a big protuberance showing. The warp nacelles don’t latch as securely as the saucer does, they just lay on the struts. They won’t fall off, but they could be pulled off rather easily.Mega Bloks are engineered for a tougher “snap” than Lego. It takes some getting used to, and is pretty hard on the thumbs after an hour or two of building. The snapping process becomes easier when you sort of "bend" the brick (albeit very slightly) onto its target. Some other reviewers have mentioned the difficulty in getting the bridge module to snap onto the saucer section. It's precisely because of this tough snap - and the solution is to build the bridge module up one layer at a time onto the saucer, instead of trying to get he whole piece on all at once. There is enough support inside the saucer, as the instructions call for a strut right in the center. It's just too hard to snap such large pieces on whole hog without being able to bend them on just a bit.All in all, the finished product is extremely impressive and beautiful to look at. I thought I would be annoyed by the “dots” on the saucer, but actually my brain is easily able to tune them out. It’s the proportions that seal the deal. You can easily be fooled into thinking you’re looking at something from the show, it’s that picture-perfect.I waver between 4 and 5 stars on this. It is not perfect. I had a few missing pieces. But the attention to detail is so obviously loving, from packaging to decals to model execution, that I feel like 5 stars are warranted. You should just know what you’re in for going in.

I've built many an expensive Lego kit. I’ve built big ones like the UCS Millennium Falcon and The Tower Bridge. I realize this isn't a Lego brand kit, but it's ALMOST just as good. This is the one time where I'm actually considering purchasing another one of these as the price is sooooo good ($79 with free prime shipping)! I purchased mine from Chewys Toy Chest but I see the price at that store has gone up to $99 in less than a week.This comes very-well packed The outer Amazon box has lots of padding in it. Then you open the inner box by Mattel, and inside it (a perfect fit) is the Enterprise box. It has a sturdy thick plastic handle on the top. The box itself is really big and has lots of nice (wet print glossy style) art work on it.When you open the Enterprise box you'll need room as the top is on a hinge of sorts that doesn't just open flat where you have to bend the lid back so it will stay out of the way. No, the back of this box expands out to give you plenty of extra room to get to the contents. There is nice large artwork on the inside lid. Then there are two large boxes with Enterprise blueprints on them. The oversized manual (larger than any Lego manual I've ever seen - second only to the UCS Millennium Falcon) is attached in a holder on the upper box.Mega Bloks you get 5 out of 5 stars for presentation alone! I definitely will not throw out the box.I used 100 red solo cups to sort parts. If you’re smart you’ll open only one bag of parts at a time and sort those before opening the next. Fortunately I have a large gaming table that was put to good use. Can’t lose any parts this way.As far as the instructions (the book spine will break half way through and some pages will become loose) I like how they color the studs that you are building onto using different colors for the types of pieces. This way you know exactly what part goes where. The hardest part to build is the saucer section. You’ll spend your time counting lots of studs as you do not want to mess up the alignment on anything and have back track to fix it.Page 32 Step 48The printing is incorrect in the manual on the part. This is the part that holds on the warp nacelles. The actual part, if placed correctly, has the stripes at the front not the back of the pylons. There should be no effort to install this. If there is, your assembly is incorrect.Page 59 Step 91Make certain all pieces are firmly attached or you’ll never be able to slide this wide flat part into the hull all the way. Double check.Page 78 Step 24, missing (4) 2x4 blocks in black color. I have lots of leftover Lego pices so I substituted my own. This is typically the parts most people are missing. Nothing else was missing in my kit.Page 79 Starting with Step 25 you are building an arc (made up of yellow 2 x 2s, black ratcheting connectors and red 1 x 2 mounting blocks) that you will attach printed panels to which line the outer edge of the saucer section. I find the tolerances too tight when connecting to the 2 x 2 red mounting points. There are three. I wound up using rubber cement to hold them in place.Page 81 Step 31 is where you attach one of the arcs you have constructed. Unfortunately the two arcs that attach back at the neck of the ship have nothing to attach to by the neck. They both just flop around. Because of this you can see some of the yellow bricks when looking from the top of the hull. My solution was to disconnect the black connector (which ratchets into various angels (you’re only supposed to set them at 1 click) after the second yellow brick. I then laid the final 4 sets of gray sloped pieces in the saucer.Page 101 Step 78 I could not get that round white part to attach to the bottom of the hull. Something is warped. I used rubber cement to hold it in place.Page 104 Step 81 I took other people’s advice and built the bridge directly onto the saucer section. People who build it is a separate part and then try to attach it to the saucer have lots of mounting issues.Overall a blast to build and watch it come to life. It would be really cool if it was designed to have a button on the display stand you push to light up the engines (and other things lit up as well) instead of manually pushing on each nacelle to get it to light up.

La nave es una preciosidad, muy chula, me lo pase bomba montandola, todo fan de star trek tendria que tenerla, esta muy detallada, la verdad me llebe una sorpresa muy grande.

Offert à ma fille de 12 ans (première maquette en"blocs"). Excellente qualité de produit, solide, emboîtage des pièces très précis. Aucun manque. Les pièces sont classées dans pleins de petits sachets. Mais attention : il y a plusieurs sortes (2 ou 3 maxi) de pièces dans un même sachet et elles ne sont pas forcément liées les unes aux autres donc il reste un travail de recherche mais tant mieux sinon ce serait trop facile !!! Le (très grand !) manuel est très simple à suivre et cependant très bien illustré. Pas d'explications à lire. Que des images suffisamment nombreuses et précises et donc autonomie totale dans le montage d'où un grand plaisir pour l'ado. L'ensemble est super ! A recommander sans hésitation pour les fans de ST ados et adultes !! Génialissime !

Fantastic model, the plates are a bit tricky to snap together but when built it looks amazing! At £120 or thereabouts for a 3,000 piece model it is great value, the box is large and contains 2 internal boxes. The bags are not numbered so some sorting by colour/size etc is required prior to the build. This took me about 20 hours to build and I love it, it is a large and heavy model and looks amazing on my shelf!! The manual was slightly damaged due to the way it was packaged but that was my only gripe.

Dank der guten Qualität der Steine ist bei Mega Bloks der Spielspaß garantiert. Die Steine von Mega Bloks halten und passen genau so gut wie die Steine von COBI. Wo die Steine hergestellt werden lies sich nicht in Erfahrung bringen. Die Anleitung ist ein A3 großes Heft, das wie ein Buch gebunden ist. Die Anleitung besteht aus 164 Seiten und ist mit ein paar liebevollen Bilder versehen. Das A3 Format der Anleitung finde ich schon sehr ungünstig verbraucht es ja viel Platz, der dann zum Bauen fehlt! Mann hätte wie bei dem Brückenset einfach zwei Anleitungen machen können aber dann A4 groß. Aufgrund des Gewichts der Anleitung und der Tatsache das sie lackiert ist rutscht sie zwischen den Beinen durch! Damit fällt die Option die Anleitung auf dem Schoß zu legen aus! Der Karton und die zwei kleineren Kartons im Innern riechen fürchterlich! Vom Geruch her eine Mischung aus Teerpappe, Farbe und altem Papier! Anders als bei den Brückenset und dem Transporterraumset riecht die Anleitung hier nicht unangenehm obwohl sie Printed in China statt, wie bei den andern Printed in Kanada ist! Bei den Steinen war kein so ein unangenehmer Geruch feststellbar! Die Plastik Tüten mit den Figuren und den Liezens Teilen sind sehr fettig oder schmierig musste mir nach dem öffnen der Tüten die Hände Waschen, damit ich die Teile nicht einschmiere! Die Plastiktüten mit den normalen Teilen waren alle Schmiere oder Fett frei! Der Aufbau geschieht hier Modulen ähnlich, wie in einer Schiffwerft die sich auf Kriegsschiffe spezialisiert hat. So besteht dieses Set aus vier Modulen, aus dem dann die Enterprise wird! Seite 4-15 Sockel. Seite 16-63 Antriebssektion, Pylonen, Hals und Verbindungsschiene/Träger der Untertasse. Seite 64-109 Untertasse. Seite 110-153 Warpgondeln. Bauzeit 2 Tage a 10 Stunden pro Tag! Was am längsten dauert, ist einfach das Teilesuchen! Zwar sind die Teile im Verpackungskarton in zwei separaten Kartons untergebracht, was aber leider nichts mit dem zusammenbauen zu tun hat! Ich habe erst gedacht, man fängst mit dem oberen Karton an und sobald er leer ist mit den Zweiten. Da kam bei mir der COBI Bauer durch! Leider muss man beide Kartons ausleeren und fast alle Tüten öffnen! Dadurch braucht man eine Menge Platz für die Teile! Entweder einen Fußboden ohne Teppich oder den Familienesstisch, der ausklappbar ist. Allerdings ist dann der Esstisch zum Essen nicht mehr nutzbar und bei der Fußbodenlösung sollte man aufpassen, wo man hintritt. Wenn dieses Set von COBI währe, würde der Zusammenbau dank der nummerierten Beutel schneller und platzsparender vonstattengehen. Das einzige Spezialteil sind die Pylonen zu den Warpgondeln alles andere muss man mit Steinen und Platten selber bauen! Zum Vergleich die Antriebsektion bei der Kre-o Enterprise ist ja zu 70 % Prozent ein Spezialteil! Das Beste am Set ist, das alle Teile bedruckt, sind also keine Sticker! Auch gut sind die beleuchteten Warpgondeln! Erzeugt wird das Licht einfach durch einen Lichtstein, den man durch das Gegendrücken an der Vorderseite der Warpgondelaktiviert. Der mit einer LED-Birne versehende Stein geht nach einer kurzen weile wieder aus! Batterien für den Lichtstein vom Typ LR41 sind imLieferumfang dabei! Das Schlechteste am Set ist die Widmungsplatte, wo zwischen den Buchstaben schwarze abdrücke sind! Sieht aus wie Schatten von den Buchstaben und lässt sich nur schwer an manchen Stellen gar nicht wegwischen! Reklamieren werde ich das nicht denn die Platte bleibt ja aufgrund falscher angaben schlecht! So steht da geschrieben Starship Class! Richtig wäre gewesen "Constitution Class" oder will man damit sagen, dass es sich hier um ein Sternenschiff handelt? Für Kinder ist die Enterprise aufgrund des zu schweren Zusammenbaus, der Größe und des Gewichts nichts! Kindern sei die Kre-O Enterprise empfohlen. Selbst wenn man damit spielen würde, hätte man keinen Spaß damit denn aus der Antriebssektion schauen 10 cm lange Platten raus! Das Enterprise Modell wird hier nicht auf dem Sockel gestellt, sondern mit den rausragenden Platten in den Sockel reingeschoben! Ich habe auch die Befürchtung, dass der Hals bei Flugmanövern auseinanderbrechen könnte! Das mit den auseinanderbrechen hat nicht mit der Haltequalität der Steine zu tun denn die ist hier sehr gut! Im diesen Fall ist einfach die Untertasse zu schwer und zu groß für den Hals. Der Hals ist sehr dünn und wird aus Platten gebaut. Am oberen ende des Halses baut man auch aus Platten so was wie eine Schiene oder Stahlträger, der dann in die Untertasse geschoben wird! Diese Schiene ist sehr dünn und lang muss aber die breite schwere Untertasse tragen! Einfach mal auf dem Fußboden stampfen dann sieht man wie die Untertasse mit schwingt! Geht die Schiene nur sehr schwer in die Untertasse zu schieben, hilft ein nochmaliges Zusammendrücken der Platten an der Schiene! Die Enterprise von Mega Bloks ist eher was für Star Trek Fans als Vitrinenmodell! Aber Achtung aufgrund der Größe und breite sollte die Vitrine schon über ein Meter lang und einen halben Meter breit sein! Fazit ein gutes Modell, für das man aber Zeit und Platz braucht! Für alle Star Trek Fans oder LEGO Modellbauer ist die Enterprise von Mega Bloks ein absolutes muss daher 5 Sterne! Im Anhang, wenn es zugelassen wird, Fotos von der Enterprise. Zu den Fotos muss ich sagen damit sie auch zugelassen werden das ich auf einen Foto die zwei Kre-O Star Trek Modelle dazu gestellt habe nicht um für diese Werbung zu machen, sondern einfach die Größe der Mega Bloks Enterprise zu verdeutlichen! Um alleine die länge der Warpgondeln zu verdeutlichen habe ich mal ein Plüschtier draufgestellt! Auch zeigen mansche Bilder einfach nur den Berg an Teileoder Bauabschnitte, um einfach zu zeigen, wie gigantisch der Bau ist!

Le presentazioni non servono a molto per questa recensione, quello che serve è una buona dose di pazienza per un set Mega Blocks che richiama subito all'occhio l'oggetto più desiderato da ogni appassionato della serie Star Trek, la NCC-1701 della serie classica degli anni 60'. Ed è proprio di questo che parliamo, l'astronave più desiderata da ogni fan della saga star trek, la classica, la prima, l'astronave del capitano J.T.Kirk quella utilizzata nella serie del 1966-69 per intraprendere la missione quinquennale per l'esplorazione di strani nuovi mondi.Il set Mega Blocks si presenta con una confezione esterna enorme, dotata di un grande maniglione per il trasporto; il peso complessivo è di ben 7,6 Kg e misura un totale di 66x22x36 cm oltre ad avere una grafica meravigliosa. Il set è composto da ben 3098 pezzi ed una volta ultimata la costruzione occorre un posto dedicato per esporre l'enterprise, essendo un modello di oltre 80 cm di lunghezza. Il giudizio di 5 stelle viene dato su una base del tutto falsata perchè adoro la serie di star trek e per me questo oggetto rappresenta più qualcosa di culto che altro, ma se dovessi esclusivamente recensire l'oggetto, non potrei andare oltre le 3 stelle in quanto Mega Blocks pur essendo il clone lego che più si avvicina alla qualità del mattoncino danese più famoso, risulta essere estremamente impreciso negli incastri e talvolta la differenza di tonalità si fa notare un pò troppo specie sui grigi. Nonostante questo, è l'unica casa produttrice ad avere il brand di star trek e quindi c'è poco da fare o "bere o affogare". Il modello della NCC-1701 è però imponente ed a mio avviso rappresenta veramente qualcosa di unico, fatto discretamente bene rispetto agli standard Mega Blocks del passato. In merito alla mia avventura, posso dire che ho dovuto ordinare due volte il modello perchè nel primo set risultavano mancanti alcuni pezzi ed altri erano pressofusi in modo errato e mi è toccato procedere alla sostituzione del prodotto che amazon ha magistralmente gestito risolvendo a pieno il problema. Avrei sinceramente preferito avere la NCC-1701 a marchio Lego, ma nonostante le continue richieste da parte dei fan, sembra proprio che Star Trek non riesca a vedere la luce sul mattoncino Danese più famoso del mondo. In passato ho avuto modo di avere set Mega Blocks, devo quindi spezzare una lancia a favore di questo Brand, che sembra davvero avvicinarsi sempre di più come qualità di plastica che come capacità di incastro a Lego, pur restando attualmente nettamente indietro rispetto alla casa Danese. Il modello una volta ultimato è davvero imponente e la caratteristica principale si fa notare al buio, grazie ai mattoncini luminosi che mostreranno tutta la bellezza delle gondole di curvatura proprio come nella serie TV dando un tocco in più di stile. I personaggi minifigure non si affrontano, sono davvero orrendi, ma si può ovviare a questo non inserendole nel progetto ultimato. Insomma a mio avviso vale la pena per ogni trekker che si rispetti, possedere questo modello da costruire, ma non aspettatevi la qualità Lego, pur essendo un modello ben fatto, gli incastri sono sprecisi e la qualità non sempre uniforme, ma nel complesso il risultato da esporre è davvero buono. Di seguito un pò di foto durante la costruzione oltre a qualche dettaglio di mattoncini poco precisi o pressofusi in modo errato.E' il caso di dire:Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.