Power Rangers

I can't see anyone buying into the line that already has anything equivalent to the Lightning Collection or better because it's a huge step down.
 
yojoebro82 said:
Which Rito is that?
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This one, from Etsy! He arrived damaged and I've yet to glue him back together, but he's absolutely worth it to complete the line-up.

I saw the new fabric ones in a store the other day - something about the fabric and the printing and the giant helmets - the combo didn't work for me. Happy with the LC. Which is neither here nor there, but finally - money I'm NOT tempted to spend. :)
 
The Lightning Collection was SO good. I personally never had any of the QC issues I saw other people have, so as far as I'm concerned, it was a line of well-detailed, super-articulated, beloved characters with plenty of accessories and unprecedented unmasked heads.

I knew for fact the line would only last as long as they could sell MMPR characters, but as a fan of the full history of PR, that was a tough reality to face.

I keep hoping they discover an opportunity for profit with a Pulse exclusive line of all-inclusive 3-packs. Like, Red/Pink/foot soldier, Blue/Yellow/boss villain, and 6th Ranger/Black/lieutenant. And I guess just play it by ear for larger teams.
 
Fletch said:
The Lightning Collection was SO good. I personally never had any of the QC issues I saw other people have, so as far as I'm concerned, it was a line of well-detailed, super-articulated, beloved characters with plenty of accessories and unprecedented unmasked heads.

I knew for fact the line would only last as long as they could sell MMPR characters, but as a fan of the full history of PR, that was a tough reality to face.

I keep hoping they discover an opportunity for profit with a Pulse exclusive line of all-inclusive 3-packs. Like, Red/Pink/foot soldier, Blue/Yellow/boss villain, and 6th Ranger/Black/lieutenant. And I guess just play it by ear for larger teams.
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I had very few QC issues. My Remastered Yellow Ranger was not packaged with all the accessories she should have had.......I think that's all I can remember, though. And BBTS took care of me (when Hasbro would not).

It was going to be a tough sell after running through all of the MMPR cast, but I thought they would have at least done the 1995 movie figures before hanging it up.

On one hand I'm surprised Hasbro punted the license away. This IP should be a lazy toy manufacture's dream. Uniform characters, no licensing fees. All that's needed are a minimal number of male and female bucks to repaint again and again and again. I thought they should go the rout of the Alien Ranges and just package all teams together, sell on amazon or Pulse. On the other hand I'm not surprised because Hasbro.
 
I was looking at the upcoming Playmates Power Rangers figures recently, and I honestly like them just because they look like fun, kid toys. Just colorful, playable toys as if right out of the 80's and 90's. And for any problems Playmates might have with various lines, I always appreciate that about them.

They make fun toys to play with, usually at very affordable prices.

I was looking at that MMPR Re-Ignition 6 pack, and that looks really simple, yet fun.

I'm not even a huge Power Rangers fan. I remember it, because it hit full force when I was a kid, when I was about 9, I think. I had a few of the 8" figures as a kid, and I have the vintage 8" toys now because of nostalgia and they are not too expensive to go back and get. But I may honestly buy some of these Playmates figures.
 
Super Camel said:
They make fun toys to play with, usually at very affordable prices.
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I'm not sure how accurate this is, even if it's the conventional wisdom about why Playmates kind of sucks. When my son was really into Power Rangers a few years ago - he was all about the LC figures (although I don't think we ever got more than 2 from the show that was current at the time - a gold one and a blue one). He did not, however, seem to give a shit about the lower artic figures. I'm aware these weren't Playmates - but it's comparable.

My son has always been a TMNT fan, with varying degrees of intensity. However, he's also often been frustrated by how -unplayable- the Playmates figures often are - especially the ones that aren't the Turtles themselves. They're often not to scale (which, despite another bit of conventional wisdom - can bother kids when something doesn't match the content they're used to seeing), more than a few times can't really hold their weapons well, generally look a bit ass, and have frustrating articulation choices that make them distinctly not fun to play with.

I've bought my son a lot of Playmates stuff and he has ultimately disliked most of it. In fact, I credit Playmates with my son actually losing interest in Turtles because so many of the toys he got sucked and weren't fun to play with.

These rangers will probably be the same. Just.. frustrating to do anything with and unnecessarily ugly. I don't think it would cost more for Playmates to just design/engineer their toys a little better. I genuinely just think they have people working there that are bad at their jobs.
 
My feelings on the whole thing still stand but more power to Super Camel if he is excited for the Playmates MMPR.

I'm not a Playmates hater. I have their 90's Star Trek stuff still prominently displayed and my anticipation is that it's not going anywhere because no other company will go as deep with that line. I'm also always going to love and appreciate those vintage TMNT figures. Back in those days Playmates wasn't producing figures any better or worse than any other toy company. But as the action figure buyers aged, they wanted to take their IPs with them so MOST toy companies grew and made advancements to accommodate an older audience. Not Playmates. They were on par 30 years ago but for whatever reason (cost, I guess?) chose to make no effort to effort to grow or change.

I can't say I'm confused about why Hasbro is outsourcing this IP, I know exactly why they are doing it, It's just a bummer. The main question mark I guess is why they are going so kid-oriented on such an old property, one that was around 30 years before today's kids were born.
 
Damien said:
I'm not sure how accurate this is, even if it's the conventional wisdom about why Playmates kind of sucks. When my son was really into Power Rangers a few years ago - he was all about the LC figures (although I don't think we ever got more than 2 from the show that was current at the time - a gold one and a blue one). He did not, however, seem to give a shit about the lower artic figures. I'm aware these weren't Playmates - but it's comparable.

My son has always been a TMNT fan, with varying degrees of intensity. However, he's also often been frustrated by how -unplayable- the Playmates figures often are - especially the ones that aren't the Turtles themselves. They're often not to scale (which, despite another bit of conventional wisdom - can bother kids when something doesn't match the content they're used to seeing), more than a few times can't really hold their weapons well, generally look a bit ass, and have frustrating articulation choices that make them distinctly not fun to play with.

I've bought my son a lot of Playmates stuff and he has ultimately disliked most of it. In fact, I credit Playmates with my son actually losing interest in Turtles because so many of the toys he got sucked and weren't fun to play with.

These rangers will probably be the same. Just.. frustrating to do anything with and unnecessarily ugly. I don't think it would cost more for Playmates to just design/engineer their toys a little better. I genuinely just think they have people working there that are bad at their jobs.
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This has generally been my experience, both with myself as a kid and with my own children. The cheap, durable, "playable," stuff is seen by my kids as inferior garbage. When they had an interest in Power Rangers those Bandai auto-morphing reissued figures were everywhere and they wanted nothing to do with them because they looked stupid and the action feature didn't make sense to them. My son once got a Dragon Stars figure from DBZ and was quickly left to wonder why he'd ever get another one when the S.H.Figuarts stuff was clearly better (and I think the Dragon Stars line is actually pretty decent, but I don't collect it for the same reason). And as for me, when I was a kid I hated action features, poor scaling, and bad articulation, but I lived with it because it was all that was available. I feel like if I was a kid now I'd have zero interest in what's in the toy aisle at most places these days barring a few exceptions. I think the cheap toys survive because well-meaning adults think kids want them and toy companies are happy to supply cheaper offerings. I think these Playmates figures will succeed only if enough kids get into the franchise via the Netflix rebroadcast and actually want the toys because there will be nothing else competing with them. And I'm sure there are some MMPR fans who will collect anything and everything so perhaps the combination of those two groups makes the line a success, though I have my doubts.
 
yojoebro82 said:
The main question mark I guess is why they are going so kid-oriented on such an old property, one that was around 30 years before today's kids were born.
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I don't get it either. Assuming the 'kid' toys are intended for people under, let's say, 10 years old or so. How many 10-year-olds are chomping to get some Mighty Morphin' Rangers? Are we wrong and there's a bunch of demand, or are they wrong and the only people that care about MMPR are in their late 30s -at the youngest-?


Misfit said:
This has generally been my experience, both with myself as a kid and with my own children. The cheap, durable, "playable," stuff is seen by my kids as inferior garbage. When they had an interest in Power Rangers those Bandai auto-morphing reissued figures were everywhere and they wanted nothing to do with them because they looked stupid and the action feature didn't make sense to them. My son once got a Dragon Stars figure from DBZ and was quickly left to wonder why he'd ever get another one when the S.H.Figuarts stuff was clearly better (and I think the Dragon Stars line is actually pretty decent, but I don't collect it for the same reason). And as for me, when I was a kid I hated action features, poor scaling, and bad articulation, but I lived with it because it was all that was available. I feel like if I was a kid now I'd have zero interest in what's in the toy aisle at most places these days barring a few exceptions. I think the cheap toys survive because well-meaning adults think kids want them and toy companies are happy to supply cheaper offerings. I think these Playmates figures will succeed only if enough kids get into the franchise via the Netflix rebroadcast and actually want the toys because there will be nothing else competing with them. And I'm sure there are some MMPR fans who will collect anything and everything so perhaps the combination of those two groups makes the line a success, though I have my doubts.
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Ha - I had the same experience with Dragon Stars. I had some SHF figures but I bought a Trunks for my son from the Stars line, for obvious cost reasons (although those things are reasonably fucking expensive in Canada - almost the same price as an SHF re-issue is in the US). He was excited, of course. But ultimately didn't seem to really enjoy it and never asked for any more.

Same also with my experience as a kid. I could certainly enjoy things with less articulation even when there were toys with more (He-Man vs. Joes, for example). But my preference was always more articulation and scale. I got SOME angry as a kid that Marvel figures had no sense of scale at all. Drove me nuts. I always wondered if I was the outlier or if the conventional wisdom that kids don't care about that stuff was just really wrong.

You're almost certainly correct that trash-figures basically prey on uneducated adults that are really just ending up buying figures that will live at the bottom of a toy box and barely ever get touched, unless it's all the kid has (and even then, I don't really think playing with action figures is even a tenth as much a part of childhood as it was 20-30 years ago).

Also hard agree that I don't think this line is going to go anywhere. Adult collectors do not seem impressed, AND have already had multiple goes at better MMPR in recent memory (SHF, Lightning Collection, AND Ultimates for crying out loud - plus at least one or two runs of lesser-quality MMPR figures). No way these do well and Playmates might actually be a bit insane for even wanting the license at this point.
 
Yeah, I've been talking this whole time with the assumption that everyone had seen what the new figures look like. They're trash.
 
Well, I like them. Again, they just feel like kids toys. And when I say kids toys, I do mean from when I was a kid. Not now. By today's standards I can see these aren't great or some feet of toy ingenuity. But they remind me of things I absolutely would have or did play with as a kid and loved. So, that hits me nostalgically even though it's not the best business model for selling to todays audience.

And I'm sure these will only be between $10 to $12 each.
 
Super Camel said:
Well, I like them. Again, they just feel like kids toys. And when I say kids toys, I do mean from when I was a kid. Not now. By today's standards I can see these aren't great or some feet of toy ingenuity. But they remind me of things I absolutely would have or did play with as a kid and loved. So, that hits me nostalgically even though it's not the best business model for selling to todays audience.

And I'm sure these will only be between $10 to $12 each.
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I totally get what you mean. If you like them that's great. Personally, I don't want modern toys that are as shitty as my vintage toys. To me, that's the wrong kind of nostalgia. I'd rather either have the actual original toys I owned, which can justify their warts with age, or modern, better versions. I'm not saying you're the only person that will like these, but I have a strong feeling you'll be in the minority.

And with modern pricing, I'd be surprised if these are under 15, but even that isn't totally unreasonable (in the grand scheme of things).
 
People are now reporting finding the figures with the action features and the Megazords at Wal-Mart. It almost looked like in one pic the Megazords were in an endcap green shipper. But the new Playmates Power Rangers are starting to show up. So, be on the lookout if you're interested.
 
Here is a review of the new Auto Morphing Power Rangers that have the flipping action to go from their unmasked heads to masked. Also, Rita Repulsa with action feature. Towards the end he does some comparisons with the new and vintage auto morphers.


Very standard stuff, and it's just a kid's line. Still, they look fun and as I've said before I like that these are just kid's toys. I don't love Power Rangers, but I definitely have a fondness for it. Especially the old toys. And while I don't love it enough that I'd spend a lot on collector figures of the property, I do love these that are just fun old school toys that also remind me so much of what was out when I was young. And they probably won't cost too much.

I'll probably get these and the 8" releases.
 
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