Hasbro, When It Comes To TVC's The Ninety Six, Please Don't "Mimic The Gimmick"

Hasbro, it has come to our attention that you may not understand the whole point of The Ninety Six Kenner figures that most The Vintage Collection collectors are dying to see you complete for the line. (more….)

As of late, it’s apparent that you intend to “mimic the gimmick” of the original Kenner figures. The recent releases are bittersweet for collectors. Some have different problems than others, but let us itemize what we mean when we say the line is starting to “mimic the gimmick.”

The whole point of The Vintage Collection “The Ninety Six” figures is to give collectors a definitive modern and screen-accurate counterpart to the characters that make up the original Kenner line. We hope that you look to the figure first and then the character photo second to produce a complete and cohesive line that clearly shows what character you’re updating.

Things that shouldn’t happen with The Ninety Six include:

• Death Star Droid imitating the vintage Kenner figure MB-RA-7. Unfortunately, you didn’t update the figure to be 3B6-RA-7 from the Sandcrawler. A Momaw Nadon in a teal-blue tunic won’t fly either, so why do this to the Death Star Droid?
• Luke Skywalker (Endor) without a removable helmet and the worst belt the 3.75-inch line has ever seen is a tragedy. Please don’t ever do this again?
• Paploo not receiving a corrected character photo of the character from Return Of The Jedi (which Kenner already had in the works to correct in 1985).
• Changing Kenner character photos and card art when they apply.

At the same time, you’re doing the Lord’s work with some other characters. These include:

• Princess Leia (Endor) got a stunning updated portrait and screen-accurate colors in the poncho. She’s BEAUTIFUL.
• Correctly choosing the “driver” for the AT-ST Driver release, albeit it’s a simple straight repack. Don’t think we don’t notice the little things.
• Tusken Raider getting a portrait you’ve never attempted before in the line and updating the articulation. Not too many collectors are giving this figure a fair shake. Yes, you went cheap on the paint operations, but it’s a fantastic new head sculpt.

We could go on and on and on. For example, the Power Droid should have received an updated character photo. And then you should have repainted the Power Droid sculpt in gray and then added a new figure into the line with the original character photo. There are SO MANY ways to milk the line with little cost and make collectors happy with multiple releases.

Would you please study both the original Kenner figure and the character photos carefully? You’ll discover that there are some that you’ll have the chance to fix and correct. And others will give us a new character for our collections altogether.

And please don’t mimic the vintage Kenner gimmick. The point is to update these characters and make them accurate, not imitate the mistakes of the Kenner line. If you want to do a “Kenner colors” line, then we’ll listen, but this shouldn’t be part of The Vintage Collection’s approach. Thank you!

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