Mattel MOTU Chronicles Movie Figures

[Super Camel]

But where's Orko?

There are rumors he may show up.

It's crazy, at about the 1:30/1:31 point of that Legendary heroes short video, that girl comes spinning out like Sy-Klone. I wonder if she is actually supposed to be Sy-Klone, or just someone with similar abilities? I'd have to imagine she isn't literally Sy-Klone since her attire/costume looks nothing like the character. All the other legit characters costumes in the film really resemble the character they are playing. So, I don't know why they'd stop at Sy-Klone.

 

[spinc]

So I got my Chronicles He-Man yesterday. Old news to everybody here but I still wanna lay down my thoughts.

Overall, yeah he's the best He-Man Mattel's ever done. But I kinda expected a bit more..? First off, mine had incredibly floppy waist joint. His legs are pretty loose too. I tried fixing him by popping his torso off and rubbing the balljoint with some superglue to thicken it, but I could not get his lower torso off the crotch piece, even with heat. I did manage to pop off his ab joint, and there is a hole through the lower torso that goes to the lower joint. I ended up adding a few drops of superglue in there and moving the lower joint around for a while, and it seemed to do the trick. I then got occupied for a while and I found out I had glued the joint shut! It's not like he had much range there anyways, but I'm still pretty mad about it. At least it's not floppy anymore... but he still wiggles around a bit since that lower peg is connected loosely onto the crotch piece. So QC is not great on these figures. His hips are really loose too and the superglue trick didn't seem to do anything to them. Gonna try some tissue paper now to see if that helps.

But yeah, I think I kinda expected a bit more range on the joints, mainly the butterflies, torso joints, and the hips. I also kinda feel the need for toe joints, as they would allow even deeper and more natural-looking poses. The hips specifically seem to be limited needlessly by the hard plastic crotch piece; there may be a way to dremmel it away and get more range. I do miss the thigh swivel too, even if the hips have enough movement, the swivel thighs would have helped. The butterflies are Mcfarlane-style, which just doesn't usually work on most figures. I wish they had done them more in the pull-out style of SH Figuarts or Mafex. And the torso just doesn't have a ton of range, even before I mistakenly glued the waist down.

I will say, the neck joints, the elbows, the wrists, the knees and ankles impressed me. The range is great and they look good. The neck has impressive range even with all that hair. The ankles are a bit loose but have enough pivot to get decent poses. Most joints move very smoothly and feel nice. No weird ratchet joints here, thank God.

The sculpt and proportions are pretty great, WAY better than any Masterverse He-Man. His head feels a bit big though. The likeness is good, and I loved the dark wash they gave his armor. I like the translucent red cross in his chest piece. I like how well he holds the Power Sword, and how nice it fits in his back. He can even kinda hold it with two hands, which is great!

However, I really dislike unpainted swords. I guess they didn't want it paint chipping when placing it in his back? It looks okay but a nice metallic finish would have been nice. It seems to be lacking some of the finer details of the movie prop, but oh well. The extra hands are easy to change and he looks good with fists, but why no open hands? Why no extra weapons? The small amount of accessories do make him feel cheap.

Overall, the figure is good and is probably a good indication of what Mattel is gonna do with the collector DC figures. He's fun to pose around, even with the QC issues, but I really wish he had more accessories. All in all I'm happy to have him, Mattel is really improving here, but there's still some work to be done. Hopefully they improve on the body as the line goes, and definitely for the DC line. I would love to see a "comic" He-Man on a similar buck to this.

 

[Damien]

I tend to think that the sometimes too-loose joints are an over-correction for the common toy collector complaint about having to fucking take your figures for a nice spa day before being able to get any of their joints to even MOVE. And if you're really trying to sell this as a collector line that you can also show to your kids when you watch the movie together, which is ABSOLUTELY what Mattel wants, then you need the figures to be playable out of the box.
Not saying it's good that any joints are loose. Like I said, I think it's an over-correction and they need to find a way to scale it back just a bit.

I'm gonna wait to judge the amount of accessories once I've either seen the film or once we start getting non-movie figures. This might just be a case of 'there's really nothing else that makes sense for the movie figure to even have.' Except extra hands or heads, which I agree would have made these figures stand out a lot more as excellent value for money. That being said, it's fair to point out that two figures in the first wave -seem- to have fully dedicated sculpts that will be difficult or impossible to re-use, so it's certainly possible that's where a lot of the early budget is going, versus ongoing lines like ML that have a massive parts library to pull from.

Again, I think it'll be worth seeing what they do with this line when it isn't just movie figures.

If we can get this pricepoint with this He-Man body, but let's say an Alcala head, new boots, new bracers, new harness, new loincloth, extra hands, as well as new versions of the axe, sword, and shield? I'd call that a pretty decent value. Time will tell. I REALLY hope they do that, though.

I'm not sure what the issue is with the torso? I feel like He-Man's torso ROM is as good or better than basically any existing non-import figure. His butterflies definitely kind of suck, though. It's a good effort - they just need to work on the ROM.

 

[Mr_Saver]

So I got my Chronicles He-Man yesterday. Old news to everybody here but I still wanna lay down my thoughts.

Overall, yeah he's the best He-Man Mattel's ever done. But I kinda expected a bit more..? First off, mine had incredibly floppy waist joint. His legs are pretty loose too. I tried fixing him by popping his torso off and rubbing the balljoint with some superglue to thicken it, but I could not get his lower torso off the crotch piece, even with heat. I did manage to pop off his ab joint, and there is a hole through the lower torso that goes to the lower joint. I ended up adding a few drops of superglue in there and moving the lower joint around for a while, and it seemed to do the trick. I then got occupied for a while and I found out I had glued the joint shut! It's not like he had much range there anyways, but I'm still pretty mad about it. At least it's not floppy anymore... but he still wiggles around a bit since that lower peg is connected loosely onto the crotch piece. So QC is not great on these figures. His hips are really loose too and the superglue trick didn't seem to do anything to them. Gonna try some tissue paper now to see if that helps.

But yeah, I think I kinda expected a bit more range on the joints, mainly the butterflies, torso joints, and the hips. I also kinda feel the need for toe joints, as they would allow even deeper and more natural-looking poses. The hips specifically seem to be limited needlessly by the hard plastic crotch piece; there may be a way to dremmel it away and get more range. I do miss the thigh swivel too, even if the hips have enough movement, the swivel thighs would have helped. The butterflies are Mcfarlane-style, which just doesn't usually work on most figures. I wish they had done them more in the pull-out style of SH Figuarts or Mafex. And the torso just doesn't have a ton of range, even before I mistakenly glued the waist down.

I will say, the neck joints, the elbows, the wrists, the knees and ankles impressed me. The range is great and they look good. The neck has impressive range even with all that hair. The ankles are a bit loose but have enough pivot to get decent poses. Most joints move very smoothly and feel nice. No weird ratchet joints here, thank God.

The sculpt and proportions are pretty great, WAY better than any Masterverse He-Man. His head feels a bit big though. The likeness is good, and I loved the dark wash they gave his armor. I like the translucent red cross in his chest piece. I like how well he holds the Power Sword, and how nice it fits in his back. He can even kinda hold it with two hands, which is great!

However, I really dislike unpainted swords. I guess they didn't want it paint chipping when placing it in his back? It looks okay but a nice metallic finish would have been nice. It seems to be lacking some of the finer details of the movie prop, but oh well. The extra hands are easy to change and he looks good with fists, but why no open hands? Why no extra weapons? The small amount of accessories do make him feel cheap.

Overall, the figure is good and is probably a good indication of what Mattel is gonna do with the collector DC figures. He's fun to pose around, even with the QC issues, but I really wish he had more accessories. All in all I'm happy to have him, Mattel is really improving here, but there's still some work to be done. Hopefully they improve on the body as the line goes, and definitely for the DC line. I would love to see a "comic" He-Man on a similar buck to this.

This is how I feel about the ones I have.


Best figure that has ever come out of Mattel almost for sure, maybe the best from Mattel and hasbro.

But I do tend to generally prefer the Jada toys and Storm arena figures to it at a similar price point.

But it do think some pretty small tweaks could really get it there.

 

[NORM]

My gripe is that the ankles need more range of motion forward, or upward. No one can get into a good lunge pose, which really limits how they can pose in general. I do like that the ball ankles are pegged on both ends, into the foot and into the lower leg. But I am also afraid the ankles will loosen in time, among other joints and PoA.

 

[spinc]

Watching Pixel Dan's review, I noticed my He-man actually looks a bit different than his. The print on his face is different. I've also seen some that have a more translucent cross than others, mine is a bit cloudy.

Mine is on the right.

I know the packaging is different on international versions, but this is a completely different design on that print work. I've noticed mine is made in Vietnam, I wonder is there is a version made in China? Vietnam usually has a bit lower quality production.

 

[joshsquash729]

Watching Pixel Dan's review, I noticed my He-man actually looks a bit different than his. The print on his face is different. I've also seen some that have a more translucent cross than others, mine is a bit cloudy.

Mine is on the right.

I know the packaging is different on international versions, but this is a completely different design on that print work. I've noticed mine is made in Vietnam, I wonder is there is a version made in China? Vietnam usually has a bit lower quality production.

I'd personally say yours looks a little better; the face definitely skews a little closer to the actor than Dan's does. Hair seems to be closer to the real color than his too.

I've heard of influencers and reviewers sometimes getting slightly better quality figures before, just as like a batch made specifically for them to impress them or to get good first impressions, but of the two, I'd say yours looks better face-wise, and may just be the lighting, but I think the work on the chest armor looks a bit better on yours too.

 

[spinc]

I'd personally say yours looks a little better; the face definitely skews a little closer to the actor than Dan's does. Hair seems to be closer to the real color than his too.

I've heard of influencers and reviewers sometimes getting slightly better quality figures before, just as like a batch made specifically for them to impress them or to get good first impressions, but of the two, I'd say yours looks better face-wise, and may just be the lighting, but I think the work on the chest armor looks a bit better on yours too.

Yeah, I'm thinking it was some sort of running change (just like the cross), as most He-mans I've seen on instagram recently look like mine. I agree that it looks more like Nicholas Galitzine more, although the other print also looks good. Its funny seeing a change in production so soon, I mean the figure just came out and there are already like 3 slightly different versions.

 

[Damien]

I don't think it's a running change so much as early review samples were production samples, not final figures. So final tweaks were made prior to the main production run.

 

[docsilence]

I'm of two minds about the looseness of the joints honestly - on the one hand, the three Chronicles humanoid figures I have are almost eerily smooth around the joints, like there's zero ratcheting, and I wonder if they'll get... floppy? Over time. But on the other hand Man I am sick to the back teeth with having to boil my action figures. Smooth joints out of the box is a really nice change of pace. The knees and elbows remind me of the Storm Arena Ryu I just got, but with less... adult collector style wrists and ankles if that makes any sense.

Unrelated, BBTS shipped out my latest PoL and should be here Friday, so that'll net me Skeletor and Trap Jaw. I'm still really not wowed by Tri-Klops though, haven't pulled the trigger on him.

 

[ChrisLyne]

I'm of two minds about the looseness of the joints honestly - on the one hand, the three Chronicles humanoid figures I have are almost eerily smooth around the joints, like there's zero ratcheting, and I wonder if they'll get... floppy? Over time. But on the other hand Man I am sick to the back teeth with having to boil my action figures. Smooth joints out of the box is a really nice change of pace. The knees and elbows remind me of the Storm Arena Ryu I just got, but with less... adult collector style wrists and ankles if that makes any sense.

Unrelated, BBTS shipped out my latest PoL and should be here Friday, so that'll net me Skeletor and Trap Jaw. I'm still really not wowed by Tri-Klops though, haven't pulled the trigger on him.

I hear you on the boiling. Would be happy to never have to do that again. Fed up of feeling like I might break something just because I'm trying to move a joint that should be easily movable.

 

[docsilence]

I hear you on the boiling. Would be happy to never have to do that again. Fed up of feeling like I might break something just because I'm trying to move a joint that should be easily movable.

Yeah. I swear the only line I'm not boiling joints for are really expensive imports where I'm worried about breaking the figures with my clumsy monster hands instead of because I didn't send them to the spa before posing. Feels like almost every figure regardless of price point needs a bath now. Having these MOTU figures NOT need help with their joints was a breath of fresh air.

 

[NORM]

My He-Man had a fused left hip out of package! The skin was glued to the crotch. I literally snapped it off. Not the joint itself, which still works perfectly as intended, just the skin, snapping from the crotch piece, like separating two pieces that had been glued together. That’s the most accurate way I can describe it. Was sweating a bit when it happened, but it ended well.

 

[Niko (protozoalord)]

I've shed my crotch skin before as well. Not fun!

 

[Poe Ghostal]

My He-Man had a fused left hip out of package! The skin was glued to the crotch. I literally snapped it off. Not the joint itself, which still works perfectly as intended, just the skin, snapping from the crotch piece, like separating two pieces that had been glued together. That’s the most accurate way I can describe it. Was sweating a bit when it happened, but it ended well.

I feel like the first wave of almost any blockbuster film's action figure line tends to have at least a few QC issues, because somewhere along the way there was a degree of rushing happening.

Here's hoping my He-Man doesn't have this or the misaligned hair, though until Target actually ships my order from almost a week ago I won't know.