Who ya gonna call?

It’s not often that I get surprised by a product.   I saw the prototypes for Mattel’s  12" Ghostbusters at Comic Con over the summer.   I thought they looked pretty good.   I don’t collect very many 12" scale figures any more.  The only ones worth collecting these days cost a lot of money and I spent way too much money in the past on mediocre Hasbro 12" Star Wars figures.

 If I’m being completely honest I think I might have passed on Mattel’s 12" Ghostbuster line.   $60… this close to the holidays…the 6" are cheaper…

 I think that we can all agree that unless you are a hardcore Ghostbusters fan that it’s hard to commit to $60 a quarter after only seeing a few PowerPoint slides and some prototypes behind glass.  1/6th scale is a TOUGH form to master.   So far there have been only a handful of companies to get it right… Sideshow and Hot Toys being the top two currently.   But what about one of the "big two?"   There have been a lot of attempts to break into that market from Mattel and Hasbro… with very mixed results.   

 How does Mattel’s new venture stack up?   Like I said, it takes a lot to surprise me, but they have done it.  This is 12" done right.  And the tough part is, you need to see it to believe it.   Just to be sure that I wasn’t looking at it through rose colored glasses, I invited a few other collector buddies (in the form of Jeremy aka SpyMagician and Chris aka Flash Ahh-Ahhhhh! ) over to the house today to have a look at it and they agreed with my assessment of the figures.   They are really well done, and well worth $60 a pop (especially when you can’t get a Sideshow figure for under $80 these days).

The thing that was most striking was as I opened the figure, was everything that I thought to myself  "I wonder if …..?." the answer always came back "yes."   The Mattel team put a lot of effort and thought into their latest dip into the 12" figure pool.    Now I’m excited not only for the continuation of this line, but also Superman the Move 12" and whatever they have up their sleeves after that.

The 12" Ray Stantz figure will go on sale at MattyCollector.com on October 15th.

The Package

 Your 12" Ghostbusters Dr. Raymond Stantz will ship with inside an outer white box like most products coming from MattyCollector.com, in order to protect the inner packaging.   Inside you will notice that the box has some heft to it.   As you can see from the photos below, he’s well displayed and visible in the inner box, and the inner box is pretty spectacular.  The background in the package has many of the ghosts from the first film, including Slimer and the Librarian printed on it, and there are two other ghosts printed on the outer plastic to give the scene even more depth.  At his feet is an open ghost trap made of cardboard that is part of the packaging.  There’s also a cool new 25th Anniversary logo in the top left of the package.

The left part of the box that says "Stantz" slides out fully to reveal a "locker" for Ray’s gear.   Inside you will find the Ghost Trap and trigger, the PK goggles, his walkie-talkie (with holster) and alternate, gloveless hands.  This is another great touch for this awesome packaging.

 

 

 

The Figure

The head sculpt used for the 12" Ray Stantz is completely different than the one used on the 6" figure.   Some people have mentioned they thought the 12" Ray was a bit more stylized or "cartoonish" as compared to his 6" counterpart.   The difference being that the 12" heads were sculpted by Mattel’s in house team and the 6" figures were sculpted by the Four Horsemen. To me it does look like a young Dan Aykroyd, and that’s what you want.   There are some 12" figures out on the market that you pick up and think, "I look more like the character than this figure does, and I don’t look anything like the character."  So the fact that the figure is immediately identifiable is a win in that column.

 

 

The Body

Mattel has developed a brand new 12" body with some unique articulation.  They really did put a lot of thought and effort into the design of the form so it will work for a variety of licenses.  

The most interesting new point of articulation is found in the shoulders and chest.   The shoulders rotate forward and back, but the interesting thing is that the figure’s pectorals move with the shoulders. It’s a little hard to explain, and since I didn’t want to undress the complex costume on my figure I couldn’t see exactly how that worked.  So, I asked Mattel if they had any pictures of their new 12" body.   I don’t relish the thought of a naked Dan Aykroyd on AFi any more than you do… but this is science!… well not science, but toys!

The figure also has double knee and elbow joints and has great articulation in the legs and feet, including the toes.  The joints on mine are just right and he stands just fine without a figure stand.

Thanks to the gang at Mattel for these shots.

 

 

 

And some action shots of the body

The Uniform

Most 1/6 figures tank in the clothing department.  It’s just so hard to get the materials to behave properly in that scale.   Mattel has clearly worked very hard on this making sure the jumpsuit with all it’s patches, pouches, pockets and zippers look like their on-screen counterparts, and they have done a damn good job of it.  The straps and belt work well and look movie accurate.  They even put the zipper on the boots instead of recycling some other pair of boots they might have had a mold for. The elbow pads hold together with Velcro and are removable, and as mentioned earlier he comes with both gloved and bare hands so you can chose which way you want to display Ray.  I guess if you really want something nit-picky, the jumpsuit does come untucked from the boots in some poses.  In those instances… um…tuck them back in.

The Proton Pack

The proton pack is a thing of beauty.  It looks SO good on it’s own, and then to have it light up as well, that’s just the icing on the cake.  There is a button on the base of the proton pack that when pushed activates the sequence of four lights.  I haven’t counted how many cycles the four lights go through before they shut off, but it was long enough for me to wonder if I had to push the button again to turn them off.

All of the decals have actual text on them even at that scale, and actual wire is used for the tubing and wires.   The pack mounts to the harness frame that the figure wears, but the pack is easily removable from the harness so you can replace the batteries if needed.   The nozzle attaches to the side of the pack for storage via a pin, much the way it does on the 6" figures.   The paint is sharp and the pack has some nice dry brush weathering on it.

The Goggles

The ghost trap was another amazing surprise.   It would have been easy to cheap out on it since it’s just an accessory.   But Mattel went the other way and made it amazing.   The doors of the trap are spring loaded with the push of a button, the foot pedal is spring loaded and the hose disconnects from the trap.  

Comparisons

There you have it.  I really can’t say enough good things about this figure.   It surprised me and made me want more.

As I said it really is tough to see how nice this is unless you see it in person, so if you have any more questions about the figure or need to see more pictures, post on the 12" Ghostbusters thread in the AFi forum and I’ll try to get you those answers.