Playmates Toys Star Trek figures and toys

[Podtastic]

On 1/25/2022 at 2:47 AM, mechaninac said:

A chubby TOS phaser pistol.

That TOS pistol still looks better than the TV remote TNG phaser though.😆

[pengbuzz]

On 3/22/2022 at 3:20 AM, Podtastic said:

That TOS pistol still looks better than the TV remote TNG phaser though.😆

A potato looks better than that TNG phaser remote.

[sh9000]

[sh9000]

[sh9000]

[mikeszekely]

I forgot this thread was a thing.  Seems my local Walmart is carrying some (or maybe all) of Playmates' Star Trek stuff.  I understand that people are kind of upset that they're not like Star Wars Black Series-ish figures but Star Trek, but I think the idea is that they're more like retro-style figures, like the TMNT reissues or the He-Man stuff.  Those TNG figures are basically the same ones I had as a kid (except Riker has his beard, now).  Still, maybe they should be more like the Black Series, because nostalgia alone wasn't getting me to buy.  I passed on the phaser, too.  Maybe if you could remove the Type-1 phaser from the Type-2 grip I'd have bought it... or if it were a TNG Type-2.  Heck, I might still check it out if they have more next time I'm there.

I absolutely bought the Enterprise, though.  It's all colored plastic, and no one is going to mistake it for something more premium like a Diamond Selects Enterprise.  But, it's a decent size, it comes with a stand, it has sound effects from the show, and it lights up.  And, while I don't know about some of these online prices, at Walmart it only ran me $40.  At that price I'm satisfied, and would happily buy a few other ships (Enterprise refit/A, Excelsior or Enterprise B, Enterprise C, Enterprise D, Enterprise E, Voyager, Defiant, Thunderchild for sure, probably Discover, Zhang He, Titan, Titan A, and Enterprise F, maybe a D'deridex Warbird or Klingon Bird-of-Prey even).

[Chronocidal]

I haven't looked for that one on shelves, but I might pick if up if I run by it.  I do think the giant screw holes all over it need something to cover them though, they're kind of obnoxious.  Probably would have been a lot less visible if they put the holes on the insides of the nacelles.

Definitely glad to see some main-line Trek toys on shelves again though.  It's been far too long.  

Edited February 6, 2023 by Chronocidal

[sh9000]

Engage.

[mikeszekely]

19 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

Engage.

I kind of want that bridge playset... but then I'll have to buy the TNG crew to put in it... and then I realize that what I really want is a for Playmates to do an Enterprise-D.

[Chronocidal]

Do what I did, I spent some of my pandemic boredom trawling ebay for the old ships, and came away with a couple of the old Playmates ships NIB for about $20, and a handful of garage sale kitbash fodder copies for between $10-15.

[sh9000]

I think I have the Enterprise-D and other ships still at my parent's house.  If Playmates releases the Enterprise-D again then I might get one.

[sh9000]

Enterprise-D and Classic Communicator.

[Chronocidal]

Oh wow.  Ok.. I might bite on that one, depending on the detailing and construction.  And I would be over the moon at an "All Good Things" edition.  

I'm going to make the assumption that this will not replicate the original multi-button sound board that made it such a great toy, though.. but if the molds are the same, I will absolutely swap the boards out and build myself an updated version with LED lighting.

[sh9000]

I'll get one.

[mikeszekely]

I'm in.  Put me down for an E, too.

[tekering]

4 hours ago, sh9000 said:

I'll get one.

3 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I'm in.

Seriously, guys?

Am I the only one who thinks Playmates did a better job THIRTY YEARS ago? 🤨

Sure, the lack of "aztecking" is still egregious, but at least they'd bothered to paint the escape pods and phaser strips, back in the day... 😐

 

[mikeszekely]

5 minutes ago, tekering said:

Seriously, guys?

Am I the only one who thinks Playmates did a better job THIRTY YEARS ago? 🤨

Sure, the lack of "aztecking" is still egregious, but at least they'd bothered to paint the escape pods and phaser strips, back in the day... 😐

 

Maybe they'll fix it before release?  I dunno, I bought the new TOS Enterprise and it was pretty good for the price.

[Chronocidal]

So.. couple of odd things I'm seeing.
First, no lower phaser strip at all.  Second, the windows on the lower surface of the saucer look photoshopped in.  In fact, they look copy/pasted all over.  Same for the screw holes.

I don't trust anything about that image, in fact, because that's a staggering amount of blatant photoshopping.

What I am seeing though, is that a few key details look close enough to the original toy that I'm thinking it'll be closer once we see an actual product.  The bussard collectors are still that thin shape sticking out, rather than a dome, the screw holes are generally in the same place as the original, and the shape of the deflector under that gold photoshop dish looks like it has the same angled ribs as the original.  It also looks like they replaced the original sliding battery door with a new design that screws shut, and added a stand mount under the deflector.

I'm not expecting this to replace my old ones in the slightest, but I will wait and see what sort of shape the final product is in.  They will need to redesign the saucer so it can detach, so that's going to rearrange a lot of the construction.

At the very least, I expect to get some fun toys for potential kitbashes.  
 

[sh9000]

Additional Enterprise-D pics.

[tekering]

15 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

You'd think, with all that blatant Photoshopping in their promo pics, they wouldn't leave half the windows unpainted... 🤨

[mechaninac]

Art Asylum did a MUCH better job all around making theirs look very authentic and almost model-like... I mean, just look at the cobra neck on the battle section of this Playmates; it is atrocious.

[Chronocidal]

That is honestly just bizarre.. Why would you make such a terrible image to advertise your product?  Usually the promo images look better than the final product..  

Looks like someone made a photoshop layer of the windows, and slapped it on the hull without checking for alignment... taking some cues from Eaglemoss, eh Playmates?

To be fair.. the Art Asylum/Diamond Select ones were much closer to models, and they were definitely for a different market, so I don't expect this to compete at all, but this is looking like a pretty big step down from even the old 90s version.  I completely believe that button placement though, it's right in-line with what they did on the TOS version.. namely, huge and ducking fugly.  

[pengbuzz]

Hard pass. Playmates found new ways to fail where they once succeeded.

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

So what price point are they going to be selling the D at?     If its gonna be $30-$40 then I don't see an issue.    I still have mine from the 90s and it looks to be about the same other then button placement and the separating saucer. 

[Chronocidal]

The TOS one is around $40, so I'd expect this to be sold for about the same.

I'm waiting to see if they improve any of the issues it has first, but if the electronics are any good, I might buy one just to kitbash the parts with one of the old versions I have disassembled.

[lechuck]

This is so bad.  Why bother with saucer separation if the battle head is going to be bland and incorrectly sculpted. Then we have thick edges around the pylons and rear, the warp nacelles missing the lower socket part that connects to the pylon, saucer impulse engines all red, main impulse engine sculpted wrong and ugly seam lines everywhere.

It's like they took that age old AMT/ERTL model kit as basis and decided to make it even more uglier.

Sorry, but Aoshima's Enterprise-D is still the best to me, there is nothing out there that beats it at the moment.

[Chronocidal]

19 minutes ago, lechuck said:

Sorry, but Aoshima's Enterprise-D is still the best to me, there is nothing out there that beats it at the moment.

I would be all over a re-release of that version, or any other version they would make.  None of the Art Asylum/Diamond Select releases even approached that amount of detail.

[derex3592]

On 8/8/2023 at 3:31 PM, Chronocidal said:

I would be all over a re-release of that version, or any other version they would make.  None of the Art Asylum/Diamond Select releases even approached that amount of detail.

So say we all......

[mikeszekely]

Yeah, it's not as good as the Art Asylum or Aoshima ones.  It also costs like a third or less.

[Chronocidal]

41 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Yeah, it's not as good as the Art Asylum or Aoshima ones.  It also costs like a third or less.

In current prices, sure, but the Art Asylum/Diamond Select ones were around $60 when they released, and I even saw some of those on clearance.

And despite the saucer separation feature, the pictures shown so far don't have as much detail as the 1992 version.

Inflation aside (because the original toy was $25 at the time), this is a pretty significant downgrade from that one, and it's pretty clear they really only intend to sell this to kids who don't care.  I would argue the same for the TOS version, but that gets a partial pass, due to not having those sorts of details to begin with (but the screw holes are still incredibly obnoxious).

I can't really fault them for targeting that market, but in the vacuum left by both Eaglemoss and Diamond Select either dying or ending their production, all this is doing is driving prices and demand higher for something targeting the collector market.

Edited August 10, 2023 by Chronocidal

[mechaninac]

35 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

..."it's pretty clear they really only intend to sell this to kids who don't care."

"I can't really fault them for targeting that market"

That's the thing that is totally bizarre, imo:  TNG ended its run over 2.5 decades ago; the number of kids who'd be even remotely interested in a toy of anything related to TOS, TNG, DS9, or Enterprise (closing on being 20 years since it ended its run... sheesh, I feel old ) today must be so miniscule as to be less than a statistical rounding error.  Merchandize for any of the old shows, regardless of which franchise/IP, are entirely targeted at parents, mostly men, riddled with nostalgia for items from shows of their youth, the vast majority of which will be far more keen, Super Deformed fetish aside, on authenticity than playschool-esque versions, especially hardware.

[Chronocidal]

That's a really fair point.  Seems silly to make things for kids who probably have no idea what Star Trek even is.

Though I guess they might be banking on the idea that parents will get their kids into the shows?  It's actually kind of weird to think about, but to make a BSG reference, "This has all happened before, and it will all happen again."

Consider the condition the Trek Fandom was in after TOS ended, and TNG hadn't begun yet.  The franchise was being kept alive by movies, and when TNG first appeared, it was hated by a lot of the fandom.  It took a couple of seasons before TNG found its footing.  I don't want to make any sweeping generalizations about the quality/content of the current shows, but I can definitely see the parallel in how the fans are receiving the new material.  If you string together Discovery and SNW as a single "show," we're kind of right back in the early seasons of TNG.

We're back in a period where there's new content for kids to get into, whether that's SNW, Lower Decks, Prodigy, or whatever else.  It's a great opportunity for kids to be asking their parents, "Hey, what's this space show about?"  I know, because it's exactly how I got into TOS.  I saw TNG on TV, and my dad went, "Hey, I used to watch something like this when I was growing up."  (Ok, maybe embellished a bit, but I do remember growing up watching both shows with my dad).

Or maybe they're just targeting the potential demographic of kids who see their parents' cool spaceships in the display cabinet, and want one of their own?  I know I heard stories like that when Yamato first started making their new VF-1s, and some of the members with younger kids here were grabbing up Chunky Monkeys to give their kids so they had something too.  

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by Chronocidal

[sh9000]

https://www.amazon.com/Playmates-Next-Generation-Enterprise-Ship/dp/B0CHWV3THF

Edited September 25, 2023 by sh9000

[Chronocidal]

Boy, silly me, thinking they would put photos of the finished product on the box art.  Those are still the same pre-production photo(shop)s.

I think my favorite part is that half of the "feature" callouts on the back of the box point to details that do not exist on the toy.  

[mikeszekely]

I hope it comes with a stand. Or is at least compatible with with one that can't with the TOS Enterprise.

Pretty sure the TOS Enterprise was cheaper at Walmart than Amazon. Might wait a bit to see if it turns up there, but I'm probably going to bite. As iconic as the TOS Enterprise is I grew up with TNG, but I had the old Galoob action figures for Riker, Picard, Data, Geordi, and Word (back when Geordi and Word wore red uniforms).