The Action Figure and Toy Collecting and Discussion Thread!

[C.E. Evans]

Tom Hendricks wrote:

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Maybe you could answer a question for me. I never read the novelization for TPM but can you explain the reason for the every doors during the duel? I have always wondered about that.

You mean the forcefield screens? They seemed to act as layers of protective shielding in the reactor complex, IMO.

[cooleddie74]

It's something to do with Naboo mythology. For practical purposes, the constantly-switching energy barriers prevent radiation and plasma leakage into surrounding areas of the generator complex while still allowing for maintainance crews to enter and exit without shutting the entire field down to do so.

But the different curtains of energy are supposed to hearken back to ancient Naboo myths about the different doors or barriers that lay between their ancestors and the source of creation/paradise/heaven...the different barriers a Naboo native would have to go through to reach that mythic Eden or paradise, if you will.

[captcalhoun]

the one Joe forum I'm on, Serpentor's Lair, has started a new photo archive for the toys, but instead of boring-ass photos of figures on white backgrounds, they want 'action shots' of figures in diorama settings or out'n'about in the garden. here's a few I've recently done:



Chopper, SAS Force helicopter pilot from the Pallitoy "Action Force" line



Flint fighting Destro



Grunt







Hit&Run



Big Bear and Red Star, the two Oktober Guard figures



Red Star prepares to fire his rocket launcher.



Arctic Joes battle Snow Serpents

[cooleddie74]

Those are pretty sweet pictures, calhoun. I miss most of my childhood Joes from the '80s. A great majority of them got played with until they broke or fell apart at the joints and I have just a select few left after all these years. I took infinitely better care of my STAR WARS, STAR TREK and MotU toys than I did my stash of Joes...the first three I played with only moderately or not at all. The Joes were purely for knock-down, dragout fun and didn't last very long.

[Leroy]

OdoWanKenobi wrote:

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As for Marvel, the 3 3/4 inch lines are a mess. Iron Man 2 stuff still warms pegs for crying out loud. Marvel Universe is now just a wave of reuse and repaint. The new Avengers figures are a drastic step backwards. The return of Marvel Legends (one of the greatest toylines ever) looked like it could be the light at the end of the tunnel, but instead idiotic distribution has killed enthusiasm. Wave 1 and 2 were released within a month of each other. Store got exactly one shipment of wave 1. One. As such, most collectors never found them. Ghostrider especially was impossible to find, creating a lot of armless Terraxes. Not to mention that we've heard squat about wave 3, and the first two waves have been out for months.

Yeah it has been very bad if you are a DC/Marvel fan. I've been trying to collect the DCu figs for years and have a tough time finding anything let alone the figs I want I still have yet to find any of the GL classics line. With marvel it's a different story I manage to find the Marvel Universe line however it's like there is lag between releases and what the actual date is I'm still finding figs from wave 1!

It also doesn't help that the movie lines (which retailers like to buy and buy for some reason) tend to choke out stuff like DCu and MU. This explains the pergwarmer IM2 figs I still find to this day!

[cooleddie74]

There are still PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN action figures from the third movie in some stores depending on where you shop. One of my local Walmarts has an entire section of one markdown shelf full of archaic Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones figures and other toys that just sit and never sell. THOR toys are rapidly becoming the same way along with CARS 2 merchandise...as good or even great as those last two films are the demand for toys from those flicks just didn't rise anywhere near initial expectations. Retailers always sit in a sea of unbought movie merchandise because the stores as well as toy companies stupidly believe the next summer blockbuster is going to be the new STAR WARS(1977), E.T. or TOY STORY when in fact very, very few toy lines have ever lived up to the movies they're based on. Even the 3-D rerelease of THE PHANTOM MENACE wasn't able to help sell some of the new SW product that's been jamming store pegs for over three months now. Movie tie-ins are no longer a surefire, bulletproof cash cow. Just look at the new AVENGERS stuff. The film makes $200 million domestic in its first weekend, but the stores aren't selling the figures and other toys as well as hoped and fan reaction to the quality of the merchandise is mixed at best.

[Leroy]

I often wonder if the retailers would make more money if Hasbro and Mattel had decent distribution for their figures and retailers stopped buying so much into movie lines.

I notice MU doesn't have as many pegwarmers as other lines I just keep running into older figs, however it's worth noting that there are only a few figures on the pegs most of the time. DCu had some really bad pegwarmers not to mention the irritation of Wal-Mart exclusives.

Anyone remember the glut of Episode 1 merchandise that lasted years after the movie was released? I remember for the longest time all you could find for Star Wars figures was Darth Maul and only Darth Maul!

[cooleddie74]

Leroy wrote:

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Anyone remember the glut of Episode 1 merchandise that lasted years after the movie was released? I remember for the longest time all you could find for Star Wars figures was Darth Maul and only Darth Maul!

Remember it? I lived through it and was scarred for life! And yeah, those Episode I pegwarmers still hung around in some stores as late as 2001. Darth Maul...C-3PO(without body coverings)...Ric Olie the royal starship pilot...all the usual suspects. The last three waves of Episode I showed up just once or twice apiece so most places were never lucky enough to have a glut of Holographic Darth Sidious, the Pit Droids, Sio Bibble or the Swimming Jar Jar...they had to put up with figures from the FIRST waves in the spring and summer of '99. When you have to stare at kid Anakin with his Naboo Starfighter helmet or Viceroy Nute Gunray for month after month after month for over a year in some instances it gets pretty tiresome to say the least.

[C.E. Evans]

cooleddie74 wrote:

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Remember it? I lived through it and was scarred for life! And yeah, those Episode I pegwarmers still hung around in some stores as late as 2001. Darth Maul...C-3PO(without body coverings)...Ric Olie the royal starship pilot...all the usual suspects. The last three waves of Episode I showed up just once or twice apiece so most places were never lucky enough to have a glut of Holographic Darth Sidious, the Pit Droids, Sio Bibble or the Swimming Jar Jar...they had to put up with figures from the FIRST waves in the spring and summer of '99. When you have to stare at kid Anakin with his Naboo Starfighter helmet or Viceroy Nute Gunray for month after month after month for over a year in some instances it gets pretty tiresome to say the least.

I think that was when Hasbro publicly took over the Star Wars license from Kenner (which they had acquired four years earlier). They really overestimated how big the demand was for Episode I toys, but they were probably thinking that it was the first new Star Wars movie in sixteen years and that demand would be through the roof.

[Shazam!]

Picked up Nom Anor and Barriss Offee from the Star Wars Vintage Collection. Decent enough figures. That plastic cape on Barriss isn't too clever though as it means the only pose you can achieve is one of just standing there whereas the soft-goods cape on Anor is too big and clumsy.

Is there no happy medium?

[cooleddie74]

C.E. Evans wrote:

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I think that was when Hasbro publicly took over the Star Wars license from Kenner (which they had acquired four years earlier). They really overestimated how big the demand was for Episode I toys, but they were probably thinking that it was the first new Star Wars movie in sixteen years and that demand would be through the roof.

The official handover took place in 1998. That's when modern SW toy packaging switched from the classic Kenner logo to the Hasbro one. But part of me doesn't blame the company for overproducing Episode I merchandise. In 20/20 hindsight and from a distance of almost thirteen years it seems like a complete overreaction on the company's part, but at the time people just assumed that the new prequel would be the biggest thing since sliced bread and all the toys would fly off the shelves like lightning. Episode I is actually the only modern blockbuster with merchandising tie-ins that I think even remotely lived up to sales expectations. The movie made $429 million domestic in its original run and the Episode I toys and collectibles did fly off shelves depending on which wave of figures you were talking about and which month or year. The "Midnight Madness" merchandise debut of May 3, 1999 saw astronomical sales of Episode I figures, vehicles and other product and some later waves in the line were excellent sellers as well due to being produced in much, much smaller quantities. But as 2000 wore on it was clear that retailers overordered and by a light year, so we had to keep looking at pegs chock full of the first Ewan McGregor figure, Watto or the Naboo security chief Captain Panaka for what seemed like an eternity.

[cooleddie74]

Shazam! wrote:

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Picked up Nom Anor and Barriss Offee from the Star Wars Vintage Collection. Decent enough figures. That plastic cape on Barriss isn't too clever though as it means the only pose you can achieve is one of just standing there whereas the soft-goods cape on Anor is too big and clumsy.

Is there no happy medium?

Originally Barriss Offee was displayed with a soft-goods fabric cloak when she was shown for the very first time at the 2011 Toy Fair in New York, but by the time the first retail copies of her made it into stores she had a plastic cape instead.

Here's the official Hasbro presentation photo from Toy Fair(February 2011):

[OdoWanKenobi]

My brother walked into my bedroom to borrow a DVD. While doing this, he managed to take out an entire shelf of my Hot Toys stuff. This is really impressive considering that most of them are on figure stands. Then he somehow managed to also take out the Marvel shelf right next to it. Luckily, nothing was broken. Otherwise, there would be serious rage here.

What's even funnier is how I caught him trying to put them back up so I wouldn't notice. No, the Predator does not go smack in the middle of the Terminator display. Why is the Godfather next to Hellboy? Why are the Alien and Alien Quadrilogy Blu Ray egg suddenly on opposite ends of the shelf?

I swear, Derpy is more coordinated than this guy.

[Unicron]

Lol. He meant well, right?

[OdoWanKenobi]

Well yeah, of course. He was just borrowing a DVD. He's just the kind of person that somehow manages to break almost everything he touches. It's uncanny how much of a disaster he can make of anything. He should not be allowed anywhere near my expensive collectibles.