The Ewok curse- Toys kill scifi!

[joeranger]

Just read the Dr Who X-mas reviews. I enjoyed the show, but am concerned about the new direction.
Is the commercial success of Dr Who driving the show to be paid toy commercial; plush creatures, Dr Who cereal, action figures, sonic this sonic that...
I saw Star Wars when I was 11 and was blown away. By the time Jedi came out it was one big merchandising event.
Do not underestimate the power of merchandising.

As for Dr. Who. I love the fact that I can watch it with my kids. I liked the x-mas special and love when they take a new look at historical or literary icons; Van Goth, Shakespeare, dickens.

I also like some of the merchandising. I got a disappearing tardis mug and a ST enterprise pizza cutter for x-mas.

Pirates of the Caribbean went headfirst off the merchandising cliff and rescued the saga with "At world's end" Started with hanging a kid. Good morning!

Star Wars went further off the cliff with ep1-3. More toys, more stuff, younger kids...

 

[IndyFanChuck]

I don't agree. Look at how AWESOME Star Wars ended up after they really pumped up the "stuff."

LOL Kidding.

 

[Dave Ward]

The series is made up of multiple stories, so I think it will always generate plenty of potential toys and action figures without the producers having to artificially inject merchandising opportunities.

Personally, I love some of the stuff that comes out of the Who line. It might be heresy to say this on a prop board but I love my fifteen dollar sonic screwdrivers!

 

[joeranger]

Yes. I do love my screwdriver as well.
I think my point was that while I like the family fun xmas special type episode, I do want the show to go back to a serious "We are in real danger" tone.

 

[Dave Ward]

RTD was great at that - he'd start each season off all kid-friendly, to reassure the parents, then the stories would get more and more adult. Moffat, I'm not so sure about. Everything is seen through this fairytale Vaseline haze.

 

[Wes R]

The new Transformers movies were nothing but 2 hour toy and music commercials. Mind you the 80s cartoon was the same thing but at least it didn't leave a bitter taste in your mouth and wasn't as obvious. I watched the second movie and it was like watching a giant GM commercial.

 

[Dave Ward]

The worst tie-in's I've ever seen were back in the early 90's when I was into the Games Workshop stuff. I'd read the novels, which were fun at first, but then they seemed to start writing them to spec just to promote new ranges of miniatures. Seems stupid and obvious now, but back then, I remember how disappointed me and my mates were that they'd try and pull that on us.

 

[Wes R]

The Battletech and Shadowrun novels felt that way at times but not always. Even today you read the novels for Starcraft and WOW and it still feels like they're trying to sell stuff other than the stories. In some of the newer Shadowrun novels it's really what they did as they released some action figures with a game system based on the novel characters. I didn't realize it at first until i noticed the names were the same as the game never caught on.