No need to adjust your Spidey Senses. That deja vu you’re feeling is warranted. It’s another Figure Friday column and we’re introducing you to yet another line of TMNT figures.
It’s laughable at this point. Every time the franchise gets rebooted, we get new figures. Every 10 years after that, we’re treated with anniversary releases of those same turtles. Some have updates. Some do not. Either way, fans like me find a way to justify the purchase of four turtles that they’ve bought in one form or another multiple times. These will be my toy turtles, joining my movie turtles, animated turtles and comic turtles. At this point, we’re all just lobsters in the pot oblivious to the fact the water’s been boiling strong for 40 years and counting.
This time around, Playmates has borrowed a bit of Mattel’s Masters of the Universe: Origins playbook and released “Remastered” versions of the original Playmates toys with updated articulation. I’ll admit to occasionally picking up a vintage toy and saying to myself: “Wait. The knees weren’t articulated?” We’ve come such a long way from our Five Points of Articulation days. It’s easy to forget that we needed our imaginations to fill in so many gaps in our play time. The nostalgia of what we remember is almost always better than what the actual experience was. In essence, these are the turtles you thought you owned as a kid, only better.
The original Playmates turtles had seven points of articulation, the Remastered line features 13 (adding elbow, knee and ankle articulation). While these aren’t going to rival S.H. Figuarts from a poseability standpoint, they are an improvement over the original Playmates turtles. If you’re not planning on keeping them on card, you’ll be able to get a variety of poses on your shelf as opposed to the limited statuesque display options that the originals provided.
Aside from the updates to the articulation, Playmates has also added some detail to the sculpt, packed in a customizable display base and “Aggressively-styled signature weapons”. The display base and signature weapons are a bit underwhelming. The signature weapons look like something from an “Xtreme” line of turtles and don’t add much, if anything, to the offering. Personally, I would have put that money towards some ankle rockers as opposed to some items I’ll never use for display. Its a minor gripe, but speaking on behalf of Future Josh that inevitably bought the Remastered Remastered figures ten years from now, I probably should have skipped these in favour of those silky smooth future ankles with rockers.
I started this column by joking about the number of different Turtles currently available. This past weekend at SDCC, NECA announced they’re going to do figures from the 2012 CGI series and Super 7 teased a second wave of Ultimate figures from the 2003 animated series. Both of those join toys currently on pegs from Mutant Mayhem, the classic retro line, and the multiple other offerings that NECA and Super 7 already provide. With a seemingly unending march of new merchandise, do you really need these Remastered figures?
At less than $13 each, these are some of the least expensive turtles on the market. They’re roughly the same size as the original toys from 1988 (those newly articulated knees make them slightly taller than the originals). Both of those points work in your favour if you’re looking for a fun set of turtles to add to your collection and don’t have a ton of room or money to do so. If you want to scratch the itch of nostalgia with better versions of the originals, these are for you. Want to get those kids in your lives some turtles “Like I had when I was a kid!” These will get the job done without the “These kinda suck” sentiment.
