Despite their legendary status in the Star Trek mythos, the Klingon Empire has had a relatively limited role in the Kelvin Timeline film series, given only a few minutes of direct attention during 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness.
The first Trek film in the new cinematic universe, as some of you may know, originally featured a great deal more Klingon action, as the Romulan crew of the Narada spent decades in Klingon enslavement after their run-in with the USS Kelvin… in a sequence ultimately excised from the final cut of the movie.
This trip to the cutting-room floor meant that the only 2009 Klingon action came in the form of the Starfleet Academy Kobayashi Maru simulation, relegating the Klingons — and their starships — as only virtual constructs.
Longtime Trek ship designer John Eaves was tasked with creating a new version of the classic Klingon K’t’inga-class warship to the 2009 Star Trek production, eventually identified in the film as a ‘Klingon Warbird.’ The cut sequence featuring the Narada‘s capture originally featured a fleet of these Warbirds surrounding the massive vessel, available to view on the Blu-ray release’s deleted scenes package.
This month, Eaglemoss has ventured back into the Kelvin Timeline to rescue the Klingon Battle Cruiser warship from Trek obscurity for a new 8.5″ special, nearly five years after their release of the subscriber-sized Prime Timeline K’t’inga-class cruiser.
Presented in a three-tone green color scheme, the Klingon Battle Cruiser is the usual mix of molded plastic and die-cast metal; the underside, ‘neck,’ and forward section of the model is metal, while the nacelles, top side, and bridge area of the forward section are plastic.
This model really emphasizes how well Eaves’ design connects back to the Shatner-era K’t’inga-class design, all while modernizing the ship to make it a little more angular and metallic-looking. The triangular hull paneling adorning the secondary hull certainly ‘feel’ like they are made of duranium, with the paint markings shining just a touch under light.
The rear impulse engines and top of the Battle Cruiser’s neck also feature spots of yellow to offset the greens around the rest of the model, while the warp nacelles have light blue painted stripes on both their outer and inner sides to represent the glow of the warp coils.
It would have been nice to see the nacelles crafted with translucent blue plastic inserts, as many of Eaglemoss’ other starships have been designed, especially with the size of the nacelles on this model; that’s a bit of a disappointment for sure.
Moving around to the front of the ship, the mold for the bridge section gives the top of the forward section plenty of texture, and features two rows of painted windows across the bow of the ship — no molded windows here, so no alignment problems on this part of the ship, hooray!
The sides of the forward section two feature three windows on each side of the ‘ball,’ raised details with white painted window lighting — while one side of our model was perfectly aligned to the cast windows, the other was slightly offset, but not to the point of concern like on some of the other Eaglemoss releases.
The one spot that really could have used some additional detail work is the forward torpedo launcher, presented here as a bare oval on the front of the ship. This is the classic weapons tube featured on every Klingon ship since the Original Series, here left completely blank rather than treated with any kind of paint or label to add depth to the ship.
A little bit of paint right there in the center of the torpedo launcher really would give this ship a bit more kick, as this altered photo illustrates:
While this Klingon Battle Cruiser may have some minor detail issues that give us a little pause, the overall production on this ship is one of Eaglemoss’ better presentations, with clean lines on the hull details and solid construction.
It may not be one of the more well-known members of the Official Starships Collection fleet due to its limited on-screen role, but if you’re a fan of the Klingon Empire, this larger-sized Klingon Battle Cruiser is one we’d recommend to bring glory to your house.
Here’s some more photos of this new model:
The Eaglemoss Klingon Battle Cruiser model is available to reserve now (for $44.95 in the US and £24.99 in the UK), with some fans already reporting shipments for early preorders.
Check back soon for our next Official Starships Collection review, the “XL”-sized USS Enterprise-A from the final Shatner-era Star Trek films!