Last week quite a stir was created when Rescuer over on the JoeCustoms message boards mentioned that a Dollar General manager reported to him that the new G.I. Joe figures we were all searching for in stores had, in fact, been recalled.
I was a bit dubious about this, and I did some searching of my own, with thanks to a few friends of the site, and in all conversations I had with Dollar General folks or people connected to the chain, there had been no recall brought to their attention.
Well, Wednesday, Rescuer kindly returned to JoeCustoms to elaborate on his post, and he typed the following:
“DG recall Update:
After a busy week at the fire station, I finally got to go to the local DG myself. I spoke with Linda, the Manager, (my wife’s friend is only an Asst Manager I found out) myself in regards to the recall that they received. They did receive a recall notice on a pallet that did contain GI Joe toys. HOWEVER, the recall was due to the pallet sustaining damage in transit, and several boxes of Joe toys were crushed, along with some Corps figures, large Power Rangers, and Batman figures. The recall was from their distribution warehouse, NOT Hasbro! The Joe toys were a few of the new sculpt o-ring figures, and the small Joe combat heroes. They were told not to put them on the shelf and return for replacements. There were NONE of the new Joe single cards in the recall! They unfortunately did not receive any more of the new figures in as of the last shipment delivery. I wanted to get this clarified for everyone that is still in search of these figures. KEEP LOOKING!! If anyone is able to, please forward this info to General’sJoes to update his site as well.
Thanks,
Rescuer”
So that’s that. There is NO RECALL for Dollar General stores. Granted, these figures are quite hard to find at the moment, but I suspect they will get more common place as time goes on. For the moment, though, no need to panic.
Thanks to Rescuer for following up and bringing this to my attention!
One annual standard of the Canadian JoeCon is the excellent comic that goes along with it, and this year we get a great surprise with it! IDW artist Robert Atkins will be drawing the cover for this year’s Canadian JoeCon comic!
The details are below:
Robert Atkins to illustrate the 2012 Canadian Joe Con Comic book cover! A limited amount of these comics will be available online and at the con itself. Don’t forget to email Robert Atkins today via our “GUESTS” link to the left and order your own art to be picked up at the con! Plan early to get into the con faster by booking your tickets at the link below! All purchased tickets via BrownPaperTickets will get you into Friday night for FREE!
Tickets will only be available online until July 10th.
August 10th and 11th at the Sheraton Toronto, and make sure you keep your eyes on CanadianJoeCon.com for the latest details and information about the Canadian JoeCon!
Kevin Watts has gotten a lot of love from GeneralsJoes, mostly due to his excellent custom work, but not only does Kevin do great customs, but he’s also been a fan of the property and collecting for a long time, and he has a lot of items in his personal collection that have never seen the light of day. He collects pre-production items, concept art, and has a veritable museum of incredible collectibles.
Thankfully, he has gotten his own website rolling, the 788th Armored Division, and has used it as a platform to showcase a fantastic piece of concept art for a vehicle that has never been released. Designed apparently as an armored transport, this vehicle looks like it was slated to be released in 1986 and has some shared concepts with the Rolling Thunder, which was released in 1988.
Out of respect for Kevin, I’m not mirroring the images here, but you should definitely check out the 788th Armored Division to see these images. They are worth your time.
UPDATE – Kevin has kindly given me permission to mirror a few images, so check them out below. More are available at his site. Thanks, Kevin!
So, Joe fans got the words they were fearing via online retailers yesterday as reports emerged from all over the ‘net that G.I. Joe: Retaliation orders from Wave 2 and forward would not be fulfilled this year. According to reports from online retailers, the same product will be made available in early 2013.
CRAP.
Now before everyone rushes in and says “Oh, cool, now they can push out some more 30th Anniversary stuff! Oh, cool, now they can fix all the crappy articulation!”
Ummmm… no. I would not expect anything like that. Any toys, even ones where tooling already exists, takes far too long to produce to just be “thrown out there” within the next few months. There is way more planning, coordination, and production required than we probably think. They can’t just toss one of those Kwinn test shots in a magic machine and suddenly have 20,000 available to ship to retailers.
Same goes for articulation. “Fixing” articulation would require significant retooling, and would essentially be creating the line again from scratch. Hasbro has already invested too much money in the current figures, and already has way too short a time frame in order to make any wholesale changes to the figures as they stand.
On the good side, JoeCon is just four short weeks away, so hopefully we can all get our questions answered there. And there will be a LOT of questions, I’m sure.
This actually happened last night, but I was a bit wiped after my all day work travels, and frankly a little browbeat over the rampant assaulting of the Collectors’ Club. But it’s news, so here goes!
The G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club has officially announced that all attendee and non-attendee 3 3/4″ Oktober Guard Convention Packages are sold out. This has, of course, caused somewhat of a frenzy from collectors who are disappointed that they didn’t get a chance to get their hands on these sets. While that disappointment is certainly justified, I will say that it can be difficult to judge numbers and just because everyone thinks a set is a sure fire home run, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee a quick sell out. It’s easy to play armchair Toy Collector Quarterback with someone else’s checkbook, but it can be something totally different to take a risk, ramp up production, and increase the possibility of taking a bath on the sets.
I know it’s popular to say that Pre-Orders are the way to go, but I think there are simply too many moving pieces and the Club is too small an operation to be able to handle that responsibly.
Of course, if you really want to attend the Convention, you can still order the 12″ Adventure Team Heavy Weapons set, which actually looks pretty awesome as well, and that will get you admittance to the Convention and allow you to do everything you want to do.
Congratulations to you folks who got them, a bummer for folks who missed out, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else is in the works down in New Orleans!
For all the latest information on the G.I. Joe Convention, keep your browser pointed to GIJoeCon.com!
I started these reviews with the bad guys yesterday, and today I finish off my reviews of the already infamous Dollar Store Joes with a look at the G.I. Joe side of the house. Like the Cobra figures, these guys use a ton of existing parts, not a huge array of paint apps, but a whole ton of creativity.
We’ve heard it from a number of different sources, and the story is starting to become more and more clear, and now industry insider Nikke Finke has spoken up on Deadline.com about the delay for G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
Yes, according to Ms. Finke, the reasons behind the G.I. Joe: Retaliation delay were much more than simply a conversion to 3D or “bad screenings”. Sure, those played a part, but there were also other elements at work, too. According to Paramount insiders, the screening response wasn’t so much that the film was bad, it was more centered around the fact that Roadblock and Duke didn’t really establish a great friendship and that Duke died way too early in the film. There were also responses to the screening that asked why there was a lack of 3D in the first place.
Combining this with earlier talk that both John Carter of Mars and Battleship tanked domestically, Paramount became skittish of the surrounding competition, and elected to vacate to safer territory. The interesting note to all of this is not just that both John Carter and Battleship did much better internationally (which they both did), but that the big draw internationally was the 3D in both films.
“This was a case of letting a schedule to fill a summer slot dictate the film not being in 3D even though we knew that would be the most commercial version of the film. Then in the spring there were 2 big events. First John Carter lost $200M despite the best efforts of the Pixar brain trust. But the 3D film managed to gross over $200M overseas, nearly tripling its U.S. take.
“Also Channing Tatum had a breakout spring, starring in The Vow and 21 Jump Street. In our first screening of the film the reaction from audiences was good but with 2 big concerns: 1) They didn’t like the fact that Channing and The Rock really didn’t have any time to develop a friendship before Channing died, and 2) Why wasn’t it going to be in 3D? We went back and shot another week with Channing to develop more of his story with The Rock, which made the film play much better. But we didn’t have the time to be in 3D.
“Then a week ago Battleship basically had the same performance as John Carter – $60M-$70M U.S. and just over $200M international. That was just a wake-up call that said to us we need to offer the best version of the film irrespective of summer market share to ensure the best possible performance. And not being in 3D will cost us a ton of business internationally.”
I think it’s fair to say, now that we’ve heard from a number of industry sources that this is probably the prevailing wisdom behind the news. It’s not nearly the “doom and gloom” that many people fear in regards to the film’s quality, it was mostly a combination of different things that led us to this. Where we go from here is the important next step.
I will say, I haven’t seen this many industry folks talk about the G.I. Joe film franchise in the past, perhaps all of this visible conversation is good for the film in the long run? Maybe it will spark interest from some people and put it more on the “Hollywood Radar”. Along with Deadline.com, the Hollywood Reporter is also chiming in with their own analysis, that puts a bit of a more sinister focus on it, but is still talking about the film. Time will tell.
Yes, yes, I know…the temporary body of G.I. Joe: Retaliation isn’t even cold yet, and already we’re looking ahead. Or at least I’m looking ahead.
I will admit right off the bat that I quite often roll my eyes at fans who declare basic military movies to be the “perfect G.I. Joe film”. To me, G.I. Joe is about so much more than simple military action. There is so much more to it than Squad A infiltrates building and kills evil terrorists. There is a certain spirit, and a certain je ne sais quoi that it seems many people can’t grasp (especially based on what we’re seeing and hearing from Hollywood).
So it’s pretty rare that I’ll see a film or TV show that is wholly unrelated to G.I. Joe and think that it would be perfectly suited to represent the brand that I’ve known and loved for 30 years.
Below I have embedded an Official Ghost Recon: Alpha “mini movie” that is apparently an official production of UbiSoft. No, there are no G.I. Joe characters within, but in my opinion, this is as close to a perfect “G.I. Joe” film sequence as I have ever seen. Make the uniforms a bit more distinct and representative of certain characters…dress the evil terrorists in trademark Cobra blue, and inject a bit more character into each player…and this IS G.I. Joe.
The perfect blend of military action and future-tech. Heavy on the firepower, heavy on the drama, but not overtly in your face violent. It’s not often that I see an unrelated video and immediately think it would fit G.I. Joe, but this is one of those times. I won’t spoil it for you, but there is even something that shows up 3/4 of the way through the film that almost seems like a too perfect Cobra weapon. This has to be seen to be believed, but it’s not family friendly, so wait for the kids to hit the sack. Big thanks to John Uy for bringing this to my attention.
Hey, Paramount, you watching this? This is how it’s done.*
For more information on this and how this film leads into Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, check out this feature on G4.
*This is not to insinuate that G.I. Joe: Retaliation isn’t also “how it’s done”…haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t judge, but this 23 minute film blew my socks off. 😉
While the folks who are attending the 2012 G.I. Joe Convention in New Orleans have been jumping up and down over the past few days, folks who are not able to attend (but still want the Convention boxed set) have been eagerly sitting on their hands waiting to register.
The wait is over. The following email just came through from the G.I. Joe Collectors Club:
Hello all!
NON-ATTENDING Registration is now live.
WE ARE LIMITING EVERYONE (per household/per member, duplicate accounts for the same person don’t count) TO ONE SET DURING THE FIRST 24 HOURS. After that time period we will entertain potential second sets. If you choose more than one set we may cancel your entire order.
IF YOU LOG IN INCORRECTLY AND ARE GETTING NON-MEMBER PRICES PLEASE CONTACT US AS WE ARE NOT ABLE TO CORRECT THE PRICING AFTER THE FACT. YOUR LOG IN IS THE SAME AS THE ONE YOU TESTED IN THE STORE.
Use the email link at GIJOECON.com in the menu on the left if you need to contact us.
In addition, the attending sets left in stock are now reserved for people who have not ordered a set AND you will be limited to ONE.
Please take your time in the registration system to ensure you don’t make any mistakes.
We’ve obviously been seeing a lot of talk online about the date move for G.I. Joe: Retaliation, but most of it from the mainstream sites has just been a mention, and then moving on. Patrick Goldstein from the LA Times’ “Big Picture” actually put out some very nice and detailed analysis of the move.
So far his opinions are coming pretty close to mirroring mine. In fact, he thinks much the same way I do in that this isn’t just Battleship’s fault, you need to look further back to John Carter of Mars as well, in setting a precedent for failure that major studios are suddenly growing very skittish of.
