With the success of the first wave of Playmates’ Star Trek: The Next Generation action figures, the question became: what next?
For the most part, the answer was repetition. Just do what you did before, and everything will be fine.
The same Enterprise crew members released in the first wave once again formed the backbone of the new selection of characters, only this time in the season one and two spandex uniforms.
Unless you were personally besieged on the planet Naboo on May 3, 1999, you know where everyone went at midnight. They went to department stores and toy stores across America to try to pick these puppies up.
Waves one through three were released simultaneously, and huge numbers of the toys were produced. Collectors who bemoaned the fact that they hadn’t kept their original Star Wars figures in the original packing in the 1970s now bought about half a dozen of each – unless, of course, they were attempting to clean out one of the more conscientious retailers who limited quantities out of fairness. Scalpers abounded during the first few weeks, with Darth Maul prized particularly because the figure was initially shortpacked. Poor Jar Jar, on the other hand, warmed the pegs in many a store for quite a long time, with the character already suffering from a premature fan backlash.
Having moved four times in the past six years, to say nothing of the trading and misplacing that kids engage in with their toys, I have a few “orphan” figures that recently turned up as I packed for my latest move. The first of these is Twiki (right), from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The 1979 updating of Buck Rogers catered to the younger audience with this diminutive robot, and thus Meco’s line of action figures included Twiki (with Dr. Theopolis represented by a flimsy sticker which is in surprisingly good shape on this figure). Other characters in the Buck Rogers line included Buck, Colonel Wilma Deering, Princess Ardala, Killer Kane, Emperor Draco and Tiger Man.
It could be argued that one of the single most defining moments in the classic trilogy was Star Wars‘ Mos Eisley Cantina scene. Most of the creature work in the movie was crammed into the opening montage in this setting – outside of Mos Eisley, the only non-humans seen in Star Wars are Jawas, droids, Tusken raiders, and the creature in the Death Star’s garbage compactor.
Released at the same time as waves one and three, the second wave of Phantom Menace figures included two of the very best new toys in the series – and it’s hardly a coincidence that those two were among the first three that I picked up at midnight on May 3rd.
Space may be the final frontier, but it’s also just about the last subject on which you can expect any toy manufacturer to base new products – especially the early era of space exploration. But some toy companies have done just that. Here’s a look at some of the better space toys and collectibles.
It was a forgone conclusion that when the new Star Trek spinoff premiered in 1993, there would be more than enough merchandising to support and promote it. Indeed, companies that had once shunned the dark horse Next Generation were now beating down the doors at Paramount’s licensing department to get a piece of the highly anticipated – and publicized – new show.
By this time, Playmates had made a success of its ongoing line of Next Generation action figures as well as its initial offering of Classic Trek toys, and the company was more than happy to add Deep Space Nine to its Trek toy commitment.
Hasbro found itself in dire straits in 2000. Having milked Phantom Menace for dozens of characters (and almost as many duplicates of existing characters, only in slightly different costumes or specialized poses), the toymaker found that many of the Phantom Menace figures were still warming the pegs in retail stores across the country. Fans were railing against the higher price caused by the infamous CommTech chips, and complaining about the repeats of many characters.
At around the same time as the first theatrical trailer from Episode I hit theaters, Hasbro started riding the Phantom Menace horse very hard – including the new Flashback figures, which not only included the classic trilogy characters in new molds, but also a “flashback” photo which, depending on whether or not you pulled out the paper strip, would show each character either as he appeared in the Episode I era, or alongside the closest character (for instance, Princess Leia is compared to Queen Amidala, and Aunt Beru to Shmi Skywalker).
Released simultaneously with waves one and two, the third wave of Episode I figures delved into relatively minor characters. Arguably, of the third wave’s characters, Boss Nass got the most screen time in the movie, which isn’t really saying a whole lot. Mace Windu was also highly visible, but sometimes I feel this was due to the character’s prominence in the two trailers that promoted the movie months before its release.
Here’s an entire series of toys fraught with bloopers.
In pre-production for Star Trek: Generations, which premiered over the Thanksgiving 1994 holidays, a new costume design – rather a spiffy one, I always thought – was conceived for the crew of the Enterprise-D in their first film. But at the last moment, despite the fact that a lot of money had been spent actually creating these new costumes, the powers that be decided to reduce the number of “new” and unfamiliar elements, opting instead to outfit the Enterprise’s crew in a random mix of their original Next Generation uniforms and DS9-style jumpsuits.
There’s just one problem. Playmates had gotten to work on their new line of Generations toys before the movie ever got in front of the cameras …and as far as they knew, the new uniforms would be in use.
If the cantina scene from the original Star Wars was a gold mine for moviegoers’ imaginations as well as toy collectors, the opening scenes of Jabba the Hutt’s boisterous inner sanctum from Return Of The Jedi were even more so.
If you believed the advertising hype, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was going to be the next Star Wars. Now, of course, we all know it wasn’t, but that’s beside the point – we still got some decent toys out of the whole thing.
Mego, who also made toys based on the Buck Rogers TV series and Disney’s The Black Hole, (and had earlier based a 12-inch G.I. Joe-style line of figures on the characters as they appeared in the original series, opted for figures with no more articulation than the original Kenner Star Wars figures (whereas the Buck Rogers and Black Hole toys borrowed the nine-jointed design of Mego’s popular Micronauts toys).
1985: Star Wars was still bringing new adventures to our screens, though they were Ewok Adventures and the screens were in our living rooms, not the local theater. It wasn’t dead yet, but after Return Of The Jedi, it seemed like the saga of a galaxy far, far away wouldn’t be continuing anytime soon.
Despite releasing characters from A Piece Of The Action and City On The Edge Of Forever, Playmates’ most inspired choice of episode-specific classic Trek characters was its four-piece subset of toys from The Cage, the original pilot which NBC rejected.
Released in the summer of 1999 around July, the fourth wave of Episode I action figures included some long-awaited characters, as well some dramatic improvements on characters who had already been released.
Playmates learned one valuable lesson from the first wave of Deep Space Nine figures: get the figures on the shelves within a year of the show’s premiere. The Deep Space Nine toys took a year to hit the stores, and though their quality was arguably worth the wait, the buzz surrounding the launch of that series had died down by the time the figures appeared. Not so with the Voyager figures – these arrived in store within six months of the series premiere on UPN.
It’s hard to write a page on the fifth wave of Episode I action figures when they proved very hard to obtain in some areas. I don’t even have photos for all of them. This wave didn’t arrive until September and October 1999 in most markets, and it’s a good thing too – this wave’s version of Anakin is a huge story spoiler for the movie, if one understands the significance of his new haircut.
How do you merchandise a movie with such abstract imagery as Disney’s 1982 computerphile favorite Tron? It’s not easy, but Tomy figured it out. Rather than the traditional paint job, Tomy opted to mold the Tron figures in translucent plastic, painting on only the “circuitry” details of each character’s computer-world uniform. No characters from the movie’s real-world scenes were ever made.
Where the first wave of Playmates’ newly-launched Deep Space Nine range of Star Trek action figures was a resounding success hailed by collectors, the second wave had many people – ranging from serious Trek collectors to casual fans – scratching their heads in confusion. The second wave was the wave of Stupid Uniform Tricks, a cheap practice made possible by the fact that Next Generation and Deep Space Nine occasionally shared uniforms.
After the smash success of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Ertl stepped up to the plate to grab the toy license for Star Trek III – which, of course, was a much less action-oriented movie. Ertl produced only four characters, as well as small die-cast metal replicas of the Enterprise (not as good as the earlier version released by another manufacturer for Star Trek: The Motion Picture) and the Klingon Bird of Prey.
In 1998, Exclusive Premiere, the makers of numerous nostalgic pop culture figures and dolls, finally put in a bid to make Babylon 5 action figures. Though the cerebral nature of the series didn’t lend itself to a huge, exciting, Star Wars-scale line of toys – after all, how much action can an action figure of Ambassador Kosh really have? – it was nice to have, at long last, some fun little reminders of the B5 universe. In one of his Usenet postings, even series creator J. Michael Straczynski admitted to being a fan of the toys.
Well, “Shadows Of The Empire” sold, so why not? Actually, truth be told, I was more than happy to snatch up as many of the scarce Expanded Universe action figures as I could, while I never even considered the “Shadows” toys seriously. The Expanded Universe characters originate from the novels and comics that appeared in the early 1990s, and even a couple of figures from the Dark Forces video game.
A few months after Playmates’ second wave of Star Trek: The Next Generation action figures hit the shelves, the third wave was released, introducing many more episode-specific characters to the mix.
Gone were the tricorder/phaser “holsters” which had graced the Enterprise crew member figures since the first wave. Sadly, the cheesy phasers – complete with day-glo orange “beams” – remained standard-issue for the Trek toys.
For the second wave of the retitled, all-encompassing Power Of The Jedi figures, Hasbro turned to an interesting mixture of fan requests from the original trilogy, new Episode I characters and a few revamped versions of previously released characters, and several revisitations of the original Kenner line.
1996: Voyager was over a year old, First Contact was on the way, and Worf had been a fixture on Deep Space Nine for several months. In a way, this time frame was the last hurrah for Star Trek merchandising, before the public tired too much of the franchise. Playmates, having seen very limited success with its lines of Deep Space Nine and Voyager action figures, folded all of its Star Trek toys into a generically-packaged range whose blister card simply bore a movie-era “Star Trek” logo. While continuing to introduce characters from the later series, Playmates also acceeded to fan demand for more version of the classic Star Trek characters.
Very late in 1998, Exclusive Premiere released a long-awaited second wave of Babylon 5 characters by popular demand. In many toy stores, the first wave of figures were still warming the shelves, and were discounted from their lofty $8.00 price tag to around $3.00 each. B5 fans were eagerly picking up the figures, but the cold consumer reality of it was that it seemed like they were the only ones doing so.
Welcome to our look at the Star Trek: First Contact toys, or “how Playmates killed the Star Trek action figures.”
I admit to being frequently critical of Playmates Toys’ for its handling of the Star Trek line from 1996 onward, and here is where I think they went wrong.
With the eighth Star Trek film on the horizon, Playmates liaised much more closely with Paramount this time around, trying to avoid a costly fiasco like the incorrectly-costumed toys from Star Trek: Generations.
Man, I need to get myself into a Star Wars flick someday.
That way, even if I show up for about ten frames of film, I’m almost guaranteed to have an action figure. Need proof? Check out one of the most recent Star Wars Episode I Cinema Scene box sets, “Watto’s Box.” Specifically, Watto’s Box refers to his box seat at the Boonta Eve pod race, which he shared with some really odd company.
In 1994, it was clear that Star Trek: The Next Generation was on its way to syndication heaven, as the series was due to be retired and promoted to movie duty. Playmates had diversified its line of Star Trek figures in anticipation of this, branching out to create ranges of Deep Space Nine and Classic Trek figures. But Playmates wasn’t about to quit trying to cash in on Next Generation’s success just yet.