TREKCORE: You’re a big collector of Star Trek action figures and memorabilia — let’s start with just being a fan and collector: why do you love Star Trek action figures?

BRIAN VOLK-WEISS (Founder & CEO, The Nacelle Company): I love Star Trek action figures because I love Star Trek! John Tenuto [the noted Star Trek historian] in the Star Trek episode of Toys That Made Us said it best. It was so brilliant the way he put it, but the gist of what he said was that toys and action figures are like a totem. In most major religions, there’s a symbol that shows your devotion to that religion. And if you’re a Trekkie, that’s Star Trek toys.

I just had to move because of the fires in Los Angeles, and 99.9% of my entire collection is going into storage while I live in a temporary place. But what did I bring with me to my new temporary space? I brought two items that really mean a lot to me: I brought my Ertl USS Enterprise model from The Motion Picture — where I hand painted the impulse engine and the running lights and the photon torpedo launchers. I’ve brought this ship to every single place I have lived since freshman year of college. And I also brought the Hallmark ornament of Captain Kirk sitting in the captain’s chair, where I removed Kirk so it’s just the chair.

And those are two of just a tiny handful of my 4,500+ piece toy collection, including well over 1,000 Star Trek items, that I brought with me. And it’s because that represents Star Trek to me, and I love Star Trek. So I love Star Trek toys.

TREKCORE: With your work standing up the Nacelle Company as a toy producer, and now expanding to produce Star Trek action figures, when you think about all the companies that have worked on Trek toys over the years, who do you most want Nacelle to be like?

VOLK-WEISS: As a business — for the size of their line and the passion they put into it –I want to emulate Playmates, because there were so many action figures released! There were so many, and the Playmates Star Trek toy line was clearly made by fans. So that’s what I’m hoping to do here.

But creatively, I want to emulate Diamond Select Toys. We want to do the level of detail that you found on the Art Asylum and Diamond Select action figures with modern toy technology that makes sculpts and likenesses so much more accurate today than even Diamond could accomplish in the 2000s, and they were one of the best in the business for their time. At the time, the Diamond Select action figures were amazing likenesses. Today, with the technology that we have, we can do much better.

So for Star Trek action figures: volume-wise, fan-worship-wise, I want to be Playmates. For aesthetics, I want to be the modern day Diamond.

TREKCORE: Nacelle made a real splash with its announcement of the Wave 1 Star Trek figures. These are some unexpected, deep-cut character choices —what’s your philosophy behind who you’re choosing for inclusion in the new figure line?

VOLK-WEISS: I learned a very valuable lesson from watching other recent attempts to launch Star Trek action figures. I am not saying anything bad about Playmates, because I respect them too much. But I’m a huge Trekkie — I named my company after a term I learned on Star Trek. And when I saw the news that Playmates was doing Star Trek again, it was one of the greatest days of my fandom.

And then when I saw the figures they were making… let’s just say I only bought one. And the only reason I bought Spock [from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan] was because he came with gloves. So that is the main lesson – I’m one of the biggest Star Trek toy collectors around, and I’m not motivated to get another Kirk and Picard.

I’m friends with the owners of toy companies. I know the high up executives. And I was talking to them as a fan saying, “Please do Star Trek. And if you do Star Trek, for the love of God, don’t just do Kirk and Picard!” The example I always gave them was: don’t do Picard, do Jellico and Rachel Garrett. How on earth did Playmates never do Garrett in the 90s? How on earth did they not do Jellico? And they had their reasons. And it’s all understandable. But my favorite episode is “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” and it’s a lot of other fans’ favorite episode too! So why isn’t there an action figure of Rachel Garrett?

Well, luckily for me, no one did it, so now I can. And so, as a reaction to what happened to me with Playmates 2022 releases and how I didn’t buy any, I wanted to send a message with Wave 1 of our Star Trek action figure line to the community: I am one of you. I don’t need another Picard. I don’t need another Spock. I don’t need another Data. I need the things that inspire me. I need a totem for Jellico.

TREKCORE: But what about the regular bridge crew characters — Janeway, Worf, Dax, Chekov, and so forth — will you be making those?

VOLK-WEISS: When we announced Wave 1, we heard loud and clear from fans: thank you so much for doing these, but I can’t buy those and not have them next to Captain Kirk, Dr. Crusher, Captain Sisko etc. We got tons and tons and tons of comments; you must to do the bridge crews.

So I am excited to let you know that we are going to stagger the waves, and include the traditional Star Trek bridge crews in their regular uniforms. Wave 1is, we’ll call it the “Valkris wave,” because she’s the one with the least amount of screen time.

TREKCORE: The ‘big swing’ wave!

VOLK-WEISS: Yeah. But I will say this. I hedged my bets. She comes with not just the Genesis device, but she also comes with the Genesis device control panel.

And Wave 2 will also feature a lot of cool deep cut characters. We’ve shown Generations Kirk today at Toy Fair, and we’ve got 9 more cool characters to be announced later. Yes, 9 characters — where the first wave that’s available for pre-order today is 8 characters, the waves moving forward will be 10 characters each.

And then Wave 3 will be a bridge crew — a whole bridge crew. We’re going to go bridge crew by bridge crew, until we’ve gone from TOS to Enterprise, which at the moment is all we have the rights for. And then Wave 4 will be a random assortment wave, followed by another bridge crew in Wave 5.

TREKCORE: Will those come in sequence — TOS, then the Animated Series versions, then TNG, etc. — or will you mix it up a bit?

VOLK-WEISS: I don’t know what order we’re going in yet. And just to clarify; the bridge crew waves will be in their regular duty uniforms. And because it’s 10 characters per wave, where most of the bridge crews are just 7 characters, we can also include other show-specific characters in that wave — like doing a TNG Miles O’Brien or Nurse Ogawa with the TNG bridge crew wave.

So you’ll get your main characters in those waves, but still a few deep cuts as well.

TREKCORE: That’s really exciting! I assume your ability to get deeper into the line is all dependent on sales, right? Because Playmates talked a big game… but they ultimately didn’t sell enough to get to another set of characters.

VOLK-WEISS: Yes, but I’ll tell you a secret about Nacelle that makes us different from all the other toy companies that have tried Star Trek before us. For all of those companies, 100% of their business is toys. Whereas my company is my company. If I want to do Star Trek — and I want to do Star Trek! — I can do Star Trek. All I need is 0.5% profit.

As long as I’m not losing money, I can go and make more and more. I can go forever as long as Paramount will let us. So I don’t have to look at a spreadsheet. I love Playmates. I know the people that work there. They’re great people, but they have to make money purely from toys. It’s just a business for them. They have to care about spreadsheets in a way that I don’t have to… and that allows me to make Valkris!

So we’re doing this, we’re feeling good about it, and our price point is going to be under $30 a figure. Look, I love money — it allows me to buy more toys and, you know, pay for my kids’ clothing and whatever — but what really makes me so happy is to know tens of thousands of people have our Biker Mice From Mars or our Roboforce toys on their shelves. And we’re a diversified company; we have a TV business, a book business, a podcast business, a record label.

We’ve got plenty of money coming in every week, every month, every quarter, and so for me the toys are a passion project. It’s not a coincidence our only studio licenses in toys are for The Expanse and Star Trek. I turn down a lot of requests to do more because I don’t have the passion for those projects. But I do for Star Trek. And because I am really passionate about it, I know we need to be under $30 per figure.

I want to make it as easy as possible for people to buy what we make.

TREKCORE: What’s the hardest part of making Star Trek action figures?

VOLK-WEISS:  I’ll be honest, man. I really have to dig to think what’s hard. I’m living the dream. But, you know, by complete coincidence, and I cannot stress to you enough how much this is a gift from God, one of our best sculptors is at least equal to me as a Trekkie. So we’re constantly nerding out over what we’re doing, and he’s just as passionate about getting these figures right as I am.

My life right now is texting about Captain Sulu’s teacup at 5 AM in the morning. How did this happen? I don’t even believe it. It’s great!

TREKCORE: So where can fans get the Wave 1 figures — and when do you expect them to start shipping out?

VOLK-WEISS: Initially, the only place you can go is to nacellestore.com. We’re doing everything humanly possible — and right now there is absolutely no reason why we can’t do this — to make sure they are here before the holidays 2025. The factory is already working on the molds.

Anything can go wrong, but we’re moving forward with that expected timeline. I was adamant the figures had to be under $30 and delivered before January. And unless there’s a curveball, we should absolutely be able to deliver that.

TREKCORE: And after Wave 1, when do you think Wave 2 will go up for preorder?

VOLK-WEISS: We are going for a bare minimum of one wave a year — eight figures in Wave 1, ten figures in subsequent waves. If I feel comfortable that the community can support 20 figures a year, we’ll do two waves a year. I would like to do two waves a year.

When we announced Wave 1, we also told fans to submit their feedback and character ideas to startrekideas@nacellecompany.com. And I probably get a couple of dozen emails a day from fans, and one of the most common things we hear is about price, price, price, price, price, price, price. So we’re shooting for at least a wave a year, and if the community’s down for it, two waves a year.

TREKCORE: How else has the feedback you’ve received changed your plans?

VOLK-WEISS: One of the reasons why we unveiled Generations Kirk today at New York Toy Fair was to show people, we hear you. We’re not only making Valkris. We are doing Captain Kirk, but we’re staying within our lines. It’s a Kirk that’s never been made before. He’s going to come with an axe, some wood for chopping, and even that dill weed from his kitchen!

TREKCORE: You’re really stacking these figures with accessories!

VOLK-WEISS: We want to load these figures up with accessories so that fans know they’re getting the value that they deserve. We’re going all out with the accessories. I told you Valkris comes with the Genesis device and the Genesis control. The knobs turn just like they did in the movie. Sulu, obviously, with the coffee cup, comes from Star Trek VI — but we’re also including the Star Trek II phaser and communicator. So even though the rank stuff on his wrist won’t be accurate to VI, I think if people want that to be their Sulu from Wrath of Khan, they can. It adds value.

TREKCORE: What does success look like to you for Nacelle Company’s Star Trek action figure toy line? If everything goes right, what does it look like in ten years?

VOLK-WEISS: I’ll stop when there are no more interesting Star Trek action figures to make, and nobody wants to buy them anymore. I don’t want to do 50 different Geordi La Forge action figures, you know?

I’m excited by what we’re doing, and the moment when we’ve put out enough that I’m not excited about it anymore, that’s when we’ll stop.

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