GuruAskew

I was excited to see the half-transparent deco when I received it on Saturday, but I too already have the TRU version. I was hoping there would be some sort of variant since the first version has the frosted variant. I suppose BTTFIII cars are inevitable and doing a whitewall tire and train track versions would be no-brainers, though those wouldn't be straight re-decos like the other two had as each would require new parts. It would be a good opportunity to release Clara and Einstein which could pretty much finish the line, though neither one would be able to properly sit in the car.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this: http://gallery.figures.com/showphoto.php?p...max&cat=631 Slackers.

Just a PKE meter, the jacket piece and two blue-sleeved arms for Dana. The arms don't even have their own hands, not that they really need them. The thickness of the jacket puts a noticeable gap between the head and the body and the hairpiece sorta interferes with the jacket as well but if you can position it just right so it works it's definitely more visually interesting than having Dana sans Jacket. Not that that really matters as being visually interesting obviously wasn't what they were going for with this set. I'm sure they civilian designs will see the light as separate figures eventually.

Sdcc/tru set was waiting when I went home at lunch. No time for pics but I can confirm that the only "hidden" parts are arms/coat for Dana. No civvies parts for the 3 guys.

I have no local TRU and I've managed to get 3 of the 4 waves directly from TRU's online store (I think the b&m/online ratio of Wave 3 was out of whack as they were barely online and supposedly abundant in stores) and I've become used to the crushed packaging. Ultimately I'm an opener and I've still managed to get unbroken Minimates every time so I can't complain too much but MOC'ers are definitely substantial enough when it comes to the audience/consumer base of these things and it's a problem that should be rectified. I think this wave is pretty decent but still the most uneven. 3 of the 4 "ghosts" are great but I think including the Mayor in the line is a bit troublesome, plus the GB variants are pretty worthless. I thought the Venkman was almost entirely worthless to those of us who got the SDCC 2-pack last year until I saw he was wearing gloves, at that point I realized that DST/AA are going to be selling us a similarly-worthless gloved gray GBII Egon to have another complete set of 4 to go with the gray Slime Blower Ray and Egons (pretty much a gray version of the AFX 4-pack) which definitely doesn't bode well for the future of the line. As I said on another forum: they're going to be trying to sell us a Dean Yaegher Minimate soon. Mattel has been very slow with their GB releases but the opposite extreme is what DST/AA are doing. This line is about a year old and there's no denying that they're running out of figures to make. The new Venkman/Slimer two-pack pretty much definitively proves that. Off the top of my head they can get away with the gloved gray Egon (which, again, is only of interest to someone who has to have Peter & Egon to go with the slime blower Ray & Winston) and the inevitable gray slime blower Winston, a GB1 Janine and a pre-possessed Louis, plus whatever miscellaneous ghosts they can cobble together from the parts they have.

But he's not flat-out doing "A Clockwork Orange". He is doing original creations with an obvious "Clockwork Orange" twist, but enough where he can play the homage and/or parody card. If he just put out "Clockwork Orange" stuff with no twist or spin they'd be on him right away. The companies that just come right-out and make an Alex figure or bust, however, are illegal every step of the way. They don't have any law or right to hide behind.

Every example of "A Clockwork Orange"-related merch in this thread shows either a full-blown bootleg (high-quality ones, but still unlicensed) or something obviously inspired by "ACO" that has enough of a twist to avoid paying licensing. Furthermore, they're all low-profile (especially the ones that are flat-out bootlegs) and not worth the effort for Warner Bros. and the Kubrick Estate but well-known companies like DST are legitimate and have to play nice with official licensees. I have a figure of Anton Chigurh from "No Country for Old Men" but it's not approved by Cormac McCarthy, the Coens, Javier Bardem or Miramax, it was just done in a small run by a small company operating out of China or something. I think they made 75 of them worldwide so none of the "powers that be" are going to go after them because they're just a little drop in the bucket. Actually, "needle in a haystack" is more appropriate. Is it really worth tracking down a few guys in China for selling $7500 worth of figures? No, but you could find out who runs a legitimate toy company in like 2 minutes and a lawyer could probably have papers served within hours.

After and Hannibal the Cannibal, I wouldn't rule anything out. There's a reason there's no Kubrick-related merchandise out there: the Kubrick Estate is very protective and Warner Bros. won't license it without their permission. I'm sure "A Clockwork Orange" would be a Hot Topic staple if the rights were available but they're not.

I received no such notice from them and I ordered them all within an hour or two of the figures being put up for preorder.

When all is said and done the "main" versions of the other 3 core characters will be similarly duplicated, though it looks like the duplicated Ray may be the only one that comes with the goggles.

It was me and you're welcome. By the way, I got mine today and I had no problem getting Slimer off the stand. It popped right out. Also, if I wasn't an opener I'd be enraged by the condition they came in.

It's been said that Louis will be underneath the Terror Dog that is packaged with GB2 Winston. So, Dana is the only one not seen anywhere else (so far). Where has this been said? Here. Don't doubt me next time. I think a "ZING!" is in order.

Where has this been said? Here. Don't doubt me next time. You'll notice that DSTMatt said that the dog is the same but says nothing about Louis being included underneath. Actually I know you noticed that because you asked him the same thing below and he never answered you. So again, the dog itself may be identical (and I don't think that was ever doubted in the first place) but nobody knows if the Louis parts are included in the 2-pack either, and again, there's no evidence to suggest that they are. If that's the case then Louis is another figure only available in the 4-pack like Dana, Gozer and that Stay-Puft variant. Ultimately I don't mind if the dog itself is a duplicate because it will allow us to display Louis and still have two dogs since there's the "energized" one in the second TRU wave.

It's been said that Louis will be underneath the Terror Dog that is packaged with GB2 Winston. So, Dana is the only one not seen anywhere else (so far). Where has this been said? Gozer isn't available outside of the second 4-pack and neither is that particular Stay-Puft. All the Stay-Puft figures are slightly different: the 4-pack is white with an angry face and the 2 in the TRU 2-packs are red with an angry face and white with a happy face. The SDCC 2-pack version of Stay-Puft is similar to the 4-pack version (white/angry) but is glow-in-the-dark. The 3 Slimer figures have similar variants: opaque, translucent and GITD. But yeah, back on the subject of the TRU 2-pack Terror Dog: the 4-pack lists the character as Louis Tully and the 2-pack lists the character as Terror Dog. This seems to support the idea that the figures are different and I can't find a shred of evidence that suggests that it's the Louis version.

Also: I was just checking my TRU order status and some of you better thank me for this: http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3531473 http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3531474 http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3531478 http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3531484 http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3531489 A word of warning: you can't find these product pages by doing a search, they're only linked if you're like me and you have them in your order history so any time you find hidden product pages or otherwise manipulate a store's site to order something that is otherwise unavailable you obviously need to prepare yourself for the possibility that what you're ordering isn't truly available but I know a lot of you missed out on these.

It seems that buying all the different configurations will get you a second set of "standard" Ghostbusters but otherwise there are no duplicates. There are plenty of alternate versions of the same characters but the tan GBI uniform versions of the 4 main characters are the only ones that seem to be full-on recycles, though they could easily tweak them and make them a little different. Either way I'm cool with a duplicate set. Even if they are identical I may just take the spare set to work and put them on my desk. You could probably make a small profit on selling the group together too since some people won't want to buy 8 figures in 2 4-packs when they just want these 4 figures. Obviously you would most likely get a price between one and two 4-packs but you never know, you might get someone with an itchy bidding figure spending an unreasonable amount. But yeah, ultimately you have to buy it all to get it all. There's no way to avoid the duplicates without avoiding unique figures as well.

1: Amazon.com carries many Minimates including the "Ghostbusters" ones, and unlike a lot of collectibles on Amazon.com they're fulfilled directly through Amazon.com (not 3rd-party sellers) so it's not as if they'd be the only Minimates available on Amazon.com. Furthermore, Amazon.com wasn't really in the business of including exclusive Minimates in special collectors editions of video games but that was obviously the plan up until recently. These were already the first Amazon.com exclusive Minimates as far as I know so it's not much of a stretch to assume they still are. 2: Amazon.com is already losing money because of this. Not only did they lose $20 off of every preorder they had they are also undoubtedly getting a lot of downgrades to the standard editions and altogether losing a lot of preorders too. 3: Amazon.com is a major business and they aren't likely to have some sort of knee-jerk immature reaction that could potentially burn bridges with a supplier and cost them more money. When faced with the choice between taking the "shit happens" approach and reacting harshly accepting the delay and working to still make the product available in a way that is profitable and beneficial to Amazon.com when the delays are resolved is obviously a better business move than telling Diamond to go to hell, a move that would roughly translate to "Curse you, Diamond Distributors, damn you for losing us a lot of money, now go make that money for someone else!" Ultimately it's all speculation, but again: my original point is that the figures were announced as Amazon.com exclusives and as far as anyone knows they still are.

A delay isn't likely to change the fact that they're Amazon.com exclusives and that's where I expect them to pop up until I see some evidence to the contrary.

I was going to post the same thing. The figures can be delayed (and this obviously isn't uncommon to us collectors) but delaying the game isn't an option. I'm guessing these are still Amazon.com exclusives and will still pop up for sale when they're available.