All the DML, Soldier Story etc ARE modern quality remakes of Action Men!

CHEERS!

 

Great post. Adventurers, divers, jungle explorers and French Foreign Legion? That would work for me. At Joelanta I was amazed by the diversity of these kinds of figures. I did buy the "Panama Joe" jungle exporer special set they had. Just haven't found a headsculpt to go with it yet. I feel the hobby is getting a little stale just for the reasons you mentioned. We seem to have WW2 or iraq figures.

 

I think it could work but if they were aimed at the same target audience as the original line then the price point would have to be reasonable. If the figures came in at around $20 it might be successful. Lower would be better and more likely to succeed. The figures and playsets that M&C Toys produces in the Power Team line are good examples of the quality that can be had for a budget price. I'd certainly be up for a classic style (like in movies from the 30's) African big game hunter.

 

I'd certainly be up for a classic style (like in movies from the 30's) African big game hunter.

That's exactly the kind of thing I'm after. You can kind of get the look with Japanese officer's boots (I've lined up the Newline set for mine) and the trousers from DiD's John Colman- but I'd really love some big game hunter weapons to go with it.

 

Jay.mac:
yup. In Spain, Bizak- the new owners of Gyperman(the Spanish versionof th fuzz head gi joes) put out a few contemporary Spanish soldiers and the Guardia civil. The figures proved immensly popular.

xavier

 

I think so. Hasbro is already kind of doing it with their convention exclusives. The past few years have seen rebooted Adventure Team themes from the '70s redone using their super-articulated bodies with retooled vintage fuzzy heads that work on the new neck post designs. Too bad they've only done it for the show exclusives. I'm sure they could extend this a step further and have a modern line of ocean explorers, jungle explorers, space explorers, etc. They could maybe tweak the accessories to give them a more updated look or even go all the way like they did with the Dreams and Visions crew cut figures, and have an Adventure Team line but with the SA (not retro) body, retro style fuzzy heads, and high end / museum uniforms and gear.

 

Originally Posted by Scimitar :
"I'd certainly be up for a classic style (like in movies from the 30's) African big game hunter."

Yeah--I'd love to see Dragon or BBi launch off into something like that--an alternitive to war
themes--and something depicting a time when parts of the globe were still uncharted-shrouded in mystery, and appealing to men of action..Someone who might run into Indiana Jones in their travels..

 

Oooh. I like that idea, too. I remember watching "Up" very recently and really digging the Charles Muntz character, flying to parts unknown in his airship museum fortress to discover lost animals and people. Such a great look and so many possibilities.

 

Even though he was a quack, I would like to see figures like this.

 

no

 

Agreed. Id be interested , but i dont think it would work. Some high quality blue collar figures would be great too, i still look for a pair of pants like those:

for a mini me. i know there are some made of jeans material/denim, but i need cotton ones :/ and fairly wide cut =D

 

Great question, I would dearly love to see some of the companies try some more dress uniforms, and i mean a LOT more accurate than the DML coldstream Guard.
Action man really had some fantastic dress type uniforms, some of which were very close to being exact miniatures.
The dress Marine for example, the Blues and Royals and Lifeguard on ceremonial horses, the hussar, Lancer and Argyll.
If they would even try a set of modern No2 jacket and trousers FFS!!!

I am quite sure there are plenty of 1/6th modellers , who would love to see more in the way of astronauts, deep sea divers, sailors, modern Policemen etc etc etc.

I wish we had Bob brechin working for some of the major companies now. :thumb

I believe this line of figure, could quite easily run along side the run of countless same old, same old. (although i love some of this too) :thumb


Neil.

 

Great question, I would dearly love to see some of the companies try some more dress uniforms, and i mean a LOT more accurate than the DML coldstream Guard.
Action man really had some fantastic dress type uniforms, some of which were very close to being exact miniatures.
The dress Marine for example, the Blues and Royals and Lifeguard on ceremonial horses, the hussar, Lancer and Argyll.
If they would even try a set of modern No2 jacket and trousers FFS!!!

I'd love to see Barrack Sergeant tackle British dress uniforms. Their recent sets have been phenomenal.

I think that some sets- like hiker, mountain climber, etc- would have some cross over appeal anyway; PMC bashes for example. Of all the manufacturers around I'd say that DiD would be most likely to tackle something like this, what with their Napoleonic and British Empire figures.

 

......and i bet a modern re-run of the old Action man Landrover, Ferret, saracen and Scorpion would be quite welcome too.




Neil.

 

Like a 1970's Brit Para in lightweights, smock, SLR, 58 webbing and red beret, I had that when i was a kid.

 

A lot of different pressures helped to kill off actionman in the 70's. The major oil crisis forced a rethink on size of toys and transportation costs. The Star Wars effect saw kids move away from earth-bound Military themes and the rise of the PC brigade meant that military-themed toys as popular as Actionman were always going to attract the whinning brigade. None of these things have gone away today, in fact they've gotten much worse and once again the price of oil is beginning to climb, it's no where near as high as it got last year but it is climbing and they're talking about an equilibrium price of $90 a barrel. Which may not mean much to you til you realise that $20 - $40 was it's usual spread for a long time. No more, the days of cheap oil are gone and gone with them are large plastic toys. They use too much oil in production and transportation costs. Similarly the Walmart's of the world do not like to stock these larger items as they take up shelf space for very little return, and tend to move slowly, and eventually get blown-out at ridiculous prices.

The market has changed drastically in the intervening years also. When I was a kid my Actionman was my whole world, but then the the whole culture around me celebrated the glory of WWII. My comics were all WWII themed, Biggles books were pushed on me at School, TV was full of WWII themed programs and my Dad and my Uncles had all served in WWII. My parents house was full of old British Army kit. We used a GS shovel in the garden, old Ammo boxes doubled as toolboxes, there was for the longest time a set of brace extenders in the junk drawer in the family kitchen. In fact my whole family tree is a history of the British Army so intertwined are we. Yet with my generation that has all come crashing to an end, there were no wars of glory to fight and the mood of the nation changed post WWII. My children have no connection to the military. I have three boys, (aged 11, 8 and 3) and whilst they do have a lot of 21st Century figures, and vehicles to go with them, they rarely play with them. Star Wars is still a big pull for them and the Star Wars figures from Sideshow are more important to them than the 21st figs which can actually be taken down played with. There's too much demand of their free time from DS, PSP's, Wii's or any other games console you can think to name and these things give much better feedback than a plastic doll that needs to be dressed and won't stand where you put him and needs to be hit by a well aimmed pebble to make him fall over when he's been shot. Meanwhile in games console world things move, shoot and blow up with the touch of a button and you don't have to crawl round in the dirt, incurring the wrath of your Mum, to achieve that effect.

The mass market for this stuff is gone and it's not coming back anytime soon. We have seen in the last year a complete reset in the manufacturing of these figures; DML once the market leader is now sadly a poor imitator of it's own glory days, bbi got out a long time ago because they, as a huge toy conglomerate, realised that there was no real market for this stuff and that the R&D dollar was not generating enough return to justify it's spend. DiD have slowed down on their release schedules and their Napoleonic line hasn't had a new announcement in such a long time that I doubt we'll see another one this year. The popular end of the market is the movie tie-ins and the perenial Germans / Airborne figures. Outside of that in you're into the niche market of an ever-diminishing niche-market. In the longer term this hobby is doomed it's had it's high water mark already, and it's brief rennaissance, now it's winding down. This is very much a niche hobby, mostly colonised by middle-aged men looking to recapture their childhoods. As we die off so will the hobby because there just isn't the groundswell of support for it amongst the kids anymore. The good news is that in about 5 years it will be nigh impossible to find anything at all and that's when everything you own will start to command high prices again for a very brief period.

So as the first answer to this thread has already pointed out, we've already had the modern quality remake of the old Action Figure line and it's now dying out on the pressures of the economy and an ever-diminishing market place. Enjoy what you got now, and make the best of it, because the pronosis for the future is not good I'm afraid.

 

Good points well made,

It's always the way for me, I get into something when everyone else is getting out. I got into bands when they'd stopped touring, got into DTP as everyone moved to web design and I got into decent affordable 1/6th just when it went up and the market disappeared!

I want to grab what I can when I can but my wallet may not take that kind of abuse

CHEERS!

 

Are you forgetting about the Modern Action Man line from the 1990-2000s?

 

god I hate the remade action men figures, they look so inferior when sitting on a shelf next to modern figures.
I know they are meant to look that way and I had loads of them as a kid but I just can't get my head around the very bright cheap looking gear they wear. Surely there can be a compromise of good gear on the retro body then people would buy them for the clothes/weapons sets.

 

I assume you mean the 40th Anniversary sets and not the '90s superhero version of him. (I can't even go there.) I respect where you're coming from. You can't put these things up against something that's really a 1:6 model kit (posable or not) and expect them to compete in that niche. They're not models. They were made as very cool toys, and made to look as realistic as they could while still being rugged enough for hard play. (The real best toy soldier ever made.) Because they were as cool as they were they became collectible and highly sought after to those who played with them as kids. I grabbed a dozen of the 40th Anniversary figures and I love them ... but as my favorite toy of all time. The exception to that is my Dreams & Visions WWII Tank Commander from a few years back. He's the only WWII figure I own and IMHO that uniform and the lace up boots were as good as anything put out at that time. I still think that figure holds his own. Too bad Hasbro and Dreams & Visions didn't continue the concept past the initial four they did ...

 

I'm just happy to be able to get the 40th Anniversary remake stuff of all the great Palitoy sets from the 60's and 70's that I grew up with. Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to get he reissue deep sea diver but I did get the Astronaut, Blues and Royal and Argylls sets.
Cheers
Al

 

The vintage action man and joes were targeted mainly for the children's market, therefore production were higher and a wider variety to cater to different audience internationally.

They had to be mass produced, with parts that passes safety standards and cheap.

Majority of the 1/6 manufacturers these days aims at adult collectors and it's a pretty niche market. And these companies are very small in scale as compared to giants like Hasbro (then Kenner). So I doubt they will really take the risk of venturing out of the safe zone, making products that they can't sell or ain't going to get as popular compared to others.

Well, those that do take the risk, and put out superb products, eventually grows big & prosperous....

My 2cents...

 

i think it would work, especially if they mixed in some new parts, designs, and themes.