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Ghostbusters vs. LOTR


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I was having one of those "stare happily at your collection" moments yesterday, and my eyes wandered to adjacent shelves with Ghostbusters and LOTR mates on display. It got me thinking about the parallels and divergences of the two lines, and how one has been such a roaring success, while the other died (seemingly) before its time.

Ghostbusters

Here we have a toy line based on a 25-year-old movie. Sure, there was a video game recently, but it came and went, and didn't seem to do much to boost top-of-mind awareness for very long. Most kids in the toy-buying demographic have at best a vague notion of the brand. However, it still has a very large, loyal fanbase; a cult following, even.

DST has cranked out all of the main, readily recognizable characters. And most of the secondary characters. And a good number of the tertiary characters. And a few "wait, when was he/she in the movie?" characters. If the sellthrough at TRU and secondary market prices for boxsets and exclusives are any indicator, they're a smashing success.

LOTR

Here we have a toy line based on a contemporaneous movie based on a 70-odd-year-old series of well-loved books. There was great top-of-mind awareness when this line was at market, both for the toy-buying demographic and long-time fans. I would argue the LOTR franchise's built-in fanbase easily dwarfs that of Ghostbusters, which is not to mention all of the newcomers from the movies.

DST released most of the main characters, and sputtered through some secondary characters, eventually terminating the line before many desired, and even prototyped characters were produced (Ringwrath, Gandalf the Grey, King Aragorn, Bilbo... the list goes on). The remaining stock, if I recall correctly, pegwarmed for a while, got clearanced, and the line now fetches decent prices on the secondary market.

So, what happened? How did one fail where the other succeeded? Did competing product saturation doom LOTR? Has DST worked out ideal production run sizes for GB they didn't yet have ironed out for LOTR? Is GB just a weird fluke? It's odd to me that a critical character like the Ringwraith could fail to make the cut, but an oddball like the Titanic Captain Ghost could sell through without any trouble.

Please understand I didn't intend this as a "trash DST for not giving us some mates we wanted, they're so stupid" thread. On the contrary, it's an honest inquiry into why two brands that seem, superficially, anyway, to have similar qualities ended up with so drastically different results. I was just getting into Minimates when LOTR was big, so I don't think I have as much insight into how the Minimates brand was working back then as some veterans on the board might. For those who track prices, demand, production runs, etc on an almost scientific level (coughBHMcough), have you noticed big changes in those factors?

Plus, I'm bored with the lack of SDCC exclusive announcements, so I thought this would be a fun conversation topic. :biggrin:

Edited by Lobsterman
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For those who track prices, demand, production runs, etc on an almost scientific level (coughBHMcough), have you noticed big changes in those factors?

............................. so I thought this would be a fun conversation topic. :biggrin:

I'm not sure I'm enough 'fun' for this topic :(

I'll pick up on that word ....fun. I will have to come clean first.... I detest Lord of the Rings....the movie & the 'mates. 'Ghostbusters' came out in 1984 & at the time I enjoyed it ,it was a fun movie but I wasn't 'into' it like some & that is undoubtedly because 'you lot' were all, generally, kids in 1984 & I was 'past it' even then :huh: So IMO the Lord of the Rings 'mates take themselves too seriously....all mysticism,faeries,goblins & all that bollocks . They are actually Lords of the Glums whilst Ghostbusters Minimates are fun,fun,fun. I'm not intentionally slagging LOR 'mates but I have them all in their sealed packages & have no intention of removing them either to display or do anything else with. Ghostbusters ,on the other hand, I have sacrilegiously opened a set of each & just about everybody who has seen them.........smiles. :D

I wasn't a Minimate collector when LOR 'mates were produced but I believe the 'heat' from the movies had cooled & nobody wants yesterday's cold merchandise. The Ghostbusters licence ,apparently,has an almost cult-following,probably more wacko than Waco,& with the onset of another proposed sequel & a video-game Minimates were in the right place at the right store at the right time with very little competition....they even saw off kubrick Ghostbusters which I doubt will ever be made now. I was sceptical,not a GB fanatic at all .......I love GB Minimates.

Lord of the Rings Minimates are no longer common on ebay or elsewhere for that matter,Ghostbusters Minimates almost always sell on ebay & prices on most items go just one way....up. I ,however,don't feel you have to study Minimates on a scientific level ;) to realise that Ghostbusters Minimates are beginning to reach a point of saturation .....the last TRU Wave ,I hear, isn't shifting as quick.

Edited by buttheadsmate
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I love this type of question because it always produces interesting debate.

As Minimates, the toys were more at the DC end than the Marvel end. They had a lot of accessories and unique, sculpted pieces. The likenesses, whilst not as good as later licenses, were pretty good. The packs had some great bad guys in, specifically the Orcs. They were the true standouts of the line. Playability was high. Who doesn't want to see Aragorn and the rest face off against a horde of Orcs?

But the scale, oh the scale. Human sized LOTR Minimates were 2.5 inches, and that's what killed it in my opinion.

They needed to keep the default human size as 2", go smaller for the hobbits, perhaps use the 2.5" scale for the Orcs.

I think the question is, would I pick up a new LOTR line based on 2", with maybe the Hobbits using the Fathers Day child size. And the answer is yes, yes I would buy it all again in a heartbeat.

They should definitely try for the Hobbit license. Get some MAX stuff out as well.

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I really can't understand it myself, but I think the problem was that they released Lord of the Rings right as Return of the King was dropping off the face of the earth.

Ghostbusters seems to be ingrained in our collective memories more than The Lord of the Rings (I thoroughly believe that this will change in about 30 years or so. LOTR is just a classic) Plus honestly Ghostbusters has some really amusing designs: Stay Puft, The Statue of Liberty, those adorable Proton Packs... LOTR looked kinda the same.

Now I am NOT going to diss LOTR. It is easily one of my favorite minimate lines EVER, right behind Marvel and tied with GB. My favorite minimate of all time is from LOTR. Of course, he was the most dynamic of the LOTR designs: Sauron.

I wanted LOTR to continue. I'm glad we got what we got. But I really badly want it to continue. I second the call for The Hobbit license. And who knows, Maybe at 30 years of LOTR we'll see more minis based off of it without the 2.5 inchers. After all, Hobbits can be done like Penguin now. And if they do indeed make them, freakin count me in. I'd LOVE to have them.

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I think one major factor is the wealth of LOTR merchandise/toys out there versus Ghostbusters. Up until recently, the only Ghostbusters toys I know of were the ones based of the animated cartoon in the 1980s, and the brief NECA run (that left out all the actual Ghostbusters). The Lord of the Rings movies produced scores of the damn things. Saturating the market to the point where all that stuff was clearanced out, Minimates included. Ghostbuster Minimates preceded the Mattel online Ghostbusters, and so were actually the first toy incarnations of the movie versions of Venkman, Ray, Egon, Winston, and pals. For a license with such a strong cult following, that's a pretty big deal.

Also, Ghostbusters is a better movie and the designs are just better as toysthan LOTR, IMO. The fantasy toy genre has been run into the ground time and again. How often do you see guys in jump suits with funky backpacks who fight wacky colored ghosts?

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  • 1 month later...

The Ghostbusters line is what essentially got me into MiniMates. From there it turned to Marvel, and then to looking into secure cases to store/display them in and looking to sell my old Marvel Legends for MiniMate dough. Busting ghosts with an unlicensed nuclear accelerator has a pretty strong grasp on my life.

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