MOONBASE CENTRAL

Sunday, 9 March 2025

Ed's Star Trek Gallery

Woodsy,

Inspired by Scoop's post:

Here's a few ads and images for Star Trek that have come my way in Meta feeds.

From Vegas Star Base

More to come from Ed!

The cover of 2000AD comic prog 140 (dated 24 November, 1979) promoting the soon-to-be-released Star Trek-The Motion Picture, and running a competition to win a Dinky Star Trek USS Enterprise & Klingon Battle Cruiser double pack.

Runners up would receive a smaller version of the Enterprise.

The cover drawing of the refurbished Enterprise, is obviously reversed, note 1701 comes before NCC, and is based on a superb painting by film production illustrator, Mike Minor, which graced the cover of Starlog issue 25, and was reproduced in full as a centre spread in the magazine.

Starlog issue 25 from August, 1979.

THE MAKING OF STAR TREK PAPERBACK

Some photos of my 1973 printing of 'The Making of Star Trek' paperback. Apart from providing in -depth back ground info and incite about the series, in contains several B&W photos, production drawings and blueprints.

THE BARBIE STAR TRAVELLER: A REALLY BIG TOY!

I used to love buying and selling Barbie and Sindy stuff. It sort of made up for all the times everyone told me as a kid that I mustn't play with dolls 'cos I was a lad! I was already playing with Action Man, Matt Mason, Tommy Gunn and Captain Laser! They were dolls!

Besides the super exciting episode with the rare dress that I've blogged about before, another favourite find was a complete Barbie Star Traveler Motor Home as pictured. There wasn't a box - but that was OK. All the tables and chairs were there.

As soon as I saw it at the car boot sale I just had to ask 'How Much is the big van?'. The answer was £2 I think and before you could say Lets Go Barbie I was walking off with my own Star Traveler!

Probably more exciting than the purchase itself is getting home and checking stuff over. I love that and this baby took some checking. With the help of the net I was able to check off every part. Aaah. The simple joys of life.

I've heard that Barbie and Ken drove off in their Star Traveler and are somewhere in the Plastic Rockies now! No doubt Big Jim will be along soon to crash the party!

Have you bought anything really big and collectable readers?

Ed's Wheels On The Bus Go 'Round and 'Round

Woodsy,

Here's some more small space toy fun.

This time it's the 'LP' brand #405B Space Explorer Car in bright yellow ala 'Bluebird' (a manufacturer of school buses here in the States).

From Vegas Base

Saturday, 8 March 2025

STAR TREK - THE MOTION PICTURE POP-UP BOOK

Keeping to my Star Trek- The Motion Picture theme, here’s what’s inside the Motion Picture Pop-Up book.

First published in February, 1980, and created by Tor Lokvig & Chuck Murphy, who also designed the USS Enterprise and USS Enterprise Bridge punch-out books contains seven double page illustrations based on scenes from the movie.

It’s a fun, innovative book for the younger Star Trek fan (and, i might add, one or two older ones too!) and well worth adding to the Star Trek ephemera collection.

AMT USS ENTERPRISE REFIT PHOTOS

Some photos of my A.M.T. Ertl USS Enterprise Refit, a kit my dad bought for me as a birthday gift way back around 1986 or ‘87.

At the time I was probably daunted by the time consuming ‘aztec’ paint scheme, and the kit was consigned to my stash in the attic for years. Nowadays, I’m a little bolder in my kit building, and dusting it off, I worked out an easier way of producing a reasonable look without going over the top, or, with one exception trying to track down aftersales add-ons.

Although the kit was released for ‘Star Trek- The Voyage Home’, and sporting the NCC-1701-A decals, I wanted to do the Motion Picture version, and luckily, did manage to find some excellent aftersales decals which allowed for both versions.

The box artwork for Star Trek-IV- The Voyage Home.

I like to add a little lighting to my models where I can, but for this kit I decided I just wanted to build it more or less as it was. I do have a couple of other AMT Enterprise refit kits, including the edition with lighting and sounds, and the first edition with lighting for the saucer section, so I’ll wait to see how those turn out.

I’ve always had a fondness for Star Trek – The Motion Picture, in spite of the fact that some like to dub it the ‘slow motion picture’. Each to their own, I suppose. Anyway, the stand out scene for me is the USS Enterprise refit reveal as Admiral Kirk and Scotty, aboard a travel pod slowly pass along her shiny new hull.

Some photos of the model on the bench.