Well, I found the following in the latest issue of Tomart's Action Figure Digest, issue #182, in the News section. Tomart's says:

"Hasbro has purchased the rights to Micronauts and will develop the property into a motion picture and toy line..."

Notice what's mentioned first, there.

The Tomart's report continues:

"According to sources, Hasbro's plan for the property include a major motion picture similar to the approach used for Transformers. Time Travelers and Baron Karza-type figures will be replaced by new style toys developed by Hasbro in keeping with the characters created for the film."

If this is accurate, then I find this news rather disappointing. Nothing against Hasbro. But the number of movies that have been based on a previously established pop-culture concept of any sort that have not been seriously, and in my opinion, more often than not negatively, impacted by the Hollywood ego of some writer, director, or whatever, that thinks he's so great that he can take something that is or was wildly successful and make it better just because he's such a special and creative person -- well, it's a pretty small number.

And I suppose I was really hoping for some sort of line that was in keeping with the classic Micronauts. We'll see what happens, and I hope I'm over-reacting, but this particular bit of news in Tomart's, for what it's worth, rather dampened my enthusiasm.

Hasbro and their new found way of getting movies out there, hehe. They use that as an excuse for why they change everything about the property. If people don't like it they can blame the director or Hollywood, hehe.

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Aww man.
Instead of Time Traveller, we'll get Shia Leboeuf and the kid from Twilight will be the new Karza.

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Interesting. I still very much look forward to seeing what they do with it. It's tough to imagine them not jumping at the chance to put Baron Karza in a movie. If done well, he could trump Darth Vader himself for sheer interstellar badness. I also wonder how many errant early musings or just plain misinformation gets put out to stir up the "anti-" crowd. Youngsters tend to flock to what the oldsters harp against.

But, to be fair, lots of Micronauts/man figures have been issued in the past decade or so with, save a few reissues, barely a Karza or Time Traveller in sight, and some of us long-timers are still scoopin' 'em up... as we can afford them!

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Not too surprising. I believe Karza and Prince whatshisface were actually licensed characters based on an anime character called Geag and not original Microman designs. He was a cool villain though, and I don't see why they can't create another Darth Vader type and call him Karza.

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I see the movie as a win-win situation.

Since J.J. Abrams is connected, it'll probably be good and a lot of fun, like his Trek.

If we don't get an awesome Micronauts movie, we'll still probably be getting awesome figures, since Hasbro's been producing some really nice 3.75" stuff the last few years. The movie could get kids into the property, who'll want more toys.

How is any of that bad?

The characters are going to be re-designed and Hasbro will make new additions. Just accept and expect that. But I've got faith in what the company can do with such a cool license.