Why are there no official Star-Trek sets?

[DrJB]

Granted, we already have plenty of StarWars inspired sets, but really, the Federation and its allies/foes has a great collection of fantastic ships. Any reason (documented) as to why TLG has not done any official Star-Trek set? WOuld that be an overkill? Does the Star-Wars licensing/agreement prohibit TLG from pursuing any other Sci-Fi theme?  Many SW fans out there while, religiously following everything SW, are equally Star-Trek fans.

Of the many potential ships I can name the NextGen Enterprise, the Romulan WarBird, DS9 station, .. and many many more.

Or is it that TLG has missed the boat on this, and Star-Trek fans are older nowadays, and the market is not as big ?

[icm]

It is generally speculated that there's some sort of non-complete clause in the Star Wars license. Besides, Star Wars is generally better suited to Lego than Star Trek because the focus is usually on the small craft, starfighters and tramp freighters, that are easily adapted to minifig play scale, whereas in Star Trek the focus is usually on the large starships.  There have been a few Star Wars sets based on larger vessels, but it's easier to build a playset in a large triangular Star Destroyer frame than in the shape of the Starship Enterprise, with its several distinct large structures to support. Mega Construx did a fine UCS TOS Enterprise though, and Kreo did a mediocre minifig playscale Star Trek line in connection with the 2013 movie.  I think a Lego line would work best with miniscale models of the starships, like the Eaglemoss collectibles.

[deraven]

36 minutes ago, icm said:

Mega Construx did a fine UCS TOS Enterprise though, and Kreo did a mediocre minifig playscale Star Trek line in connection with the 2013 movie.

Speculation about non-compete in the Star Wars license aside, this is a big reason: Other brands have the license to make Star Trek building toys.

I'd love to see official ST sets done by TLG, but the 2 "competing" franchises will probably remain a challenge even if the ST license became available.  I would also say that most of the iconic ships from the Star Trek universe would need to be done as playsets, midi-scale, or microfighters style which generally may not be as appealing for marketing.  There are far fewer small craft and vehicles to lean on for smaller sets, but with the breadth of the ST universe and TLG's creativity I'm sure there'd be plenty of great products if they ever do go there!

[MAB]

 

At least we got three out of four.

 

[M2m]

On 1/8/2021 at 1:02 AM, deraven said:

Speculation about non-compete in the Star Wars license aside, this is a big reason: Other brands have the license to make Star Trek building toys.

I'd love to see official ST sets done by TLG, but the 2 "competing" franchises will probably remain a challenge even if the ST license became available.  I would also say that most of the iconic ships from the Star Trek universe would need to be done as playsets, midi-scale, or microfighters style which generally may not be as appealing for marketing.  There are far fewer small craft and vehicles to lean on for smaller sets, but with the breadth of the ST universe and TLG's creativity I'm sure there'd be plenty of great products if they ever do go there!

I think the LEGO Star Trek ship has sailed. It would have been a good move in the mid 90s (when Trek was uber popular with in its height 3 shows running in parallel - TNG, DS9, VOY). Now the dominance of Star Wars is too big, so I guess while some of us (me included) would buy Star Trek LEGO out of nostalgia, I do not think it would be a financially very successful move. In addition there are of course all the these licensing issues mentioned above (Star Wars "mon-compete", Mega Construx, etc.).

That aside it would be of course nice to get some kind o a "niche" set  - like LEGO did with Friends or whatsoever (which of course i also unlikely due to licensing). 

[AmperZand]

In addition to the reasons already stated in this thread (with which I agree), I suspect that LEGO wouldn’t do ST as long as it was doing SW even if it could because the sales would cannibalise each other. In other words, LEGO ST would be competing for much the same market as LEGO SW and it is never a good thing when a company competes with itself.

I haven’t looked but there may be fan-produced LEGO instructions for ST vessels available online either for free or for purchase. That’s my guess. My avatar says: ‘That would be logical.’

[JACKATTACKS]

On 1/16/2021 at 1:12 PM, AmperZand said:

In addition to the reasons already stated in this thread (with which I agree), I suspect that LEGO wouldn’t do ST as long as it was doing SW even if it could because the sales would cannibalise each other. In other words, LEGO ST would be competing for much the same market as LEGO SW and it is never a good thing when a company competes with itself.

I haven’t looked but there may be fan-produced LEGO instructions for ST vessels available online either for free or for purchase. That’s my guess. My avatar says: ‘That would be logical.’

Yes there's an array of various instructions for Star Trek vehicles on sites like Rebrickable I believe.  Although, one can only dream of the wonders which would occur if the Lego design team tackled the Enterprise