This will be a blow to TMNT. The toys look like poop from Playmates.

Eventually even TMNT will receive a backlash like Disney's Star Wars.....they will push the wrong things for the wrong reasons and then the fandom will be split then quit.

Dang, I hope not.

I agree, these turtles look terrible...and yeah they’re almost the same price as NECA.
I loved the last cartoon, but the fact that Nickelodeon ended it was absurd. That show was the only thing they seemed to get right. Michael Bay movies and “Rise of the TMNT” are the so far from TMNT, you can tell that Eastman and Laird were bought out.

I didn’t care for Nickelodeon tmnt, or this. Didn’t care much for the first reboot movie, but I thought out of the shadows captured the flavor of the 80’s cartoon perfectly. It was a silly, stupid romp. Far more inline with secret of the ooze than its predecessor.

I don’t think tmnt has anything to fear from this cartoon. To me, it doesn’t look any more brand damaging than Teen Titans Go, which hasn’t affected DC negatively at all. Kids like kinetic, hyper-stylized stuff. Their brains are now programmed by social media and YouTube to quickly lose focus. If this cartoon tested well with today’s youth, more power to them. I don’t have to understand it any more than my father never understanding my fascination with Transformers.

Everyone keeps talking about stylized this and stylized that or 80's nostalgia this and 80's nostalgia that etc. At the end of the day no one needs retreads of what's been done all the time. This new look for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is different all right, but different every now an the can be a very good thing.

The worst iterations of Intellectual Properties I've seen usually stem from the fact of someone (especially after input or backlash from fans) trying to capture the magic of what was rather than making something new to feel nostalgic about years later. This is at least a step in a new direction just as other series have been.

The designs and animation aren't half bad, stylized for sure, but definitely not as bad as most here are saying.

Also collectors probably make up a small slice of pie when it comes to revenue made by Playmates toys. This and everything else prior at the end of the day has always been for kids. Collectors/ fans not buying or watching (even though most probably will) won't hurt Playmates a bit. And besides the show isn't even out yet so I find it funny how most are saying its already garbage when they haven't seen the show at large... kind of reminds me of the backlash of the start 2012 series. These designs make for great fun toys and at the end of the day kids will love them and collector will most likely follow suit when the show comes out.

Lastly, SDCC exclusives have always been and will always be overly priced unecesssry repaints of products we already have or will get soon. I don't scoff at their price point any more than I scoff at the price point of SDCC exclusives from other companies.

They demand 20$ more for basic painting regular release toys should have.

Indeed.


The CGI show looked ugly, but the toys looked better. Especially first release turtles which actually had organic look to them and looked nothing like that ugly 90's video games 3D with elephant toes.

Speaking of the new cartoon, I was so looking forward to that and being excited for classic animation again, only to be disappointed by that hipster garbage.

That's really unfair comparison. Animated had respect to it's source materiel and toys actually looked like the character designs. I thought of getting Mikey and Leo because they look like girls/new Venus in the cartoon design, lol. But of course, Playmates can't sculpt elongated characters to save their life, I mean look at the God awful Paladins from Voltron they made, yikes. I am not gonna buy anything from this toyline and terrible cartoon, I hope it fails hard.

I wouldn't be so sure about turtles surviving this, unless they quickly make new better series afterwards.

Tumblr/Hipsters hijack and ruin everything.

Amen for that!

As I like to call him Pixel Shill Dan. Him and Shartimus Prime are the biggest toy "reviewers" shills that get free toys and accesses to all conventions for being sell outs. So far, Retroblasting is probably the most honest toy reviewers I've seen, despite not reviewing many modern toys. Gaming Beaver and Matthew Brando also comes to mind.

Not unfair. It’s completely on the money. In the Internet forums, people were rabid about TF Animated raping their childhoods. Prime being younger was an abomination. Bumblebee being a crossover coupe was pure sin. The invention of Bulkhead was an insult to Hound and/or Ironhide. People ranted about the blueish Starbob Screampants. It was quite venomous. I know, because I was a fan from the pilot episode, and was repeatedly personally insulted by butthurt fanboys for liking a show I could watch with my kids.

Also, tmnt will easily survive this. People said tmnt 3 killed the brand. It survived. People said next mutation killed the brand. It survived. People said the live stage show killed the brand. It survived. Tmnt will easily survive this. It might take a few years to reinvent afterwards. Maybe at the next retro 80’s comeback, but it’ll survive. And if it doesn’t, I have dvds and graphic novels from the golden years of tmnt, so I’m set. I’m not gonna cry a river for tmnt any more than I do for Dino Riders, Dinosaucers, shirt tales, or Count Duckula. Nostalgia is great, but I’m not letting it rule my happiness.

Elbows and knees, and even ankle articulation. If these had a little more muted colors instead of the solid toon colors I'd consider getting them myself.

Still, think kids are going to love these. The show looks really promising and fun. It's got this kind of FLCL off the wall feeling to it which is a welcome change after so many years of the same thing over and over.

And I really dig the concept of starting younger with them to better explore the sibling divides and coming back together as events unfold. Playing up the Raph big brother angle as the leader and protector, to then Leo's eventual rise to fill the shoes of a leader could be interesting, and this pushing back of the shredder material should give them more open room to character build and have fun with the kid side of things before it gets all serious doom and gloom.

They didn't exactly end it, so much as it ran its course and the stories were done other than constant retreads. Short of a merman storyline, and maybe doing a little more on Shinigami and Karai, they had nothing original and new left to do. So they ended it on one big love letter to the creators done mad max style.

This show is set to go back farther before they started as a named team. To build how that really formed and the leadership role changed, and better establish different forms of fear from the foot and over arcing reveals to up the fright from Shredder better as a larger menace. All the while being off the wall, comedic, and hyper stylized with imagination to better get the message across to kids of the innate moral lessons of TMNT about family, brotherhood, and helping people.

This show might do surprisingly well and even better than past incarnations. Might even rejuvenate the brand back to 80s toon popularity levels with kids. For many kids this is going to be their original tmnt. Same as various transformers series are different era kids favorites.

This is essentially the TF Animated and FLCL version of TMNT. That break for the writers/creative teams to let them go wild with anything and blow off steam for a few years, before going back to rehashing out the same tired material over and over and over again. Even so, they've mixed in tons of references from all over like animated did too. There's some mixing in of new movie stuff with the 2k3 stuff, and even some of the recent CG stuff is getting references. Mikey had even made a joke of wanting nunchuks with boxing gloves in the CG one, and this has that. A little bit of Flash Forwards' weapon lights too. You can see a lot of lore and reference love in these designs. And this idea of adopted brothers because of all being different turtle breeds is an even better emphasis of found family, but family all the same.

The original show itself was already a Titans Go! kind of remake to begin with, and if done today, would likely be as ridiculed if not even more than this is getting. Heck even the CG and 2k3 show had to point out the flaws of how bad original TMNT actually was. When it switched to the darker tone in the later seasons, it effectively killed the brand on CBS.

Which is interesting to note, as much as fans seem to like TMNT OOTS, it didn't exactly do that great at the box office. It's still on the line of probably not getting a sequel, but may if they find a way to bring it to audience attention better somehow. They gave the 80s series fans what they wanted, and apparently, outside of toy sales, it really doesn't do well at box offices.

Great points Snowflakian! Totally agree! So much unwarranted bitterness. The new tmnt doesn't impress us. oh well, It's not our thing. IIRC, the original TMNT toys really weren't that well articulated and looked bad compared to the cartoon. No pupils, anorexic Shredder, ape-proportioned Foot ninja, etc. Looked nothing like the cartoon. That's why the 2017 Neca set was so coveted. It's something we never got as kids.

These toys, for all their "faults," I would have killed for as a kid. Toys that look like they are right out of the cartoon! A kid gets a set of these, he/she won't be thinking 30 years later, "Gee, I wish they would make articulated figures of my childhood"


All that being said, another great point about OOTS too. I remember so many classmates pissed off that Bebop and Rocksteady weren't in Secret of the Ooze. I remember when the TMNT reboot movie came out, fans were pissed that the designs were wrong, April was wrong, background was wrong, and... no Bebop and Rocksteady.

So the studio gives us a movie that could EASILY be animated with the original cartoon style and fit in PERFECTLY with the 80's cartoon, aaaaaannnnd ... it flopped.

I loved it, personally. I bought it on Bluray, and have watched it at least 6 times. It's easily my 2nd favorite TMNT movie after the 1990 one.
When it was announced it wouldn't get another sequel, I was depressed. I really liked the personalities they gave the TMNT, as well as the fact the TMNT were acting like teens. It really had teen drama feel, rather than just another superhero flick. Similar to Spider-Man Homecoming. I thought it was very well done, and I really think that in 10 or 20 years, it will have a cult following like Army of Darkness or Transformers 1986.

Anyway, back to work I go... again, great points Snowflakian! you really articulated a great post. You get a ribbon!

I threw up in my mouth. Not like, a little, but like..a lot.

Idk, collectors are the ones with money, willing to pay (sometimes pay exorbitant prices). Plus, I don't think kids really play with action figures in 2018 on the same scale as kids in the 80's. Kids are all about smart phones and the internet and gaming. Im sure there are people who buy action figures for their kids in hopes to keep the hobby going, but these specifically are an SDCC exclusive, pricey as hell, so these aren't for kids and its doubtful any real TMNT fans from the 80s would find this new design aesthetic pleasing, or pay this insane price for some basic ass action figures. This is a swing and a miss, but they've been doing this for awhile now. Though, the TMNT Ghostbuster figures from last winter were pretty bad ass.

Collectors are a small sliver of a toy company's bottom line. Their enthusiasm is useful for gauging a toy, but for the most part, they are a very vocal minority. My ex was in the toy sales industry, and through her I got to know a few vendor reps. To most of the major companies, adult collectors are a bonus. The only toy companies that REALLY focus on adult collectors are smaller companies that live or die because of adult collectibles (Neca, McFarlane, etc).

I know that kids still play with action figures. I've seen kids throwing tantrums at Target aisles because they see Toy X that they need. The reason you don't see kids playing with toys is because kids don't leave the house anymore to play outside. Kids aren't allowed by themselves in the park with a tote of action figures today, like I was in the early 80's. When they are at the store, the parents give them a cellphone to play on, instead of their toys, because they don't want their kids to leave a $25 toy in the cart. I'll agree that numbers have probably dropped since the 1980's, but they are still fairly strong.

SDCC isn't just a collectors fair, there are also a lot of families, and a LOT of press. It's a nerd's version of disneyland that comes once a year.
It's worth it for Company X to offer a collectible to drum up excitement for a future product. Whatever doesn't sell at the convention sells online at a discount or at Ross.

Also, $30 isn't really that pricey these days. A cheap transformer toy at Walmart is $16. Marvel and DC figures are $16 to $19. With the exclusivity factor on top, $30 a piece is what I'd expect at SDCC. The level of articulation on these, the Walmart release will probably be $16.
Simplified figures for younger fans will probably be released for $12.

Im sure there is truth to what you're saying. But kids don't/can't buy figures cuz they don't have money. So they can't make up much of the action figure market. And every brick and mortar store I go to they pretty much have full stock of all figures. The ones I look for that actually aren't in stock, some other older dude bought for himself not for a kid (or to flip online, to another adult). I don't think action figure collectors are a small slice of the action figure market anymore, I think collectors are keeping the action figure market alive, since we're the ones buying them with our own money. If you look at a big variety of action figures on the market currently, not many of them are geared towards kids. Amazon, BBTS, Entertainment Earth, etc primarily carry everything that gets released in the US and even a lot of stuff from foreign markets, mostly seems to be for adult collectors. Go to Amazon or Walmart and just search "action figure", well more than half of what you can buy is geared toward adults, not kids.

So these are the $10 figures which will be at retail soon?
You're paying $20 extra for a fancier box? For each figure!

"Kids don't have money" Are you crazy? Kids have BANK today. Kids today have ATM cards, allowances like crazy, often come from broken households so they get money from both parents, etc. The days of paper routes and magazine subscriptions are long gone. Also, parents buy tons of toys for kids, their kids' friends birthdays, and tons of other reasons. Amazon and Walmart have THOUSANDS of toys that are geared for kids. Just putting in the term Spider-Man brought up tons of kids toys not geared to adults at all. You and I have VEEEEERY different ideas of what constitutes "geared towards adults." Just because there are some adult collectors that collect it doesn't mean it's aimed at adults. BBTS and Entertainment Earth are poor choices, because they are aimed at adult collectors, not parents buying for kids, but even those stores have a few items that are geared for kids.

Also, if you are correct, and adults are holding up the action figure market, then I have lost all faith in humanity and hope for the future. That means that children have no childhoods. They've lost their imagination. It means a bunch of cheeto-crusted World of Warcraft playing manchildren have had enough temper tantrums to get the toy companies to bend to their will, instead of catering to the desires of children. Willy Wonka has lost the candy factory. The magic is gone.

Haha, I wouldn't worry about kids childhood too much. Sure they don't get the cool Saturday morning cartoons we did, or the cool cereal's based on hit shows, or all the cool action figures we got but they've got things now we could have only dreamed of back in the early 80's.

Kids, with debit cards, are you referring to teens? There aren't any 8-12 year olds going into Target to buy action figures with a debit card man. And it appears you're "one of those" who thinks action figures are just for kids. Who cares if the bulk of action figure collectors are adults, that somehow makes it less valid or cool of a hobby? And BBTS and EE are not poor choices they just further my point and not yours. Etailers are for everyone, but you have to be a certain age to have an account to buy things online so by default most etailers are geared towards adults cuz like I said, kids don't have money, and if they do I don't think most of them are dropping it on action figures. If I was a 10 year old now, I doubt I'd be into action figures, I'd probably be gaming online and using a tablet to look at porn, like most 10 year old boys wanna do.

To be fair, you know people in the industry and most likely have more insight into this than myself. Based on personal experience and 30 plus years of avid action figure collecting, I don't see nearly as many kids into this hobby as adults. I don't work in absolutes so I can't say "no kids play with action figures anymore" but it certainly appears to be far less, and there's way more geared towards adults than ever before, I imagine the reason is we want them more and are willing to pay/drum up interest in whatever property.

Dude, I've SEEN it. There are debit cards for parents to give kids their allowances. You are so insanely clueless, I can't continue. Best we just block each other and part thinking the other a complete imbecile. Any more of this, one of us will bring down the wrath of mods, and I'm not up for that headache. ciao kiddo!

Back on topic... Think I'll buy a set of these figures when they hit Walmart shelves for Toys for Tots. Feel bad for the kids denied a fun xmas coz people here feel their childhood was bruised and need a safety binkie.

Block each other, mods? Why would any of that be necessary, no one is name calling or being profane. Is this what happens when someone disagrees with you? Do as you like, but I am not going to block you because you disagree with me. It doesn't even really matter if you're right or I am, part of this comes down to opinion which cannot be argued. At any rate thanks for responding.

Also, there is no metric for proving who buys more action figures, kids or adults. So no one can ever say one way or the other definitively. Just saying.

I don't understand why they rebooted from scratch. Again. The current show was obviously successful af, and from the perspective of THIS old school collector, EASILY one of the best iterations of the franchise. It simultaneously got super-close to the original vibe, but also went in original directions too. It was a great blend of og vs new.

I do like the idea of having brand new storylines not involving Shredder or Dimension X however. I TOTALLY see the value in that. I don't understand why they had to reboot to do that. A sequel to the current show seems like the best solution.

Freshen it up, introduce the new villains and storylines, but why make Raph the leader? Why make Splinter, a ninja master, fat? Why change their appearances so much? They were already distinct. Different weapons, personalities, colors...it just all seems so useless and unnecessary.

Articulation/higher parts count costs money today plus the added $10 each for exclusivity.