Independence Day. Men in Black. Starship Troopers. Lost in Space. Alien: Resurrection. As went the films, so went the toys: uninspired, lackluster efforts, with little to distinguish them from the herd. The action figures bore little resemblance to the actors on whom they were based, the bad guys were all cut from H.R Giger cloth.

With Star Trek toys showing signs of age and Episode One just a glimmer on the horizon, the late 1990s were dark days for fans of space toys.

There was nothing gripping enough about these films to inspire anyone to play. When so many Lost in Space viewers left the theater grumbling about the 130 minutes of their lives they'd never get back, few could get excited about reliving the Robinson family's adventures.

	More Stories
	Total Recall: SF Film, 1990-1999
	Space TV in 1999: New Faces, Vanished Friends
	Mattel Selling Doomed Mars Mission Toys
	Hasbro Signs 'Titan' Toy Deal

The late radio personality Jean Shepherd understood this -- his writings are full of memories of hard-won trinkets and lamentations of lost toys -- but the thrills have been few and far between in the past 10 years.

The '90s began with space toys in decline. Early in the decade, the heavyweight merchandising champions were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which few would classify as having much to do with science fiction. The occasional action figure dressed in a spacesuit doesn't count -- other Turtle toys were packaged in medieval samurai regalia.

When the Turtles lost their throne, it was to another property with roots in Japanese pop culture -- the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Although not explicitly space-based, the Rangers were nominally part of an intergalactic peace-keeping force and battled an enemy whose secret base was located on the moon.

Space toys or super-heroes, the Power Rangers ruled the mid-1990s. They were the unbelievably profitable standard bearers of children's imaginations. Still, while the Rangers funneled plenty of cash from bemused parents to Bandai and Saban, they failed to make inroads with older toy fans.

The (commercial) empire strikes back

Things started looking up in 1995 when the Lucasfilm merchandising juggernaut awoke from its ten-year slumber. The release of new, redesigned versions of classic Star Wars figures, vehicles and playsets signaled the return of space toys to their proper place in the scheme of things.

The revived Star Wars line appealed to three core constituencies:

• those still grieving the loss -- through time, neglect or maternal intervention -- of their beloved childhood collections
• those who simply thought the toys were neat and who, having reached a certain age, no longer worried about the stigma of trafficking in kids' stuff
• the ill-advised speculators who got burned when the comic book market collapsed and were waiting for the next pipe dream to fuel their appetite for the next economic mania.

Han Solo actually looked vaguely like Harrison Ford, rather than Austin Powers. Those of you who still have your 1977 vintage Han, go back and see if you don't come away muttering, "May the Force be with you, Baby!"

Okay, so the new Luke was impossibly barrel-chested and the new Leia so wasp-waisted that she couldn't really stand up, but these were minor quibbles with an otherwise excellent line.

These are the toyages...

The Playmates Star Trek line was less exciting, but still impressive. Like the Star Wars figures, the new wave of Trek "collectibles" exerted a strong power over investor/speculators -- Playmates encouraged this by stamping each figure, vehicle and weapon with a unique serial number to ensure authenticity.

Some people certainly approached the toys as investments, but for those who liked to take their figures off their blister cards and play with them, it was more important that Worf could play a really slammin' air guitar.

The Trek toys had two things going for them: detailed molding and variety. With some amusing minor exceptions, the molding was superb. The Riker figure looked like Jonathan Frakes, McCoy looked like DeForest Kelley, Sisko looked like Avery Brooks, and so on.

As for variety, Playmates understood its market. Once the company knocked off the basic bridge crew of each Trek series in duty uniform collection, innovation knew no bounds. No episode, no transformation, no wardrobe change was too minor to exploit.

To put it another way: if Patrick Stewart wore it on The Next Generation, you could be sure that sooner or later a fresh variant figure would find its way to toy shelves and dealers' tables.

By the late 1990s, the Trek line started running out of steam. Even with 30-plus years of history to exploit, there are only so many characters with the cachet to justify being immortalized in plastic. While the most fervent Trek completists and Joan Collins fans drooled over the Edith Keeler figure, such esoteric footnotes of Trek lore simply didn't have what it took to become top sellers.

As the decade drew to a close, Playmates abandoned the smaller figure line for the new frontier of the 12-inch figure or "doll." While some fans might balk at the implied feminization of their beloved Kirk, Spock and company, the move took Trek merchandising full circle to the great Mego figures of the early 1970s with cloth uniforms, fiber hair and neat accessories.

Every toy line has a beginning

Meanwhile, Star Wars fans got another treat in the decade's waning months with the arrival of The Phantom Menace. As the film's premiere approached, bringing almost unprecedented levels of hype in its wake, the associated toy launch sparked a feeding frenzy. Crowds of fans thronged toy stores across the nation to score Episode One swag weeks before the release of the film.

Given the lukewarm reception The Phantom Menace received in some quarters, the toy mania was a brilliant marketing move, at least in the early weeks. Now, of course, the crowds are gone. For every Darth Maul and Mace Windu the fans snapped up at 12:00:01 on May 17, there are still at least a dozen Captain Panakas and Ric Oliés that retailers just can't give away.

Action figures, lightsabers and vehicles weren't the sweetest plum in the Star Wars harvest. As exciting and realistic as these toys were, the real coup came in the form of Star Wars Lego. This was the jackpot for every kid who ever struggled to recreate X-Wings and TIE Fighters with the Lego they had on hand, often forced to use odd-colored blocks to finish the job.

Brilliant licensing deals aside, Lego was arguably the space toy sleeper hit of the 1990s.

There is no underlying story arc, no backstory or context in LegoLand. There are no minor characters to be packaged into action-figure form, no costume changes or variant moldings to force fans to buy the same toy twice.

In the end, Lego is more about creativity and free play than about strict storytelling guidelines. As a result, the voyages of the Com-Link Cruiser or the Celestial Stinger unfold solely according to the dictates of the builder's imagination.

That said, there's nothing wrong with hoping that the nice people at Paramount ink a similar deal to bring Star Trek to life in Lego form one of these days.