Toy Review: Starship Legends Enterprise D by Diamond Select UPDATED

The Star Trek: The Next Generation figures from Diamond Select Toys really rekindled my Next Gen fandom. And I've been eagerly awaiting this Enterprise D; it's my favorite Star Trek ship and it has needed a good, modern toy for quite a while since the old Playmates Enterprise D is pretty antiquated according to today's standards. So let's see how this ship shapes up!

Stats
Company: Diamond Select Toys
Size: 16" long
Price: $35 at Big Bad Toy Store
Packaging: Boxed

Looks:
Overall, this ship looks fantastic. It's far more detailed than the Playmates Enterprise D (not to mention the Playmates Enterprise from the new movie) both in sculpt and paint apps.

The sculpt features excellent proportions and a lot of really cool aztec sculpting. They didn't skimp on the details: the Main Bridge looks great, the shuttle bay doors have cool textures, and even the Battle Bridge and docking latches underneath the Saucer Module get their props. As far as accuracy goes, I don't have any really detailed specs to compare this toy with the "official" Enterprise D, so I used the specs in the Star Trek Next Generation Technical Manual. I found the toy to be quite accurate for the most part. There are a few discrepancies but they're so minor that you'd only notice if you were comparing the toy side-by-side with blueprints. For example, the detailing on the emergency egress doors doesn't seem to match the specs. But again, these issues are incredibly minor and only the most obsessive fan would catch them. (So what does that say about me?)

There are a lot of really nice paint apps here, with hundreds of windows and lifeboats individually painted. The ship is a nice gray color which is great because toy companies tend to make the Enterprise stark white for some reason. And there is also a lot of really great detailing, like the Starfleet insignias, phaser arrays, and the Enterprise registry number. Like the sculpt, they don't skimp on the paint apps as even the Battle Section forward phaser array underneath the ship gets detailing. If you look really closely, you'll see that some of the windows overlap aztecing that they shouldn't, or some paint apps have worn because of the aztecing. But you can't tell without really studying the ship very closely; the overall effect is excellent.

Special Effects:
Updated: When I first wrote this review, I didn't know to set the sound effects from Try Me to Play, so I thought there was only one sound effect. Not so! Thanks to an anonymous dude's comment (see below), I realized that there are 15 sound effects when you press the Main Bridge, which also light-up the navigational deflector, Bussard ramscoops, warp nacelles, and Main Bridge. The sound effects include some of Picard's famous lines (like "Tea, earl grey, hot" and "Make it so"), a transporter beam, red alert, phaser fire, and warp effects. They're actually really nice, but the Picard lines don't sound much like Patrick Stewart. Also, there's a button on the Battle Section that switches the lights on or off, which is pretty nifty for taking pictures.

Accessories:
This Enterprise comes with not one, but two display stands! The extra stand allows you to display the ship with Saucer Module separated from the Battle Section. Both look great, sporting the Next Gen Starfleet Emblem at their bases.

Another nice touch is that the ship comes with plugs if you want to hide the stand holes underneath the hull.

Value:
I was surprised at the quality of the sculpt and paint apps. It looks almost like a high-end model rather than a production toy. And you get a lot of toy for your money. At 16 inches in length and 12 inches in width, this thing dwarfs the similarly-priced Playmates movie Enterprise. Not only that, but the two bases also help to make this toy worth the money.

Coolness:
The coolest thing about this ship is that it features a separating Saucer Module. And there aren't any weird latches that would screw up the sculpt; the Saucer is held to the Battle Section by high-powered magnets. (A side note, the magnets really are "high-powered". So don't set this thing on your computer tower or television or you might get some nasty side-effects.) The separating sections and dual stands open up some interesting display capabilities. And this ship looks fantastic on the shelf. Don't put the Playmates Abrams Enterprise anywhere near it... there's truly no comparison.

Overall:
The awesome sculpt, detailed paint apps, impressive size, neat sound effects and fun separating sections make this Enterprise D quite possibly the best Enterprise D toy ever made. And taking pictures of this thing is so blasted fun, you should expect some Toy Pix featuring Enterprise D sometime in the future. Let's hope Diamond Select cranks out more ships... I'd love to see an Enterprise C!

Related Review: Playmates Star Trek Enterprise (from the new movie)