{"id":42294,"date":"2024-05-31T21:57:59","date_gmt":"2024-06-01T01:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=42294"},"modified":"2024-05-31T21:57:59","modified_gmt":"2024-06-01T01:57:59","slug":"i-seem-to-recognize-your-face-tom-cruise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2024\/05\/i-seem-to-recognize-your-face-tom-cruise\/","title":{"rendered":"I seem to recognize your face - Tom Cruise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is the latest in a series (of indefinite length and regularity) of pieces pointing out odd action figures of unlikely actors. People known more as character actors than action stars, and thus unlikely candidates for plastic representation.<\/p>\n<p>And yet our honoree this time is Tom Cruise.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/istryf_tcruise1.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"this kid should really get his teeth fixed (so they're off-center in his face)\"><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->It's not that Tom Cruise isn't in action movies, it's that the action movies he's in tend not to get toys. <i>Jack Reacher<\/i> is not a toyetic film, and not even McFarlane's rebooted <i>Movie Maniacs<\/i> line would want anything to do with <i>The Mummy<\/i>. You can find some ostensible <i>Last Samurai<\/i> 12\" figures, but those are unlicensed knockoffs.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/istryf_tcruise2.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"235\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"the floor is 'being a well-balanced, mentally healthy person who's comfortable with who they are'\"><\/p>\n<p>However, before he got <b>so<\/b> big he could refuse any merchandising, he starred in 1996's <i>Mission Impossible<\/i>, and that movie had a seven-figure assortment (three molds based on the movie, and a bunch of repaint variations) from Tradewinds Toys, a company that apparently never made any other action figures at all. All seven figures in the line were Ethan Hunt, and the gimmick leaned into the movie's use of masks and disguises to turn him into different kinds of characters.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/istryf_tcruise3.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"640\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"l-r: Pointman, Spy Senator, Fireman, Safari, Industrial, Aquatic, Arctic\"><\/p>\n<p>The Tom Cruise likeness is non-existent, but this isn't a case like <i>Terminator Salvation<\/i>, where the face was hidden because Playmates didn't want to pay Christian Bale: that's just what toys looked like in 1996. That Ethan Hunt figure looks as much like Tom Cruise as any given Batman looked like whoever was playing Batman at the time. And so as of now, these are the only official action figures of <s>the reincarnated L. Ron Hubbard<\/s> the cousin of that guy who played Ethan on <i>Lost<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the latest in a series (of indefinite length and regularity) of pieces pointing out odd action figures of unlikely actors. People known more as character actors than action stars, and thus unlikely candidates for plastic representation. And yet &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2024\/05\/i-seem-to-recognize-your-face-tom-cruise\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[292],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-i-seem-to-recognize-your-face"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42294"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42297,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42294\/revisions\/42297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}