Is Mattel Dumbing Down Things With Revolution?

You may want to pass on all the gadgets after you see the new Terminator movie lol!

Seriously, I agree with most of that which is why I'm getting hold of as many new old stock pre-revolutions loco's as I can before they disappear from the market and revolutions is the only choice I got in terms of new stock.

Add to that I'm picking up job lots of used gear whenever a good bundle comes along and don't really worry about picking up duplicate or even non-functional loco's as I figure its fine to stash any duplicates for the future and the non-functional ones I can generally either fix or if too badly broken simply cannibalise to fix others. I've also got plans to do some conversions or enhancements so spare body shells will also come in handy

[HankAmericanEngine]

Since finding this forum I've found out about all the 'issues' with the current crop of 'revolutions' locomotives and backward compatibility with blue track etc... The relative poor quality of the new style revolutions track etc...

However there's one thing I've not seen discussed yet (although of course I may have missed it). That is to my mind the current 'revolutions' Thomas sets are really dumbing down the whole subject.

Now let me explain that comment. I know there are lots of sets which have some sort of theme or action feature - some are initially even quite cool. But like the other mattel ranges such as Hot Wheels are these sets a 'one trick pony'?

What I mean is they may be impressive when you first see them, but longer term what can you do with that set apart from the one or two stunt(s) it may be designed to deliver?

With the older Tomy Thomas (or Hypercity) sets you may have a cool accessory such as a water tower or the dock crane etc... But other than that the rest of the set is pretty generic.

Now I know that may sound almost like a negative, but the point is by being 'generic' you can then use your imagination to build your own layout, you can also add other sets or accessories or track you've obtained to expand it.

Basically long term it is as clever as you are and can allow you to pretty much build what you want. Add to that you can generally run any locomotive/rolling stock on any of it rather than being limited to a single locomotive or train formation that works with a mattel 'special feature' which limits the latter to its 'one trick' with mattel's restriction of a loco/formation for it actually work.

To me it would seem that the initial excitement of a 'special feature' will soon become boring to a child (or the inner child ) whereas the infinite flexibility of Tomy's idea of sets will instead stimulate the child and even form a bond between the child and the parent.

Also the mattel sets although on the surface appear exciting they are in fact very poor value in comparison to the older Tomy (or even 1st gen Trackmaster) sets. Sure they don't seem bad value when you first look at them, but look closer and typically you seem to get a single track run (i.e. oval, spiral, etc...) a Thomas loco and if you are really lucky maybe a wagon and/or even a set of points with a siding.

Compare this with a Tomy set that would give you one or two runs of track, often several sets of points, maybe an incline, maybe a road layout, station, other building, etc... a locomotive, rolling stock, maybe road vehicles or other things too and it seems to me the Tomy sets were (are if you import) a much better value proposition.

What do you think?!?

Nigels, I think you just gave this forum its own epiphany about the TMR line as a whole.

I personally enjoy the thought of the Railway Builder Bucket (have yet to get it; hope it gets States' side soon), as it gives you lots of extra track, and those Trucks and Track Packs give lots more fun and creativity to the users.

I bought four of the "Risky Rail Repair" Trucks and Tracks Pack some time ago to get some exposure to the Revolution Track, and I'm hoping to get a hold of the Railway Builder Bucket to have some experiments done before I can give a full review of the TrackMaster Revolution Line to the customers.

It is genuinely interesting to compare one thing to the other with TOMY, HiT Toys, and Fisher-Price during their reigns; certainly, I cannot say I have ever had any fun with a Fisher-Price set as I have with either TOMY or HiT Toys, but that remains to be seen.

certainly, I cannot say I have ever had any fun with a Fisher-Price set as I have with either TOMY or HiT Toys, but that remains to be seen.

I have to agree with that. I remember often playing with my Tomy trains, and during the FP reign, I was away from the line. I have bought a couple FP sets, and I absolutely can't have a lot of fun with them, but Tomy /hit toys just had the flexibility and the large sets that made the building of a layout a fun toy in its own.

Nice to see I'm not alone in the opinion I've reached

YES, as I said earlier about the direction FP seems to be taking the line is as a true baby toy, and I would compare the new Revolution trains to functioning with the same presence of a cheap dime store novelty toy.
Whereas the old FP line I would liken to that of rat compared to the production values of Tomy and Hit, I would now liken the Revolution's to a wind up mouse.
I believe the first real signs of the cheapening and all out blatant "baby toying" of a train were the Snowey and Muddy Spencer's and Gordon's globbed on hunk of plastic used to simulate snow and mud...they are atrocious and translate a look that seems to have become the general theme of continuity, and YES a dumbed down mentality that includes all the sets and features to be released that I have seen so far..

[Ucwepn]

I hope the climbing fad will pass and they switch back to rubber traction tires at some stage and along with that extra pulling power release more rolling stock but I wont hold my breath.

Totally agree Ucwepn and change the activator thing on the bottom so it no longer grounds on the older blue track lol!

But I suspect that is just a pipe-dream, although I don't know if its happening in the USA etc... but on Amazon UK there are plenty of 1 star reviews for the revolutions engines because of the grounding and other issues with blue track.

Get enough of those and maybe FP might do something once it starts affecting sales...

[HankAmericanEngine]

I suppose it's been quite a while since I've posted anything here, but what I do have to say after a phone call to Fisher-Price the other day probably won't make any of us here any happier.

I finally found Mike and Ryan on the 6th, and picked them both up from my local Target store; after inspecting them, I found Ryan was jerking about on the rails instead of running nice and mellifluously as Mike did. So, since I don't like having any of those sorts of engines in my collection, I gave them a call and asked them about Ryan's production model.

To say that I was disappointed is a better term than what I was actually thinking-- the representative actually put me on hold when I asked about the production model's wheel colour-- only the pre-production model has the purple wheels; the production model is supposed to have black wheels, and that was it. To put the icing atop my cake of frustration, they are sending me a voucher to find another Ryan model to replace the one that I have. Please try to imagine the joy I have that it's only going to be a $17.00 voucher to cover an $18.40 purchase.

This gimmick of climbing and speed is probably the only selling factor of this line, which makes it a genuine failure later on down the road. To be honest, I'm getting tired of buying the "1 in 100", or whatever the numbers are for the faulty ones in the batches, of a certain engine-- If I'm the only one that keeps getting these, the company should probably just start figuring out a new motor and redesigning this redesign.

It's really not good for kids to get a train that doesn't work properly and, if the gimmick is only good on one engine, the line probably won't survive.

The corporations do not give 2 cents about us AT ALL!!...not just Fisher Price, the whole world is being dumbed down

[HankAmericanEngine]

The corporations do not give 2 cents about us AT ALL!!...not just Fisher Price, the whole world is being dumbed down

Here is where I have some disagreements; the LEGO Company takes missing/broken pieces seriously and, after reading a touching story about a little boy losing his favourite Ninjago figures in a store, cares enough to replace lost pieces from complete sets.

The TAKARA TOMY Corporation cares for its customers as well; my 50th anniversary set (Let's Repair the Rails!) crane came with a wrong set of outriggers, and they sent me a full replacement of 2 pairs of outriggers for my crane.