Indiana Jones toys to be discontinued (probably)

[Chris227]

http://www.cooltoyreview.com/story/front/Hasbros_INDIANA_JONES_QA_The_Answers_117835.asp


Looks like the line didn't sell too well, as this Q & A and others seem to indicate, and Hasbro seems pessimistic about the line.


This is hardly suprising as the KOTCS and RAIDERS figures still are pegwarmers even though LAST CRUSADE and TEMPLE OF DOOM figures were released (The latter too seem very, very hard to find and go for $ on Ebay).


Then again, this is hardly unexpected-Indiana Jones toys have never done that well in the past compared to the Star Wars line, which has a wider universe of characters/vehichles, more films, etc.

 

[God Magnus]

To be honest, I was really surprised how many figures and vehicles etc. they announced at Toy Fair. I figured they'd go with a small test line of maybe 6 figures and a vehicle or two before diving right into it. I'm sad to hear this though.

 

[Dick Whitman]

They should have started with a first wave covering all the films. With all the main heroes, sidekicks and villains. Then they could have extneded the line with Indy variations and other characters. Which is what they have done with Star Wars. At least then the original line would had greater general interest. Instead of figures of like "Monkey Man" and the "Arab Swordsman". The fact these characters do not have actual should have been a hint!!! The scene of Indy shooting that Arab Swordsman is iconic to us. But I doubt kids are going to care about such a minor character.

 

[biotech]

Of course it would be nice if any of them actually looked like the actors too.

 

[Mr Light]

I'm not really surprised, all the Indy toys I've seen have been cheap crap, and as was said earlier, they're all generic looking characters nobody cares about. The Star Wars toys (well most of them) look great and are colorful and differentiated with different alien species and robots, etc.

Actually I haven't even seen anything cool looking like those big "Star Wars Unleashed" figures.

 

[Gojirob]

I remember hearing about a 'Wave 2' of diecast vehicles and thinking 'This isn't SW.' They kind of blew their wad on the first set. I think the only conveyances not repro'd were the German luxury car the Nazis traded in LC and the dirigible Indy kicked the SS officer out of - which from the novel, I think was the Hindenburg itself. That wouldn't be a big draw here in NJ. Maybe a diorama of Indy, Jones Sr. and Sallah riding away from the Grail Temple on camelback, but that's a stretch.

 

[EnsignRicky]

It might have something to do with the fact that the whole line is garbage. They look cheap and flimsy, they're all wilted in their packaging, they have tiny heads and are barely to scale even with each other. The biggest problem though is that they started the line as crappy as the Star Wars line slowly evolved into over time, not giving the sucke... I mean fans a chance to become invested. In the end, perhaps Hasbro should be thanked; Some people don't need more reasons to turn their homes into Toys R Us mini outlets.

 

[davejames]

While I think the bigger factor in this is the crappy 4th movie (that killed most fans' enthusiasm for anything Indy), there's still no excuse for how absolutely shitty those toys looked.

Next to all the other high quality action figures being made today, those ones were just embarassingly bad.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Largely poor looking figures for $8 each. Really, at $8 bucks would the average parent even buy these for kids and would kids even be interested to begin with? I bet they'd skip over to spiderman or power rangers or Star Wars.

They should've launched it at the start of this year with a RAIDERS wave, they glutted the stores with a lot of junk at once...like it was Star Wars, but it was not Star Wars. Kenner learned that in the 80's!! (At least Hasbro made actual Indy figures. To this day I've never seen a Kenner figure of basic Indiana Jones from RotLA. WTF was that about?)

The window for movie licensed toys is so brief, I wonder why they bother? The only hit movie-tie-in toy lines were STAR WARS and its sequels/prequels.

 

[C.E. Evans]

This is one toyline that I felt should have been geared more towards the limited collector's market. Most kids didn't know who the hell Indiana Jones was anyway and didn't want to know either (he was just some old geezer in a "cowboy" hat I was told recently).

 

[Sephiroth]

yeah, i collect those titanium die-cast vehicles, and i see all the time shelves fully stocked with those crappy indy toys

 

[nx1701g]

I wish I could say that I'm surprised. I think Indiana Jones has been out of the public eye for too long so he's not what the kids are interested in. My nephew asked me one day when I took them shopping why someone put Han Solo's head on that action figure and I had to explain to him who the character was. Plus the movie was somewhat of a period piece so that would keep some kids uninterested.

I did buy the Grail Knight for a history professor in my office. He is a big Knights Templar historian.

 

[bigdaddy]

http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Department.aspx?d=519

 

[FreezeC77]

This is one toyline that I felt should have been geared more towards the limited collector's market. Most kids didn't know who the hell Indiana Jones was anyway and didn't want to know either (he was just some old geezer in a "cowboy" hat I was told recently).

This is the reason. Forget about quality kids will buy piece of crap merchandise (or rather beg their parents for it) if it is something they're interested in.

Indiana Jones skews old. This movie especially so.

 

[God Magnus]

This is one toyline that I felt should have been geared more towards the limited collector's market.

Yeah, I'll agree with that. A small line of maybe 6" figures with high detail and quality accessories would have perhaps been a smarter way to go and then if the line somehow became wildly successful, they could have expanded it.

That said, I do love the "Kingdom" playset. I just love huge playsets like that and as a kid I wanted the Star Wars ones so badly. While I agree the line could have been better, for what it is, I think they really showed a ton of enthusiasm for it and I give them credit for that.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

It's a line of toys based on an event movie that came and went without much... event. Okay, the movie made money, but it's non a phenom like Star Wars. The summer is over, and the colorful characters were held for later waves, while pegs clog with variations of Indy like "with hat," "without hat," "with jacket," "without jacket," "with plastic whip," "with cloth whip," etc. Add to that the price jump because of the gas price jump, and the toys are not moving.

Which is too bad. I really wanted that stinking little Shortround. (Who is out, but difficult to obtain.)

 

[Captain Craig]

I bought all of the Adventure Heroes figs and sent off for the "Indy on Horse" mail away. However, money is tight and I wasn't going to pull away from some DVDS or Transformers figs for Indy no matter how much I love the brand.

I do think they flooded the market with too much "earlier" stuff that didn't relate to Crystal Skull. That may have been a contributing factor. If I had the $$$ I'd like to have gotten more of the 4" figs and done the crystal alien in throne mail away. I only got 2 of the 4" figs.

 

[DarthPipes]

I always loved when I was a kid the Raiders of the Lost Ark toys they came out with in the early-80s. Those were awesome.