Big Chief Thunderbirds & Captain Scarlet

[paulcarson]

Scarlet has been pushed back until later in the year. Apparently there are issues with production, especially the light up epaulettes.

 

[Tom Day]

I did see Parker in a photo from their booth at a recent con.
I am just about to enquirer about the release date for Scarlet.
I haven’t yet preordered the final 3 Tracy brothers, but I will soon, as the figure set is a must have for completion.
Looking forward to seeing others in the CS line, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

Here’s a couple more shots of the Tracy’s that I don’t think I uploaded before.

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I don't love the idea of action figures based on puppets enough to buy them; but if I did, I'd be all over these, they look really fun from the packaging onwards.

 

[Bob Fett]

I just received notice from SS it's pushed back to Feb-Mar of next year.Disappointing,but not surprised.

 

[DVD1]

To be honest, I am loosing heart on this.
The two Thunderbirds figures are simply, brilliant. So I wasn’t expecting any issues with other figures in this line.
Scarlet was pushed back , then there was the upgrade to the signature edition: a sure sign of more delays. I really wanted to preorder the next three Thunderbirds figures (Gordon , John and Alan), but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Lady Penelope and Parker look stunning, and the preorder date (or whatever it’s called now) was scheduled for September or October. It’s now November.

I really hope that this line continues, but when you have paid in full for several figures, and not months, but years start to click up, you can’t help but get a little dussspointed.

 

[DVD1]

I may be loosing heart, but I’m not giving up.
Launch Pad May have been delayed (inevitable being BCS) but it’s off on Friday.
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I do not know if 007 or the 13th Doctor will follow, but of the three, I really want this set to go ahead.

 

[Drake]

How do you feel about the sculpted hair on Lady Penelope, dvd1?

I get why they went down that path, but for me what they ended up with just makes Lady P look pretty much unrecognizable now. But maybe it will look better with a hat on or something.

At least Parker looks good.

 

[DVD1]

The hat will make it work.
The ‘real’ hair on the proto looked cool, and made the figure look just like the puppet.

The Scot and Virgil figures look fine with their sculpted hair, but put the hats on, and you have the actual puppets from the show.

So, I’d have preferred them go with the original hair design as seen in the proto.

 

[yodasan]

What are the chances Brains gets to the launch pad?

 

[DVD1]

With the three Tracy remaining Tracy brothers in production, I would say that if this pair are go: Brains, is a no brained as their next figure in the line.

 

[Drake]

Penelope and Parker launchpad

The target for launch is 700 sales.

That target seems completely unrealistic to me, to be honest. For most such releases, let alone niche product and licenses like most of what Big Chief does, and that are now only available direct. Realistically it shouldn't have been more than half that to stand a chance, I'd think. So far they've got 28 sales...

Best of luck Thunderbirds fans, I hope I'm wrong, I really do...

 

[DVD1]

I hope your wrong as well,
Additional information: the payment options for Launchpad do not include PayPal, as I discovered !!

I’m still going ahead with an attempt to pay, and support this launch, if I can !!

 

[secondevil]

700 sales is ambitious, just on the basis that a two-figure pack is a large sum of money to pledge. I think Brains or the Hood or would have been a better fit to trial this, but I do think LaunchPad as a concept is a brilliant idea - it cuts the pre-order window and the potential for infinite delays, and gives the company a guarantee that they won't lose huge amounts of money on a new product launch.

I think Penelope looks fantastic with the hat. I'm such a fan of the Scott and Virgil figures that I'll absolutely be supporting this and anything else Big Chief wants to put out.

 

[secondevil]

So, this is up to 193 supporters with 33 days to go. To be honest - it's doing better than I expected given the price, how divided people seemed to be over Lady Penelope's hair sculpt and the fact that people are generally reluctant to spend a lot in the run up to Christmas.

It would not surprise me if they make it half way and still produce the figures.

 

[yodasan]

Up to 317 with four days to go...

So, this is up to 193 supporters with 33 days to go. To be honest - it's doing better than I expected given the price, how divided people seemed to be over Lady Penelope's hair sculpt and the fact that people are generally reluctant to spend a lot in the run up to Christmas.

It would not surprise me if they make it half way and still produce the figures.

 

[Drake]

It will be interesting to see what happens next. It depends on actual production costs, I imagine, but I wouldn't be at all surprised now if they go ahead, having pre-sold nearly half the run (and 250 - 300 is where I would have imagined a realistic 'launch' target to have been, anyway, so they've slightly bettered that). Hard to imagine them leaving over 115 thousand pounds on the table and walking away after all this, but Big Chief tends to be rather...idiosyncratic, so who knows what they will do, or even if 700 was their actual production greenlight target, or if it just represented selling out the full run and their actual 'go' target was secretly much lower.

Find out in a couple of days, I guess.

 

[yodasan]

When I look at the preorder page for the Penelope/Parker set I see first a "sub-total" price of 308 pounds, and then lower down on the same page another "sub total" price of 257 pounds and a "Tax (VAT)" of 51 pounds. Which is hard to understand because the listing page says the price excluding VAT is 308 pounds. If it really is 308 pounds (plus shipping) that seems reasonable enough for the two figures given the niche they would fill.

 

[secondevil]

It has finished with 322 supporters, which I think is great. I actually think they could have done more without the unrealistic target of 700 - I'm sure a lot of people thought "this is never going to get produced, why bother putting down a deposit?".

I'm holding out hope this set gets made. That's still an huge number of pre-orders, far more than they would have got for a standard pre-order I suspect, and I'm sure they would easily sell that number all over again once they physically have the item in stock.

It's hard to believe they would not be able to cover their costs with about £100k in the bank, but then again, I really have no concept of what a full run of figures would cost them.

 

[Drake]

Big Chief has announced that the project is officially cancelled, and will be issuing refunds over the next week. Which sucks for the fans and supporters of this, so my commiserations to those who were looking forward to this set.

Given that it managed to do about as well as any realistic pre-order target would assume (in the 250-350 range), but that it still wasn't good enough for BCS (who now seem set on the idea of preselling everything with zero risk to themselves), it really doesn't bode all that well for any launchpad release going forward, in my view.

Pre-selling an entire run of 700 just doesn't seem realistic for any product or license, not even BCS's biggest hitters like Who and Bond. But BCS has always been oddly blinkered when it came to things that seemed patently obvious to everybody else. Their approach now seems, from the outside at least, predicated on wanting to pre-sell everything so that they don't lose out if the quality of the final product isn't up to scratch, rather than actually taking responsibility for their product and making sure that the quality of the final product is there, so that customers are satisfied and they don't lose sales upon release due to a poor final product. Unless BCS adjust their expectations to more realistic levels going forward (covering the costs of the run plus a profit percentage, rather than completely selling it out), I really can't see something like the Pertwee Third Doctor having a chance, much less the other unmade Doctors. Even the Thirteenth Doctor and Tuxedo Connery Bond, BCS's current heavy hitters, are going to really, really struggle to make anywhere near that target in my opinion, though I truly hope I'm wrong.

The Thirteenth Doctor launches next (and if they have a signature edition lined up, I imagine that will help), so I guess we'll see. Interesting days ahead, regardless...

 

[davejames]

Yup, this is clearly just a way to lock people in so they are obligated to buy regardless of how the final figure turns out. Which may not be a great move considering most collectors already know what to expect with BCS, and may decide to just steer clear of them completely and not take the chance.

That being said, though, I do expect the next Who and Bond figures to sell a whole lot better, and I'll definitely be ordering a Thirteenth Doc.

 

[Drake]

I'm in for all the Doctors regardless, I just wish I felt more optimistic about the longterm chances...