Premium Format Line.

[Bullseye]

It came from the horses mouth.

 

[risingstar]

I'm beginning to wonder if the profit margin on PFs is becoming too small.
It appears fans are prepared to meet the rising costs though...

 

[odb]

I had the Balrog and regret selling,so i'm hoping SS do them both in this maquette line so the SSW versions come down in price

I had the Rog and Troll, sold them, then bought new ones 4 years later, lol.

 

[azurepred]

I'm beginning to wonder if the profit margin on PFs is becoming too small.
It appears fans are prepared to meet the rising costs though...

the maquettes aren't really that much cheaper though.

 

[tomandshell]

They aren't dramatically cheaper for the customers, but I bet the R&D and production costs are lower on the maquettes and they are probably a bit more profitable.

 

[Gipetto0812]

SHAMELESS PLUG!!

I have a Gandalf the Grey Ex. on sale for $300 shipped

If I had the doe I'd take that off your hands

 

[Phil Sierra]

I hope they continue with more LOTR PF's. The 1/5 statues are cool but I'm a PF 1/4 collector all the way.

 

[toystales]

Sideshow is likely to concentrate more on the 1/6 (or is it 1/5?) scale Maquette Line for the next year or so at least.

The reason why I say that is because the Maquette Line has built up quite a good following with collectors and the momentum is currently carrying the line through.

 

[King Darkness]

If I had the doe I'd take that off your hands

Well get some doe, dammit

 

[DaveMac]

The PF RWoS and Sauron PF will surpass anything SS or Weta will have produced with regards to LoTR in the past. Guaranteed.

Nope. They will just be new versions of classics in their own rights


And if they do emerge, they may well be 'swan song' pieces (though Sauron is supposedly not a PF)

 

[odb]

Nope. They will just be new versions of classics in their own rights


And if they do emerge, they may well be 'swan song' pieces (though Sauron is supposedly not a PF)

If the PF line fails, I think it will be falling victim to the same thing that has challenged other lines. We as collectors say that we want new/interesting characters so we can see previously unreleased people, etc. etc. However, when things like Black Orc of Mordor are released, many people say "eh, not feeling it with this guy, going to hold off for a main character." Or, "not feeling the pose on Morgul Lord, going to hold off." So, people say they don't just want to see Aragorn over and over, but the sales tell another story, and Sideshow isn't going to produce a piece that they anticipate won't sell out for a long time. You almost have to vote with your dollars if you want to keep a line going. Or Sideshow needs to run polls on here to gauge fan interest in various concepts, characters, poses, etc. Weta has done well with that with environments. Just my two cents and impression of trends, I don't have specific insider info to back this up. I would be very disappointed to see the PF line falter - I'm not interested in having an endless stream of lines that die prematurely after they've made 7-10 pieces including the same characters over and over (for the most part).

 

[azurepred]

as long as we get the RWOS, I don't care what happens to the line after that. I can imagine how difficult it must be not making that piece too heavy for shipping cause the Steed has to be very solid or it's gonna tilt over time with the pose it's in and have all the weight on the back end with the rider on top.

 

[bill59]

If the PF line fails, I think it will be falling victim to the same thing that has challenged other lines. We as collectors say that we want new/interesting characters so we can see previously unreleased people, etc. etc. However, when things like Black Orc of Mordor are released, many people say "eh, not feeling it with this guy, going to hold off for a main character." Or, "not feeling the pose on Morgul Lord, going to hold off." So, people say they don't just want to see Aragorn over and over, but the sales tell another story, and Sideshow isn't going to produce a piece that they anticipate won't sell out for a long time. You almost have to vote with your dollars if you want to keep a line going. Or Sideshow needs to run polls on here to gauge fan interest in various concepts, characters, poses, etc. Weta has done well with that with environments. Just my two cents and impression of trends, I don't have specific insider info to back this up. I would be very disappointed to see the PF line falter - I'm not interested in having an endless stream of lines that die prematurely after they've made 7-10 pieces including the same characters over and over (for the most part).

Bill

 

[Fritz]

SHAMELESS PLUG!!

I have a Gandalf the Grey Ex. on sale for $300 shipped

I have a Sideshow LE Catalog on sale for $1000 including shipping. I'll trade you straight up.

 

[Gangrel]

Almost a year ago that Sideshow does not announce anything on this line, unbelievable but true.
It is normal for many collectors do not trust the new maquette line because they have some fear to be left parked like this happening with the Premium Format line.


SIDESHOW hope not leave this line into oblivion or maquette as a step to the line Diorama and LSB.

 

[cstojano]

Here's my take. LOTR is an ensemble cast, the whole is greater than the parts. Maybe I'm off base, maybe Star Wars falls into the same category but comics seem NOT to. People seem to have their favorites. Point is, at the larger size and price point its expensive to collect an ensemble cast whereas many would buy into a Wolverine or Spider Man PF because the character is the character.

For me I see the PF line as about filling holes with major characters that stand alone. Gollum is perfect, who needs another representation of gollum besides the PF? I think its great and despite the stack of stones would fit nicely with the maquettes as your gollum representation. I also think the PFs lend themselves to the baddies, but real baddies not extras. We got the extras so far. Sauron and RWOS are marquee baddies. Wanna make a Balrog PF the size of a Yugo go for it. But all the orcs, eh, come on already.

And then the good guys. The line started out slow. If they released Boromir, Gimli and the rest of the hobbits tomorrow I'd still resist buying Frodo and Legolas (the former in particular). Then you throw in Galadriel and the line feels like a mess, and on top of that some issues with poses and QC...

 

[odb]

Here's my take. LOTR is an ensemble cast, the whole is greater than the parts. Maybe I'm off base, maybe Star Wars falls into the same category but comics seem NOT to. People seem to have their favorites. Point is, at the larger size and price point its expensive to collect an ensemble cast whereas many would buy into a Wolverine or Spider Man PF because the character is the character.

For me I see the PF line as about filling holes with major characters that stand alone. Gollum is perfect, who needs another representation of gollum besides the PF? I think its great and despite the stack of stones would fit nicely with the maquettes as your gollum representation. I also think the PFs lend themselves to the baddies, but real baddies not extras. We got the extras so far. Sauron and RWOS are marquee baddies. Wanna make a Balrog PF the size of a Yugo go for it. But all the orcs, eh, come on already.

And then the good guys. The line started out slow. If they released Boromir, Gimli and the rest of the hobbits tomorrow I'd still resist buying Frodo and Legolas (the former in particular). Then you throw in Galadriel and the line feels like a mess, and on top of that some issues with poses and QC...

You make good points, but the Uruk-Hai Berserker remains one of my favorite pieces, so I don't know if focusing only on the main heroes or the named baddies will allow the line to reach its full potential. I do think they should try to alternate or have some kind of a release pattern. Maybe Fellowhip Member, Named Baddie, General Good Guy (High Elf, Rohan Soldier, etc.), General Bad Guy (orcs, etc.) That, or focus on completing the fellowship, and then move on to a concept like this. It just seems like some of these characters are sure-fire sellers, such as Boromir, Gimli, Saruman, etc., so the long pause in production is odd. Maybe the RWOS and Sauron are causing such a design/production ruckus they don't want to tackle anything else until they get them out the door, but it would be nice if they could sneak in a couple hobbits or something while we wait for them.

 

[INFECDEAD]

For me the problem with this line is that the good characters have been a let down. Legolas, Galadriel, Frodo and Gandalf the White are not good PFs. They are let down by poor or no Ex and either have non dynamic poses, poor likeness or fabrication that doesn't work. That leaves only Aragorn and Gandalf the Grey shoring up the good character stock and I rate Aragorn as OK and Gandalf as excellent.
I am positive that if these characters and future good characters had/are been given the dynamic treatment the maquette line has received they would have been hits. I look at all the good character maquettes and wish they were PFs .
The evil characters fare better with Lurtz, Beserker, Gollum and Black Orc being excellent. The Morgul Lord pose for me was ridiculous and the Moria Orc wasn't bad but had a production piece that was a big let down compared to the prototype.
So I am selling up on the line.
I really want the RWOS PF but I hate the pose in the artwork for Sauron so I see little point in just having less than a quarter of the statues in the LOTR line in my collection, all of which are evil characters, as much as I love them.

 

[marker2037]

I only have Gollum, Gandalf the Grey, and the Morgul Lord PFs and I kind of like the setup that I have going. One representation of evil, one representation of good, and one representation of something both good and evil. The only other piece I wish I owned was the Aragorn, but it's only a "good" statue. I have hope that we will see another Aragorn as king eventually so I'm probably gonna wait and see.

But you make a good point about the evil characters lending themselves to better PFs. They just translate better if you ask me, which is why I can't wait to have the RWOS and Sauron. To me, I don't need to have a complete line of every character, every member of the fellowship. I just want good representations of the trilogy.

 

[odb]

Almost every major issue with non-monster characters can be traced back to the head sculpt. I consider the Frodo PF a good PF with a head sculpt that could have used more work. Galadriel is pretty much the same in my opinion. The Gandalf sculpts have actually been pretty good, and Aragorn isn't bad at all. Maybe they just set the bar so high with Lurtz that it was hard to follow that up. I think the humanoid head sculpt issue is one of their biggest challenges across lines right now. They maybe need to devote more time and QC focus to this part of the statues since it really makes or breaks the impression of a piece. One thing I'll say about the maquettes is that this new line is intended to be a more open, artistic impression of the characters, so they may be trying to capture "Arwen" more than "Liv Tyler", if that makes sense. I can forgive if there are variations from the actor/actress if that is the intent, but can't forgive the lazy eyes, major variations from piece to piece during production, etc. Not trying to turn this into a different discussion, but it seems there is a common theme when people are disappointed with Fellowship pieces.