A New Diamond Select Toys Sci-Fi Q&A

DSTChuck has released a new Diamond Select Toys Q&A over on their Art Asylum website for your viewing pleasure.

In this weeks edition focuses on Sci-Fi questions. Check out the entire Q&A below:

Dennis Shanta
Good Gentlemen of Art Asylum, It was with horror and confusion that I read in your latest blog that you are considering the Klingon Phaser as the next piece of “Trek Tech”. The reasons to choose the Phaser III for production over the Klingon Phaser are numerous and compelling. For starters, your fans have been clamoring for years now for you to make a Phaser III. It’s the most consistently asked about item on your Trek blog. By contrast, no one is clamoring for a Klingon Phaser. One of the reasons for the lack of enthusiasm for the Klingon version might be the fact that the Klingon Phaser has been done several times and by several different companies. To this day NO ONE has produced a licensed Phaser III. On top of that, whether it’s figures, ships, or “tech” stuff, the Alien products never sell as well as the Federation ones do. There are a few people out there that are interested in the “villains”, but the vast majority of fans want to complete their Federation “Hero” collections. That’s why Playmate’s Bajoran and Klingon Phasers didn’t sell as well as their TOS. TWOK, and Assault Phasers did. Perhaps the BEST reason to produce a Phaser III is the fact that it lights up like a Christmas Tree while the Klingon Phaser has NO LIGHTING at all. Please reconsider, Gentlemen. The Klingon Phaser is a huge mistake. Make us happy, end this interminable wait, make us a Phaser III!

DSTChuck: Dennis, the Trek3 phaser is something we have considered and just because we’re doing the Klingon one next does not mean we’re never going to do the phaser you want. It seems if we just do Federation product then fans get upset and tell us fans would be happier with a wider range of product. I think the issue is Trek is a property that has a wide range of fans with a wide range of likes and dislikes so there is NO way to do something ALL the fans will love or need to buy. So I think we’ll keep the schedule we have but I can assure you we’ve given and continue to give thought to the Trek3 phaser.


Richard Gifford
Hi! Have the M-113 Salt Vampire and the wave of figures featuring the Romulan commander, Nurse Chapel, and Yeoman Rand been delayed, cancelled or do we know their status? I would like to know if the line is continuing or finished so I may budget accordingly. if delayed~do we have a tentative release schedule? thanks.

DSTChuck: They are currently off the development schedule with no release date planned so you are safe not planning to save money for them any time soon.


Randy Bowers
Are you going to re-release the star trek next generation enterprise? Thanks!

DSTChuck: Randy are you referring to the D,E or AGT? I can say when a ship goes out of stock we DO review the demand and always consider bringing a ship back in production and we are doing that right now with the AGT Enterprise.


John Buric
THE ISS 1701 ENTERPRISE MIRROR VERSION, DO THE WARP ENGINES LITE UP THE SAME WAY AS YOUR ORIGINAL CLASSIC ENTERPRISE 1701 DOES?

DSTChuck: I think the only change to that version was paint.


Rob Brown
it was great to see some new star trek figures last year - as always superbly detailed - however i was disappointed to see more Kirk and Spock figures . I , as well as many others i’m sure , have been waiting patiently for the rand and chapel figures - two popular characters often left out of collections . I very much hope to see chapel and rand in 2011 and am looking forward to the retro chapel figure ( hope rand not far behind ! ) It would be great to see rand and chapel in their movie uniforms and for the first time have a complete crew in all of their uniform variations. Brilliant figures though , just some different characters please !

DSTChuck: Kirk and Spock for Trek are very much like Spider-Man and Wolverine for Marvel. On the one hand I assure you from a straight profit loss point of view we would make more money if we did JUST Wolverine and Spidey for Mavel; with RARE exception has a secondary character sold better than those two. Therefore you might say I should ONLY do those two; why ever do Cyclops, when you can do Wolverine?

Now we all know collectors would not like that and at some point I guess you reach saturation BUT it does create a dilemma for a line that is not producing top level sales. With the two packs we try and mix a popular character with a secondary character OR something that has lower cost with something that might cost more or be less popular. We’re going to take a little break from Trek figures right now and kind of re-think what we want to do with the line and hopefully some more heat comes to the property with the new movie moving along.