In late July, Star Trek collectors were shocked to find that the seemingly-endless run of Eaglemoss products — such as the years-long Official Starships Collection and expansive Build the Enterprise-D subscription program — was brought to an unceremonious end.
 
Based in England, Eaglemoss Collectables entered into “administration” — a UK status analogous to bankruptcy in the United States — and the company’s online web shops went offline as all communication from the Eaglemoss team ended, leaving Star Trek fans and collectors wondering just what was going on.
 
Some even expressed fears that this was going to become another Anovos situation, where those who had invested in annual subscriptions for build-up models or had placed big preorder buys for starships would be out the sunk costs already charged to their credit cards.
 
Eaglemoss program editor Ben Robinson, who we’ve spoken with several times over the years, was someone fans have been waiting to hear from since this situation began, as one of the most fan-forward members of the company — often sharing insight into the status of upcoming products through his Twitter account or appearing on YouTube channels to talk about a new starship model.
 
Because of his status as an Eaglemoss employee, Robinson was barred from speaking publicly about the situation within the company — until this week, when he formally separated from Eaglemoss and regained the power to share his perspective.
 
Ben was kind enough to beam aboard our WeeklyTrek podcast for a special, lengthy discussion about his experience over the last few weeks, his thoughts on the end of Eaglemoss as an operating company, and his hope for the future of the many Star Trek products that Eaglemoss produced — and to make sure fans know the fight isn’t over just yet.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

TREKCORE: Welcome back, Ben! Fans have looked to your social media posts and discussions with fan sites like TrekCore for years to learn all about the behind-the-scenes efforts to bring Eaglemoss’ Star Trek products to life — and after the sudden shutdown of Eaglemoss in July, everyone’s been clamoring to hear from you about the situation.

BEN ROBINSON: I have been overwhelmed by the kindness and the positivity of the responses to my return to Twitter after the last few weeks of silence — it’s difficult to put into words how much that means and how emotional it is to see that kind of reach. I’ve got five or six thousand followers, and those first few tweets back have been seen by something like 125,000 people or more.

I’m very sorry that there hasn’t been better communication from Eaglemoss. It wasn’t my choice — I’m afraid that all of us were told that we could not communicate with people. While I was on the staff, I had no choice. As soon as I was made redundant, I literally was like, “I’ve been made redundant. Now I can finally something!”

It was so frustrating seeing all those people who are understandably stressing and feeling depressed and worried about how much they’d invested in something and not having any hope — and I can promise you that Paramount are also determined to find a good outcome for this. They were completely blindsided by this. They knew no more than any of you.

That was frustrating to me as well, and I wasn’t allowed to talk to them about it. They have been really supportive, and they are determined to do everything they can to help people — particularly on the build-up subscriptions as a first priority.

They’ve been big supporters of this program and they continue to be so.

TREKCORE: Last year, Eaglemoss seemed to be riding high with a number of new Star Trek announcements, and new license acquisitions like Stargate and The Expanse — and now it’s effectively out of business. What can you tell us about the recent shutdown of the company, from your experience on the inside?

ROBINSON: That’s a good question. I’m not privy to everything that’s happened, but essentially, the owners of Eaglemoss pursued a strategy of very aggressive expansion and  aggressive growth — with the intention of making the company as attractive to a potential buyer as possible. The way it feels to me is that they over-egged it.

Again, I’m not completely privy to everything and I haven’t seen all the numbers and all that, but the general impression that I get from the inside is they tried to grow too fast and that it’s toppled over. That’s not just related to the Star Trek stuff, or the science fiction ship stuff, it’s the whole business — they were very keen to make it grow very aggressively.

A few things didn’t go their way, they were a little bit ambitious and this is where we’ve ended up, unfortunately.

TREKCORE: Compared to the rest of the company, how was Star Trek doing? Was that product line key to the business issues — like a slowdown in Trek purchasing, too many obscure ships, that kind of thing?

ROBINSON: Oh, no. If people are thinking, “They got too obscure with the Star Trek stuff,” or something like that — that’s not what happened. The reasons why are more complicated and, as I say, I’m not privy to everything, but it is not because no one was buying the Star Trek ships anymore or anything like that. That is not the case.

The business didn’t fail because we were losing money on individual Star Trek ships. There were one or two that we did lose money on that were a bit marginal — that’s things like the background Romulan ships from the first season of Picard where I don’t think that had the traction with people that it needed.

We were waiting to see whether the sales recovered with the 32nd-century ships. Again, it’s difficult, because you’re getting to a point when we knew that Voyager-J from Discovery Season 3 sold really well. People love that ship. I think the Nog had also just come came out, and I don’t really know what happened with the sales figures on that one. Things were starting to get a bit messy by that point.

If those were found to have sold in respectable numbers, then you’d kind of go, “Okay, we still have this business making Starfleet ships. We just have to treat some of the alien ships with a bit more caution.” That’s to be expected when you’ve made 400 individual ships!

The interesting thing about Eaglemoss is that a lot of the bits of the business were still functional and are still attractive to somebody else, I think. We are still in the process of trying to see who that somebody else might be — there’s a lot of legal messes to be tidied up from the Eaglemoss side of things first, though.

Paramount, for example, can’t talk about things at all yet, because they still have a contract with Eaglemoss, even though the company is effectively on a life support machine with no hope of recovery, I’m afraid. There are limits to what people can do until all of that is resolved — but there are still lots of reasons to be optimistic about each of the individual projects.

TREKCORE: If a new company came in and took over the license to make Star Trek models, do you think they would focus on just the iconic famous ships — or is there a world in which they would get back to the more deep cut starships that Eaglemoss was making?

ROBINSON: I think it’s somewhere in between. It’s going to be a bit of both. I think there is clearly value for somebody in continuing to make our XL versions of the Enterprises and Voyager available. The best thing we ever did is that Original Series XL Enterprise; it is still my favorite model from all of them.

I think there’s every chance that someone will come in and say, “This is the best model of this that’s ever been available. Of course, we’ll carry on making it. There are always going to be people who will want to buy an Enterprise.”

Eaglemoss XL 'USS Enterprise NCC-1701'

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I know that it’s important to Paramount that anybody who comes and takes on the license expresses an interest in doing the new Paramount+ shows. Not necessarily every single ship but if there’s a like, I don’t know, a new Starfleet Academy TV show and it has a hero ship, Paramount will require any new company to commit to the new ship as much as they will want to produce models from the older shows.

When it comes to the really deep-dive stuff, I think it might be that we have to develop some system where people express their interest before we move forward with making it. I don’t want anyone to be in a position of having to put money down, but show some commitment to those models.

For a new player to have the confidence in doing those, it’s quite an ask — but if we’ve got however many thousand people that is who said, “I would really like a model of Andrew Probert’s vertical Romulan warbird,” then that might make it happen if we capture that interest in the right way, like how the original USS Titan model was from an online petition.

But I’m not talking about crowdfunding here; I’m just talking about some expression of interest. There are all sorts of ways that someone might be able to do it. One of the things about crowdfunding you hear just generally from licensors is that they don’t like it because you’ve got the possibility of putting something out as an idea that then fails — and that failure reflects badly on the brand.

That said, there are things that are more niche and obscure where I think crowdfunding is appropriate — like for a limited run of a special publication or something. I had an idea to do a book based upon Syd Dutton’s Star Trek matte paintings, which were heavily photographed before they went up for auction last year.

The idea of doing a book of Syd Dutton matte paintings was really expensive. You might say, “Look, in order to do this properly, it needs to be a major, really weird-format book with CinemaScope proportions. It needs to be expensive, and we know it’s going to be very niche.” That seems to me to be appropriate for crowdfunding because you could be like, “Look, it’s a limited edition of a thousand copies” or something.

If you’re going to do something that is really niche, or an unusual thing like a studio-scale model; something that you know is a real collector product. What I don’t think people should do is use it as a substitute for normal business, when there are other ways to gauge consumer interest without getting into the crowdfunding thing at all.

TREKCORE: Let’s get into the different Star Trek product lines that the Eaglemoss shutdown has really affected — the folks mostly feeling the pain right now are those who invested into the “Build the Enterprise-D” partwork subscription program, and now are stuck with half-built Galaxy-class models. 

ROBINSON: They should have hope, that’s my message to them. It is clear that Eaglemoss won’t be able to continue, but those partwork projects are still viable — and still profitable. I know that there are some other companies that are looking into taking it on, but it’s not something that can just be done with a wave of a wand.

I’m not involved with customer orders or anything like that, but I’d say that any financial disputes that someone might have with Eaglemoss, they absolutely pursue them, because that’s a separate thing than a new company coming in to buy out the product line.

I can’t really say any more than that. What I can tell you is that Eaglemoss Limited, the UK company, has gone into administration, which is a form of bankruptcy here. All of the staff have been let go and I do not expect that company to become functional again. Eaglemoss Inc., which is the US arm, is in a slightly different state — but I’m not privy to exactly where it is.

I think I would strongly advise anybody who has a dispute to pursue it. Most people are in a situation where they were paying monthly, and they only got charged when the thing shipped. That is the vast majority of people.

Those people, obviously, sat there with, as you say, a 1/2 or 2/3 of a ship thinking, “Well, I’m never going to be able to finish this…” My message to them is I think you may well be able to finish it. I can’t make any promises, but don’t assume the worst.

If you think, “I’ve got all these model bits. I might as well just throw them away,” don’t do that. Hold on, be patient, and give us a few months to see if can’t get somebody else to step in and take things over — I think there are good reasons to believe it’ll be possible.

TREKCORE: Does that optimism apply to the Ghostbusters build-up kit as well, which is one of the other popular subscriptions?

ROBINSON: Yes, all the build-ups. The ones that were particularly under my management — the sci-fi and fantasy ones like the Back to the Future DeLorean, the Ghostbusters Ecto-1, and the Enterprise-D — there are reasons to be optimistic about all of those.

Again, I cannot make any promises, but I can tell you that there are people who are interested in whether that can be sorted out — just hold tight and give people a chance to try and sort something out.

TREKCORE: In addition to the starship models, there has also been lot of new print releases over the last few years through the Hero Collector brand, from the Star Trek Shipyards books to the Celebration retrospectives — what is your sense of the future of those books, and those which were already in the works?

ROBINSON: They’re in the same situation, where there are reasons to think that someone would want to publish them — but there are legal commitments at the moment where we can’t just shop them around to another publisher just yet. We have to wait for some things to go through with Eaglemoss. They sold in respectable numbers, they showed a profit, and they would be good things to do.

You would think, given the sales figures and what we know, that they would be appealing to somebody. It may not be one single publisher for everything — but the one project I’ve got a lot of faith in is Nana Visitor’s A Woman’s Trek. For that one we’ve done some incredible interviews, capturing really eye-opening stuff. That book is very important to me and close to my heart — I’ll publish it myself if I must!

In general, I’m relatively optimistic that there will be a continued life for most of the things that we had started. I think if you are talking about something like a Star Trek model that was sitting on back-order, the chances that they’re doing new production of anything — except the most famous ships — is quite small. There is produced stock for a number of models that is currently tied up in legal disputes, and when that stock’s finally released, you’ll be able to find that through third-party stores.

If you’re talking about on any of the Enterprises, or Voyager, or anything like that, I think the chances are that there will be someone who wants to carry on making those and there will be new production of those. The more obscure something is, the less likely it is to be made again — so if there’s no stock of something like the Jem’Hadar fighter, that might be one that doesn’t get made again.

I guess there’s going to be a few months of sorting stuff out, but before the end of the year, I imagine, a lot of that rest of that stock will get released — that includes some stuff that was made and people have heard about, but were never previously released.

TREKCORE: Let’s get into that — what’s your sense of the number of “announced by not released” products sitting in a warehouse somewhere? 

ROBINSON: There are various different stages that things are at — and the most important thing is there’s a massive amount of investment that comes into making the production tooling. Once that tooling has been made, it is quite cost-effective to make the models.

Anything where the tooling has been made — that means, anything where you’ve seen a photograph of what looks like a finished model — chances are quite high that will either be stuck in the system somewhere and will eventually be released, or it actually makes a lot of sense financially to go ahead and begin new production to build it. That includes quite a lot of the 32nd-century Starfleet ships from Discovery.

It may be easier to tell you what I know has NOT been made. We hadn’t started work on the Protostar from Star Trek: Prodigy, or on the new Stargazer from Star Trek: Picard Season 2. Those each would have been ‘next on the list’ for us to begin, and I would like to think that somebody can be found who would want to make those ships.

As for the other already-produced kits and models, Eaglemoss had a load of stuff in their warehouses. Some of it was in part-work packaging and all of that and it’s maybe a little dusty, but it’s in a bag. I wouldn’t be too worried about that. That stuff is being picked up by third parties so it will be available, eventually.

Again, it will take a couple of months to resolve itself, maybe a little longer, but there are reasons to be hopeful. You will still be able to pick up pretty much everything that’s out of the factory.

TREKCORE: And what about the Star Trek: Lower Decks ships? The Cerritos and the Titan made it out to some early buyers, with the Vancouver set to be released next, followed by the California-class shuttlecraft. Was there anything ready to go beyond those first four ships?

ROBINSON: Not in terms of actual production. We were about to start work on the “naked” Cerritos from the Season 2 finale — which I’m hoping I can find somebody who wants to make that, not at least because Mike McMahan has been so kind and helpful.

Lower Decks in particular sold very well, got a very enthusiastic response, perhaps not surprisingly. Stargate had started well. The Expanse had started well; the Rocinante and the Razorback, I think, are fantastic models, some of the best things we ever did, actually.

I’m optimistic that there’s some future for those lines but we have to find someone who wants to step into the bridge and wants to make them. It’s always possible that someone will come and get those licenses and I won’t be involved. It could happen.

TREKCORE: Well whatever ends up happening, it sure sounds like you’d like to stay involved.

ROBINSON: Yes, absolutely. I’m not done! Well, I may be done for now, but not through any choice of my own! I’m keen to be involved and to make this happen.

One of the things I’ve got to work out is what I can do to persuade people with money who don’t necessarily know about our passions. I probably need to start some mailing list or petition or something in order to get people interested. In the meantime, the more people follow me on Twitter, the faster I’ll be able to get word out about what’s going on — and I’ll have a way to show prospective partners, “Look, I’ve got all these people who are interested in buying this if you make it.”

I have got to be able to demonstrate the life these things still have to people, but I hope that we can. I hope that we can find someone who’s interested in taking it over. I know that certainly Paramount would be very happy to see the Star Trek lines continue.

But I’ll fully appreciate it if people are like, “No, actually, my house is full. I can’t get any more ships so I’m quite glad you stopped!” [Laughs] You understand what I’m saying!

I think Star Trek’s in a really good place in the moment. I have yet to meet someone who told me they really didn’t like Strange New Worlds. It’s core Star Trek, of a kind I don’t think we’ve actually seen probably since 1968. I think even the third season of the Original Series didn’t quite deliver core Star Trek in the way that Strange New Worlds has.

There’s still plenty of stuff to do. I’m enjoying it every bit as much as I have done at any point in the last 25 years, and I’ve been lucky enough to work on it. I feel optimistic about the possibilities of finding people who will be willing to invest in this. We are just going to need to be able to demonstrate that the fandom is there, and that there are people who want these things.

As I said, I can’t make any promises on success, but I can promise you that I will do my best to make something happen. Whether my best will be enough, I can’t say, but I will certainly try.

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