Star Trek - Reincarnated from the Genesis Planet!

[MisterPL]

Blind bags would make the current TRU experience even worse.

[youbastards]

I would fully support blind bags at LCS, because I could order them by the case and not worry about it. Blind bags at TRU sound like a Minimate collector's nightmare, particularly because some stores don't restock reliably, and unless TRU throws support behind these, some may not restock at all.

At the stores I regularly visit, the Lego blind bags are plentiful and usually stocked multiple boxes at a time. All of the non-Lego blind bags aren't nearly as cared for, usually stuffed into plastic dispensers hanging on the side of an endcap.

[DSTZach]

This is all assuming that blind bagged figures would not be available in other formats at other retailers, of course.

My TRU has a lineup of Kre-O, Mega Blox and MLP blind-bags on an end-cap. All seemed plentiful.

[youbastards]

Touche.

'Best of' waves repacked into blind bags?

[pk13]

This is all assuming that blind bagged figures would not be available in other formats at other retailers, of course.

That's a fair point. If the exact same blind bag figures were available to buy without the gamble of buying blind bags, then that would be cool. I'm thinking of something like the Best Of waves. If those were available as a series of blind bags OR you could order them from Luke's and not worry about ending up with doubles/triples, then that could be pretty cool.

EDIT: yb beats me to the Best Of example!

Edited April 20, 2014 by pk13

[youbastards]

The MLP are mixed with the building figures at your store? There's that TRU consistency...

So without seeing the product itself, what would make a Minimates blind bag sell itself? They aren't currently marketed as "building toys" or stocked in that section of TRU, other than the feet they aren't easily compatible with other lines like Lego/MegaBloks, and there are several other super hero themed blind bag/capsule toys available currently.

Their 'hot sex' appeal of Minimates comes from the combination of the theme, the design aesthetic, and the sometimes abundant accessories. Blind bag approach immediately reduces the impact of 2 of those factors.

[Politician]

Blind bags would also be aboslute gold for army builders.

[Rex Raygun]

Blind bags is what killed Palz. And we've still never seen the Buffy, Angel, X-files or Army of Darkness lines recover, so that is just stupid crap.

Rex!

[winkerbean]

In the dr who blind bags we had in the UK it was easy to tell what figure was in the bag, built me a nice army of daleks

[buttheadsmate]

Blind bags (BB)...........I collected palZ & I collected kubricks .

palZ X-files BB chase figures .............I absolutely KNOW that they were produced in numbers massively in excess of what Palisades originally said they were.

Kubrick blind box cartons .............I absolutely KNOW that the 'factory sealed' cases were often tampered with .

I'm not being paranoid I have proved it .

I am not suggesting DST would stoop that low but shit sticks.

Just one example...................

............a blind-boxed kubrick figure (1:96) Star Wars Series 3 Logray ,once seemingly unobtainable at any price but just lately.......

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_from=R40&_nkw=kubrick+logray&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc

Knock-offs,fakes . Just produced in the same numbers but held back until the price went up & then dumped when it crashed.

Even fanatical completists aren't completely mad (leastways not this one) & whilst my kubrick star Wars collection is just three figures short of completion it will remain so until items like this one* suddenly come out of the safe-deposit vault.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Star-Wars-Kubrick-DX-3-Hidden-Secret-Owen-Lars-DX03-Chase-1P-/251464746421?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a8c7785b5

I recall that Chuck has been consistently against blind-bags ?

[Turtle]

Blind bags suck. As has been mentioned, TRU already makes it hard enough to find certain mates. I love minimates, but I've never collected a blind bagged line and I never will.

[DSTZach]

The MLP are mixed with the building figures at your store? There's that TRU consistency...

So without seeing the product itself, what would make a Minimates blind bag sell itself? They aren't currently marketed as "building toys" or stocked in that section of TRU, other than the feet they aren't easily compatible with other lines like Lego/MegaBloks, and there are several other super hero themed blind bag/capsule toys available currently.

I could be misremembering that the MLPs were on the same shelf, but I thought they were.

I guess the selling points would need to be the license/characters, design/aesthetic as conveyed by packaging art, price point and placement. A display at point of sale would be highly preferable to being on a shelf in the construction section, and from there it's just making the line look appealing to kids and parents. Obviously, if another blind-bagged product is right next to it, we have competition, but then you need to ask the same questions about the other product. If we had PvZ Minimates in bags next to PvZ MegaBlox, then yeah, we'd lose out to those who are Megablox-inclined, if that is a thing.

Blind bags is what killed Palz. And we've still never seen the Buffy, Angel, X-files or Army of Darkness lines recover, so that is just stupid crap.

I think Palisades' bankruptcy killed Palz, and I don't think the Palz played a large part in that (Micronauts is a commonly cited cause). If blind-boxed Palz sold poorly, it may have been because the only two blind-boxed Palz lines, Die-Hard and X-Files, were not exactly proven merchandise categories in the first place. To say they never recovered would imply they were once thriving, and it's not like there were big Die Hard and X-Files toy collecting communities that would embrace a new way of collecting. Buffy Palz were only released carded, but DST's figure line started to wind down when the shows did, so that might have been the reason Palz Series 3 never materialized, and the licensing dried up. And I don't think AoD Palz made it to prototype, let alone production. A shame, they might have done well in that format -- AoD seems to be the cult property that will not die.

I recall that Chuck has been consistently against blind-bags ?

He certainly has been. This conversation is all hypothetical, at this point.

[Santos L Halper]

Is there anyway a Mod could move all of the Blind Bag/possible new way of distribution talk to its own thread? There is a good discussion going on here about this topic with lots of insight from DSTZach, but no one would know about it if they didn't read the Star Trek thread.

[TENIME_art]

I would fully support blind bags at LCS, because I could order them by the case and not worry about it.

If a case would net you a full set.

I just did that for the Funko Pop Mystery Mini Game of Thrones, and still missed out on 3 figures.

I recall that Chuck has been consistently against blind-bags ?

He certainly has been.

Thank the gods.

[MisterPL]

An new Star Trek TV series, just in time for the 50th anniversary?

So long as it's not on network TV, I'm all for it. Netflix seems like a good fit.

[stack32]

Whether or not I'd be interested depends a lot on the details.

The most depressing part of that article? More people stream Voyager than DS9.

[ufemizm]

That's gotta be because they never watched it originally...

[Turtle]

That is depressing. DS9 is the bees knees.

[Mnemosis]

Best. Trek. Series. EVER.

[MisterPL]

DS9 was anti-Trek.

Ideally, Star Trek is about seeking new life and exploring strange new worlds aboard the starship Enterprise. (Voyager should never have happened. Just continue TNG with new crew members as needed.)

DS9 took place on a space station, had no captain (at first), and a crew that was only half Starfleet, essentially waiting where no one had waited before. It was practically the opposite of that original mission of Star Trek.

That said, it's my favorite, too, possibly because of all those things, even though I still believe that Star Trek fundamentally needs to take place aboard the Enterprise (the core character) flying deeper and deeper into the void.

[karamazov80]

Another thing about DS9 is that it's a bit of a slow burn series. Seems like it took a season or so to clearly establish its identity. I initially couldn't stand Sisko, but now he might be my second favorite Captain after Picard. And I think some of that was a conscious move on the part of the creators, while another part might have just been the writers and actors getting more comfortable in their skins.

[Turtle]

Yeah, and Roddenberry was anti-DS9 for all of those reasons, plus it was heavily political and focused on major war arcs, both things that Trek was intended to touch upon but not dwell on. But it was so well executed for the most part the un-Trekness of it all faded away. In TOS and TNG, we heard a lot about things happening elsewhere and political maneuvers, etc. It was cool seeing a series dedicated to that side of things. I agree that the overall focus of Trek should be the Enterprise seeking out new life and new civilizations, but DS9 is the exception. And when I watch it now, I see so many seeds that would eventually come to fruition in BSG.

[karamazov80]

And when I watch it now, I see so many seeds that would eventually come to fruition in BSG.

I would use a more appropriate analogy, that the dead leaves from the great, fully bloomed flower of DS9 were gathered up and haphazardly cobbled together into a pale imitation known as BSG.

[Additup]

The Enterprise was a setting, not a character. A great setting though.

[Mnemosis]

I think everything you're saying about DS9, good and bad, is entirely accurate. Sisko in particular truly evolved. Watch The Captains if you ever want to see how batshit crazy Avery Brooks is.

Imagine how great DS9 could have been if it overlapped TNG even more. The richness of the crossovers and shared universe could have been developed further. You could have had all sorts of references in TNG to what was happening with the Dominion, and then eventually had each show play vastly different roles in the war. Conversely, you could have had the Enterprise encounter a different iteration of the wormhole aliens elsewhere, further exploring the aliens as gods motif.

As for Voyager, I'd have restructured the show. Have Starfleet intentionally send then on a deep space mission with some sort of massive support vessel, but have that vessel critically damaged in the pilot. Now they're right where they should be but without the resources they're meant to have. Do they continue exploring or just work on getting home? They could have cobbled together, essentially, a travel trailer - tow it along with them, set up a base camp, and explore from there. Eventually, you hit a snag where they CAN make some serious progress towards getting home, but they have to leave the base camp behind. Then you get the last couple of seasons where they are making progress home.