With our Round 2 finalists chosen, it’s time to start anew. Who leads off our final dozen? I’ll give you a hint: He was poisoned, stabbed, shot, hung, stretched, disemboweled, drawn and quartered. His last words were “Death is but a door. Time is but a window. I’ll be back.” So where the heck is Vigo the Carpathian?
Back in June, I wrote what ended up being a popular ‘Truetorial’ about the state of Mattel’s Ghostbusters line, Has Mattel Crossed the Streams? In it, I summed up my frustrations with the direction the line had taken in its first year. We didn’t have a full set of the guys. We had next to no pack-in ghosts. Tooling was at a bare minimum and the figures didn’t feel worth $20+ a pop. The enthusiasm I had when the line was announced had been reduced to a shadow of its former self. It was better than no Ghostbusters toys at all, but after the first few I simply felt no need to keep collecting. It just didn’t seem worth it.
I wanted to revisit that Truetorial after the SDCC Ghostbusters announcements, but it’s been a busy few weeks updating our checklists while keeping on the latest news and articles. I figure this request for the “Sorrow of Moldavia” can serve both its intended purpose as a request and a bit of updated commentary after what we saw at SDCC.
Mattel debuted six figures at the con and the part of my brain that gets excited over seeing Ghostbusters toy rejoiced. But the part that controls spending saw very little it wanted to buy. Of the six figures, five were Ghostbuster repaints with little to no new tooling. Only one of the six included a pack-in ghost. And even though it’s a good one, it didn’t make up for the fact that the other figures only included things like a PKE Meter and a stack of books, Ecto-Goggles and a walkie-talkie, or a GITD Stand and a proton stream. In fact, if you look at Courtroom Peter and Nunzio Scoleri as worth the $20 price, you might start to feel a little cheated by clean Peter only having a proton stream and a stand.
Ghostbusters II Winston was somewhat of a highlight. The new headsculpt looked great (pity that it can’t be included in time to make the upcoming TRU four pack screen accurate). The slimeblower did seem small, but it was visually unappealing. What did bother me was the missing chest harness. Details are important in a line like this and that was a big omission in my eyes. To Mattel’s credit, Toy Guru has since said that they’re at least looking into fixing it, but the early answers weren’t as promising.
Understandably, Ghostbusters has a limited tooling budget. It doesn’t move the units that MOTUC does and, overall, the GB line seems a lot more low-key. For 2011, TG said “they spent a lot of [the limited budget] on the fully tool’d Vince Clortho figure.” Now, I’m happy about Vinz/Louis. Even unpainted, that figure looked great with some excellent accessories. He was easily the showstopper of the Ghostbusters program at SDCC, but it begs the question…
How many Ghostbusters repaints will Ghostbusters collectors need to get through to get another unique sculpt? All the Courtroom figures? All the ‘Ready to Believe You’ figures and a jobseeking Winston to boot? I’m not sure, but since I’m not buying any of those, it’s up to you guys to snap up the low-budget figures until we get to the nicer selections.
It could be an interesting year for Ghostbusters collectors no doubt. Louis does give me hope that the line won’t be as boring as it has been so far. And it’s with that hope that I nominate the Scourge of Carpathia in an attempt to foster his inclusion. Getting Louis as Vinz is nice, and we can get some mileage out of the Subway Ghost and Nunzio Scoleri, but this line needs a big badass villain and it needs it soon. And while I’d be excited to hear about Gozer, I’m ready to jump directly to Ghostbusters 2 and see Vigo on Mattycollector sooner rather than later. And while we’re waiting, let’s cross our fingers that it won’t take too many cheap repaints of the guys to make room for Vigo in the budget.
I just don’t feel the variants are must-have enough.
It seems like they’re trying to take a page from Mini-Mates, but those aren’t $30 after shipping a piece. 😉
So something that’s fun and cute when you pay a few bucks for it becomes cheap and unnecessary at the premium price tag.
Just my two cents . . .
this is the one figure I want in my collection more than pretty much anything else…and by that, I mean period; not just IN THIS LINE.
Well I can kinda see why “clean” Egon and Peter don’t come with ghosts: after ya plunked down $20 each for the SDCC Egon and “Slimed” Peter, do you really want to re-buy the figures again just for new ghosts?
At least the Courtroom Peter makes sense to come with Nunzio Scoleri…and I remember just about a year or so ago when everyone said “we’re never getting a Venkman”. I remember it. And we did.
Nobody wants Lord Vigo more than I do( trust me on this), but generally I think 2011 is shaping up to be a great year for the Ghostbusters line. We’ve only seen thru May thus far….we may have much more to get excited about as the line continues; I certainly wouldn’t be surprised, anyway.
Afgee 100% though, as many complaints as I have, I’m taking the “better than no ghostbusters toys” way too seriously. Complete so far, and signed up for club ecto.
Nw THIS is a more interesting character than Peter with his shirt tucked in, Winston with his left shoe untied… (I’d expect these giuys soon on Mattycollector instead of Fricking Vigo… or Gozer in humanoid form)
sadly, if mattel had license to share bucks around, vigo could be done w/ some DCU parts and come in at an intimidating scale advantage over the true 1/12 scale busters…
I post a lot on those boards, and i’m glad SB Winston is being looked at, and were all unhappy with the amount of repaints. if it continues past this time next year the line will do badly. i can sort of understand repaints at the start to gain a foothold, and to justify budgets. And the PKE taking some of this years budget further reducing budgets, however mattel needs to increase the budget they allow for next years revenue, or they won’t have the line by the time GB3 comes out
I don’t see Vigo happening at all, sadly. This line is a mess and I’m seriously considering buying 4 clean Venkmans just to have the streams for all four GB’ers. I can even swap out the arms on the ungloved guys AND have display stands.
That pretty much completes the team for me. I already lost hope for a GB2 version because of the inaccurate slime blower Winston and the idea of having to buy “Ready to Believe You” versions of Peter & Egon and then the courtroom versions while waiting for Sewer Slime Swim versions and whatever other body hey can reuse for at least three of the guys, pisses me right off!
That’s not something that should factor into toy collecting.
3B, just remember that a year ago, everyone was saying exactly the same thing about Dr. Venkman ‘:B-)
Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want the line to stop. On the contrary, I want it to be awesome! I want them to put some love into it and not treat GB fans like the castaways of toy collecting.
Hopefully, they get thing back on track, it’s just I haven’t seen much to make me believe this is a priority for them.
Well, here’s something that may make sense:
it’s been mentioned that we’ll see one or two unique characters per year, with 4 repaints/variations per year.
However, there’s no law saying those variations won’t come with some sweet ghosts, or other awesome equipment!
It’s why I’m surprised over the lack of enthusiasm over Courtroom Venkman; I mean, he comes with Nunzio Scoleri!!!!!!!!!!
I’m sure the “Ready to Believe You” Spengler and Venkman will also come with GB1 Ghosts.
I’m sure Courtroom Stantz or Spengler will come with Tony Scoleri.
I mean…I know people want Dana, Janosz, Terror Dogs, GBII Louis Tully, Gozer, and Lord Vigo. Well…ya get those 5, and….there’s nothing really special left for Mattel to make…unless you’re really really partial to the Cab Driver.
I’m sure Mattel knows this, and that’s why they’re strategizing this the way they are. I’m not ready to give up hope for this line yet.
I’ll be wearing my Blue Lantern ring while we wait. 🙂
BOOOOOOOO! Not enough Viggo Mortensen in this post! 🙁