BotCon 08 Panels - Hasbro and Cartoon Network.
Sun 10am (2 hours) - Hasbro and Cartoon Network's Animated series.
!!!!!!! S-P-O-I-L-E-R-S !!!!!!!!
Aaron Archer (Hasbro)
Derrick, Marty, Matt (Cartoon Network)
THis panel expands on the stuff revealed on the Friday panel, because this one was open to everyone, while the Friday panel was just for pre-reg attendees.
***Please be aware that there are some major spoilers ahead, some of which I didn't even want to know about, but unfortunately couldn't avoid.
There are still about 10 episodes yet to be aired by Cartoon Network, and a lot of this panel covered those remaining episodes.
Season 2 highlights.
More Cybertron to be featured.
Constructicons.
Starscream's Treachery (and we were being assured that he is dead for good, but I didn't even know that he dies - could be false spoiler though)
Lockdown Vs Prowl.
Megatron's Master Plan.
Megatron's interest in acquiring a Spacebridge technician.
New Characters shown (animation model sheets and some toy prototypes).
- Blurr (Elite Guard - has the winged Autobot symbol) Voiced by John Moshcita (Voice of Gen1 Blurr).
- Swindle (brown jeep with roof cannon) Voiced by Fred Willard.
- Prowl with Sidecar armour (a sidecar attachment that may be sold with a second year release of the Prowl toy, or recolour of Prowl)
- Lockdown redeco with new colours (Still mostly black) and a new weapon.
- Scrapper (excavator like Gen1 Scavenger)
- Mixmaster (I think it was a cement mixer, but could be a dump truck).
- Skywarp (recoloured Starscream, but not a character in the cartoon - Hasbro often initially plans to recolour Starscream toys into various seeker colours, and will be doing so with the Animated toys).
- Shockwave (very similar tank mode as Armada Megatron, even with the head horns - in mostly black) Voiced by Corey Burton, the same way he did the Gen1 Shockwave.
- Wreck-Gar will be released as a Voyager garbage truck toy. On the friday, the pre-registered people were shown an advance screening of the Wreck-Gar episode, which will be on next week on US Cartoon Network.
Season 3 advance sneak peak (so far off, these were still just early concept drawings).
- Arcee (Cybertroninan car, aiming to mimic the Gen1 car version, but had a more narrower front section).
- Jetfire and Jetstorm (Twins - two Cybertronian jets that can combine to form a larger jet) One was orange, the other blue, as a Fire and Ice Combo. THey will be released in a Voyager sized 2-pack, so would each be about deluxe sized.
In America, the first 3 episode 'Movie' will be released on DVD in June, and the 13 episode Season 1 will be released as a set in August.
(note - I think this explains why there are 29 episodes in the 2 seasons instead of 26 (multiples of 13), because the 60minute 'movie' doesn't appear to count as part of season 1 - those three episodes will not be in the season one release and need to be bought in addition to any season sets released. Sorry if that was already known, but I was never able to work out why there were 29 episodes. Now I know that Season one actually ends when Megatron returns, and not before.)
Takara is not interested in Animated at the moment, or maybe at all, as they are currently focussing on the older collector market for a few years.
THis allowed Hasbro to take on the animation side of the project domestically for the first time since Beast Machines.
Hasbro and the animation team want to continue with the core team concept, and other characters are not being considered to join the regular cast for some time (if Season 3 goes ahead).
Season 3 toys already being developed, will still be released if the cartoon isn't renewed for a third season.
We probably won't see more multi-changers, because they are too hard for Aaron's design team (especially something like Sixshot).
Fanzone is actually a real name, as Marty named it after his neighbour Carmen Fanzone, a famed Baseballer for the Cubs.
The Animation team were planning to have as their first human villian, someone called Octopunch, but it was changed to Angry Archer.
THe end of the panel, we were shown an advance screening of episode 26 'Black Friday', revolving around both characters with 'black' in their names.
