[Paxtin]

I think some are reading far too much into trying to connect the fiction with the reason for the unsuccessful toy line. Especially since, despite the misgivings of the more cynical, the film actually was a major success.

Also, I don't think most kids are cynical enough to judge things for character development or story predictability. I know a lot of geeks like to pretend that when we were kids we all were as informed and critical as we are now, but in actualtiy we were not. We were kids. Crazy spectacles are what got us to buy toys in the first place. If it looked like a fun cool toy, we wanted it.

And that's really the reason the Avatar toys failed. In contrast to the blockbuster film, the toys themselves had no visual punch to them. They all looked very mediocre. Like Pyroclasm said, it was just a quick cheap cash in toy line. Which is a shame becase given how hyped up the movie itself was, you'd think they'd have put a little more effort into the toy line. Like Destro was saying, it seems like Mattel was unsure of how well this was going to do and didn't want to take a major chance on it.

I also agree that the other major problem was the price point. Especially when mixed with the overall lackluster quality, this is enough to set any toy line up for failure.
So bassically there you have it. No matter how successful the subject matter for your toy line is, if you over charge for cheap quality, no one is going to want it.