Swords and Spaceships

Dig this one first. Then see the rest. Sure, this Chevy Malibu could be painted up like Prowl just to throw us nerds off the trail. Or it could just be a Chinese police car, since China is apparently a location for some set pieces for this movie. It does seem pretty elaborate for a red herring, but considering how much Bay hated the leaks on the first one, it wouldn't surprise me. I really hope it's not Prowl, since I'd rather see him as a new Nissan Z.

GI Joe goes to IDW Yeah, OK, great. I buy a lot of IDW comics, and they have the Transformers license already. But IDW's books feel painfully thin sometimes, consisting of little dialogue and lots of splash pages. And I loved where Devil's Due was going with the GI Joe: America's Elite book. Le sigh. Issue #35 of that title is out this week, freaks.

Better late than never, eh? It's pretty ambitious, being 26 (!) discs, but maybe it'll be priced reasonably so they can sell them easier. And, at least the whole series will be out in one shot, which like many cartoons put to DVD, doesn't happen. (Witness GI Joe and Gargoyles.)

September 2nd! Crap. I was thinking about buying a Wii here, but I might decide to get a PS3 so I can watch this in its much-deserved hi-def glory. Plus, you never know, the new Indy flick might be released on Blu-Ray this fall too.

*- gold star if you name the reference. So, the Indiana Jones toys are out in full force, and brother, are they awesome. These are the toys I've wanted to own all my life, and thankfully, there are several to choose from. Sallah? You got it. Marion? You can get her figure two ways. And, there's lots of Indy. I have no less than six of them, and there's two others with some traps from the Hovitos temple from Raiders I don't have yet. The figures I own are listed here, because yes, I do have a "mine is bigger than yours" complex when it comes to toys: Radiers of the Lost Ark- Indy w/ fertility idol Belloq Sallah (best fig in the line, hands down) Deluxe Marion Ravenwood w/ Cairo Henchman Deluxe Indy w/ horse (best Indy money can buy, so far) Deluxe Indy w/ark Cairo Swordsman Cairo Indy w/ whip-cracking action Last Crusade: German Soldier w/ motorcycle Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Indy w/ crystal skull (and the figure that gave me the idea for the title of this ...

Clicky. I could totally see him as something like a Scion xB with subwoofers that transform in to Rumble and maybe Ravage, since Frenzy was used up in the first movie.

I've not purchased any Marvel-related toys since Hasbro took over the license. Well, I did buy one Ghost Rider from that movie line (which was pretty neat) and the X3 Beast from the first ML series they did, but those were developed by Toy Biz, so it wasn't a true representation of what Hasbro could do. Then the awful Spider-Man 3 and Fantastic Four 2 toys came out last year and were in a 5" scale, and the Legends price was bumped up to $10, so I walked away. That all changed last week. I picked up the Iron Man movie Mark 03 armor figure, and it blew me away. This weekend, I decided to get the X3 versions of Jean Grey and Juggernaut, since the X-Men movie toys back in 2000 are what got me started on Marvel toys in the first place. I also picked up the Iron Man Stealth Ops armor figure, which is really disappearing fast from Wal-Mart, the chain it's exclusive to. Knowledgeable fans will recognize this as War Machine, though it's not named as such on the package even...

The Joker's Wild As pretty much everyone with a pulse guessed, people are buying up the Joker action figures from The Dark Knight toyline by Mattel and putting them on ebay, where dopes are dumb enough to buy them. Due to Heath Ledger's untimely death earlier this year, people think they can sell these for a mint, and so far, they seem to be right. I speak of the $10-12 Movie Masters 6" version, which is aimed at collectors. I was lucky enough to pick up a Joker and Batman from this line late last week, and I can tell you, if you pay $30 for that Joker figure, you're mad. It's really not that great. However, the Batman figure is amazing, but also not worth $30, but you should totally pick it up for $10. I think this line might take off once the movie hits in July, so you might be able to find the Joker then. I have noticed them disappearing locally, so it's not limited to New York. It's pretty despicable that people will try to profit off toys like that, bu...

Future of Star Trek: The Experience in doubt This is really disheartening. Here, Paramount has this big new relaunch movie coming next year, and the Cedar Fair wants to close this thing. Wow. It's unfortunate, but business is business. I'm very glad I got to go this year, after a decade of waiting to go. I wonder what the Las Vegas Hilton would do without the attraction there, since an entire wing of their casino is dressed up to look like the inside of a spaceship. So anyway, here's a select few pictures I took of the museum part of the Experience this past March when I visited: It's kind of pity that all this stuff will likely be auctioned off and not seen by the public again, but at least Star Trek fans buy it, so it's owned by someone who will take care of it.

It's not a question of IF this movie will suck, it's a question of how hard. Seriously, Bollywood could make a more interesting-looking movie.

This was one of my first purchases from this line, and to be honest, I wasn't all that impressed with this one. Sure, I mostly wanted it for the 3.75" scale Ark, but the Indy figure included with it doesn't stand very well, and none of my GI Joe or Star Wars stands seem to fit the peg holes on the feet. What I found most disappointing about this was a lack of a Staff of Ra accessory, since what we saw Indy do in this particular garb was find the Well of Souls in the Map Room. If Hasbro plans on selling a Map Room playset and they include that accessory, then this will be one of the better purchases you can make. The Ark accessory is almost necessary, and so far, this is the only way to get it.

but do you have a right to bear toys? Bills seek punishment for use, display of fake weapons Yeah, let's worry about the children and their toys instead of real gun crime. Someday, they're gonna lock us all up for owning G1 Megatron toys.

Yeah, I know it's a rickroll, but anything involving the Muppets is good to me.

I scored a set of GI Joe wave 7 at my local Wal-Mart tonight. (Yay late-night toy runs and knowing when your local store stocks toys!) I'm impressed to say the least. Let's start with the bad- the Viper really isn't all that great. The goggles slide off too easily, and I was disappointed about that until I realized he looked better without them. Then, I was bothered by the weird angle his hands were at, but since it helps him hold his weapon better, I let that go. What really sucks about this guy is the fact that the hands pop off at the point-of-articulation between the elbow and the wrist. Every time I try to get a new pose out of this guy, the friggin' hands come loose. That's really annoying, especially on a figure I would have liked to have bought five of. As it stands, I'll be hard pressed to buy two since these things are $7 a whack at Wal-Mart and Target, with TRU undoubtedly waiting to raise their price. Severely disappointing, but maybe I just got a ba...

This is possibly the most meaningful post I'll ever put on this site. Believe me, I had tears welling up when I scanned these photos. They didn't turn out so well, but the point is there. This is me, at three years old, sitting on my mother's lap having just unwrapped my first action figure ever, Skeletor. This was my birthday in 1984. This guy is still standing on my desk, beat to hell, but something I'll never part with. Christmas of 1984. Some of my earliest memories involve this Christmas. I received a Tonka dump truck full of Star Wars and MOTU toys, and the Roton pictured here. I remember my dad telling me to find my Skeletor figure and put him in there, and here's the pic. I find it amazing that my parents still remember the names of all these characters, even now, 24 years later. Halloween of 1985. Who doesn't remember those Ben Cooper costumes with the vinyl bodies and cheap plastic masks? They made you sweat like crazy, and they only lasted that one ni...

1987 GI JOE DEFIANT SPACE VEHICLE LAUNCH COMPLEX - MIB A GI Joe Defiant, still Mint in Box. That's phenomenal. If I had the cash, I'd have bought this thing in a heartbeat. I can only imagine the carrier's reaction when he delivered the box to my door. For one thing, the outer box on this thing is about four and a half feet tall, half that wide, and weighs fifty pounds. Damn, you know? Check that link out, you probably won't see another one of those.

Awesomeness beyond your imagination Man, oh man, I wish I could buy these. These are so much more awesome than another Clone in different colors. Alas, the Star Wars name will never be applied to something that radically reinvents it, so this is all we get. Though I would pay good money for that little R2-D2 boiler.

Here is your competition, from the 2009 GI Joe live-action movie. As you can see, it is patently ridiculous. Folks at Warner Brothers, you know you can do better than Paramount, the entity producing GI Joe. Just because it's based on a cartoon from the 1980s doesn't mean it still has to look ridiculous in a different way. I beg you, Warner Brothers, to look at what made the original property so charming in the first place, and not "update" or leatherize it. Some people say it worked for the X-Men franchise, but the only thing that time has proven about that is that copying that idea is bringing down genre films as a whole. I know you are worried about profits, since it's expensive to make movies, but not everything has to appeal to teenagers. Yes, they have money, but people who actually played with He-Man toys in the 1980s have lots more money, and some of them even have kids. Please, think of the twenty- and thirtysomethings and their children instead of the low...

Yes, I did find the only bad thing to say about the new MOTU line- that I have to wait until San Diego Comic Con to see the full rollout. But, everything else I've heard is great news. It's a collector-focused line, so that alone is wonderful. There is no news about who is going to be carrying this line, but since it's Mattel, these have to be sold at mass retail, so I assume it's everyone but Wal-Mart since WM doesn't carry the DCUC line, I doubt they'll go for MOTU. There will be an SDCC exclusive to kick this line off, that being King Grayskull: I know absolutely nothing about this guy, but I hope I'll be able to get my hands on one. I'm not fond of SDCC exclusives for MOTU, but I do like to think Mattel has learned something and that there will be a way for fans who can't go to buy this.

GI Joe movie pics! They're showing pretty much everybody except Cobra Commander and Destro. So far, I actually like what I'm seeing. I doubt that those black suits all the hereos are in will be the only thing that they wear in the flick, so I expect some more traditional garb at some point in the movie. I did notice they went out of the way to show the three female cast members in a lot of pics. Edit- pics removed due to obvious damage control. As if there was anything to lose.