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>Jazwares' Planet 51 line
Planet 51 is an odd film, not because it's particularly bad or anything, but because it just came into being without much demand. The 2000's yielded alot of animated movies like it. Maybe it was spurred on by the success of Pixar, Blue Sky, and Dreamworks but it seemed like every other week we were treated to yet another original animated property with great visuals but a comparitively simple story. After all the merchandising successes the aforementioned studios saw with their releases every toy company under the sun routinely tried their lucky with whatever the next up and coming animated project was. Jazwares' Planet 51 line being one such case.
Even now I find the movie's visuals and character designs to be it's greatest strength. The fish out of water plot didnt exactly light my world on fire, but the alien world itself sure did. So Jazwares (hot off the heels of the "success" of Imagi's Astroboy) went all in on Planet 51, and despite how well done the line was, it rotted in TRU for years. I very much regret not picking up the entire collection when it was dirt cheap. Pic related didnt scale with the figures but they were perfect recreations of the vehicles from the film. The actual figurines themselves were fun too, if a bit oddly scaled at 2.5 inches each, but the real crown jewel of the line was the bump and go Rover. A "life size" recreation of the astronaut's pet/robot sidekick complete with lights and sounds. It's a shame neither the film nor the toyline set the world on fire because everything was expertly designed visual eye candy.
