It’s July once more, which means it’s time to start thinking about the sooner-to-arrive-than-you-think holiday season if you’re one of the many Star Trek fans who collect Hallmark’s annual ornaments!
Every year around this time, Hallmark officially unveils their Christmas offerings, but if you’ve been following our coverage of the company’s yearly offerings, you may recall we got a sneak peak of their plans for 2019 all the way back at last summer’s Las Vegas Star Trek convention — and now the final versions are in hand, and we’re here to give you a detailed look at the finished products.
First out of spacedock is this year’s starship offering, the refit Constitution-class USS Enterprise from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, just in time for the film’s 40th anniversary. To be totally honest, I adore the Hallmark starship ornaments the most — they just look so nice on my tree, and this one is no exception.
While at a glance the ship looks fairly accurate to its on-screen counterpart, I do think there could have been some more precise detailing around the deflector dish, which got a great close-up in The Motion Picture. Additionally, the “grey” detailing that is on the ship looks a little greener than I think it should.
Like all of Hallmark’s Star Trek ship ship ornaments, this one is “magic” and includes internal lighting at the nacelles and deflector. I would have liked to have seen a version of this ornament with the flood lights that illuminate the ship name and registry number on the top and bottom of the saucer.
Admittedly, I don’t know if it would have been feasible with LEDs, but it would have really captured the look and feel of the ship from the movie a bit more.
The Star Trek: The Motion Picture – 40th Anniversary edition USS Enterprise ornament retails for $32.99 and can be ordered online here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikiA-05bmsI
Not only does 2019’s collection bring a new starship ornament, but as been tradition, a new character moment debuts this year as well: Commander Saru and Michael Burnham mark the first appereance of Star Trek: Discovery characters in Hallmark’s lineup.
People are always a bit tricky to sculpt, and this is one of the better character-oriented ornaments that I’ve seen from Hallmark’s Star Trek line lately. One little critique: in all of the promotional photographs of this ornament, Saru’s uniform has distinctly gold accents, especially compared to Burnham’s silver — as they should be, following their on-screen costumes. In person though, the colors seem almost identical.
Also, and perhaps this is just super nitpicky, but the ornament’s sculptor gave Saru human hands, missing the telltale Kelpien ridges and detailing. Perhaps this is a limitation of the small scale of the figure, but a notable one nonetheless.
Like the ship, this is also a “magic” ornament, featuring dialogue from their moment of bonding at the end of Season 1’s “Choose Your Pain.” The speaker is on the bottom, and the dialogue sounds nice and clear when the ornament is hung for display.
The Star Trek: Discovery Saru/Burnham ornament retails for $29.99 and can be ordered online here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLGVmmgWu9M
If you’re worried about a Klingon invasion this Christmas, you’ll definitely want to pick up the 2019 Tribble ornament — it’s cute, fluffy, and is sure to scare off any invaders from the Empire with its screen-accurate purr.
Mine needed a little bit of fluffing right out of the box, which is to be expected, but it is really is adorable… just don’t feed it or you’ll have a whole Christmas tree full of them! One cautionary note: this may look like pure fluff, but because it is a “magic” ornament it has a bit more weight to it than you might expect.
Hang this little guy on a sturdy branch come Christmas time since it vibrates a bit while playing its audio.
You can have a Tribble on your tree for $19.99 — the ornament can be ordered online here.
These three ornaments go on sale nationwide at Hallmark’s website as well as at their local brick-and-mortar stores starting today — but they aren’t the last Star Trek releases coming from Hallmark this year!
Next week, San Diego Comic Con will see the debut of their 2019 convention-exclusive ISS Enterprise ornament which we first told you about back in June: this limited-run release will launch at SDCC, but will be available at the August Star Trek Las Vegas convention and October’s New York Comic Con as well.
Finally, another tabletop design focused on the the Original Series leads is set to beam down in October; that large model we first showed you in April will be available October 5.
We’ll keep bringing you the latest on Hallmark’s Star Trek offerings as the year continues!