Would you support a "realistic toy" line?

[Morian Miner]

Okay, I will admit this poll is a little unusual. I’ve been pondering this idea for the last couple days, and was just curious what other people thought of the concept. Please bear with my rambling – it does come to a point.

I’ve always collected GI Joes, but never really liked how hi-tech and sci-fi COBRA was. Never understood how the bad guys with no country managed to come up with stuff better than we have. I wish it would have stayed more towards the “realism” the line had when it first came out.

So, setting up all my various 1/18 collections the other day, I got thinking how cool it would be to trash the whole GI Joe mythos and start over. I’ve somewhat done it by putting together some “enemy” teams (pseudo Third World armies). I then got thinking what if 21C or BBi went off and created they’re own line. Do something simple – take some existing figures, and maybe pack with them a mini-comic introducing some elite military team against some baddies – only this time make them more realistic. Something along the lines of mercenaries or advisor who continually try to infiltrate foreign govts, and try to take over from the inside. The idea being some storyline in comics or maybe an online comic that would draw in a fan base aside from the normal military toy collector.

Now, where the poll comes in. If the line could succeed with the figures, vehicles would come next. Considering how much arms are out in the world that is either old US surplus, or Russian or Chinese makes, you could have the bad guys using things like old US halftracks (like the IDF did at the start) and flying some MiGs, or even Mirages. The idea being is an excuse for companies like BBi, AT, 21C to make some of the foreign equipment we likely will not see in 1/18. But the problem would be if trying to sell to kids, you likely would see a reduction in detail to keep the price down, and unprototypical paint schemes. Would this turn people off? For me, I wouldn’t care because I end up repainting a lot of my stuff anyways.

So, the idea of the poll is just purely for fun, if some company did this, would you support it if it meant getting new figures (of say terrorists or enemies) and vehicles that may not be up to the standards we have (but hopefully still 1/18 and not horribly underscale)?

[Moth]

If the items are real-world like T-34, Sherman, ect. and are accurate, I would buy it just like any other item from 21st Century Toys or BBI.

[dfoos]

I think the reason GI Joe went that way is because as a society we are less and less able to have realistic war toys. I remember in the 80's a kid I babysat for had a million GI Joe guys and they were based on much more realistic tech that the ones now, but they were still becomming cartoony because I think parents became more anti war and anti gun. Cartoons never had anyone die, and the enemy cannon fodder were always robots or something stupid like that. Easy way to "Kill" the enemy without the Killing. When was a kid in the 70's we had Starblazers, and such where everhyone but the main characters died every episode. I had a Han Solo Gun that wasn't Orange. The best toy guns were the ones that most resembled the real thing. Now, You barely find War toys in toy stores.
I think the only reason that Stores like WalMart and Toys R Us carries BBi, 21st and FOV is because it is historically accurate, and not really aimed at younger kids. I think if someone tried to "Mainstream" realistic war toys, there would be a big backlash from the overprotective moms and Toys r us and such would end up not being able to carry even what they have. I would love to see what you are talking about, and I think people have gone way to far in our Vanilla, PC, Anti War (Toy) society, but don't think it would fly.

Sadly...

As far as a vote, I would vote yes, but I just don't see it happening.

[catman]

i dont really understand this.. doesnt bbi and at and 21st make realism? so why not keep the ol' gi joe how we liked it for 42 years?

[flpickupman]

Honestly? Probably not. This is entirely due to my budget and space constraints. I've pigeon-holed myself into the North Africa theater in an effort to keep myself within these boundaries. Although when it gets to be too long between new items, sometimes I escape and buy something completely unrelated like the M48.
This need to get my fix, however, is not enough to support a new toy line.

I also agree with dfoos. Society has "progressed" to a point where retailers are unwilling to upset a vocal minority(most of the people I know aren't this narrow minded) with something that might resemble the real world we live in. Lord knows we have to shelter the kiddes from reality.

[jeffrowse]

Living in the UK we don't see a lot of the things (ie "toys") you do over the pond - but wouldn't this be this kinda like the Target 'Combat Command' line? I've only seen pics of the CC "Warthog" but it was enough to see that it looked sort of cartoony, with the fuselage being far too tall in relation to its length.

If you mean will someone produce realistic-looking vehicles for a "cartoon" or kiddies range, then my guess is 'probably not'. Most kids want to blow up the Death Star or send the Decepticons sprawling in the dust, or defeat the Chunky Tanks with the Big Guns with their whizzo electronic attack fighter, not recreate the battles for El Alamein or the Falklands, or the Berlin Airlift...

Still, could be worse - I'm still waiting for someone to produce a (decent)1/18th BattleWarMechRobot or Zoid...

[Threetoughtrucks]

GI Joe is a name I instantly dislike because of the unrealistic cartoon figures and vehicles. 21C went the other way, I believe, and tried to bring out a line of realistic fighting man and vehicles. The main reason why I do not collect 1/18 figures is that the more articulation the figures get, the more unrealistic the figures look. It looks like all the figures have 20" waists and weigh about 160 lbs. That is unrealistic, GI's come in all sizes and colors from the smaller guys that ended up as tankers in WW2, to the big guys that realisticly became mg and mortar gunners.

Realistic is the reason why we collect 21C but the current figures are going away from realistic.

Now, all the GI Joe bashing aside, I have a number of GI Joe 12" weapons only because they are not available anywhere else, even though they are either overscaled or underclassed for 1/6:

.50 cal water cooled mg (GI Joe Pearl Battleship Defender with the just cool sailor in dress whites.)
37mm Anti-tanks gun
155mm Howitzer (I have two)
M-8 Armored Car
Half-track with 75mm anti-tank gun
40mm quad AA mount with the sailor firing it (I have two)
I have a number of GI Joe 12" figures (that came with the weapons or thrown in in group purchases) but most of them I throw the "clunky" unrealistic clothes away and dress the figures in more reasistic 21C, Dragon or DID clothes and equipment.

My 2 cents.

TTT

[Morian Miner]

i dont really understand this.. doesnt bbi and at and 21st make realism? so why not keep the ol' gi joe how we liked it for 42 years?

GI Joe is what it is. There's too big of a fan base to get rid of it. That's not what I was saying.

But, you just have to walk through TRU and Walmart and see kids want military toys, like they see on TV. So, what if you came up with some storyline for kids to play along with, to go with the stuff 21C and BBi are putting out? That's what I was thinking of.

You see alot of complaints that kids are losing interest in toys about 6-8 years old. For those of use who grew up in the 70's and 80's (even the 90's somewhat), you think about it, every toyline had a cartoon that went along with it. Transformers, GI Joe, Gobots, Voltron, Mutant Turtles, Mask, etc. Well, the do-gooders come in, complain they are just commercials, and I personnally don't see any shows like that anymore. The shows I watched, I didn't care much for them, but they gave me ideas which I expanded on (wow, using imagination). Now, granted, that may not be the same nowdays, since you can spend $50 to buy a video game to be your imagination.

And as for the guns in the store, my wife was laughing last night. She was talking about the whole "orange barrels" on guns, because here my daughter was running around the yard with squirt guns hidden under her skirt, then pulling them out "to shoot the bad guys"

[STUKA]

Well
I actually started purchasing 21st Century because of the smaller scale joe vehicles.
I sold off all my vintage stuff back in 99 and for some weird reason started collecting it all over again - well with all the new figures comming out - I ...just....couldnt....help....myself....need....water.....

so...thirsty.....

oh wait im back.

But growing up - I didn't need figures to create new armies. I remember in all my backyard mud hole story lines GIJoe had many enemies. I even had Dusty creating an entire army of Joe Clones and hitting the local 7-11s.
Of Course Snake Eyes made everything better.

But that was way back when. Now I just collect everything and store it away for my 9 month olde son. Of course he will probably trade everything off for teenage mutant ninja turtles - or power barnies. argh.

[aferguson]

a story line to go with 21c and BBI stuff? OK, how about we call it "world war two'.

Modern war toys can be a bit touchy with alot of parents......with all the death and destruction on tv....that's why joe did well before, it was fantasy and nobody died.

[KAMIKAZE]

If Gi Joe line made a realistic Mi-24 Hind or T-72 ect. I would buy them as long as they were not purple colored.

Mark

[immeww2]

We've come a long way from those stiff green plastic soldiers with the plastic tanks on wheels.

[scbvideoboy]

I would like to see some made up sci-fi stuff, ufos, aliens big and small, space freighter pilots and stuff not just from a movie.

The down side would be no tie in to cross promote.

DH

[tmanthegreat]

Well, I like the idea of having a story tied in with the 21c or BBI figures. Didn't 21c attempt something (rather crudly) with their 1:6 "Heroes & Villians" series from a few years back? 21c has already gone a step in the "story" direction by naming the figures that constitute a series as they have done since the origional Paratroopers.

Resource & monetary issues aside, 21c could expand on those characters further and create biographies & comic-style stories, etc. about a group of figure "characters" set against the backdrop of an actual historical event. For example, you could have the XD Marines involved in a famous Pacific theater battle and bring in the Japanese figure "characters" as well. The same could be done with the Paratroopers in some sort of D-Day or OMG story and the BoB troops in the Battle of the Bulge. The existing (and future) vehicles could even be tied in as well.

The comic idea is plausible, however, as previous posts have rightly noted, there is the potential for public outcry. As was said, some parents would not want their kids reading comics and storys about violent episodes of warfare - even if they were based on real events. Further, veterans probably wouldn't want to see what were VERY real and tramautic battles for them being trivialized into children's comics. Then there would be others that would love them!

In all honesty, although I like the idea of including stories that expand on 21c or BBI toy lines (and see it as being quite feasable) I think 21c and BBi had better stick to simply making historically accurate vehicles, aircraft, and figures - and leave it at that.

[tmanthegreat]

Hate to double post, but this is a seperate thought.

Regarding comics having to do with WWII is this post in the off-topic forum:
viewtopic.php?t=5081

Guess one could just change the names of some of the Marines

[RED]

Hey y'all---I myself made a small book of the history of the 2nd Marine Division in WW2 for my buddy's kid who didn't like history!!!!!Alot of my Dio pics made up the book and I made up a story of the Marines (I gave them names and a little background info) and I didn't pull any punches!!!!The war in the Pacific was as bad as it gets and I tried to add that in with out over doing it--- because that is the truth of it!!!!!I think he will get enough of the watered down version later!!!His mama and daddy didn't mind cause it got him interested in history---not that it's my job to get kids to like WW2 Pacific War history--- but its nice to know that he has put down his IPOD and is asking how and why the war started and is doing some reading about the conflict!!!!I know alot of folks wont want their kids to see alot of dead Japs and a few dead Marines in a comic book and they will tell them that pineapple grenades dont hurt and a M-1 round won't zip you head open---But come on now!!!!It's the truth---I grew up in a time when cars had metal dashboards and you didn't have to wear a seat belt and I turned out just fine!!!!SORRY---But YES I would like to see a few 1:18 skinnies with AK's -- wearing BeeGee T-Shirts and a realistic cartoon/comic book-- but with the way things are today I don't see it happening!!!Someone might get there feelings hurt!!!!Thats my 2 cents!!!---RED---

[Ta-152]

The reason i buy 21st Century stuff is because of the love for the scale that GI Joe instilled in me. With Joe collectors, you'll usually find dislike for the true 1/18 scale vehicles ("too big", they whine) Of course, Hasbro says vehicles hardly sell these days, and that large ones are expensive. If 21st can get a 1/18 scale F-105 on wally world shelves for 40 bucks then Hasbro can certainly get something comprable done.

I get the best of both worlds, i get the fun of Joes ( 21st Century figures are nice, but the articulation doesn't cut it for me) with the huge scale vehicles.

And if suped up WWII fighters can work against jets in "Aces: Iron Eagle III", then dang it they can work for Cobra against Joe.

And next time i see a piece of heavy German armor you can bet i've got a crew of Cobras waiting for it.

[bird]

I too started my collection in the same fashion, starting off with 3/34 Star Wars, A-Team, Marvel Superheroes and then spotting Gi Joe for the first time around 84 or 85, when it came out in my country it was called Action Man, later they renamed it Gi Joe and I have a pretty decent collection of figs.

When I saw BBi and 21c products at an online store the "greatest wish" of my childhood - for there to be a realistic military line, was answered.
Plus there's a lot of choice, AT, 21C, BBi, and PTE.

So with that said another 'realistic' military line might not be a bad thing, infact it could help strengthen the 1:18 scale. As I tend to worry that one day they might not produce 1:18 no more, what then? Well, i might have to consider 1:32 afterall.
Another line also means more competition which is great for all of us, there's virtually endless lines of figs, vehicles and aircraft they could make, not to mention all things that float. It'd be great to see a LVT or LST, Japanese midget sub.

[Plastic Spastic]

When i was a kid I played with G.I. Joe (1982-1988ish) and I loved the stuff, especially the toys that were more realistic. I always wanted them to go more realistic and XD is what I wanted them to become. I wanted "XD with a story" as mentioned above, and as mentioned above, XD HAS a story, or rather several, in the form of different wars and nations.

G.I Joe had a story too, and here I mean the comic, not the horrendous, though still nostalgically beloved, cartoons. Like any serial enterprise, the toys and comics that made up the joe universe were often created, not because they were a good idea, but because a company needed new product. The stories in the comic, and their influence on the toys (and vice versa) sometimes rose above all that and became legitimately entertaining. As goofy as the Spytroops and Valor Vs Venom storylines were of late, I actually sensed some enthusiasm for the Joe toys again, waiting for the movies to come out, waiting for the toys to hit stores, even if I wasnt buying them. This was an enthusiasm for the story of Joe, as opposed to the cool and realistic BBI and 21st stuff that was coming out at the same time. Joe has the ability to take realistic military 1/18 scale and capture our imaginations with how it could be rather than how it is, and that is what both the WWII XD and the Joe toys share; a sense of detachment and romanticism about military toys. In film we love the stories that talk about our current society in detached terms, the western, the sci-fi, the period historical film. In our play, as adults or children, we look at how things could be or should be. WWII is commonly seen as an epic struggle of good versus evil, and in the fantasy world of Joe, we glimpse the return of totally unambiguous military activity, satisfying and clean, in a slightly futuristic setting. History may be repeating with Joe. War might be making it unpopular and may be shutting Joe down. Again. But the Joe shut down in the 70s and then again in the 90s might have less to do with military toys' unpopluarity than with the fact that the toys started to SUCK. They had done cool and non-stupid things and were running out of ideas so they turned to something new: non-cool and stupid things. A good rule of thumb is that in any era of Joe, when an alien appears, fonzie has just landed on the other side of the shark.

Getting 1/18 scale toys of contemporary military vehicles and personnel has been like pulling teeth, probably because, as mentioned above, it's not what parents want their kids playing with. And face it, if you're a child or young adult and you really dig the M-1A2 Abrams tank, hell don't play with a toy, wait a couple of years and I know an Army willing to hook you up with a real one!

Joe was about an unconventional force of very effective and charismatic military folks with cool vehicles and weapons who were put together not to fight conventionally, but against the sneaky wackos that might crop up on american soil. In the story, their lot in life was to fight a hissing all-american dad who turned being fed up into a terrorist organazation. When you think about the possiblity of a new Joe movie, a live action affair, they could do that horribly about a million different ways (yes, I am terrified of what desecration of the Transformers might be currently underway in the dubious hands of Michael Bay). There are some elements in the Joe story that could be made into a series of flms or a live action TV show that would establish Joe as the best action/intrigue/thriller/military and yes even romance ever made. The raw material is there.

And so it continues to be in the toys as well. When I was a kid, I made vehicles for Joe out of Legos. I took the military heores and equipped and housed them as I thought they should be in complement of the vehicles and playsets they already had. I may be the only person on earth who LOVED the Joe built to rule sets. I came out of toy retirement to make sure I bought every single set they made. As building toys they were not great, as Joe toys they were not that great, but I loved them because they had finally got it after 20 years; Joe is about what we wish military toys and to some extent reality were, more imaginative, more clean and surgical, more noble, and with the building toys, kids could imagine what Joe would do and how he would do it.

Now, I'm an architect by profession and an inventor and film maker after hours, so to a large extent I still play as an adult and I encourage the adults and children around me to do so as well.

Not everyone is so fortunate, but in the world of military toy collectors, it seems to me that there is a need for cool realistic toys and cool non-realistic toys. A kid playing with Joes might move on to XD and learn that there are incredible and true stories of tragedy, betrayal, victory and ingenuity in the real world of military history, and may make the word a better place for having taken that journey. Alternatively, some engineer may develop a new military vehicle that better protects its users and lessens the chance of innocent deaths because he played with Joe as a kid and was inspired to try something new in his work.

Joe is in flux. I can't stomach the fact that Sigma 6 is what Joe has become at this point. The toys are beautifully designed and each is a work of art, but as a representative of the Joe saga the line is just a travesty. After decades of horrible 12" Star Wars figures from Hasbro/Kenner, Sideshow has been handed the baton and is finally fairly close to what those toys should be like (the heads still seem too big to me). It's like someone took the banjo away from the mental patient who had been smashing it against his face all night and handed it to a bluegrass virtuoso. If Hasbro or someone better treated Joe and his devotees with a little more respect, they could produce some wonderful music.

So I think a 5th poll option should be available:
If someone made a cool, realistic yet imaginative military toyline, especially using the better elements of the Joe story, would you buy the toys AND the story.

Yes.

[VMF115]

I was not interested in the Idea at first but I might go along with it.
The Aircraft from author Dale Brown comes to mind, then you have the Movies, Stealth, and Fire Fox a book written by Craig Thomas.