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Star Trek: Starships Model/Magazine Subscription

I think they made a mistake stopping the ongoing collection. Inertia's a big deal with any kind of periodical, and cutting that off, putting the onus on customers to continue while essentially raising prices and enforcing shipping costs by making them use the store was probably a huge stepping-off point for people.
 
The terribly designed DISCO ships were practically being given away. All reduced to a tenner here in the UK for months and months before the collapse.

I think that was also a symptom of the general mismanagment/overextension of the company. They went from having one Star Trek ship subscription to by the end like 4 or something like that?
 
I think they made a mistake stopping the ongoing collection. Inertia's a big deal with any kind of periodical, and cutting that off, putting the onus on customers to continue while essentially raising prices and enforcing shipping costs by making them use the store was probably a huge stepping-off point for people.

Yeah, I honestly probably wouldn't have bought 75% of the ships I got in the subscription from the store. They should have just added the Disco ships into the regular subscription at the smaller size and they probably would have been able to move them better, plus the final collection of both would have been more cohesive.

I always assumed a big part of the DSC line becoming larger was the odd shape of the Discovery herself. She would've been practically Micro-Machine scale at the normal line's box size.
Probably some truth to that, but even in the regular collection there were a couple of oddly shaped ones that got different boxes, so they could have done her a little larger (probably should have done this for the 1701-E, whose regular release was pretty dinky). Or they could have just done her as a special, that's what they did with Deep Space 9.
 
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I always assumed a big part of the DSC line becoming larger was the odd shape of the Discovery herself. She would've been practically Micro-Machine scale at the normal line's box size.
The Discovery does have awfully long warp nacelles. Yeah, they would have had to make the rest of the ship much smaller to fit the regular range.
 
Here is the new Playmates TOS Enterprise, if the Protostar is anything like it, shoud be relatively decent, might be a bit "plasticky" and the lights/sounds buttons will be prominent, however.

https://mms.businesswire.com/media/...k_OriginalSeriesEnterprise_Playmates_copy.jpg

yeah, if your looking for the Protostar to be fully screen accurate I think your gonna be disappointed. Especially if it is built to change into that advanced warp mode.

The Discovery does have awfully long warp nacelles. Yeah, they would have had to make the rest of the ship much smaller to fit the regular range.

yeah, it would have been shrunk dow like the Excelsior and E-B. It would have been fine, just tiny.
 
I think there was a very rudimentary mock up of the Playmates Protostar that suggested it would open up to seat the action figures, so I don't think it's going to be a reference quality studio replica.
 
Here is the new Playmates TOS Enterprise, if the Protostar is anything like it, shoud be relatively decent, might be a bit "plasticky" and the lights/sounds buttons will be prominent, however.

https://mms.businesswire.com/media/...k_OriginalSeriesEnterprise_Playmates_copy.jpg
That's odd, I was expecting it to be a reissue of the 1990s Playmates TOS-E, but looking at photos of the old one, this one actually seems less accurate. The big panel lines, and the cockeyed nacelle interiors both seem to be absent on the old one, and the buttons were on the "spine" that's attached to the impulse engine, no the bridge dome.
 
I think there was a very rudimentary mock up of the Playmates Protostar that suggested it would open up to seat the action figures, so I don't think it's going to be a reference quality studio replica.
I wasn't sure if that mockup represented a playset for the figures and there wouldn't be a seperate starship release. However, I bet that @Paul755, is right and the ship toy will be transformable.
That's odd, I was expecting it to be a reissue of the 1990s Playmates TOS-E, but looking at photos of the old one, this one actually seems less accurate. The big panel lines, and the cockeyed nacelle interiors both seem to be absent on the old one, and the buttons were on the "spine" that's attached to the impulse engine, no the bridge dome.
Yeah, I was half-expecting a reissue as well - the role play phaser looks more like it might be, but maybe that's also completly new and it's more there's just less room for variation. I guess now that I think about it, it's been like 25 years since those toys originally came out, the molds, etc., were probably scrapped decades ago, so maybe we shouldn't have been surprised.
 
Yeah, I was half-expecting a reissue as well - the role play phaser looks more like it might be, but maybe that's also completly new and it's more there's just less room for variation. I guess now that I think about it, it's been like 25 years since those toys originally came out, the molds, etc., were probably scrapped decades ago, so maybe we shouldn't have been surprised.

Maybe, but you can still (more or less) buy the 1960s TOS Enterprise model kit and 1970s TMP kit new today, alongside newer, more accurate kits. And, like I said, this new one actually looks more toy-like with compromises in proportion and detailing. I was hoping that post Art-Asylum/Diamond Select, Playmates might up their game, or at least maintain the level they generally had aside from their E-E starships.
 
I’m pretty sure it’s the same basic molds, but has been modified quite a bit. The original was very simple and flat, so I’m not at all surprised they’ve added grid lines etc, and obviously the electronics are completely changed. It’s not unlike what Hasbro did with the old Kenner Star Wars ships in the 1990s.
 
I wonder if they had to go for larger models to get the kind of margins they needed to offset the additional licence cost for Disco/Picard?

They wouldn't be the first company to ruin themselves trying to meet licence costs as well as other overheads. The rapidly increasing prices of the XLs were another red flag.

I just couldn’t bring myself to spend $80 on a ship from them, no matter how nice. My big splurge was the SNW Enterprise for $55.
 
You've got to hand it to this company--it recreated the Doomsday Machine for completionists' sake. Basically, a floating turd in space. Were enough warehouse movements completed to make it worthwhile?

I wish the company had licenses for Irwin Allen productions. A Juptier 2 and Spindrift would be sweet additions to my collapsing shelves. Preferably Cerritos-size.
 
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