Vintage vs modern: A toy story
As a child of the 1980's, I whiled away many hours in my garden reinacting massive battles involving some of the most impressive armies of all time! Whether it was the Autobots battle for Cybertron or Cobra Commanders world domination following on our favourite cartoons and movies at home was a favourite past time for me and my best friend. How our families afforded such mass armies of plastic I will never know. Now although the style and design of these toys was lacking some finesse the sheer volume available allowed for any storyline to be relived. Good examples are The Masters Of The Universe action figures, they issued hundreds of He-man figures and all of them used the same muscly macho man moulds. However as long as they had a different accessory to the last one we got, we were happy!
Now since I have been involved in Evil Robot Designs I have spent a lot of time hunting and scouring the world for these 80's gems for us to use in our products and although certain toys are hard to find we have found ourselves drawn towards there modern day counterparts. It was only a couple of years ago that I gave up on modern toys I think I had seen to many WWF wrestlers and Power Rangers to last me a lifetime and was pretty certain the toy industry had given up! I was pretty certain it had a great deal to do with the down slide in kids TV, programmes like sponge bob had taken over the television and there was nothing on worth making great toys from. Then suddenly while I wasn’t paying attention they rehashed all the great 80's toys and suddenly today’s kids had all those great characters I loved except with detail!
Vintage vs Modern Buzz-Off
Now we have Transformers that look great in both forms not just the vehicle, they have lost their bulky box like robot form and have a new sleek robot that almost transforms itself. As for He-man you can see from above that the macho mass production has disappeared and a new stylised version has arrived that kicks ass out of the original whilst keeping all the charm of the characters we had grown to love. Now I could go on with other examples, but have a hunt for yourself as there are some great new thundercats well worth checking out. Now there are a few toys that have not changed quite dramatically as there originals were already really great such as Star Wars and GI Joe, in fact the latter have barely changed in any way which shows the quality of the original designs.
Vintage vs Modern Bumble Bee
Now it may seem like I am dissing the original action figures throughout this comparison but im really not. The 80's toys will always be my favourite and I’m pretty certain they hold a place with every guy of my age, I’m just glad that I have a job now that allows me to embrace both my memories and the evolution they have taken to the sleek modern toys we have today.
EViL ED
3 Comments
Reader Comments (3)
Someone's opened up a whole crate of worm filled cans with this one!
Isn't the whole point that robots should look like robots and, unless we're talking Insecticons, not giant metal alien bugs.. If you take a look at High Moon Studios re-imagining of the bots and cons you'll really see a sleek rendition that stays faithful to the character of the original..
And while I can feel my angst bubbling over Michael Bay's vision of the Transformers, is anyone else dreading what will happen when he takes some Mutant Ninja Turtles and tries to pass them off as aliens from another planet who just happen to look a bit turtle-esque and act a little ninja-y..?
Love the UFO wallpaper btw..
Thanks for that Paul...as opinionated as ever!
I was rather concerned about putting up a picture of a 'Bayformer', should have done one of the prime ones! My point was really about the toys not the films! The way the new transformers transform is so complex and amazing (even Bays ones) and its easy to forget that.
Not even gonna comment on Teenage Alien Ninja Turtles thats definitely a separate blog all of its own!
Toys has been changed in so many aspects when years passed by. They are innovated many times to produce a better toys for kids. But we cannot ignore those vintage toys because they are the ones that we can say the foundation of our play experience. Both vintage and modern toys gives us an unforgettable play experience with them.