The problem with making toys before a movie comes out. After the Fact Action Figures explored

[@PhantomDusclops92]

As a Transformers fan, I know many situations like those. The most notorious case in recent years was the whole toyline for the Bumblebee movie, where most of the Bumblebee figures released were based on early concept art that showed him looking the same as in the earlier live-action films just with a Volkswagen Beetle altmode instead of a Camaro, so they all gave him a slender body figure and the car doors sprayed out instead of the chubby body with the car doors folded down seen in the final film. A similar case happened with Rise of the Beast too, with the most visible case being Scourge's Leader Class figure depicting him with very different body proportions, such as thin legs and a tiny head on a long and bulky neck, while the final film gave him more regular body proportions which were then featured on later non-transforming figures of him.

[@mm39607]

For real, Transformers has so many examples of this. Like Mirage from ROTB, who looks absolutely nothing like his movie model.

[@geechie-don7157]

I personally don’t mind it. It makes me use my imagination, plus opens the door for “variants”. More toys are good…

[@midwestmonster9886]

Movie accurate Star Wars toys? Nice. I'm just gonna sit here and wait for that Slave Leia.

[@Rob-z7k]

Finally...i can get a perfect looking Jawa!

[@CoolCATs2814]

Grogu would be an example of After the Fact. Nothing of him was available for the Christmas season when the show 1st came out.

[@WILLIAMWILKINSON-r4b]

@coolcats2814....you mean Baby Yoda

[@joemartin5669]

The batgirl and the poison ivy figure from the batman and robin movie definitely looked like concept art characters since neither looked like they did in the film.on a personal note when you said the days of original ideas like MOTU are gone I agree and feel that is the problem with toys today.they seem to suffer from a case of "star wars syndrome"where companies are trying to find something which will sell like star wars did but they never will.because star wars was truly a once in a lifetime thing and not something that could be repeated.but they still try to find any film or tv show and pray it's the next star wars instead of creating new IP like they should.the industry has been suffering from this idea since 1978.

[@steveralston8837]

I remember the figures for Star Trek: Generations. The uniforms were brand new designs, a cross between the Next Generation and TOS movies. I thought they looked really cool, but of course they're not in the movie and never appeared in anything!

[@Tim85-y2q]

They apparently did one day of filming with those uniforms before they were scrapped. There are a few (not great quality) production stills online. I like them but we probably never would have gotten the First Contact uniforms (my all time favorite ST uniform design) had they been used.

[@Darthpizza-y3d]

very interesting, thank you for the video.

[@justinkirk3647]

The Batman Forever toy line is pretty amazing because it has so many variants of different bat suits. Some look more like the costume from Batman Returns and the original movie design. This explains that well.

[@KevinJohns]

Insightful video, as always!

[@quanahk]

Seeing this topic I immediately thought of the Star Trek generations figures

[@Tim85-y2q]

Those covered all the bases as the line had both unused designs and deleted scenes represented. I'm still mad they downgraded the articulation on those compared to the TNG line though.

[@Tim85-y2q]

I kind of like when the figures get based on early concepts. Sometimes it's the best look we get at what those designs were.

[@ciscodeer9094]

Yep this explains Star Wars toys, especially Andor. We saw Andor and the rest of the toys but we never that one character that everyone liked. Dedra Meero we didn't see her until fall 2024.

[@Chrismw81]

I remember when Warner Bros made us believe the Batman movie toy would be a kick ass black repaint of the Super powers figure. Boy were they wrong......

[@jontuell5338]

Thanks, Scott!

[@corbinowens2437]

The 2014 TMNT movie had Shredder fig w/ his white skin showing & the size of April, when in the movie it was an Asian guy in a big mechanical suit. They also have a Raph in disguise figure for a deleted scene. Plus soooo many Marvel & DC examples.

[@MTB214]

Sometimes I’d be happy to get figures from movies I didn’t see yet. There are upcoming 6 inch statues from the new The Rock Christmas movie. They will look great in my Hanukkah and Christmas season diorama.

[@corbinowens2437]

I’d love a nice list of figures that fall into this category

[@mikeyjhilli]

I imagine getting a color accurate/show accurate Booster Gold figure out is faster than a movie figure.

[@inspector2363]

The Deleted Episode 1 R2-D2 with 4 jets still makes more design sense than having 2 on the legs

[@JomasterTheSecond]

If they make toys before the movie to be day-in-date with release, people complain about the toys being inaccurate. If they make toys after the movie releases to make them accurate, people complain about the toys coming too late... it's a lose/lose situation with fans, don't you think?

[@CoolCATs2814]

But neither situation about the toys' fan reaction is wrong.

[@EdgedShadow]

Mostly just the bitter unpleasable, type of fan, really. Most of us understand why this happens, especially now that they reshoot and drastically edit films right up until their release date.

[@godmagnus]

Never heard of anyone complaining about the toys being too late. Seems like a thing only corporate could complain about. They want the toys on the shelf during the movie's early days, when interest is at its peak.

[@JomasterTheSecond]

@@godmagnus I've seen a lot of people complain about toys coming too late, like the Deadpool & Wolverine Marvel Legends figures for a very recent example.

[@rodrickadamginsburg8960]

Awesome!

[@johnmorey720]

And it’s even gotten worse when they alter cgi designs at literally the last minute of post production

[@sledgehama]

I noticed in the recent restructuring at Hasbro announcement that there was something along the lines of trying to streamline the development to consumer pipeline - do you think that might be part of a move to try and cut down on the lag time or just corporate speak to justify more job losses? What’s the single largest consumer of time in the development process?

[@derheadbanger9039]

What's the shortest time a comany took to develop a figure to a movie? I imagine some smaller companies won't take 2 years.

[@mikeyjhilli]

Interesting.

[@machineman6498]

What markets are you limited to when an IP doesn’t have supporting media?

[@ReebsMedia]

Who’s Cobb Vance?

[@WILLIAMWILKINSON-r4b]

You cant really put the vintage cantina aliens in this category because they were in the 2nd wave of the line which came out 2 years after the movie.... a better example would be the figure from The Force Awakens that was released but was never in the movie 😂😂😂😂

[@dextereason-rl3kj]

A made up term for a made up industry insider. 😂😂😂😂😂. Your green lantern movie figures were great examples of your awful work. And for anyone claiming or bringing up classics, 4 horsemen were the designers and they are classics. Not scooter. He was just there by chance.

[@geechie-don7157]

Nothing like a stank azz troll