{"id":2109,"date":"2009-10-20T01:57:05","date_gmt":"2009-10-20T06:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=2109"},"modified":"2010-06-27T00:27:02","modified_gmt":"2010-06-27T05:27:02","slug":"mr-rant-asks-why-are-there-so-many-movie-toys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=2109","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Rant asks, &#8220;why are there so many movie toys?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" align=left src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.itsalltrue.net\/resources\/images\/really.png?w=640\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>The G.I. Joe section at my Wal-Mart sure seems crowded lately.  All I want to do is go to my local Wal-mart\/TRU\/Target and pick up the newest GI Joe figures, but I can\u2019t. I\u2019m sure my readers know why.   There\u2019s no room for anything new. All the first run movie toys are still fermenting away on the pegs like house guests that didn\u2019t get the hint that it\u2019s time to go. <!--more--><\/P><\/p>\n<p>I know I\u2019m not the only one having this problem.  Sure, the GI Joe movie was good, much better than Transformers at least.  And, unlike most movie-based toy lines, the GI Joe line actually has some well-sculpted figures, great accessories, and good quality control.  The only problem is that every time I go to a store I get to stare at a Joe section that\u2019s choking on figures that came out months ago.<\/P><\/p>\n<p>Now, I understand that toy companies try to sell as many movie figures as quickly as possible.  The tie-in window for a movie isn\u2019t very long.  I get it.  So why do these companies continue to make three or four or five more waves while first two crowd the pegs?  Granted, G.I. Joe is a bigger franchise than most movie lines \u2013 it will go on \u2013 but why do movie lines try to produce figures past the expiration date of the film\u2019s relevance? <\/P><\/p>\n<p>Normally, this doesn\u2019t bother me. I didn\u2019t care to have Mongul and Metallo from the Superman movie (hint, they weren\u2019t in it) anyway. I wasn\u2019t sorely missing the 5\u201d Deathstroke from The Dark Knight. But sometimes it is annoying. I want some of these new Joes. My Indiana Jones collection will always be lacking. And Dark Knight Movie Masters? What a nightmare\u2026<\/P><\/p>\n<p>I guess what I\u2019m telling toy companies, all toy companies, is to plan intelligently for more than a couple movie waves and get the important stuff out. If you\u2019re going to leave a line half done and manage to barely ship out any cases of the an assortment after the movie leaves the public consciousness, then don\u2019t even bother trying to keep it going. Let it die and save us the grief ahead of time.<\/P> <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mattel<\/strong> &#8211; if Two-Face is a major villain, make him in the first wave. If you have to keep his look \u201csecret\u201d, then plan for a wave to hit around the time the movie debuts. And don\u2019t ship the same handful of figures in different ratios!  I don\u2019t need fourteen of the same Batman to fight my one Joker and his one goon.  <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li><strong>Playmates<\/strong> &#8211; if you make a build-a-bridge playset, and one piece comes with each character, make sure all those characters actually make it to stores.  If any kids got into that line, all the figures will surely die a quick death when they can\u2019t raise shields because they didn\u2019t get that console (and, no, having them at an online store half a year later doesn\u2019t count).  Looks like the Romulans will have an ongoing advantage there. And don\u2019t even get me started on Terminator toys \u2013 I don\u2019t know if any ended up missing because I couldn\u2019t get past the various \u201cnot Christian Bale\u201d John Connors. <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li><strong>Hasbro<\/strong> \u2013 this is a little different, but you cancelled the sleek looking animated toys and the awesomely retro TF Classics line to bring me Mudflap and Skids as an Ice Cream truck, some ugly motorcycle robots that you can\u2019t keep straight, and Soundwave, just because you wanted to see how bad a satellite Transformer could pegwarm.  And then there\u2019s GI Joe, which I have to admit, you\u2019ve made some great figures for that movie. And you\u2019ve got more great figures coming up, but what good is it if those wave five figures have to peak through the mountain of leftovers from your overproduced earlier waves? I\u2019m ready for POC, but you\u2019re going to have be ready to do something to get those pegs clear.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/P><\/p>\n<p>So, toy companies, in the future, you need to plan your movie lines a little better. Lets\u2019 face it, a lot better. Even one of the most wildly successful movie lines, Pixar\u2019s Cars, had to survive an empty peg disaster of epic proportions to get where it is today.<\/P> <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, no movie\u2019s fervor will last forever, so don\u2019t treat it like it will.  Cars being the exception to the rule, of course. How many of those things are there?<\/P><\/p>\n<p>-Mr. Rant<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The G.I. Joe section at my Wal-Mart sure seems crowded lately. All I want to do is go to my local Wal-mart\/TRU\/Target and pick up the newest GI Joe figures, but I can\u2019t. I\u2019m sure my readers know why. There\u2019s no room for anything new. All the first run movie toys are still fermenting away [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[31,10],"tags":[2568,24,20,30,198,322,2560],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-y1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1413,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=1413","url_meta":{"origin":2109,"position":0},"title":"Mister Rant says &#8220;Do I really have to rant about Joes? 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But, every great once in a while, something\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Event Coverage&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":152,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=152","url_meta":{"origin":2109,"position":3},"title":"Most Requested Figures: 25th Anniversary Covergirl","date":"July 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Requests&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":806,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=806","url_meta":{"origin":2109,"position":4},"title":"Mr. Rant says I thought we were past &#8220;female figures don&#8217;t sell&#8221;.","date":"August 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently, it\u2019s 1950 and boys don\u2019t play with girl action figures. At least, that\u2019s the way Mattel still sees it for a few of their lines. If you are a fan of the Secret Saturdays or Batman: Brave and the Bold, don\u2019t get your hopes up for a complete set\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mister Rant&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3221,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=3221","url_meta":{"origin":2109,"position":5},"title":"Mr. Rant&#8217;s Post Holiday Complaints","date":"January 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Waiting, waiting, waiting is all I seem to be doing lately. I ordered a case of DCUC11 from Matty on December 23rd. I realized when I ordered them that it was too close to Christmas to expect them anytime soon. To Matty\u2019s credit, they had them ready for shipment rather\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mister Rant&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2109"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7082,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions\/7082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}