SCW

Wasn't the compass like the whole central part of the plotline of one of the Pirates movies?

Foreign sales are completely unimportant in this. Only North American TRU has filed for bankruptcy, that's just US and Canadian Toys R Us. Apparently all international TRU is fine. I find the whole "TRU hates black people" argument a bit odd. It's not like TRU controls how many black Barbies or action figures are made or how many they order. Seems like just another excuse to pile on a failing company. There wasn't one concrete example in that article, that I could find. Heck, when there was that brief "urban toy movement" in the 90s TRU was about the only place you could find Sun Man and other Olmec toys like the Bronze Bombers and MLK.

While I agree this will eventually have some effect on stores, it's very little about TRU's inability to operate, their myriad of issues at the retail level or any of the such. They got caught up in bad investments and huge amounts of debt from Bain Capital and places like that. It's not because there's a bunch of low performing stores. And ultimately closing stores isn't going to help them get out of debt. They will probably slim down the less profitable ones, but their debt has been holding them back for ages, not necessarily sales. Obviously all these things play a factor but this has far less to do with Amazon and Walmart and much more to do with Wallstreet.

The Hal thing was much worse than those articles make it. And they did have rights to Hal, hell they eventually made him, just not the way they were supposed to. Mattel was in a particularly petty period back then especially with the people that were at the helm of the JLU brand. They bilked fans for years, instead of you know, trying to support and build up that fanbase. They bled them dry instead. It could be a case study in how NOT to treat your customers.

I'd love MK Minimates, I've said that before. So long as they don't make any characters past MK II.

I did find the cases a bit odd. Why split the Turtles up? Why split Bebop and Rocksteady up? It meant waiting for a second wave to complete sort of essential parts of a display. I mean, I get needing to have a second wave, but I thought some of the ways it was split up to be puzzling.

TRU and other retailers have made their TMNT area smaller (though in most places, they still have a pretty large presence) but that's in part because of the show coming to an end and Playmates and other companies are making less products. But they are still making new products. So it's like, maybe less new SKUs overall, but still plenty of new merchandise. And I expect when the new TMNT show comes out, the aisle will grow again to reflect that. There's no doubt that the space waves hurt TMNT Minimates. Just as the Space Season hurt the show. I think the Minimates could have survived ONE space wave, but when it was split over two it just bogged everything down. And on the show, the Space Season dragged on (I actually believe because Nick wanted to stretch the show out longer than Ciro Nieli did and forced him to "pause" his story and do something else for a bit) to the point that the show dipped in the ratings some. So less popular figures based on a less popular season of the show hurt things. As for kids wanting classic TMNT. Can't say for sure on that. You can't really say Mega Bloks Classic TMNT was a failure, it had several waves and even released a Technodrome. If anything the issues there seemed to be their release strategy which required you to buy expensive sets to get core characters. Not really comparable, IMO. You literally couldn't get some of the core characters without shelling out hundreds of dollars, but you'd be forced into multiple versions of the Turtles.

Actually you said they "are" canceling the latest cartoon series. I assume you just had a typo.

They're not canceling the TMNT show as much as they're ending it and starting a new show. But it's still on the air with new episodes for a while.

I have a hard time believing that Elf or Caddyshack Minimates would sell more than Classic TMNT Minimates. I assume there's something to be said here about how they're being offered. Box sets must be an easier sell.

Box sets would make a lot of sense. #1 = Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael #2 = Shredder, Splinter, Casey, April #3 = Bebop, Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, Krang #4 = Foot Soldiers (Or any other additional people)

I don't think Vinimates are big sellers, but neither are Pops and I suspect they are really cheap to produce so they don't have to worry about selling as many. My concern with Minimates is that I don't really collect Marvel mates. I have some sure, but I'm mostly in it for other properties. TMNT was a big one. So them getting canceled is a kick in the Wolfman nards. And very little else is appealing to me at the moment. I'd love some DC mates, but sounds like that horse has been beat to death.

Just curious, is this something that can change? Like, most places are still taking pre-orders. Could like a "these Turtles Minimates are in trouble of not being produced" type campaign cause more pre-orders to come in and DST reverse it's decision? I guess what I'm saying is, I think a lot of people WEREN'T concerned that these wouldn't be made, so there may not have been a mad rush to pre-order. But if the fanbase knew these might not come out, pre-orders would IMO spike up. Because I think a lot of people do want these, but didn't feel like they had to immediately pre-order because they thought there was no chance these wouldn't be made. Or when a decision like this comes down, it's too late and there's no stopping it even if 1,000 more pre-orders popped up in the next few weeks?

WHAT? What the hell... Seriously, I had been growing worried about these since things have been so quiet, but canceled? That seems sudden. Especially given that the SDCC promo mate advertised the upcoming waves. I took that as a good sign. I didn't preorder (was that part of the problem?) but that was largely because I was waiting to figure out just what retailer I wanted to use. Man this stinks. I was going to buy a crap ton of those. Not getting that Casey and Baxter really stings. No chance we're getting a complete classic TMNT line anywhere and this looked like as close as we were going to get. What the heck happened?!

He's wearing those glasses wrong.

I mean seriously, look at what they did with Deadpool in Wolverine Origins, lol.

I suspect they didn't do Domino that way because they'd literally be white washing the actress and rather than avoid potential backlash, they just inverted it and used her natural skintone and then added in the white patch. But that's just a guess. With movies, there's always a 100 potential reasons why they change something and often it boils down to essentially "just the hell of it".

Had no idea some of that stuff even existed. Neat!

This is a neat figure as a giveaway to people. I might would buy it for like $3 if it was readily available. But it's not something I could see myself spending real money on as it's not something with any real attachment. It's interesting because it's odd and rare. I understand completism as well, but yeah, this is not a big deal IMO. I mean, I collected JLU and Mattel once made an exclusive like this, but it was Hal Jordan and was given to WB employees as a gift and then swore to never make "Holiday Hal" as a JLU figure despite making like, everyone else ever in the Justice League. It became the ultimate grail and in many ways was an understandable reason for people to get mad at Mattel and quit the line. And even though it NEVER mattered to anyone except the thousands of people who collected the line, Mattel stuck to their guns and never offered a true Hal figure to JLU fans. They eventually released an "unmasked" version, which was stupid and more salt in the wounds, but never the figure that people wanted. This, meh, not comparable to that.

I had all six of these in my hand today and couldn't pull the trigger. Not sure why.

Nice work!

I'd assume so. I was a little surprised we haven't seen anything about them. This line got quiet. TMNT was pretty fast and furious there for a bit and then they switched to the 80's turtles and there's a HUUUUGE lag time between the release. Please let these still be happening!

Interesting choice for a license. I will be curious to see what they end up as. I'd loved to get some of the human characters from the first movie, but I don't think I'll want any from the second. I could totally go for Pimp Daddy Ron Perlman though. I'll be curious to see what they do in the Select line as well. I'm kinda surprised that NECA didn't fight harder for this license given how successful the first movie was for them.

I haven't seen any pics of Mates in the interior. But I think you're right.

Not my pics but, it's not a perfect fit. But it looks to be fudge worthy if you're so inclined. [/img]