Good evening, everyone. Let’s get one thing straight from here on, there’s nothing more behind this, not everything is a conspiracy. Sometimes, bad things happen. The factory in question has been a long term partner and has created many items for us which many of you will have enjoyed. Our Tricorder parts are all sitting in this factory, 100% ready to be assembled. They’re all paid for and have been for sometime however, the factory no longer has adequate staff to finish and assemble these products. This is beyond their control and beyond our control and goes far deeper into the current economic and political issues in China. They’ve been open and honest to us about their situation and we appreciate that. Clearly, it’s a disappointment and we want the Tricorders yesterday, as do you. After all, we’ve already paid for them. They could have simply thrown the remaining Tricorders together with whatever labor they could muster, but they knew this would result in sub-standard product. We wish they could complete the order, but they can’t. So, we are attempting to get all the parts, tooling, etc. out of this factory and into a new one, but this process is not quick and must be done thoroughly to ensure we don’t end up with more issues. Skilled labor for this kind of work is now very hard to find as more than half of the available factories have gone out of business in the last 18 months, and it seems more will follow. This affects everybody and no one manufacturing in China today is immune to these kinds of issues and has to deal with them if they arise.
Obviously, the issues mentioned above are all internal and we take full responsibility for the repeated delays. Flat out, it sucks… We’re trying right now to relaunch MR, as we know that the whole brand has basically been neglected in the last 14 months. This is not the type of news we want out of the gate in MR 2.0. We’re trying to communicate better with everyone and this is why we’ve been so open on this issue. We’ve got big plans for 2009 for Star Trek, James Bond and Ghostbusters props. That’s the core for next year, we’re taking baby steps and trying to produce good products on time at the right price point without biting off more than we can chew. But one of our failings in the past has been facts based on wishes rather than facts based on reality, and going forward that ends now. Likewise, when we screw up or make a mistake, we’ll “fess up,” see above J.
A little bit about MR 2.0… There’s 2 of us. That’s it, no big huge corporate monster. Just whittled down staff trying to keep prop replicas in the company product line. There’s me (Tom) and Barry (no relation to the other well known Barry here, although they’re both Brits) and we’re both passionate and excited about prop replicas. No titles, just hard work and our hands on every facet we can get them on. Again, we are both well aware that some terrible decisions have been taken with MR in the past and the service and products have not been to the standard that we would like to set going forward. The new direction may take a different form, but will be a return to the core values that founded the company. We work in a public company with a corporate set up and rules to follow, so this means we sometimes have to play the game, but we’re passionate, dedicated and most importantly on your side. The prop replica side of the business is the most complicated, time consuming and expensive division, but we don’t need to explain to everybody here why we’re mad enough to even bother. Rest assured, we’re not men in suits. We value the opinions of the RPF and every customer/fan alike. We want to hear how we can make things better and how we can improve going forward. Please, no glib comments, we’ve heard them all before, many, many times and we’re fully aware of our failings.
One more thing, enough with MR and eFX comparisons. We don’t like it, they don’t like it, and in fact it’s getting pretty petty. We love them, we used to work shoulder to shoulder with everyone there and we still talk to them on a regular basis as friends. We both operate as separate companies and we do things differently, it’s not productive to anyone to get into an, “eFX would have done this, MR would have done that” discussion. If you want that type of drama, turn on the T.V. between the hours of 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM, there’s plenty there .
We’re posting this here as our own forum is down this weekend in preparation for our new website launch next week. Our first step in a new direction. We’re here and if you ever need to reach us our number is (888) 4POPCO1, EXT 130 (Tom), EXT 110 (Barry).
Happy Holidays Everybody (we’re trying),
Tom and Barry
Update 01/09 - we're still looking for a factory. I'll be posting updates as soon as they're available.
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