The Barbie Movie - and the dolls

Delightful, I love that you plan to cosplay for it.
I'm super looking forward to seeing this movie, and hunting the dolls from it.

 

There were choices made for those dolls.

They were not good ones.

 

I thought really poorly of them when I saw them, especially Barbie. Admittedly though, as time as gone on, I've chilled out a bit over her. She's not as bad as I first felt she is. She's just a very standard slightly-changed Millie, and I guess realistically that makes sense, if Mattel want to convert movie-going kids into Barbie doll fans. They need a little inter-brand recognition. It was a bit unreasonable of me to be imagining some 1:6 level detailed Margot Robbie in a playline doll.

Plus the person who took those photos said that they took photos of the worst Barbie they could find (originally posted on reddit). So I'm chilling out and waiting to see more examples of the final doll first.

 

I think Margot Robbie's Barbie looks more like Jaime Pressly...

 

I could sort of understand if they were going for a camp crazy-looking doll since a lot of the market seems very tongue in cheek anyways...but it would have been cheaper and better-looking if they just used one of the Barbie Looks sculpts!

 

Oddly, I really like the Ken! I'm not normally into Kens but I'm vibing with him!

 

I have to admit, I don't collect playline but I love to keep up with playline releases!

That said... what I've seen of the Barbara fandom's reaction to these dolls just befuddles me. To me these just look like very standard Barbie dolls. They don't particularly look like the actors, I guess? Maybe I'm just face blind?

ngl, often "terrible" Barbies and "gorgeous" Barbies look almost identical to me. Unless it's something obvious like molded on clothes I'm clueless.

 

I have a few barbies myself, and even though I don't collect the newest dolls anymore, I was curious to see the result of those dolls (and the movie seems awesome thus I was hyped lol), but the Barbie doll really disappointed me.

You can see a bit of Margot Robbie in the eyes but this enormous smile is really too much, it's way too exaggerated and gives me more joker than barbie vibes. it's kinda hard for me to unsee it now, so hopefully they will change the mold for the other dolls for a bit of variety, but this one will be a pass for me.

I think Ken is okay though, maybe a bit basic, not very different from other "classic" ken dolls but I guess it makes sense so he is okay (too bad he's not on a Made To Move though, but the body can be changed)

 

Looks like they went with the bodies they use for Black Label which are almost Made to Move Barbie and possibly the "1999" Ken which is a nice choice for shirtless without being too beefy. That face mold could also be 90s Ken/Alan but it also reminds me of the first run Beauty and the Beast prince.

 

If it's any consolation, I'm a newer Barbie fan and I feel pretty similarly. In a very general sense, when people talk about the "quality" in the old days, I really can't understand what they're referring to. At best I do see clothes with more details, but what survives of those clothes is decaying, fraying, out-of-scale tailoring, and naturally out-of-fashion cuts. So that, or the newer printed fabrics, neither appeal to me and I'm just going to redress them in Etsy clothes. I definitely personally feel that "old" Barbie and "new" Barbie are much much closer to each other than some folks like to admit, for whatever reason.

And you're right, imho. These movie dolls ARE very standard Barbie dolls. I do think that's definitely also why people are disappointed though, they were hoping for something a bit more collector-line. Myself included. But that's why I realised I need to take a step back a little bit; they aren't meant to be a collector line, they're meant to be for 7yo kids just learning about Barbie from the big screen. They've even got a budget price-point, iirc. So... eh, I think they're completely fine for that.

Now, had Mattel slapped a $100 price point on this Barbie, well then I would be grabbing my pitchfork and torch.

 

Cute dolls!

 

The only quality from the old days I can speak of is late 80s-early 90s and the clothes were just better somehow. I have stuff older than half of you which is still holding up and stuff that came in a pricey gift set barely 10 years ago is falling apart.

Like higher quality fabric, more quality control on the printing, if you bought a regular Barbie (not the meant to be cheap swimsuit dolls) you knew you were getting something. Kind of a quantity over quality, nothing against the endless Fashionistas they pump out but it's like overload now. And if it's a "collector" doll the sewing is kind of crappy because it's not meant to be opened and undressed but many of us harvest those dolls because they have the jointed bodies we want.

 

@MaleficentMrsofEvil, I haven't seen the movie, and I don't think your spoilers will affect me too much when I eventually watch it in the comfort of my own home (can you say "big screen TV"?).

Life is full of ironies; poor Ken, and even poorer Alan. Alan was always my favorite from back in ye olde vintage days and onward. (Dating myself; can you guess my age? *snerk*)

Mattel is a business, and making money is a big part of business. MBAs (especially from the 1980s onward) are tone-deaf, and only see the barest basics on their way to making the money. Tie-ins and monetizing have always been there, but it's over the top now.

I thought about another possible irony -- how Mattel's legal department in the 1990s went after anybody and everybody who they thought was "defaming" Barbie and using said defaming for their profit. That included people who did repaints of playline dolls that they bought from the stores (new and used), and Barbie-themed magazines who were sometimes critical of Mattel. Oh dear, how dare the "little people" make any kind of money from Barbie's good name! It helped the legal department justify their existence, but it caused the adult collector market to look elsewhere for fashion dolls -- **enter Mel Odem's Gene**

 

@MaleficentMrsofEvil, sounds like Bratz all over again, lol. Are former Mattel employees designing all the new doll lines?

I grew up with Barbie, and I still like my Barbies, but thankfully I'm getting too old to chase after them and any other dolls. I own enough dolls already (Barbie, Momoko, a few Genes and Tylers, and BJDs) to keep me busy; I can be choosy about who I add, which is a comfortable place to be.

I forgot to mention that besides Mattel's stupid lawsuits in the 1990s, the quality of the collector lines also turned off adult collectors. Someone at Mattel latched onto the NRFB thing, and made dolls that only looked good in the box, because they thought that's all adult collectors care about. Never occurred to them that some collectors like to debox and play with the dolls, and everyone discovered how shoddy the dolls were, like a Potemkin village.

 

Admittedly I'm not a huge fan of all the discourse around Mattel. When it comes down to it, ALL the playline companies are questionable in some way or another. Even the most well-meaning ones are often either paying peanuts for Chinese labour, or striking deals to import Chinese dolls and slap their own logo on it at a mark-up, and often it's both. Buying any of their products is a question of how much you're willing to look the other way for a chunk of plastic.

Because of what Mattel is doing in the UK, I'll no longer buy their products, period. No matter how much I do or don't like them. (context: The $25 Barbies have been increased to £44 here, which in today's exchange rate is almost $60. This is the official price too, not dodgy third party sellers. There aren't words for how messed up this is. The $50 collector dolls are almost $90 here.) I don't even care to debate what they could or should do or how another company is "better" than them or whatever. As a consumer, my simple and immediate response is "nope, goodbye.".

MGA is pulling the same stunt here, with slightly smaller percentage increases, but still massive mark-ups for, I don't know, having the audacity to not be the USA. Somebody in the RH community calculated that MGA was placing 48% mark-ups for the UK market generally, and for anybody who doesn't know, this is not how import and tax works. There's no justification for 48% increase per doll. There's a cost of living crisis, and these things are starting to approach energy bill prices.

Hmm, that's a bit of a tangent, but I suppose my point is that I'm so done with whatever BS the fashion/playline doll industry is pulling in recent years across the board!

 

Finally saw the dolls in the wild and I will say the Ken is like a "extra" version of the Made to Move missing a few joints, but he is super pale if that's a thing. Might get one when he's on sale. Skipping over all the girls. Right now I do want a specific Barbie to be a specific character but she's a Looks and not one of them.

I would love to see a doll person in charge of the brand. I don't know why they stopped making the 100 poses as a play line doll because that was the best body they did until the MtM and it fits old and new clothes and shoes.

Not going to get in to the prices and quality because I just had to throw away almost brand new accessories because they're wet.

 

I haven't seen the movie yet (planning to go this coming weekend) but my non-doll collector friends seem evenly split on whether they liked it or not. I'm also not sure how to feel because on one hand I love the idea of a satirical/comedic movie about dolls but on the other hand modern Barbie has basically no resemblance to the exaggerated pink world in the movie's promotions. It's like how there's movies that try to do a new twist on spaghetti westerns or satirize the genre when unironic spaghetti westerns haven't been made in decades.

 

If you want to see Barbie go see Barbie, it might not have an exact genre, the core story is about a female character going on a journey of self discovery. All the major complaints are from reviewers who don't understand the movie wasn't made exactly for them and can't find a way to open their eyes and relate to what they're watching. (think the guy and his Lamilly doll who has no idea how girls actually play dolls and people who get hung up on the doll's physical form and don't get how humans mess with features we like in our artwork)

But they do say it earns its PG-13 rating and don't recommend bringing anyone you'd park in front of an animated movie.

 

I haven't seen the movie, but this is actually the impression I get from some folks. I had to unfollow a doll YouTuber recently, because he'd already had some pretty bad takes previously when talking about doll controversy (he definitely doesn't understand feminism like he thinks he does), but his response to the Barbie movie was to completely miss so many of the messages and consider the movie worse for it, instead of considering that the movie was made for people with female-lived experiences.

It's a given, when something like this comes out that a lot of people who aren't personally affected by these experiences or issues just won't understand it, but it's still disappointing when instead of acknowledging that they don't have firsthand experience (like they might acknowledge when it comes to a story about ethnicity for example), they double-down on Why The Thing Is Bad, Actually.

 

I want to go see the Barbie Movie and my husband is sweet enough to suggest we make a date of it. Ironically, while his mom and sister have this weird bias against it, our ten year-old videogame and robot obsessed nephew wants to see it too. So there's that. I think we'll go see it for ourselves before deciding if he should watch it, but that's a habit I've had that leaks over from checking videogames before allowing my nieces and nephews to play them.

 

@MaleficentMrsofEvil Oh okay, thanks for letting me know! I'll see if his mom will let him tag along then.

 

He might get that he should work to become his own person and not require constant validation from others. Few of the reviews mention how needy and annoying Ken feels at the beginning and that he gets a bit of a character arc.

 

@DollyKim That'd be a great thing for him to learn early in life! I might suggest this movie to many more people if that's the case!

 

Finally got to see the Barbie movie, and I really liked it. Is it the best movie? No. Is it a good movie? Yes. Am I glad I bought some of the Ken dolls from it? Very yes. Over all I give the movie a 7 (maybe 7.5) out of 10, it's great for what it is, and has a lot of inside jokes and Easter eggs that are aimed at Barbie collectors.

My take on the move is there are life lesions mixed with comedy. Mattel riffs on it's self and Barbie and her friends, but it also has a lot of girl power to it. More then that it has a cool statement of the imposed gender roles when looked at through the lens of stereotyping can be harmful, and people need to have their own sense of identity. I liked the find yourself and be yourself message, felt it actually kind of impowering.

I'm trans-male and maybe my take away from the movie has something to do with that. As a child I was a Barbie girl, and action figure lover. However I struggled with not understanding how to fit in and why my being different was sometimes seen as weird or wrong.(I'm a raised vegetarian, with ADHD and dysgraphia, a member of the LGBTQ+ and was home schooled.) It took a lot of growing up and self searching to figure out who I was, and to learn it's better to be yourself then what people think you should be or want you to be. I'm a proud Barbie boy, or Ken guy? Whatever the term for male collector and lover of Barbie dolls is.(Sorry about the mini tangent, it's part of how my ADHD brain works there is a need to explain/justify everything.) Anyway I really liked the find yourself message and the can we stop the unfair stereotypes message. Which went for both Barbie and Ken I thought.

Also I loved all the doll Easter eggs I still have many of the dolls in the move, or at least their outfits. I was a kid in the 80s and 90s, I had the pink space Barbie, and I had the pilot Barbie. Oh and Earring Magic Ken was my fav Ken doll for ages (still in my top five maybe back up to number one having been in the movie), I have a dozen Midge dolls from her wedding to that infamous pregnant one. (I went through a red haired doll phase.) And I have more then my fair share of "Weird" Barbies. (I customize dolls there were early victims).

Having babbled more then enough on the movie, dolls and such I'm going to stop now.

 

My only gripe about the movie is the pacing. Some of it felt like it went on forever and some of it was over too fast. Could go on but this isn't the place.

There definitely are moments after Barbie enters the real world that children shouldn't see unless they're old enough to understand that's not how to treat another person. I've already had to explain to a couple of people it deserves the PG 13 rating and I don't see how or where it's been marketed to or come across as a children's movie like the animated ones.

 

I want to watch it. I bought some barbie popcorn buckets online. I heard it was written and made by females which reminded me of Korean dramas. Korean dramas is usually like that, so i thought maybe that's why the barbie marketing worked so well on me. I don't get that excited for American movies, but strangely Barbie marketing worked on me and got me to buy their merch like how kdramas product placements make me go buy what are they are advertising. I went through a subway phase because of kdramas. Thankfully there is less subway product placements. Now it's kahi. My sister and I spent a lot on buying kahi. It works well.

 

I haven't seen it. I can't sit through movies anymore and need a pause button. But I LOVE the Ken song on youtube. I also love the Ken doll that wears the fur coat. It's different.

 

I didn't watch it in one sitting, there are plenty of places you can pause it. There isn't an intricate plot so you won't miss anything, a movie like this would have simple dialog so they can translate and sell it to foreign markets easier.

 

I saw the Barbie movie not sure if I’d like it. Typically a movie about Barbie wouldn’t be on my watch list, but since it had such a huge impact with so many types of people (whether they loved or hated it) I felt I needed to actually see it for myself to form an opinion.

All that said, this movie was not made for me, and that is ok! It was still entertaining, particularly the Ken song. It isn’t a movie I would see again, but I did not feel it was a waste of money. I think it’s the first movie in a VERY long time, certainly since covid, that I have actually wanted to see, and it delivered on production quality, writing, entertainment value. I think the producers and cast should be very pleased at the work they have done, and I feel it was a good cultural snapshot if that makes sense. It’s silly, and I didn’t get any profound message from it directly, though some have? I’m not sure if that was intended? The movie did make me feel something, maybe that sense of feeling out of place? It wasn’t a feeling I liked but it was important to understand it?

If you haven’t seen it, you should! It’s interesting and well done.

 

Finally had that date day with my hubby and we went to a book signing, an MC Escher exhibit, dinner, and saw the Barbie movie. He loved it as much as I did and we had a great time! And now I really, really want an Allan doll. Specifically that one from 1961 with the red hair. No one cares about Allan... except me. I care about Allan. XD

 

Good luck with finding an Allan and don't get ripped off, the market for him is crazy because of the movie. There's a Silkstone Ken with a similar looking face and a reroot would make him quite Alan looking.

Hopefully Mattel is working on a reproduction, not having some, even a limited batch was a marketing mistake.

 

I wouldn't mind getting one that's damaged for a reasonable price. What I really love about the Allan doll (aside from his character in the movie) is his nose in particular. I wish there was more of this nose on male dolls in general honestly - it has a very "late 1950s doo-wop singer" feel to it. I'd love to find a cute MSD boy with this type of nose as well.

 

Oddly enough the later husband Allans do kind of look like Michael Cera. Any other time I'd have my Mattel guys at hand, or the nice pictures I planned to take before life happened, and could guide y'all to similar looking guys.

Skipper's boyfriend Kevin from the 90s has a similar vibe to the first Allan but not the nose. Look up the Flavas Liam who came with a motorcycle, he has a small nose.

 

I also care about Allen and Midge I have since I was a kid and got their wedding dolls, they will always be my favorite dolls from Barbie Land.

 

Hubby gave me the funds and I managed to get a reasonably priced Allan doll off ebay for $40! That's pretty darn cheap compared to some of the prices I've seen, so I jumped on that listing pretty fast. I have the account, but it's his birthday gift for me.

He doesn't come with an outfit, but he's in pretty decent condition for a doll produced in 1960 (according to the text on his butt). I can clean him up and do some touch ups on his hair thanks to my experience in the bjd hobby too. Most importantly, his nose is in perfect condition so I'll be able to just pick him up and turn him in any angle I may need while drawing.

@DollyKim I agree that not having a batch of Allan dolls was a mistake on Mattel's part, considering the prices of Allan dolls now. Even the filthy, battered ones are going for a good chunk of change. I guess that's to be expected due to his lack of popularity in the 60s, but I've seen a listing for one in perfect condition go for nearly $2k! Yikes! I did look up the Flavas Liam, but he wasn't quite what I needed for an art model - but I appreciate the kind suggestion! ^^

@Tippetarius I remember seeing their wedding dolls and liking them, but was in high school and was at the age where adults I knew would remind me "you're too old for dolls". Can't tell me that now that I'm getting my masters in animation and teaching kids to draw.

 

I know a lot of people don't like Margot Robbie's Barbie but when I look at her all I can think is at least it's not as bad as Emma Watson's Belle doll from the Beauty and the Beast like action. That was a choice! As for the Ken though... they did a great job making him look like Ryan Gosling. They seem to be popular too cause they're sold out everywhere and the resell prices are crazy.

 

I honestly still can't fathom how that was ever green lit for production. Like, they had full opportunity with the prototype to see just how badly executed it was, and yet they still pushed forward. I'll never understand it.

 

I know, there are plenty of sculptors out there who can do wonderful likenesses that they could hire (like the person who did my House and Crowley). Even on my worse day I could have half bum-bumed something better looking. Are they just relying on 3-D scans or something? The Harry Potter Barbie like dolls have a pretty Hermione so it can be done.

Don't make me pull out my art degree and explain how humans are hard wired for some exaggeration for things we like, big eyes and long legs etc, and Uncanny Valley toys put children off, something something those Greco Roman statues many people agree are beautiful have been made beyond human because no one liked the completely realistic ones.

 

I remember around 2008 or so, Mattel had some great celebrity sculpts in brick & mortar priced doll ranges between the High School Musical lines and some collector dolls they were doing at the time. I'm disappointed to see that quality went away. Still thinking about getting the Ken at least though.

I'm hoping that around Christmas time, we'll see more stuff for the Barbie movie since Mattel likes to release new dolls around that time in general and because the movie will be hitting DVD around then. I think they didn't anticipate the movie being quite as popular as it is and under-estimated the variety of dolls they needed to make for it. Hopefully, if they do a Q4 wave, we'll see stuff like Allan, Ken's "I am Kenough" hoodie, more of Barbie's looks or re-releases of her vintage fashions, etc.

 

You and me both! Someone looked at that doll and went "Yeah! That'll do!" ROFL

 

I had to look up who made a couple of the celebrity dolls I really liked, and it was Jakks Pacific, but I can agree that for awhile there were some nice Mattel celebrity dolls. I caved in and bought a Jack Sparrow. I don't remember any of the dolls being as fugly at the time and by 2010 they were coming out with Disney dolls that looked more like the cartoons.

Even with 3D scanning they could do better than half of what's coming out.

 

My husband hadn’t seen it and wanted to watch the Barbie movie with me, so I watched it again with him, and we had a blast We were laughing the whole way through. I think it was just a little depressing on my own and I judged it a little harshly at first. With my best friend it was highly entertaining.

 

Dressing as Ken from the end of the movie tonight when I hand out goodies to the Trick or Treaters. I got the Mattel Kenough hoody, and his bandana and fanny pack.

Speaking of Kenough they just added a new Ken to the movie line up in that hoody and it actually uses the actor's likeness.
I ordered one, but then I also have collected Kens for a long while and it matches my hoody, least that's how I justified getting it.