I understand the 25th anniversary ARAH line, 25 years the ARAH themed GIJoe. I really liked the 15th anniversary Toys R Us product at the time more, but that's something else. But that was in line with the 25th anniversary in ARAH years. The 50th anniversary brings the original, truly vintage in my opinion, GIJoe, but I haven't seen much news on THAT 'Joe in ways of celebratory product. There might be, I don't know.
Is it confusing to the average joe consumer, where the 25th was just, what, 7 some years ago, and now it's at 50th? I thought one of the more memorable GIJoe anniversaries for me was the 25th anniversary issue of Marvel GIJoe 86. I liked that, it added to an overall universe, and tied things together. That was in the "whole" GIJoe brand, some is just "arah."
It kind of starts coming back to the "versus" in eras, styles, sizes, and everyone has their own favorites. Mine is obvious, I'm old mold. "Outdated" apparently, as I have gathered from reading in some online discussions.
Overall though, there isn't much in the 50th anniversary product line up that draws me in. The strong point for me is the vehicles offerings. I like the look of those, mostly that new old VAMP and Night Landing Craft. I would have liked some steering wheels, or a new chassis design on the old VAMP, but it is what it is.
However, does history repeat itself?
After the TRU "15th anniversary" line, there was a follow up in 1998. In 2000, the collector series started up and soon another generation of "newsculpt" themes and sizes came out across the board.
I don't know the background to the reasons for all this evolving and ending as it did, but, it kind of all led to a little off the shelf period for GIJoe again.
And then back with the 25th anniversary in a new format, with from 2007 through just a short time ago really led to another whole generation of GIJoe with many themes, and then it kind of got quiet, again, more at retail, which is my realm of toy exposure.
Do you think the new, fairly limited in scope release of the 50th Anniversary is the beginning of something new? Will 2015 be the year that another direction for GIJoe takes shape?
And of course, I totally glossed over everything that happened right before 1982 right there. Does that show my age, or perhaps an inability to evolve into something new? Since I didn't really evolve, and with pretty much 2 generations of product that I sort of stayed away from, am I extinct?
Do I need new product to keep my small collection fresh and fun?
I guess I'm kind of just out there, a little lost, what's next for GIJoe here?
About HQ icebreaker
- icebreaker
- This is a very random bunch of thoughts based from my collecting of GIJOE: A real American hero figures and vehicles. Contained here are memories, experiences, recent thoughts, completely random thoughts, and other random things on top of that. While one company has made, and makes, our shared interests, we all add into that interest with our own creativity. You, the reader, will find many, many, excellent sites among the links to see what other GIJoe fans are doing, hit them up! For GIJOE stuff that is more random in topic, you'll find it here.