Star Trek to launch a new action figure line but will reach the heights of the Playmate version?

If you're a fan of a certain age, you remember how cool it was to go through Toys R' Us and see Star Trek action figures lining the wall. Designed and produced by Playmates, the small action figures had a very successful run for over a decade, pumping out new toys every so often of our favorite characters.

It felt like anything made between 1988 and 2000 got a toy. The films? Toys. The shows? Toys. The books? Toys. If there was a potential figure to be made, they made it. Everything from James Kirk and Khan Nooien Singh to a cadet Jean-Luc Picard and a cadet Worf. Playmates really milked the franchise for all it had.

Then the toys were done, shows and films like Enterprise and Star Trek 2009 didn't get the same support with merchandise and the partnership ended. Until it was revived only a couple of years ago. Star Trek: Prodigy led the way, and new toys were designed with the same old aesthetic. Yet, due to poor sales, and possibly Prodigy being canceled, the toy line was discontinued again.

Now, a new toy manufacturer is entering the race with the Nacelle Company. While it may seem like a good thing on the surface, as our own Brian T. Sullivan points out, there are concerns. As there should be. Though, price points aren't the ones I'm worried about.

The action figure line from the 90s did so well be Star Trek was a series for all. Kids and adults alike watched anywhere from one to two new episodes a week for a long time and supported the franchise in kind. They aired on regional networks or easy-to-access networks like UPN. These are things that Star Trek fans now, don't have.

They don't have toy-specific stores anymore, at least with brick-and-mortar locations. There is no "for all" Star Trek, instead targeting specific audiences and designing the show to accoomdate the type of fan it's for. Star Trek is also not very easy to access. At least, not the new stuff.

Everything is behind if not one, then at least two paywalls at a time. Making accidental access into it so much harder than it was when we were discovering it. So many people talk about finding Star Trek by scrolling through channels on a Sunday afternoon and finding nothing else worth watching but Trek.

Now, you have to be intentional with your desires, they can't just come accidentally. So with the inroads into Star Trek all the much harder to make for new fans, especially younger fans, a new toy line just doesn't seem to make sense. Hopefully, we can be proven wrong. Hopefully, the Nacelle Company can attract collectors and fans old and new alike, to play with and cherish these toys the same way collectors did with the Playmates line.

Yet, times have changed a lot. The fandom with Star Trek is older, and while collectors clearly still exist, they aren't enough to carry an entire toy line. Nor are there enough kids watching who can carry a toy line. After all, these are expected to be far more expensive than the Playmates toys, and those already failed because the collector and child fanbases weren't big enough to maintain.

Yet, a more expensive line can survive? I don't see that happening.