Hot Toys Quality Control: Whats Goin On?

[Rorywan]

You should never pay for merchandise that far in advance. In many instances you have a window to contest a bad sale and a year may put you legally out of bounds.

Yeah, I know that man, but at the time it wasn't supposed to be that far in advance! My seller is 100% reliable but who knew the bloody thing was going to be delayed over a year!

 

[EVILFACE]

I agree with KD. The number of licenses has nothing to do with QC. HT just like any company has QC issues. There is no one that makes a problem free product. You can drive a new car off the lot and it break down at the first stop light.

They have released some amazing sets recently. But there was a time when almost every production model was as good or if not better than the proto version.

Recently, we have had several controversial releases (please add):
DX Indiana Jones: (Headsculpt, crude clothing, some great accessories)
RE: Alice: (Completely different from proto, many disappointed)
Batman Begins: EX version: (Massive QC problems, over a wide range of elements)
Captain America: (QC costume problems and completely different ugly headsculpt)
Iron Man: Various (Lighting/parts/paint QC problems)

Indy? Other than a smallish head, Indy is a awesome release. I can't stop messing with it.

Alice? Other than the boots, another awesome figure.

Batman? Sure, ____ happens. They rushed to meet the sudden overwelming demand for a figure in a short period.

Capt? I think the sculpt looks better than the proto.

Iron Man fading? Looked like a long term issue, ____ happens.

Then we have the massive delays:
Tron Light Cycle (now over a year late), DX Pirates.. etc

I'll take delays to improve a item everytime.

And finally the rubber deterioration issue, which has always been there,
Rambo, Rocky, ED209, Mars Attacks, Dark Knight DX02, Sarah Conner, Watchmen:Comedian, and I'm sure more to follow..

So HT inovation did something to hide joints that action figure collectors don't want to see for some reason. But you can not say every figure from those you listed have issues.

My Rambos, Sarah and Abigail have zero issues. And I pose them.

The first Rambo and Mars Attacks are the only ones I've seen where a large majority screw the pooch.

DX02 leaking? Yea, snafu on HT part. But idiots still buy him up for some reason.

So what does the future hold for HT? I'm still a big fan. But I'm not pre-ordering so quickly these days.

The future will be the same.

A blurry ____ty sneak photo of XXXXXX will show up, people will be estatic.
Official specs get released of XXXXXX people will be even more estatic.
People will whine about the cost of XXXXXX .
People will whine about the sculpt of XXXXXX and petitions start.
3 months of this will go on and on and on.
Blurry crappy over exposed photos will come in from Asia of XXXXXX causing uproar and "mass cancelations."
OMG will post pristine photos of XXXXXX and all is well.
Sideshow ships XXXXXX to the Unites Stats of America!!
Sidshow ships replacement parts and figures of XXXXXX due to quality control.
6 months later XXXXXX goes for 300% more than retail and people that passed and complained whine.

A blurry ____ty sneak photo of XXXXXX DX shows up and everything is repeated.

 

[COSMOSTARX]

Protest with your wallet.

I'm going to take a break from collecting anything anymore until The Dark Knight Rises stuff comes in hand.

Might even cancel the 1989 Batman stuff I have on preorder.

Everything is ridiculous.

 

[The Entity]

The future will be the same.

A blurry ____ty sneak photo of XXXXXX will show up, people will be estatic.
Official specs get released of XXXXXX people will be even more estatic.
People will whine about the cost of XXXXXX .
People will whine about the sculpt of XXXXXX and petitions start.
3 months of this will go on and on and on.
Blurry crappy over exposed photos will come in from Asia of XXXXXX causing uproar and "mass cancelations."
OMG will post pristine photos of XXXXXX and all is well.
Sideshow ships XXXXXX to the Unites Stats of America!!
Sidshow ships replacement parts and figures of XXXXXX due to quality control.
6 months later XXXXXX goes for 300% more than retail and people that passed and complained whine.

A blurry ____ty sneak photo of XXXXXX DX shows up and everything is repeated.

That will most likely be the case indeed!

 

[Rorywan]

Hmmm.. Not sure I agree Evil.
I know there will always be whines about every release.

But there is a lot of ____ going down with quite a few of the current/future releases that seems uncharacteristic.
Mix that with their soaring prices and I think you have a new work/production model from HT that seems over confident and slightly sloppy.

Time will tell I guess.. at the end of your post you have quite rightly posted the trail of events that surrounds most HT releases, I completely agree, however a few of the recent sets have not been fixed/improved and have actually looked worse inhand.

That's the difference to me at least.



And just to be clear guys, I honestly did not intend this thread to be a "I hate Hot Toys" thread.
I love Hot Toys. I just wanted there to be a place where the issues/QC/delays/price hikes with multiple licenses could be discussed together.
Honestly have a trawl through the DC section, the Marvel section, the Disney section, the Star Wars section? Same type of ____ going down everywhere.

 

[galactiboy]

No.

I have been collecting Hot Toys figures for six years and there have been numerous figure issues and some delays through out.


If Hot Toys stuck to very basic clothed figures, with a few accessories you can bet there would be very little to no issues at all, but they insist on making stuff that pushes the limits and thus have a ton of issues.

I see more vocal complainers and inexperinced collectors with unrealistc expectations more than I see a qenuine failing in quality control.

Like I said before, its been a Hot Toys trade mark since their very first MMS figures.

But everyone is entilted to believe what they want.

I'll leave your thread now

Same here, although I actually had 2 pre-MMS figures back when HT was in the bootleg business

QC issues and production delays are always an issue. HT had a pretty good run going where there estimated release dates were reliable which maybe gave people a false sense of security. To me the biggest issue is unrealistic expectations and the hive mind that is created when one freak-out leads to an epidemic.

 

[EVILFACE]

Costs? The cost of everything is going up. At the grocery store I pay $15 more each week for the same items I bought a week before.

Stuff from Hot Toy, Sideshow and every other collectible maker will be the same.

Now I do think they can keep the costs down on some by not including the BS stuff. I didn't need the idol stand of Indy or mirror backdrop on BL. Just give me the figure and related accessories the figure can hold.

 

[Uncanny Web-Slinger]

I think higher prices = higher complaints

Take the collossus PF thread for example, the comiquette thread was chock-block full or '1/4 of Fail' and 'PF or Fail' comments and now that they have gotten exactly that they moan about it, cos the higher price tag has to really sell the item, and unfortunatley with so much coming with higher prices customers must pick and choose more than ever and with this comes greater scrutiny

In terms of Batman and Iron Man HT have proven they don't give a F___, they can sell them to with the same repeated defects and people will sill buy em.

 

[karamazov80]

HT has its faults, though as others say, I don't know a collectible/toy company that doesn't. I've got a lot of Hot Toys figures, and in general, I think the QC issues have been fairly muted. DX-02 Batman was the worst I experienced personally with his oil/acid leak of doom. But that was a real outlier case and you've gotta figure they've learned from their mistake. I've also had a few broken knees and loose joints, missing jacket studs, broken wrist pegs, the new Batman has cheap rubber and a wonky foot, etc. But, on the whole, I'm happy with their quality and QC efforts, and in particular I applaud their move away from rubber and toward PVC material for muscle bodies.

As for sculpts, well, their creative team is gonna produce things a certain way, and their decision-makers are gonna allow certain sculpts to be released as stylized and/or imperfect versions of characters. This is so subjective, that I'm not sure what else you could ask of them. They could revisit sculpts over and over, and no matter what they choose some would be happy, some would be angry/upset, some would be indifferent. At some point though, they must figure it is "good enough" and move on to the next thing. Again, on the whole, I'm personally very happy with what they've given us though I'm sure we've all taken issue with some sculpt or another that they've produced.

 

[EVILFACE]

Yea I'm not a sculpt fiend either. I collect characters not actors. As long as the sculpt looks close enough, I'm happy. Paint, tailoring and accessory detail are my main concerns.

 

[Captain Britain]

Costs? The cost of everything is going up. At the grocery store I pay $15 more each week for the same items I bought a week before.

Stuff from Hot Toy, Sideshow and every other collectible maker will be the same.

Now I do think they can keep the costs down on some by not including the BS stuff. I didn't need the idol stand of Indy or mirror backdrop on BL. Just give me the figure and related accessories the figure can hold.

Totally agree with this, I don't want a big diorama I just want a figure and accessories it can hold. But I disagree with your later comment about sculpts, that's a big part of it for me, that thrill of recognition where you see a character's face that's been beautifully sculpted. HT are so good at this that they make you realise how poor most sculpting is, and therefore how hard it must be to capture a likeness.

 

[EVILFACE]

But HT does capture the likeness on the sculpt. I see Stallone, Arnold, Ford, Downey Jr, Rourke, Reeve, Lee, Nicholson and Keaton in their work.

 

[Deak Starkiller]

Some of these "QC issues" are just people being spoiled by a great manufacturer. Captain America? Come on, that headsculpt is fine. Indy has some issues but they're not related to QC. I think we're spoiled as a community. Hell, they've made SSC take a back seat to the 1/6th scale front because of their own innovation. And the Mark V's size is subjective, it's a smaller suit to begin with. I think people are just looking for faults because they don't like the price hikes. I know I don't like them, it's forced me to be a little bit more selective.

 

[Raymond F.]

I support Rory's original thoughts and the figures he mentioned in my opinion are clear cut indications of these recent blunders.

If you take Indy for example it's more than the fact that the product is simply lackluster. Sure some guys are excited about it now but probably just trying to justify the 250+ purchase. Once excitement dies down the same problems are there. Something a figure like say, Terminator 1 does not suffer from is that it's not the best Terminator 1 figure on the market so therefor it's the best figure... it is the best figure. Indy is the best by default but it does not make it a success.

Side tangent, sorry... but getting back on track the comments were more about quality control issues I suspect. Indy is also full of them too, variation in the amount of warped shape on the heads, dents in the rim of the hat etc. batman is self explanatory yeah it was rushed but that does not make it OK for crying out loud! Not with the price tag it has.

Things like Undersized heads, broken or warped items in the box. paint rubs etc. I'm sorry guys you cannot justify this from Hot Toys. They've been the industry leader for a few years now there's no excuse for the consistent dropping of the ball on these things that should have become a mindless science to them now.

I find it concerning. Why? Well there are a lot of items im super excited for, the 89 Batman, Luke Skywalker, Avatar etc. and with the inflated prices I don't want to know some of these items im so excited about and will pay more for than I have in the past are going to potentially be ruined by poor QC issues.

 

[Sachiel]

Captain America: (completely different ugly headsculpt)

It's the same as the prototype.

But yeah, they do have too many licenses...

They should just focus on Batman and Iron Man.

 

[dominishin]

I ____ing hate it when people blow ____ out of proportion.

This is not a COMPLETELY different sculpt.

 

[dvdwyn]

Too many licenses? Growing too fast as a company? Or just a general decline of in QC?

There are many separate threads on this in the different sections, but I thought it would be good to bring them all together in one place to see if this is a real issue now, or just another phase for the company. Personally, I have seen a massive drop in quality over the last year.
Too big, too fast?


They have released some amazing sets recently. But there was a time when almost every production model was as good or if not better than the proto version.

Recently, we have had several controversial releases (please add):
DX Indiana Jones: (Headsculpt, crude clothing, some great accessories)
RE: Alice: (Completely different from proto, many disappointed)
Batman Begins: EX version: (Massive QC problems, over a wide range of elements)
Captain America: (QC costume problems and completely different ugly headsculpt)
Iron Man: Various (Lighting/parts/paint QC problems)

Then we have the massive delays:
Tron Light Cycle (now over a year late), DX Pirates.. etc

And finally the rubber deterioration issue, which has always been there,
Rambo, Rocky, ED209, Mars Attacks, Dark Knight DX02, Sarah Conner, Watchmen:Comedian, and I'm sure more to follow..

So what does the future hold for HT? I'm still a big fan. But I'm not pre-ordering so quickly these days.

Please discuss?

barbie future like.. imho

 

[a-dev]

I ____ing hate it when people blow ____ out of proportion.

This is not a COMPLETELY different sculpt.

Whether it is or isn't the same, neither looks like Evans. Still, an amazing figure. I'd buy it if I could.

 

[dvdwyn]

Whether it is or isn't the same, neither looks like Evans. Still, an amazing figure. I'd buy it if I could.

i'd buy it if its 10-50 usd, i think hottoys are very overpriced these days..
heck i even stop collecting hottoys because of the prices.. cant afford it..

 

[karamazov80]

Still, an amazing figure. I'd buy it if I could.

If you sold one of your 50 Terminator variants, you probably could

i'd buy it if its 10-50 usd, i think hottoys are very overpriced these days..
heck i even stop collecting hottoys because of the prices.. cant afford it..

Overpriced though they may seem, you can't even get a 6" figure at Wal-Mart for less than $17-18 nowadays. It's the nature of things. Minimates (2 inch figures) are creeping up to $10 for a 2-pack, which is just mind-boggling. But puts things in a bit of perspective. In relation to all that, the HT figures don't seem so outrageous.