Fair, I have no knowledge of what availability was like outside of the US/Canada. Totally agreed the franchise would likely be stronger if they had kept the game up. I remember some effort being made during the early Kelvin films, but that seemed to drop off pretty quick.
Even in Canada, I don’t recall that they had wide distribution. They were also marked up quite a bit from the US price (well beyond the exchange rate). I saw them mainly in specialty stores, not Toys R US and department stores.
Interesting, I definitely remember getting a number of them from my local Toys R Us in the '90s. But that was Toronto (or rather Scarborough, since this was pre-amalgamation!) so maybe it varied by location.
That was a very time limited counter example, and were largely unavailable outside the US.
And it may be a really important factor in explaining the loyalty of millennial guys in the US to the franchise vs other demographics and countries.
Fair, I have no knowledge of what availability was like outside of the US/Canada. Totally agreed the franchise would likely be stronger if they had kept the game up. I remember some effort being made during the early Kelvin films, but that seemed to drop off pretty quick.
Even in Canada, I don’t recall that they had wide distribution. They were also marked up quite a bit from the US price (well beyond the exchange rate). I saw them mainly in specialty stores, not Toys R US and department stores.
Interesting, I definitely remember getting a number of them from my local Toys R Us in the '90s. But that was Toronto (or rather Scarborough, since this was pre-amalgamation!) so maybe it varied by location.
That makes sense!
Definitely there was local control over availability. I recall shopping for gifts and seeing walls of SW toys but no Trek in Ottawa.