(Arguably) A Review: Kre-O U.S.S. Enterprise set!

Some time ago, we looked at the Playmates Star Trek 3 3/4 inch figures and bridge playset, which is still on sale at some locations to this day--not a five year mission I'd recommend.  And since said bridge was sold as a separate mat and base in addition to build-a-figure pieces that came separately with the figures, it's not really completable since the planned second wave of figures never came out.

Neither Playmates 3 3/4 inch or (sorta) 6 inch lines set the sales world on fire, so for Star Trek Into Darkness Kre-O may have been the only game in town. Originally around the $70 price point, the U.S.S. Enterprise set was $35 last week on Amazon--aw, it's under $30 now!  Bastards...well, I did get free shipping, so good enough.

I started putting it together while watching Into Darkness--a movie I liked in theaters but seem to find more wrong with every time I watch it--and wasn't quite done by the end.  I may not have been close, even; but I did finish before I went to sleep. It seemed to go faster than the Kre-O Optimus Prime did, though. Some thoughts:

1. I probably should've taken a picture of it before putting it together, but a good chunk of the main body and the struts are a solid piece, not Kre-O bricks. That's probably in part due to the battery casing and light-up feature, but it also may have been too difficult to engineer the struts out of bricks that would still support the weight of the nacelles. (If you're not a big Star Trek nerd, the nacelles are the dual engine pieces on the back!)

2. Along with the light-up feature, there's also a torpedo launcher. Not super-strong, but not terrible as these things go. Probably not 100% necessary either, but there it is. The firing studs are positioned just about right to accidentally shoot yourself in the face, though.

3. In the building process, there are a couple of points where you add bricks just as support for further building. Once the main portion is completed, the supports are removed. That's thoughtful.

4. On the other hand, the engineering is...how to put this? Better than dollar store knock-offs, but not Lego-good. I don't think the pieces of the dome of the bridge fit as well as they possibly could. Although, sometimes things like that are designed with a bit of "give" so they pop off instead of warping or breaking. I did a little bodging to get it to hold together a little better.

5. The set comes with five Kreons, Hasbro's answer to the Lego mini-figure. We've got Kirk, Spock, McCoy...and two "specialist" guys. The latter two are rather generic, and could either be random crew members, or bad guys; it's up to you. Also with the specialists, that way Uhura, Sulu, and Scotty can be placed in other sets. Collect them all! (If it's the sort of thing that bothers you, I don't think Chekov received a Kreon yet!) I've purchased several of the Transformers Kreons, and a few of the G.I. Joe and Dungeons & Dragons ones; so I quite like the style. I did get the transporter set with Scotty last week, and a few of the blind-bagged singles like the Gorn and Scotty's pal Keenser.

6. Somewhat amusingly, Kirk's hairpiece kept falling off. Although that's a little annoying, since to get another one I'd have to buy another large set! Maybe it's on well enough now, so I don't want to just knock it off again yet.

7. I'm not positive I got the saucer-section correctly attached, but once on, it was pretty solid.

8. Number of stickers in the set: 11. Number of stickers applied straight: charitably, maybe two...

Overall? Not too bad. Reckon we'll have some more fun with it over time. If you're a Lego purist, I don't know if I could recommend it to you, but I'm a little more easy-going on that front.