SSG's 2012 Year in Review

[JediTricks]

Ouch, and all of those are Hasbro's fault, unlike Batman (thanks Mattel and Christopher "let's ruin the franchise with a dumb 3rd movie" Nolan). I'm not sick of Vader yet actually, just sick of mediocre versions of him - I liked the new ANH figure enough to buy a second.

In 2012, don't you think maybe there were just a tad too many TF Prime Bumblebees on shelves compared to, say, everyone else? And nobody even likes that version of the character or the mold that much!

[El Chuxter]

The saddest thing about it is, done properly, Darth Vader and Snake Eyes are two of the strongest characters in pop culture. And Bumblebee can even be done so it's impossible to not like him (his role as acting Autobot commander in the IDW-verse has really evolved the character beyond anything he's ever been before).

It's just there are TOO. DAMN. MANY. TOYS.

[JetsAndHeels]

Sure, so long as your name is "Bumblebee". Distribution on TF in 2012 was pretty rough as well, IMO

I can only speak from my own experience, but there wasn't a TF toy that I had too much trouble finding last year. Even the TRU MP-10 was an easy find for me. There were a few lulls where it was harder to track things down, but I always ended up finding what I wanted. If I had to choose the one that was most difficult to find, it was definately Vehicon. The funny thing is though, after I got my first one, I found several more.

Unfortunately SW was not like that. There were entire waves I never saw.

[JediTricks]

The saddest thing about it is, done properly, Darth Vader and Snake Eyes are two of the strongest characters in pop culture. And Bumblebee can even be done so it's impossible to not like him (his role as acting Autobot commander in the IDW-verse has really evolved the character beyond anything he's ever been before).

It's just there are TOO. DAMN. MANY. TOYS.

Too many crap toys, really. There is room for a number of expressions with Snake Eyes and Vader, just not crappy expressions as they often are.

I can only speak from my own experience, but there wasn't a TF toy that I had too much trouble finding last year. Even the TRU MP-10 was an easy find for me. There were a few lulls where it was harder to track things down, but I always ended up finding what I wanted. If I had to choose the one that was most difficult to find, it was definately Vehicon. The funny thing is though, after I got my first one, I found several more.

Unfortunately SW was not like that. There were entire waves I never saw.

Vehicon was a nightmare until they finally addressed it, then they went and put another pressing of RID Bumblebee out and ruined it again. But there wasn't much product in 2012 to begin with, and to me it felt like getting a lot of it was very frustrating. Perhaps your collecting scope was super limited? I dunno, seems like a really rosy outlook considering GDO scarcity, and I've never seen the FE Voyagers (TRU canceled my online order) or the FE Vehicon, or RID Voyager Skyquake (and only once with Dreadwing when I was super broke), and then there's product we were simply not getting any word on like TFP Breakdown and Gaia Unicron, and MP Soundwave and Sideswipe. Anyway, that's why I find 2012 pretty frustrating on the distribution side. I'm glad you got what you were looking for though.

[bigbarada]

The saddest thing about it is, done properly, Darth Vader and Snake Eyes are two of the strongest characters in pop culture. And Bumblebee can even be done so it's impossible to not like him (his role as acting Autobot commander in the IDW-verse has really evolved the character beyond anything he's ever been before).

It's just there are TOO. DAMN. MANY. TOYS.

Totally agree. When I was a kid, Darth Vader and Snake-Eyes were two of my all-time favorite fictional characters. However, over the years, that interest has become increasingly diluted with merchandise overload until it just no longer exists any more.

Bumblebee was also one of my favorites, but he'll always be a Volkwagon Beetle to me. So any incarnation where Bumblebee transforms into something other than a Volkswagon Beetle is not really Bumblebee as far as I'm concerned.

[JetsAndHeels]

I dunno, seems like a really rosy outlook considering GDO scarcity, and I've never seen the FE Voyagers (TRU canceled my online order) or the FE Vehicon, or RID Voyager Skyquake (and only once with Dreadwing when I was super broke)

Once again, this is just my personal experience. I walked into TRU and got every GDO Voyager. I then went to another store and got the remaining 2 deluxes I needed (FE Vehicon and GDO Wheelie). I was able to also find the FE Voyagers at 2 different stores.

I guess I was just fortunate in those instances. As far as Voyager Skyquake, I would love to have him, but in all reality if I don't ever get him that is fine with me too.

[sebillba]

I hear ya on "quality over quantity", I just didn't feel particularly blown away by the quality either, not that there were a lot of bad figures, but I didn't feel like there were a lot of very strong performers either, even without taking the crazy price increase into account.

I know what you mean, but I think we're at a stage now where it's going to be difficult to be blown away.... Hasbro have reached a pinnacle in terms of sculpt and articulation, and rather than being impressed by such things, we've come to expect it. And there's always some other flaw - mismatched joints, oversized soft goods, inaccurate decos, slight mis-proportions, etc. But even if they were to get all that right and create a perfect figure, the character choices are unlikely to really excite us. I mean some of my most wanted figures to be made now are minor background characters, like Sim Aloo and Sasha Tiel, but they would hardly blow me away if they did get made, and were totally perfect. And major characters, we've just seen them all too much over the years - like the recent Vader, it's a fantastic figure, but I find it hard to get excited over it, as it's yet another Vader (albeit probably the best one ever).

Of course, you have it worse, I didn't know they were going for so much in the UK!

Well, they're officially £8.99 if you're lucky enough to find them in TRU, etc. but apart from most of the TPM wave, I got all mine online, mostly at £9.99... though some of the short packed are around £12.99.

Yeah, distribution in the UK has sucked for a really long time, like since the '90s.

Tell me about it!! I remember searching for the POTF2 Bib fortuna wave, and being chuffed to find them as "low" as £9! That was 1997! And then a couple of years later, travelling halfway across London to get the cheapest Nute and Rune I could find anywhere for £10 each. Thankfully, prices did settle down a bit after this, as more online outlets started popping up, but in retrospect, current prices aren't so bad... though of course, I was financially better off back then.

Thanks for a fresh perspective, a very different take on the line in some ways, in others like Droid Factory - I know a lot of collectors felt the same way back during the original line - so quite in line in others.

Glad to contribute.... I'm still a regular loiterer round here, but don't seem to get around to posting as much as I should.

I totally forgot about Snaggletooth and the Power Droid, I didn't get either of those 3-packs but did want to, they were just too much money each for 2 figures I already had and 1 I didn't.

So what Snaggletooth are you referring to? The Target 3-pack one would be cool to get on its own without a Tusken and Boba Fett, both who I REALLY do NOT want more figures of.

Yeah, that's the one... I wasn't too thrilled about having to buy two old figures to get it, but the Cantina is a primary focus for me, so I had to have him, and I think he's a pretty sweet figure (apart from the mismatched knee joints). I was actually lucky enough to get both sets from a guy on RS for $14.99 each, and with loose shipping, they didn't work out bad at all. The extra Tusken is always useful too me, and the Fett was a variant I'd ignored before, so that was ok too. The Power Droid set was less useful, but at least R5-D4 had a much sharper paintjob than the old carded figure.

As to Neimoidians? While Nute and Rune could be done with ROTS attire first, I want Tey How more than any of the others since she (?) has never been made before. I also want a CLONE WARS cartoon version of Nute Gunray before ROTS movie figures or anything else to do with the Niemoidians. These Niemoidian figures NEED to get done as a priority.

I'd like Tey How as well, but the new standard makes the 1999 figures look very inferior, and as Nute and Rune are the two main Neimoidians, they should be remade to the same quality. That's why I was so looking forward to the new Nien Nunb.... I was always fine with the old POTF2 figure, but once I started putting the latest SA Sullustans next to him, he looked terrible in comparison.

[bigbarada]

Of course, since you did all that sexy color averaging and picked out the HSB values and still came up with the red as closer, but you see it as the brown, is it possible you might have colorblindness in that red region? To my eyes it's not even close, the brown has nowhere near enough red in it to even be called a color, its low saturation and brightness numbers say the same thing, while "red" and "actual" are much more in the red family with obvious colors to them.

I've been thinking about this and I don't believe it is color blindness, but possibly my mind trying to outsmart my eyes.

I grew up building and painting plastic model kits and, as most everyone knows, the primary colors for paint are red, blue and yellow. The only way to get brown paint is to mix red, blue and yellow paint together in varying ratios to create all the different shades of brown. If you take the red paint out of brown, then it becomes green and will never get close to brown again unless you put the red paint back in.

With a painted action figure, the brown paint MUST have some red in it, or it wouldn't be brown. So, even if I can't see the red in the brown paint, I know that it has to be in there somewhere. But, I only "see" the red paint by estimating how far that shade of brown paint is from being pure green. The less green it appears the more red must be present.

So, I guess you could say that I "perceive" the red more than "see" the red.

[Darth Metalmute]

I just saw the 12" hasbro figures... They should have stayed away. No elbow articulation, terrible facial features and modeling, it almost looks like it was made by the companies that make drug store toys.

[bigbarada]

I just saw the 12" hasbro figures... They should have stayed away. No elbow articulation, terrible facial features and modeling, it almost looks like it was made by the companies that make drug store toys.

Yeah, those definitely have a "Mexican bootleg" quality about them.