We were hoping that Diamond Select Toys would have some news at San Diego Comic-Con and they delivered, showing off both previously and newly announced Star Trek items on preview night. We have a full breakdown of what was going on at their booth and what they had to say about their future with Star Trek.
Newly announced: USS Enterprise-C ship
A surprise for Comic-Con was the revelation of a USS Enterprise-C ship, from Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” Diamond had cryptically mentioned a new Star Trek ship was in development, but this was the first time it was revealed.
The Enterprise-C is targeted for release in 2019. It will come with electronics for lights and sounds, and will retail for $69.99.
Newly announced: Kelvin Kirk and Spock
Diamond Select also revealed that for the first time they will be making toys for the Kelvin timeline Star Trek movies. Their first two offerings will be 7-inch Captain Kirk and Commander Spock figures.
The design of the figures is based on the costumes from the uniforms used in Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness. Each figure comes with a number of accessories including phaser and phaser rifle, with different colored firing attachments. They are priced at $24.99 each and are expected to be released by the end of 2018.
First time reveal: Borg figure
Diamond Select had previously announced they were working on a Borg figure, but revealed it for the first time at San Diego Comic-Con 2018.
The 7-inch figure comes with interchangeable arms, head, and eyepiece. The Borg figure is expected to be available in early 2019 and is priced at $24.99.
TNG phaser and USS Reliant are still coming
One thing not on display was the previously announced Star Trek: The Next Generation phaser, which was first revealed at Toy Fair a few years ago. A rep for DST said it is still in the works with new features being added. They are hoping it will be released in 2019.
We were also hoping to see the reveal of the previously announced USS Reliant ship toy. A spokesperson for Diamond Select said the Reliant ship toy is still being finalized at the factory and it is now expected to be released after the USS Enterprise-C.
TrekMovie at SDCC
SDCC is just getting started. We have more news from preview night coming, plus coverage of all the exciting Star Trek-related events and panels.
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Stay tune for more Star Trek merchandise and more news from San Diego Comic-Con, and a bit of The Orville news too.
What about the RELIANT???
My question exactly!!!
I read somewhere that the Reliant was supposed to have the nacelles above the saucer section, but when whoever approves starship designs OK’d the sketch of the Reliant, he was looking at it upside-down. Is that true?
Enterprise-C looks great; but you’ll forgive me if I have a hard time believing we’ll see it any time this decade.
Also amazed that they still haven’t shown a prototype of the Reliant,
Reliant prototype was shown on The Toys That Made Us. (the netflix series)
That Enterprise-C…it’s just so beautiful.
@Benjamin — I’ve always thought the Ent. C was one of the best looking Enterprise models, maybe even better than the original. The struts need some work, but otherwise, I think they got a lot about it right. It I never understood what the TNG designers were doing with all the blue rings and segments. I don’t know the history, but could the Ent C have been a prototype for the D? It looks too well thought out and developed to have been quickly whipped up for a one-off episode of TNG.
The Ent C was designed as a halfway point between the Excelsior and Galaxy class, so it kinda designed itself in terms of the details. For yesterday’s enterprise they had tried to make a model of the more elaborately curved design seen on the wall on the Ent D, but because of budget and time constraints they had to simplify it to the boxy version that made it to the screen.
@albatrosity — I know why it would be designed that way, but I don’t agree it looks as if it designed itself. The neck and secondary hull looks much more like the ENT A than the Excelsior, so it wasn’t simply a natural progression. Some thought and effort went into making it look the way it does, which in my mind is a lot more like a preliminary design for the D, as evolved from the A, given the attention to detail in the limited amount of time they would have had to design and build it. Are you saying your explanation is the actual account as documented somewhere? If so, it’s even more remarkable in my mind.
Yes that’s the reason! From Memory Alpha: “The studio model was designed by Rick Sternbach, based on sketches as well as on a design concept painting produced by Andrew Probert for the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The design was intended to suggest an intermediate step between the Excelsior-class and the Galaxy-class starships. A relief sculpture of Probert’s design was placed in the observation lounge aboard the USS Enterprise-D. Unfortunately, the model was needed for “Yesterday’s Enterprise” much sooner than the time it would take to fabricate the smoother lines of Probert’s concept, requiring Sternbach’s alterations which ended up on Greg Jein’s final model.”
Curious Cadet,
Your prototype suspicion could have merit. I was having a laugh going through goofy patent claims Paramount had made in actually getting patents for its various Trek ship designs and decided to dig on some claims they made for their Reliant that just seem as if they were too off to be the obvious puffery.
I had thought Reliant was a design they threw together to meet the onscreen demands of making the two Federation ships clearly distinguishable in TWOK. But I actually found evidence indicating an unmistakably Reliantish design came from one of the earlier prior productions (possibly even TMP itself). There were even indications that some responsible prior FX concern (ILM?) was worried about how to properly light it and had substantially built it to take test snaps to work it out.
Check out Junkball Media on YouTube. He does retrospectives on most Trek ships and gets into the details of how the design came about. They’re typically very good. You might find some answers there (I don’t remember Enterprise C details).
It feels like a natural progression of what had come before.
You can’t see this kind of detail in the original SD episode, and I’m kinda digging the alternating concentric segments in pastel hues — blue, darker blue, cream, pale-yellow lifeboat hatches. I get a Chris Foss vibe from it — the pattern, not the subtle colors; his art is more wasp warning-stripe (not to say garish) in nature.
Over three years to get a toy phaser right? Seriously? (Sigh)
It is kind iI feel annoying, especially when we get teased so long by viewing the prototypes. I understand wanting to get things right, but it’s absurd how long they take between the announcement of the items and their release. The STIII phaser took FOREVER, and we still didn’t get (and it’s confirmed there are no plans to release) the alternate STIV version with the different Phaser 1 configuration.
And now supposedly they’ve taken so long to do these releases that they’re not getting good revenue from it for them or CBS/Paramount, and the licensure may go to McFarlane Toys in its entirety, then good luck getting anything with marginally good build quality.
So take these time release estimates and multiply them by a factor of four.
Wann nur wann machen die mal schöne Raumpatrouille Orion Fanartikel? :(
Hallo Diamond, ich würds kaufen, wenn Ihr es produziert.
I’m past the point in my life where I’d collect this stuff (trying to minimize as I get older), but that Ent-C looks sweet.
Maybe if I win the lottery I’ll fill a room with starships hanging from the ceiling…:)
Now all we have to do is sit back and wait for the ‘Battle Damage’ variant of the big C to be announced. Hopefully that one won’t be a SDCC exclusive.
That model of the C looks worse than an Eaglemoss.
The Spock figure looks good, the Kirk one does not. That Ent-C looks pretty good for a toy.
Excellent! The C will finally complete my collection. Long overdue.
Can’t wait to add the Enterprise C to my collection! Oh wait, I said that about the Reliant and TNG Phaser too, and I stopped holding my breath on those over a year ago.
I think the design resembles Enterprise D.
Until the advent of the J.J.-prize this was my candidate for the ugliest ship ever to bear the name “Enterprise.” A shame, too, because Andy Probert’s renderings of the E-C were much more graceful than what appeared on screen (actually better-proportioned than the Galaxy Class IMO), but as noted below TNG didn’t have the budget to do the original design justice. Tobias Richter wound up doing a very nice CGI version a few years back, which can be easily Googled by anyone curious to see what Probert’s original was intended to look like.
you sure your wearing glasses? Yeah that’s why PROBERTS design never got passed the drawing board. Accept the design as it is or put tape over the mouth.
So years back, I(and many others) asked Diamond Select about the possibility of them doing the Kelvin Timeline Enterprise for the Starship Legends line. We were told that they didn’t have the license for the Kelvin Timeline at all. Fast forward to today and we see that they now HAVE said license…and apparently have one more ship in the pipeline that isn’t the Enterprise-C or the Reliant. Is it too much to hope for? To finally have a decent model of the ST2009/Into Darkness Enterprise that I don’t have to build myself?
DST honestly will make the NEW kelvin Enterprise-A before the 2009/Into Darkness Enterprise.