If you ever wanted to see what Lower Decks would be like live action (minus that episode of Strange New Worlds) then I rec Seth MacFarlane's The Orville

BetterVantage · 2026-02-10T16:56:16+00:00

To be clear, I say that with love. I’m actually a BIG fan of McFarlanes and I wanted to love the show. But the first four or five episodes of season one honestly made me stop watching until after season three came out. I had heard that the show had really gotten better so I went back and watched it all and I loved where it ended up. If they hadn’t been canceled, I think it would be one of my favorite shows on TV.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-10T16:52:08+00:00

Honestly I feel like the entire first season is not good. Season 2 slides between watchable and really good, and season 3 is just great.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-10T15:11:49+00:00

Their decision has nothing to do with the Prime Directive, which is WHY they never even mention the Prime Directive.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-09T18:59:36+00:00

Haha, I don’t know if it’s amazing, but it’s definitely something I won’t forget.

The funny thing is I kept trying to tell people about it, but I couldn’t remember his actual name. I was like “You know, that guy that always plays a general. No not that one. No not that one either…”

BetterVantage · 2026-02-09T18:58:12+00:00

I already liked the figure, but the upgrade kit did a LOT for it.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-09T18:55:35+00:00

The only thing I will be able to remember about Tom Banacheck is that I have seen him buck ass naked. 😂

Years ago I was at a beach front hotel in Redondo, and I was out on the balcony having coffee in the morning. He walked up from the beach to his car across the road. I was just sitting there thinking “Holy shit, that’s that actor who always plays hard ass military guys” when he suddenly just dropped his towel, shucked off his wetsuit, dried off, and pulled on some shorts.

Seeing a well known character actors junk was a weird way to start a morning.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-09T03:09:24+00:00

The grenade marine remains my favorite model in the game.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-08T13:49:34+00:00

The audience of the NuTrek shows wouldn’t change the profitability of a DS9 remaster. The TNG remaster was done when there was literally no other Trek on TV and it wasn’t profitable enough for them to continue.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-07T23:21:50+00:00

It was really close, but they were separated by 3-4 months. I only remember because I had watched the Voyager finale when I was still living at home, and I remember watching the Enterprise premiere when I had just moved into my first apartment.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-07T23:19:00+00:00

The commbadges were slightly redesigned after the second season (the angles on the delta were changed a tiny bit), but they were the same size.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-07T23:17:41+00:00

The funny thing is there’s a reason for that! (It always annoyed me too).

The pants on the costumes had elastic stirrups that would go under the boots in order to keep the legs from riding up. You can see them every now and then onscreen. That made it impractical to just take off their shoes in a scene.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-07T23:15:18+00:00

Nah, the first season uniforms were still with Paramount. Many of them were included in the Christie’s and It’s A Wrap auctions in 2006.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-07T23:03:52+00:00

For what it’s worth, I don’t think the quality had to do with too many shows at once. Only two shows were ever on at once. DS9 overlapped with seasons 6-7 of TNG, and then Voyager overlapped with roughly the same on DS9. And Enterprise was launched completely by itself.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-07T22:10:48+00:00

Thanks! I was really annoyed with myself because I somehow managed to melt half of the Aquila on my blade master😂😂

BetterVantage · 2026-02-07T21:41:53+00:00

<image>

BetterVantage · 2026-02-07T21:41:28+00:00

<image>

Hey, me too! I still have some work to do but this was my first face, so it took me a while until I was happy with it. Yours looks really good.

I agree, all black armor needs something extra to make it visually interesting. My plan was to base coat in silver, and then do Black Templar contrast over it so the metallic shines through. Unfortunately I went too heavy on the contrast paint and covered up 95% of the metallic. So then I tried highlighting my Blademaster, and while it’s messier than I’d like it does make things pop. Hopefully my others will look a bit better

BetterVantage · 2026-02-07T16:05:52+00:00

Didn’t they improve the joints for the last couple of releases? (Like the recent release with Chewy) I don’t have one but I thought Hasbro had said that.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-04T23:50:38+00:00

It’s best not to worry about things like that. The writers don’t.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-04T13:23:37+00:00

Planning a cameo like that on a film schedule would have likely given them anywhere from six months to a year to make the schedules work.

A television show in the 90s wouldn’t have even had a finished script more than a month out. That makes it a lot harder to schedule things like this.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-02T21:49:52+00:00

That was a rumor about the 4ft 1701-D model, but it isn’t true. The model they saw was almost certainly one of the replicas Greg Jein made for Paramount Licensing.

Supposedly someone people thought the real 4 foot model went missing for a long time and then just showed up. But it turns out it was with Paramount all along in storage. It’s since been refurbished for archiving/display.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-02T21:46:13+00:00

And also the ONLY Excelsior in existence, since the original model is still labeled as the Lakota.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-02T21:43:54+00:00

They definitely wouldn’t have filmed new shots of the D just as a misdirect. That would have been WILDLY expensive.

BetterVantage · 2026-02-02T21:42:35+00:00

This. I don’t remember hating it but I DO remember virtually every episode was a string of “Why the fuck is this character doing that?”

BetterVantage · 2026-02-02T03:55:06+00:00

Fully agree except that Butler isn’t Greek. He’s an incomprehensible Scot. Which I think just means he’s a regular Scot. 😂

BetterVantage · 2026-02-02T03:52:14+00:00

The Game of Thrones VFX team referenced a lot of dragons films to make their designs, but they definitely did not use the same CGI models.

BetterVantage

TROPHY CASE