G.I. Joe Retaliation Figures & Vehicles Released in Canada

[robsonspen]

RETALIATION WAVE 2 & 3 CANCELLED!

http://www.hisstank.com/gi-joe-news/...ch-2013-11403/

[Napseeker]

Meh, wave 2 and 3...

Just to respond to the others... I would say my points are right on the nose - at least, my own experience finds that movie years are not as good as the non-movie years. Don't get me wrong, RotS was a very nice upgrade from the crapola that was the Saga era BUT I would argue that the reason why the RotS line was good had as much to do with the stunning incompetence of the Saga era (which itself was the "movie" line that ran for the AotC debut in theatres). A lot of SW collectors were threatening to quit collecting over the action features/pre-posed figures, etc. of the Saga figures. Hasbro HAD to pull out all stops for RotS because I would say that they had no other choice... that was a line that was as much an apology to collectors as it was to ensnare kids. Anyway, RotS was still saddled with the things that are common with movie-line figures: lacklustre packaging, figures with action features and stupid weapon gimmicks, swivel elbows. To their credit, Hasbro did minimize this stuff as much as they could, fearing the wrath of collectors.

Now look at a non-movie line, collector-focused, such as The Vintage Collection: full SA elbows, vintage-style packaging, cool mailaway figures, incredible sculpting, accurate faces... similarly for the 30th anniversary SW line, although I concede that Hasbro screwed up with TLC (horrific packaging) but that did offer the awesome Build-a-Droid "bonus" figure...

I agree that PoC/30th has had spotty distribution but that is as much due to the fact that Hasbro had to stall/shift things around in anticipation of this crappy movie that was coming up. Otherwise, don't you think that PoC would've just continued on merrily? The movie's coming is what really caused so much of the headaches. Quite frankly, what would you really have more of? Excellent and wide distribution of movie-themed crapola like Retaliation with low articulation, no filecards, no accessories, crap packaging etc. etc., or harder-to-get BUT well worth the trouble quality SA figures including upgrades of our classic vintage figures like Lowlight, Lifeline, Jinx? There's just no comparison to what I think most Joe collectors would rather get.

In regards to scrapper's comments, well splashy to a kid may indeed be a big explosion... that's probably more splashy than the vintage-style picture of the hero against the backdrop of... a big cartoony explosion. Who knows? I'm not saying I like that packaging at all, but presumably Hasbro tested it against some kids and that's what they preferred.

My point about the stands was that if the price of oil is at $95+ and the minimum wage in Chinese factories is going up, then Hasbro has to drop something to keep their costs down and thus, the stand is easier to drop than the gimmicky weapon because the kids really, really can live without it. You may not agree, but even I who prefer the stands to the weapon, am going to concede that when a kid looks at a packaged figure on the pegs, he ain't gonna beg his mommy because he wants to get his mitts on the STAND, he's more likely to want that spring-loaded gun (and of course, the figure itself).

Dropping the filecards: my way of interpreting it here is that Hasbro will save themselves a few pennies in hiring some writer to come up a few paragraphs by dropping them. Truth is, if you have a movie, that movie tells you all you need to know or all that a kid probably cares to know, about the character anyway. When there was no movie, and only a cartoon show that kids may not have managed to catch (because a feature film is more of an event than an afternoon cartoon and likely to be seen) then some explanation of who the figure is, probably worth the pennies.

As for the cutting of articulation because they can, well I agree with you. But I still think that's as much that they know they can get away with it because the movie line is not collector-targeted and thus, they do, like you say, don't care. They can get away with it because they're not trying to appeal to us. When the movie flops, and let's hope that it does, that's when the toy companies will refix their gaze on us again and I daresay that we'll see SA, filecards, stands and good packaging art, back once more. If the movie succeeds beyond their wildest financial dreams, and the toys sell, well this is the way things will be from now on.

I can't speak to Transformers btw, AFAIC, anything connected to the Michael Bay films is *utter crap* in my eyes (the packaging, the look of the toys). Only the Generations remakes of the G1 stuff has been the sole worthwhile toys made. The Transformers movies have been worse than RoC, far worse... I don't get why any adult collector wants toys based on those sh-t designs.

[Napseeker]

Add: (sorry for the double post - the other one was running a bit long, not sure what the text limits are for one post, feel free to merge if you wish)

I also wanted to comment that I was not personally advocating for less articulation simply because the toy is now aimed at kids. As a kid myself, I switched over from collecting Kenner Star Wars to Hasbro's GI Joe line precisely because they were more poseable.

My comment about kids wanting less articulation in their action figures is something that Hasbro reps have allegedly said themselves either in the Q&As or at the shows, to collectors. No doubt, the logic is that kids are not like collectors and are going to treat the toys as genuinely disposable playthings that get whipped around, chewed up by the family dog, tossed into a bin or desk drawer (and not carefully posed on stands when they aren't being played with). So Hasbro is thinking of real kids, not kids-on-their-way-to-becoming-collectors, but the most broadest, lowest common denominator of kids that could want to buy these toys.

Kids may not have changed substantially in 30 years as you noted, but for sure according to Hasbro at least, their play patterns are not identical to ours, hence why Hasbro won't make things like playsets, and it may be why things like filecards aren't as important as they once were. I'll confess too that filecards were only somewhat appealing to me when they were part of the whole 25th anniversary packaging. Once the shift was made to a different packaging style, I find I pretty much don't care so much. I keep them, but I don't even read them anymore. Another reason why filecards may have been dropped - they just didn't have time to do them. Hasbro was in a rush to get these toys out since the movie deadline had been pushed up, so it's also possible that the extra bit of effort involved to do them may simply have been not worth the effort. All guesses of course, the best way to find out is simply to go to JoeCon and ask the reps directly.