Robots, More Robots, And Bugs
8. Zoids
Movie Pitch: "It's an entire movie like the Battle of Hoth only with AT-ATs on both sides."
Zoids
I only followed Zoids through their initial American release (and not for very long), but they have continued to enjoy a fairly impressive level of popularity to this day. The first toys were snap-together models in the shapes of dinosaurs, animals and insects, which were built around a small wind-up motor. Once you put them together, you could wind them up and they'd fight - well, not so much fight as just walk into each other until one of them fell over, but they were still pretty cool. Since their release, Zoids have built up a robust and intimidating mythology, which started out by detailing the battles between two warring factions on an alien planet tormented by earthquakes and volcanoes. The story is irrelevant and standard toy background material, of course - what we want to see are people piloting gigantic robots shaped like dinosaurs; it doesn't matter why they do it. People piloting oversized robots will be a recurring theme in this list, just as it was in the toys of the '80s.
7. Starriors
Movie Pitch: "It's Braveheart meets Short Circuit."
Starriors
Yep, these are more robots; they were hot back then. I believe Starriors was either a spinoff of Zoids or somehow connected to them, but the specific details elude me. The Starriors toys were not motorized like Zoids, and even though they had a cockpit, they weren't driven by humans. The story went that when the Earth started to become uninhabitable, humans built three classes of robots to steward our planet until it could be remade to suit our living requirements. The Protectors were designed to return the Earth to a livable state and rebuild society; the Destructors were built to hunt down and destroy all the mutants - there's always mutants - and the Guardians were made to protect the slumbering humans while they were in hibernation.
Unfortunately, the Destructors, under the tutelage of Slaughter Steelgrave, decided that rather than do all this work only to turn the planet over to a bunch of lazy humans, they'd just enslave the other robots and leave the humans asleep. When will we learn?! The damn robots always go all Cyberdyne and turn on us. Anyway, the Starriors were all armed with tools that could conveniently be used as weapons in a pinch, such as saws, cutting lasers, and so on. Marvel published a Starriors mini-series in or around 1984 that was actually pretty compelling. The story read like a slave rebellion, where the oppressed Protectors rise up against the fascist Destructors. I also remember something about a giant dinosaur that shot discs from his mouth. Maybe they should make just one movie for all of these and call it "Giant Robot Dinosaur".
6. Sectaurs
Movie Pitch: "It's Lord of the Rings meets The Fly"
Sectaurs
These guys weren't giant or robots, but rather had an insect flair. They were people who were genetically mixed with insects and rode around on other mutated insects that had grown to the size of SUVs. In a toy chest dominated by hulking metal, it was nice to dig around and find something organic once and a while, and action figures that saddled giant spiders couldn't be all bad. One thing that was different about Sectaurs was that the mutated "insectoids" that acted as mounts were actually puppets: you didn't just hold the toy and fly it around, you operated its wings/legs/teeth as a puppeteer.
The Heroic Sectaurs of the Shining Realm were lead by Prince Dargon and his trusty steed Dragonflyer. They were opposed by the Evil Sectaurs of the Dark Domain, lead by Empress Devora and General Spidrax. Many of the toys of the '80s attempted to weave grand tales of fallen kingdoms and brave warriors overcoming adversity, and Sectaurs were no exception. The stories were all practically interchangeable...
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