Ever thought about that question? It's the Pulp Fiction debate. You can be an Elvis Presley fan. You can also be a fan of The Beatles. But you can never like them both equally. One must edge out the other.
Thanks Uma.
Two opinions jump out at me immediately. The first is our celebrated bastion of Joe news and reviews, Justin 'General Hawk' Bell, who maintains that his interest in the toys is primarily the figures and characters. He has also often expressed a love for new characters and uncelebrated ones such as his nichey favourite, Hit & Run. Vehicles have always been secondary for him. Contrast that with the opinion of Christopher AKA 'Sidewinder' from GI Joe Review Podcast who, if asked as a kid what his favourite GI Joe was, would promptly reply 'The Tomahawk'. He was not referring to a figure.
Not too long ago I stumbled onto an online poll which called for votes on the greatest A Real American Hero toys, hoping to distill a list of ten. Not a single figure made the list. While I can't vouch for the integrity of the poll or its reach, it does give some indication of a handful of fans' consensus about what constitutes a truly great toy. And can you blame them? When all's said and done, in spite of a wealth of varied accessories, paint designs, sculpting and supporting literature, each 3 3/4 inch o-ring figure is much the same as the next in construction and features. The vehicles however were as eclectic and as fantastical (or realistic) as you could get.
The question most of us were plagued with after encountering the modern era figures concerned their backwards compatibility with the vehicles. The earliest reviews all gave size comparisons with the old figures, indicating a height increase to approximately four inches. The foot and back holes where of reduced size, on some figures back holes were altogether absent. Hip articulation was somewhat restricted. So the fans were quickly flung into a panic - sure, the figures look great, but will they be able to ride in a vintage VAMP?
Realizing their error, Hasbro made mold adjustments to a number of re-released vehicles to better accommodate their new offspring. Of course they were never going to refurbish and re-release 12 years worth of vehicles mind you. So the rest of our vintage motorpool went through an awkward phase of round peg; square hole. Let's face it, for all the triumphs of our new Joes, looking comfortable in oldskool vehicles ain't one.
Waitaminute! Tangent alert! Wasn't this an article about which camp I subscribe to? Vehicles or figures? How did I get onto bashing modern Joes? Well, let me join the dots...
I'm a vehicle guy. I had a collection of about four Joes before I had my first set of 'wheels'. It was a Tiger Paw. Then it was the Pulverizer. Then the WOLF. While the figure collection grew and grew, my idea of a good time (other than duking it out with my Ninja Force figures), was loading up a BUGG and a Warthog and waging armoured warfare over my parents generous expanse of lawn. Don't get me wrong, I loved the figures. GI Joe was very optimally scaled to have a slew of vehicles but also for the lowest common denominator (the figures) to be large enough to be fun on their own. As such, the figures got a lot of love. But they got even more love as the crew of a jeep or tank or plane. I guess the play pattern just multiplied exponentially because those vehicles were always built for action. Why do you think every single item of box art portraying vehicles has absolutely every weapon and salvo of ordinance firing? The vehicles just ramped up the violence to Defcon 3!
My love for the vehicles is so great, it is solely responsible for driving a wedge between me and the modern construction of Joe. These newbies are not and can never be substitutes for my original figures. They will never look as good in the vehicles. Sometimes they'll look downright awful. And even the valiant efforts at reviving the old Skystriker and Tomahawk are failures in my eyes. The originals were scaled to a certain size of figure and that was the maximum scale 'cheating' that could occur without the vehicle proportions starting to stink. We can see stinky proportions later on in the line with the Liquidator and Storm Eagle jets which were undersized planes with disproportionate cockpits in order to accommodate a pilot.
Hell, the Battle Force 2000's Vector had similarly comical proportions. With the revised 'Striker and 'Hawk, we have a situation that feels forced. The interiors are redone to better accommodate newbies, but always at a cost. We lost the rear seat on the Skystriker, and the remaining seat has the included pilot in a reclined position. I hate that. The forthcoming Eaglehawk maintains the dual cockpit but the pilots really do appear to be knocking elbows. Don't get me wrong, the re-tooling is commendable. The floor appears to be sunken, the designers have eked out as much space as they possibly could have to cram the current figures in and still produce a toy that will seamlessly fit in with the vintage Tomahawk. But it still seems forced.
Having answered whether I'm a vehicle guy or a figure guy already, all that remains is to conclude my view on the modern sculpt era and its awkward juxtaposition with the established stable of classic vehicles. We see so much effort expended in re-doing the old vehicles, the far simpler solution seems to have evaded the manufacturers all along - make figures that fit. They say hindsight is 20/20. Perhaps if they knew what they know now about the fanbase's rampant love for the classic vehicles, they would have produced smaller no-ring figures with the classic back- and footpeg dimensions. Maybe they expected the 25th anniversary style to have lived and died as a commemorative footnote in Joe history, and not gone on to completely replace the o-ring brigade. It always seemed strange to me that they would commemorate GI Joe A Real American Hero's 25th birthday with a line of figures that completely ignored the greatest strength of that line - compatibility. Perhaps the no-ring era should have remained an oddity. It didn't, of course.
If I am to speculate on the future of Joe, based on my continual return to loving the o-ring figures more than everything else, we will see a return to o-ring scaling with modern era proportions, construction and features. Yes friends, the time may come again when we are made to re-collect all the characters we hold so dear to our hearts, just as we did in the 25th and 30th anniversary revolution. Hell, we do it already. Practically every wave has a replacement for last wave's Duke, Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow. But that HiSS you have from 1983 will keep looking sweeter and sweeter... Your old HQ will never need a replacement... The WHALE will never be topped by a later release... You can always count on the vehicles to stand the test of time.
I'm a vehicle guy.
Thanks Uma.
Two opinions jump out at me immediately. The first is our celebrated bastion of Joe news and reviews, Justin 'General Hawk' Bell, who maintains that his interest in the toys is primarily the figures and characters. He has also often expressed a love for new characters and uncelebrated ones such as his nichey favourite, Hit & Run. Vehicles have always been secondary for him. Contrast that with the opinion of Christopher AKA 'Sidewinder' from GI Joe Review Podcast who, if asked as a kid what his favourite GI Joe was, would promptly reply 'The Tomahawk'. He was not referring to a figure.
Not too long ago I stumbled onto an online poll which called for votes on the greatest A Real American Hero toys, hoping to distill a list of ten. Not a single figure made the list. While I can't vouch for the integrity of the poll or its reach, it does give some indication of a handful of fans' consensus about what constitutes a truly great toy. And can you blame them? When all's said and done, in spite of a wealth of varied accessories, paint designs, sculpting and supporting literature, each 3 3/4 inch o-ring figure is much the same as the next in construction and features. The vehicles however were as eclectic and as fantastical (or realistic) as you could get.
The question most of us were plagued with after encountering the modern era figures concerned their backwards compatibility with the vehicles. The earliest reviews all gave size comparisons with the old figures, indicating a height increase to approximately four inches. The foot and back holes where of reduced size, on some figures back holes were altogether absent. Hip articulation was somewhat restricted. So the fans were quickly flung into a panic - sure, the figures look great, but will they be able to ride in a vintage VAMP?
Realizing their error, Hasbro made mold adjustments to a number of re-released vehicles to better accommodate their new offspring. Of course they were never going to refurbish and re-release 12 years worth of vehicles mind you. So the rest of our vintage motorpool went through an awkward phase of round peg; square hole. Let's face it, for all the triumphs of our new Joes, looking comfortable in oldskool vehicles ain't one.
Waitaminute! Tangent alert! Wasn't this an article about which camp I subscribe to? Vehicles or figures? How did I get onto bashing modern Joes? Well, let me join the dots...
I'm a vehicle guy. I had a collection of about four Joes before I had my first set of 'wheels'. It was a Tiger Paw. Then it was the Pulverizer. Then the WOLF. While the figure collection grew and grew, my idea of a good time (other than duking it out with my Ninja Force figures), was loading up a BUGG and a Warthog and waging armoured warfare over my parents generous expanse of lawn. Don't get me wrong, I loved the figures. GI Joe was very optimally scaled to have a slew of vehicles but also for the lowest common denominator (the figures) to be large enough to be fun on their own. As such, the figures got a lot of love. But they got even more love as the crew of a jeep or tank or plane. I guess the play pattern just multiplied exponentially because those vehicles were always built for action. Why do you think every single item of box art portraying vehicles has absolutely every weapon and salvo of ordinance firing? The vehicles just ramped up the violence to Defcon 3!
My love for the vehicles is so great, it is solely responsible for driving a wedge between me and the modern construction of Joe. These newbies are not and can never be substitutes for my original figures. They will never look as good in the vehicles. Sometimes they'll look downright awful. And even the valiant efforts at reviving the old Skystriker and Tomahawk are failures in my eyes. The originals were scaled to a certain size of figure and that was the maximum scale 'cheating' that could occur without the vehicle proportions starting to stink. We can see stinky proportions later on in the line with the Liquidator and Storm Eagle jets which were undersized planes with disproportionate cockpits in order to accommodate a pilot.
Hell, the Battle Force 2000's Vector had similarly comical proportions. With the revised 'Striker and 'Hawk, we have a situation that feels forced. The interiors are redone to better accommodate newbies, but always at a cost. We lost the rear seat on the Skystriker, and the remaining seat has the included pilot in a reclined position. I hate that. The forthcoming Eaglehawk maintains the dual cockpit but the pilots really do appear to be knocking elbows. Don't get me wrong, the re-tooling is commendable. The floor appears to be sunken, the designers have eked out as much space as they possibly could have to cram the current figures in and still produce a toy that will seamlessly fit in with the vintage Tomahawk. But it still seems forced.
Having answered whether I'm a vehicle guy or a figure guy already, all that remains is to conclude my view on the modern sculpt era and its awkward juxtaposition with the established stable of classic vehicles. We see so much effort expended in re-doing the old vehicles, the far simpler solution seems to have evaded the manufacturers all along - make figures that fit. They say hindsight is 20/20. Perhaps if they knew what they know now about the fanbase's rampant love for the classic vehicles, they would have produced smaller no-ring figures with the classic back- and footpeg dimensions. Maybe they expected the 25th anniversary style to have lived and died as a commemorative footnote in Joe history, and not gone on to completely replace the o-ring brigade. It always seemed strange to me that they would commemorate GI Joe A Real American Hero's 25th birthday with a line of figures that completely ignored the greatest strength of that line - compatibility. Perhaps the no-ring era should have remained an oddity. It didn't, of course.
If I am to speculate on the future of Joe, based on my continual return to loving the o-ring figures more than everything else, we will see a return to o-ring scaling with modern era proportions, construction and features. Yes friends, the time may come again when we are made to re-collect all the characters we hold so dear to our hearts, just as we did in the 25th and 30th anniversary revolution. Hell, we do it already. Practically every wave has a replacement for last wave's Duke, Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow. But that HiSS you have from 1983 will keep looking sweeter and sweeter... Your old HQ will never need a replacement... The WHALE will never be topped by a later release... You can always count on the vehicles to stand the test of time.
I'm a vehicle guy.
Yeah, wishful thinking on the return to o-ring figures. They required much more tooling and manufacturing to make them, including the expense of fitting each figure with at least one screw, and the finicky installation of the o-ring itself.
ReplyDelete25th Anniversary construction is here to stay. Kids don't care about proportions, they are just happy to have a cool vehicle to stick their figures in. And I think retooling old figures is probably much cheaper than designing a completely new vehicle.
As to figure/vehicle man, I don't have a definitive answer yet. If I had to choose I'd probably say figures edge out vehicles for me.
Couldn't agree more. Modern Era construction is certainly here to stay. I can't dispute its superiority to o-ring construction. I do of course wish the figures were more backwards compatible. And while the odds are against it, it would be a shrewd move on Hasbro's part to make us re-collect the same characters and designs just to have them able to take a seat on a Terrordrome.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe it was their intention for us die-hards to drill out our toys' back holes.