New Revell Imperial Star Destroyer kit?

I think you missed my point, holtaa. I have no problem with a company targeting kids. I like kids. I have kids. In fact, I agree that targeting kids is good for the long-term viability of the hobby. But there's no reason to sacrifice reasonable accuracy just to get kids interested in building kits. Make the kits easier to build. Make them snap kits. Make them a reasonable size. Heck, even put in a sound board and simple lights. No problem. But why dumb down the details and the accuracy??? Why make the kit's proportions wrong??? Those have nothing to do with attracting younger modelers. In fact, I think they go against the whole reason a person -- a kid or an adult -- wants to build a kit in the first place. I know when I was a kid I wanted something that looked like the ship on the screen. I'd also argue that the assumption that "video game kids" are less discerning is false. Kids today have WAY more access to images of subjects than us older modelers had when we were kids. A quick Google search and a kid can see screen grabs or detailed jpegs of this ship or that. When I was a kid I couldn't even pause an episode of Space:1999 to look closely at a detail on the Eagle model. It's far easier for kids nowadays to immediately see that a kit looks "wrong." Kids are smart. They know when they're being talked down to --and that's what Revell is doing. In my opinion, a kid who wants to build a model is a kid who is creative -- who wants an experience and a product that is something more than a toy. If you're just selling them an inaccurate toy that they also have to put together, then what's the point?

Besides all that, I don't believe that targeting "younger modelers" is Revell's main motivation. I think it' an excuse for not wanting to spend time and money to make their kits better. They're only making them as good as they can get away with -- and using "kids" as their 'dog ate my homework' excuse for lackluster effort.
 
holtea, if it was so easy to make younger people building kits , then Germany must be full of modelers. Revell is everywhere here, it's mostly the only kit brand you can get in stores, and they all have large stocks of their "toy"-kits. They have the monopole here. But fact is that almost noone is building kits anymore. No one in my school was, no one in my classes in the university was. Hobby shops are closing as in every other country, the last one I knew in my region (which is a larger medium-sized town with 500.000 inhabitants) closed almost a decade ago. And Revell is not changing anything. And they should know it.

I also don't think that it is right that the naming of those slappy models to be "build and play"-kits is an excuse for their unability. I guess it's the other way around, they decided that they have no ambition to improve their quality, and are desperately looking for a niche in the business in which they can survive. And they woud have seen Bandai's kits, Dragon's and Tamiya's tanks and aircraft, and know that it's not the high-quality segment they can compete in. So who's stupid enough to buy sub-quality products for good money? It's the parents who once built models in their childhood or youth themselves and want to share the experience with their kids, at least that's what Revell thinks. But as it's the parent's will, the story doesn't work out, and after one or two of the snap kits, the children go back to their computer or smartphone playing Pokemon again.

Revell doesn't realize that they leave behind the serious modeler, and that's what I'm miffed about, as they still are the only brand you can get here.

I hope that they make a restart like, for example, Airfix made.

I am sure that the real missing thing for the young modelers is a brand which produces high-quality kits for a fair price, without overdoing stuff like Dragon does. Something that fits and looks like it could be built to a winning model, but affordable for pupils. Be honest, a pupil can't afford a Dragon tank for 70€ each month or two. But they see the pro-built kits online, and when they know that they have to invest another 50€ for extras, they won't continue with the hobby. The WoT-Italeri-connection would be ideal to get new people into modeling, if it weren't Italeri's crappy (that's not my own opinion) old tank models in those boxes. If it were Tamiya kits with the same prices as the WoT-boxings, they would be much more successful I guess...

Cheers,
Thorsten
 
So, Revell want to get kids into building models? So Revell entices them into their poorly detailed models by adding flashing lights and sounds. The kid kinda gets hooked and Mom and Dad drop the $24-$40 on the other build and play kits. Junior has now tired of these and wants something more. Mom and Dad drop money on "real" models for Junior. Maybe something from Moebius or Tamiya, or Bandai. But then Junior freaks out because, where's the higher quality sound boards? Where is the more comprehensive lighting system? And what this? I can't play with this $100 Eagle kit that does not come with lights and pew pew sounds???? It just sits on a shelf?? Sorry Mom and Dad, I'm sticking with girls.
 
Robiwon said:
So, Revell want to get kids into building models? So Revell entices them into their poorly detailed models by adding flashing lights and sounds. The kid kinda gets hooked and Mom and Dad drop the $24-$40 on the other build and play kits. Junior has now tired of these and wants something more. Mom and Dad drop money on "real" models for Junior. Maybe something from Moebius or Tamiya, or Bandai. But then Junior freaks out because, where's the higher quality sound boards? Where is the more comprehensive lighting system? And what this? I can't play with this $100 Eagle kit that does not come with lights and pew pew sounds???? It just sits on a shelf?? Sorry Mom and Dad, I'm sticking with girls.
Click to expand...

Sorry Mom and Dad, I'm sticking with [strike]girls[/strike] Lego.

Fixed that for ya!
 
Granted there are what is perceived as flaws with this model... I certainly find the landing gear stands to be a huge miss... However as far as the superstructure and the side walls go I just look at this as "another" class of SD... The short wall height giving an illusion of scale (larger). Given that no two ships in the real world are built identically (even within the same "class" of ship) I can lave room for a really wide SD in my imagination :) I'll grab one if I see it on the shelves, and give it a whirl :) I'll definitely grab a Bandai if they do a reasonably sized one - that little one they have hardly counts...

Jedi Dade
 
Am I the only one that finds it a bit weird that they are claiming the model is based on the production files, when it clearly shows some differences to the Star Destroyer from the trailer?
 
I will offer the Revell star destroyer some praise. I actually like that the main hull sidewalls are thin. I think that's something a lot of kits and modelers get wrong: they make those sidewalls too tall, especially when it comes to the ANH version.

LRZ, has Revell actually made that claim? If so, facepalm. And you're you're right. The antenna array between the two conning tower deflector domes (or whatever they are) should be raised, the rotating turrets should be bigger, the engines are missing details, etc.
 
LRZ said:
Am I the only one that finds it a bit weird that they are claiming the model is based on the production files, when it clearly shows some differences to the Star Destroyer from the trailer?
Click to expand...

Based of of does not necessarily mean "USED" production files ;)

Jedi Dade
 
LRZ said:
Am I the only one that finds it a bit weird that they are claiming the model is based on the production files, when it clearly shows some differences to the Star Destroyer from the trailer?
Click to expand...
Bandai based their 1:144 Falcon on production files also. The problem is that those files were an early version of the ship with the symmetrical sidewall detail, an issue ILM fixed on later revisions. While the kit is accurate to the main geometry, the details do not exactly match what appears on the screen.

I think the same is true for the Revell ISD. They received files from the film production, but those files were revised and tweaked later into what we saw in the trailers. THe model companies need lead time to produce the product and getting the mesh early is very useful but it does cause some issues.
 
Hunk a Junk said:
LRZ, has Revell actually made that claim? If so, facepalm. And you're you're right. The antenna array between the two conning tower deflector domes (or whatever they are) should be raised, the rotating turrets should be bigger, the engines are missing details, etc.
Click to expand...
They did.
This is from the press release:
All models were designed with the same computer data used to create the movie props, resulting in strikingly accurate facsimiles of the vehicles that moviegoers experience on the big screen.
Click to expand...
http://www.rebelscum.com/story/fron...uild_And_Play_Model_Kits_Announced_170690.asp

But don't get me wrong, I've been waiting for something like this a long time and will get it asap.
Executor next pleeeeeeeeaaaseee?
 
Revell: "Like their predecessors, the three newest plastic model kits deliver hyper-realistic replicas of each vehicle..."

"Hyper-realistic"??? Man, that's just insulting. Just from the trailers we can SEE that the details on the Revell star destroyer are different than those in the movie. It's even worse if they had the original data from the CG assets and ended up with the kits they're offering. It means they had the data, but pretty much completely ignored it.

But who are we to believe, Revell's PR flacks or our own lying eyes?
 
edge10 said:
With it's faults, I think the Revell SD is a big step-up from the AMT version.
Click to expand...

I concur, it is a step up from the AMT.

But...

It's 2016, not 1980 (when the AMT kit first hit shelves). Thirty-six years. Given all that time, all the advances in computers, manufacturing technology, and the fact that Revell claims to be using the original data files from ILM, the BEST they could do is a "step up"?
 
Thinking about this, maybe there are two distinct models in the movie?
Vaders destroyer with the money shot in the trailer, head thingy up, alternative polygon arrangement on the shields, tilted head 'pillars', etc.
And all the other destroyers could be the standard ESB version. Perhaps that is what these peeps are working from?
Their model seems to be much closer to the Revell one then the one in the trailer, except for the upright head thingy of course.
 
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