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Old 01-03-2019, 04:12 PM   #331
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Re: I open a toy & post it here... VOL 2!

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Hasbro- Transformers Animated: Bulkhead
Release Date: 2007
Current Price and availability: $52.00
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Transformers...-Ug:rk:11:pf:0



It’s fun to think back 15 years ago when there was only just one Transformers series going at any given time. Sure, at that point they were all fairly similar (save Beast Wars and Machines) but for worse, in the case of Transformers Energon, or better, in the case of Transformers Animated, if you didn’t like what was on TV were were pretty well out of luck for new Transformers content. And when I say that Animated was better, that’s just my personal opinion as I’m sure many people didn’t care for it, however when it was first announced there was an uproar of monumental proportions. People, including myself, were just not ready, but that feeling of dread quickly subsided when we were first introduced to the amazingly engineered toys that somehow captured the animated robot aesthetic yet still Transformed convincingly into the animated style vehicle; it still amazes me how well they pulled it off to this day with many of my favourite toys (not just transformers) are from this series. As for the show it lasted a few seasons but was ultimately dropped for the movies (which is a whole other conversation as to what that direction was in) and for the most part I believe it was well received. Yes it was a bit silly, in a Teen Titans way (BEFORE Teen Titans Go! was a thing). But it was clear that there some real heart and soul put into it by people who really cared about the Transformers franchise.

Pros: Bulkhead was my favourite character to come out of Transformers Animated series in most part due to this figure alone as he stands out, albeit stoutly, as one of the favorite toys of my collection. His vehicle mode captures his general military look really well and looks like it rolled right out of the cartoon while the robot mode screams Bulkhead from head to toe, in my memory at lease. Articulation is decent and in line with the characters TV persona and I like that he comes with an attached wrecking ball accessory that fits in his unique claw hand.

Cons: Something that the Transformers brand tends to have a bit of an issue with is size and scale with Bulkhead being no exception. As a standalone figure he looks great, but when you line him up with his peers he certainly does not scale well at all. Hasbro tried to remedy this by releasing a larger “leader class” mould that I also like, but this one still wins out on charm. Additionally I had some hairy moments with the transformation from vehicle to robot when some panels almost refused to come loose, so much so I thought for sure I was going to break it.












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Old 01-03-2019, 04:13 PM   #332
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Old 01-14-2019, 12:54 PM   #333
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Disney Toy Box- Marvel: Thor



Wow, for someone who didn’t really like Thor, I certainly have a lot in my collection and this doesn’t even include the bevy of Marvel Legends coming down the pike. Truth is never really minded the character of Thor and even picked up a few “Thunderstrike” issues from the 90’s, but maybe I just didn’t like how the character was historically portrayed. Fast forward to his stand alone MCU film that fell flat and he was all but a write off for me. However his appearance in Avengers 1 & 2 warmed me up and while this is might be a touchy subject, Thor Ragnarok really did it for me and made me a fan leading up to Avengers 3 and he certainly did not disappoint. That part during the final battle in Wakanda after Banner says “ Oh you guys are so screwed now” still gives me chills and I really look forward to the next chapter to see what happens next.

Pros: As with all toy box figures I loved the style and detailing of Thor, decent articulation and comes with Mjolnir.

Cons: Arg, Toy Box figures strike again with a hindrance to a solid articulation scheme from hard plastic tunics. I’m not sure what the solution is, but it waste of a ball joint. Also, I recognize that in the MCU Thor does not wear his trademark helmet, but it is my prefered look so when I saw that the the helmet-less release was different from the helmeted box art I was disappointed.








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Old 02-04-2019, 06:31 PM   #334
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Hasbro- GI Joe- Pursuit of Cobra: Recondo.





I’ll hand it to Hasbro on this one, there was certainly an attempt. Infact, Recondo could have been one of the coolest figures that I have seen in awhile, but unfortunately there are too many things are just off on this figure. Before I get into the Pros and Cons, I will take this time to say that I appreciate 3 ¾ figures and wish that Hasbro kept up with them as there is so much fantastic inherent play value that is not captured in the 6” line.

Pros: As with most of the Joe figures he has a good sculpt and decent articulation also there is so much cool stuff included: An off-the-grid backpack with solar panels, 2 guns, 2 bear traps (that I think convert to foot spikes), 2 guns, 2 axes, a removable hat, a removable survival vest and finally a bear mask that looks like it’s carved out a wood!

Cons: So here is the tough part, despite all the cool stuff, his flaws are quite detrimental to the overall figure. Firstly his head and neck seem to be molded incorrectly causing his to always look down. On top of that, literally, is that his hat does not stay on his head and also interferes with the kick-ass bear mask. Moving on down, while his hands fit the guns ok, the axes are real loose and finally the traps/crampons don’t fit the pegs on his feet. Finally, not that it matters to me as I am not a Recondo aficionado, but it was my understanding that Recondo had hair; What happened? Did he lose a bet with Gung Ho?










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Old 02-05-2019, 07:41 PM   #335
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Funko- Disney afternoons: Dale.



Between the two I was more of a Chip guy over Dale. Perhaps due to fact that I didn’t care for Magnum PI, but perhaps it was that I never appreciated Dale’s constant silly shenanigans. Regardless. the big story here is that a second series has been released with some great additional figures. I for one hope it continues to get a few more of these great characters.

Pros: Great sculpt that captures the cartoon look of the character and comes with their little fly buddy, Zipper.

Cons: Some limited articulation due to size, but that’s a given for his size.










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Old 02-06-2019, 06:27 PM   #336
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Disney Toy Box- Star Wars: Darth Vader



Of the Infinity Figures I feel like Vader was one of the best, so when I saw him releases under Toy Box I had pretty high expectations and for the most part I feel that the figure met them. Yes there are still some of the hard plastic limitations that seems to be the bane of a good portion of these Toy Box figures, but as I noted way back in my Movie Realization review, Darth Vader looks odd in action poses, so the movement in this figure is sufficient for my tastes.

Pros: A nice cartoonish sculpt that maintains the look that I loved from the Infinity figure with a good amount of possibility and of course his signature red lightsaber.

Cons: If I am being picky I would have loved a bit more range of motion.









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Old 02-07-2019, 01:15 PM   #337
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Toy Biz- The Fellowship of the Ring: Deluxe Horse and Rider.
Release Date: 2001
Current Price and Availability: $50.00
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Lord-of-the-...DuRX:rk:1:pf:0




2001 was a rather big year for a lot of things including the birth of my son, the 9/11 terrorist attacks that propelled the US (and it’s allies) into two fruitless wars resulting in thousands of casualties at home and abroad, thereby leading to the further radicalization of an even worse terrorist group and subsequent formation of a growing police state through fear mongering of an overzealous zionist base who forgets what their country was built on...and more importantly: some really great movies including Shriek, Monsters Inc, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and finally The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the RIng. Now while I could write for days on how great this time was for movies, I’ll try to keep it to the topic at hand.

The Lord of the Rings franchise was a remarkably large effort complete with 3 amazing movies that were released one year apart. And as with many other movie blockbusters, the toys and merchandise are almost as big as the actually movie. In what amounts to a similar herculean effort as the movies, Toy Biz went crazy with a full line up of movie toys with all the characters for each of the movies; and when I say all, I mean we are talking Star Wars level of producing an action figure for every character. Something that unfortunately forced me to scale back my typical compleatists desire of collecting every figure to only focusing on the characters from The Fellowship of Ring, a move that I somewhat regret given how my love for the movies has grown in the past few years. Thankfully, if I was so inclined, I could probably pick up most of the figures on a pretty deep discount given that LOTR (and let’s be honest, most toys from that era) didn’t exactly become collectors items.

Pros: From their first appearance in the movies, Wraiths have certainly some of the more iconic scenes of the movies what with their imposing stature, headless cloaks and deafening shriek and for the most part Toy Biz did a great job in capturing the overall look. The sculpt on the horse also does well to capture the look of a horse that had basically ridden out of hell. He also comes a non-removable cloth cloak and a selection of appropriate Hobbit stabbing swords.

Cons: One of the downsides of the Toybiz line was that figures tended to include spring loaded “action features” that hindered posabilty. For instance, the horse has spring action movable legs that just make it difficult to stand the horse upright. Additionally while the rider is removable and looks great on the saddle, he’s a bit too bowlegged to be used as separate figure. So much so that I kind of surprised that he was not just permanently affixed to the horses back.








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Old 02-08-2019, 06:19 PM   #338
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Re: I open a toy & post it here... VOL 2!

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Mattel- Ghostbusters: Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.



So, funny thing about this figure. When I saw it for $4 at my local Dollar Store I thought I would be a sweat edition to my Ghostbuster shelf, but as I would later find out after closer inspection, that this was the “blow up” version from the rebooted Ghostbusters movie. How can you tell? If you look closely there are little “ballon creases” closer to the joints that give it away (as well as the picture on the back… duh). And while I would have rather had the Stay Puft from the first movie, I’m actually more impressed that Mattel would make essentially make two different versions of the same figure that is basically the same. Like, they can’t seem to get a decent DC figure on the shelves, but they thought that two Stay Pufts was the way to go…

Pros: Certainly looks like Stay Puft, has a surprising amount of articulation, lights up and was only $4!

Cons: It’s the ballon version from the third Ghostbusters film and while I don’t care, some people might want the original version that was released. However that featured a more “toasted” burnt look that didn’t much appeal to me.








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Old 02-11-2019, 01:28 PM   #339
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Hasbro- Transformers- Studio Series: Stinger.



I don’t recall if Stinger was releases as part of the Transformers Age of Extinction movie line, but when I saw that he was released as part of the Studio Series line I thought he might be a good addition to my collection. In the movie he’s designed to be an upgrade of Bumblebee, something BB takes great umbrage with, leading him to then scan Stinger there by making him a copy of an upgrade I guess? I believe I have that version of BB from the movie toy line, but I don’t remember how similar the the two are; so this could be a basic retool and I would not even know. What I do know is that I continue to appreciate the Studio Series lines for releasing figures from the older movies who may have been forgotten, missed the first time around, or even improved upon from their original release.

Pros: Extremely nice and sleek vehicle mode with a complex, yet not impossible, transformation to a decently poseable robot mode that close enough to the source material.

Cons: The Studio Series figures are a bit pricey, but given the amount of parts and engineering involved I supposed it makes sense. That said, how long can a toy line that relies on parental purchases really survive when one figure costs $30? Additionally on Stinger, the roof of the car forms a gun or weapon of sorts that doesn’t really look like much of anything except what it really is, a folded chunk of plastic. Also, with added razer disks on the bottom of the car he doesn’t really roll on his wheels at all.














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Old 02-19-2019, 03:26 PM   #340
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Disney Toy Box- Pixar: Jessie



As of this writing the trailer for the new Toy Story 4 movie has dropped and while it’s cute and funny, I really have mixed feelings about it. Yes I love the Toy Story movies and yes I love to see these characters in action, but these Disney sequels/remakes are just getting to be a bit much. I’m really trying to NOT be the grumpy Gus who felt that everything was better in his day, but consider that since March 2016 4 of 7 animated releases for Disney/Pixar were sequels, 7 of 9 live action films were sequels or remakes or cartoons) and all 8 of the “in development” features (animated or live action) are not considered to be based on “original” content. And this doesn’t even count all the upcoming Marvel and Star Wars movies. I recognize that movie features are expensive and that sequels and remakes are a given, but for every Toy Story 4 there is less resources for another Wall-e, Zootopia or Coco and I’m certain that there is no lack of creativity left in the company, it's just being drained for more familiar and consumer tested projections.

In short, I like the sequels and remakes, but would prefer a better balance with more new content. Oh, and I also like this Jesse figure.

Pros: Like Woodle, is not hindered by hard plastic allowing for a good range of motion though decent articulation. Also comes with signature lasso rope and removable hat.

Cons: Not sure if it’s just mine, but the joints are really stiff and I’m afraid to move them too much for fears of breakage her hat also doesn’t stay on too well.








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