If they made anything that was affordable for lower decks, my kid would buy it up. He loves lower decks, and to him, that's star trek, and the only one he connects with. Idk why they never go to what's out at the time
The new designs sucked. The new shows were not so good. Licensors know it won't sell. Even newer fans look at the old shows versus the new ones and see the obvious drop in quality.
Can there even be new fans? When we grew up there was 25 new episodes a year and then the episodes were repeated the other 25 weeks of the year. Today you're lucky to get 10 episodes. They never re-watch it because there's always some other new content coming out. They can have TWO years between seasons! It took Discovery 7 years to make five 'half seasons'! There's just no momentum to create new fans of anything anymore to where they want to buy merch.
Wow, this is shocking- seeing a "Fan" be just baffled as to why there is no Merch for Nu Trek shows- Because NO ONE Likes Nu Trek Shows. NO ONE wants Nu Trek Merch. They Keep releasing TNG Era stuff because that was the last time the show was good. The Only fans are Older fans because the Nu Trek Shows didn't make new fans. How can you not Understand that? My God, the denial is... Fascinating.
Lol, do you use tiktok? Or blue sky? Discovery has plenty of fans, same with all the other new trek shows. TH-cam and Facebook is so toxic, filled with middle aged men complaining about 'wokeness' or 'crying'. Always wanting their older Treks back because apparently they don't like change and growth. It's not denial I have. It's fact. SNW, Picard & Discovery were all in the top ten of streaming in their last seasons. Discovery spawned 6 spin offs. The audience is there, the marketing and merchandise isn't.
The new Trek shows SUCK that's why there is no merch. The company's that have to make this merch cannot make any money selling it because there are too few of you younger fans to buy the stuff or they don't have the cash like older ST fans do. Nobody (older ST fans) wants to buy it or at least very few people want it because the fan base for new Trek either don't care about merch or are not that into figures and other merch. If you were a manufacture of these items who would you rather sell to the older fans with money or the younger fans with no money or don't care. it's not like they haven't tried to sell the new Trek stuff it just ends up on the clearance shelf or goes to Ollie's discount store where it sits forever, I know I've seen it there for a year or more and it has a layer of dust on it. I refuse to buy the new Trek merch, I only buy stuff from TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, or Enterprise. Sorry mate until ST gets a whole lot better, as Dr. McCoy say's "It's dead Jim"
There are likely a myriad of reasons, but one big one in my opinion is, there simpy isn't enough interest in the newer shows like Disco. Picard, Strange New Worlds etc, because they strayed too far away from being actual Trek for fans to want to spend their hard earned money on low rate fantasy-sci-fi.
What’s also missing from this conversation is that most of modern Trek, with the exception of Prodigy, is NOT family friendly. That means that kids aren’t watching. That was not the case in the 90s. Disco and Picard were the worst offenders. Lower Decks could appeal to a teen/young adult audience…potentially. Strange New Worlds is great but it to has elements that are not suitable for children. If a product isn’t for kids, why would they make toys?
It honestly baffles me why Paramount isn't flooding out merch for fans to recoup financial losses. Today most of the star trek store merchandise is generic and unimpressive. We've not really had any decent figures since the Art Asylum line either. That said, there's the exo 6 lines but while they're impressive they cost an arm and a leg. They should be marketing the hell out of prodigy also. 8:15 I also agree. So SICK of the Ent D.
@TrekTrav i collect and review the eaglemoss diecast models. Unfortunately they're no longer being produced but I think the UK site "Real merch" still sells them (not sure if they ship to AU though). If you're looking for ships that don't require building then I'd suggest those, maybe on ebay?
No One Wants Nu Trek Merch because Nu Trek was not Popular- If you hate the D then you can't like Star Trek. That's like saying you hate Leonard Nimoy or Kate Mulgrew.
@stevearts85 I never said I hate the D (although it's far from my favorite ship), I simply said I'm sick of the D... specifically sick of every company that gets the rights to create ships and then they whip out the same old 4,5 ships. There are tons of versions of the D out there. Starship collectors want some new stuff, doesn't *have* to be new trek stuff, but there is definitely a market for it.
The real facts is that the Enterprise D and the original are the most famous ships. Casual fans might pick them up. What is usually required is that enough people buy the initial ship to warrant the company to spend more on other projects. For a while there MOST of the merch out there was for TOS. That has shifted to TNG. Honestly do you think anything from Discovery would sell? It’s just not that popular.
CBS Consumer Products back in the day said close to the 30th or maybe 40th anniversary that TOS and TNG merch were “keeping the lights on”. No one buys figures/ships anymore besides adults, and no one wants anything from the Kelvin timeline (they didn’t even put out merch for the second movie) or anything remotely close to that timeline. So no STD, PRO, LD, PIC or SNW. Playmates recently attempted to bring back their figures and they cancelled the line before wave 2 even came out iirc.
LEGO is expensive. They have to produce what people will buy. There are already folks excited about the prospect of the LEGO Enterprise. People have wanted LEGO to do Trek for a long time. If the Enterprise D sells well I could see them making the SNW Enterprise. But no Disco, or, sadly, lower decks.
@@TrekTravStar Trek:The Next Generation proves this statement wrong. It was rejected by fans of the original at first but then went on to be greater than its predecessor. Alienating the Legacy Fanbase is a big suicide pill for the franchise when it’s viewed as a misappropriating Nu-Trek team again a Legacy/Gatekeeper Team. The whole image of being unable to compromise on anything is in total contradiction to the world Star Trek is trying to create.
You've hit the nail on the head here mate. The sad fact is Trek is just not mainstream anymore. After its peak in 1994 or so, we had about 10 good years of great merch and then it just seemed to flat line gradually. It doesn't help that the five new shows are tucked away on a streaming service that nobody really cares about. The fanbase is getting older and merch is aimed at the adult collector market. It's so rare to see Trek stuff in any shop now. Even the long running Star Trek magazine recently ended. I don't see Trek books in stores. No figures except online. No trek anywhere. There just isn't the demand. Here in Ireland, I'd be lucky to see a Trek product of any kind. Sad!.
Another fact: the studio has hidden these shows behind a paywall. (Let's set aside show quality for the moment.) Many potential fans are _lost_ because they're not going to PAY! How many great shows are there out there NOW that the majority of the audience have never heard of because they're off on some streaming service they don't have or want to pay for? Until the Streaming Wars are done there is no majority viewership to give a show that critical mass it needs. Gone are the days where 'everybody' watched Seinfeld or MASH. Many of the 'horrible' network shows that only got one season before being cancelled had viewership numbers that a streaming service would celebrate as a victory! 😆
Diamond Select did some of the best merch imo and I found it playable for kids but also loved and appreciated by collectors … however they just suddenly stopped and kept stringing fans along for years that they still had intention but hit “roadblocks”. It was so disappointing as it was after announcing two of my favourite ship designs.
This is not a difficult question to answer. Merchandising revenue for Star Trek has dropped 92% since 2009. What happened in 2009? The beginning of Kurtzman Trek. With each new movie or show, the original audience for Star Trek has slowly lost interest in the franchise, and guess what? Kurtzman Trek is not good enough to attract new fans. It's killing the franchise. You may not like hearing that, but the numbers don't lie. If you want merchandise from Kurtzman Trek, you're the only one who does.
@@michaelwills1926 The TNG era is what got me in to Star Trek. The difference is I don't want to live in a world of nostalgia and rose coloured glasses. The TNG era died because It stopped doing anything new after DS9 and that led to viewership decline and quality decline by the end of Voyager and Enterprise. The new Treks at least try to give diversity in its programming and style. Gene wasn't about looking backwards, coining the phrase 'infinite diversity in infinite combination'. The new shows are an extension of that. You can dislike them, you can not watch them, but in the end you don't get to decide what is and isn't Star Trek to people.
i noticed a big shift in merchandising when the phantom menace came out, merch went from globally available to be only available in regions, the AMT/polar lights star trek kits are expensive and hard to find outside of the US, the Bandai star wars kits are hard to find and expansive outside of the Asian market, Twas greed that killed Merchandising .
There has been a series of arround 70 brick models by the company bluebrixx, but they lost the licence just when they were ready to release some figures, so there just selling what they have left in stock now. But to give you an idea: they've had models of ships in up to three different sizes, DS9, Tricorders of TOS and TNG, figures close to FunkoPops, a Phaser Rifle and even a Borg sculpture.
I'm fine just collecting the 90s playmates line. Innerspace, the little ships with micro figures are really satisfying. Playmates did attempt a recent line with prodigy characters that look ok.OK. AND Prodigy season 2 on Netflix is some of the best trek lately.
Exo-6 has amazing figures for all the Star Trek shows. Most of them are very expensive, but they are generally pretty great. Many of them are sold out because they make super limited editions so you have to generally act fast. But the reason for the fall of merch is because the fan base has been demolished by Alex Kurtzman and his terrible Star Drek shows. Picard Season three and Lower Decks were bright spots, but for the most part, they treated the fans poorly and made terrible TV. So it's going to take something exceptional - perhaps Nick Meter's Ceti Alpha V pilot - to get everyone excited again. However, the old fans are still there for the classic shows, as evidenced by the $5M in presales for the Tomy Enterprise in 2024 and the fact that almost every Exo-6 figure sells out within a few months.
I disagree about the terrible shows. Picard Season 3 was a horrible pandering and unoriginal season with stolen ideas and a predictable ending. Discovery at least tried to do something new and by the last 2 seasons was truly Gene Roddenberry's vision.
It makes sense that LEGO go for something iconic like the Enterprise D - I don't get why Strange New Worlds wasn't the first show Playmates went for when they got the license. Ultimately though, Paramount need to do better at marketing the franchise around the world, keep trying to tap into a new audience and spend less time reading social media comments - Paramount must build up partnerships with global retailers across the world, team up with Playmates etc...
100%.. Every franchise seems beholden to a group of fuck heads on the internet. It's annoying. They need to just try and make the best show they can and give zero fucks
I’m an Aussie Trekkie in my 20’s and growing up with Star Trek I ended up getting the old playmates stuff from markets or the internet as there wasn’t any modern alternatives. I jumped all over the Eaglemoss line but now Fanhome sell to Australia and Corgi are starting with the TOS and TNG enterprises. It shouldn’t be this hard to get a model of the main ships from the shows.
Not hard to get the Enterprise D....lol It's genuinely a nightmare. I had to go to a pawn shop to get any of the old playmates figures and it was coincidence I found them. Thanks for commenting!
You’re looking at the issue incorrectly. Merchandising to the younger demographic means appealing to their world. Therefore the merchandising would be more in the video game and apps industry than in action figures.
Ive asked this question ever since Star Trek 2009 Kelvin film. Burger King had specialty glasses to collect, a eventual videogame, some action figures, and a comicbook series and thats all well and good, even if these things were few and far between, but that was it. NOTHING since. There were 2 other films but you wouldnt know it based on merchandising. WHERE ARE THE T-Shirts? Videogames? Toys? Collector cards? Posters? We got NOTHING. Hell, even Enterprise had a Toyline and thats far more than any of the new shows got. Haters can claim how unpopular Trek may be now, yet ironically its at its most successful than it ever was even in the 90s with up to 5 series going at once the past few years in this era, yet there is virtually NOTHING that would show it. Say what you want about Disney and the newer Star Wars films and shows, but they KNOW how to hock their merch and a PLENTY of it! Paramount and CBS on the other hand, ever since 2009 just simply doesnt seem to care. Even if Trek is among the top 3 franchises in entertainment behind Marvel & Star Wars, you wouldnt know it based on lack of merch. If Trek was under Disney this wouldve NEVER happened remotely. Hopefully Skydance will change this. But i wont hold my breath.
Star wars sections have diminished too here in the UK. Even in the comic book stores. Figures just don't appeal to younger audiences and a lot of older fans aren't so attached to the new characters
"Paramount seems really weird about this?" Paramount doesn't manufacture anything, they don't commission other companies to make lines either (Outside some tat for their webstore), other companies come to them and offer to pay the licence fee and receive authorisation to make merch. Those companies have determined there is less demand for subjects other than TNG. You can complain that Lego is making an Ent D despite all the other merch of it but Lego didn't see a cut of any of that. They are going to make the most in demand subject for a set that size and it's going to be the Ent D. (It's also an excuse to have a model big enough to have all the main cast except Tasha Yar for some reason, the minifigs are a big deal in Lego) The perspective of being fatigued with it is one of a hardcore merch collector which most buyers of this Lego set will not be. They will be trekkies or just casual fans of TNG who don't buy a lot of merch mostly and some hardcore merch collectors and others. You could make amazing Voyager, DS9 or TOS Ent models out of Lego too but they would sell a lot less. Maybe they will make them but the first set will be the Enterprise D, there would be much more complaining if they didn't. Maybe a line of shuttles one from each series with a couple of minifigs? Rightly or wrongly it is the manufacturers who have determined that it's not worth making nutrek subject matter (Or post 2000s, anything non TOS or TNG) and based on sales when it is made I have to agree with their assessments. Based on the internet it seems like there are more young people discovering and enjoying old Trek, particularly TNG (Which they now view in HD) and most of the hardcore nutrek people are actually a subset of older Trek fans who seem devoted and hungry for any new Trek no matter the continuity, tone or writing. There does not seem to be a lot of them. Nutrek simply doesn't inspire devotion like old Trek. It neither has the power of being more prominent on broadcast TV with fewer channels like old Trek nor is it anywhere near the same level of quality despite it's advantage of being more in line with modern TV production expectations and tastes. That the merch seems never to stray much from Picard the D or Data (Perhaps we could include the fairly cheesy fanfictiony third season of Picard here too.) is more indicative of a shallow demand leading to manufactures (Remember each manufacturer or licensor commissioning somebody else to make merch is coming in having made no money from what anyone else before made) rarely straying from the hits since it's the same amount of work to design and manufacture a Picard figure as a Barclay one or an Enterprise D as an Enterprise C but nowhere near the same demand. Given that Star Trek in it's older form has been dead since 2005 and hasn't really been a major franchise since having a very brief blip of prominence in 2009 it's amazing there is as much merch as there is. If you want DS9 or Voyager merch to match the TNG stuff we see today, you'd have to have Paramount prohibit TNG merch. Paramount isn't going to pass up anyone giving them money to make merch for their current shows and perhaps they even do demand you make a certain amount of new stuff if you want to make TNG stuff but they absolutely don't make demands the other way around. TNG was just so much more popular and iconic than DS9, Voy or Ent and perhaps even TOS, at least among core spenders today. See also how they never made any DS9 or Voyager movies. Paramount's new ownership may be trying to encourage more merch though either through having lower licence fees or removing conditions. The guys who did the takeover want their money back and Star Trek used to be a mint for Paramount in the 90s and 2000s.
Trav, I think the answer is that the newer Trek shows are just not that popular with kids and have not really caught on with older fans like myself. I have given all the new Trek shows and films a chance. There are some I have enjoyed more than others and then there are some I have not really connected with at all. I’m old enough to have seen TOS in its first run on NBC in the U.S. ( granted I was 3 -5 years old when it was on, but I loved it…especially the Enterprise herself ).That has always been MY Star Trek, but I remained open minded when the ‘90s series came out and eagerly looked forward to them. Despite TNG’s shaky start, I remained faithful and was rewarded by increased quality and when the merch came out, I was on it. The same goes for DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. I’m still more of a ship and tech guy than a figures collector, but over the decades I’ve filled the coffers of many a company. I’m no longer a completist, compelled to buy every item offered, but I do still collect what catches my fancy. I have found, however, as time goes on, I grow less and less enamored of the new ship and tech designs. The last, most modern designs I bought were prefab models of the Kelvinverse Enterprise and the Strange New Worlds Enterprise. As the designs get further and further removed from their predecessors, the less I like them. I understand the need for progress and updating, but to pretty much ignore what came before is franchise suicide. I despised the 32nd century ship and tech designs on Discovery, as they seemed more like fantasy or magic rather than actual, scientifically based realistic things ( ships with detached sections that magically float alongside, or reconfigure to entirely different shapes? Not buying it ). You may call me part of the problem, that I’m stuck in the past, which may hold some truth, but I did learn to enjoy the updated Kelvinverse ships ( well…except the “Beyond” Enterprise which just looked like something out of anime ). But the shows themselves have to have some kid appeal to them and other than SNW, Prodigy, and Lower Decks, I don’t see a lot of potential for kid friendly toys. TOS and the Berman era series may have been aimed at adults, but they appealed to kids as well. This new bunch of shows often miss the mark as kid friendly and as Star Trek. Until they figure those problems out, I think you’ll continue to find more legacy merch released than that based on nu-Trek.
The 32nd era ships aren't my fave either. I think Discovery itself looked cool with the upgrades but overall they were just too weird. I suppose a practical reason for the detached segments could be easily ejected in a warp core breach, or each section could work as it's own ship.
@@TrekTravPerhaps, but the amount of energy required to hold those pieces in place while the ship is in flight seems rather “cost ineffective” compared to a solid, physical connection. If in a battle situation an engine or something became able to be reconnected via energy after its solid connection was severed, that would be an interesting upgrade, but just keeping a part a few feet away from a ship at all times seems a waste of power ( particularly when one of the big story arcs involved a shortage of dilithium- and don’t ask my opinion on that story 🙄 ).
The Nu Trek shows are Dark & Depressing & deal with small melodramatic stories told through Long Form storytelling that requires pre-knowledge. No Fun. No Adventures. No Promise of a Strange New World Every Episode- why would anyone, why would kids tune into a Dystopian melorama?
Paramount has always slept on the Star Trek Lincence since the Kelvin films. For Star Wars you can buy everything from all clothing items to lightsabers and for Star Trek... almost nothing today. If it weren't for 3D printers and active fans who build printable models of badges, ships, tricorders and ships we would just have these overpriced replica collectibles. But you think about the current times... series have only ten episodes per season, with a year long wait between seasons and they are hidden behind a paywall. :(
You know, whenever I go to the types of shops that used to hold these figurines in the 90's, part of me still wanders around in the shop hoping to find some relics of that time...
Oh boy, where to start here....Paramount has NEVER known what they're doing with merchandising and promoting Star Trek in the 21st Century. Case in point, remember the marketing for their last movie (almost a decade ago now), which released the same year as the franchise's 50th anniversary? Or rather how little of it there was? I remember the only poster I ever saw in person was the one that's just the giant words BEYOND and nothing else. Then that abysmal first trailer and then no other trailer until like, a month before the film's release? Or how about Lower Decks? I'm seeing more promotion for the show NOW, that the show is DONE, than I EVER did while the show was still in production! And the Pops and keychains for Lower Decks? I've never seen them in person. Not only has merch and promotion for the franchise been few and far between, but what there is is SO expensive that even if something DOES appeal to you, you might not be able to afford it, outside of maybe a T-shirt, or a Funko Pop, and physical releases of the shows. And that last one, has only relatively recently become affordable. I remember season sets on DVD costing MSRP $120 USD each during the 00s. Hell, Master Replicas seems to just be reusing the Eaglemoss tooling and molds and selling, effectively, the same models at like, double the price! At this point, I'm grateful that the Fansets badges are pretty affordable! And while I understand your complaint about going back to the TNG well, especially as of late with the latest Playmates deal, I honestly wouldn't even mind that AS MUCH if it was at least NEW TNG toys! They're just giving us retooled (and in some cases worse) versions of the exact same TNG toys from 30 years ago! They're not even giving us NEW TNG toys! Hell, same for the TOS toys! Like, for all their release consistency issues, at least DST was TRYING to give us more varied and better quality stuff AND with new molds! Hell, that's PART of why DST's release schedule was so terrible, was because of the amount of actual R&D being put in! Would MUCH rather have DST's take on the TOS phaser and communicator than Playmates!
I agree wholeheartedly. In terms of advertising for the current shows. I saw a Picard poster in a train station and I've seen Pike on the side of the bus for paramount plus. It's really frustrating as well being a Star Trek content creator because finding new stuff is almost impossible.
The newer shows just don't generate the high interest that makes people buy stuff. TOS and TNG still sells. When Star Trek was extremely popular in the 70s, merchandise was everywhere. TNG in the 90s came close.
People who aren't collectors but just want the toys to play with or whatever aren't generally buying the toys - because they are sold at collector rates from the start. Not many parents are going to buy their kids $70 toy spaceships or action figure sets except perhaps on special occasions, and since they generally aren't made in large enough numbers for general consumption any more, it doesn't even happen then very much. Never mind $500 spaceships. Collectors buy them and sit on them, and not enough get sold. The rest go into a dump somewhere, and scalpers get them and make the problem worse. This deal eats itself: collectors want, so charge more - but now there aren't many who buy.
The playmates figures in the 90s were top stuff 👌 The galoob 3 3/4 inch figures of the 80s and older remind me of gi joe/action force figures I'm glad Lego have got a licence for official star trek sets. I might be thinking of getting some. Licenced lego sets are very expensive compared to regular lego sets, though. I think there were Kreo sets based on star trek chris pine and some playmobil sets. I never had those.
@TrekTrav Hello there. I don't know. I've only seen rumours. I hope it's true. I keep looking on the lego website every so often jjust in case. 🤞 If not, I'll keep making ships from scratch. Live long and prosper 🖖🙂
I've always personally thought that store exclusivity in the States, as well as the 1701 limited run figures of Barclay, Yar, and Picard were what killed the Playmates line. And that includes here in Australia. I was buying mine from various comic shops around Melbourne. And they dried up fairly quickly when the stores couldn't source product. Meanwhile. Stores like Kmart, Toy "r" us, and the sole Toyworld I shopped at that survived TRU's toy shop destroying onslaught, still had the usual peg warmers Lwaxana Troi and Sarek's by the boat load five years after the line died. No wonder the big boys won't touch Trek. If exclusivity, and limitability is what killed Playmates Trek line 20-25 year ago. You've gotta ask. What's killing the hobby now? Then you've gotta ask yourself if the companies ever learn?
I’ve long wondered why there isn’t a 3.75” action figure line for all of Trek. The largest figures are too expensive and the Playmates are too cartoonish. I’d love realistic sculpts of the actors. There’s a universe of 3.75” accessories too. Singles and packs of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, etc. Regarding models, why are there no plastic kits for tricorders or phasers? Buying the reproduction props are hundreds of dollars.
@ I have an appreciation for all the various scales. I build custom models from time to time too. In a world of 3.75” figures and accessories a “Legacy” Star Trek line would be the ultimate crossover toy. Star Trek meets G.I. Joe. Star Trek meets Star Wars. 7 or 9 points of articulation.
Understood! But I think that market does demonstrate that there is a consumer demand for Trek collectibles. Let’s hope Nacelle and Hiya are able to turn the Trek action figure market around!
Most of the merch these days is aimed at those of us who grew up on TNG and DS9. Fanhome has taken over Eaglemoss's Starship Collection line. HIya and Navelle have figure lines in the 1:12, 1:10, and 1:18 scales. Exo-6 has 1:6 figures and diorama pieces. Factory Entertainment does some very nice high end replicas. But as you note figures which might be aimed at kids, like Playmates' briefly lived line from a couple of years ago, just didn't do well.
I liked to collect the Ships. But they only kept releasing the same ships (excluding Eaglemoss Collection) Always wanted a large USS Reliant, and a TOS Kinglon ship (not another Bird of Prey)
Woolworths wasn’t really a grocery shop in the U.K. at all. Well no doubt they are releasing the D because of Picard, yes they should be including the shows other ships too but It’s obvious there would be a connection to the TNG stuff, it’s Picard for heaven sake. I’m very glad they did include the rest of the cast and the D, I would have been happy with the E as well obviously but it gave the TNG cast a proper swan song, something they didn’t get due to Nemesis’s awful story and director who assassinated any chance of further movies.
I just want six inch scale figures of every character to display with my other figures. If they were priced the same as Hasbro figures I'd buy every one.
Nobody wants new trek toys, the show focus to much on identity politics and strong women characters, they don't really know what makes star trek, star trek
Lol, you mean the progressive, extremely liberal Star Trek had new shows that were progressive and liberal? Janeway, Seven, Uhura, Kira, Dax etc. Not strong enough ?
@@TrekTrav What i mean is they throw out the star trek adventure and focus to much on current issues in the real world, I mean it bothers me that there telling a story to show that humanity is still dealing with identity politics and feminist and race issues 200 years from now?, really? Old star trek knew had to introduce current events and show that humanity was past that bs, writers today just don't know how to write good star trek, it's just how I feel. Older star trek didn't always get it perfect but most of the time they did and that's why die hard trekkies just rather re-watch older shows than the new ones.
@TrekTrav thing is they made a set of discovery figures. They didn't sell and sat in the bargain bins and eventually were sold at discount stores. I'm I the uk but in a nut shell new trek hasn't taken off so why merchandise it. It's jot a cas of it you make it they will sell yo u have to have a cool product first
@@LMM1701 You are Right. They made a self-involved long form Melordama- nobody wanted that. Not even the Progressive Fans of Strong women Like Janeway or 7 of 9.
ST: Discovery is rated 14+. Extremely violent. Do you think any manufacturer is taking the risk of making toys for that show? It isn't the '80s anymore when they made kid's toys for RoboCop. Most of the other streaming serialized Trek shows are also not very kid friendly. That's why they only made toys for ST: Prodigy. That was family-friendly. The rest of modern Trek is not.
@TrekTrav Irrespective of personal taste you are asking why there aren't toys being made for any of the more modern Star Trek series and I was positing that it was due to many of those shows being far more adult. Hence, they are less likely candidates for toys. Both in the 70s, when Mego was producing the 8-inch action figures and in the 90s when Playmates were at their height of toy production for Star Trek, it was driven by sales to children. '87 to '05 Trek was mainstream broadcast free television. Not a specialized serialized pay to see targeted at a specific demographic streaming series mainly for adults.
Some major problems: 1. the Star Trek they released now is neither fun, no high quality 2. the current Star Trek shows is spread across a confusing multitude of time periods (TOS, Just post TNG, Pre TOS that goes to the 32nd century....) 3. current Star Trek is limited to Paramount Plus rather than being widely available on mainstream TV How to fix it? Nuke everything that is currently ongoing. Also, don't refer to anything that some fans call "Nu Trek" like STD, Section 9, SNW, and even Picard even if we liked Season 3. Just ignore that they ever happened. Instead, put out *one* show. Set 50 to 100 years post TNG. Put it on mainstream television for the widest possible audience. Give it a tone similar to TNG but come up with a unique hook. Focus on exploration (seriously, how much exploration did TNG really do?). Push into a new area of the Galaxy we have never seen before. And, for God sakes, get real science fiction writers who will focus on intelligent sci-fi that can bring in the widest audience possible. And lock down their social media accounts so they don't honk off one half of the country or the other.
A. Different time periods shouldbt be a problems to today's audiences considering all the prequel, sequels, inbetweenquels. B. Mainstream tv is dying. No one under 30 watches it.
@@TrekTrav Short snarky answer: no one under 30 watches Nu Trek either. More serious: A. Different time periods are a problem because they are a barrier that causes confusion. It requires you to do homework to figure out how one relates to another and also harms synergy by blocking potential cross-overs. By contrast, NCIS is been quite popular and the difference is right there in the title, set in Los Angeles, Hawaii, etc.. You see similar "same yet distinctively and approachably different" with other popular shows like Law and Order, CSI, DIck Wolf's One Chicago Shows, etc... When Star Trek was popular, they only showed two programs at once (at most) and they occurred more or less concurrently with both DS9 and Voyager having unique hooks to give them a separate identity and an instantly understandable place in the universe. The last truly mainstream Star Trek television shows, Enterprise, was a prequel yet was only shown after the Voyager was over. B. I have heard that mainstream tv is dying for decades (cable channels like TNT, premium like HBO cable like yet it's still there chugging along and able to produce 26 episodes a year, every year, for a series while many streaming can't produce 10 episodes every two years. Sure, network television doesn't get as wide an audience as it once did but it is still reliably watched by many and makes money while almost every other streaming service that isn't Netflix loses money. Paramount Plus has only recently started to make minor profits after years of loses and it's not Star Trek that's driving it. If you want Star Trek to be as popular as it once was, it needs to be as available (as possible in the current environment) as it once was. Locking it up on a streaming services that most people don't have will not accomplish that. The lack of popularity and cultural relevance is evidenced by your own video; young people aren't interested and there is nothing motivating them to purchase Paramount Plus, especially with so much competition for other streaming and subscription services.
I’ve been trying to find good Star Trek merch for ages, but I’ve never been able to find anything actually decent except for ship models. So disappointing.
I think In the US the number of kids who play with toy has dropped dramatically. And even then its easier to sell a ninja or a fighting robot versus explorers/scientists. All that said I think it's a shame there isnt a single line that has all of the captains (Archer, Pike, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Burnham) or even without Burnham in the early 2000s all of those captains existed but figure lines would never include them all.
New Star Trek is not written towards kids. A lot of the issues raised are things that (particularly among the US market) are - somewhat ironically, given TOS/TNGs forward-thinking writing - considered much more controversial than they were 20-30 years ago (e.g. LGBTQ+ themes, gender identity, race, etc). In the 80s 90s and early 2000s, such stories were seen as pioneering and "leading the way". Now (in the 2020s) you only have to screen a new episode for the 'usual suspects' on TH-cam to all collaborate and post strikingly similar ragebait videos about how outraged they are and (even more ironically) complain how Star Trek has "gone Woke". Given that much more heated climate, it's perhaps unsurprising (and disappointing) that the once forward-thinking US corporations are now choosing to pass on merchandising such IPs, knowing that they risk the ire of the right-wing/religious interest groups if they try to merchandise. Another reason is the much more adult-themed representations of violence in modern Trek. Just look at Picard S1 Ep 5, where the opening sequence features a particularly graphic and prolonged depiction of Icheb having his eye ripped out as he's tortured and then killed. No parent is going to watch that scene and think "Ok, this show is fine for kids," and any studio that tries to merchandise for that series (with that scene in it) is going to risk the wrath of parents who'll suggest they're trying to "lure" children into watching inappapropriate content.
Also, the comments on any video I make in regards to Discovery will also have douchebags complaining Star Trek went WOKE. My question is when did Star Trek fans become conservative?
If you look at the Hallmark Christmas ornaments over the last 10 years, there have been a glut of TOS era ornaments only lightly interspersed with TNG. 2024 finally gave Dr. Crusher her due respects and the Enterprise-B (still waiting on the Excelsior). And for 3 of those years a "Mirror, Mirror" themed collection was released. Hell, in 2023 they released the most simultaneously uncreative and creative NCC-1701 version ever, the Enterprise gripped by The Green Hand of Apollo. There have been maybe 3 Disco ornaments 2 Strange New Worlds ornaments, a disappointing only sounds, no lights La Sirena from Picard (the only ornament to my recollection from the series), only Badgey ornaments from Lower Decks, and nothing as of yet from Prodigy. DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise have precious little representation in the Ornament Line with Voyager having the most and Enterprise being the least with DS9 being like a distant second to Voyager.
Maybe this is only in Australia, but almost ALL the merchandise is for the TOS-era. While yes I am a fan of the TOS crew, I don't like them enough to buy merchandise. Now if they'd offer more TNG, VOY, DS9 or Enterprise, they can have my money. I'll even take Prodigy. Skip Discovery
@TrekTrav add in SNW and LD to the list of desired merch. But there's no hate for Discovery. It just wasn't my cup of tea. The design choices in the series don't line up with the other series so I'd rather skip them. Same as the Abramsverse. But either way, there should be more merch aside from the standard TOS-era stuff that exists. I feel for more people today, TOS was not their entry into Trek. It was any of the later series that pulled them in. So those series should have something for those fans.
I have a lot of thoughts; A) the new shows are not good. Tried to watch, gave up B) bland. I love Enterprise, but all the crew wore blue boiler suits, who cares C) End use. The merchandising departments do care what the end user might do with their products. Ever notice not a lot of Marvel Black Widow figurines? Same with Strange New Worlds with its 50% female cast D) Streaming shows are confectionery. You consume it, you get a buzz, and you move on to the next one. In the 90's there was only a small amount of sci-fi on TV so you watched it and analyzed it E) Stuff is expensive. A Exo-6 1/6th scale figurine in Australia is $4-500, nope, not for me. Big-W has Black series Star Wars figures for $39, no way
The companies don't want to release any of that now de-canonized crap. Smartest decision they've made in years. If they would release figures from the different eras of TRUE Star Trek, instead of a few figures from TNG and one movie, they would see more success. And then you have exo-6. They haven't gotten a likeness right yet. The faces are terrible. Not good, especially for the inflated prices.
@@TrekTrav Real Trek fans have denounced all of the abrams/kurtzman crap, and paramount (basically officially) has decanonized std like the disease that it is. Skydance will carry that forward when they buy paramount out. They do not want to continue the current, terrible, insulting garbage that is trek in name only.
I think they market to “collectors,” aka middle age to older men. That’s why they have collabs with ridiculous old man jewelry and watches and Bradford Exchange figures 😒 it’s embarrassingly bad what we do find. Cheap dollar store socks
Why no toys (especially for kids)? Because, dude, I am not letting my grandkids watch disco or Picard or Lower Decks. And it’s not because the shows are so bad and a betrayal of everything Star Trek means to fans. Those shows aren’t made for kids at all (if they’re dropping f-bombs that’s a big sign they don’t want anyone younger than teens watching the show). I would let them watch Prodigy. It’s not that they can’t move past TNG, it’s that they can’t move anything but TNG merch. They’re the only people interested in the merch. And, here’s the other thing: toys don’t sell. Especially boys toys. I don’t know what it’s like in Australia, but here in the US boys graduate from Paw Patrol toys to PlayStation and Switch. Transformers don’t sell except to collectors my age. Ninja Turtles sell, but they sell to 6-year olds. If you have boys in your life you know when you ask “What do you want for your birthday?” They want Fortnite skins or the latest Mario game. They have very little interest in toys. But, seriously. There’s no merch because there’s no INTEREST. The shows have abysmal ratings. They don’t have enough fans. Let alone the smaller sub-set of fans interested in merch. There’s simply not enough people interested in “New Trek” merch to justify tooling a half dozen molds to make Michael Burnham (and crew) figures. Actually making toys cost a LOT of money (before you actually have plastic in a box on the shelf at Walmart). Toy makers ain’t going to waste the time to make toys unless they have a chance at selling a lot of units. And there simply aren’t enough fans of the new shows to have enough merch buying fans to justify making toys.
@@liljenborg2517 You have to be American. "Swear words are bad, but violence and death is fine" Discovery Season 5 was in the top ten of streaming ratings. Picard Season 3 as well. It's more likely that kids have moved on from conventional action figures, especially nerdy kids and play video games and such.
Well here in the US the Nu Trek merchandise doesn't sell characters are awful the ship designs are awful as a model builder you can't even find a JJ prize model here but you can find new models of TOS,TNG,DS9, Voyager & even Enterprise Star Trek was created in America so they cater to the American consumer and we don't want that new mess🖖🏾
@TrekTrav Picard season 3 was pretty good in my opinion but that's about it & getting good streaming numbers every now and then it's not good enough how many years has Nu Trek been around 🤷🏾♂️ as bad as Star Wars is right now ..here in the US if you go to the store you still see Star Wars merchandise not much but there's never any Nu Trek merchandise but I do see classic Trek though 👍🏾
@scifiguy26 Star Wars has the Disney Machine behind it. They are merchandising kings. Paramount also actively doesnt do it though. Ninja Turtles and Transformers are Paramount IP and they fill the shelves.! So paramount is actively choosing not too.
@@TrekTrav that's true 🤔 one time many years ago I went to the store and they had figures of Picard and Michael Burnham and they looked awful I haven't seen them since
Dude. These nuTrek gets 1/1000 of the viewers that real Star Trek got. Literal millions of people all over the world collectively watched the old shows. Paramounts not so well kept secret is that a certain premier nuTrek show on their new platform got around 4000 views. 4000 people in the whole world legally watched an episode of what they want us to consider canonical Star Trek.
@@TrekTrav Nu Trek has aired on some stations over the years & ratings were low. Various websites & Nielsen list Ratings for Streaming shows & Nu Trek almost never rated. You know this thats why you try & dismiss it with what? Requests for official numbers released by Paramount+ which will never be released? If it were a Hit they would have been bragging.
Hiya Toys is doing Strange New Worlds figures. They revealed their 1/18 Pike recently. They also have Kelvin figures in 1/12 & 1/18. Nacelle Toys is covering the pre-2009 stuff. Preorders should start Q1 2025. 7 inch scale I think. They are running different eras through different companies.
This merchandise doesn't exist because no one is willing to manufacture it. For merchandise to exist a manufacturer needs to purchase a licence which then grants them the right to make and sell the products. For that to happen a manufacturer has to decide whether they are likely to see a return on their investment in the licence considering that they will also have to convince retailers to carry the products. The reality is that Secret Hideous has driven Star Trek into the ground so badly that no one thinks it's a good investment. And they're right. Virtually no one wants merchandise from the current shows because they are objectively bad. Okay, but why are there no kids toys? Would you let your kids watch a show that indulges in extreme violence, sexual assault, baby decapitation, etc? I would hope not. And these shows have little to inspire children in the way that TOS and TNG did. They're dark, they're pessimistic, they're violent, they're full of characters who are abject failures as people who don't belong on a starship let alone in Starfleet. Maybe you like them. Cool. Or maybe you've just done a good job at convincing yourself that you do because they have the Star Trek label attached to them. Either way, there just isn't a market for that kind of merchandise. Nor is there really a market for most of these shows if we're being honest. Why do they make Captain Picard mugs? Because someone will actually buy them. A Michael Burnham Menstrual Journal for Young Uterus-Havers with a complimentary endless supply of Michael Burnham Get Out of Jail Free Cards not so much.
@@TrekTrav If you think that last sentence was not put there deliberately you are wrong. It was put there to test you. And I'm afraid you failed. If you dismiss everything someone has to say, even though you initially found some sort of value in it, because you don't like something else that person said it is an indication that your thinking has become siloed, illogical, unscientific, and cultish. You are the very problem with Star Trek. You are the reason that the Star Trek audience has shrunk to nearly zero. You are the reason there is no market for merchandise. Because you will accept anything with the Star Trek label slapped on it no matter how unlike Star Trek it actually is. You'll put your hands over your ears and refuse to listen to any criticism of it. And then you'll sit there wondering why there's no merchandise. There is no merchandise because Star Trek has ceased being Star Trek and become complete garbage, jettisoning its fanbase in the process - and not attracting a new one. There's barely an audience left because of what Secret Hideout has turned it in it. Star Trek has become petty, narcissistic, self-indulgent, bleak, and nonsensical. It is produced by people who actively hate Star Trek and Star Trek fans. It has been deliberately gutted of everything that made Star Trek Star Trek. And people, like yourself, who blindly accept whatever swill is served up to them are the problem. Star Trek has always been progressive. But people like yourself mistake "woke" for progressive. They are not the same. Not at all. In many ways they are the polar opposite of each other. Star Trek once served an important social function. It encouraged people to think and to view issues from a different perspective than they may have previously. But now, instead of that, shows like Discovery discourage people from thinking and tell them to simply adopt the party line, no matter how ridiculous it might be. Dissenting voices are called "garbage" and "bigots". And not by accident. Those kind of terms are intended to intimidate anyone who would question what they are being told. Star Trek has abandoned its progressive roots and become regressive. And to add insult to injury it's just plain stupid now. There's a scene from the next season of Strange New Worlds where some of the crew are genetically modified to become Vulcans. And it's a scene that was clearly written by people who, firstly, don't know the first thing about Star Trek, and secondly, are morons. The crew members are given a hypospray and they transform. They immediately become "logical" and kind of racist towards Spock for being half-human. Does that make sense to you? Is that how Vulcans work? No, it's not. Vulcans are not genetically logical. They are highly, and often violently, emotional. They embraced logic to address their emotional volatility because they understood that it was the source of the conflict in their society. That served as an import lesson for the audience. That rather than allowing our emotions to guide our decisions and behaviour we should seek to balance our emotions with logic and reason. Instead of becoming logical they should have become highly emotional because they lack the social conditioning that Vulcans undergo to become logical. And it could have provided an opportunity to explore the difficulties that people face when trying to balance emotions with logic and reasoning. But the scene was clearly written by people who either don't understand Vulcans or simply don't care that it doesn't make any sense because they are narcissistic and think that the story they want to tell is more important than it actually making sense. And if that weren't bad enough they then go full retard. Somehow this genetic treatment is able to restyle the crew members' hair including putting Ohura's hair in braids. How could it possibly do that? How does a hypospray braid hair? Now they could have avoided this idiocy by simply cutting away from the scene and then cutting back to it later. Putting some time between the treatment and the reveal, during which presumably the crew members restyled their hair. But they didn't do that. They just went full retard because they think the audience, people like you, are either too stupid to notice how ridiculous it is or because they know that no matter how ridiculous it is you'll just accept it. Probably because you are afraid of being called "garbage" or a "bigot". You are the very problem you are struggling to understand. And to quote Kai Opaka, "I cannot give you what you deny yourself. Look for solutions from within, Commander." Fortunately Skydance is on the horizon. And they have already indicated through their actions that all this bullshit is going to go. There's a reason that Lower Decks just decanonised Discovery. It is going to be relegated to the trash pile of history. Which is where it belongs. And I wouldn't be surprised if Strange New Worlds and Picard suffer the same fate. Star Trek will be saved. And once it has been, you'll get your merchandise. Because there will be an audience will to buy it.
Tbh, older Trek fans (not all) seems to have an inability to separate nostalgia with fact. Not to mention the large chunk of fans who are just outright racist,homophobic and transphobic about the newer shows. This is just my experience on older platforms. Eg. Facebook and TH-cam. A lot of older fans like the new shows but I am tired of hearing the same old narrative that Discovery was to Woke and that newer Trek is so much worse than TNG era trek. When it's okay not to dislike one and like another, you don't have to actively try and convince people things they like are somehow less than things you like. I apologise if it comes across that way.
If they made anything that was affordable for lower decks, my kid would buy it up. He loves lower decks, and to him, that's star trek, and the only one he connects with. Idk why they never go to what's out at the time
Lower Decks and Prodigy were primed for it. Id love me some Lower Decks stuff
@TrekTrav right?!
Any newer Trek fans don't want physical objects. They grew up in the digital age of virtual things like Fortnite skins.
The new designs sucked. The new shows were not so good. Licensors know it won't sell. Even newer fans look at the old shows versus the new ones and see the obvious drop in quality.
That is so untrue. You just to go outside Facebook to social media with younger demographics and you would see
Can there even be new fans? When we grew up there was 25 new episodes a year and then the episodes were repeated the other 25 weeks of the year.
Today you're lucky to get 10 episodes. They never re-watch it because there's always some other new content coming out. They can have TWO years between seasons! It took Discovery 7 years to make five 'half seasons'! There's just no momentum to create new fans of anything anymore to where they want to buy merch.
That's a really interesting idea
Wow, this is shocking- seeing a "Fan" be just baffled as to why there is no Merch for Nu Trek shows- Because NO ONE Likes Nu Trek Shows. NO ONE wants Nu Trek Merch. They Keep releasing TNG Era stuff because that was the last time the show was good. The Only fans are Older fans because the Nu Trek Shows didn't make new fans. How can you not Understand that?
My God, the denial is... Fascinating.
Lol, do you use tiktok? Or blue sky? Discovery has plenty of fans, same with all the other new trek shows.
TH-cam and Facebook is so toxic, filled with middle aged men complaining about 'wokeness' or 'crying'. Always wanting their older Treks back because apparently they don't like change and growth.
It's not denial I have. It's fact.
SNW, Picard & Discovery were all in the top ten of streaming in their last seasons.
Discovery spawned 6 spin offs.
The audience is there, the marketing and merchandise isn't.
Agreed!!
The new Trek shows SUCK that's why there is no merch. The company's that have to make this merch cannot make any money selling it because there are too few of you younger fans to buy the stuff or they don't have the cash like older ST fans do. Nobody (older ST fans) wants to buy it or at least very few people want it because the fan base for new Trek either don't care about merch or are not that into figures and other merch. If you were a manufacture of these items who would you rather sell to the older fans with money or the younger fans with no money or don't care. it's not like they haven't tried to sell the new Trek stuff it just ends up on the clearance shelf or goes to Ollie's discount store where it sits forever, I know I've seen it there for a year or more and it has a layer of dust on it. I refuse to buy the new Trek merch, I only buy stuff from TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, or Enterprise. Sorry mate until ST gets a whole lot better, as Dr. McCoy say's "It's dead Jim"
Lol, older fans live in the past. Which is funny considering Star Trek is about moving forward.
@@TrekTrav If the future is new trek then I don't want to see that future, I prefer the good future of TOS and TNG.
There are likely a myriad of reasons, but one big one in my opinion is, there simpy isn't enough interest in the newer shows like Disco. Picard, Strange New Worlds etc, because they strayed too far away from being actual Trek for fans to want to spend their hard earned money on low rate fantasy-sci-fi.
What is actual Trek? Roddenberry Trek? Berman Trek? What ideology?
@TrekTrav Roddenberry and Berman. Berman was mentored by Roddenberry and continued to uphold his principles.
@@TrekTrav Wow, the fact you had to ask that question shows you are clueless & explains why you have under 1000 subs.
What’s also missing from this conversation is that most of modern Trek, with the exception of Prodigy, is NOT family friendly. That means that kids aren’t watching. That was not the case in the 90s. Disco and Picard were the worst offenders. Lower Decks could appeal to a teen/young adult audience…potentially. Strange New Worlds is great but it to has elements that are not suitable for children. If a product isn’t for kids, why would they make toys?
How was Discovery not suitable?
@ @ It’s incredibly violent and there was literally a topless sex scene in the first season…that might have also been a rape scene.
It honestly baffles me why Paramount isn't flooding out merch for fans to recoup financial losses. Today most of the star trek store merchandise is generic and unimpressive. We've not really had any decent figures since the Art Asylum line either. That said, there's the exo 6 lines but while they're impressive they cost an arm and a leg.
They should be marketing the hell out of prodigy also.
8:15 I also agree. So SICK of the Ent D.
The Exo-6 range is just completely too expensive for me. Crazy expensive.
I want a DS9, Voyager, Discovery ship model that I don't have to assemble.
@TrekTrav i collect and review the eaglemoss diecast models. Unfortunately they're no longer being produced but I think the UK site "Real merch" still sells them (not sure if they ship to AU though). If you're looking for ships that don't require building then I'd suggest those, maybe on ebay?
No One Wants Nu Trek Merch because Nu Trek was not Popular- If you hate the D then you can't like Star Trek. That's like saying you hate Leonard Nimoy or Kate Mulgrew.
@stevearts85 I never said I hate the D (although it's far from my favorite ship), I simply said I'm sick of the D... specifically sick of every company that gets the rights to create ships and then they whip out the same old 4,5 ships. There are tons of versions of the D out there. Starship collectors want some new stuff, doesn't *have* to be new trek stuff, but there is definitely a market for it.
The real facts is that the Enterprise D and the original are the most famous ships. Casual fans might pick them up. What is usually required is that enough people buy the initial ship to warrant the company to spend more on other projects. For a while there MOST of the merch out there was for TOS. That has shifted to TNG.
Honestly do you think anything from Discovery would sell? It’s just not that popular.
CBS Consumer Products back in the day said close to the 30th or maybe 40th anniversary that TOS and TNG merch were “keeping the lights on”.
No one buys figures/ships anymore besides adults, and no one wants anything from the Kelvin timeline (they didn’t even put out merch for the second movie) or anything remotely close to that timeline. So no STD, PRO, LD, PIC or SNW.
Playmates recently attempted to bring back their figures and they cancelled the line before wave 2 even came out iirc.
Most younger people cannot afford a $500-700 Lego set, so it's natural to follow where the money is.
The franchise will die if they keep trying to appease the old fans.
@@TrekTrav it's already dead
LEGO is expensive. They have to produce what people will buy. There are already folks excited about the prospect of the LEGO Enterprise. People have wanted LEGO to do Trek for a long time. If the Enterprise D sells well I could see them making the SNW Enterprise. But no Disco, or, sadly, lower decks.
@@TrekTravStar Trek:The Next Generation proves this statement wrong. It was rejected by fans of the original at first but then went on to be greater than its predecessor. Alienating the Legacy Fanbase is a big suicide pill for the franchise when it’s viewed as a misappropriating Nu-Trek team again a Legacy/Gatekeeper Team. The whole image of being unable to compromise on anything is in total contradiction to the world Star Trek is trying to create.
Against
You've hit the nail on the head here mate.
The sad fact is Trek is just not mainstream anymore.
After its peak in 1994 or so, we had about 10 good years of great merch and then it just seemed to flat line gradually.
It doesn't help that the five new shows are tucked away on a streaming service that nobody really cares about.
The fanbase is getting older and merch is aimed at the adult collector market.
It's so rare to see Trek stuff in any shop now.
Even the long running Star Trek magazine recently ended. I don't see Trek books in stores. No figures except online. No trek anywhere. There just isn't the demand. Here in Ireland, I'd be lucky to see a Trek product of any kind.
Sad!.
In Australia it is a hunt!
Another fact: the studio has hidden these shows behind a paywall. (Let's set aside show quality for the moment.) Many potential fans are _lost_ because they're not going to PAY! How many great shows are there out there NOW that the majority of the audience have never heard of because they're off on some streaming service they don't have or want to pay for? Until the Streaming Wars are done there is no majority viewership to give a show that critical mass it needs. Gone are the days where 'everybody' watched Seinfeld or MASH. Many of the 'horrible' network shows that only got one season before being cancelled had viewership numbers that a streaming service would celebrate as a victory! 😆
That's the future. I don't even watch normal TV anymore.
I agree that having a million streaming services is a pain in the ass though.
Diamond Select did some of the best merch imo and I found it playable for kids but also loved and appreciated by collectors … however they just suddenly stopped and kept stringing fans along for years that they still had intention but hit “roadblocks”. It was so disappointing as it was after announcing two of my favourite ship designs.
Are these diamond select and not eaglemoss?
@ yeah Diamond Select.
This is not a difficult question to answer. Merchandising revenue for Star Trek has dropped 92% since 2009. What happened in 2009? The beginning of Kurtzman Trek. With each new movie or show, the original audience for Star Trek has slowly lost interest in the franchise, and guess what? Kurtzman Trek is not good enough to attract new fans. It's killing the franchise. You may not like hearing that, but the numbers don't lie. If you want merchandise from Kurtzman Trek, you're the only one who does.
Curious where you got that statistic from?
It's not popular enough. Plus none of the shows or films after 2005 are REALLY Trek.
Lol, sure. Because the only real Trek is from when you were young comveniently
@@TrekTravI’m sorry you missed it
@@michaelwills1926 The TNG era is what got me in to Star Trek.
The difference is I don't want to live in a world of nostalgia and rose coloured glasses.
The TNG era died because It stopped doing anything new after DS9 and that led to viewership decline and quality decline by the end of Voyager and Enterprise.
The new Treks at least try to give diversity in its programming and style.
Gene wasn't about looking backwards, coining the phrase 'infinite diversity in infinite combination'. The new shows are an extension of that.
You can dislike them, you can not watch them, but in the end you don't get to decide what is and isn't Star Trek to people.
I look in flea markets, Antique Store and Vintage Toy Conventions for these figures: the only places I can find them now.
i noticed a big shift in merchandising when the phantom menace came out, merch went from globally available to be only available in regions, the AMT/polar lights star trek kits are expensive and hard to find outside of the US, the Bandai star wars kits are hard to find and expansive outside of the Asian market, Twas greed that killed Merchandising .
I remember when Episode One coming out that Star Wars saturated every store. Every single minor charactor had a figure. It was crazy.
There has been a series of arround 70 brick models by the company bluebrixx, but they lost the licence just when they were ready to release some figures, so there just selling what they have left in stock now. But to give you an idea: they've had models of ships in up to three different sizes, DS9, Tricorders of TOS and TNG, figures close to FunkoPops, a Phaser Rifle and even a Borg sculpture.
They don't sell bluebrixx in Australia, you have to order online.
@TrekTrav I know, it was just to answer the question where the Merch is 😊.
I'm fine just collecting the 90s playmates line. Innerspace, the little ships with micro figures are really satisfying. Playmates did attempt a recent line with prodigy characters that look ok.OK. AND Prodigy season 2 on Netflix is some of the best trek lately.
New owners of these aged franchises never understood where the money came from.
Exo-6 has amazing figures for all the Star Trek shows. Most of them are very expensive, but they are generally pretty great. Many of them are sold out because they make super limited editions so you have to generally act fast. But the reason for the fall of merch is because the fan base has been demolished by Alex Kurtzman and his terrible Star Drek shows. Picard Season three and Lower Decks were bright spots, but for the most part, they treated the fans poorly and made terrible TV. So it's going to take something exceptional - perhaps Nick Meter's Ceti Alpha V pilot - to get everyone excited again. However, the old fans are still there for the classic shows, as evidenced by the $5M in presales for the Tomy Enterprise in 2024 and the fact that almost every Exo-6 figure sells out within a few months.
I disagree about the terrible shows. Picard Season 3 was a horrible pandering and unoriginal season with stolen ideas and a predictable ending.
Discovery at least tried to do something new and by the last 2 seasons was truly Gene Roddenberry's vision.
At least Hiya Toys is dipping their toes into SNW with their upcoming Anton Mount Pike figure…
It makes sense that LEGO go for something iconic like the Enterprise D - I don't get why Strange New Worlds wasn't the first show Playmates went for when they got the license.
Ultimately though, Paramount need to do better at marketing the franchise around the world, keep trying to tap into a new audience and spend less time reading social media comments - Paramount must build up partnerships with global retailers across the world, team up with Playmates etc...
100%.. Every franchise seems beholden to a group of fuck heads on the internet. It's annoying. They need to just try and make the best show they can and give zero fucks
I’m an Aussie Trekkie in my 20’s and growing up with Star Trek I ended up getting the old playmates stuff from markets or the internet as there wasn’t any modern alternatives. I jumped all over the Eaglemoss line but now Fanhome sell to Australia and Corgi are starting with the TOS and TNG enterprises. It shouldn’t be this hard to get a model of the main ships from the shows.
Not hard to get the Enterprise D....lol It's genuinely a nightmare. I had to go to a pawn shop to get any of the old playmates figures and it was coincidence I found them.
Thanks for commenting!
You’re looking at the issue incorrectly. Merchandising to the younger demographic means appealing to their world. Therefore the merchandising would be more in the video game and apps industry than in action figures.
I actually agree with you.
I would love to have a resin model of enterprise F. It’s such a cool looking vessel.
I love the F. Hate the G but LOVE the F
The last time I saw star trek toys was just before enterprise was cancelled
Yea, which was around the time of Nemesis.
Ive asked this question ever since Star Trek 2009 Kelvin film. Burger King had specialty glasses to collect, a eventual videogame, some action figures, and a comicbook series and thats all well and good, even if these things were few and far between, but that was it. NOTHING since. There were 2 other films but you wouldnt know it based on merchandising. WHERE ARE THE T-Shirts? Videogames? Toys? Collector cards? Posters? We got NOTHING. Hell, even Enterprise had a Toyline and thats far more than any of the new shows got. Haters can claim how unpopular Trek may be now, yet ironically its at its most successful than it ever was even in the 90s with up to 5 series going at once the past few years in this era, yet there is virtually NOTHING that would show it.
Say what you want about Disney and the newer Star Wars films and shows, but they KNOW how to hock their merch and a PLENTY of it! Paramount and CBS on the other hand, ever since 2009 just simply doesnt seem to care. Even if Trek is among the top 3 franchises in entertainment behind Marvel & Star Wars, you wouldnt know it based on lack of merch. If Trek was under Disney this wouldve NEVER happened remotely. Hopefully Skydance will change this. But i wont hold my breath.
I concur, thank you for commenting.
Star wars sections have diminished too here in the UK. Even in the comic book stores. Figures just don't appeal to younger audiences and a lot of older fans aren't so attached to the new characters
I'd say it's more to do with the kids and toys.
"Paramount seems really weird about this?" Paramount doesn't manufacture anything, they don't commission other companies to make lines either (Outside some tat for their webstore), other companies come to them and offer to pay the licence fee and receive authorisation to make merch. Those companies have determined there is less demand for subjects other than TNG. You can complain that Lego is making an Ent D despite all the other merch of it but Lego didn't see a cut of any of that. They are going to make the most in demand subject for a set that size and it's going to be the Ent D. (It's also an excuse to have a model big enough to have all the main cast except Tasha Yar for some reason, the minifigs are a big deal in Lego) The perspective of being fatigued with it is one of a hardcore merch collector which most buyers of this Lego set will not be. They will be trekkies or just casual fans of TNG who don't buy a lot of merch mostly and some hardcore merch collectors and others. You could make amazing Voyager, DS9 or TOS Ent models out of Lego too but they would sell a lot less. Maybe they will make them but the first set will be the Enterprise D, there would be much more complaining if they didn't. Maybe a line of shuttles one from each series with a couple of minifigs?
Rightly or wrongly it is the manufacturers who have determined that it's not worth making nutrek subject matter (Or post 2000s, anything non TOS or TNG) and based on sales when it is made I have to agree with their assessments. Based on the internet it seems like there are more young people discovering and enjoying old Trek, particularly TNG (Which they now view in HD) and most of the hardcore nutrek people are actually a subset of older Trek fans who seem devoted and hungry for any new Trek no matter the continuity, tone or writing. There does not seem to be a lot of them. Nutrek simply doesn't inspire devotion like old Trek. It neither has the power of being more prominent on broadcast TV with fewer channels like old Trek nor is it anywhere near the same level of quality despite it's advantage of being more in line with modern TV production expectations and tastes.
That the merch seems never to stray much from Picard the D or Data (Perhaps we could include the fairly cheesy fanfictiony third season of Picard here too.) is more indicative of a shallow demand leading to manufactures (Remember each manufacturer or licensor commissioning somebody else to make merch is coming in having made no money from what anyone else before made) rarely straying from the hits since it's the same amount of work to design and manufacture a Picard figure as a Barclay one or an Enterprise D as an Enterprise C but nowhere near the same demand. Given that Star Trek in it's older form has been dead since 2005 and hasn't really been a major franchise since having a very brief blip of prominence in 2009 it's amazing there is as much merch as there is. If you want DS9 or Voyager merch to match the TNG stuff we see today, you'd have to have Paramount prohibit TNG merch. Paramount isn't going to pass up anyone giving them money to make merch for their current shows and perhaps they even do demand you make a certain amount of new stuff if you want to make TNG stuff but they absolutely don't make demands the other way around. TNG was just so much more popular and iconic than DS9, Voy or Ent and perhaps even TOS, at least among core spenders today. See also how they never made any DS9 or Voyager movies.
Paramount's new ownership may be trying to encourage more merch though either through having lower licence fees or removing conditions. The guys who did the takeover want their money back and Star Trek used to be a mint for Paramount in the 90s and 2000s.
Trav, I think the answer is that the newer Trek shows are just not that popular with kids and have not really caught on with older fans like myself.
I have given all the new Trek shows and films a chance. There are some I have enjoyed more than others and then there are some I have not really connected with at all. I’m old enough to have seen TOS in its first run on NBC in the U.S. ( granted I was 3 -5 years old when it was on, but I loved it…especially the Enterprise herself ).That has always been MY Star Trek, but I remained open minded when the ‘90s series came out and eagerly looked forward to them. Despite TNG’s shaky start, I remained faithful and was rewarded by increased quality and when the merch came out, I was on it. The same goes for DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. I’m still more of a ship and tech guy than a figures collector, but over the decades I’ve filled the coffers of many a company. I’m no longer a completist, compelled to buy every item offered, but I do still collect what catches my fancy.
I have found, however, as time goes on, I grow less and less enamored of the new ship and tech designs. The last, most modern designs I bought were prefab models of the Kelvinverse Enterprise and the Strange New Worlds Enterprise. As the designs get further and further removed from their predecessors, the less I like them. I understand the need for progress and updating, but to pretty much ignore what came before is franchise suicide. I despised the 32nd century ship and tech designs on Discovery, as they seemed more like fantasy or magic rather than actual, scientifically based realistic things ( ships with detached sections that magically float alongside, or reconfigure to entirely different shapes? Not buying it ).
You may call me part of the problem, that I’m stuck in the past, which may hold some truth, but I did learn to enjoy the updated Kelvinverse ships ( well…except the “Beyond” Enterprise which just looked like something out of anime ). But the shows themselves have to have some kid appeal to them and other than SNW, Prodigy, and Lower Decks, I don’t see a lot of potential for kid friendly toys. TOS and the Berman era series may have been aimed at adults, but they appealed to kids as well. This new bunch of shows often miss the mark as kid friendly and as Star Trek. Until they figure those problems out, I think you’ll continue to find more legacy merch released than that based on nu-Trek.
The 32nd era ships aren't my fave either. I think Discovery itself looked cool with the upgrades but overall they were just too weird.
I suppose a practical reason for the detached segments could be easily ejected in a warp core breach, or each section could work as it's own ship.
@@TrekTravPerhaps, but the amount of energy required to hold those pieces in place while the ship is in flight seems rather “cost ineffective” compared to a solid, physical connection. If in a battle situation an engine or something became able to be reconnected via energy after its solid connection was severed, that would be an interesting upgrade, but just keeping a part a few feet away from a ship at all times seems a waste of power ( particularly when one of the big story arcs involved a shortage of dilithium- and don’t ask my opinion on that story 🙄 ).
The Nu Trek shows are Dark & Depressing & deal with small melodramatic stories told through Long Form storytelling that requires pre-knowledge. No Fun. No Adventures. No Promise of a Strange New World Every Episode- why would anyone, why would kids tune into a Dystopian melorama?
Paramount has always slept on the Star Trek Lincence since the Kelvin films. For Star Wars you can buy everything from all clothing items to lightsabers and for Star Trek... almost nothing today.
If it weren't for 3D printers and active fans who build printable models of badges, ships, tricorders and ships we would just have these overpriced replica collectibles.
But you think about the current times... series have only ten episodes per season, with a year long wait between seasons and they are hidden behind a paywall. :(
I understand what you're saying. Paramount won't give it away though.
You know, whenever I go to the types of shops that used to hold these figurines in the 90's, part of me still wanders around in the shop hoping to find some relics of that time...
Me too. I will always check out the toy sections just to see.
Oh boy, where to start here....Paramount has NEVER known what they're doing with merchandising and promoting Star Trek in the 21st Century. Case in point, remember the marketing for their last movie (almost a decade ago now), which released the same year as the franchise's 50th anniversary? Or rather how little of it there was? I remember the only poster I ever saw in person was the one that's just the giant words BEYOND and nothing else. Then that abysmal first trailer and then no other trailer until like, a month before the film's release? Or how about Lower Decks? I'm seeing more promotion for the show NOW, that the show is DONE, than I EVER did while the show was still in production! And the Pops and keychains for Lower Decks? I've never seen them in person.
Not only has merch and promotion for the franchise been few and far between, but what there is is SO expensive that even if something DOES appeal to you, you might not be able to afford it, outside of maybe a T-shirt, or a Funko Pop, and physical releases of the shows. And that last one, has only relatively recently become affordable. I remember season sets on DVD costing MSRP $120 USD each during the 00s. Hell, Master Replicas seems to just be reusing the Eaglemoss tooling and molds and selling, effectively, the same models at like, double the price! At this point, I'm grateful that the Fansets badges are pretty affordable!
And while I understand your complaint about going back to the TNG well, especially as of late with the latest Playmates deal, I honestly wouldn't even mind that AS MUCH if it was at least NEW TNG toys! They're just giving us retooled (and in some cases worse) versions of the exact same TNG toys from 30 years ago! They're not even giving us NEW TNG toys! Hell, same for the TOS toys! Like, for all their release consistency issues, at least DST was TRYING to give us more varied and better quality stuff AND with new molds! Hell, that's PART of why DST's release schedule was so terrible, was because of the amount of actual R&D being put in! Would MUCH rather have DST's take on the TOS phaser and communicator than Playmates!
I agree wholeheartedly.
In terms of advertising for the current shows. I saw a Picard poster in a train station and I've seen Pike on the side of the bus for paramount plus.
It's really frustrating as well being a Star Trek content creator because finding new stuff is almost impossible.
And even though they did Prodigy figures, they didn't make Rok-Tahk, who, for me is the best character
The newer shows just don't generate the high interest that makes people buy stuff. TOS and TNG still sells. When Star Trek was extremely popular in the 70s, merchandise was everywhere. TNG in the 90s came close.
I think also kids today don't play with physical toys as much.
People who aren't collectors but just want the toys to play with or whatever aren't generally buying the toys - because they are sold at collector rates from the start. Not many parents are going to buy their kids $70 toy spaceships or action figure sets except perhaps on special occasions, and since they generally aren't made in large enough numbers for general consumption any more, it doesn't even happen then very much. Never mind $500 spaceships. Collectors buy them and sit on them, and not enough get sold. The rest go into a dump somewhere, and scalpers get them and make the problem worse. This deal eats itself: collectors want, so charge more - but now there aren't many who buy.
I'd say that kids play with less toys now too. With video games filling that market.
@TrekTrav while this is true, I can't help but wonder what it would be like if you COULD trip down to the store and buy that action figure for less.
The first TNG figures were made by Galoob. TBH ,they really weren't very good.,but by the 3rd-4th season ,we finally got to see the Playmates figures.
Love those figures so much!
The playmates figures in the 90s were top stuff 👌
The galoob 3 3/4 inch figures of the 80s and older remind me of gi joe/action force figures
I'm glad Lego have got a licence for official star trek sets. I might be thinking of getting some. Licenced lego sets are very expensive compared to regular lego sets, though.
I think there were Kreo sets based on star trek chris pine and some playmobil sets. I never had those.
Is it confirmed they are doing Lego?
@TrekTrav Hello there. I don't know. I've only seen rumours. I hope it's true. I keep looking on the lego website every so often jjust in case. 🤞 If not, I'll keep making ships from scratch. Live long and prosper 🖖🙂
@StarTrekDoor haha, thank you. Peace and long life
I’m British and outside of a few figures periodically in the comic shop can’t remember the last time I saw any Trek stuff for sale.
It's crazy considering the amount of new shows that have happened recently.
Diamond Select stuff was real good
I've always personally thought that store exclusivity in the States, as well as the 1701 limited run figures of Barclay, Yar, and Picard were what killed the Playmates line. And that includes here in Australia. I was buying mine from various comic shops around Melbourne. And they dried up fairly quickly when the stores couldn't source product. Meanwhile. Stores like Kmart, Toy "r" us, and the sole Toyworld I shopped at that survived TRU's toy shop destroying onslaught, still had the usual peg warmers Lwaxana Troi and Sarek's by the boat load five years after the line died. No wonder the big boys won't touch Trek.
If exclusivity, and limitability is what killed Playmates Trek line 20-25 year ago. You've gotta ask. What's killing the hobby now? Then you've gotta ask yourself if the companies ever learn?
I’ve long wondered why there isn’t a 3.75” action figure line for all of Trek. The largest figures are too expensive and the Playmates are too cartoonish. I’d love realistic sculpts of the actors. There’s a universe of 3.75” accessories too. Singles and packs of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, etc.
Regarding models, why are there no plastic kits for tricorders or phasers? Buying the reproduction props are hundreds of dollars.
Back in the 90s I loved that my trek figures were an inch taller than my brother's Star Wars figures..lol
@ I have an appreciation for all the various scales. I build custom models from time to time too. In a world of 3.75” figures and accessories a “Legacy” Star Trek line would be the ultimate crossover toy. Star Trek meets G.I. Joe. Star Trek meets Star Wars. 7 or 9 points of articulation.
Trek model kits are still going strong…Strange New Worlds Enterprise and Cerritos were just released. The 1/32 scale Galileo was a HUGE seller…
I'm not really in to model kits
Understood! But I think that market does demonstrate that there is a consumer demand for Trek collectibles. Let’s hope Nacelle and Hiya are able to turn the Trek action figure market around!
Most of the merch these days is aimed at those of us who grew up on TNG and DS9. Fanhome has taken over Eaglemoss's Starship Collection line. HIya and Navelle have figure lines in the 1:12, 1:10, and 1:18 scales. Exo-6 has 1:6 figures and diorama pieces. Factory Entertainment does some very nice high end replicas. But as you note figures which might be aimed at kids, like Playmates' briefly lived line from a couple of years ago, just didn't do well.
Ive been saying the same things when it comes to Trek Gaming. We could use a true AAA single player title that's not a nearly 15 yr old MMO...
I tried to play STO recently and got bored really fast
@ It’s pretty much a P2W cash grab at this point..
@moretoknowshow1887 it's the only game I've spent money buying stupid shit...lol
I liked to collect the Ships. But they only kept releasing the same ships (excluding Eaglemoss Collection) Always wanted a large USS Reliant, and a TOS Kinglon ship (not another Bird of Prey)
Exactly. It's always the D or TOS Enterprise. Drives me insane.
Merch in general is just LESS on most things
except for Nintendo which is a lot more
and
Baby Shark which shouldn't have any at all
I'm glad you didn't say Bluey....because as an Australian I'd have to defend her.
Woolworths wasn’t really a grocery shop in the U.K. at all. Well no doubt they are releasing the D because of Picard, yes they should be including the shows other ships too but It’s obvious there would be a connection to the TNG stuff, it’s Picard for heaven sake. I’m very glad they did include the rest of the cast and the D, I would have been happy with the E as well obviously but it gave the TNG cast a proper swan song, something they didn’t get due to Nemesis’s awful story and director who assassinated any chance of further movies.
Paramount (not Kurtzman) doesn't understand what they have. Also, I see far too much TOS merch in the US.
Paramount must be making money somehow because they keep pumping out shows.
@TrekTrav probably tech investors.
I just want six inch scale figures of every character to display with my other figures. If they were priced the same as Hasbro figures I'd buy every one.
Nobody wants new trek toys, the show focus to much on identity politics and strong women characters, they don't really know what makes star trek, star trek
Lol, you mean the progressive, extremely liberal Star Trek had new shows that were progressive and liberal?
Janeway, Seven, Uhura, Kira, Dax etc. Not strong enough ?
@@TrekTrav What i mean is they throw out the star trek adventure and focus to much on current issues in the real world, I mean it bothers me that there telling a story to show that humanity is still dealing with identity politics and feminist and race issues 200 years from now?, really? Old star trek knew had to introduce current events and show that humanity was past that bs, writers today just don't know how to write good star trek, it's just how I feel. Older star trek didn't always get it perfect but most of the time they did and that's why die hard trekkies just rather re-watch older shows than the new ones.
@TrekTrav thing is they made a set of discovery figures. They didn't sell and sat in the bargain bins and eventually were sold at discount stores. I'm I the uk but in a nut shell new trek hasn't taken off so why merchandise it. It's jot a cas of it you make it they will sell yo u have to have a cool product first
@@LMM1701 You are Right. They made a self-involved long form Melordama- nobody wanted that. Not even the Progressive Fans of Strong women Like Janeway or 7 of 9.
ST: Discovery is rated 14+. Extremely violent. Do you think any manufacturer is taking the risk of making toys for that show? It isn't the '80s anymore when they made kid's toys for RoboCop. Most of the other streaming serialized Trek shows are also not very kid friendly. That's why they only made toys for ST: Prodigy. That was family-friendly. The rest of modern Trek is not.
Tbh, I prefer more realistic violence. The TNG era had a habit of almost dumbing down things.
@TrekTrav Irrespective of personal taste you are asking why there aren't toys being made for any of the more modern Star Trek series and I was positing that it was due to many of those shows being far more adult. Hence, they are less likely candidates for toys.
Both in the 70s, when Mego was producing the 8-inch action figures and in the 90s when Playmates were at their height of toy production for Star Trek, it was driven by sales to children. '87 to '05 Trek was mainstream broadcast free television. Not a specialized serialized pay to see targeted at a specific demographic streaming series mainly for adults.
I was actually thinking about this the other day. Thanks for reading my mind. 🙂
I've been trying to find good topics...lol
Some major problems:
1. the Star Trek they released now is neither fun, no high quality
2. the current Star Trek shows is spread across a confusing multitude of time periods (TOS, Just post TNG, Pre TOS that goes to the 32nd century....)
3. current Star Trek is limited to Paramount Plus rather than being widely available on mainstream TV
How to fix it?
Nuke everything that is currently ongoing. Also, don't refer to anything that some fans call "Nu Trek" like STD, Section 9, SNW, and even Picard even if we liked Season 3. Just ignore that they ever happened.
Instead, put out *one* show. Set 50 to 100 years post TNG. Put it on mainstream television for the widest possible audience. Give it a tone similar to TNG but come up with a unique hook. Focus on exploration (seriously, how much exploration did TNG really do?). Push into a new area of the Galaxy we have never seen before.
And, for God sakes, get real science fiction writers who will focus on intelligent sci-fi that can bring in the widest audience possible. And lock down their social media accounts so they don't honk off one half of the country or the other.
A. Different time periods shouldbt be a problems to today's audiences considering all the prequel, sequels, inbetweenquels.
B. Mainstream tv is dying. No one under 30 watches it.
@@TrekTrav
Short snarky answer: no one under 30 watches Nu Trek either.
More serious:
A. Different time periods are a problem because they are a barrier that causes confusion. It requires you to do homework to figure out how one relates to another and also harms synergy by blocking potential cross-overs.
By contrast, NCIS is been quite popular and the difference is right there in the title, set in Los Angeles, Hawaii, etc..
You see similar "same yet distinctively and approachably different" with other popular shows like Law and Order, CSI, DIck Wolf's One Chicago Shows, etc...
When Star Trek was popular, they only showed two programs at once (at most) and they occurred more or less concurrently with both DS9 and Voyager having unique hooks to give them a separate identity and an instantly understandable place in the universe. The last truly mainstream Star Trek television shows, Enterprise, was a prequel yet was only shown after the Voyager was over.
B. I have heard that mainstream tv is dying for decades (cable channels like TNT, premium like HBO cable like yet it's still there chugging along and able to produce 26 episodes a year, every year, for a series while many streaming can't produce 10 episodes every two years. Sure, network television doesn't get as wide an audience as it once did but it is still reliably watched by many and makes money while almost every other streaming service that isn't Netflix loses money. Paramount Plus has only recently started to make minor profits after years of loses and it's not Star Trek that's driving it.
If you want Star Trek to be as popular as it once was, it needs to be as available (as possible in the current environment) as it once was. Locking it up on a streaming services that most people don't have will not accomplish that. The lack of popularity and cultural relevance is evidenced by your own video; young people aren't interested and there is nothing motivating them to purchase Paramount Plus, especially with so much competition for other streaming and subscription services.
The Golden age of just going to ur local store and seeing all the Star Trek Merch is over unfortunately. I don’t think they really care 😔🖖🏼
It feels like that, especially in Australia.
I’ve been trying to find good Star Trek merch for ages, but I’ve never been able to find anything actually decent except for ship models.
So disappointing.
Same here. There is about 9 ship models at my local porn shop but they are like Enterprise non hero ships.
I think In the US the number of kids who play with toy has dropped dramatically. And even then its easier to sell a ninja or a fighting robot versus explorers/scientists. All that said I think it's a shame there isnt a single line that has all of the captains (Archer, Pike, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Burnham) or even without Burnham in the early 2000s all of those captains existed but figure lines would never include them all.
New Star Trek is not written towards kids. A lot of the issues raised are things that (particularly among the US market) are - somewhat ironically, given TOS/TNGs forward-thinking writing - considered much more controversial than they were 20-30 years ago (e.g. LGBTQ+ themes, gender identity, race, etc). In the 80s 90s and early 2000s, such stories were seen as pioneering and "leading the way". Now (in the 2020s) you only have to screen a new episode for the 'usual suspects' on TH-cam to all collaborate and post strikingly similar ragebait videos about how outraged they are and (even more ironically) complain how Star Trek has "gone Woke". Given that much more heated climate, it's perhaps unsurprising (and disappointing) that the once forward-thinking US corporations are now choosing to pass on merchandising such IPs, knowing that they risk the ire of the right-wing/religious interest groups if they try to merchandise.
Another reason is the much more adult-themed representations of violence in modern Trek. Just look at Picard S1 Ep 5, where the opening sequence features a particularly graphic and prolonged depiction of Icheb having his eye ripped out as he's tortured and then killed. No parent is going to watch that scene and think "Ok, this show is fine for kids," and any studio that tries to merchandise for that series (with that scene in it) is going to risk the wrath of parents who'll suggest they're trying to "lure" children into watching inappapropriate content.
Also, the comments on any video I make in regards to Discovery will also have douchebags complaining Star Trek went WOKE. My question is when did Star Trek fans become conservative?
If you look at the Hallmark Christmas ornaments over the last 10 years, there have been a glut of TOS era ornaments only lightly interspersed with TNG. 2024 finally gave Dr. Crusher her due respects and the Enterprise-B (still waiting on the Excelsior). And for 3 of those years a "Mirror, Mirror" themed collection was released. Hell, in 2023 they released the most simultaneously uncreative and creative NCC-1701 version ever, the Enterprise gripped by The Green Hand of Apollo. There have been maybe 3 Disco ornaments 2 Strange New Worlds ornaments, a disappointing only sounds, no lights La Sirena from Picard (the only ornament to my recollection from the series), only Badgey ornaments from Lower Decks, and nothing as of yet from Prodigy. DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise have precious little representation in the Ornament Line with Voyager having the most and Enterprise being the least with DS9 being like a distant second to Voyager.
I've seen one in Australia and it was TOS Spock....online....went to the store and nothing.
@@TrekTrav I should state this is from a US citizen point of experience.
I think the last Trek thing I bought was the Eaglemoss V'ger model & I had to correct the rear end.
I saw the new Kirk & Kahn Playmates figures in HMV 18 months ago & The retro MEGO's in B&M 3 year ago. That is all
You guys still have HMV?
@@TrekTrav A few survivors in large towns & cities.
@inspector2363 I'm in Sydney Australia, it's a hunt.
The sculpt on the Khan action figure was great!
Maybe this is only in Australia, but almost ALL the merchandise is for the TOS-era. While yes I am a fan of the TOS crew, I don't like them enough to buy merchandise.
Now if they'd offer more TNG, VOY, DS9 or Enterprise, they can have my money. I'll even take Prodigy. Skip Discovery
It is genuinely annoying how everyone has to add Discovery hate on to their comment...lol
@TrekTrav add in SNW and LD to the list of desired merch.
But there's no hate for Discovery. It just wasn't my cup of tea. The design choices in the series don't line up with the other series so I'd rather skip them. Same as the Abramsverse.
But either way, there should be more merch aside from the standard TOS-era stuff that exists. I feel for more people today, TOS was not their entry into Trek. It was any of the later series that pulled them in. So those series should have something for those fans.
I have a lot of thoughts;
A) the new shows are not good. Tried to watch, gave up
B) bland. I love Enterprise, but all the crew wore blue boiler suits, who cares
C) End use. The merchandising departments do care what the end user might do with their products. Ever notice not a lot of Marvel Black Widow figurines? Same with Strange New Worlds with its 50% female cast
D) Streaming shows are confectionery. You consume it, you get a buzz, and you move on to the next one. In the 90's there was only a small amount of sci-fi on TV so you watched it and analyzed it
E) Stuff is expensive. A Exo-6 1/6th scale figurine in Australia is $4-500, nope, not for me. Big-W has Black series Star Wars figures for $39, no way
@@peterbumper2769 The only thing I disagree on is the new shows aren't good. They are all good in their own way. I especially like Discovery.
@@TrekTrav that is OK, I like Lower Decks, but I can understand why people find the 'in jokes' a little wearing
@peterbumper2769 I love them all for different reasons.
The companies don't want to release any of that now de-canonized crap. Smartest decision they've made in years. If they would release figures from the different eras of TRUE Star Trek, instead of a few figures from TNG and one movie, they would see more success. And then you have exo-6. They haven't gotten a likeness right yet. The faces are terrible. Not good, especially for the inflated prices.
How is it de- canonized? Define what true Star Trek is?
The Exo-6bis just stupid expensive.
@@TrekTrav Real Trek fans have denounced all of the abrams/kurtzman crap, and paramount (basically officially) has decanonized std like the disease that it is. Skydance will carry that forward when they buy paramount out. They do not want to continue the current, terrible, insulting garbage that is trek in name only.
I think they market to “collectors,” aka middle age to older men. That’s why they have collabs with ridiculous old man jewelry and watches and Bradford Exchange figures 😒 it’s embarrassingly bad what we do find. Cheap dollar store socks
The cursing is right up my anger alley. I WANT A VOYAGER LEGO SET
SpongeBob has all kinds of stuff too. It’s annoying
“We can’t move past TNG” exactly what I said when Picard season 3 was teased. We have to move on
I'd kill for cheap dollar store socks...haha.
Fuck yea!
Give me a replica Tricorder that isn't 1000 FFS..
Definately!
Is it because paramount have closed thier tv studio and are not making anymore tv shows and are selling the Star Trek franchise
Lol, that's weird considering Strange New Worlds Season 4 is in production, Starfleet Academy, a new Star Trek film.
@ just asking as it’s somthing iv read in a couple of magazines like sfx
Because no one wants merch from the new crappy shows.
Thanks for your input.
Why no toys (especially for kids)? Because, dude, I am not letting my grandkids watch disco or Picard or Lower Decks. And it’s not because the shows are so bad and a betrayal of everything Star Trek means to fans. Those shows aren’t made for kids at all (if they’re dropping f-bombs that’s a big sign they don’t want anyone younger than teens watching the show). I would let them watch Prodigy.
It’s not that they can’t move past TNG, it’s that they can’t move anything but TNG merch. They’re the only people interested in the merch.
And, here’s the other thing: toys don’t sell. Especially boys toys. I don’t know what it’s like in Australia, but here in the US boys graduate from Paw Patrol toys to PlayStation and Switch. Transformers don’t sell except to collectors my age. Ninja Turtles sell, but they sell to 6-year olds. If you have boys in your life you know when you ask “What do you want for your birthday?” They want Fortnite skins or the latest Mario game. They have very little interest in toys.
But, seriously. There’s no merch because there’s no INTEREST. The shows have abysmal ratings. They don’t have enough fans. Let alone the smaller sub-set of fans interested in merch. There’s simply not enough people interested in “New Trek” merch to justify tooling a half dozen molds to make Michael Burnham (and crew) figures. Actually making toys cost a LOT of money (before you actually have plastic in a box on the shelf at Walmart). Toy makers ain’t going to waste the time to make toys unless they have a chance at selling a lot of units. And there simply aren’t enough fans of the new shows to have enough merch buying fans to justify making toys.
@@liljenborg2517 You have to be American. "Swear words are bad, but violence and death is fine"
Discovery Season 5 was in the top ten of streaming ratings. Picard Season 3 as well.
It's more likely that kids have moved on from conventional action figures, especially nerdy kids and play video games and such.
i like your hair style
Thank you❤️
Well here in the US the Nu Trek merchandise doesn't sell characters are awful the ship designs are awful as a model builder you can't even find a JJ prize model here but you can find new models of TOS,TNG,DS9, Voyager & even Enterprise Star Trek was created in America so they cater to the American consumer and we don't want that new mess🖖🏾
You say that but Picard S3, Disco S5 were top ten in streaming in their final season. So someone wants it
@TrekTrav Picard season 3 was pretty good in my opinion but that's about it & getting good streaming numbers every now and then it's not good enough how many years has Nu Trek been around 🤷🏾♂️ as bad as Star Wars is right now ..here in the US if you go to the store you still see Star Wars merchandise not much but there's never any Nu Trek merchandise but I do see classic Trek though 👍🏾
@scifiguy26 Star Wars has the Disney Machine behind it. They are merchandising kings.
Paramount also actively doesnt do it though. Ninja Turtles and Transformers are Paramount IP and they fill the shelves.! So paramount is actively choosing not too.
@@TrekTrav that's true 🤔 one time many years ago I went to the store and they had figures of Picard and Michael Burnham and they looked awful I haven't seen them since
Dude. These nuTrek gets 1/1000 of the viewers that real Star Trek got. Literal millions of people all over the world collectively watched the old shows. Paramounts not so well kept secret is that a certain premier nuTrek show on their new platform got around 4000 views. 4000 people in the whole world legally watched an episode of what they want us to consider canonical Star Trek.
You got any sources for those numbers?
@@TrekTrav Jeri Ryan. We're dating.
@@TrekTrav Nu Trek has aired on some stations over the years & ratings were low. Various websites & Nielsen list Ratings for Streaming shows & Nu Trek almost never rated. You know this thats why you try & dismiss it with what? Requests for official numbers released by Paramount+ which will never be released? If it were a Hit they would have been bragging.
Hiya Toys is doing Strange New Worlds figures. They revealed their 1/18 Pike recently. They also have Kelvin figures in 1/12 & 1/18.
Nacelle Toys is covering the pre-2009 stuff. Preorders should start Q1 2025. 7 inch scale I think.
They are running different eras through different companies.
In Australia though?
@ Unfortunately, I don’t know. Apologies.
This merchandise doesn't exist because no one is willing to manufacture it. For merchandise to exist a manufacturer needs to purchase a licence which then grants them the right to make and sell the products. For that to happen a manufacturer has to decide whether they are likely to see a return on their investment in the licence considering that they will also have to convince retailers to carry the products. The reality is that Secret Hideous has driven Star Trek into the ground so badly that no one thinks it's a good investment. And they're right. Virtually no one wants merchandise from the current shows because they are objectively bad. Okay, but why are there no kids toys? Would you let your kids watch a show that indulges in extreme violence, sexual assault, baby decapitation, etc? I would hope not. And these shows have little to inspire children in the way that TOS and TNG did. They're dark, they're pessimistic, they're violent, they're full of characters who are abject failures as people who don't belong on a starship let alone in Starfleet. Maybe you like them. Cool. Or maybe you've just done a good job at convincing yourself that you do because they have the Star Trek label attached to them. Either way, there just isn't a market for that kind of merchandise. Nor is there really a market for most of these shows if we're being honest. Why do they make Captain Picard mugs? Because someone will actually buy them. A Michael Burnham Menstrual Journal for Young Uterus-Havers with a complimentary endless supply of Michael Burnham Get Out of Jail Free Cards not so much.
Your last sentence ruined any credibility you just had.
@@TrekTrav If you think that last sentence was not put there deliberately you are wrong. It was put there to test you. And I'm afraid you failed. If you dismiss everything someone has to say, even though you initially found some sort of value in it, because you don't like something else that person said it is an indication that your thinking has become siloed, illogical, unscientific, and cultish. You are the very problem with Star Trek. You are the reason that the Star Trek audience has shrunk to nearly zero. You are the reason there is no market for merchandise. Because you will accept anything with the Star Trek label slapped on it no matter how unlike Star Trek it actually is. You'll put your hands over your ears and refuse to listen to any criticism of it. And then you'll sit there wondering why there's no merchandise. There is no merchandise because Star Trek has ceased being Star Trek and become complete garbage, jettisoning its fanbase in the process - and not attracting a new one. There's barely an audience left because of what Secret Hideout has turned it in it. Star Trek has become petty, narcissistic, self-indulgent, bleak, and nonsensical. It is produced by people who actively hate Star Trek and Star Trek fans. It has been deliberately gutted of everything that made Star Trek Star Trek. And people, like yourself, who blindly accept whatever swill is served up to them are the problem. Star Trek has always been progressive. But people like yourself mistake "woke" for progressive. They are not the same. Not at all. In many ways they are the polar opposite of each other. Star Trek once served an important social function. It encouraged people to think and to view issues from a different perspective than they may have previously. But now, instead of that, shows like Discovery discourage people from thinking and tell them to simply adopt the party line, no matter how ridiculous it might be. Dissenting voices are called "garbage" and "bigots". And not by accident. Those kind of terms are intended to intimidate anyone who would question what they are being told. Star Trek has abandoned its progressive roots and become regressive. And to add insult to injury it's just plain stupid now.
There's a scene from the next season of Strange New Worlds where some of the crew are genetically modified to become Vulcans. And it's a scene that was clearly written by people who, firstly, don't know the first thing about Star Trek, and secondly, are morons. The crew members are given a hypospray and they transform. They immediately become "logical" and kind of racist towards Spock for being half-human. Does that make sense to you? Is that how Vulcans work? No, it's not. Vulcans are not genetically logical. They are highly, and often violently, emotional. They embraced logic to address their emotional volatility because they understood that it was the source of the conflict in their society. That served as an import lesson for the audience. That rather than allowing our emotions to guide our decisions and behaviour we should seek to balance our emotions with logic and reason. Instead of becoming logical they should have become highly emotional because they lack the social conditioning that Vulcans undergo to become logical. And it could have provided an opportunity to explore the difficulties that people face when trying to balance emotions with logic and reasoning. But the scene was clearly written by people who either don't understand Vulcans or simply don't care that it doesn't make any sense because they are narcissistic and think that the story they want to tell is more important than it actually making sense. And if that weren't bad enough they then go full retard. Somehow this genetic treatment is able to restyle the crew members' hair including putting Ohura's hair in braids. How could it possibly do that? How does a hypospray braid hair? Now they could have avoided this idiocy by simply cutting away from the scene and then cutting back to it later. Putting some time between the treatment and the reveal, during which presumably the crew members restyled their hair. But they didn't do that. They just went full retard because they think the audience, people like you, are either too stupid to notice how ridiculous it is or because they know that no matter how ridiculous it is you'll just accept it. Probably because you are afraid of being called "garbage" or a "bigot".
You are the very problem you are struggling to understand. And to quote Kai Opaka, "I cannot give you what you deny yourself. Look for solutions from within, Commander." Fortunately Skydance is on the horizon. And they have already indicated through their actions that all this bullshit is going to go. There's a reason that Lower Decks just decanonised Discovery. It is going to be relegated to the trash pile of history. Which is where it belongs. And I wouldn't be surprised if Strange New Worlds and Picard suffer the same fate. Star Trek will be saved. And once it has been, you'll get your merchandise. Because there will be an audience will to buy it.
Exo-6 1/6 figures!
I don't have $500 to fork out....lol
This is my first vid of yours and all I heard is you bashing older trek fans.WOW
Tbh, older Trek fans (not all) seems to have an inability to separate nostalgia with fact. Not to mention the large chunk of fans who are just outright racist,homophobic and transphobic about the newer shows.
This is just my experience on older platforms. Eg. Facebook and TH-cam.
A lot of older fans like the new shows but I am tired of hearing the same old narrative that Discovery was to Woke and that newer Trek is so much worse than TNG era trek.
When it's okay not to dislike one and like another, you don't have to actively try and convince people things they like are somehow less than things you like.
I apologise if it comes across that way.
@TrekTrav New Trek SUCKS
@@itsmeimback732 to you.