The Action Figure and Toy Collecting and Discussion Thread!

No, no, no, no....not at all. That'd be silly and I won't condone it.

Unless, you know, you...want to. Or whatever.

 

There was a comic version of Maria Hill released years ago in a two-pack with Iron Man in the 6" Marvel Legends line. It was impossible to find back then, and fetches a high aftermarket price.

To the best of my knowledge, there has never been any version of Pepper made.

 

So there's going to be no action figures based of Star Trek Into Darkness??

The Playmates from ST'09 left a pretty big stink huh.

 

There were lots of rumors that Hasbro would produce a line of new Trek action figures based on the upcoming film, but all that fizzled over the past couple of months. If there had been any 3.75" Trek figures planned they would have certainly made an appearance at the New York Toy Fair last month, and the only new Trek stuff on display were the Kre-O building block toys.

 

This is gonna be the first Trek movie without an action figure line since Undiscovered Country in '91

 

Yep. Sad, really. But the current toy market is a complete and total mess.

 

The Playmates line sold so abysmally I can't really blame them. There's still Trek '09 action figures shoved in the corners of a clearance rack at one of my local TRU's. Those things don't sell. I'm actually surprised that any company took a chance on marketing for the brand this time out.

 

I saw some leftover 12" figures from the last movie on the markdown shelves the last time I was in my Toys 'R' Us. Except for the Spock Prime and Nero figures the 2009 film merchandise just plain fizzled.

 

The kids didn't want them because kids aren't big in to Star Trek, and the collectors didn't want them because they looked like crap. There was no market for those figures at all.

 

Playmates might have been viable at a time when action figures were beefier, bulkier and weren't expected to have spot-on resemblances to the characters, but the nineties are over. If action figures want to succeed in the age of iPad apps and Sideshow Premium Format they need to look amazing and appeal to at least part of the toybuying public.

Like you said, kids didn't want them and adults thought they looked pretty bad. If you can't connect with at least one of those two demographics your figure line is toast.

 

It's still very possible that we could get a line announced later in the year. Marvel Select did this with "The Wolverine" recently when no one thought there would be any figures from that film. It's unlikely given the points the rest of you have made, but as we all know as Trek fans...there are always possibilities

 

I guess we'll see. I know if I were running a Trek figure line that I wouldn't limit it to just content from the new film. I'd include superior resculpts of 2009 movie figures as well as Prime timeline characters stretching all the way back to TOS to give the line an astounding amount of variety and appeal to far, far more people than just those who will be seeing the new film in a couple of months.

I'd release a collection that would include characters as wildly different as Benedict Cumberbatch, Sally Kellerman and Admiral Forrest, but then that's just me. I like my figure lines to be wide and eclectic so they remain fresh and interesting.

 

I might have been tempted to get some of those 09 figures but they looked terrible.

I've been frothing over the most recent high rez images of the Kre-O series... I just might have to get them all. The Enterprise herself is quite a work of art... I wonder how hard it would be to "burrow" out a functional main engineering.

 

@cooleddie that's kind of what I would do. I'd have a "Trek All Stars" type line featuring a variety of characters from all the series and the films. There would be two packs as well maybe in a "rival" packaging type thing.

 

Good idea with the two-packs!

TOS Kirk and Gorn
TOS Kirk and Khan
Movie Kirk and Khan
Picard and Q
Sisko and Dukat
Janeway and Borg Queen
Archer and Silik
nuKirk and Nero


The list would go on and on and on....

 

^ That's precisely along the lines of what I was thinking. Or you could do a "Trek Moments" type thing as well containing figures "re-enacting" moments from the shows or series. Like when Q was punched by Sisko for example. My mind is limitless with these types of ideas.

 

A "Trek Moments" two-pack along the lines of what you suggest could also include Captain Robau and George Kirk. We know toy companies can closely replicate Chris Hemsworth's likeness because of all the Thor figures and collectibles out there, and it would be kinda cool to see a Faran Tahir action figure of some kind.

Call the two-pack "Battle of the Kelvin" or something along those lines. If nothing else the more hardcore fans and lots of folks on these forums would buy it.

 

Perhaps that could be among a "Captains and First Officers" two pack, but yeah there are really limitless opportunities. Of course you'd probably get into a bit of a variant problem here or though but collectors I think are smart enough to pick and choose what they want that shouldn't be a problem. If it's "kewl" enough and affordable and the quality is there, we'll go after it IMO.

 

If it'd get a new, much more screen-accurate Jeffrey Hunter Pike and Majel Barrett "Number One" made I'm all for it. The market and collectors would definitely benefit from a super-articulated update of the original Captain Pike after all these years.

 

I didn't give much thought to the '09 Trek toys, mostly because they looked like a hodge podge of shit. I did however take note of my own reaction to the merchandise when briefly considering one of the glasses at Burger King.

It's one thing to enjoy the new movies, but a different matter entirely to bring myself to put a Chris Pine Glass on my shelf and call it Captain Kirk.

They may be living in an alternate universe, I'm not.