As many of our regular readers are aware I am a major Sta
r Trek geek. I have been a fan of the franchise since I was young. One of the things I love about Star Trek is the tech. As a child I wanted my own tricorder, phaser and communicator to the point I produced makeshift toys when real toys weren’t available. It is a good thing that times have changed. The toys that have been produced in the last 20 have evolved from toys that looked like, for lack of a better word, toys to now looking like actual props. We can thank the folks at Diamond Select Toys for many of these amazing looking toys (thank you). They have produced Original Series phasers, communicators and several tricorders. All of which are amazing. They then made the move into the movies with a phaser from Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and again they nailed it. Now Diamond Select Toys has produced a phaser that has never been made as a toy before, the phaser from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
Star Trek III was a mediocre movie but the design of the phaser was a beautiful homage to the phaser from the original series. I have always liked that phaser and of course wanted one but as I mentioned there were no toys. I did purchase a very expensive prop replica from a convention in the early 90’s. Although the replica was a beautiful representation of the movie prop it was very fragile (you see where this is going) and when it was dropped the beautiful resin prop shattered like glass. This was a problem. It may have taken a several years but now I have the toy have always wanted.
Diamond Select Toys and Art Asylum have produced an exact replica 1:1 scale of the phaser as seen in Star Trek III. Granted the screen time for the phaser was all of about a minute of screen time (making it the Boba Fett of the Star Trek universe) but this is a great piece of Star Trek history. Frankly this is one of my favorite phasers. I do love them all but I love some more than others…much like you do with your children or cats.
The Star Trek III: The Search for Spock phaser is a perfect 1:1 scale prop reproduction without the ridiculous price tag. This phaser, as with all the other DST phasers, has multiple settings. The phaser has four power settings, heat, stun, kill and disintegrate. Also if you place the power setting on high and then depress either trigger (whether on the main unit or the smaller phaser 1) you can set the phaser on overload. There is a similar setting on the Star Trek: The Motion Picture/Wrath of Khan phaser but the overload will shut it down; the Star Trek III phaser has an actual switch to shut it down.
The Star Trek III phaser, like the other phasers in the line, is designed to have the smaller phaser 1 unit removed. All of the electronics for this phaser are located in the phaser 1 unit which means once you remove it from the main body the “pistol” part will not make sounds. The phaser takes 3 LR44 batteries which are included.
All I have to say about this phaser is that the people at Diamond Select have done it again. When I saw these 2 years ago at Toy Fair I knew that it would be an amazing toy once it went into production and I was right. This phaser is a perfect addition to your home armory. You should not beam down without this one.
There is a variant version of this phaser that will be available soon. The where and when of the variant are currently being kept a closely guarded secret at Star Fleet Command but we will keep you updated. Once we are able to give you the word we will. Believe me I have seen the variant and I want that one as well.
The Star Trek III: The Search for Spock phaser has movie accurate lights and sounds and is great for cosplay or just to add to your collection. This phaser is available now at your local comic shop or at the Diamond Select website. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up. “And the Adventure Continues…”
