Lego Fan Builds USS Enterprise
1 min read
Lego fan Chris Melby built a replica of the Abrams-verse USS Enterprise.
It took Melby eight months to create his ship.
Using eighteen thousand Lego bricks, Melby built a ship that measured sixty-eight inches long, twenty-nine inches wide, and thirty-two inches tall on its base.
“The build was stubborn right to the end, as I had to wait for the mail, a last minute Brick Link order, to put the finishing touches on the nacelles,” said Melby. “Was it worth it? Eight months, tons of coin, tons of bricks, a few major headaches, more than a few internal explosions…Yeah it was. It was the build of a lifetime. It was one for my ‘bucket list.'”
For images of the ship, head to the link located here.
About The Author
I continue to be amazed at the many different labors of love that fans come up with. From fan fiction to recreations of the bridge in somebody’s basement to costumes to Enterprises made of legos or gingerbread, the creativity that Trek love inspires is truly wonderful.
It’s nice to look at the comment section and see something positive for a change.
That’s some very impressive LEGO modeling. I wish I was that good.
Amazing work, too bad LEGO can’t/couldn’t also get the license from CBS Studios to also do a Star Trek line in addition to the Star Wars line they’ve got.
This would be great if the Abramsverse Enterprise wasn’t so repulsive.
I agree! Only one J. J. hater so far. This is pretty impressive creation
I understand if you’re not a fan of the newer films but what about the new Enterprise do you find so repulsive? It’s essentially a more modern take on the original one, which is pretty bland-looking by comparison. Don’t get me wrong, I love the original Enterprise for the simple fact that it’s THE original Enterprise but I find the reboot Enterprise far from “repulsive”.
It looks like someone who has been pumped up on steroids. The nacelles have the bulges in the front like huge biceps. The engine section bulges up front like big chest muscles while the back is very slim, like tight abs.
I suspect (but have no evidence) this is intentional. The Abrams Enterprise is supposedly more powerful than the TOS Enterprise because Nero’s meddling with the timeline made the galaxy a more dangerous place, and Starfleet responded by building more heavily armed ships. So my guess is someone said that the Enterprise should look more muscular.
Abrams earned the hate. Remember the marketing slogan for the first movie? It was “This is not your father’s Star Trek.” Well, I’m one of those fathers. The implication was that my Trek (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY) was uncool (remember the nerdy image Trekkies have), and of course kids today wouldn’t want to watch it, but this new one was cool and the cool kids should go see it. And sure enough, it was a movie appropriate to the modern age: lots of big, dumb action, none of the intellectualism that TOS strived for (even though it sometimes fell short), and massive violations of physics and even common sense that were far worse than anything TOS ever did.
Abrams didn’t WANT to make a movie for me, he DIDN’T make a movie for me, he BOASTED that it wasn’t for me, and so he has to live with the fact that I hated it. I’m sure he’s crying all the way to the bank.
I realize that LEGO can’t get the Star Trek license, but I would buy every set made based on the original franchise if they ever made it. Just no JJ-Trek, those crappy films deserve Kre-O. 😛
Amen! JJ went out of his way to distance “his” Star Trek from what came before in a way that no one since Roddneberry died had ever done before. Fans love to slam Rick Berman, but the diffenrace was that he at least tried to do what he felt Gene would have wanted. He may not always have gotten it right, but it was always on his mind, as was the legacy of the franchise and the fans. I seriously doubt JJ ever gave a thought about Gene Roddenberry, the legacy of Star Trek or her fans. I’m very sure JJ Abrams is more concerned with JJ Abrams than with Star Trek. Before we even get into the films themselves, that alone is a major turn off!
It’s like this: JJ Abrams is a hot shot up and coming Hollywood director/producer who fancies himself the next Spielberg and Lucas rolled into one. He really wants to make films similar to what those men made or actually get to make reboots/prequels/sequels based on their original properties. He is real love is Star Wars, a fact he has been blatantly honest about from day one. That wasn’t available at the time, Star Trek (being in an odd place at the time) was, so he settled for (in his mind) second best. As soon as Star Wars did become available, he dropped Trek like a bad habit.
He doesn’t care about Star Trek, so please JJ fans explain to me why I should care about his interpretation? He earned my scorn and the scorn of thousands of other Trekkies the world over for his attitude and actions. He’s drive to be the top director in Hollywood is in itself not a bad thing per say so much as how he used this franchise to get to that point. I feel after his movies the way I’m sure he’d see my Trek fandom: as something disposable. Even if for some crazy reason you actually like his films, at the very least true fans should understand why other fans don’t like him or his movies.
Or Duplo.
The movies have made piles of money, maybe not as much as the biggest blockbusters out there, but piles indeed.
Gene would have loved that part.
Does Roddenberry’s estate get a cut of the new movies? My guess would be it has to, but this is Hollywood so who knows.
It’s my understanding that Paramount owns the legal rights to Star Trek, so I doubt that Roddenberry’s estate gets anything.
Roddenberry had the opportunity to buy those rights during the early 70’s but didn’t, partly because he didn’t have the money (although he could, perhaps, have borrowed it), partly because he didn’t think the rights to Star Trek would be worth very much.
Oh that was a huge mistake!
It was not necessarily a mistake. If Roddenberry had bought the rights, there’s no guarantee he could’ve made movies and more TV series. It’s possible that it’s only a valuable property when a big company like Paramount owns it.
Possibly he did earn the hate, but if you decide to express it at the drop of a hat, on a thread only tangentially related to him, that says more about you than him.
Not at all. My original post was that I don’t like the way the Abrams Enterprise looks – a comment totally relevant to the original article. Then, someone referred to me as a “hater”, and so I explained myself.
And — according to “These Are The Voyages,” Season Three — Paramount did a lot to market Star Trek when it came to the syndication market. Without that, it would not have anywhere near as many fans as it has today, another fact that argues that those movies and TV spin-offs would probably have never been made if Roddenberry had owned the rights.
Duplo is a brand within LEGO, so even if it is for pre-schoolers, the quality is still going to be better than Kre-O or Mega Blocks. I think it would be cool for LEGO to make LEGO Star Trek AND Duplo Star Trek. Get them when they are young! 😀
Yes, that Star Trek fans love Star Trek and will defend it at the drop of a hat. Nothing wrong with that.
If piles of money is all you are taking away from this, then you really don’t get it. 🙁
It makes sense that the nacelles are larger. The nacelles finally look like something that could create a warp bubble big enough to send a huge starship halfway across the galaxy in just weeks. I have no problem with that design. It makes sense.
I always figured the ship was more powerful because the Kelvin took plenty of scans of Nero’s ship, and those scans made their way back with the survivors. Nero’s meddling let Starfleet leap a century ahead technologically.
No, since we’ve seen any number of perfectly warp-capable shuttles throughout Trek where the body of the craft is relatively much larger than the nacelles, this comes down to yet another failure in aesthetics along with the ship’s engine room brewery and Apple store bridge.
They’ve tried to pimp up the ship like a muscle car but the final result looks more like this:
Pray tell, Darrin, what equipment is needed to create a warp bubble and what volume of space does it occupy? Show us the design, 😉
Here you go: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/nasa-warp-drive-ship-2014-6
Every one of those looks better than the Abrams Enterprise.
BTW, even if the TOS nacelles are too small to create a warp bubble, there’s no excuse for those ugly bulges. They could’ve made the entire nacelle larger, front to back, so it would still be a nice cylinder. Use the extra space to store more anti-matter or the captain’s private wine collection.
That would’ve felt more realistic to me. But still, I enjoy Abrams’ design. I prefer cylinders. But I got over nacelles not being nice cylinders after “The Motion Picture” did away with them in the ’70s. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yAICGA2kIHg/TcYDn225SiI/AAAAAAAAAaY/k2iGmHcrybQ/s1600/wallpaper-startrek-22098.jpg
The original refit design blows away the misshapen JJ-prise on every level. I truly hope the JJ-prise gets blown to bits in the next movie and we end up seeing something more graceful as a replacement.
I understand your reason for disliking him then. I didn’t really know about the “Not your father’s Star Trek” slogan. I can see why that’s upsetting because I grew up watching TNG with my dad ands that’s part of why the shows are special to me. I watched/rewatched everything after TNG and went back and watched TOS and the movies that came out before I was born. While I will always love the TNG era of Star Trek the most, I still enjoy the new films for what they are.
There are many things I dislike about J. J. Abrams’ films but it seems some people go out of there way to bash them and rant about how they hate the ‘new’ Star Trek. There’s one more film in the reboot series so let it run it’s course and maybe we’ll get a TV series with a more traditional and intellectual Star Trek feel to it. Love it or hate it, the new stuff has introduced new fans to the world of Star Trek even if the reboot films aren’t the same. I know a couple people who had no interest in Star Trek and have since checked out the television shows after enjoying the new movies.
Nah, saying that this person’s accomplishment is dubious because they choose the “wrong” Enterprise to build, that’s classic hatred. You’re a hater. Own up to it.
Again, this tiresome, tiresome discourse of there being some real and pure “Star Trek” and some impure Star Trek that only fake fans would like. Some of us are old enough to remember the ridiculous “Trekker vs. Trekkie” wars, and all that petty, vindictive negativity is back, baby.
Guest, I already admitted that I hate the Abrams movies. And I dislike the design of the Abrams Enterprise. But I did not, as you said, “express it at the drop of a hat”. I expressed dislike of the Enterprise design in response to SEEING A REPRODUCTION OF IT. I explained the reasons for my “hate” AFTER being called a hater.
If I had posted all my objections to the movies solely in response to seeing the Lego Enterprise, THAT would’ve been “at the drop of a hat”.
To think that all of this tortured lawyering could have been avoided if you had just not bothered posting to begin with. Do you honestly think anything you’ve posted here is an improvement on the sound of silence?
Then don’t bother yourself by exposing yourself to it. You can easily not post and ignore as well as anyone else.
If you are going to spend the time and money, why do the terrible JJprise, when the Constitution class refit from the TOS movies is absolutely sleak, stunning and perfect the way it is? There is no reason that the ship couldn’t have been used in the new movies in its identical entirety, to be honest. Outside of TMP, we’ve never gotten enough of this ship; it holds up in the modern era.
Turns out a warp core can be very small: http://alexrobertscreations.blogspot.com/2015/02/3d-printed-mini-star-trek-next.html
The original Enterprise might be bland by comparison as you say, but I bet that if they polished the original up, with the typical man hours that went into the new Enterprise, it would be better than the iPod looking one.