The Bridge Direct's The Hobbit Line

[The Ringer]

I'm gonna have nightmares about those goblins, some scary ****.

 

[Kuzeh]

I saw these over the weekend @ TRU... but I was very underwhelmed... I'm going to pass on these unfortunately...
I was really tempted about getting the Bilbo-Gollum 2-pack but the paint-job on Gollum is awful... cannot stand the redness around his eyes at all...
Still hoping for Sideshow to give us 1/6 figures of these

 

[JonWes]

So, after getting back from the movie, a few thoughts:

We NEED Radagast the Brown and his rabbit sleigh. I enjoyed him immensely.
So much potential for army building here. More goblins. More orcs. Dwarf armies.
Azog is a must, with his wolf.
Also, Eldrond looks very cool in his armor. I hope we get a figure of that too.

I am very confused about Yanzeg. He didn't seem to appear in the movie at all. So unless he was like Legolas and Tauriel and will appear in movie 2, it's a bit confusing. Add to that, that he was originally called Azog in solicitiations, right? So did they actually redesign Azog and then just gave a different name to this guy? Just wondering. I guess we'll find out eventually.

 

[Snakey Jones]

I'm pretty sure Yazneg was they guy initially leading the Orc pack, then got killed off by Azog for failing to capture the company.

Honestly, looking back, it felt like they were trying to keep Azog's true role a secret, which would be odd because his "reveal" wasn't exactly surprising, "On no, that guy in the flashbacks we didn't actually see die isn't actaully dead! Gasp!"

Come to think of it, a lot of the promotional material seemed to indicate Bolg as the main badguy; the toyline supports this by packing him with Gandalf like the two were going to square off at one point, but he barely appears in the film at all; a few seconds in a flashback sequence and you'd miss him if you weren't looking for him.

In fact, a lot of Orcs with toys barely had any screen time, the only exceptions being Yazneg and The Goblin King.

 

[JonWes]

I guess I was getting Fimbul and Yanzeg confused. Bolg's appearance only in flashback was interesting. I'm assuming we might see him again in future movies, though. I believe the idea is that Azog and his crew are a continued presence.

 

[nonexistent]

So, after getting back from the movie, a few thoughts:

We NEED Radagast the Brown and his rabbit sleigh. I enjoyed him immensely.
So much potential for army building here. More goblins. More orcs. Dwarf armies.
Azog is a must, with his wolf.
Also, Eldrond looks very cool in his armor. I hope we get a figure of that too.

I am very confused about Yanzeg. He didn't seem to appear in the movie at all. So unless he was like Legolas and Tauriel and will appear in movie 2, it's a bit confusing. Add to that, that he was originally called Azog in solicitiations, right? So did they actually redesign Azog and then just gave a different name to this guy? Just wondering. I guess we'll find out eventually.

I love this line at this scale not taking up so much space. Just got fimbul and warg. Very nice figure and love the warg. May get another one to army build. I still need the goblin king to get my thorin. I haven't watch the movie as it is only opening here in Australia on the 26 Dec. Still long way. Anyone thought about army building the goblins with grinnah. I saw in some of the tv spots most of the goblins look alike.

 

[JonWes]

Yeah, actually you could probably army build with Grinnah as they don't look too different, and Grinnah is not his own distinct character at all. I'm not even sure which one was Grinnah, actually. LOL. I think for some of these they just gave them names so it wouldn't just be "Goblin Warrior" or "Warg Rider."

 

[nonexistent]

Great, I will get another 2 or 3 grinnahs as my goblin pack. Still can't wait to watch the movie.

 

[JonWes]

Not sure if you guys saw, but TRU is having a buy one get one half off sale on Hobbit toys! I wish I'd have gotten them at those prices!

One thing I realized today as I was opening my SDCC invisible Bilbo... his accessories are totally inaccurate to what we see in the film! I mean, except sting. His rucksack and water bottles aren't in the film. He has a backpack more akin to what Bilbo had in the LOTR.

The only thing I can figure is that these

Spoiler:

are possibly what he'll get from the men of Dale in the second movie to replace his lost provisions after the ordeal in Goblin Town. Of course, even when the movie was only two films it doesn't seem like they would have gotten to that in the first movie. Huh.

 

[Red Metal]

Good catch. By the time Bilbo found the ring, he only had Sting, as everything else was lost in the shuffle.

 

[JonWes]

Someone pointed out to me on another board that those supplies

Spoiler:

might be from Beorn, which would make more sense as that would have been in the first movie originally.

So I guess we'll find out in 2014!

(I have no idea if I need to put that stuff in spoiler text, as it's in the book... but just in case. LOL)

Bridge Direct reiterated once again that new stuff wasn't coming until next Summer. That seems like SUCH a huge gap of time. But I guess I have plenty of other stuff to spend money on.

 

[Red Metal]

Between slow releases and the limited nature of the figures (I've only found them at TRU and Barnes and Nobles), this almost feels like a specialty line.

 

[Red Metal]

Sadly, the success of the movie and the BOGOHO sale at TRU has done little to move these figures. The 6" ones sell down well, but no one seems to be touching the 4" ones at my local TRUs.

 

[JonWes]

TRU sold through about half their stock at my TRU, but all they had were single 3.75'' figures. Anecdotal evidence is always tricky judging the success of lines.

 

[Red Metal]

TRU sold through about half their stock at my TRU, but all they had were single 3.75'' figures. Anecdotal evidence is always tricky judging the success of lines.

But I have to judge the success in my area. If these don't sell well, the local stores won't bother with restocks. Same goes for why I see little of the ML line or others. Some items just don't do well in other areas of the country and then those areas don't get the same quantity of product. It's that simple.

 

[JonWes]

Oh sure, if you're just talking about getting them in your area. My area never even got anything other than the singles, so I just had to order them online. I've heard they are showing up plentifully at K-mart, though there's not one of those near me any more. Still holding out hope between online sales and maybe areas where it's in stock and selling it's doing well overall. I'd rather they be successful somewhere and they keep making them than them be easy for me to get. Not that I'd rather not choose!

These figures are entering a market where few action figures are doing well period, let alone ones based on a movie. At least with kids. I'm HOPING it can buck the trend.

 

[JonWes]

Many new pics here:
https://idlehands1.blogspot.com/2013/01/toy-fair-2013-bride-directs-hobbit.html?m=1

Radagast in two scales! Azog! What looks like almost all the rest of the dwarfs. Plus, a mention of playsets in the future...

 

[The Josh]

Will be adding most of what we see there.

 

[Red Metal]

Wow, Radagast looks pretty nice - mismatched shoes and all. With any luck between Wave 2 and the first Wave of DoS we might just get Thorin and Company fully rounded out. Azog almost looks better than he did in the movie - less of a pale Orc.

I've been hoping those mini-figures would get here in the US, since they'd be just like Lego CMF - easy to feel. Plus, being alittle larger than GW minis, they might paint up pretty well.

 

[Bucky Underbelly]

Interesting that Azog has hair here. I seem to remember him being bald in the movie. I guess they really were still redesigning that character right up until the last possible minute.