The world of action figures.

Of all the episodes I’ve watched so far this is the one with which I have the strangest relationship. Why? Because it’s about toys. But not all toys – specifically action figures.

I didn’t grow up in a home which could afford action figures, or comics for that matter. I had friends who had them and there was always jealousy but the way we interacted with these toys was pretty straightforward – from trying to see how big a rock was needed to destroy them in the fewest smashes, to seeing how far they could be thrown to talking about which one would beat the others to become champion of all the heroes.

The show narrows its focus right down on to what can only really be called the collectibles end of the toy market. It’s fascinating but as with some of the other more uneven entries it misses so much from what could have made this a fascinating documentary.

We meet quite a few designers through the episode and we also see literally hundreds of figures but we don’t really follow a process at any point. We see graphic designers, 3D designers, computer animators and even a room full of parts – hands, feet, arms from all kinds of historic figures which can be used to create quick mock-ups.

What we don’t see is how any of this comes together. We don’t see the process of looking at a clean slate for the new year and deciding on which figure Marvel decides on backing and launching. We don’t learn if the decisions are tied to the movies, new comics, new videogames or TV series.

We don’t learn how this small element of the empire intersects with the rest of the content Marvel produces and that’s pretty sad because these designers are pretty much presented as living in their own world which couldn’t be further from the truth. The level of connectivity between the different divisions is substantial and designed to generate excitement from fans.

We also don’t see how these figures go from design to actually being alive (so to speak). We don’t see how initial ideas end up being approved or talked about or even delivered to consumers. And so the show offers no learning about the industry and how Marvel takes its content and turns it into tools for the imagination.

The other failure of the show is to really explore how its collectibles are used. It is completely silent on the collectible nature of these toys – that people of all ages, from old men keeping them in pristine unboxed condition in their garages through to young kids who couldn’t care less about damaging their toys all line up to get hold of this product.

I don’t know why you wouldn’t talk about the above – at least not in a documentary. I could see you might be a bit embarrassed that adults collect and trade them when you’re trying to pitch them as toys and not investments. I can also see that if you were politically nervous you might also not want to reveal to Americans that their toys have a mutli-national supply chain in which China features heavily. Yet a documentary should cover these aspects – making them understandable (if not necessarily editorialising them).

Instead, we’re presented with a weird set of talking heads who comment about people not growing up and telling us about the intellectual child. I mean… play is really important to well-being at all ages and discussion which helped us see play shouldn’t be sneered at would have been fantastic. What we get is an uncertain tone – not sure whether it’s laughing at men who buy toys or seeing it as deeply profound while ignoring the real issues.

I would have loved to see a real psychologist talking about design, about how these toys appeal to so many people regardless of age and class and nationality. I would have loved to learn more about the importance of toys to play and how toys include table-top miniature games, video games and the other half dozen franchises Marvel has for delivery of their branded content to consumers.

The most interesting part of the show was following a photographic artist from their garden to an exhibition. Their art is all about staging these characters in micro-locations and they are really magical. It was a surprise and joy to discover their method and how much work went into it. Yet we don’t learn enough about them. Replace this episode with an entire documentary about them and I’d be there all day, but this, overall, was really just a lesson in how not to build a documentary.

Verdict: Not a complete waste but not really worth much attention either.

 

My rating: 4 pieces of plastic crack out of 10.

Stewart Hotston