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02-11-2019, 02:08 PM | #61 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 3,030
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Quote:
No thanks. Completely unrelated IP like Street Fighter and the whack-ass stuff like aliens and monsters that they added when they ran out of ideas after ~91/92 that jumped the shark should have no place in a reboot of ARAH. It's not real ARAH like the first 8-10 years of it was. Honestly, if we want to be true to form, any ARAH movie should focus only on the characters that were part of the two Marvel/Sunbow cartoon seasons and the '87 Movie. Everything after that is where it starts taking a turn for the crazy. Even though I love the figures up through ~91, I can admit that stuff doesn't belong in a reboot movie. It's too wide a net to cast, too great a scope to incorporate anyway, and there is such a wealth of storyline possibilities just within the first few years of characters, there's really no need to go beyond it for quite some time.
Seeing as how they've tied the Director's position to GI Joe and Micronaughts, I wonder if Hasbro is still working on linking a Hasbro Universe of Transformers-Action Man-MASK-Micronaughts-GIJoe? Jason |
02-11-2019, 02:15 PM | #62 |
Iron Grenadier
Join Date: May 2012
Location: in a house
Posts: 818
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02-11-2019, 02:31 PM | #63 |
Smooth Criminal
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Salem, VA
Posts: 4,088
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Quote:
No thanks. Completely unrelated IP like Street Fighter and the whack-ass stuff like aliens and monsters that they added when they ran out of ideas after ~91/92 that jumped the shark should have no place in a reboot of ARAH. It's not real ARAH like the first 8-10 years of it was. Honestly, if we want to be true to form, any ARAH movie should focus only on the characters that were part of the two Marvel/Sunbow cartoon seasons and the '87 Movie. Everything after that is where it starts taking a turn for the crazy. Even though I love the figures up through ~91, I can admit that stuff doesn't belong in a reboot movie. It's too wide a net to cast, too great a scope to incorporate anyway, and there is such a wealth of storyline possibilities just within the first few years of characters, there's really no need to go beyond it for quite some time.
but back to the real reason of the topic. the person has to have knowledge of all iterations of gijoe not just a small time period.
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My feedback http://www.hisstank.com/forum/buy-se...ml#post2017638 My sale list http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...ml#post3685530 |
02-11-2019, 02:41 PM | #64 |
A Makeupless Clown
Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: Ohio
Posts: 5,271
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!!ALERT!! Incoming wall of text!
I'm not so sure I had any idea at all about the cold war when I was looking at toys as a kid. I vaguely remember watching the Berlin Wall fall but I didn't really know what that was all about. I was much more aware of Desert Storm. When it came to liking GI Joe for me, well first off, I never even knew the comics existed until I joined the 'Tank. Nobody I knew or played Joes with as a child ever mentioned the comics, and comic books were never my thing anyway. So I do often wonder what percentage of kids actually came to the brand via TV as opposed to comics back then. For me, it was Sunbow ARAH, and I maybe watched a little into the DiC era. That was the extent of my media tie-in. Everything else was just seeing product in the stores, seeing cross-selling photos on the figure packaging, and seeing upcoming stuff in the packed-in pamphlets and such. Even without having those things appear in the TV show, it sold me on stuff just through shear awesomeness of design. My point being, once you got me hooked on the action figure and vehicle path, I was happy to stay there as long as you left me some breadcrumbs and put out actual cool stuff. By the early 90's I was just going through the motions when I would go Joe shopping. I WANTED to like what was there, but the flashy colors and overall unappealing designs just never did it for me and my interest in Joes dried up. I still played with what I had, but I wasn't seeking any new stuff anymore and I never looked back despite still being interested in toys for a few more years still. They lost me before I outgrew toys and the brand died off after a couple of years of that which leads me to think that I'm not the only one they lost. Now, with respect specifically to the media that got me hooked, I liked the the cartoon characters' personalities, the good guys vs bad guys action, and the cool vehicles. As an adult, having seen the alternative, I can also say that it made it easier to have the enemies as full-on enemies. There wasn't any hint of an excuse for their behavior, or a sob story to explain how it went wrong for them in life so it's really not their fault (attempting to paint them as a mere victim of circumstance who you should pity), or to try to add moral relativism to what they do. No. They were an evil terrorist organization, and they were even total villains toward each other at times with backstabbing and the like. That's all we needed to know about their back story. They are bad, rotten people who want to do bad, rotten things to everyone around them. Did daddy not hug them enough as a child? Who cares? We never stopped to ask. They're evil jerks now, so we fight them. Similarly, the Joes didn't have a dark past that they were trying to make up for, either. They were simply good people protecting others. Aspire to be like the good guys and to thwart the bad guys. Both sides consisted of simple archetypes with entertaining personalities slapped on top. That made it lightweight (despite the eventually large ensemble of characters), fast-paced, and spot-on for kids to get them engaged. And it was in serial format, giving them a multitude of stories to play out on their own as well as keeping it alive in their minds on a regular basis. That all worked on us. So for media delivery today, you just need to find out how to do all of that regular and frequent contact with kids' imaginations in modern media. Webisodes? A video game with weekly (give or take) expansion missions, so you basically play the episode and the cut scenes inject the personality? I dunno. But I think you could keep the look and feel of Sunbow ARAH just fine. None of that ever mentioned the cold war. It was just a morality play of good vs evil and that's as relevant today as any other time. No flawed heroes, no hookers-with-hearts-of-gold, just simple, symbolic figures on both sides with some small flavor of backstory for the more interesting ones. That's all it took for me. I've mentioned this in past "what should the movies be like" threads and I'll harp on it again here. If Hasbro means to capture a young, toy-wanting demographic then the movie needs to be absolutely as close to G-rated as they can get it. Making a PG-13 or higher movie to sell kids' toys with is kind of dumb since most kids outgrow toys right around that age. I don't know if the MPAA will force anything with guns into a higher-than-G rating or not, but if the only thing "mature" about the movie is the bloodless laser-gun fighting we had in Sunbow then you will have the best chance of getting kids to actually see the movie. Skip the "gritty realism," the profanity, the "hot girl in her underwear" titillation, and the on-screen death and wounds stuff and make a kid-friendly movie where you can introduce the fun CHARACTERS to them while they are still young. Follow that up with <something - whatever media you can reach kids with frequently as mentioned above> so you keep them engaged with the brand and wanting the toys. Anyway, back to the toys themselves. Restore cross-promotion on your packaging (particularly in the age of scalpers when certain figures simply won't be on the pegs...ever) so the kids know other things exist besides the 10 copies of Blowtorch that are clogging the pegs. That way they can add such new and alternative items to their birthday and Christmas lists...thus getting them to market the toys to their own families. Hell, even with zero media tie-in, it should always be the practice to include teasers with upcoming product AND cross-promotion of other already-released stuff. You have your audience right there with your product in-hand. Show them what else you have available NOW and have planned NEXT so they can want it. They did pretty much zero of this with RoC, Retaliation, and the 50th line. And finally, sell direct to customers as well as in whatever B&M stores you can get to carry the line. When you have a figure that is selling out like gangbusters, order another run ASAP and keep them available online even if you end up with some on clearance after Christmas every now and then. If the second run somehow doesn't sell through enough to fully pay for itself, that would be a short-term loss, but a long-term gain when your customer base can actually find your stuff and maintain their relationship with you. Find a factory that will make this possible. Pay attention to high-performing figures and try to distill their success so you can inject it into future product. Also, keep the main characters in stock online for direct order even after the regular release of that figure has ended. I had a hell of a time finding the MU X-Men at sane prices even when the 1:18 MU line was still alive simply because I was a few years too late to get them at retail. My kids WANTED the X-Men, but all I could find was B- & C-list side characters at retail. If I can't get the principal characters for my kids, I won't bother to get the side characters. Those other figures are great to have available, but they are useless if the main characters are absent. You can't expect B&M stores to carry old stock indefinitely, so this means you do it yourself with direct-to-consumer sales online with occasional small-run resupply orders in between other production runs. And lastly, if you're going to screw around with the scale, scale DOWN, not up. Parents don't want 1:12 scale vehicles in their homes, and they also don't want to pay $20+ per figure even though you (Hasbro) might think they'll find it worth it because of double-jointed elbows and more plastic. Collectors (at least some vocal subset of them) might seem to think that way. But parents don't. If GI Joe is to change scale at all, the only place I will follow as a parent is if they make them the same size as the Mega Bloks (now Mega Construx) Halo/CoD figures. You don't have to make them "brick" commpatible if that's an issue for legal reasons, but I would buy Joe stuff for my kids in that size and with that level of articulation without hesitation. It wouldn't be as fun for me to shop for them, but my kids love the Mega Bloks stuff and you can get a lot done with vehicles in that scale and it's not so tough to find places to store them. If you go smaller than that I'm not going to bother...well, unless we're talking about bringing back Micro Machines, but then it's really just vehicles anyway. But if you go smaller than Mega Bloks for figures, you lose weapons and articulation and just end up with crappy little statues. No statues, no Barbies, and no misfit 6-inch figures who will never have a robust vehicle line. Stick to 1:18 or go down to 1:36 or whatever the Mega Bloks figures are. Or offer both scales if you can get away with it. The absolute worst idea would be moving to a random not-used-anywhere-else scale like 5" or 3" figures.
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02-11-2019, 03:02 PM | #65 |
Bill Cosplay
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Staying clear of knee-jerk nerds.
Posts: 5,914
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Quote:
I appreciate the support Ozzie! I'd love the chance to work on G.I. Joe again - I was disappointed to have so few items and such a small tooling budget to work with during my time on the brand. I'm proud of what I did (Sightline, Shooter, Tombstone, female Cobra Officer, Stiletto) given the limitations of the time.
I went back to school to earn my MBA - most brand managers have one and it's sort of the price of admission. I survived without one while I was at McFarlane Toys and Hasbro based on hard work, creative ideas and toy insights, but it's hard to get back in without one. Best of luck! If Hasbro doesn't appreciate your talents now, they certainly will down the road. |
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02-11-2019, 05:45 PM | #66 |
WARRANT OFFICER
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: WI
Posts: 2,047
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Sign the petition to reinstate Mark!! JBL got this going.
Petition · Hasbro: Hasbro: Draft Mark Weber for G.I. Joe! · Change.org
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02-11-2019, 06:20 PM | #67 |
Hisstank.Com General
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Brooklyn NY!
Posts: 5,239
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Quote:
Nah, as much as I hate to say this, G.I. Joe wasn't gaining any traction with today's kids no matter what DDP and Weber tried...although I don't think Weber was given a chance to do much beyond keeping the brand alive at retail by creating the TRU 50th stuff and we have no idea if DDP &/or Weber had ideas that would've worked and they weren't allowed to roll them out. In the end, it was time for a change and new perspectives. Catering to a dwindling collector base ain't the recipe for long-term brand growth. The firing of DDP, who was beholden in many ways to the old views of action figures, really signaled that Hasbro is rethinking the traditional action figure itself and trying to figure out how to make it relevant for today's kiddos.
I think...or maybe it is just a big clusterfuck and their firings were more about shedding tenured salaries. *shrug*
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Visit my vintage Joe restoration page! https://www.flickr.com/photos/131988164@N07/albums Cross Country's super smooth feedback thread. http://www.hisstank.com/forum/buy-se...ml#post4456308 Currently available Hasbro items. PM me for your prices (DO NOT be discouraged by the listing prices) https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr...nirtoys&_oac=1 |
02-11-2019, 06:24 PM | #68 |
Hisstank.Com General
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Brooklyn NY!
Posts: 5,239
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Quote:
I appreciate the support Ozzie! I'd love the chance to work on G.I. Joe again - I was disappointed to have so few items and such a small tooling budget to work with during my time on the brand. I'm proud of what I did (Sightline, Shooter, Tombstone, female Cobra Officer, Stiletto) given the limitations of the time.
I went back to school to earn my MBA - most brand managers have one and it's sort of the price of admission. I survived without one while I was at McFarlane Toys and Hasbro based on hard work, creative ideas and toy insights, but it's hard to get back in without one.
__________________
Visit my vintage Joe restoration page! https://www.flickr.com/photos/131988164@N07/albums Cross Country's super smooth feedback thread. http://www.hisstank.com/forum/buy-se...ml#post4456308 Currently available Hasbro items. PM me for your prices (DO NOT be discouraged by the listing prices) https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr...nirtoys&_oac=1 |
02-11-2019, 06:25 PM | #69 |
Hisstank.Com General
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: tampa fl
Posts: 5,108
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Signed
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02-11-2019, 06:42 PM | #70 |
Iron Grenadier
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Fairfax Va
Posts: 1,177
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Support the characters of Nostalgia G.I. Joe and Cobra of the 80s and 90s! The vintage ARAH rules! G.I. Joe 1982-1992 way better than the modern versions of G.I. Joes. |
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