'80s Toys That Need Movies
Hollywood can make just about anything into a movie, but some of the most awesome '80s toys and action figures yet to be cinematized. Check them out.
Power Lords
Produced by Revell in 1983 and designed by noted sci-fi illustrator Wayne Barlow, Power Lords took the He-Man concept and ran with it to seriously insane places. Protagonist Adam Power is given a powerful jewel that allows him to transform into the terrifying Lord Power, who has blue skin and scary red veins bulging from his body. He defends the universe against the rapacious dictator Arkus, who also looks pretty bananas. The intense designs of all the characters would make a great Avatar-esque sci-fi flick.
Inhumanoids
High on the success of Transformers and G.I. Joe, Hasbro started to go hogwild with new adventure toy lines in the 80s. One of the most insane was Inhumanoids, which had an awesome hook: a number of hideous giant monsters have been trapped beneath the Earth's crust for centuries and are now free to hassle humanity. The only defense is the exo-armored members of the Earth Corps. With some of the best villains in toy history, this could be a great Cloverfield where humanity can actually fight back.
Spiral Zone
Many of the best toys of the 80s were based on Japanese properties, as the golden age of anime was dawning and crazy ideas were a dime a dozen. Spiral Zone had one of the grimmest premises of the time and would be totally viable today. When insane scientist Dr. Bent transformed most of the Earth's surface into the "Spiral Zone," where all humans are stripped of their willpower and transformed into zombies, it's up to the Zone Riders to try to fight back against impossible odds. Any director worth his salt could get something awesome out of this.
In the mid-80s, everybody was trying to cash in on the He-Man money train. One of the more interesting attempts was Blackstar, based on a cartoon that actually aired before the adventures of Prince Adam went into production. It's an awesome sci-fi story - astronaut John Blackstar gets swept through a black hole to the planet Sagar, where he must contend with the dictatorial Overlord and learn to master the power of the Starsword. With insane supporting characters and epic battles, this could work well in today's movie climate.
Bionic Six
It's kind of funny how people back in the day thought we'd interact with technology. In fondly-remembered cartoon and toy line Bionic Six, the Bennett family are transformed into cyborgs after a skiing accident and use their new machine powers to battle the mad science of Doctor Scarab. With each family member boasting their own unique abilities, this could bring a new superhero franchise into the 21st century in style. Let's just hope that they cut the gorilla robot, that thing was idiotic.
The 80s were an era of dozens of toy fads, each of which lasted for a season or two before fading into obscurity. One of the best-designed were Madballs, a collection of grotesque orbs that sold like hotcakes in 1986. In an era when things are increasingly cutesy, it might be nice to bring back some old-school grossness for a balls-out (excuse the pun) animated comedy. With the toy line making a comeback recently, this is one that actually has some chance of happening.
Micronauts - the American version of Japan's Microman - just barely qualifies as an 80s toy, having made its debut in 1976, but it's so awesome that it needs to make a huge comeback. The toys were a bizarre agglomeration of robots, aliens and other characters, all with tons of points of articulation. The essential narrative of the series came from the fairly successful Marvel Comics adaptation, which positioned a group of heroic resistance fighters led by Arcturus Rann battling the murderous Baron Karza - but here's the hook: this all took place on a submicroscopic world smaller than a grain of dust.
Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos
What with the reinvention of Chuck Norris as an Internet meme, the time is ripe to bring the man himself back to the big screen at the head of the Karate Kommandos, his "radically diverse" team of secret agents formed to battle the forces of VULTURE. A modernized update of this classically goofy concept, with an aging Norris trying to get the gang back together for one last battle against Super Ninja, could be everything that MacGruber wasn't. Including funny.
Even Marvel Comics tried to get into the fantasy world toy game with Crystar, which had a line of associated toys produced by Remco. The world of Crystalium was under assault by the Demon Lord, and the only way to fight off his influence is for a group of warriors to be transformed into beings of living crystal. You'd need to put a lot of CGI up on the screen to do this one right, but is that really a challenge? Also Danzig stole his famous skull logo from the cover of issue #8 of the comic book, so he at least owes us a theme song.
Battle Beasts
Like it or not, furries are here to stay. Whatever ambient radiation made a generation of young people form unhealthy attachments to cartoon animals, it's permanent, and they're spending money. So why not knock out a summer blockbuster that can appeal to both action movie fans and Babs Bunny devotees? Battle Beasts were a line of figures produced by Transformers creator Takara that were essentially Earth animals in awesome ass-kicking battle armor. With an elemental hologram that determined what kind of attacks they were weak against, they were insanely collectible.
Another forgotten toy, the Super Naturals used the hot technology of holograms to tell the tale of two groups of undead warriors battling for the future of the Earth. Unlike many of the other properties on this list, these guys had no corresponding animated series or comic book, so they're sort of a blank slate. Each character has a hologram on the front that displays their normal state - like a dead pirate or something - and when tilted it shows off their secret power form, which are insane agglomerations of ectoplasm, animals and other weirdness.