Mattel x TMNT.

Damien said:
Yeah, it was always kind of double-edged with every other toy company; they started out making the Turtles too big, and then also made the ancillary characters too small. So you've got characters towering over the Turtles in the source material that are literally smaller than the Turtles in action figure form. And it's because every company has started from the perspective of 'make the Turtles and flow from there' without a plan, rather than identifying what to do with the line holistically from the beginning.
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What I do NOT get is how it happens even when the figures are produced seemingly simultaneously, like the Stranger Things Turtles line. I get why it happened with Bst Axn, I'd be surprised if *they* had plans for anything past just the Turtles. But the Stranger Things stuff? Come on, man.

Damien said:
How tall is a human being in this line? should be the FIRST question anyone asks when making a TMNT line. Work from there.
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So... Casey wave 1 or else you've failed? Heh. Heheh. I like the way you think!

Boy Wonder said:
Was about to come in here and say, my ideal TMNT line still has yet to happen. I bought a lot of the NECA cartoon figures because they may be as close as it gets, but for me, my ideal Turtle line wouldn't be beholden to any one single source.

Even to this day, I think MOTU Classics did a really great job at showing off what a great line could be that combines aspects of several decades of a franchise into one cohesive line. You had characters from toys, comics, the 80's cartoon, the 2003 cartoon, etc all unified in one style. And that's what I'd love for TMNT. And then for major characters you had multiple releases and swappable parts to give you whatever your mind's eye view of that character may be.
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The kicker for me is that Turtles has always BEEN built on this. Mirage, 1990, Playmates, 1987, 2003, 2012, 2012 Playmates, Rise, Archie, IDW, etc. Every single incarnation, toy and actual media, have ALL been mish mashing each other's stuff together and swapping parts and doing slight reinterpretations of that material. Even the original Mirage comics changed the designs a lot during its run.

IDW is probably the closest we have to a "MOTUC" for TMNT, and would be a solid source of inspiration to pull from for a line. It'd be cool to see them get a bunch of the Mirage, Archie, and IDW artists back to design a new all-rounder MOTUC style line. Hopefully they have swappable belts and bandanas so I can make my personal ideal Turtles. I need the red bandanas and simpler mid-Mirage/1990 belts.
 
Niko (protozoalord) said:
So... Casey wave 1 or else you've failed? Heh. Heheh. I like the way you think!
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Ideally... yes, because Casey is awesome. But at least know what Casey will look like, in terms of general size and shape, BEFORE you design the Turtles. Because their weird proportions and height always seems to fuck companies over who later try to adapt that scale and proportion style into human characters.


Niko (protozoalord) said:
What I do NOT get is how it happens even when the figures are produced seemingly simultaneously, like the Stranger Things Turtles line. I get why it happened with Bst Axn, I'd be surprised if *they* had plans for anything past just the Turtles. But the Stranger Things stuff? Come on, man.
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I think the issue is that the -design- isn't happening simultaneously. The Turtles get designed first, and by the time this becomes an apparent potential issue as they design other figures for the wave - it's actually already too late to go back and start over or you are now not releasing product on time.
 
Super Camel said:
I honestly don't know what Mattel could do in the adult collector market that would really bring people in or wow them. There have been so many great looking TMNT figures, and even some deep collections over the last couple years. Especially with NECA. But even crazy ass Super7 made some great looking figures. I love the look of all the Ultimate figures based on the Playmates vintage figures.


Speaking of Playmates, will Mattel be able to make figures that look like the classic/vintage Playmaters TMNT figures? I know Mattel now has the license to make Turtle toys, but Playmates owns the rights to those vintage TMNT looks right?
I wonder if Mattel have or will work anything out with Playmates to be able to do something like what Super7 set out to do, in order to make an adult collector line of figures based on the vintage TMNT figures.
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Playmates likely still owns the original molds, but nothing more. Most of their designs were done by Mirage Studios artists or Varner. Usually with these deals the owner of the IP ends up owning anything developed under their name unless Playmates negotiated joint ownership of anything.
 
Kind of bummed about this, because I expect it to affect the NECA lines.


Also, Mattel is taking over DC, too. Don’t really want to restart two separate collections with a new company.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Damien said:
And something to remember in this is that Mattel, in the past at least, has been kind of famously spiteful. Like when they pulled the MOTU license from Super7. They didn't have to. Super7 was just doing obscure cartoon characters at that point and Mattel was starting over with Origins and Masterverse - neither of which had anything to do with Filmation fucking Skunkface or whatever barely-worth-mentioning character was left to make.

But they did it anyway. Purely because they did not want anyone else competing with them for the western market on MOTU action figures. If those decision makers are still around, it's almost a guarantee they will do everything they can to make sure no other company is making TMNT toys even within the same wheel-neighborhood, let alone wheelhouse, as they are.
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I think that was cause Super7 was being Super7. NECA's licensed from Mattel many times before, and worked with them. And they never went after NECA when they were doing the DC figures...sure it was all legal loopholes, but Mattel could've thrown a fit if they really wanted.
 
Detrimental Fig said:
I think that was cause Super7 was being Super7. NECA's licensed from Mattel many times before, and worked with them. And they never went after NECA when they were doing the DC figures...sure it was all legal loopholes, but Mattel could've thrown a fit if they really wanted.
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100%
Nothing is just a foregone conclusion. But it only takes someone at Mattel not liking someone somewhere else for it to become an issue. Best not to assume Mattel will just leave everyone be.
 
Detrimental Fig said:
And they never went after NECA when they were doing the DC figures...sure it was all legal loopholes, but Mattel could've thrown a fit if they really wanted.
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What the Hell are you talking about?!?! Why do you think the AvP V DC two packs were con exclusives released during the transition from Mattel to McF?! Why do think the yearly Christmas “miracle figures” “buy two DVD’s and buy this figure! (But you don’t have to buy the DVD’s wink)” promotions stopped?!

Mattel definitely told DC “why are you letting them make figures when we have a MASTER LICENSE?!” NECA got spanked, and Mattel made those okay-but-not-good DeVito Penguin, TV show Flash and Wonder Woman, and Klimer (I think? Maybe Clooney? Not Keaton for sure) Batman to show “look! We’re making collectors figures so back off!” And that ended NECA’s experimental dance with DC loopholes.

Looking forward to Mattel slamming their dick a door cutting them off from not only Turtles but also DC Toony, which seems like such a small victory they pried from defeat and you know it’s getting ripped away before they can even get the Robin they showed years ago out…

altcunningham said:
TMNT X KPOP Mutant Hunters
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If we don’t get this… what are we even doing here?!
 
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