InspectorZartan

Do we know if the NECA web store sale will include the Raph/Casey movie 2-pack?

Not for me, but they look nice

I presume they had to ask at some point and the answer was either a flat no or a price too high to be justified.

I don’t collect the full line but I tend to pick up all the SDCC ones. In part because I’ve been going to SDCC for over 20 years and that show plays a major roll in my evolution as a toy collector. For several years (throughout college and in the early years of my post college career in film) I couldn’t afford to actively collect year round so literally my one treat for myself was going to SDCC each year and picking up a couple of items/souvenirs for myself. Then when I did end up deciding to start to really collect toys more regularly back in 2007 that decision started at that year’s SDCC as I was standing in line at the Hasbro booth and expanded even more the following year looking at things coming in the Mattel booth. By SDCC 2009 I was all in on more lines than I would have ever expected. So SDCC has always played a major roll in the formation of my collection and has been sort of a Christmas in July Event for me where I sort of over do it and branch out into some areas I normally wouldn’t. This year is obviously a little different with there being no physical convention to attend but still I think I’ll pick this one up.

So in the middle of a pandemic where for the health and safety of everyone we are being encouraged (and in some regions instructed) to stay at home and avoid unnecessary trips out the decision is made that these products will not be available online and the only way to find them is for the customer to make a physical trip to the stores to look for them. Add to that the fact that these things are so poorly stocked and so poorly distributed that it is likely to take multiple (ie daily) trips to multiple stores to actively hunt specifically for these things and even then the odds are extremely stacked against you finding them. Really??? Pandemic or not the closest Walmart store to me in Los Angeles is over an hour away one direction In traffic so no way would I be spending 2 to 3 hours round trip each time hunting for these things particularly when there is such an extremely low low low probability of me actually finding them and an extremely likely probability that each attempt would be a wasted 2 hour effort. So the second you say “physical Walmart stores only” I know that I am out on this TMNT movie line. And in addition to that I’m probably out on the Animated line too because despite the fact that pre-pandemic I was often checking multiple Target stores daily I not once came across Bebop and Rocksteady. But now in the middle of the pandemic that’s not happening any more and now I’ve literally only been in a physical Target store twice since this whole thing began in March. Thus finding these “in stores only” has gone from very unlikely to nearly impossible. So despite the fact that this was the line I was most excited about coming out of NYTF it appears as a result of this decision I am out. I’m not sure where this decision to make it not have any online availability came from (is this a NECA call or a Walmart call?) but either way it would be a terrible call under ANY circumstances even at the best of times. It is a call that is worsened by the fact that these things are so poorly distributed across Walmart’s. But worst of all add to that the fact that this call is coming in the middle of a health crisis where the mission statement is to avoid unnecessary trips into public venues and there has been a huge amount of social and economic suffering and sacrifice committed and enforced in an effort to prevent people from over exposing themselves in public places—and still in the middle of all of that the call is made of “physical Walmart stores only”??? Under these circumstances it is not only terrible call it is arguably extremely irresponsible, and really illustrates a strong disconnect and a strong lack of consideration and concern between a company and its customers.

Looks like even though it will probably cost $15-20 more between the mark up and shipping I’ll be ordering this from the NECA store. Hopefully all the exclusives they can sell there will go live at the same time so I can save a little on shipping.

Is that last picture on the back of the box? It’s pretty sweet but I don’t see it on the packaging anywhere.

Pretty neat. I’m not a Lego collector and don’t have wall space for things like this so I won’t be getting it but it is a good idea. Outside of an occasional free SDCC giveaway or something along those lines the only Legos I have are from my childhood (The space station set). These have been sitting in my closet but just the other week I decided I should pull them out and find space for them in my new toy rooms configuration. So about a week ago I went through them as well as some other builder sets I had as a kid (Construx, and a Non brand international medieval castle brick set) and constructed them for the first time in decades. It was fun, and now I have a lego/brick shelf included in one of my toy rooms

I think this problem has more to do with Walmart than what it has to do with Mattel. That’s not to say there isn’t things Mattel could probably do to better help Walmart do a better job with these things but at the end of the day Walmart’s distribution problems have a lot more to do with the internal workings of the Walmart system and their own lack of understanding about the actual products they sell.

When they do in fact let the trademark expire and someone else picks it up that means they won’t be able to use that trademark again until the party who picks it up let’s it also let’s it expire. There are ways around this like simply changing the characters name to something else that doesn’t violate the other parties trademark but what this likely means is either we won’t see Steel Brigade from Hasbro for awhile or when it does come out the figure will be called something else.

Are they planning on doing all of their exclusives through big box retailers instead of their own website or is it just the turtles they are doing this way?

So normally shared exclusives means they are shared between these stores and the physical convention booth at SDCC. It also means when you buy them at that booth they come with a more limited SDCC Logo sticker on the box while the ones at these stores come with a more common “summer convention“ sticker. So my questions are a) since there is no booth this year who exactly are these “Shared” retail exclusives being shared with this year? b) will there be a 2020 SDCC logo sticker available for any of these?

Not something I’m into as a brand enough to collect but they look great.

I agree. I want both, but if I had to choose in this case I’d choose NECA, but since the availability of NECA isn’t there this may be my only option. As far as scale goes having seen the prototypes in person at events like Power-Con these should scale nicely with your other 6” lines. All the Ultimates are hitting that 6”ish mark

Amen. Those figures need to get back out there again before I can get excited about any of these.