NCC-1701 XL

The classic. The original...and bigger.

The USS Enterprise from TOS was the very first XL produced by Eaglemoss. That also makes it the sixth (I think!) time that this version of the iconic starship class has been made available by this company.

Admittedly the other five were the regular size editions so it's going to be interesting to see how this one sizes up against the reviews I fielded for each of those (with the exception of the Yorktown convention edition which was purely a decal change).

SIzing up has worked a treat for the classic design. Retaining the grey paint scheme from previous incarnations, the smooth hull carries a much cleaner and crisper set of registry decals and finer details such as the port and starboard red/green lights and the four white rectangular panels. Noticeably the bridge dome is more strongly painted here. The striping details here and the red edging trim also suits this size more adequately. I did notice that the registry on the top of the saucer isn't too well applied with some speckling of the black on the last "1". 

Topside there's not much difference apart from the upscaling but under the saucer there's some instantly noticeable differences. The whole of the underside is now an inserted section rather than just the central sensor module and its surrounding windows. Again the dome itself is much more opaque having received a decent coat of paint. That being said, the actual finish is pretty spot on both colourwise and in respect to the decals. 

But while Eaglemoss have chosen to change the way in which the saucer is moulded, they have retained the horrible construction of the engineering hull. The gaping seam that marred the original is now XL'd two-thirds of the way down the side of the ship. There is more definition to the stepped hull around the deflector dish to the front though and also the addition of some side detail just ahead of the Starfleet pennants that run down the sides. 

Now don't get me wrong, this is a definite step up from the regular issue but, as with the Enterprise-D, there are those little quibbles that could have been resolved which are still painfully evident. Eaglemoss have, in their defence, fixed the shoddy warp engine attachment to the pylons. This has removed a glaring gap and meant that the two engines sit seamlessly against the grips on the ends of said pylons.

The secondary hull is nicely finished for the most part. The hanger doors are in a slightly different shade of grey and the stripe along her back is perfectly aligned. I was however blessed with a bent deflector dish aerial that looks a tad droopy at the best of times. It's a minor point that can be easily rectified but looked annoying as hell coming out of the box.

In terms of the warp engines, the metallic extremities such as the radiator grilles are moulded as part of the twin cylindrical structures. That doesn't mean that they aren't painted up and lose definition against the hull. In comparison to the original version, there is again very little difference apart from size. That does allow for more prominent bolt locations yet because of the ship's fairly basic design there is nothing to add once the Enterprise is scaled up.

Stand positioning is also identical and only goes to reinforce that aside from a rejigging of the metal/plastic makeup of the underside of the saucer and repositioning of the warp engines versus the pylons, this is a larger carbon copy of the smaller original. 

Nothing wrong with that though because while it doesn't add a ton of detail, the scale is the big winner and you can appreciate the ship more when there's more of it so to speak! Plus - y'know - it's a classic and an XL version was always going to be the way forward. Fortunately both this and the Enterprise-D that we've already covered provided lots of learnings for the XLs.

Eaglemoss' magazine washes out a bit since the waters of NCC-1701 have been rinsed more times than anyone can remember. There's some recounting of ship details before a journey through the making of The Cage and the recasting for Where No Man Has Gone Before. It's standard fayre with nothing really new that isn't covered in the recent and rather superb Star Trek: A Celebration book among numerous others (and that one was published by HeroCollector).

With the slight improvements though, the USS Enterprise XL we have here is something that no fan would be able to resist. It's definitely a step up when it comes to scale(!) and is an ideal desk companion in the workplace (makes a good talking point). The updates on colours thanks to the increase in size work well especially around the engine detail and shuttle bay. What would be a good move in the future is to XL the Pike TOS Enterprise and actually make it screen accurate. 

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