http://involuntaryfury.com/2009/03/more-mattel-madness-major-matt-mason/ Movies, from a furious point of view Tue, 08 May 2012 19:28:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 http://involuntaryfury.com/2009/03/more-mattel-madness-major-matt-mason/comment-page-1/#comment-1273 toy designer Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:43:42 +0000 http://involuntaryfury.com/?p=1624#comment-1273 As a toy designer I would say that beyond the historical marketing hype that surrounds toys today.If you take the toy itself it was ahead of its time and reflected ideas about space that were very subtle,and went beyond the shoot em up kill aliens 50s and 60s astronaut.Seeing the Earth from the moon changed the way we view ourselves as one planet. One of the astronauts was an African American. The Major Matt book Introduced a woman astronaut, although the plot does have some dated concepts .The figure iself had clever Patented joints that looked like they were part of the space suit. What set Matt apart from other space toys was he had alien freinds as well,it said it on the boxes. Matt was more like the short lived contemporary Star Trek TOS, that addressed how do you deal with aliens outside your world .Captain laser, his giant friend, was one of the first toys to have LED like lights.The batteries were disquised as a back pack .The Crawler walked by itself and had a working winch. It could be placed sidways to become a crane for the space station.The space station was modular (like legos and could be made into different configurations)The toys themselves were very clever for a pre-computer chip age.The star seeker had features you would associate with lego mindstorms today. Yes major matt had a laser cannon and some of the stop the aliens feel ,but it was not a typical toy at the time.If the movie addesses some of the complex issues of today with a positve feeling similar to watching astronauts on the moon was in the 60s,that could be great.If it is a typical movie directed by Mattel's marketing department, without input from toy designers,engineers,artists and good writers it will be cheeseball city on top af a giant turd.I hope Mattel understands the innovations of the original toy and don't screw it up. As a toy designer I would say that beyond the historical marketing hype that surrounds toys today.If you take the toy itself it was ahead of its time and reflected ideas about space that were very subtle,and went beyond the shoot em up kill aliens 50s and 60s astronaut.Seeing the Earth from the moon changed the way we view ourselves as one planet. One of the astronauts was an African American. The Major Matt book Introduced a woman astronaut, although the plot does have some dated concepts .The figure iself had clever Patented joints that looked like they were part of the space suit. What set Matt apart from other space toys was he had alien freinds as well,it said it on the boxes. Matt was more like the short lived contemporary Star Trek TOS, that addressed how do you deal with aliens outside your world .Captain laser, his giant friend, was one of the first toys to have LED like lights.The batteries were disquised as a back pack .The Crawler walked by itself and had a working winch. It could be placed sidways to become a crane for the space station.The space station was modular (like legos and could be made into different configurations)The toys themselves were very clever for a pre-computer chip age.The star seeker had features you would associate with lego mindstorms today. Yes major matt had a laser cannon and some of the stop the aliens feel ,but it was not a typical toy at the time.If the movie addesses some of the complex issues of today with a positve feeling similar to watching astronauts on the moon was in the 60s,that could be great.If it is a typical movie directed by Mattel’s marketing department, without input from toy designers,engineers,artists and good writers it will be cheeseball city on top af a giant turd.I hope Mattel understands the innovations of the original toy and don’t screw it up.

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