Lego Update: Ghostbusters and Star Wars

With its first theatrically released movie debuting in a few days and more licensed merchandise on its way, Lego is doing extremely well for itself. Here’s an update on two geek-centric licenses that Lego has in its ample portfolio:

Ghostbusters: While a third Ghostbusters movie remains stuck in development hell, Lego is moving ahead with its first Ghostbusters Ectomobile kit in honor of the first movie’s 30th anniversary. The kit was designed by Brent Waller as part of Lego’s CUUSOO project, a project that allows fans to submit their own designs to Lego for possible release. The kit will include minifigs of all four Ghostbusters and the ghost Slimer. Waller’s original design included flashing lights and working sirens, although it hasn’t been determined if these features will be part of the official kit. The kit will be released later this year.

Another Lego fan, Alex Jones (a.k.a. Orion Pax), also designed a playset based on the Ghostbusters’ firehouse headquarters. Although this playset is not scheduled at this time be a Lego-licensed Ghostbusters kit, you can click here to see the incredible amount of detail that Jones put into his brick-based recreation of Ghostbusters HQ.

Busting ghosts, Lego style.

Star Wars: As part of its ever-expanding line of Star Wars kits, Lego has been providing previews for its summer 2014 line of new licensed kits. While most of these kits are based on vehicles and locations from the original trilogy, two are based on vehicles from the upcoming Star Wars: Rebels animated series: The Ghost and Phantom. According to details that have been released about Rebels, the Ghost is a ship that will serve a similar purpose in the series as the Millennium Falcon did in the original trilogy--namely, as the ship the heroes use to go on missions and transport cargo that’s crucial to the Rebel Alliance.

The Phantom looks to be a smaller vehicle than the Ghost, with a smaller crew and lesser transportation capabilities. It looks like a Y-Wing fighter that has been stripped down and repurposed to function as a shuttle.

A Preview of Jaws Estuary Attack Diorama by Sculptoria Studio

In September 2012, I did a two-part interview with Nigel Humphreys, sculptor and founder of Sculptoria Studio, about a selection of collectible dioramas that he was preparing for avid horror and sci-fi geeks like me. I recently received word that one of these dioramas, which depicts the Estuary Attack scene from Jaws, is ready for sale. Click below for more pictures of this amazing piece of Jaws art.

There isn't much I can say about the Estuary Attack diorama other than it is gorgeous, a remarkable scale-adjusted recreation of a memorable attack scene from Steven Spielberg's 1975 creature feature. To give you an idea of how well this diorama compares to its source material, I've provided a screen capture of the scene below for direct comparison with the diorama.

As you can see, Sculptoria Studio has created an impressive piece of art that would make a great addition to the collection of any avid Jaws fan. Here are some additional pictures that provide a closer look at the diorama's many details:

The Estuary Attack diorama is the first of many other collectible items that will be released by Sculptoria Studio. Future releases will include more pieces based on Jaws and other hit movies such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Fog and 300. If you are interested in purchasing the Estuary Attack diorama, contact Sculptoria Studio at nrhcollectables@gmail.com.

Four Fun Robot Toys from Mego’s Micronauts Line

In this last installment of my year-end series about cool robot toys from Japan, I've decided to look back at one of the classics: Takara’s Microman line, which was released in the U.S. in the late '70s by Mego under the name Micronauts. Micronauts was a contemporary of another line of imported Japanese robot toys, Mattel’s Shogun Warriors, and both lines even had comic book series published by Marvel. While Shogun Warriors featured Super Robots from several anime series that had pilots and combination configurations, that toy line didn’t have any pilot figures or robot figures with combination capabilities; in contrast, Micronauts provided the first examples of mech and combiner robot toys to kids in the U.S. Read on for a look at four of Micronauts’ groundbreaking toys.

Before getting into the list of noteworthy Micronauts toys, it should be noted that Takara’s Microman line was a spin-off of another innovative robot toy line, Henshin Cyborg. Henshin Cyborg figures were modeled after Hasbro’s line of 12-inch G.I. Joe action figures from the '60s and '70s, but they differed from Hasbro’s figures in two significant ways: They were made with transparent plastic so kids could see the figures’ mechanical insides, and they had magnetic joints that allowed for greater flexibility and disassembly/reassembly.

A Henshin Cyborg figure.

The Microman toy line was a miniaturized version of the Henshin Cyborg line, and the modularity of the Henshin Cyborg figures carried over to the modularity of the Microman/Micronauts vehicles, robots and playsets. Even though the Micronauts line ended during the early ’80s, Takara continued the Microman line in Japan for many more years. Some of the later Microman toys would also become part of Hasbro’s Transformers toy line. While Takara’s Microman line features plenty of great robot toys, I am only including on this list the toys that were released in U.S. under the Micronauts line.


Biotron

Biotron is an early example of a combiner mech toy. It can be “piloted” by a smaller 3 ¾-inch Micronaut figure, and it can be disassembled into a tank and a rocket sled. It also required two C batteries, which allowed Biotron to roll in tank mode and walk in robot mode.

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Microtron

Microtron is like Biotron in that it is also battery-power and can be re-arranged from a robot configuration to a vehicle configuration. Microtron’s head opens to form as seat for a Mirconaut pilot in both robot and vehicle configurations.

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Giant Acroyear

Giant Acroyear was an amazing combiner robot toy: It consisted of two humanoid robots, a missile-launching rocket plane and a missile-launching land vehicle that combined into a single large robot. Years before kids heard of Voltron, they had the Micronauts’ Giant Acroyear.

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Hornetroid

Hornetroid was one of the later releases in the Micronauts line. It was designed by Mego and not Takara, so it had no Microman counterpart. Even though it looks like a vehicle toy, Hornetroid is basically a giant flying robot that looks like an insect, complete with flapping transparent wings, six retractable legs, and figure-gripping pinchers.


For more information about the Micronauts and Microman toy lines, check out Innerspace Online and the Microman Forever site.

Getting it Right with Getter Robo Toys

Because I live in the U.S. and not Japan, my first introduction to combiner robots came through Japanese toy lines that were imported into the U.S. during the '80s: Gobots, Transformers and Voltron. Since each of these toy lines had its own cartoon series, it was generally assumed that if you saw a group of vehicles or robots combining together to form a gigantic robot in the cartoon, there was also a toy available that could do the same thing. After all, who would taunt potential toy buyers with a cartoon that showed vehicles and robots doing something that their toy versions couldn't do, right?

What I didn't know at the time and only found out recently was that the concept of a combiner robot actually began in the '70 with a manga and anime series called Getter Robo. In Getter Robo, three combat jets would combine together to form a giant robot; depending on the sequence of the jets' combination, a different giant robot would be formed. Getter Robo was very popular and it spawned plenty of merchandise and numerous anime and manga sequels; in fact, these toys were also included in Mattel's Shogun Warriors line.

However, there's a drawback to the first Getter Robo that's peculiar for a Japanese combiner robot: For as ground-breaking as the combiner robot idea was at the time, no one seemed to know exactly how the combat jets could come together to form anything, let alone a giant robot. As you can see from the video clip below, even the animators behind the original anime series had to take significant shortcuts during the jet combination sequences.

From what I can gather, the dominant attitude towards the first Getter Robo toys and model kits is that companies would produce the jets and the giant robots, but they wouldn't produce jets that could combine to form a giant robot. Apparently, this approach worked, but it seems very strange when compared to the countless combiner robots toys that Getter Robo influenced. Subsequent jet and robot designs for most of the sequels were much more detailed and provided clear views of how the jets combine, but the early designs for Getter Robo are astonishingly vague in their combination mechanics.

Of course, if you really, really want to collect toy replicas of the original Getter Robo jets that can combine into various robot configurations, you can--but it will cost you. The Perfect Change Getter Robo set, the most detailed and scale-accurate combining toy based on the original Getter Robo design, costs hundreds of dollars. The cheapest set, Dynamic Change Getter Robo, is a chibi-scale interpretation of the original design and it costs over $100.

The Perfect Change Getter Robo set.

The Dynamic Change Getter Robo set.

The problem with Getter Robo toys sort of reminds me of the Transformers Masterpiece collection. The animators who worked on the first Transformers cartoon took many liberties with the toy robot designs in order to create robot characters, all of the purpose of selling the toys. Now, decades later, Transformers fans can by transforming toy robots that look exactly like they did from the original cartoon from the '80s, but each Masterpiece figure costs several times the amount of a regular transforming toy robot.

Figures from the Transformers Masterpiece collection.

The Mighty Miniature Robots of Machine Robo

Sometimes, I don't know what I would do without the Internet, particularly when I look up things that were well-known at one time but have since faded into obscurity. In the ancient times when print media ruled the information landscape, it could take up to days, weeks, and even months to track down publications that mention trends or products that are no longer considered popular by mainstream culture. With the Internet, the same kind of search can only take a few hours or even minutes, especially because amateur writers can publish whatever they want online without being solely driven or restricted by profit.

This intro brings me to the topic of this post, Bandai's Machine Robo toy line. Machine Robo started in 1982 and it was one of the earliest toy lines based on robots that can transform into vehicles. Bandai started exporting these toys to other countries in 1983, and Tonka distributed them in the United States under its Gobots line. As anyone who grew up in the '80s knows, Tonka's Gobots quickly faded when they competed against Hasbro's more popular Transformers line, another group of transforming robot toys imported from Japan. Yet while the Gobots vanished from American pop culture during 80s, I discovered via the Internet that Bandai's original Machine Robo line kept going in Japan throughout the following decades. Read on for more thoughts on Machine Robo and what makes it so resilient in the face of other more popular toy robot lines.

Honestly, you could write a master's level thesis paper on how badly Tonka handled the import and marketing of Machine Robo toys. From its poor coordination with Bandai to its partnership with Hanna-Barbera in creating a lackluster cartoon to help sell the toys, Tonka's Gobots line was inevitably doomed against Hasbro, which partnered with Toei Animation and Marvel Comics (which had previous experience with Japanese robot toys through Mattel's Shogun Warriors line) in creating the marketing campaign for the Transformers line. In the end, many American toy buyers from that time remember Gobots as the simpler, inferior version of the Transformers. While that may be true to some extent (Tonka's incompetent marketing certainly didn't help), that's not a completely fair assessment of Machine Robo toys. While the Transformers had a better marketing campaign and more sophisticated designs, I think that Machine Robo/Gobots were the superior toys for three important reasons: price, durability and scale.

Price: Because the Gobots were sold at cheaper prices than Transformers, many concluded that a cheaper price must have meant a lower-quality product. Yet by selling most of the Gobot figures at $3.00, kids could quickly build an army of transforming robots for the same price it would cost to get a handful of the main characters from the Transformers line. It's like comparing Hasbro's G.I. Joe toy line to generic army men toys: The army men might not have marketing support of Hasbro or the G.I. Joe brand name, but their cheaper price makes it easier to build huge armies and wage epic, imaginary battles.

Fun trivia fact: The original line of small Machine Robo figures were 

called the "600 Series", because each figure cost 600 yen.

Durability: Most of the robot figures in the Gobots line were simple in their design and had a significant portion of die-cast metal in them, which made them perfect for rigorous play. Much like the die-cast Matchbox and Hot Wheels vehicle toys, kids could "wreck" the Gobots in all sorts of ways and they'd still remain viable as play items. In contrast, the Transformers toys relied more on plastic than die-cast metal; while the high usage of plastic probably kept their production costs down, it also made them much more fragile. I owned one of the more complicated Autobot car toys when I was a kid and for as cool as it looked, all it took was one unfortunate tumble off of a table to break one of its weaker yet transformation-essential parts. This kind of problem didn't happen with the handful of Gobot figures that I had, since they were just as durable as the die-cast metal toy cars I collected.

Scale: Of all their advantages, scale was the most important for Machine Robo/Gobots. Their small size kept their prices low and added to their durability, and keeping them at a fairly uniform scale presented more opportunities for play. Some larger-sized Machine Robo/Gobots were released as part of the line, but most of the figures were between three to four inches tall. Not only did their small size make them easier to store and transport, but it also allowed for cool playsets. Furthermore, because the smaller figures were roughly the same scale as Matchbox and Hot Wheels toys, kids could use the playsets, track sets and vehicle launchers from those lines for their Gobots figures--say, imagining the robots battling each other near a multi-level parking garage or on an aircraft carrier.

A vintage Machine Robo playset.

Tonka's failed Gobots line is part of Machine Robo's history, but that's hardly the end of it. Even as Tonka was desperately trying to keep space on toy store shelves for it Gobots, Bandai released new kinds of Machine Robo toys and launched the 47 episode anime series, Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos. Chronos gave Bandai the opportunity to rerelease older figures and significantly redesign previous figures.

The MR-03 Jet Robo from the Machine Robo 600 series ...

... and its Chronos-inspired redesign.

The Chronos anime series also introduced new Machine Robo figures, such as an evil transforming combiner robot called Devil Satan 6. (Yes, a robot with a name that includes the words "devil" and "Satan"--how cool is that?).

Devil Satan 6--six evil robots in one!

Chronos was followed by other anime series based on the Machine Robo line--including Machine Robo: Battle Hackers and Machine Robo Rescue--each with varying degrees of success. Nevertheless, the anime series kept Machine Robo going in Japan, even though it had disappeared everywhere else. In particular, Machine Robo Rescue added some interesting new combiner designs to the Machine Robo line.

Left to right: TMR-01WL Wing Liner and TMR-02SG Siren Garry,

two deluxe transport/combiner robots from Machine Robo Rescue.

One of the key selling points for the Machine Robo Rescue line was its series of five-robot combiner sets. These sets featured one transforming robot and four look-alike transforming drones that combined into a single larger robot; however, the components from each of the five-robot combiner sets could be connected to each other, which allowed kids to assemble the robots into a wide variety of larger machines.

Transforming robots and drones from three Machine Robo Rescue combiner sets ...

... and one of their many possible forms of combination.

Taking a cue from its previous Rescue series, Bandai's most recent success was with the Machine Robo Mugenbine line, a line that placed a heavier emphasis on combination than transformation. As described on the Machine Robo Mugenbine Wikipedia page, "The majority of the series consists of figures called Mugenroids, basic block-proportioned figures that can contort and fold into various shapes, most notably a perfect cube, to form the core of its various modes. ... Rather than the traditional shape changing method of previous figures, Mugenbine uses numerous interlocking pegs and sockets to attach and remove components and relocate them in order to form different modes. While all figures have at least two official alternate modes and most have official combinations with one to three other figures, the concept of the line is to allow you to assemble your own animal and machine creations and build your own robots of various size and numbers of sets, an activity encouraged by Bandai to the point where figures with no official combiner modes come with larger head parts to help create your own."

A Machine Robo Mugenbine set of combiner robots.

Think of a robot-centric system of Lego bricks, and that's the Machine Robo Mugenbine line in a nutshell. The first Mugenbine toys appeared in 2003 and they were such a hit for Bandai that it released several additional Mugenbine series in the years since. The flexibility of the Mugenbine toys has encouraged fans to build increasingly ambitious super combiner robots, as seen in the pictures below.

The Counter-X site features a very comprehensive section devoted to Machine Robo/Gobots, including a historical review of the toys, robot figure reviews, and scans from catalog pages. Additional Machine Robo/Gobots toy reviews can be found at Collection DX, Random Toy Reviews, and Hisparobot.

Crayola Encourages Budding Kaiju Fans Through Its Create 2 Destroy Toy Line

Imagine this holiday shopping scenario: You're a life-long fan of giant monster movies and want to foster an appreciation of such entertainment in the next generation of geeks--your kids, your nieces and nephews, or both. However, you think that they're too young to grasp the finer points of such giant monster mashes such as Godzilla, Gamera: Guardian of the Universe and Pacific Rim, so you have no idea what to get them for Christmas. Well, never fear because Crayola has got your back this year with its Create 2 Destroy line of playsets.

The Create 2 Destroy playsets aren't strictly kaiju merchandise, but they might as well be because half of the playsets involve giant monsters trashing a city, a shopping mall, and a suburban community. These playsets make up the Dino Destruction sub-series, where kids use Morphix (Crayola's answer to Play-Doh) to mold cars, buildings and trees that the included dinosaurs can stomp with their feet and crush with their jaws. Some of the dinosaurs have spring-loaded tails that kids can use as catapults to launch Morphix-molded boulders into nearby targets.

The other Create 2 Destroy sub-series, Fortress Invasion, are designed to have kids build fortresses, castles and walls with the goal of knocking them down by using the included catapults. While these playsets don't include any monsters, adult fans of King Kong can buy their kids a Dino Destruction playset and a Fortress Invasion playset that so they can imagine dinosaurs tearing through the enormous protective wall on Skull Island. This is the kind of stuff that brings geek families closer together during the holiday season!

Painting Giant Robot Model Kits Anime Style

I love detailed miniature replicas of monsters, robots and spaceships from my favorite horror and sci-fi franchises, but the ability to competently assemble model kits of such replicas has always eluded me. I particularly admire those who can paint kits of robots, spaceships and other machines in a way that makes them look used (exposed to the elements, battle damage, etc.). In fact, I frequently regarded this kind of modeling skill as a remarkable achievement ... and then I saw this:

Yes, this really is a photo of a plastic model kit.

From what I read on Kotaku, a talented model builder in Japan has painted a Valkyrie kit from the Super Dimension Fortress Macross anime series (which is known to some as Robotech) in a cel shading style that makes the model appear as if it was pulled directly out of the Macross cartoon.

This makes sense, actually--since the Valkyrie design was originally intended for animation, why not paint a Valkyrie model kit like it was part of a cartoon? The picture below provides an overview of how each piece of the kit was painted to achieve the comprehensive anime look.

Click here to see the article about this kit on Kotaku. Click here to see the original Japanese post of this kit, which features many more pictures of the finished product.

Kenner's Imperial Troop Transporter Gets Lego-ized

As I mentioned in a previous post, the upcoming Star Wars: Rebels animated series will incorporate some of Kenner's classic Star Wars toy designs as part of the series' selection of vehicles and weaponry, such as Kenner's Imperial Troop Transporter toy. Thus, it makes sense for avid Lego hobbyist BaronSat (a.k.a. Eric Druon) to make a Lego version of the Troop Transporter that's in scale with official Lego Star Wars minifigs. Check it out:

BaronSat's Lego Imperial Troop Transporter (above) and Kenner's original toy (below). 

Click below to see more pictures of BaronSat's Lego version of the Imperial Troop Transporter, along with a new Lego Hoth playset that he recently produced that draw inspiration from Kenner's short-lived Star Wars Micro Collection line.

BaronSat does incredible work with Legos and his interpretation of the Imperial Troop Transporter is no exception. As you can see in the photos below, his Troop Transporter includes almost all of the features as the original toy, such as opening front and rear panels and six side compartments that can hold minifigs.

BaronSat has also produced another minifig-scaled Star Wars playset that represents the Rebel base on Hoth, as seen in Empire Strikes Back.

If you look closely at the Lego Hoth playset, which includes the Rebels' ion cannon, blast door and shield generator, you'll notice that it bears some similarities to two play sets from Kenner's Star Wars Micro Collection line: the Hoth Ion Cannon and the Hoth Generator Attack playsets. (Photos below provided courtesy of RebelScum.com.)

While BaronSat's new Lego Hoth playset isn't a scale-accurate replica of the Micro Collection Hoth playsets, it nevertheless includes some of the features of the original playsets (such as an observation tower and an opening blast door) and it is complementary to BaronSat's previous Lego re-creation of Kenner's Imperial Attack Base playset.

Check out BarsonSat’s official site and Flickr pages for more examples of his work. You can also order custom Lego kits and custom kit instructions from him on his site.