Answers to WTFWTK 2.32!

[Darkspecter]

Dang! Queen Angella looks totally different in her toy form. As someone who had a crush on her Filmation version as a little kid(I guess I liked the mature ladies back then), I really like her with long hair.

I like both her looks, but prefer the toy version.

I think she did actually have long hair in the toon, just pulled into a french twist or something.

You can see it looks like it was starting to fall apart when she was being tortured by Hunga:



How it normally looks:

[bamf1980]

That's all up to personal opinion, really. I'm a HUGE fan of the cartoon. It had excellent stories and everything, but I did not like the character designs for 90% of the characters. Instead of the bright colours of the toys, they made the colours MUCH duller and subdued and "dumbed down" some character designs. Peekablue is a great example.

The Filmation/Styleguide She-Ra design is my favourite (I still love the toys though), but I will be MASSIVELY disappointed if the ladies are 100% out of the Styleguide. I was a kid who loved the PoP cartoon and figure. The cardback designs and figures are my favourites. I want Mattel to do a combination of them, much like collectors are getting for the MOTU men in MOTUC. It will be completely unfair if they completely ignore the 80's figures, mini-comics and cardback art and ONLY use the designs from one document (which is pretty much the case so far).

You are correct, and perhaps I could have elaborated more. As a fan of both cartoon and toy, I am hoping for a mix of the two. For She-Ra/Swift Wind/Adora/Glimmer, I prefer the Filmation look. For characters such as Peekablue, I prefer Mattel. It just depends on the character. I'd snatch up all versions of every character, but of course there are preferences when you think about it in terms of "what if they only make one of each"

My original point is valid though, in that most MOTU fans are probably more familiar with the Filmation designs. Familiarity breeds favoritism.

[Count Marzo]

why?

I want SwiftWind to look like the toy... PINK AND GIRLY

Am I 'unacceptable?'



I am SO tired of the "pink & girly" comments... it is getting old.

The color "pink" is only "girly" if you personally think it is... it's a COLOR... it isn't girly or not girly. It's the color RED with some white in it.

I wanted all the POP stuff to look more like the vintage toys, but since we are getting the Style Guide designs (which makes no sense since the non-Filmation MOTU designs were used to make the MOTU characters so far), we probably won't get the toy Swiftwind.

I also just LOVE how TG says "If and when we do a Swiftwind figure."

First of all, he spells it: "Swiftwind, which is how it was recently Trademarked.

I know that he isn't planned for this year, NOR the first half of next year... I suppose that's ok, since it took He-Man a little over a year to get HIS steed.

Well, I'm a huge fan of the FILMation cartoons so I want the Swift Wind that resembles that the most. I'm not hating on the color pink at all. I never said anything was unacceptable, I said "more acceptable for 20-30 something year old dudes" and I was joking. No need to get upset about it.

I don't mind the color pink at all, but what I'm saying is I was disappointed to see that they made Swift Wind's toy "pink and girly" to appeal mostly to girls for the toys like they did with the POP toys back then. I want the FILMation style one.

Wow that's exactly how I feel. I like POP but I hated the original toys. I always wanted them to look more like the cartoon. When I was like 7 or 8 I had a She-Ra figure and I hated the way she looked, because she didn't look like the cartoon. So since they have already started making Adora/She-Ra look like their Filmation versions, I would prefer it if Swift Wind had his Filmation look as well.

Yes, I'm in that club as well. I had a She-Ra, Catra, Entrapta, Bow, among other POP figures. I only had them because of the cartoon and I wished they looked more like their FILMation counterparts...especially Catra.

[Spectror]

Mattel answered a VERY important question there, fans !

When asked to give an COMPLETE list of the "A-list characters", PLEASE notice that we don't get an answer with a list, like it had been requested !

BUT we get this FRIGHTENING answer : "There is NO SET RULE" !

They even think about 200x variants (of course, Toyguru was smart to pick up 200x Randor or Evil Lyn... I doubt people would have been pleased if he had answered Smash Blade He-Man, repaint Mekaneck ot disco Skeletor ! ).

Still, from the answer we've got, it is crystal clear that Mattel will actually DO WHATEVER THEY WANT !

This, my fellow fans, means WE MIGHT ACTUALLY SEE ANOTHER IRRELEVANT REPAINTS/VARIANTS/BONUS MADNESS WITH MOTUC !!!

I hope it won't be so, I really hope and pray... BUT, from what we were told, it's completely POSSIBLE !!!

[MegaGearMax]

Mattel answered a VERY important question there, fans !

When asked to give an COMPLETE list of the "A-list characters", PLEASE notice that we don't get an answer with a list, like it had been requested !

BUT we get this FRIGHTENING answer : "There is NO SET RULE" !

They even think about 200x variants (of course, Toyguru was smart to pick up 200x Randor or Evil Lyn... I doubt people would have been pleased if he had answered Smash Blade He-Man, repaint Mekaneck ot disco Skeletor ! ).

Still, from the answer we've got, it is crystal clear that Mattel will actually DO WHATEVER THEY WANT !

This, my fellow fans, means WE MIGHT ACTUALLY SEE ANOTHER IRRELEVANT REPAINTS/VARIANTS/BONUS MADNESS WITH MOTUC !!!

I hope it won't be so, I really hope and pray... BUT, from what we were told, it's completely POSSIBLE !!!

LOL! I saw that...Toyguru totally missed that question. I wonder why he went into the bonus figure answer, because that wasn't what you were asking.

Spec, most of the things that make it into MOTUC are fan demanded things. I don't think Mattel is going to just make "Deep Dive Fisto" on their own. If Mattel makes fifty million variants it's because the fans want them in the line. They don't (the fans only want CANON variants), so you don't have anything to worry about.

[Kevenn]

Darkspecter, I agree with you that the action figure version of Peek-A-Blue is uperior to the style guide version - excpet for in two areas. I really love the unique "U-shaped) cut out of the line of her top on the bustline. And the style guide hair is more individualistic and interesting than the figure's long tresses that just about everyone else had.

Castaspella's style guide version also has a more interesting bustline on het top than the figure version as well. In most cases, I like the general look of the style guide versions better, but ideally, a MOTUC version for me would be largely based on the style guide version with unique details lifted from the vintage figures.

[Reboot]

I rarely have positive things to say about Hasbro in the way they deal with their properties, but at least they bought up the rights to the Sunbow cartoons.

Thing is that, even though Hasbro have only bought the G1 cartoon itself in recent years, they've always had the rights to use the cartoon designs and story as they wish in further works.

That's all up to personal opinion, really. I'm a HUGE fan of the cartoon. It had excellent stories and everything, but I did not like the character designs for 90% of the characters. Instead of the bright colours of the toys, they made the colours MUCH duller and subdued and "dumbed down" some character designs.

Both of those were utterly essential though:

• The colours - Filmation wanted (in fact, needed) to maintain a big chunk of the male audience from He-Man, but the toys were overwhelmingly "girly". Making the Crystal Castle gold (and working elements of it into the She-Ra design), taking the "frilliness" off completely and introducing more strong (as opposed to pastel) colours was all part of that.
• Character design - TV animation can't be too detailed if you want the models to remain consistent from shot-to-shot at a reasonably high framerate. There just isn't the budget to do otherwise (and Filmation of course ran a notoriously tight ship on top of that), and the trend towards simplifiction of character models has only increased since the 1980s in a lot of ways in cel-type animation (even if physical cels are rare now).

Peekablue is a great example.

Did the fact that she's got a male peacock tail (used mostly in mating, to try and attract the brown peahens who don't have anything of the sort) ever bother anyone else? As a kid, it annoyed the hell out of me since I knew that even back then.

[MegaGearMax]

I rarely have positive things to say about Hasbro in the way they deal with their properties, but at least they bought up the rights to the Sunbow cartoons.

We'll fix that...
You're going to hate IDW's G.I. Joe#15 then...

And it's not for the shot of the Baroness on page 11...

[SAMURAI36]

Mattel answered a VERY important question there, fans !

When asked to give an COMPLETE list of the "A-list characters", PLEASE notice that we don't get an answer with a list, like it had been requested !

BUT we get this FRIGHTENING answer : "There is NO SET RULE" !

They even think about 200x variants (of course, Toyguru was smart to pick up 200x Randor or Evil Lyn... I doubt people would have been pleased if he had answered Smash Blade He-Man, repaint Mekaneck ot disco Skeletor ! ).

Still, from the answer we've got, it is crystal clear that Mattel will actually DO WHATEVER THEY WANT !

This, my fellow fans, means WE MIGHT ACTUALLY SEE ANOTHER IRRELEVANT REPAINTS/VARIANTS/BONUS MADNESS WITH MOTUC !!!

I hope it won't be so, I really hope and pray... BUT, from what we were told, it's completely POSSIBLE !!!

Uhmm, yeah.... I didn't get that from his answer to that Q.

What I got, was that characters that look drastically different, meaning, that we could very well get a 200X Randor, or 200X Evil-Lyn, which is really what I'm looking forward to.

But with the regards to the swords, I really could care less anyways, because I'm only going by the 200X sword anyway. I was never interested in the whole "clone sword" thing, or the "halves of the power sword" stuff.

I'm really hoping that they'll release a 200X version of She-Ra's sword at some point... Either that, or I'll see if I can get one from one of the .Org'ers that might have an extra or something.

I'm much more concerned about getting Keldor's 200X swords, than I am about any of these crappy looking vintage swords.

[Spectror]

I don't think Mattel is going to just make "Deep Dive Fisto" on their own. If Mattel makes fifty million variants it's because the fans want them in the line. They don't (the fans only want CANON variants), so you don't have anything to worry about.

You seem to forget one important thing... It's MATTEL we're talking about, here ? Remember ? The ones who brought Smash-Blade He-Man and vomit-colored repaint Mekaneck ?

Plus, they didn't learn much from their 200x disaster since, in their point of view, 200x stopped because of... the fans ! Their crappy marketing and stupid case ratios, not to mention the bad availability, were not to blame, of course !

All this tells me that they could indeed fall back into their old faults... maybe a bit further down the line, but I'm certain that the risk is still there. And when I hear that there are "no rules" really, well, I'm very concerned... Now I REALLY hope they'll release our most wanted figures very soon. Because I'm afraid this line won't last as long as we the fans would like it to...

[Swift Wind]

We are still tackling how this will work and will find a creative way to make sure She-Ra can ride her mount, if and, when we do a Swiftwind figure!

--------------------

I need a fainting GIF Tallstar!!!

[MegaGearMax]

You seem to forget one important thing... It's MATTEL we're talking about, here ? Remember ? The ones who brought Smash-Blade He-Man and vomit-colored repaint Mekaneck ?

Scott isn't Jeremy.

That was Mattel making up any old variants with any type of gimmick. Everything released in MOTUC so far has been legitimate except for Mo-Larr and the Weapons Pak stuff.

Plus, they didn't learn much from their 200x disaster since, in their point of view, 200x stopped because of... the fans ! Their crappy marketing and stupid case ratios, not to mention the bad availability, were not to blame, of course !

Sure they did. MOTUC overcomes many of the problems that plagued 200X.

All this tells me that they could indeed fall back into their old faults... maybe a bit further down the line, but I'm certain that the risk is still there. And when I hear that there are "no rules" really, well, I'm very concerned... Now I REALLY hope they'll release our most wanted figures very soon. Because I'm afraid this line won't last as long as we the fans would like it to...

The "no rules" probably means that things aren't set in stone and could be subject to change. We've seen this ALOT in this line, even from day one. Toyguru will say one thing months ago, something will change behind the scenes and since the fans weren't told of it, we start accusing Toyguru of lying.

[Mern-Ra]

wouldn't adora or she-ra look kinda out of place with a huge power sword?

Not according to my custom:







OK, so maybe it is a little out of proportion, but not by too much IMO.

[Mr. Shokoti]

Scott isn't Jeremy.

I wasn't here for Jeremy, but I think some people are overly hard on Scott when it isn't warranted. He doesn't make every decision for this line. Things happen that sometimes lead to necessary changes. If "you" told someone you were going to mail something out on a certain day but some unseen problem left you unable to, that doesn't make "you" a liar. I can understand getting mad about Digital River or the way the MOTU Art Books were handled, but some people on this board and Matty's literally look for spelling errors in Scott's posts just so they can attack him.

That was Mattel making up any old variants with any type of gimmick. Everything released in MOTUC so far has been legitimate except for Mo-Larr and the Weapons Pak stuff.

Even those aren't that bad. Mo-Larr, along with the DCU 2-packs, seems to be a crossover attempt to gain new fans. The Weapons Pack is both more nostalgia for the fans that grew up with the vintage line as well as some additional weapons that some people asked for(they seem like they thought more about what went into the weapons pack than I originally thought they did).

Sure they did. MOTUC overcomes many of the problems that plagued 200X.

If anything, Mattel seems overly cautious with this line bacause of the problems that plagued the 2002 line

The "no rules" probably means that things aren't set in stone and could be subject to change. We've seen this ALOT in this line, even from day one. Toyguru will say one thing months ago, something will change behind the scenes and since the fans weren't told of it, we start accusing Toyguru of lying.

No wonder he doesn't want to give a definitive answer as to what the A-List characters are(can't we pretty much figure that out ourselves?). If something in the future doesn't match up with what he says now, he'll be crucified online.

I'm sure I'm going to be thought of as some Mattel apologist who doesn't have any problems with this line & will take any crud they give me, but that's not true. I've had several problems with some of Mattel's decisions for MOTUC, but it seems some people are just looking for things to get mad about. The more people complain about every single thing, the less Mattel will listen to us when we bring up "legitimate" concerns/problems.

[Mern-Ra]

why?

I want SwiftWind to look like the toy... PINK AND GIRLY

Am I 'unacceptable?'



I am SO tired of the "pink & girly" comments... it is getting old.

Yes, you kind of are.

But seriously, pink is a girly color, and I am SO tired of people saying it's not. Maybe it hasn't always been, maybe it's a matter of opinion, but an overwhelming majority of today's society considers it girly, period.

They can make Swiftwind white thanks to Royal Swift Wind, so they just should. While I wanted 200X Evil-Lyn to come first, I understood why she didn't and can accept that--but I think making the pink pony first would be taking the 'inspired by the vintage line' thing a tad too far. Give us the white one first since that's what most people want, and then do the pink one later for the die-hards. That would be best IMO.

[masterenglish]

That is totally awesome that my question was answered, but I am saddened by the response.
Perhaps they will do it sooner rather than later. Hopefully.

[Darkspecter]

Both of those were utterly essential though:

• The colours - Filmation wanted (in fact, needed) to maintain a big chunk of the male audience from He-Man, but the toys were overwhelmingly "girly". Making the Crystal Castle gold (and working elements of it into the She-Ra design), taking the "frilliness" off completely and introducing more strong (as opposed to pastel) colours was all part of that.
• Character design - TV animation can't be too detailed if you want the models to remain consistent from shot-to-shot at a reasonably high framerate. There just isn't the budget to do otherwise (and Filmation of course ran a notoriously tight ship on top of that), and the trend towards simplifiction of character models has only increased since the 1980s in a lot of ways in cel-type animation (even if physical cels are rare now).

I understand the dumbed-down designs for budgetary constraints...but I don't agree on the "girly" thing. The MOTU cartoon has dulled out colours too. Look at the toys versus the TV show. The toys are SO much brighter. I really wish that translated into the show. The only thing that's really bright like any of the toys (MOTU or PoP) was the Sorceress, Whispering Woods and Loo-Kee's people, the Conceals.

Did the fact that she's got a male peacock tail (used mostly in mating, to try and attract the brown peahens who don't have anything of the sort) ever bother anyone else? As a kid, it annoyed the hell out of me since I knew that even back then.

Nope. My Uncle owned Peacocks when I was a child. I knew the difference. The point was that peacocks are beautiful and majestic, so they gave that to Peekablue. It's like how ONLY female reindeer have antlers in the winter time, but all Santa's reindeer are male.

[Mr. Shokoti]

We'll fix that...
You're going to hate IDW's G.I. Joe#15 then...

And it's not for the shot of the Baroness on page 11...

It's the second time it's happened in less than a year. Hasbro can no longer surprise me by anything they do with their franchises. This is the same company that found it acceptable to let a director turn the Transformers into American Pie with explosions more than once. I could always resort to their new series that picks up the G.I. Joe continuity after Marvel's last issue.

Did the fact that she's got a male peacock tail (used mostly in mating, to try and attract the brown peahens who don't have anything of the sort) ever bother anyone else? As a kid, it annoyed the hell out of me since I knew that even back then.

No more than it bothered me that Kevin James played a cow in Barnyard.

[CarKrash]

Am I a bad fan for not caring about identical swords? heh

Consider me among the "bad fans" then. Both swords work fine with their respective characters, IMHO.

I wish Mattel would finally pony up the cash and buy the rights to Filmation. I rarely have positive things to say about Hasbro in the way they deal with their properties, but at least they bought up the rights to the Sunbow cartoons. C'mon Mattel, let's get with it.

Right!? I mean.. Right now with the MOTUC line, it's mostly funded with our nostolgia and built in fanbase. In the future, with a new movie, cartoon, etc.. Mattel has the possibility of building a whole new fanbase.. who will be "adult collectors" in 20 years when we are all dealing with severe carpul tunnel, and can no longer hold it down. Filmation has a rich background, with plenty of characters with many stories left in 'em. The rights to this cartoon are all but worthless in anyone's hands but Mattel's.

When asked to give an COMPLETE list of the "A-list characters", PLEASE notice that we don't get an answer with a list, like it had been requested !

BUT we get this FRIGHTENING answer : "There is NO SET RULE" !

They even think about 200x variants (of course, Toyguru was smart to pick up 200x Randor or Evil Lyn... I doubt people would have been pleased if he had answered Smash Blade He-Man, repaint Mekaneck ot disco Skeletor ! ).

Still, from the answer we've got, it is crystal clear that Mattel will actually DO WHATEVER THEY WANT !

I am worried about the subscription for precisely this reason. I didn't get the 2010 sub because I was house hunting, and address changing wasn't going to be supported.. which is a whole 'nother thread all together, but anyway.. I'm happy with Mattel's choice of bonus or quarterly figures thus far. Faker, Green Goddess, Zodak, Battle Armor He-Man, and Keldor are all welcome additions to my collection. No bad choice has been made yet, but once we're all locked into subscriptions promising to buy whatever the heck they make.. I'm worried about getting things like repaints and lame variants. Good choice of variants so far, but how long will that last? Although.. from the minute I read the question, I knew TG/Mattel wouldn't provide an extensive list. The only ones who like making extensive lists are us on the boards!

They can make Swiftwind white thanks to Royal Swift Wind, so they just should. While I wanted 200X Evil-Lyn to come first, I understood why she didn't and can accept that--but I think making the pink pony first would be taking the 'inspired by the vintage line' thing a tad too far. Give us the white one first since that's what most people want, and then do the pink one later for the die-hards. That would be best IMO.

Completely agreed. I much prefer a white swiftwind. In fact, I didn't even know the toy Swift Wind was pink until the internet was created. I think it'd be best to go with the white one first, then reuse the buck and make a pink one. There's obviously demand for both, but I think more demand for a white one. If they released a pink one first, I'd probably skip it and wait for a white one. Unless of course, I decided to get the subscription.. then I get what they want me to get!

[Mr. Shokoti]

Completely agreed. I much prefer a white swiftwind. In fact, I didn't even know the toy Swift Wind was pink until the internet was created. I think it'd be best to go with the white one first, then reuse the buck and make a pink one. There's obviously demand for both, but I think more demand for a white one. If they released a pink one first, I'd probably skip it and wait for a white one. Unless of course, I decided to get the subscription.. then I get what they want me to get!

I totally missed that the Swift Wind toy was originally pink(I only had She-Ra as a kid and didn't notice that Swift Wind's toy looked so different) when I posted above about how different people react to those who like that color. While I still believe people shouldn't have to worry about which colors are masculine or not, definitely count me in on the white Swift Wind toy.

[the_ultimate_evil]

not a great deal of info, some decent bits though. skipped a lot fo questions though

[oulala]

Mmmm... Sounds like they are going to release a She-ra with immovable hips and rigid dress. Then when Swiftwind comes out, they'll try to sell us a new She-ra that's more saddle friendly?

This whole 'we can't make a figure right the first time' is getting a bit ludicrous. If they could use flexible plastic on Evil Lyn's dress, couldn't they have anticipated that on Teela or the Green goddess?

I don't want to have to buy every reedition of a figure in hopes that Mattel will correct the flaws afterwards.

I wasn't exactly thrilled by the She-ra figure who looks a bit rushed. If the dress is one solid chunk of plastic, I might not even buy her at all. (And quit the line and curse Mattel forever, blah blah, the usual stuff lol )

Again, before anyone jumps to Mattel's rescue saying it's too difficult, look at the rubber they used on DCUC Manta or the first Supergirl: These figures are still poseable...

All Mattel has to do is give She-ra that same rubbery material that the 200X Evil Lyn had for her dress.

Well, I'm a huge fan of the FILMation cartoons so I want the Swift Wind that resembles that the most. I'm not hating on the color pink at all. I never said anything was unacceptable, I said "more acceptable for 20-30 something year old dudes" and I was joking. No need to get upset about it.

I don't mind the color pink at all, but what I'm saying is I was disappointed to see that they made Swift Wind's toy "pink and girly" to appeal mostly to girls for the toys like they did with the POP toys back then. I want the FILMation style one.



Yes, I'm in that club as well. I had a She-Ra, Catra, Entrapta, Bow, among other POP figures. I only had them because of the cartoon and I wished they looked more like their FILMation counterparts...especially Catra.

I hated the toys as a kid. Hated the fact that I had to go get them in the girl aisle of the shop, hated the look of the shop clerk whenever I bought one of them lol.
I remember doing my first ever customizing work on Queen Angela by cutting her hair short to make her look more like the cartoon.

I really hope MOTUC POP figures will be a bit more detailed than the Filmation designs, just as He-man and all the guys look a bit more detailed than their filmation counterparts. However, the plain look of Adora and She-ra doesn't bode too well and maybe they just can't do anything that's too much of a departure from the style guide.

And speaking of pink horses, I HATED the fact that Swiftwind was pink. More so, the mane looked ridiculously pink. It's not about being accurate (Battlecat is green and yellow), it's just a very ugly choice in my honest opinion and one of those 'Let's market the toyline for girls' choice that doesn't work with the amazing designs of Filmation. I understand how people may have found memories of their swiftwind, but as for myself, I am all for a white, kick-ass, detailed Swiftwind.

[Darkspecter]

Again, before anyone jumps to Mattel's rescue saying it's too difficult, look at the rubber they used on DCUC Manta or the first Supergirl: These figures are still poseable...

All Mattel has to do is give She-ra that same rubbery material that the 200X Evil Lyn had for her dress.

PixelDan said MOTUC Evil-Lyn's plastic outfit is so soft/flexible you can pull her top down.

[badmouse]

The 2011 subscription is coming in few months, in 2010 we got Wun-Dar (really nice touch : ) ). Before subscribe to 2011 subscription, will matty tell us something about the benefit or extra figure just for subscriptors? Or we will know after buy 2011 subscription?

sorry for the english.if the question is good for you guys please fix it