New Star Trek movie? New Star Trek toys. It’s a fact of life, a universal constant, a law of brightly-colored, polypropylene nature. “Thou shalt exalt every franchise movie, yea, unto the seventh generation, with a full line of toys, dishware, tie-in novels, comics, and commemorative plates, all of them limited-edition-collectible-first-run-mint artifacts to be treasured from a distance behind velvet ropes and saved for future generations to also not touch.” That’s the way it’s been for toys from Star Trek, Star Wars, and superheroes of all stripes for years now. Ever since some enterprising geek sold his pristine childhood memory for more than the one with chew marks and its head missing, new toys have been carefully removed from the peghooks at Walmart and Toys-R-Us and lovingly transported to their new and permanent home in a storage locker while the new owner enjoys the smug satisfaction of knowing it’s there, somewhere. I’ve never been a good collector. I open my stuff. I sort of always thought that was the point. When I was a kid if someone told me my toys were collectible I’d have thought they meant finding all the pieces again. Back in the 70s I asked for and received the original line of Star Trek dolls from Mego ($2.87 each, any two for $5.50), complete with vinyl-and-cardboard Bridge set ($12.97, with working transporter!). And I can guarantee that the crew of the Enterprise never had a more harrowing mission than the ones they experienced daily in my backyard. My other Star Trek toys faired similarly. My plastic tricorder lasted about a month. My “Phaser Gun” — an unwieldy phaser-shaped flashlight the size of a hair dryer that projected shadows of the Enterprise, a Klingon ship, and, oddly, a traditional flying saucer — was far too large to tuck into my belt so it suffered a great deal of knocking around before ultimately being dismantled and rewired into a torture device for superhero dolls to narrowly escape from, sometimes. My communicator… I don’t know what happened to it. I suspect arson. Years later while visiting, I climbed up on my mom’s roof to get something down for her and found my 20-year-old Spock doll. Shirtless, chest bleached a kind-of-cool pearly white, he seemed to be reproaching me for my actions. “It is illogical to mistreat your possessions in this manner,” he seemed to say. “Weren’t you aware you could have gotten $90 for me on eBay?” Thing is, it’s that very rambunctious activity that made the toys valuable in the first place. A virgin Kirk, in his box, is worth what its worth precisely because kids like me had been busy recreating Viking funerals in the Halifax River with ours. Tearing and trashing and bashing, we unknowingly created a market. It was in the 80s, early 90s that action-figure collecting really took off. “People started paying a lot more attention to the condition of their packaging,” said Gareb Shamus, publisher of Toy Wishes Magazine. “Which is why nearly all of the most valuable toys are from before then – people used to take them out and play with them, so there are far fewer in-package copies in existence.” You’re welcome. And even though every single character — and variation of a character — in the universes of Star Trek, Star Wars, DC Comics, Marvel Comics and more have received their own action figure, it ain’t over yet. “Many smaller companies have emerged over the last decade and at the same time you’ve seen the major companies having a renewed focus on collectors,” Shamus said. “We’re going into a very exciting period of time where Mattel will be launching a new WWE line and Hasbro will have a big year with hits like Transformers, GI Joe, Star Wars and Wolverine (along with the entire Marvel franchise).” Which brings us to the new Star Trek toys coming from Playmates Toys in advance of the new J.J. Abrams-directed film opening May 8. But, get this: the manufacturers actually want kids to play with them. They’re priced to sell, not to collect, and are durable enough for some serious boldly-going. Action figures in a variety of sizes. Phasers, tricorders and communicators, $15 a pop, ready for your abuse. Bridge set with vinyl placemat deck, $25 bucks. The idea seems to be that Star Trek fans are getting a bit on in years, and it might be a good idea to appeal to the next generation, as it were. Will it work? “This will definitely catch on with kids,” Shamus said. “As kids are introduced to the Star Trek franchise for the first time, they’ll want to immerse themselves in the action, which means ripping open the Bridge and putting Kirk in charge of the I’m so there. And I look forward to personally increasing the value of every one of your collectible, untouched, mint-in-the-box versions. You’re welcome.
Courtesy Playmates Toys
They fought. They were buried. They were miraculously saved, when I remembered. They swam. They swung. They flew, often into really hard objects (or surprisingly breakable ones). At least once every other day or so I had to haul out the ladder and make the nerve-wracking trip up to the roof to rescue a hapless landing party member who had landed a bit farther away than I intended. My Star Trek dolls totally whupped my friend David’s squadron of G.I. Joes, which, I’m sorry to say, suffered terrible, lighter-fluid-induced losses.
At last! New Star Trek toys to bash
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Doesn’t Uhura look a little Mirror Universe to you?
I look forward to making Playmates year and arming my kids.