Askt DST 84 – Battlestar Galactica Edition

John Burk

Hi! I just got the Commander Adama & Stealth Cylon from TRU. They look great! Sorry to hear that this line is coming to an end. One question: I believe the final wave of BSG is coming out with Adama, President Baltar, and Admiral Cain. Does that Adama have the moustache, or is he the same as the TRU figure? Thanks! Hope you find a way to keep BSG and Star Trek figures alive!

DSTChuck: The specialty release of Adama will be different then the TRU one, I think he will have the moustache.

Kevin Gomolchak

For the length of time the lines were active, I collected all of the Star Trek, Stargate, and BSG lines of the seven inch figures. It is understandable how the lines could all not make it, especially in the current economic market. If the problem also has to do with DST stretching themselves too thinly over all the lines, has DST thought about maybe getting rid of a couple of the lines and concentrating on only one. Would it be helpful if, say, DST were to cancel the Stargate and BSG lines (which have a much smaller collecting base) and concentrate on Star Trek (which is always popular)?

DSTChuck: Kevin, I can understand why you might think that but no I would not say we’re stretched too thin. Different sculptors and project managers work on each of those lines.

Chris Gaskill

Hello. I really love your Battlestar Galactica line of figures; I own every one of them and really appreciate all the figures you have made so far. I just read a question on your latest blog about which characters are considered “A”, “B” or “C” characters. I have written to you before about this very thing and your response was “Who would buy the main characters if you were to put them out first.” This was in response to my question as to why “secondary figures like Hot Dog and Kat were made long before Adama, Balter, and Roslin. And now we might not even get President Roslin. This is like having a Star Wars line with 30 figures but no Princess Leia. It should be obvious which figures are the “A” figures and would be wanted most and first by your customers. The characters with the most screen time and importance to the story ie. Adama, Roslin, Apollo, Starbuck, Boomer, Col. Tigh, Baltar and of course Cyclons would be considered “A” charaters to most fans. Consider the ! Star Wars line of figures. Kenner/Hasbro’s new and old lines put out the MAIN characters first, Luke, Leia, Darth, Han,Chewie, Ben ,R2, C3P0, and Stormtroopers. This gave their customers the figures they really wanted and cared about first and created demand for more of the secondary and background figures and the need to “collect them all”. I don’t understand why it seems to be difficult for you to distinguish between main characters and secondary ones. You say it is a matter of opinion. It would seem to me the opinion that should really matter to you are those of your customers. Thank you very much for your time and attention, Chris Gaskill

DSTChuck: Chris, I’m not going to pull the old Q&A but I don’t think you read my answer correctly. If we did just A or main characters in the first couple waves then that would be the end of the line- right? I mean from our POV why do more than that? Later series would just sell less and less. Also Hot Dog and Kat were short packs so that’s something entirely different. You misunderstand short packed figures do NOT take the place of some other figure, its not like we thought Kat would be more popular then Adama; it’s much more complicated then that. If the BSG line had gone anywhere near as long as the Star Wars line I think you might have an argument, but were we really “wrong” to expect this line to last 4 or 5 series? I think this is going to go on and on in a circle forever so I’ll just say we do the best we can and whenever a line ends someone’s favorite character will be left out and not answer any more questions like this since it’s not going to get us anywhere asking it a different way. I hope you’re happy with what we have done and I understand your disappointment - we’re disappointed as well.

Tobias Pierce

I’ve never collected BSG figures until last week, when I found Commander Adama at TRU - and I bought 2! I think you just made a new customer out of me, but I have a question - where is the President of the Colonies? After Adama, I want Laura Roslin most! While I’m asking about BSG figures, is there any chance the main 2 Cylon models will be repacked? The Modern Cylon and Guardian (razor) look best in their clean silver deco, but I couldn’t find them at the store, only ’stealth’ versions. While I’m asking about Cylons, do you plan on making the Zoe Cylon prototype from Caprica? It would be rad to have an evolution of the Cylon diorama! Thanks for your time!

DSTChuck: Glad you liked the figures and welcome! Right now there are no plans to re-make those into a two pack but that is not to say we might not do just that at some point. We are not working on any Caprica product at this time.

Kushmeer Farakhan

hiya, Chuck! Last time you had a BSG Q and A, I asked about the Adama TRU figure availability and then…that very same day I found ONE of him at my local TRU(great figure by the way. Incredible likeness)….and 3 Stealth Cylons. Is he one per case? And if so, why? Couple of additional questions… -Are the Boomer/Athena 2 pack still on track for the end of April? What about the leader wave? Any projected date yet? - I noticed on bigbadtoystore.com, the starbuck/leoben figure was now sold out and the tigh/gaeta figure is now back on preorder(which is funny cause i actually bought my tigh/gaeta pack at bigbad). Does this mean the twopacks are selling better than expected? If so does that mean we could maybe get one or two more? -Finally, I’ve found tons of BSG fansites on the net but I can’t find anyplace to talk with fans of the Diamond Select BSG figures. Do you know of any sites where fans of your toys congregate? I’d love to know some of the opinions of other BSG toy collectors about which figures they still want made and who they could give a frak about one way or the other. Thanks again, Chuck and company!

DSTChuck: Yes, the Cylon is 3 per case. That is what TRU wanted. Their sell through reading showed that the Cylons sold MUCH better then any other character in previous waves. The #8 two pack is in the warehouse at this time and should be out very soon! Not sure about BB but we have plenty of stock on all the recent BSG two packs so they could order them from us anytime they wanted. Hmm, to be honest I am not sure I’ve noticed a web site for the figures or a heavy concentration of fans.

B’ R.

So I asked this last month but it was never posted…I was wondering if the TrU Adama’s glasses came off? You had said in previous posts that his glasses would b removable, but when I gave them a little tug, nothing, and I didn’t want to break it. Also, is there any word on Roslin, and where the frak are the number 8s?!?!? lol

DSTChuck: Sorry, the glasses were not able to be made removable.

Jared Chalfant

It would be cool if Art Asylum made a few BSG ‘toys’ rather than collectible statues - I remember seeing Trek ships on your blog, so why on Earth wouldn’t you make BSG ships? I’d happily buy the Galactica, and Cylon Basestar, etc. What would be really amazing is if you made a BSG that had opening flight pods, and micros of the Colonial one, Gemenon Travelers, and vipers / raptors to place in the pods - it would make an awesome toy or display piece. Any chance of seeing something like this? Your BSG statues are cool, but many of us don’t collect ‘high end’ items and would prefer something like this.

DSTChuck: Jared I am not 100% sure what you are saying. Is it a veiled comment about us not doing enough articulation in the action figures for your taste? Maybe you want the ships like we did for Trek and are referring to those as “toys’? If that’s the case, then no, right now there are no plans for plastic BSG ships. The numbers we need to make the Trek work are very large and take multiple variants and production runs to turn a profit. It’s our thinking as well as our sales departments that BSG does not have that kind of following. We might all be wrong but for the time being we’re not working on any.