SDCC 2013: Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskull – New and Improved

I spoke with Toy Guru about the changes that have been made to the Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskull. One thing he clarified right off the bat was the “Not Final” sign on the Castle. Some folks took it to mean that structural changes could still be made, but Toy Guru made it clear that at this point, further tweaks are really not possible.

By not final it means the sample wasn’t made of plastic yet and a few kinks to work out like getting the elevator to work a little better. But castle is tooled.

He also shared details on the changes made to the Castle since Toy Fair:

• Inside wall is now reverse sculpt of outside wall, no longer flat
• Throne has hole for sorceress tail feathers
• Sword slot by jaw bridge added with mechanism to open gate
• Throne turns and opens trap door
• Key hole added to back door
• Floor panels proper thickness
• Walls proper thickness
• Hooks added to side to keep closed for travel

With so much going on during the Con, I didn’t spend a great amount of time checking out the Castle. But my first impressions on seeing the Castle again were favorable. I think the biggest difference was that Mattel didn’t load down the display with the army of figures when they showed Castle Grayskull at Toy Fair. I wasn’t sure while I was glancing at it during the show, but it’s pretty clear comparing old and new pictures that they lowered the Jaw Bridge so they’d get a little more headroom clearance – though I don’t think they’d ever be able to fit He-Man mounted on Battle Cat through there without a complete re-do. And although it’s probably not indicative of what the final paint will look like coming out of the factory, with the finished sculpt of the interior walls and the extra details, the inside of the Castle looks much better.

Here’s a couple of short turnaround videos I took of the Castle:

So – what do you guys think now?