This is a re-issue of a first released a few years ago by Revell Germany.

This is a kit of a Republic Star Destroyer from the Clone wars era of the Star Wars saga.

In the box is:

• 4 x light grey sprues
• 1 Upper Hull Section
• 1 Lower Hull Section
• 1 Decal sheet
• 1 Instruction booklet

All the sprues are extremely well molded and great detail; the instruction booklet is easy to follow and well-illustrated.

Construction

Stage 1, 2 and 3 is the construction of the ships upper super structure and is very detailed. I decided to paint each sub assembly as I built the kit. I used a light grey spray can primer and this was a perfect match for the paint finish I wanted for the ship.

Background

This is a kit of the mother ship, Arcadia flown by the space pirate, Captain Harlock from the adventure filled world of Leiji Matsumoto. Originally created in 1977 for a manga TV series, Captain Harlock has appeared in various film and TV shows, most recently a 2013 feature film, “Space Pirate Captain Harlock”. This space battleship is used for his interspace travel. The Arcadia carries a number of Space Wolf fighter planes for protection and offense.

The Arcadia is equipped with heavy firepower. The main armament consists of triple-mount pulsar cannon turrets, two on the upper deck and one on the underside. When Captain Harlock’s friend, Tochiro, designed the Arcadia, he must have been influenced by pirate ships of old, because the rear of the Arcadia resembles the stern of a Spanish Galleon. I am not sure of the significance of this but it looks neat.

The phenomenon that began with the TV Series Star Trek has permeated American culture since the inimitable sixties when our favorite villains, the Klingon’s, invaded our space. This kit has been issued a number of times since then attesting to the popularity of the show and delighting the Sci-Fi hobbyist as well!

The Kit

This review covers the AMT Klingon Bird of Prey (BoP) 1:350 Scale AMT Model Kit #949. This kit is molded in light green styrene which is a close approximation of the final color and could be built as such. On the other hand, for the best look, painting and highlighting the model is needed.

Before I begin, one quick confession: I never watched this show much when it first came out. It was in direct competition with the original Star Trek and as a kid, I only go so much time in front of the idiot box.

That being said, what we have here is one fascinating vehicle. Featured in the second episode of Lost in Space, it was part of a real attempt at science fiction story telling before the gradual descent into satire. It’s in 1/350^th scale, which makes both it and the Jupiter included in the same scale as the series of large-scale Enterprise kits currently available. For that matter, you could have the Jupiter docked on an aircraft carrier deck.

Interstellar came out in 2014 and was a decent movie about team of explorers who travel through a wormhole looking to find a new world to ensure humanity's survival. The ship the stars used was the Transgalactic Survey Craft, Ranger which was launched on top of a secret Saturn V rocket.

Moebius recently released a 72^nd scale kit of the Ranger based on the full scale prop, miniatures and CGI files used in the movie. As 72^nd is my preferred scale, I was interested. The kit has 42 parts molded in white plastic which include 38 for the 72^nd scale ship and 4 bonus parts to make the top of the Saturn launch vehicle with 2 Rangers. The parts for this should fit either the Airfix or Revell 1/144^th scale rockets.