Hello everyone… I’m reporting in with my brief notes on the 2009 SDCC Hasbro G.I. Joe panel.
One of my friends “forgot” to get in line while I was at the Hasbro Toy Shop booth so we got to sit all the way in the back, which was fine as Hasbro really had a poor showing as far as Audio/Visual material. I got a few pictures but they turned out bad, and were very uninspiring.
Hasbro could learn a thing or two from other panels, as they used generic stock photos we’ve been seeing for a while now.
So here are my little notes 🙂
Starting off, there was a lot of praise for the custom build diorama downstairs, you can see pictures of it in my post from yesterday. It was really well done, and I think we’d all like to keep a piece of that. It celebrated key scenes from the upcoming movie, and made me a little more excited for the movie actually.
Hasbro believes that the Rise of Cobra (RoC) toy lineup is really a bridge from the “A Real American Hero” (ARAH) into the present. The RoC line brings 80’s fantasy to a new generation of fans, while giving the designers the freedom to expand the line with cool new characters and features at the same time.
To this end, there are NUMEROUS “off-screen” characters who are being made into toys in the RoC universe. They are really trying to bring the best of the 80’s ARAH line into the future by keeping, as they put it “the spirit of the 80’s” in the toy line. I think they are doing a pretty good job with this so far, and I am really warming up to the “new” universe, with some caveats of course.
They made a point to mention that G.I. Joe is not locked in time, they have the opportunity to add new specialists and figures that they never thought of before, and getting out of the ARAH mindset lets them expand and grow the line like never before. I personally agree with this mindset and am excited to get NEW ideas and NEW figures, even if I do not agree, or like, all of them. Almost all the new figures have nods to the history of G.I. Joe but it gives them the freedom to expand the line like never before.