Revealed: What Eaglemoss Had Planned For Stargate Ships

Eaglemoss released just three models — beautiful models! — of the ships of the Stargate universe before going out of business last year. The company picked up the license to Stargate in 2020, but released just three models: the Daedalus, Goa’uld Mothership, and Death Glider.

There were, of course, many more ships planned. And what about a model of the Stargate itself?

Now Master Replicas has acquired the last remaining stock of those models, and has been selling them online for the past month. For Stargate this included a small number of Goa’uld Motherships and Death Gliders … but no Daedalus deep space carriers (leaving my own collection sadly incomplete!).

GateWorld caught up with former Eaglemoss employee Ben Robinson, who shepherded the Stargate line and who now continues to work with Master Replicas to get the last of the ships into the hands of fans. Robinson joined Eaglemoss when the company merged with publisher GE Fabbri in 2011. He served as Director of Licensed Products until the company went into financial administration in 2022, working on numerous sci-fi and fantasy projects — including Hero Collector, a vast array of hundreds of model ships from the likes of Star Trek, The Expanse, Battlestar Galactica, The Orville, and others.

In our full conversation Robinson talks about the ships that were next in line for release in the Hero Collector series, starting with the Earth-made F-302 fighter. He also shares his view on why Eaglemoss collapsed, and his optimism that another company is likely to pick up the license and put the ships back into production.

Since we spoke with Ben, Master Replicas has stated on Twitter that they do have some produced stock for F-302 and Prometheus models — which were never released by Eaglemoss. The company anticipates that the F-302 will be available at the end of June, so stick with GateWorld for the latest. Now, on to our conversation!

What was your role at Eaglemoss?

Ben Robinson: So I was in charge of all the what you would call “genre” product. It started off that I was just a product development person who worked across a lot of different licenses, but then the sci-fi / superhero licenses became a big thing for the company. So I was able to specialize in that. I started off doing Star Trek, Doctor Who, James Bond. I started an X-Files DVD collection. Loads of that kind of stuff.

So I ended up as the lead, what we ended up calling the “Head of Hero Collector,” which was the umbrella brand that we put that under. But basically, I was responsible for the program of geeky stuff!

What is your short version of what happened to the company?

The first thing to say is that I don’t think I necessarily know. I wasn’t privy to everything that was going on. I would definitely say that the management always intended to sell the company — they saw it as an investment, as something to grow and sell rather than something to build and keep. And I don’t think they had deep enough pockets for the speed that they were going in terms of the growth. So it kind of toppled over.

I have other opinions which are all probably prejudiced. I think that the senior management didn’t understand the ecosystem of geek culture as much as they could have done. I think there was a lot of trying to do a lot. And I think there was always an element within the company that was kind of a tension between the [management and the] creative side of life, which was where I lived and the people who I worked with. We were very, very focused on making sure that everything was as right as possible, as accurate as possible. We always used to say that when we did a superhero figure it wasn’t just a superhero figurine. It’s from a specific issue of a specific comic by a specific artist. We knew and cared.

And the core of your customer base are the the people who know and care.

Exactly, exactly. And I don’t think that was as baked into the DNA of the company in other areas as it could have been.

So yeah, a combination of trying to grow the company very quickly in order to sell it, [and] pockets not being deep enough to cope with things maybe not selling as fast as they’d hoped. Because obviously if you want to grow you have to sell more, which means you have to buy more … and if you don’t have enough money to cope if it doesn’t sell as quickly as you would have liked then you get into trouble. And then it’s kind of a house of cards where everything collapses on itself. Which is pretty much what happened.

The Stargate line was really new! We only got three ships in the end. From your perspective was taking on new licenses like Stargate part of an overreach that didn’t help things financially?

No, I would say if anything it was the opposite, actually. What the company needed to do was diversify and to not become too dependent on a single product. And actually, Stargate was going very well. It was very successful. And the problem was not having enough cash to put more into that, where the sales were coming from, because there was too much stuff tied up in other areas.

So, no. The correct path for the company was to find other areas to diversify into — so whether that was Stargate or The Expanse or The Orville, these were all good things and were selling well. The biggest problem was that the company couldn’t double down on them and didn’t have the resources to spend on the most profitable products.

For Stargate fans one of the lingering questions is what was planned. What can you tell us about the ships that were still to come?

The interesting thing with any brand when you start on it is that you don’t know what the appetite for it is going to be. We were working on 10 ships: the Daedalus, the Goa’uld Mothership, the Death Glider. The F-302 was pretty much done, actually. I have pictures of a finished one. But I don’t think it actually went into production. The F-302 would have been the next ship that was out, and we had done quite a lot of work on it.

Then the Prometheus, the Puddle Jumper, the Beliskner [Thor’s Asgard mothership], Wraith Dart, the Destiny. We have the Destiny shuttle, which seems like probably not the most likely thing we would have done at that point. But those were all underway — or planned. They were all in the planning, some of them to quite a complete level [and] some of them underway but not complete.

I have to say: I think there is a very good chance that somebody else will come in and make more Stargate ships, based on the sales of the first few. What you never know is whether everybody just wants to buy the Daedalus and the Ha’tak and then maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s all anybody ever wants. The Eaglemoss / Hero Collector difference was how deep we went into the brand. We would do things that nobody else would ever do. And you do that by finding your niche group of people and selling to them online.

I would have bought something that appeared in just one or two episodes (like the “Needle Threader,” or Warrick’s ship the Seberus).

Yeah, [but] what you don’t know is whether that’s just you and five other people — or is that thousands of people? Those are the things you don’t know until you try making them. So the strategy we were going with was to start out slowly. You start out slowly with the obvious things and if they sell well then you make some more of them and try the next one.

But the development process is quite long. It takes you a year from starting work on something to finishing work on it, to being on sale. And there’s a point at which you have to commit a very large sum of money. When you when you create the die-cast tooling that’s very expensive. And at that point you have to be fairly confident that you can sell something. So having bigger intervals between the releases was our idea — if no one’s buying the Death Glider then we can stop the F-302.

That was the way of looking at it … which wasn’t historically how Eaglemoss worked. Eaglemoss was all in: “We’ve made 50 of them. Oh, dear! People only wanted 10.” That would be the fear.

You say you are confident that someone else might swoop in and pick up the license, and do more along these lines. Are you aware of anyone in particular are you just speculating?

Yes, there are conversations going on. I don’t want to say more than that, but yes, I think there’s every reason to think that in a year or so’s time there will be more new stuff.

I would be amazed if there isn’t another Stargate TV show at some point in the medium future. The world is shifted to where these these brands with dedicated followings are really valuable. And studios do really value them. Obviously MGM changed hands a year or so ago, and the whole kind of “Amazon-ness” of things will take a while to filter through. And it changes their options.

And don’t forget, there were 10 years of no Star Trek! Nothing being made. And there were 18 years of no Star Trek on TV. And Doctor Who as well went away for 10, 15 years. So I think it’s kind of now in the nature of these brands that they all cycle in and out. But when the idea is strong and the fan base is passionate, then I think there’s every chance that things will have another bite at the cherry.

… As I say, I think there’s a high possibility of there being more [models] manufactured in the future.

Manufacturing of the existing ships that were already produced?

Yes, that’s the most likely thing. But at the moment, but I don’t know when. I can tell you that it will be a good while. It won’t be straightaway. But I think there’s a good likelihood that they will get made again. I don’t know by whom or at what price point. There are all these things that could well change.

… [Stargate has] sold well. It’s a sign of the success of a product. So the reasons to be optimistic are that it sold well, which is unfortunately what means there is very little of it available at the moment.

Well it’s a good sign, hopefully, for the future — hopefully for MGM’s enthusiasm about a new licensee.

I think that’s true as well. It always sounds a little bit cynical, but it’s like if this stuff sells quickly that will encourage somebody else to be like, “Oh, OK, there’s an appetite for this.” And part of that is getting the word out because you never know how many people there are who want it as opposed to how many people there are who know about it. That’s not always the same thing.

You listed ships like Prometheus, the Puddle Jumper, the Wraith Dart, and eventually Destiny (which would have been fantastic). What about the Stargate itself? Our most iconic item in this franchise is a transportation device, but it’s not a ship.

We looked at doing a Stargate. It was always my reservation about Stargate … because Stargate literally came about because of the pressure from the fans. I actually worked on a Stargate DVD collection in a prior life. I ended up running that. I didn’t do much on it on a day to day basis, but I took it over [after it had] started under a different regime. Because I’d done something similar for Star Trek. And if I had designed that product I probably would have made it more fannish. Their instincts were to make it quite “friendly,” consumer facing.

The thing about Stargate is it’s not really about ships — it’s about the Stargate. And we had actually prototyped a Stargate, but the difficulty was that it’s surprisingly small. We did a range of stuff that was about eight [or] nine inches across. And we built a Stargate, and there was all sorts of trouble getting definitive reference for a Stargate — which one is it, and what are the correct chevrons, and all of that. It was quite challenging for the people at MGM to get their heads around it.

We made one and it was kind of a bit unsatisfying. It didn’t really feel like it was worth what it needed to be. So we were looking at what we could do to expand it. So, you know, do you have to put it on the platform? Do you do the D.H.D. as well? What would you have to do to make it feel worthwhile? Because basically it’s like a disc — it’s not even a disc because it’s hollow in the middle. It’s like a ring. And it just felt not as valuable, you know, for what it costs to make. It didn’t feel like we could charge enough to justify the cost for what it was.

And that’s one of those things where it’s only when you actually physically prototype something that you discover that. So we were looking at it, because I firmly believe that if you’re doing Stargate stuff you do a Stargate! But we ran into a few problems with it not feeling valuable enough, so we were looking at how to how to beef it up. Like the platform that it sits in and that kind of thing.

So it was still potentially on the drawing board when the lights were turned off.

Yeah, absolutely. We had a physical prototype. And that was when we really realized that there was a problem. It doesn’t feel substantial enough.

How do you feel about about your time at Eaglemoss, your involvement with the Stargate brand, and where things have ended up? Again, I’m hearing from you that hopeful word that this is not the end.

Yeah, I would say that. I think I’d feel optimistic. It’s not just that you’ve caught me on a good night!

I’ve been very, very fortunate that I managed to make my passions into my work. And there’s a good and a bad side to that. You know, because every time you do something … all the things you did to relax, you’re now paying attention because they’re work. So that’s the downside of it. But it’s an enormous privilege to have worked on these brands and to get to do these things is just great. And I’m very, very lucky.

And it seems there is the capacity of me to continue doing that kind of thing. I’m optimistic that that will be the case.

Our thanks to Ben Robinson for his time and his work on the Stargate ships! Other models from the “Hero Collector” line are now selling at MasterReplicas.com, with new items released periodically in limited quantities.

On Twitter: @BenCSRobinson