SDCC 2014: Hot Toys Back to the Future and Aliens Movie Franchises

SDCC 2014 Hot Toys Back to the Future

Believe me – I have nothing against the many other companies that have made action figures for these movies. But when you see Hot Toys’ renditions of characters from the Back to the Future and Aliens franchises, it’s almost as if the clouds have parted and light shines down from plastic heaven.

And they’ve only just begun, with Marty McFly and his DeLorean Time Machine, and Ellen Ripley from Alien and Aliens, the latter including the Power Loader Exo-Suit. Sure, these will cost you an arm and a leg, and possibly a kidney, when you add them to your collection, but it will so be worth it!

LEGO Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine

Lego Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine (1 of 14)

If you were alive in the 80s, then you’re probably a fan of Back to the Future. I definitely am, and I’ve been waiting for a long time for a Back to the Future fix for my toy habit. There’ve been close calls before – Diamond Select Toys has put out both a line of BTTF Minimates and 1:15 scale DeLoreans for the trilogy – very tempting. And Mattel acquired the license a couple years back, but have only managed to put out a somewhat disappointing Hover Board, at least according to many diehard fans who ponied up the big bucks for it.

When I learned about the LEGO Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine, which was produced as part of its fan-created CUUSOO, I could resist no longer. I had to have it.

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Impulse Buy: LEGO Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine

BTTF2

When my action figure bug kicked in, I reluctantly gave up LEGO. But I’ve loved LEGOs since I was a kid, and I often stare at them longingly in the aisles when I’m on yet another fruitless toy run.

But the Time Machine from Back to the Future? With Marty McFly and Doc Brown mini-figures? Maybe it’s the lack of action figures that I had always hoped Mattel would make when they acquired the license. Maybe it’s the longing I’ve had for the Diamond Select Toys DeLoreans, or the BTTF Minimates that I denied myself a few years back. All that pent-up demand – this I could not resist.

This set is from the LEGO CUUSOO program – CUUSOO is not a LEGO acronym – it’s a phonetic spelling for the Japanese word that means “wish.” This program allows people to submit their proposals for LEGO products. If they get enough support from the CUUSOO community, then LEGO will evaluate the proposal to become official products. This is the fourth LEGO product to come out of CUUSOO.

You can get the DeLorean Time Machine at the Shop Lego website for $34.99. Don’t fight it – it’s your density.

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Soapbox Sunday: Five Lessons Mattel Can Learn from the Four Horsemen

Matty Tracker 2014 - T-8 Kickstarter - Gothitropolis Ravens by the Four Horsemen - 35 hours to go

It’s like a Tale of Two Cities – the Four Horsemen are involved in a couple of product pre-order campaigns running in parallel. On one side, they’re the design shop behind Mattel’s Mattycollector Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions for Masters of the Universe Classics and DC Universe Classics. On the other, they’re taking pre-orders for their own Gothitropolis Ravens line through the crowd-funding platform, Kickstarter.

As we’ve seen over the past week, folks from Mattel and the Four Horsemen are tearing their hair out over whether the Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions will hit the minimums needed to survive. Meanwhile, the Four Horsemen’s Ravens are flying high. Their Kickstarter campaign hit the funding target during its first week, and proceeded to blast through every stretch goal they started with and even a few more they had to put together along the way.

You might think it easy to dismiss the stark differences in the success of the campaigns as coming from collectors’ growing dislike of Mattel and their service partner Digital River. And while I see a fair amount of anecdotal evidence for Mattel-hate, I believe there are some clear differences in how they run their campaigns that is causing the Mattycollector subscription fallout. If the Mattycollector subs live to fill in product silhouettes again next year, here’s some things Mattel can learn from the Four Horsemen, to make the sign-up period less traumatic and uncertain.

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SDCC 2013: Mattel Mattypalooza 2013! Panel Presentation Slides

SDCC 2013 - Mattypalooza 01

Mattel provided their Mattypalooza 2013 presentation as a PDF in their SDCC wrap-up, but we’ve done you a solid and it to images you can just flip through right here in your browser.

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