Posted by: @theknightdamien

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It's still entirely and completely Brian's fault that he apparently doesn't personally open or handle the Ultimates products that his company produces.

Let me play Devil's Advocate. Maybe it's not Brian's fault in the least. Maybe it's the combined faults of:

• The sculptors (that he hired)
• The licensors (that he licensed from)
• The factories (that he contracted with)
• The shipping companies (that he contracted with)
• The month-long national holiday of the country (that he contracted with factories in)
• Global oil prices going up
• GITD powder prices going up
• Customers who dont understand how to collect properly
• Customers who don't preorder direct from S7 in spite of having to prepay in full in advance, taking a risk of the product never getting delivered, overpaying on price, overpaying on shipping, and getting the figures last compared to buying from dealers.

@theknightdamien I can totally see him being surrounded by a bunch of "Yes Men/Women" when it comes to their business. I don't watch every Super7 interview that pops up, but when I do I'm almost impressed at how well everyone seems to echo the company line when it comes to their products. I guess they do a good job at messaging, but when I see Kyle from Super7 on an interview and he has a whole bunch of other products behind him in his cabinets and I just can't understand how someone who clearly collects, and opens, other figures could look at some of this stuff and be okay with it. He oversees Power Rangers and that first wave was a QC nightmare. I think I've seen more Goldar's break on camera than any other figure ever.

I don't even know of any more critical reviewers that still review Super7 product. It seems whenever they get a new license there's a new fanbase exposed to them that gets all amped up, and then that first wave drops with resounding disappointment in many places. It seemed like Pixel Dan was veering into a more critical slant with Wave 5 of TMNT, but rather than continue to criticize the product, it seems like he just stopped reviewing them instead. And like you said, none of them when face-to-face are going to press him on this stuff. I'm not advocating for anyone to get in his face screaming about Samurai Leo's wrists or Goldar's wings, but there's a professional way to broach the topic of quality control at Super 7 ("We saw a lot of issues with Goldar's wings breaking when people tried to pose them, the missing face paint on GI Joe Wave 2, Moe's missing apron, and some other issues recently - is there anything Super7 is doing to minimize some of these issues that seem to keep coming up?") and it would be nice to see someone give it a try.

Posted by: @ben

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Posted by: @theknightdamien

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It's still entirely and completely Brian's fault that he apparently doesn't personally open or handle the Ultimates products that his company produces.

Let me play Devil's Advocate. Maybe it's not Brian's fault in the least. Maybe it's the combined faults of:

• The sculptors (that he hired)
• The licensors (that he licensed from)
• The factories (that he contracted with)
• The shipping companies (that he contracted with)
• The month-long national holiday of the country (that he contracted with factories in)
• Global oil prices going up
• GITD powder prices going up
• Customers who dont understand how to collect properly
• Customers who don't preorder direct from S7 in spite of having to prepay in full in advance, taking a risk of the product never getting delivered, overpaying on price, overpaying on shipping, and getting the figures last compared to buying from dealers.

 

 

😆
Fair enough. I am a convert to the Church of Brian.

@misfit  The one thing, and only thing, I'll give to Pixel Dan is that he does have his bugbears. He'll toe the company line so hard he throws out his back if it gets him free toys and access. But like, he's got things that he'll also hold onto like a dog with a bone if it's his particular 'this bothers me' kind of thing. Like his constant fucking whinging that MOTUC Panthor wasn't flocked. That was the hill he was borderline willing to sever ties with Mattel over.
And clearly, the pitiful QC on TMNT 5 was also something that really put him in a negative place. It's also worth noting that you can cheerlead for a company only so much when the issues have become so incredibly obvious and also very NOT subjective. Like, PD can't do a video where Krang is flopping all over the place and be like 'this is a great figure.'  We all know it isn't. We can SEE that it isn't and you are just going to shit all over your own credibility if you tell us it is. So there's an element of protecting your own rep there too.

For guys inside the company like Kyle -- I mean, ultimately it's a job that they're probably reasonably lucky to have and that lots of people would like to have in their place. I get it. Kyle's not going to take food off his own table by saying 'I actually don't like the way we've done these figures and I wish they'd let me make them better.' As far as I know, at least, Kyle is just an employee so I don't expect him to make any dramatic or controversial statements. Even if he's massively disappointed with the figures (which, who knows if that's true), he'll never let -us- know that.

I 100% agree with you that there's tactful ways to approach these subjects with Brian and no one is doing it. Now, it's also extremely possible, even likely, that Brian makes it very clear that those types of questions are off-limits and any attempt to ask them is going to be the end of future access and interviews. The only people that know for certain what is said off-camera are the people in that room, so to speak.

But that being said, I don't know that he'd even have to make the threat because it seems like most people at that level of being 'insiders to the business' wouldn't even -think- of asking those questions because they do fear losing that access. You think ToyBro's channel survives if he can only review toys he actually bought with his own money and then waited for like the rest of us? And I can tell you from experience that having inside information directly from a toy company is COOL. It's fun. It's not something to be tossed aside easily. Especially if, PERHAPS, these are questions you've already had answered privately. So YOU already have the answer, and the difference between having access and not having access is whether you force him to give those answers to everyone else. And who cares about everyone else... right?

That's just supposition, of course. I'm absolutely not saying that IS the case. Just that there's all kinds of possibilities at work here and they all lead back to one thing; right or wrong, understandable or not, people don't want to lose what access they have to industry dudes. Remember how choked everyone here was when Jesse Falcon stopped interacting with us directly and letting just ANYONE ask him questions?

The short version of this particularly long-winded response is just this; I'd love it if someone had the guts and the care for the rest of the community to just ask the questions and bring the real feedback instead of the ball massaging 'your product is so amazing' stuff. And I say that with as much respect as I can, because I really do LOVE some of the guys doing this stuff. Particularly Veebs, who I think is a truly good guy and I love hearing him talk about toys. It's just hard to sit there and hear him be so deferential to a guy that's just doing bad work and being so goddamn smug about it.
But we can't even get a very simple 'why can't you tool up a new sword for Conan that's actually to scale with the figures you're making? It's literally one accessory and you pride yourself on all the accessories your figures come with so this can't be that taxing of a request.' Ugh.

Just... goddamn. Brian is so fucking smug and he just sits there and gets away with it and has his balls massaged any time anyone talks to him.

I actually thought Pixel Dan came at Brian pretty hard in his SDCC interview.  I don't remember the details but it felt much closer to an actual interview and not just a puff piece to shill the company and toys.  Sure it wasn't the aggressive "wtf??!" a lot of us would like to ask Brian but for an industry "insider" I thought it was pretty decent.

For the most part I've stopped watching interviews with Brian though because yeah, nobody ever asks the real questions and it just gets frustrating.  Someone else will post if there's any new tidbits in a Veebs interview, I'm ok getting the information second-hand.

Doesn't look like they're showing anything new at NYCC (not that I expected them to).  I think the thing that gets me the most frustrated about Super7 is that despite all of their frustrations and total BS I still get really excited to see the new pictures.  Granted, I don't have a single one of these figures preordered and won't be paying retail for anything but the Triceraton moving forward but still, those are some fun looking toys that hit me solidly in the nostalgia bone.

To PixelDan’s credit he did try asking a few tougher questions at Toy Fair, but Brian is a true confidence man!

He started out by complementing Dan’s “very professional” blazer, so anytime Dan asked a question about QC or factory delays Brian would only answer “you gotta take your blazer off to ask that question! That’s not a blazer question!” instantly brushing off any criticism as “whiny and unprofessional” while also “answering” Dan with a “joke” so they could move on to the next subject. He told Dan at least two times “that’s not a blazer question” and that was that.

and that’s why it doesn’t matter if someone ask Brian point blank with a camera in his face the hard hitting questions, he’d just respond “Look I don’t make the toys, the factory does! I don’t even know how to work a plastic extruder! I’d be all (pantomimes pulling levers flailing arms around like a muppet until interviewer laughed) so yeah… anyway, let me show you what we got lined up for ReAction!”

I'll give Brian credit, he's a charismatic interview and he knows how to steer things the way he wants them to go. He's been at this a long time, not just toy making with Super7, but I think he used to be in marketing or something. I don't keep up with any of the toy channels out there, but I have noticed Pixel Dan doesn't really review much outside of Mattel and Playmates these days, maybe that's why he feels emboldened to ask certain questions? I remember a pretty tense interview with Randy a few years back (might have been during lockdown), and to Randy's credit, he came back for more. Though I suppose it's possible Dan got cut off from the freebies too so we don't want to tossing too much credit around. I also don't care for this personality, but I did see that Shartimus Prime interview with Hasbro from San Diego Comic Con (I think?) where he clearly started asking them stuff he was told before interview were off-limits and I'll admit that made for some good content. It was a little peek behind the curtain, and as KnightDamien pointed out, we never know what's been said pre-interview about topics that are off limits and such.

People always talk about YouTube reviewers getting free figures.. but if they're a big enough channel where YouTube is their primary source of income, can't they just write off the toys as a business expenses? 

Posted by: @misfit

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I'll give Brian credit, he's a charismatic interview and he knows how to steer things the way he wants them to go. He's been at this a long time, not just toy making with Super7, but I think he used to be in marketing or something.

His background is actually in graphic design. 

All you need to know about the guy is this, and this is a solid fact, not conjecture on my part:

If Brian Flynn had his druthers, they wouldn't be doing ANY Ultimates figures. He doesn't care about them. He'd much rather be doing the shit they used to do before, the tchotchkes and knick knacks, and Japanese vinyls, and shit like that. And it shows in the final results. 

Posted by: @misfit

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I'll give Brian credit, he's a charismatic interview and he knows how to steer things the way he wants them to go. He's been at this a long time, not just toy making with Super7, but I think he used to be in marketing or something.

I agree. i like Super7's ultimate line.

@handsome sure, but that doesn’t make them free. If there’s no monetary incentive for them to ask tougher questions then they probably don’t see the point. Especially if the toy reviews do better numbers than the interview segments.

It's time to deploy Shartimus Prime to a Super7 interview 🤣 

Nail hit on head for Super7 being a vinyl/retro toy company. You can charge as much as a Marvel Legend (or much higher) for something with either 5, 3, or 0 POA. On the production side, not nearly as complicated, fewer places for QC failure. I don't collect those kinds of figures so I don't watch reviewers review them, but I imagine they are quick reviews. What you see is pretty much what you get. 

When you're charging $25 for something that simple, $55 probably makes sense for something that is 10x's more complicated and much larger in size-- from the production standpoint. The thing is, $25+ only flies for those types of figures because of things like glamour and hype. It is inflated value based on fashion, like a $75 hoodie, which is really a $25 hoodie, with a $50 logo on it. S7 is like a lifestyle brand. Cool is part of the cost. They make figures that I could imagine seeing sitting on a white shelf in my friend's recording studio next to his various pop art decorations. A talking piece for when someone comes in and likes Ren and Stimpy. 

That's quite different from the contemporary action figure market, and how it evolved. Many customers are very hands on with the product, posing, photographing, playing, and so on. It's not just a desk decoration. Value is sensed not on exclusivity (which is hated) or hoarding as investment (which is resented) but on functionality and beauty of the finished piece in relation to price. Practicality here is king, not fashion. A $25 hoodie should be $25, maybe $30 if the logo really is that cool. 

Well, I finally got my first Super7 - the normal Donatello. He was actually the first Playmates figure I got when I was a little kid ($3.99 at a Clover store, my mom decided to yield to my pleas, since it was cheaper than KB Toys) so it feels fitting. 

I really, really love him at $22. Some thoughts, which are old news to you guys: Great sculpt, surprising amount of personality, here. Thought I'd use the new head, but I prefer the retro one since he works better as an homage to a favorite kids toy than a functional modern TMNT figure. The open hands offer a lot of life to the figure, I wish there were less fist styles and more gesture permutations of the fingers. The tiny hand pegs and thigh pegs are bewildering but holding up OK, though one of the thigh joints needs some kiki. At full price I'd be upset about the limited range on the elbows and knees, and I'd want some butterflies on the shoulders, a couple more hands, and matte paint. At $22 I'm good spraying him with some dullcote. The box is pretty cool and I might just hold onto it and display it behind him. Bryan knows what he's doing here, he got the Apple memo. The package feels classy and upscale, as if you were really receiving a premium product. My Donnie was in a box in a slipbox in another box in an Amazon box.  So many boxes, this has to be a well made figure, right???

I have him on my desk in a pose not dissimilar to the squatting wrestler pose that OG turtles were perma stuck in, and damn, he has a lot of visual charisma as is. But yeah, nostalgia has got me by the heart, here. This thing is a time machine and I am truly glad to have it, and if someone told me I needed to give them another $22 to keep it, I might just give it to them, begrudgingly, even if I wouldn't give it to them up front. 

Leo and Mikey are on the way. I've got Raph on a price watch. Will likely pick up a few more down the line, pending on pricing. Some of the more absurd turtles are a hilarious callback to the 90s. 

Posted by: @hopethisworks

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It's time to deploy Shartimus Prime to a Super7 interview 🤣 

I would only like to deploy Shartimus in a space shuttle aimed at the Sun, but that's me...

The "Pre-Order Processing Soon" emails have started to trickle in from BBTS for Wave 8. I got one for Rocksteady and Raph, the only figures I pre-ordered from the wave. The long drought may soon be over for this line.

Posted by: @misfit

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The "Pre-Order Processing Soon" emails have started to trickle in from BBTS for Wave 8. I got one for Rocksteady and Raph, the only figures I pre-ordered from the wave. The long drought may soon be over for this line.

Can confirm it's the whole wave - so we're not dealing with a split wave like Donatello or Slash again.