Thick As A Brick

[UPDATE 1/31/13] Horribly sad, long story short: The Blind Ferret Server got SUPER hacked and all their sites went down, including my store. Most are still down. Every day the store is down I get closer to not having enough money to pay my bills this month. Therefor I have created a temporary PRINT SHOP when you can get my BRAND NEW “TESLA UNCOILED” print as well any many of my most popular large prints.

tesla-uncoiled-print-small

You can also still get all kids of fancy fine shirts from Sharksplode.

I did a two part interview with the United We Geek podcast. You can listen to part 1 right here and part 2 over here. We talk a lot about the origins of the comic, The Experiment, what a “creative community” really is and then I go off on Star Wars for like half an hour. It’s good fun.

More and more super secretive movies are getting spoiled by toy releases. Back when Amazing Spider-Man was double secret hush hush, and none was supposed to know what The Lizard looked like all these pictures of the toys surfaced months in advanced and spoiled the fact that The Lizard looked really stupid. If they only had spoiled that the movie wasn’t very good, I could have saved $18.

The one toy line you can NEVER trust to accurately spoil a movie is Batman. Regardless of the particular sub-franchise, Batman toys always have like 100 different suits that aren’t in the movies. I was not surprised when “Arctic Mission” Batman didn’t show up to battle Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.

COMMENTERS: What was your favorite all time movie tie in toy? I had some weird ones that I was oddly fond of. I had a Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves Kevin Kostner figure with real firing bow and arrow that I loved, and I’m pretty sure I had some Hook action figures too. Bang-a-rang, indeed.

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41 Comments

    • I had a friend that had that. I dont think ive ever envied anything more. I did, however, have the Ninja Turtles 2 movie tie in figures and they also had that rubber skin. They were super realistic and much more fun to play with than the hard plastic ones.

  2. I have fond memories of Luke and Han in Stormtrooper costume action figures that, I believe, were available in a cereal box of some sort right around the release of the Special Editions. Straight up Action Figures, just like the ones you'd beg your parents to spend $8 on (sans fancy packaging of course), for the low low price of a box of cereal.

    If I'm correct on all these counts, I believe they qualify as the only non-terrible thing to come out of the Special Editions.

  3. I remember getting an action figure from the SPAWN movie, with all the insane amount of guns and chains and blades hanging off him. I hadn't even seen the movie, but it was bad-ass enough to not matter.

    My brother and I mostly had all the TMNT and Batman action figures with all their zany accessories, but of the actual movie tie-ins the Dick Grayson/Robin from the most questionable Batman movie of all time was actually a favourite of mine. It was the acrobat Dick Grayson that changed into his Robin costume when you put him in the fridge…

    • Several years ago, my now-wife's roommate was a massive Batman fan, and someone gave her the Adam West/Burt Ward feature film. We all watched it.
      THAT was pretty questionable.

  4. Interesting little fact about the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves toyline. That tree home playset was a redo of the Ewok village.

  7. Yep, I'm pretty sure you're factually incorrect about Amazing Spiderman. 😉 It was all the things I kept hoping Raimi's would be, but that Raimi's never managed to be.

    Namely, witty, irreverent, and with a romantic lead that actually wanted to be playing the role.

    Anyway, favorite toy tie-in ever. That – that is a difficult question. My dad manages a comic book store, so I get a lot of weird promotional movie tie-ins. Saw 4 dental floss. Rambo nerf footballs. (The ferret is busily destroying one of those as I type.)

    I'm going to go with the Cobra operative action figures from GI Joe. I mean. Any action figure named "Barbecue" is an action figure I'm a fan of.

    • "It was all the things I kept hoping Raimi's would be, but that Raimi's never managed to be. "

      If Raimi's movies had never existed it would have been just fine. Considering half the movie was wasted retelling an origin that THE ENTIRE WORLD already knows means it was just a wasted opportunity.

      • I kinda agree with that. They should have done it like they did a lot of the heroes in the New 52 from DC. They introduce the characters but expect the reader to be at least a little familiar with the characters. And I will say, I think Raimi made a better movie(at least with 1 and 2), but Andrew Garfield is a better Spiderman.

        • THIS! Am I the only person that finds Tobey Maguire a bit intense & creepy to be Spiderman?

          Love Andrew Garfield!

      • Although I felt like they, mercifully, moved pretty briskly through it. They didn't spend an hour showing every detail, waiting for us to gasp "He can climb WALLS?!"

      • Are you going to say the same thing about Krypton blowing up? 😛 Raimi's spiderman films were nearly 10 years earlier and screwed up enough details that it was totally wrong. Sure, they could have had a few quick flashes in the opening credits like Incredible Hulk, but then you don't get any feeling whatsoever for what Pete was like before the bite, or his relationship with his family.

        • If his family don't re-occur then it would be dead screen time anyway.
          I just hope they didn't spend every 10 minutes having drama/angst attacks about his family and how much he misses them/how he wronged them like they do in so many movies/shows/modern books.

          After yeah, we can guess he had family, we can pretty much guess he misses them, and while a single drama piece might be in order we don't need to be shown it over and over – we can pretty much "get" that he'll miss them. Far better to use the screen time to move the story with elements actually relevant to this story.

      • I'm pretty sure THE ENTIRE WORLD already knew that origin story when Raimi did it, too. It's effectively a new franchise. There's no reason not to include the origin, and many reasons TO include it, and they kept it fairly brief.

        Was it too soon to reboot? Maybe, I'd entertain that argument.

        That was a business decision made by people with a vested interest in producing a movie every X years, so they can keep the Spiderman license in perpetuity. I don't think it detracts from how generally good the movie was on its own merits; it just means it perhaps hit an oversaturated audience.

  8. I was all about my original Yoda Star Wars Action figures. I liked Yoda so much that I ended up with 13 of them. I created a colony of Yodas and they traveled the galaxy having adventures. Oh the fun…

  10. Space Godzilla. With the motion activated sound.

    You have no idea how many cats I scared the crap out of with that. Hilarious every time.

  11. I think my favorite was the my Benny the Cab on stilt wheels from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Also loved the Autobot City playset from the original Transformers movie.

    • Wasn't Autobot City Metroplex, one of the Autobots that turn into buildings? I don't remember every detail of that movie.

      • $ problems, you have the answer staring you in the face ……Beer Fast

        Design it, patent it, you have the most important ingredients already in your design its even on your label, Beer and Egg add counter hangover (alchoholism induced vitamin deficiency) vitamins and you're there.

        I think one of the recipes was pint of Stout one raw egg and Worchestershire Sauce to taste.

        Now the raw egg may be problematic (hey powdered egg is super easy), but, there is a whole world or joy out there for your exploration.

        Anogther reciped was for a hearty winter pick me up, a pint of stout and the juices pressed from a whole Cockerel (I presume cooked, but, hey, this is eighteenth century Pomgolia we are talking here) warmed by a red hot blade, by chance do you know any Medievalist Geeks? hey ask them.

        Lets face it how many times have you spewed after too much to drink (can't have been too much it tasted good going down and I stopped so it must have been just right), or, was it that you failed to note it was the right amount to drink followed by some disgusting late night semi coagultated, reconstituted fried muck, that your stomach righteously ejected. Would you have even eaten that muck if you had a decent drinking mans alternative? Would Eli-you even have left the bar? I ask you, in fact ask yourself, search you heart Luke you know it to be …..

        PS. the beer will probably have to be Ale or Stout, this is not a job for Lager.
        PPS. the vitamin Bs vitamins B6, B12 and Bacon.

  13. Tie between the Kraken from the original Clash of the Titans and the xenomorph from Alien. I got them the same Christmas. Xenomorph probably wins for giving my sisters nightmares.
    The Indiana Jones action figures from Raiders of the Lost Ark were cool too. I had a Zorro that was Dr. Jones with a reprint and a mask.

  14. I remember one Christmas when I was about 10, I got a big box full of Star Wars action figures. I didn't realize who a lot of the characters were at the time because I wasn't that observant at 10 but loved Star Wars. Pretty sure I had them go on adventures that would make no sense given who the characters were, but that's what kids do I guess. Not sure where all of em are now, but if I ever find them they'll probably get a little shrine on my book shelves.

  15. I didn't get a lot of action figures growing up, being a lady and all, but I do so love my LOTR toys. I had already graduated from high school when those movies came out and I spent a lot of my hard-earned cash on getting the entire Fellowship in those. Man, they were awesome.

  16. When I was 8 or 9, I got the most awesome toys ever. An X-Wing fighter and a Colonial Viper (with shooting missile!). I remember many hours of dogfights between the two. Sadly, I can't remember whatever happened to them.

  17. I never got much in terms of movie tie in figures, so I'm gonna have to pop in a TV tie in as a second choice here. All of my ZOIDS. Especially my two Kotobukiya HMM models. They are so detailed that my command wolf stabbed a hole in my thumb because the teeth were just that sharp. 🙂 Still trying to get my hands on the good Liger Zero and the Anniversary Blade Liger. Maybe one day I will even have the Deathsaurer! A girl can dream.

  18. One Christmas I got the entire set of Captain Power action figures at once. It was awesome.
    Later, living with a sequence of, say, 30-40 of my male peers over a few years in college, I began to suspect that there never was such a thing as Captain Power and I imagined the whole thing. No one remembered it AT ALL.
    (No, not Captain Planet, you disgusting hippies.)

    Edit: Of course now, taking another look at the prompt, I realize that these were not, in fact "movie tie-in" toys. Fail.

    • I remember that series – Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future – a TV series based off of those light-phaser type toys but actually surpassed the normal crap that was being fed to kids and parents. Too bad the marketing types once again in their stupidity killed something good through their own ineptness.

      As for Captain Planet – Even with sugar induced near coma that show was at best ripe for mystery science theater type overdubbing … so so so so bad.

  19. Hey Joel, I just tried going on to the H-E site, and google popped up a malware alert (I'm using Chrome). I don't know if anything is wrong, but I figured you should know.

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