I have ranted, raved, written, revolted, and reviled Hasbro about playsets. Along with Ackmena, the Rebel Transport vehicle, and the TIE Fighter‘s desperate need for a body overhaul, I have been completely horrified by the lack of play sets for the most successful action figure line in history.  The icing on the cake was using a Star Wars playset, the Geonosis Arena, as the base for a G.I. Joe playset. (Conquest of Cobra Mountain actually had the molded Trade Federation Battle Droid and  Super Battle Droid body parts still on the base.) I guess Cobra intercepted some data from a long, long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? Good thing they didn’t use it, or the 501st might have to… now I have a headache.

Getting to the point, we (the few, the proud, the toy geeks) have been whinging and mewling for Hasbro to take the "Build-A-BLANK" and use it with playsets. Well, a little toy company called Playmates has done just that. In this case, you can build the obscenely boring bridge from the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701 and you can even augment that with the Transporter Room playset. (Oh and you’d better believe I’m linking to a sponsor on this one. You’ll know why shortly.)

You see, my boyfriend/partner (at least in the City of Atlanta and the rest of Occupied Georgia) is a bit of a Trekkie. He marveled over that image (above) and dreamed of being able to shove my BMF Millennium Falcon into some dusty closet or (well, there’s not a lot of space here anyway) melting it down for parts on his own faster-than-light spaceship (which he’ll get around to building someday).

That Transporter Room playset would be the coup de grâce, undoubtedly, and Star Wars would no-longer rule throughout the entire house! Then I introduced him to the "Build-A-Playset" concept. Don’t let the innocuous beauty shots fool you. If you want that playset, you’re going to have to pay, and it’s going to cost you more than the BMF Millennium Falcon did at FULL RETAIL!

Playmates has proven to me, at least, that the "Build-A-Playset" concept doesn’t work. For about $30 (price may vary) you get a large playset base, a chair, a screen, the "con", and two doorways. Then! If you want the whole enchilada, you need to buy 18 figures total at about $6.99 per figure, plus tax. So that’s $30 plus 18 figures at $7~ish (roughly $126) bringing the "completed" U.S.S. Enterprise Bridge playset to $156 (plus tax).

Oh, and if you want the Transporter Room add-on, that sells for $30~ish plus it’ll take five additional figures (at $7~ish +tax) bringing that set to $65~ +tax.

So to take it all home in your shopping cart, you’re going to dole out a whopping  $221~ +tax. That $149.99 BMF Millennium Falcon was a BARGAIN, now, wasn’t it? (May a choir of angels watch over Mark Boudreaux forever and ever more.)

Don’t be dismayed! You Trekkies out there (except one) I wholeheartedly encourage you to buy the whole shebang. Click on any of the links above, and our friends at Entertainment Earth will be more than happy to help you with your shopping needs. There’s a whole lot of other Star Trek stuff that you can buy, too. Just make sure to tell them that Galactic Blogger sent you!

Now, we have all heard rumblings that the good people at Hasbro are putting out a playset at the end of the year (when big box items sell their best). I hope that they will do their best to make sure we get the most bang for our buck. (Ultra General Rieekan and his magic screen anyone?)

P.S. If you live in Atlanta, a neighboring state, or you can hop around the globe freely, I greatly encourage you to get to Atlanta by May 8th, as the incomparable punk rock legend Jayne County will be performing a one-off concert (which she rarely does these days) to benefit PAWS (our local no-kill pet shelter).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Daily Blog, Plugs, Star Trek, Tips, Toys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.