New Johnny Lightning Ships Unveiled At Wizard World

While the the eyes of the Trekkie world are focused on the Las Vegas Creation Convention there was Trek Toy news happening at Wizard World Con in Chicago. September 2007 brings a welcome surprise for fans of Johnny Lightning’s Star Trek ships. After the third wave of ships nearly two years ago, it was rumored that the toys would be discontinued by JL.  However, better than expected sales led to a Wave 4 of ships. 

These ships include the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701 D from Generations, The Borg Cube from First Contact with sphere, the U.S.S. Defiant NCC 1764, the U.S.S. Majestic NCC 31060, the U.S.S. Voyager NCC 74656 with Landing Gear, and the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701 A.  These detailed ships are available from Toys R Us this September (expected price $4 each).

Here is the exclusive look at the ships from Johnny Lightning from Trekmovie.com.

 

 

 

 

 

(click images to enlarge)

 

 

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I love ships! These look cool. I’ll be wandering over to Toy R Us to check em out whilst I’m supposed to be shopping for our bambino.

You should see the 1/350th Clear Cast Enterprise I’m building. OOOOOOO it’s sooooo pretty. :)

YAY! 2nd!

http://www.starshipbuilder.com/forums/showthread.php?s=06391cfe94bac087d738c7dcf652ee0b&t=1897

Those actually look really good! I might have to pick up a Enterprise-D and maybe the Borg Cube and Majestic.

What the?

The TOS Defiant? *big Sigh*.

DS9 deserves so much more respect than it is given, to be trumped for simple repaints.

I’ve looked all over ever since they first started coming out, and could NEVER find them. I finally find some at Toys R Us? they are over priced, with the packages riped. BLAH.

Sorry for the double, but why are there two Defiants? One is white, the other is like a grey color.

I think that one of the Defiants is supposed to be a “silver” limited edition or something. There are two Enterprise-Ds in the second picture, one of them looking more shiny than the other.

I’m really excited for this new wave. I have 6 ships from the first couple waves. I could only ever find them on clearance at Wal*mart, then at a KB Toys outlet. I look for them wherever I go, but I am saddened by the shear number of repaints/clear models.

What’s with the two slightly different Ent-Ds? Plus what is that orange stuff at the front of the saucer?

This takes me back to when Trek toys were everywhere back in the mid-90s. I had a load of the micro-machines models (still do, in fact).

#8
I believe the orange stuff represents the saucer going dowm on Veridian III, when it was entering the atmosphere.

And I love those J. Lightning ships, they are much better than the Furuta ships.I´m happy they didn´t give up of the Star Trek ships.
I was just hoping for an Akira class or the Ent-E.

awesome! I’ve always wanted to get these, but never had the chance in the past… I can’t wait to pick them up.

I’ll be repainting the Miranda-class vessel into the Reliant! It’s about time they released that style ship.

This is the fourth or fifth wave, Sean. There was a Reliant and a Damaged Reliant in the first and second waves.

Yes there are a lot of repaints, but hey if you’re going to repaint them anyway then getting a bucket of clear Klingons on clearance is cool. Say that 3 times fast!

Anyone know how to get hold of these(from the waves that are released already) in the UK? I’ve seen the odd one in Forbidden Planet, but they disappear quickly.

#9

Oh, right. That seems like a bit of a needless detail, or do you add the detail on yourself with these models?

I used to find with Trek toys that they would sometimes have detail that you just didn’t want. Like I recall my Riker action figure having a ripped shirt and trousers, I just didn’t get the point of it and he looked rather out of place when you put him on the Bridge. Or the fact that the little phasers they came with irritatingly had a big bit of orange plastic coming out the front, I used to cut that off, which in retrospect, probably didn’t do much for their long-term value…

When will my Refit ENTERPRISE (TMP, TWOK, and a bit of TSFS) get some love? I know there’s a hair’s difference between the 1701 Refit and the 1701-A, but I’d like a non-A’d refit 1701. (whew)

And FWIW those are some nice Car Acrobatic Club cars on the same plane.

“When will my Refit ENTERPRISE (TMP, TWOK, and a bit of TSFS) get some love? I know there’s a hair’s difference between the 1701 Refit and the 1701-A, but I’d like a non-A’d refit 1701.”

They’ve already made a Johnny Lightning refit 1701. Two actully – a TMP ‘clean’ one and a TWOK damaged one. I just looked at mine, in fact.

I don’t like that Enterprise-D (the one next to the Ent-A). The Aztecing and different colored parts stand out too much, though it (hopefully) could have been the lighting. The other Ent-D looks good

I hope to get ahold of some of these. in the past, whenever I got time to go look for them all I was able to find was about 25 Galileo Shuttlecrafts.

i guess i’m the only one that was somewhat disappointed with these? I bought the Enterprise & Klingon D-7 in giddy excitement, thinking that they were metal diecast versions, only to get them home and discover that the bases were metal, not the ships!!! I was angry, and wondering, why I didn’t get a metal ship and a plactic base instead!?!?! I was put off, and didn’t buy anymore after that. More for all you… And don’t say metal is too expensive, it’s being used by other manufacturers, Star Wars die-cast stuff for example.

The white ships are the White Lightning variants, they can be hard to find if these are popular enough. Series 1 had WL variants, series 2 WL’s had white delta shields on the belly.

Out of curiousity, does anyone have wargaming rules for using these models in wargaming?

Yeah, lets ditch the repainted TOS Defiant and give DS9’s USS Defiant some love! Bring on the NX-74205 please.

I hear startrekexp.com will be carrying them when they arrive

I don’t have any for sale but you can check out pictures of all 4 releases at http://www.jlcollector.com. Here’s wave 4: http://www.jlcollector.com/trekr4.html Go to the index from there and down to Show Biz, Fantasy, Model Kits, & Comic Books selection bar to find the others.

Enjoy!

As regards Furuta Vs JL, I find it’s not as easy as one bettering the other. Some Furuta trek ships have better details, and some JL have better details. It’s Dependant on the actual ship/model. I think the Furuta Galileo is much more detailed, for example. Yet the ‘vanilla’ 1701 is JL all the way.

I own wave 1 twice – 6 on display, and 6 sealed for posterity. As regards further waves, I will only buy the ones I want….not all of them for collecting’s sake. For example, I’m not a big Next Gen fan. I like the TOS stuff, and the TOS movie era stuff (like TWOK’s Reliant…cool!). Wave 2 I bypassed completely, as they were the same ships with a bit of black paint representing ‘battle damage’. That’s just a con. And yeah, I was dissapointed it was the ‘wrong’ Defiant. I’m still after a DS9 Defiant of *any* brand. I keep getting outbid, though.

@ Harry Mud
The JL “vanilla” 1701 doesn’t even have the simple detailing on the nacelle pylons….LOL…even Micro Machines managed to squeeze that in. If you want a fantastic model of the 1701 in this size, check out the F-Toys one. It’s utterly beautiful. As regards the Furuta vs JL…..I own nearly every Trek ship both companies have made….and Furuta are the better ships some of the time, and JL are for others. Like the Furuta Reliant is better, so is the Furuta Voyager, those are just off the top of my head. Furuta also beat JL for the more obscure vessels…like Stargazer, Prometheus, Defiant, Species 8472 Bio ship, Deep Space Nine, Cardassian Galor Class etc…heck they even did Zefram Cochrane’s Phoenix…so 10 out of 10 for effort.

In the case of the vanilla 1701, Furuta’s is much better detailed, but let down by the bent nacelle pylons. However, putting a hair dryer on it for a few minutes, bending to shape, and then running under a cold tap should fix this. After that, Furuta’s is easily the best. The red used on the nacelle engines is also closer than the terrible dark cherry red on the JL version. In fact the 1701 is my least favourite ship in JL’s ‘fleet’ (the Reliant is my favourite).

I have to say, though, the single volume of 6 ships from the F-toys line are better than both put together. If you don’t own them, get to eBay this instance….I swear you won’t regret it. It’s also a pity the Corgi 40th Anny range wasn’t priced to survive….the 95% metal 1701 is a beauty, and the Klingon BoP is a dream come true for unskilled model collectors like me…better than all but the most skilfully built/painted AMT/ERTL jobs. The Ent D was a mottled mess, though, and the saucer was all plastic…pity that. Still, better than the Hot Wheels attempt at a ‘die cast’ range. Now they are a pathetic waste of this most holy of licenses.