If the gold USS Enterprise-D underwhelmed you then this might restore your faith in the specials.
One of the "lost" CG designed ships from Insurrection, the Son'a Flagship is well worthy of making an appearance in the larger, specials line.
Ru'afo's horseshoe starship follows the standard metal/plastic combo build including translucent parts and further clever use of hull lines to hide those pesky joins.
The speckled/aztec paintjob does break up the monotony of the pale grey hull, emphasising both the scale and variation in the metal. It seems to be constructed from two distinct pieces with the top of the ship and the engines in metal and the front and whole f the underside in plastic.
Ok, so it's not made up of a lot of elements but the recreation in the musical-instrument-inspired surface is marvellous. To the back, Eaglemoss have recreated the ribbed skin of the flagship paralleling the internal workings of a piano and the strings of a harp.
It's also surprisingly robust given some of the extremities. The spines to the rear (originally planned as the front) are part of the metal topside and the underside fins and "spoiler" are attached centrally and also at a further four points. This element too has a lot of wonderful panel detail and what I've spotted here is that the darker grey is only a fraction of a shade off the base colour. In the movie the differences in colour between the grilles and the hull was more pronounced and on the images in the magazine both these and the "piano wire" effect that arcs around the hull appear a lot darker.
This might have been influenced by lighting externally and on the ship but in some ways it does leave, at a distance, the Son'a Flagship looking a little flat since the speckled detail is only really visible at close range.
The windows to the sides of the horseshoe curve are nicely aligned to the hull however the issue this time comes when you look to the front. The white squares don't line up with the shape of the curve, cutting it close at the top to the joint line and also bumping over a hull feature further down rather than following it round the ridge. The windows should go to the top panel line at the front but don't even though the more "squashed" row just below it seems to be in the right place.
The model's warp engines curving around the sides are as solid as the rest of the ship with the yellow warp grilles and red bussard collectors smoothly worked into the frame utilising translucent pieces to help bring the craft to life.
From a few angles this thing is butt-ugly yet there's a majestic grace to it from the dorsal view that make you appreciate how artistic it is and just how impressive the transfer into model form is. This is a tightly built unit with all those joins concealed by the arcs yet it has lost some of the depth and spectacle in its move to diecast. Admittedly the reference materials for this one were, from what I understand, difficult to acquire and the result has to be applauded yet it seems to be a bit washed out and could perhaps have done with being a few shades darker to highlight the more subtle undulations in the shapes of the hull especially along those horned warp engines and to the front.
In certain lights the more interesting parts of the flagship just fade away into the general base coat and only with a little tilting can some of these recesses be seen. In fact the Son'a craft works better when it does catch the light, raising the details and showing off how clever the surface is - also not helped by the inability to use the yellow lighting that illuminates the top rib effect of the starship.
Described as smaller than the Sovereign Class USS Enterprise, the Son'a Flagship gets a mere three paragraphs of background to cover its features including the illegal isolytic weapons and its adapted ability to serve in the Briar Patch. A big double page CG of the underbelly follows this before pages six to 19 are given over purely to the design of the flagship.
This traverses not just the lengthy process to come to the end result - which would ultimately find itself spun 180 degrees to fly "shoulder" first it also dips into the interior design for the surgery and the bridge but no where as much as is dedicated to the exterior concept. Also included is a plan view for the larger Son'a battleship and the smaller fighter which was an evolution from an earlier idea for the flagship.
As with all the special magazines, the additional pages mean there's a lot more coverage and a lot more from behind the scenes to read about - always welcome and more than ever with a ship that we only got to see in one movie.
The Son'a Flagship looks as great on a shelf as it does on screen. The scale definitely benefits the ribbed detail across the back plus it's a wise step to have made the rear "horns" as part of the metal section of the ship thus providing lots more structural support to this section. Even the ventral fins to the front are firmly attached and personal favourite bit has to be the ridge at the bottom of the metal hull lid which just overhangs slightly as it does on the CG original, creating a slight shadow and hiding a joint line at the same time.
Long awaited release for this model and not a disappointment in any way. Definitely a special worth acquiring for your collection!
Read all our other reviews of The Official Starships Collection from issue ONE here.
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