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McFarlane Toys Gets Entire Star Trek Licence!


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#481 bgiles73

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Posted 05 August 2019 - 12:22 PM

I dont know if any of the rest of you guys here have children that are preteen - teenagers but YouTube has totally taken the place of Saturday morning and afternoon cartoons. If CBS/Paramount can just come up with that right product and figure out that right spokesperson blogger YouTube star I think they could easily compete with the likes of LOL Surprise dolls. In fact someone should contact Isaac Larian about maybe doing a Star Trek themed LOL Surprise doll wave!

#482 Gothneo

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Posted 06 August 2019 - 04:46 AM

that makes total sense. and your forced to at least watch 6 seconds or so of adds... maybe more depending on the channel. 



#483 Alex

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Posted 09 August 2019 - 04:09 AM

Not that they should draw this conclusion... but they are probably thinking that if Kirk & Picard can't cary the kind of numbers they want.. then Disco has no chance.... also could be that the terms of the license make it untennable... meaning CBS is asking too much royalty to make it worth the while.

I would guess it's likely the former rather than the latter. The problem is the flawed logic that "if Kirk and Picard don't sell, nothing will," when long time collectors have Kirk and Picard figures coming out their ears. Likewise, I think McFarlane is operating on a flawed premise that people will always want Kirk and Picard no matter what, completely neglecting the fact that Trek fans don't necessarily have one "big character" that they gravitate too. Part of the beauty of Trek is there's a whole bridge crew that you can get a decent chunk of cash from with just as many people interested in a character like Worf or Troi as they are in Picard.

 

I think Star Trek figures are at a point where they're kind of in a catch 22 type thing. The typical go to when creating a Star Trek line is to start with the absolute most popular characters, Kirk, Spock, Picard. The problem is we as collectors and even mainstream collectors with only a passing interest in Star Trek have had these characters shoved down our throats to the point where many just simply don't want another. It makes sense from a business perspective because while really avid collectors will want all characters some people may just want the top characters. So obviously you're typically going to sell 100+ Kirks for every Nurse Chappel. I think McFarlane just jumped in with this idea in mind and figured if it took off they would ride the wave and if not they had a nice one off set. I think if they had studied the prior offerings a little they could have done much better. The one easy thing to go after would have been a line of Voyager figures. Sure they're no Kirk and Picard, but there's a big hole in the market for those and a lot of collectors would've jumped on that and they could've kickstarted a whole new line.

I think they really missed the boat by not doing Voyager figures. I had no interest in trying to chase down another Kirk and Picard, at least not with full bridge crews, but I'd easily grab three complete Voyager bridge crews if you offered them in an absurdly priced set, and would probably grab them individually too. I'll buy a Picard from the "Picard" series, but if you want me to grab another TNG Picard, (or really, any other non-Movie, non "Picard" series Picard,) or worse, another Kirk, you'd better be offering me a complete bridge crew in one go, or Picard or Kirk need to be in wave 2 or wave 3. If wave 1 was Worf, Beverley and Wesley Crusher, Data, and maybe Lt. JG Geordi LaForge, with wave 2 being Picard, Riker, Troi, Yar, Chief Engineer LaForge, and maybe 1st season Worf, that would get my money. For TOS I'd easily take "Memorial Wave One" with Scotty, McCoy, Rand, and Spock, followed by "Living Wave Two" with Kirk, Sulu, and Chekov, and Uhura. Yes, this would put Spock in wave one still, but he wouldn't be what drove me to wave one, it'd be Scotty and McCoy mostly for me, and even then, I'd rather see VGR get some attention before we get another TOS wave.

 

I also think collectors, not casual fans, are going to be the people who jump start a new figure line, which means Kirk and Spock (and to a lesser extent, Picard,) shouldn't be the first figures we see. Now over time you may bring casual fans into the line once the collectors are really into it, and you could very well create some new collectors, but the people who get the thing off the ground are going to already be collectors who want something new, and not a 400th Kirk variant. I'm not saying I'll never buy another Kirk mind you, I'm just saying that I have several other figures I'd like to see first. VGR is at the top of my list, and whoever makes VGR figures, whether it's DST, McFarlane, or even Playmates gets my money. (In the latter scenario, they get it under protest, but they get it.)

 

Heck, if Mattel gives me a Mega Bloks Voyager and Voyager Bridge, I'll fork over my money so fast that even Fry's head would spin! :P



#484 bgiles73

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Posted 09 August 2019 - 11:06 AM

I think that in watching THE TOYS THAT MADE US on Netflix that what has been missing from the equation in most of the lines since Playmates first run is that these things just arent very TOYETIC ! I hope thats something that they can return to. Mego seems to get it. Thats why I mentioned LOL Surprise Dolls - My 10 year old mentioned that she would love to see Star Trek LOL Surprise dolls. I thought like Megos Marty Abrams - Ah Ha!

#485 RizzoPSU

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Posted 09 April 2020 - 12:18 AM

Does anyone know, in all honesty, if McFarlane's company reads this website/this thread/ or even tried to get input on what Star Trek fans want?
I just saw on DST Facebook that someone made a comment on a post about the Miles Morales resin statue now available, in the reply it claims (by someone not at DST) that DST is doing poor financially which is why no Trek. So why can't trek fans speak the hell up and say; "Todd, make the damn TNG phaser and some action figure we haven't had to buy 20x's over (I'm looking at you Kirk and Spock and Picard so sit down) and you can take more of our $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!"
Sorry, quarantine rant over.....back to the Romulan Ale.
Hope everyone on here stays healthy🖖

#486 Gothneo

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Posted 10 April 2020 - 02:14 AM

I doubt anyone from McFarlane scans this site... We might of scared DST off... I dunno... but truthfully, as you point out theres very little to chat about with regard to actual Trek Toys these days... but lets be honest... McFarlane pulled the plug on some pretty cool trek Items themselves! That DISCO Phaser looked dang cool... even with the red safety thingy. 

 

They claim they couldn't make it due to laws restricting toy gun sales... but they could have found a way to go froward... Anovos found a way... an expensive way but a way none the less that seemed to fill a demand!

 

I'm kinda bummed that Rodennberry exited the scene with the DIY kits... and I think its too bad that someone like McFarlane or DST doesn't fill that niche. 

 

https://www.bigbadto...onDetails/71570



#487 MisterPL

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Posted 10 April 2020 - 10:00 AM

Unless the license agreement restricts it, this may be the way to offer Star Trek product going forward.

 

I mean, if Todd can crowdsource that much money to produce one Spawn figure, I'd hope that he or DST would be able to offer something equally as attractive to Trek collectors. (Like an entire bridge crew of Minimates or 7" figures or a Drydock for the 1701 refit...)



#488 Gothneo

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Posted 12 April 2020 - 03:57 AM

Wow! As of this morning... he had almost 10,000 backers for that spawn figure. I think it works though because McFarlane is already known to be able to manufacture and deliver... still he's getting a good premium for that figure. Such a model might lead to fewer affordable items for many collectors... but then again, for many static items, like an actual bridge, they could print them on demand with industrial 3d printers, so who knows. Still its pretty exciting.



#489 Morgan

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Posted 16 April 2020 - 08:27 AM

Tbh, I don't see why this couldn't be replicated for some long-needed figures and vehicles, like the TOS Movies figures or the Ent-C. The big box retailers are kind of done as a toy delivery mechanism, especially in/after 2020.

 

The McFarlane audience is a very McFarlane audience, but there are far more trekkers out there than Spawn fans. 






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