Tuesday 1 September 2020

THAT First Contact: The Official Starships Collection Special: T'Plana-Hath


Arriving (late) alongside the final regular issue seems to be a dose of luck.

The reason? Issue 180 was the Borg Cube that opened the movie while this starship's arrival on Earth closed out the final scene.

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight you can see how this ship influenced the later/earlier ships of the Enterprise series in its colour palette at least. But let's strip this back and focus on the model at hand.

The T'Plana-Hath comes in one of the largest boxes Eaglemoss have managed to print and there's good reason since this is a model which isn't just wide but also has considerable height.

Working from the floor upwards, Eaglemoss have chosen to - and rightly so - display this ship in the landed position. It kind of makes the stand obsolete since it can support its own weight on the three feet and also looks utterly ridiculous perched above the stand.

The feet are also the plainest section of the T’Plana-Hath, single toned on the upper side with the mottled effect strangely on the bottoms and then continuing up the legs to the main body. That significant hatch is totally absent from any of the three ground units, removing a key elemental piece of visual Star Trek history - there's not even a recognisable joint line. 

Also seems a bit odd to put the more impressive paint job on the BOTTOM of the feet which will never be seen but hey, if this is screen accurate who are we to argue with that choice?

The legs on the outside arc up and under the top shell with some basic panel detail. Flipped over though there is not just a decent two-shade paint job once more but also three blue energy stripes also showing slight wear and dirt. The central unit underneath, in reality, would turn 120 degrees to allow the feet to retract and dock around the three engine pods. This can still be seen in the way that the bottom of the hull is laid out but isn't a working feature here. 

The engine exhausts are very clean when you compare to the mottled hull and "worn" energy stripes but this might just be forgivable since they won't be heavily on show.

The distinct split between the "landing gear" hull section and the main body is well handled and you can imagine that rotational aspect more from what you don't see when the T'Plana-Hath is viewed from above.

The main hull has many large segmented panels marked out with many of the pieces raised higher than the base level. That mottled paint work is far more distinctive on the top, emphasised more with some segments being rendered in a darker shade than the majority of the hull. Visually it's a nice smooth shape right the way across, ending in the three sizeable engine units which are also segmented. The mottling adds to the age of the craft, indicating heavy use through the effective dirty wash that is most noticeable on the very top of the ship.

The simplistic form of the ship relates well to its Vulcan pilots and to future ships used in the short-lived prequel series. Eaglemoss have created a smooth and fairly fault free large-scale model here that is potentially one of the most impressive editions to behold. The stand, as discussed, does detract from the spectacle from this one so just stick it back in the box and display her grounded; it's a far better look. 

The T'Plana-Hath magazine revisits First Contact and that seminal scene which sees Zephram Cochrane greeting Earth's first extra-terrestrial visitor including numerous shots from the eighth Star Trek movie. It's standard reading by now but is then complimented with a substantial 11 pages focusing on the design and creation of the unusual Vulcan starship.


Combining words from John Eaves, the article includes photos and proposals for the ship which didn't make it to screen plus explanations of how some of the features - including those rotating feet came to be. The article covers how the ship was physically created (partially) for the movie as well as alterations that were made before it made it to the screen.

An overall resoundingly good package, the T-Plana-Hath sits in Star Trek lore as a piece of future history. The replica from Eaglemoss is honouring that in a big way however there are a couple of tweaks that could be made here or there - an additional bit of weathering or more focus on the detail around sections that fans saw closeup on screen in particular.

Saying that, this is a big model, sturdy and as always with the specials, well packaged. She suits display standless and will be one ship fans are sure to want to have in their collection immediately. A high standard creation for the most part, this one looks damn good out on display.

Read all our other reviews of The Official Starships Collection from issue ONE here.

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