Hi Roland, I just sent you a PM. I'm hoping you can help me. :thumbsup
In other Mattel news I received an email last night from a close Mattel designer friend who happens to be a BIG BTTF fan. He has an excellent eye for detail and his craftsmanship skills are unreal. I figured he might've been involved in this and I was right. I think its important to read below if you have an order in for one of these. I also wanted to share with you guys the passion that many creative people have there at Mattel but for one reason or another...it just doesn't show on the final toy. It was the main reason I left. I'm still not done with this and will continue to try and improve the final production models if I can get to this issue in front of the right person.
Without throwing anyone under the bus, here is the story.
Someone in marketing got the idea of doing the board. A designer was assigned. They asked me to help out, since I am the BTTF nerd. I gave them all the information, graphics, materials, rough dimensions, images, etc.
We build a board for Toy Fair. Not bad for a first pass. Being the nerd, I told them what was wrong with it. They took note.
Side note, we got the sounds from Universal. I think someone thought it would be good to have sound to make slit 'unique' from fan made boards. Whatever, it is different and it it not a bad idea...not a great idea, good enough.
Meeting with Bob Gale, Michael Lantieri (original prop maker) and Mary Anne Lantieri (Bob's assistant on the movies, met Michael on set then married). We asked questions, took photos, measurements, color match. Got a lot of info.
At this point it was out of my hands. Well, it was never in my control.
From my understanding, they took the info and made changes. I have not seen the comic con board, just pictures.
Here are the problems that I know of. The foot strap is supposed to be fur. But I asked Michael, and he said it was the loop side of Velcro on a strap. So we went with the loops and not the fur. The images I have seen shows fur. I even asked of it was fur, he said no, loop side of Velcro. Maybe one of the 20-30 boards was Velcro. Tough call, do you go with what you see (fur) or what the maker says it was (loops)? We went with the loops...should have went with fur.
The boards Bob brought in where totally different. One was wood, other was foam. Both were different sizes, and did not have the foot pad and strap.
Mag discs were vac-formed, assuming from original and different sizes. Both boards had photo graphics, no lenticular.
Back to our board. Because of "toy restrictions" some safety things had to be engineered in. This is what makes it look like a toy and not a replica.
The pink Velcro has to be recessed in its own channel. Green Velcro pieces were too small and were omitted. Look at where the green should be, notice that the are "small" pieces. Yeah, it sounds stupid! You know how CPI is.
I have no idea if we ever got the lenticular sourced.
You know that I tried my best to stress what was right and wrong. Since I am not the designer, it was out of my hands. I constantly bugged the designer and marketing to get the correct stuff. But, you know how things are at Mattel. There is a point where I felt my suggestions were being annoying and ignored. Not my fight to win.
Anyway, I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed, I know I am. The average fan will be okay with it, but geeks like you and I will be outraged.
I will see if I can hunt one down see where they are at. Hopefully, things are fixed before final production.
Anyway, the board itself looks good. The problem is with the graphics, Velcro, lenticular, strap, etc.
