MOTUC Q&A's From Around the Net (9/15/2011)

[Sgt. Slaughter]

I want classic Evil Seed. That is all.

[Haephestus]

What is with the Illumina answer? I can't say she is anywhere near the top of my "most wanted" list, but neither was Vikor, Bikini Teela, Gygor, Star Sisters, Fearless Photog and five "brand new" characters.

And what testing do Mattel do to determine their character selections? Reading the forums? I actually thought Illumina was pretty popular on the forums? And why do they do testing? If the subscription sales are more than enough, then including Illumina in the subscription would meet their sales targets irrespective of whatever their "testing" showed them.

Mattel are the Masters of Obsfucation!

[SCB]

Let's call a spade a spade here, people.

Vikor, as well as Demo-Man, happened because SCOTT wanted them to happen.

Illumina... well, we all know that story



Would that be the same "Small but loud set of fans on hard-core MOTU fan site(s)" that made this line POSSIBLE?

This is a badly flavored response.

Testing?!

Really?

He-Man.org, and to a lesser extent, Matty's Forums, are the main source of "testing" that Scott has... for free I might add.

This answer is just... oh never mind.

It just further makes me question why someone like Geoff Johns is designing a 30th Anniversary figure... and people like Lou Scheimer, Larry Ditillio, Emiliano Santalucia, Val Staples, or Rudy Obrero aren't.

Geoff is great, but what does he have to do with MOTU? I mean, he might be a fan, but in my opinion, the 30th Anniversary figures should all have been designed by significant contributors to the property.

Scott said Geoff and others are willing to do it for free.

[bcrduke]

Scott said Geoff and others are willing to do it for free.

I would bet my life that Emiliano would have done it for free too ... but yeah, maybe Lou wouldn't have considering the lingering sting of his dealings with Mattel in the 80s.

That is a good point though regarding the free services aspect.

It's probably a cool cross-over/marketing thing for Geoff to be designing a figure too.

[Super He-Man]

There were only 4 slots beyond the contest winners old and new, and they couldn't exactly pick every person ever associated with or a fan of MOTU. They chose who they wanted to. Plain and simple.

[KingRandor82]

Here's the best way to do Evilseed:


2002 body, Filmation robe, two heads.

There ya go.

[Mern-Ra]

What is UP with that Illumina answer? They know they already made Gygor, don't they

[Donimo]

What is UP with that Illumina answer?

Yeah, I thought that was really odd too. She's had much more fan support than some of the other obscure stuff we've had released or that they've talked about releasing in MOTUC.

[bcrduke]

There were only 4 slots beyond the contest winners old and new, and they couldn't exactly pick every person ever associated with or a fan of MOTU. They chose who they wanted to. Plain and simple.

I understand that. Scott chose. The new contest winner gets one, the contest winner from the 80s gets one, Geoff gets one (odd choice, but fine), the 4H get one (obvious choice), and Mattel gets two (one of which I am sure will be Scott's design... and maybe one will be Bill Benecke's?)

The two contest winners and the 4H are obvious choices.

I wish that maybe other past contributors to MOTU had been involved in some way... maybe collaborations...

But, yes, they did choose whom they wanted.

Here's the best way to do Evilseed:


2002 body, Filmation robe, two heads.

There ya go.

Yes... they can just update the Filmation head... in a similar way the 4H updated the MYP Moss Man head for this line.

They can also re-use the robe for Dark Dream.

[phantom1592]

Yeah, that Illumina answer is annoying.

Honestly, I don' t even want her personally. I don't see the point when there are sooooo many females in the line ANYWAY and more in PoP to play with yet... We don't really NEED some unknown chick taking up a slot.


However... Considering all the no name goofy characters that HAVE made the cut.... I don't buy the 'she doesn't have recognition' line... Bikini Teela?? REALLY.... how many people even knew she EXISTED?!?!

DEMOman??? An unused sketch in a file drawer has more media support than she does??

C'mon....

[Darkspecter]

At that MattyCollector poll:

116 people voted they want Illumina AND her cat.
7 just want Illumina.
1 just wants her cat ().
6 would pass on them.
9 think maybe she should be made after the originals.

I would say that sounds like good, solid support right there. I mean...that's pretty much the total voters Mattel gets in any of their polls they point to as "official results."

[SCB]

Geoff was chosen because he's a fan. Emiliano would have been great, but he works for Hasbro and he's hinted that he can barely speak freely about this line let alone do the podcasts.

[Ealo]

well that's a kick to the nads to everyone who thought illumina was some greatly wished for figure. she is for sure super obscure, but there are other obscure characters already made.

i wonder about who they approached to design new characters... if you look at the likes of Geoff, they clearly were shooting for BIG names. i don't think val and emiliano are as well known (outside of this forum) as Geoff. (though i would LOVE a figure designed by Val).

[Xetheus]

I hope one of the 30th is the Horde Mummy! Wrapster! Or so....

I definitelly want Illumina, much more than Wun-Dar...I only have his bread!

Sometimes I am really sick of DO IT FILMATIONLY. Like this is the core of MOTU.

I am also happy that Filmation characters are possible, but not all design choices from them are great, e.g. EVIL SEED or CLAWFUL. Those are actually rather horrible choices compared to the 200X designs!!!

[DO4M]

Isn't Geoff Jones the guy behind Current Green Lantern? We all know how much TG loves Hal Jordan... (More than MOTU it seems.)
Yes I expect to see the TG LT. Spector made as a Toy... and I wouldn't be surprised if that IS The Other Spector upgraded to a fully fledged Master... (I expect a Second Toyguru head on him...) Also Boo on the Illumina answer!

[Coptur]

200x Evil Seed is by far the superior choice and the filmation look could be his younger self 'bud form' you might say then he grew into his 'adult form'

[Tallstar]

Yeah, that Illumina answer is annoying.

Honestly, I don' t even want her personally. I don't see the point when there are sooooo many females in the line ANYWAY and more in PoP to play with yet... We don't really NEED some unknown chick taking up a slot.


However... Considering all the no name goofy characters that HAVE made the cut.... I don't buy the 'she doesn't have recognition' line... Bikini Teela?? REALLY.... how many people even knew she EXISTED?!?!

DEMOman??? An unused sketch in a file drawer has more media support than she does??

C'mon....

Same here. I'm not exactly clamoring for an Illumina, however, I have to wonder what Mattel is smoking when they give this sort of response.

[Sir Reilly]

So we got Gygor, who outside of literally a handful guys no one ever knew about. But Illumina is too obscure? I'm gonna wait and see whether or not we're gonna get a General Spector or Son of Keldor figure in 2012. If that happens, we can talk again about the topic of "very little recognition or demand".

[Lookie]

And what testing do Mattel do to determine their character selections?

If you go buy how they determined the figures for 200X, they ask a focus group of the intended audience. That however led to the He-Man & Skeletor variants that led to the death of the line. We can only hope Mattel has changed that methodology.

[Toyguru]

To try and calm some fires guys, when we say we see limited support for Illimina it is true. 117 people and or about 250 people who hang out on this board is not enough to justify a figures based on one concept cover (as awesome as it is!!) and I think the background of a few panels in that Faceless One issue. She is cool, but we don't see more widespread interest.

The bottom line is for us to allocate a slot to a character as obscure like this (and therefore away from someone else) we would need to see several thousand people interested, not several hundred.

As for the comparison for Gygor, he had heritage and buck reuse behind him. Photog, Draego, and the 30th figures are part of a whole program, offering brand new characters cullminating in a fan created character. A whole different ball of wax!

Sure we could get to her one day, we just really not in a rush compared to so many more fan requested characters like the vintage line, more POP girls, and now Filmation, all of which is more is comig in 2012!

[Darkspecter]

To try and calm some fires guys, when we say we see limited support for Illimina it is true. 117 people and or about 250 people who hang out on this board is not enough to justify a figures based on one concept cover (as awesome as it is!!) and I think the background of a few panels in that Faceless One issue. She is cool, but we don't see more widespread interest.

The bottom line is for us to allocate a slot to a character as obscure like this (and therefore away from someone else) we would need to see several thousand people interested, not several hundred.

As for the comparison for Gygor, he had heritage and buck reuse behind him. Photog, Draego, and the 30th figures are part of a whole program, offering brand new characters cullminating in a fan created character. A whole different ball of wax!

Sure we could get to her one day, we just really not in a rush compared to so many more fan requested characters like the vintage line, more POP girls, and now Filmation, all of which is more is comig in 2012!

I don't know...Battleground Teela's support was probably about the same as Illumina and she required a LOT of new tooling. She's pretty obscure too, since she's a relatively unknown version of Teela from the 80's. At least Illumina is fairly fresh in people's minds because she was from 10 years ago and has become infamous with MOTU fans because she's shrouded in mystery.

About parts re-use for Illumina and cat:

Cat:

Cat = Battle Cat body repaint
Cat tiara = could be used on a Spirit figure. They're very similar. If made to fit both the cat and horse head, just a repaint
Saddle = Clawdeen's saddle (possibly a new tool to make it unique)

Illumina:

Boots = Teela
Bracelets = Bubble Power She-Ra
Upper arm bands = Teela
Cape = Battleground Evil-Lyn or She-Ra

New parts:

Head
Top
Skirt
Double bladed staff (Weapons Pak repaint possibilities)

4 to 5 new pieces for a figure AND a cat is pretty good parts re-use and money saving.

My dream Illumina MOTUC figure (but with the new, Bubble Power She-Ra bracelets):

[heavy-eternium]

I don't know...Battleground Teela's support was probably about the same as Illumina and she required a LOT of new tooling. She's pretty obscure too, since she's a relatively unknown version of Teela from the 80's.

ok but it's teela

[Count Marzo]

I gotta be honest, I really don't care about Illumina either and I'm probably as hardcore a MOTU fan as they come. I also don't care about Battleground Teela either. Although I did buy her. Characters that appear in a panel or 2 of a comic that I don't own aren't really as important as say...characters that appeared in a cartoon episode. That's just my opinion. Some people that are more fans of comics may feel different.

I gotta agree with Toyguru. There are just so many more important characters that I am just dying for! Vintage line, PoP, and Filmation are most important right now by far! That definitely satisfies my personal MOTU tastes to perfection. I could live with a comic character, NA character, 200x here and there but what's most important is the stuff from the 80s and the original run when MOTU was a phenomenon.

/blinded by nostalgia.

[Whiplash7]

ok but it's teela

Exactly, it's Teela. Leading lady of the motu franchise and the Teela that a lot of us started out with in the beginning (blonde). And she was one of the fastest sellouts of the year (3rd, I think?). Nobody knows who Illumina is. That's not to say she shouldn't be made, but personally I'm not interested.

[MegaGearMax]

To try and calm some fires guys, when we say we see limited support for Illimina it is true. 117 people and or about 250 people who hang out on this board is not enough to justify a figures based on one concept cover (as awesome as it is!!) and I think the background of a few panels in that Faceless One issue. She is cool, but we don't see more widespread interest.

The bottom line is for us to allocate a slot to a character as obscure like this (and therefore away from someone else) we would need to see several thousand people interested, not several hundred.

As for the comparison for Gygor, he had heritage and buck reuse behind him. Photog, Draego, and the 30th figures are part of a whole program, offering brand new characters cullminating in a fan created character. A whole different ball of wax!

Sure we could get to her one day, we just really not in a rush compared to so many more fan requested characters like the vintage line, more POP girls, and now Filmation, all of which is more is comig in 2012!

Which has more demand: NA Scientists or Illumina?