The Action Figure and Toy Collecting and Discussion Thread!

[cooleddie74]

I saw that over on Galactichunter and Rebelscum! He's amazing, isn't he?

I'm wondering if the interchangeable heads are so you can customize your Yoda to look like the CGI Yoda from the Prequel Trilogy or the Frank Oz puppet from Empire and Jedi. At first glance one head looks more like the classic puppet than the other.

[Kira's Mom]

OdoWanKenobi wrote:

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May I just say how hilarious it is that Hulk has joined in the adventures of Clint and Natasha?

I'm wondering if I should add Thor to the mix.

[Kira's Mom]

As promised- Bilbo and Mirror Bilbo!

[cooleddie74]

[RyanKCR]

Here are a few figures I have recently got. They are the reissues and the Masterpiece versions. I got the last Masterpiece for my birthday:

[cooleddie74]

Those are very cool, man. I had quite a few Transformers as a kid and the ones that turned into jet planes and other military vehicles were always the most interesting and fun to play with.

[cooleddie74]

The brand new Yoda design/green packaging Star Wars mini-vehicles with figures are showing up in bigger quantities at Toys "R" Us stores all over the country. Prices range from $23.99 to $26.99 depending on your location and store but all four vehicles in the new 2013 case assortment are surfacing and even cropping up on eBay for inflated prices.

The new 2013 carded action figures are still a little ways off but the very first Hasbro 3.75" scale products of the new year are out there if you want them. A couple of the sets are wonky and not worth buying if you ask me (the Yoda in the Yoda's Jedi Attack Fighter set is an all-new figure with no recycled parts but the paint job on his eyes just looks terrible and borderline laughable) but the MTT Droid Fighter and AT-RT Scout Walker look amazing.

[cooleddie74]

Hasbro has cancelled the 2013 Droid Factory/Legacy Collection line before it even got started.

Way to go, Hasbro. You guys have really been banging on all cylinders lately.

[OdoWanKenobi]

Eh. I don't care. The Build-a-droid concept was never great in the execution. This last year was the worst, but Hasbro's distribution has always been too spotty to do BAF lines. Just ask any Marvel Legends collector.

[cooleddie74]

Sad thing is, the 2013 Legacy/Build-a-Droid line was supposed to be a significant chunk of the coming year's new sculpts and figures while the Clone Wars and Movie Heroes lines got most of the repaints, repacks and figures to promote Episodes II and III in 3-D.

The brand new Mara Jade, Yavin Ceremony Luke and other much-needed updates and resculpts were going to be in the Legacy/BAD line and now the whole thing's been scuttled. Were this just a one-off subline of figures with just a handful of characters then most collectors could just shrug, go "meh" and get on with the other lines.

Unfortunately, Hasbro piled quite a few eggs into the Legacy/Droid Factory relaunch basket and we were supposed to start seeing them in stores soon. Now everything's up in the air and new figures might be held up for a good long while.

[OdoWanKenobi]

Sad, but I'll live. I'm not trying to sound like I don't share your pain. It's just, a lot of my Star Wars enthusiasm has been killed this last year. In fact, my 3 3/4" display didn't even survive my last shelf rearrange. Half of them have gone into a box, and the rest are just sitting unarranged on a shelf. I wonder to myself why I even continue to pick up new ones. My collecting focus is shifting away from that line.

Honestly, I'm feeling retail fatigue. Hasbro and Mattel both had horrid years for distribution. It was impossible to find the figures I wanted whether it was Star Wars, DC, or Marvel. I've gotten tired of knowing that I'll never find the figures I'm looking for, and will have to resort to online.

[cooleddie74]

Hasbro and the major retailers certainly screwed the pooch this past year. When you have a better chance of finding a figure you want at a TJ Maxx or Five Below discount store than you do at a couple of the largest toy retailers on the entire face of the planet something's gone horridly wrong.

Part of me hopes Disney buys Hasbro and reorganizes the company so it'll have a new, fresh focus on product and stop rehashing and regurgitating all these ancient and dull repaints and repacks just to save a few tooling dollars. The retailers have to stop being so skittish about ordering new product, too, and get their own sorry acts together and restock for their customers, but if Hasbro put out more new and interesting product then the retail sales would improve and the toy department managers would be more likely to want and remember to reorder.

I don't know who's been running Hasbro lately but a cage full of hyperactive spider monkeys would probably do a more competent job of getting a steady stream of good and new product to the buying public.

[OdoWanKenobi]

Mattel, too. My favorite line out there is DC Universe Classics, as I'm sure you're aware. The line ended this year, and as such there was no DC merchandise to hold shelf space for the longest time. When it restarted with the All Stars wave, there was nobody that wanted to pick it up. Now Unlimited is supposed to be coming out, but will never be found in Wal-Marts or Targets. They've done their seasonal resets already, and there's no room for more DC. Heck, most of them still have stragglers from old DCUC waves. So far, only K-Marts have gotten them, and of course, non of the K-Marts around me. Not to mention the fact that the god-awful looking Injustice figures coming up will kill this line dead.

[C.E. Evans]

cooleddie74 wrote:

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Hasbro and the major retailers certainly screwed the pooch this past year. When you have a better chance of finding a figure you want at a TJ Maxx or Five Below discount store than you do at a couple of the largest toy retailers on the entire face of the planet something's gone horridly wrong.

Part of me hopes Disney buys Hasbro and reorganizes the company so it'll have a new, fresh focus on product and stop rehashing and regurgitating all these ancient and dull repaints and repacks just to save a few tooling dollars. The retailers have to stop being so skittish about ordering new product, too, and get their own sorry acts together and restock for their customers, but if Hasbro put out more new and interesting product then the retail sales would improve and the toy department managers would be more likely to want and remember to reorder.

I don't know who's been running Hasbro lately but a cage full of hyperactive spider monkeys would probably do a more competent job of getting a steady stream of good and new product to the buying public.

Be careful what you wish for. Disney can be very bottom-line conscious at times and if they ever took control of Hasbro, could tell them to stop making so many figures on obscure characters and just concentrate on the main ones. You think they make too many Darth Vaders now...

[OdoWanKenobi]

True. Good luck seeing anything from the Post-ROTJ EU again, either if Disney takes over. I'm pretty sure they'll want to bury that in favor of their new movies.