Serenity BDR - Full Review

[darthviper107]

Okay. Just took the dive and ordered Serenity. I've been rewatching the show on blu-ray and just could not resist any longer. So...estimated summer 2011 completion. Anybody have any experience with Qmx and their timetables?

Should be on time since I'm sure by now the production has slowed down.

 

[Chapter 2099]

This piece is so stunning. Wish I could afford one. Maybe one day.

 

[Yama86]

QMx posted a pic via twitter about a replica announcement at SDCC. Looks like a BDR with landing gear extended. What I would really like is if they released an add-on for existing BDRs that lets you add the landing gear to it. All they would have to do is put some adhesive on the piece that connects to the existing "landing gear opening" on the BDR. Then make the joints on the gear movable.

 

[darthviper107]

Well, they better fix the problems with the first one and lower the price. I highly doubt they've even gotten close to selling out the first one.

No visible screws--having the flaps on the back screwed in is unacceptable.

Complete piping--they decided to bend brass rods to make the piping on the back, that takes a lot of time since there's 40 pipes, 8 large and 32 small ones. They only did the large ones since it takes so much time to bend them by hand, and they did a bad job.

Better Paint Job--they probably spent way too long trying to design the build, and so they skimped on the paint job. It's not very well done and is missing a lot of small details. The weathering is either overdone or missing entirely in places. And they tried to make it as easy as possible to paint by using an airbrush with masks for most things, which ended up making for inaccurate painting.

The #1 thing is the shipping quality--there's way too many issues people have with it arriving with broken parts or lighting not working correctly. And it's having issues with shipping on the BSG Viper as well. They really need to pack them better.

 

[Yama86]

Well, they better fix the problems with the first one and lower the price. I highly doubt they've even gotten close to selling out the first one.

No visible screws--having the flaps on the back screwed in is unacceptable.

Yeah, not sure why they used those screws on the first batch. Thankfully, they stopped using the screws pretty early in the production of the BDRs.

The #1 thing is the shipping quality--there's way too many issues people have with it arriving with broken parts or lighting not working correctly. And it's having issues with shipping on the BSG Viper as well. They really need to pack them better.

That really does seem to be an issue doesn't it. I've been watching quite a few people have issues with their BSG Vipers. One thing I will say though; it seems that everyone I've seen with a problem has had it addressed and thoughtfully looked into by John Eblan and his crew.

My wife and I are really happy with our BDR. I would like the option to just add the landing gear to it. Nice and easy, and shipping something relatively small should be simple to get done and not have shipping damages to worry about.

 

[darthviper107]

Yeah, it seems they've been taking care of it when people have the problems, but it's got to be really expensive for them to keep doing that, since they put so much to make the replica, even at $2,500 I doubt they're making a ton of profit.

 

[Chapter 2099]

Random question: Do these come with their own display case as well or do you provide one?

 

[darthviper107]

Random question: Do these come with their own display case as well or do you provide one?

They don't come with a display case

 

[Chapter 2099]

They don't come with a display case

Good to know. Just curious. Thanks.

 

[darthviper107]

Here's what they have at SDCC:

It's got a scaled Mule But other than that and the landing gear, it's exactly the same as before. Although I'm guessing it might not have lights since it's supposed to be landed. Still with the same issues--like notice the piping on the back, the one in the middle is backwards. not to mention poorly bent (it's obviously just a brass rod). The others are poorly bent as well. Paint job is still pretty poor.

There's also this small-scale replica of the ship from the TV show:

 

[tnaig001]

^ wow, that is a rather harsh post about their quality?

Looks ok to me actually. maybe i have low expectations?

 

[darthviper107]

^ wow, that is a rather harsh post about their quality?

Looks ok to me actually. maybe i have low expectations?

I've spent enough time studying the ship to know what is correct so I can't help but see the problems. I've built the ship more than once in several different formats and would love to have a good replica, but I couldn't stand those issues.

But many of their mistakes are really simple modeling mistakes. The screws they were using for the reactor flaps at one point is completely unacceptable in a model replica. They must have spent too much money on development and had to do everything else as quickly as possible to save money.

 

[tnaig001]

I've spent enough time studying the ship to know what is correct so I can't help but see the problems. I've built the ship more than once in several different formats and would love to have a good replica, but I couldn't stand those issues.

But many of their mistakes are really simple modeling mistakes. The screws they were using for the reactor flaps at one point is completely unacceptable in a model replica. They must have spent too much money on development and had to do everything else as quickly as possible to save money.

Have you tried talking to their CS and get them to change those details that bug you?

Pretty sure that's doable. I'm just glad I haven't watched firefly.

 

[darthviper107]

Do you really expect them to do the proper paint masks and weathering just for one person? Or to spend hours bending the small pipes for the Reactor? They cut corners to save money, they're not going to improve them if they don't have to.

 

[tnaig001]

^ well no harm in asking. I've only experienced the best in CS from them so why not give it a short

 

[darthviper107]

^ well no harm in asking. I've only experienced the best in CS from them so why not give it a short

I can tell you they really wouldn't do that. Besides, their replica is really expensive. Like compare to the Master Replicas Millennium Falcon, which was cheaper and much bigger/nicer.

 

[Rodders]

It was bigger, sure, but i don't think that it's nicer. There were/are a lot of issues to be had with the falcon. The main one for me was the fact that the cockpit background was cardboard. Studio Scale models now all have nicely made cockpits with proper lighting panels. That costs time and money to develop.

I think that it's also fair to take into account that the Falcon was released a few years ago now. Since then we've entered a global recession that has affected every economy on the planet. Everything's more expensive now.

 

[darthviper107]

A lot of changes that they could do would save money though. Like the pipes, instead of planning on bending pipes by hand (which takes a long time and is why they only did the large pipes) they could have just made one set and had them cast. Saving them a lot of time and money (since castings would have been cheaper than the brass anyways).

And of course, if they didn't have so many issues with people's ships arriving damaged, they wouldn't have to waste so much money fixing things.



And just to point out--the interior of the Serenity bridge on the QMx replica is completely wrong. In the movie, they used the bridge of the TV version for the CG shots, which is very very different from the movie, and they just used that for the interior of the QMx replica.

 

[ShadowX81]

And just to point out--the interior of the Serenity bridge on the QMx replica is completely wrong. In the movie, they used the bridge of the TV version for the CG shots, which is very very different from the movie, and they just used that for the interior of the QMx replica.

Not to mention the crew (or should I say blobs) on the bridge are ridiculously under detailed considering the scale.
Hell, they would have been better off using figures from a model train.

 

[darthviper107]

I don't know how well they might have been able to do people at that size--I've got some of the Fine Molds Star Wars 1/72 scale kits and at that size they're not bad, but still pretty low detail. The QMx kit at 20 inches is much smaller scale