Origins: Repaints vs Reissues

[Secret]

As discussed in other threads, we have around 20 vintage figures left to go before Origins finishes remaking the 80s retail line. Close to 30 with Powers of Grayskull and the 1988 cancelled wave. 4 more unrevealed RotS figures.

Unfortunately, almost all of these (except the 1988 wave and RotS) take 100% new tooling. Mattel only seems to budget 1-2 figures worth of significant retooling per wave. That means we need repaints or reissues to fill out waves.

Now, here's where we get into something subjective. I think the minicomics and 200x variants just don't seem to sell. RotS has problems selling too but seems to sell faster than those. There are some options MOTUC did like concept characters that don't take heavy tooling (like Vikor). There are some options MOTUC didn't do like licensing Fuerza-T. By and large, if you do these things, that will only really work for about 1 figure per wave, with 1-2 as new and 1-2 needing to be reissues of some kind.

Meanwhile, that last batch of wave 2 reissues sold like hotcakes by most accounts.

That got me thinking: should new waves, instead of doing 200x or minicomics variants, have 1-2 reissues from earlier waves? They might sell better.

There are ways you could make the reissues different. An even more vintage toy Skeletor head deco, maybe with half-boots. She-Ra in darker gold. He-Man with vintage toy style left arm guard. Evil-Lyn a deeper yellow with fixed knees and vintage toy head. Teela with fixed knees and vintage toy head. Stratos with reversed armor/wing color. Clean shaven Man-at-Arms with the correct helmet.

I guess I want to present 3 options, setting aside whether Filmation, PoP, NA, or 1987 movie are viable (since I assume that's baked into Mattel's plans and would involve more new tooling):

1-2 figures per wave that are 200x or Minicomics based, as they have been doing.

1-2 straight reissues of older Origins figures per wave.

1-2 even deeper toy variants that either more closely follow the vintage toys or their vintage variants.

Which of these do you think would be the best for you personally or the line's health if you have to get reused figures in waves somehow?

I think of those, 200x/Minicomics may be the weakest with casual buyers and niche with collectors.

Straight reissues may be the best choice. But deeper toy variants has a lot of strengths to it too. Just sculpting He-Man's left arm guard can be reused with other minor variations to reissue half the line without it technically being a retread.

[Bear]

Interesting suggestion because it's very much in opposite of spirit of what they've been doing so far. While there were always toys that are very similar to each other - Sun-Man 3-pack, Lop Mer-Men etc - thy were never put together in waves. (I take exception to He-Man and Skeletor with vintage heads and full swords.) In theory each wave is supposed to bring 4 all-new(-ish, at least major color change) figures to stores.

[Smitty.81]

With about 30 figures left and only two 100% newly tooled figures per wave we're looking at 3 or 4 years to get all this out. As for repaint of reissues there's a lot of options. I think repacking He-Man and Skeletor about once a year might be a good idea, maybe in slightly different colors(Leo Skeletor), or some times drastically different(Disco Skeletor).

The lost wave only get us 6 figures and Sssqueeze, Rio Blast, Sy-Klone and He-Ro still need to be made or planed to get all of them made. It does look good for Sssqueeze, and making the others would allow at least two uses for some of those parts.

What I would like to see is for this line to never end, even if that means at some point it's nothing but reissues with slight changes, "H" logo He-Man, glowing tattoo Zodac, pink cheeks Skeletor, red wing Stratos.

There really are a lot of ways to keep this line going, but is Mattel willing to do it and are people willing to buy a 3rd He-Man just because he's got weapons pack blue for all his accessories?

[zodak74]

Something I kind of get and kind of don't get is, why Mattel doesn't throw a reissued figure or two into the current waves in ADDITION to the four new figures. Like, instead of getting a Wave 12 that's "just" Tung Lashor, Roboto repaint, Hypno, and Snake Armor Skeletor- why not put out six figures and have the additional ones be like Man-At-Arms or Webstor? But then I also understand that retail peg space for MOTU isn't quite what it used to be in the '80s. We don't really have a whole, robust "He-Man section"... it's like a tight two pegs of Origins and an overabundance of Masterverse (by overabundance I mean like four pegs ).

Maybe this is what they're starting to do with the Wave 2 reissue displays at Target. It'll be interesting to see if they keep this sort of thing going in 2023 or if this was a one-off one and done sort of thing.

[Darkkosis]

There are also the options of:

a) Create your "Own MOTU Character" pack set by providing 3 different colored torsos, head variants and a bunch of different colored type of limbs, armors, weapons etc. This set can around $30-$45 depending on the amount parts in it.

b) Release 4-5 figures pack sets of different variants of already established figures just with different names (like Wun-Dar, or Zoda"K" for example) for each known faction. Such sets can be sold for $60-$75.

I think these can be online stores exclusives at first for like a year or so, and if they're selling really good and they're in demand, they could be release in the main retail market... This line with its own modularity/swapability features only sky is the limit.

[Smitty.81]

There are also the options of:

a) Create your "Own MOTU Character" pack set by providing 3 different colored torsos, head variants and a bunch of different colored type of limbs, armors, weapons etc. This set can around $30-$45 depending on the amount parts in it.

b) Release 4-5 figures pack sets of different variants of already established figures just with different names (like Wun-Dar, or Zoda"K" for example) for each known faction. Such sets can be sold for $60-$75.

I think these can be online stores exclusives at first for like a year or so, and if they're selling really good and they're in demand, they could be release in the main retail market... This line with its own modularity/swapability features only sky is the limit.

That doesn't really help the line go on in four waves of four figures and two wave to two deluxe figures per year.

[anytimepally]

I prefer repaints but would like to see a mix of both.

I'd also like to see customizable heads like Hasbro has started to do. My kids would love to have MOTU versions of themselves.

[Smitty.81]

I'd also like to see customizable heads like Hasbro has started to do. My kids would love to have MOTU versions of themselves.

MOTU Origins and Masterverse selfie series needs to happen!

[Secret]

MOTU Origins and Masterverse selfie series needs to happen!

Well, the upside is the males use the same ball peg.

Unfortunately, the women all have different pegs from one another.

[Darkkosis]

That doesn't really help the line go on in four waves of four figures and two wave to two deluxe figures per year.

How come?...
My suggestions could help out with the line by bringing more money in addition to the 4 figures/2 exclusives per wave. It's a supplementary sub-line if you will... Also the more you prolong the line with just fillers into each basic wave just to gain the vintage characters and whatnot, the more collector fatigue is prone to happen...

You cannot sustain a line like this in a healthy manner for another 4-5 years by keeping the much needed characters as hostages!

The 10-20 people who are active here simply don't represent the entire MOTU collector market IMHO.

[binkibonsai]

There are also the options of:

a) Create your "Own MOTU Character" pack set by providing 3 different colored torsos, head variants and a bunch of different colored type of limbs, armors, weapons etc. This set can around $30-$45 depending on the amount parts in it.

Oh god yes.

[Smitty.81]

How come?...
My suggestions could help out with the line by bringing more money in addition to the 4 figures/2 exclusives per wave. It's a supplementary sub-line if you will... Also the more you prolong the line with just fillers into each basic wave just to gain the vintage characters and whatnot, the more collector fatigue is prone to happen...

You cannot sustain a line like this in a healthy manner for another 4-5 years by keeping the much needed characters as hostages!

The 10-20 people who are active here simply don't represent the entire MOTU collector market IMHO.

**Laughs in Transformers fan!**

[Darkkosis]

**Laughs in Transformers fan!**

Yeah, like MOTU is anyway near Transformers! LOL

Sir, is this the best you can add to the conversation besides sarcasm?

[Smitty.81]

Yeah, like MOTU is anyway near Transformers! LOL

Sir, is this the best you can add to the conversation besides sarcasm?

Transformers is proof you can sustain a line for years by repeating a list characters with variations. Mattel just need to work out who's their top 10 characters and how they can change them up with out making them unappealing to the causal fan but desirable to long team collectors that already have that character.

[Darkkosis]

Transformers is proof you can sustain a line for years by repeating a list characters with variations. Mattel just need to work out who's their top 10 characters and how they can change them up with out making them unappealing to the causal fan but desirable to long team collectors that already have that character.

a) Transformers has a much larger market and a fanbase than MOTU ever will.

b) Most Transformers toys aren't necessarily swappable like Origins, and that's I why I've suggested here; the marketing and the design teams need to look into this feature.

I mean Mattel can keep trying to sustain the line by only releasing variants over the much needed characters and whatnot, but at one point it will kill off the line quickly just like the 200X days.

Mattel needs to be creative enough to keep this property running, and this line has that potential, and if/when utilized smartly it can keep growing to meet its goals and more.

[Smitty.81]

a) Transformers has a much larger market and a fanbase than MOTU ever will.

b) Most Transformers toys aren't necessarily swappable like Origins, and that's I why I've suggested here; the marketing and the design teams need to look into this feature.

I mean Mattel can keep trying to sustain the line by only releasing variants over the much needed characters and whatnot, but at one point it will kill off the line quickly just like the 200X days.

Mattel needs to be creative enough to keep this property running, and this line has that potential, and if/when utilized smartly it can keep growing to meet its goals and more.

Transformers was not always the juggernaut it is today. It took nearly 20 years to get where it is now. MOTU could do no less, but they need more good media to get out there.

[Darkkosis]

Transformers was not always the juggernaut it is today. It took nearly 20 years to get where it is now. MOTU could do no less, but they need more good media to get out there.

Maybe true for the Transformers franchise, but I respectfully disagree with MOTU's growing appeal with todays kids, at least the way how we've liked it. You need new generations to love this stuff, but with the constant bombardment of new IPs in this day and age, kids' focus is sooo scattered to get interested in just a few things unlike back in the 80's to mid 90's where kids media was limited to mostly TV and magazines.
Plus you cannot compare the "robot" genre with the heroic barbarians mixed with sci-fi sword and sorcery. Even the Superhero genre had to go very high-tech with robots and mechs to appeal to todays kids ala Ironman, the Avengers etc.

Origins in particular is no way near that outside the 20-30K of us or so...

[Secret]

Transformers is proof you can sustain a line for years by repeating a list characters with variations. Mattel just need to work out who's their top 10 characters and how they can change them up with out making them unappealing to the causal fan but desirable to long team collectors that already have that character.

A key difference is that Transformers has three important things this line doesn't really do enough:

1. New characters from mostly reused parts in new colors. We have that but only to the extent that vintage had that. New colors done by Mattel haven't been new/separate characters. No Count Marzo or Evil Seed or new characters at retail. Every recolor is just an existing character. A separate character is likelier to sell to someone who has the original than a variant that can't reasonably display WITH the original. 200x had the same problem.

2. Constantly improved versions of existing iconic characters. Hasbro keeps selling Optimus and Bumblebee because they keep improving them. Sometimes the improvements are subjective or minor like Buzzworthy Kup vs. SS86 Kup. We've only had a handful of these:

- Improved knee women. Impossible to find. Not stocked at retail or separately identifiable. Reliant on the aftermarket.

- Vintage face He-Man and Skeletor. Stocked separately. Easy to find. A+. Where's the next step in this though? Skeletor with added face detail. He-Man with left arm guard. Classics style painted versions. Metallic armor painted versions. Improved sculpts. You might honestly sell more MINOR variations than MAJOR variations.

- Man-at-Arms. They did a clean-shaven head with added belt detail. Hooray! But he has the wrong helmet. Boo! What about a version with blue wrist bracers like Classics? Or painted boot detail? Or armor? Pump out these minor variations and we'll mix and match them!

3. Characters who are as important as the main two. Closest we ever got to that was Revelation's take on Teela. If you could convince people to but Battle Armor Moss Man and Evil-Lyn, we'd have variants for days.

- - - Updated - - -

To some extent, I think it would be smart to release one He-Man, one Teela, one Man-at-Arms, one Skeletor, one Evil-Lyn, and two other characters who have been previously released a year. Total of maybe 12 over 24 month cycles of 8 waves.

Not minicomics versions or power variants.

Color matched to the original.

But every time you release them, you change up a sculpted detail and a paint detail.

For people new to the line, this makes classic versions of established characters evergreen.

For people who have been collecting, this doesn't devalue older figures because the new ones are different.

For people who collect all the variations, you get to mix and match.

Want a Duncan who's clean-shaven with painted bracers and armor and two fists and a red dot on the belt and painted boot straps? That's 4 different Duncans that are compatible, each with some of those details.

Classics played this game with 200x a lot, doing a few "hidden build-a-figures". Buy Snake Armor He-Man for the 200x head. Buy King Grayskull for the chest armor.

These figures are designed for robust mixing and matching. Just look back at what's released and where there's a marginal improvement to be had. Man-e-Face's arms didn't match his body with that yellow paint? Do one with the biceps molded in orange and painted blue that matches the first better (and his torso molded in blue with yellow painted detail) but change his two extra faces and reverse which hand is a gripping hand. You can combine both versions for a "perfect" Man-e-Faces and a second "passable" version and have two gripping hands or no gripping hands.

Part of maximizing the construction potential of this line is having sets or collections of variants that match colors closely so you can do paint free customs that mix 2-5 copies of a character.

Maybe that would be tedious? I don't know for sure. I think I'd rather buy 3 Fistos in the same color scheme with subtle variations (three different left hands, three different approaches to the metal hand, three different head sculpts, three different boots) to mix and match than buy 2 Fistos in totally different color schemes.

[Bear]

If the line was really to never end it would become 80% reuses with slight variations (so I guess good new you'll definitely get guy you looking exactly as you want...eventually) and then more obscure characters like Plundor or Lodar.

[Dice]

Mattel needs to be creative enough to keep this property running, and this line has that potential, and if/when utilized smartly it can keep growing to meet its goals and more.

I agree but I believe the best way for them to do this is expand the MOTU timeline and character roster.




Besides variants I'd also be highly interested in oversized 200X style figures like Clawful and Beast-man done in Origins style.

[Darkkosis]

I agree but I believe the best way for them to do this is expand the MOTU timeline and character roster.




Besides variants I'd also be highly interested in oversized 200X style figures like Clawful and Beast-man done in Origins style.

Yeah, many of us love to see more 200X representation in Origins... Time will tell.

As for the timeline expansion argument, Mattel already has the NA and the PoG to fiddle with, but the matter is; if they're willing to keep investing in a new tooling or not and how often!?... Even now, the vintage lineup is suffering, not only the remaining figures, but also the vehicles and those power accessories and such!

[DC_WARLORD]

As for the timeline expansion argument, Mattel already has the NA and the PoG to fiddle with, but the matter is; if they're willing to keep investing in a new tooling or not and how often!?

That's what was awesome about 200X....all the different tooling. 200X made each character a bit more unique. But times have change a lot. New tooling isn't cheap and plastic isn't cheap.

[orcman]

That's what was awesome about 200X....all the different tooling. 200X made each character a bit more unique. But times have change a lot. New tooling isn't cheap and plastic isn't cheap.

This is why i regret selling my 200x. If i have to do it all over again ..... #1 classics, #2 200x, #3 vintage ..... #3 could have been the minis but it seems discontinued

[Darkkosis]

That's what was awesome about 200X....all the different tooling. 200X made each character a bit more unique. But times have change a lot. New tooling isn't cheap and plastic isn't cheap.

But there are always ways to go around it if they're willing to do it!
Mattel has huge profit margins and they always could redirect some of their excess budgets from some lines to other ones. From what I'm witnessing here, Origins isn't getting much love thus far. Too much reliance on part re-usage and less reliance on new tooling and paint apps.

[Secret]

But there are always ways to go around it if they're willing to do it!
Mattel has huge profit margins and they always could redirect some of their excess budgets from some lines to other ones. From what I'm witnessing here, Origins isn't getting much love thus far. Too much reliance on part re-usage and less reliance on new tooling and paint apps.

Setting aside that Mattel is a massive, slow-moving bureaucracy by toy company standards, to do something like that needs a justification.

I hate it on some level that publicly businesses exist to make profit. But doing what you suggest could literally get people fired and sued in a worst-case scenario, even if it might not be likely with the scale we'd be talking about here.

It has to make business sense. I don't mean that in every day sense of the phrase. I mean it has to be justifiable to people who will hold them accountable.

You need to be able to say that reinvestment achieves a business goal and you have to back that up with evidence/research and, no, you probably won't get an adequate budget for research to make those kinds of claims. Mattel is a bureaucracy more than most. Popular or beloved lines die.

If you did a case study on the vintage line, you'd probably see 1986/1987 as a huge mistake. Massive new tooling cost that was done to compete largely with Transformers and G.I. Joe and particularly without boys media to support it, it didn't work. And yet, it's a mistake any new MOTU line has to repeat to be "complete" from a worldbuilding stance.

Part of how you intelligently navigate this stuff is probably by working with new media creators. I wouldn't be remotely shocked if Mattel pushed stuff like Blast Attak and Clamp Champ and Stinkor and Eternia on Kevin Smith.

Essentially, from a longterm POV, "We're in the business, ideally, of making a Blast Attak and Clamp Champ figure once every decade so we really need people to care more about Blast Attak and Clamp Champ than they did in the 80s."

I'm trying to think of a business goal you can hit by reinvesting in tooling. I don't think sales by itself is the answer. I'm not sure that tracks directly in the way we would like it to.

Among other things, we're not talking about a tooling expense to make more popular characters. This isn't like trying to get Todd McFarlane to make a classic Wonder Woman. We're talking about an expense to make less popular characters. 20 years ago, you could point to Star Wars' worldbuilding through unique tools of unpopular characters as a case study but they aren't doing that now.

You need to be able to argue that the tooling has appeal with Walmart's retail purchaser, that it will get you shelf space, that it will lure in more kid buyers, that it will allow you to raise prices, that there are appealing second/third/fourth uses of the new tooling, a wave budget reallocation, a new pricepoint like 3 packs with new tooling in place of vehicles, you can license out unpopular characters to Super7 to do, something,

We're in a weird place when it comes to finishing vintage. I think He-Ro is dozens of times more justifiable to tool than Gwildor or Rio Blast or Rokkon. He opens multiple repaints, both as himself and other characters. He's in contemporary media. He's easily explainable to kids. His staff has an eye catching value proposition. He's visible in multiple other lines and a proven product offering. He has a vehicle he helps sell and companion figure purchases.

Something like Rokkon takes more work to sell. The things that would make Rokkon appealing to collectors to buy might not translate in a way that makes you look like a responsible steward of shareholder money.