BotCon Panels 11/12 - Hasbro designers & Tyrese Gibson.
Movie spoilers again. I won't post up a censored version of this, as there doesn't appear to be much new non-movie news in this one. The Hasbro portion only went for 30 minutes as the unplanned guest showed up.
Sunday 11am.
Panelists - Bill Rawley, Eric Seibenaler, Joe Kyde.
Slides:
(most are just the same slides as the Saturday panel, with a bit of extra narration)
- Human Alliance Autobot Skids with Arcee and Mikaela (plus a prototype slide)
- Commemorative reissue Insecticons and Perceptor.
- Animated Arcee, and grey model (wings in car mode can come off)
- Animated Rodimus Minor, and grey model (skinny legs and limbs intentional).
- Animated Cybertron Ratchet, and grey model (holding defibrilator paddles, and is still compatible to Lockdown's EMP blaster)
- Hydrodrive Bumblebee, and grey model (showing Bumblebee outside of the exosuit).
- Animated Blackout, and grey model (given an Earth mode in case there was a season 4, and based it off the Movie Blackout)
- Wingblade Optimus (the six parts can attach to either Deluxe or Voyager Optimus - 2 arms, 2 guns, a wingpack, Magnus Hammer - combine to form a smallish trailer unit in truck mode)
ROTF
- Brakedown (shown in Gen1 Breakdown colours - scout)
- Skystalker (black stealth Jet - Decep scout)
- Scattorshot (looks like a scout sized Energon Landmine)
(each of the Scouts are shown holding some of Jungle Attack Ironhide's weapons, to show compatibility)
- Deluxe sized Ratchet
- Lockdown (same colours as Animated, and a little taller)
(ROTF Lockdown also has an EMP blaster, that is also compatible to ROTF Deluxe Ratchet, like in Animated - not sure why they are blurring the lines with these two)
- Dirge
- Drift (movie universe?) only a priliminary drawing shown, so is at least 12 months off from being produced.
- Jungle Attack Ironhide (voyager redeco), showing off all the extra weapons.
- Bludgeon (voyager sized tank), one sword is the tank turret, and both can clip onto Bludgeon's hips.
- Leader class Starscream (apparently the favourite toy in the Hasbro office at the moment)
- Human Alliance Barricade with Frenzy.
Just as the slide show ended, we weren't able to get to the Q&A, as some senior Hasbro people and Fun Pub people started filing into the room, clearing the panel table.
Tyrese Gibson was in da house...
He was a guest at the Saturday night party, and must have wanted to come to the actual convention, even though he wasn't an official guest.
Hasbro's Aaron Archer led him into the panel room and gave an introduction (Sergeant Epps in the new Movies), as the crowd started chanting 'left cheek, left cheek, left cheek, left cheek...'.
To which he responded, 'It's right cheek in the second movie'.
He really talks up the new TFs Movies all the time, and is a big fan of them. He even got an Autobot symbol tattooed on his right forearm, which is something he has never done for any previous movie.
Apparently he has been ill recently, and was actually went to hospital after the Saturday night party (the night before), but wanted to come to the convention today no matter what. (What a legend!)
He talked a bit about how he had to do some military training for the role, and spoke very highly of Shia.
Said he loved the Corvette Stingray, but wasn't allowed to drive it. He did say that he accidently scratched it with is (prop) gun when leaning against it (for a scene I guess), and got really worried about scratching such an expensive vehicle. One of the movie people fixed up the scratch (with proper stuff), and he never told anyone until now.
Apparently Tyrese is also a singer and producer of a comic called 'Mayhem'.
It was funny to see so many of the other 'official' people (like from Hasbro) all sitting in on this 'panel', as if the convention finally had a real star attending. :p
One lady, who was just the wife of a fan attending the convention, said that she'd swap her husband for him in an instant. :eek: :D
After about 15 minutes answering a few questions, he stepped down from the stage, and was mobbed by fans wanting to greet him and get photos taken with him. When it approached midday and the next panel was meant to start, Tyrese's minders led him out of the panel room to the Hasbro booth in the dealer room for people to continue meeting him and getting Autographs.
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Just as an added note - the next panel was a Cosplay (costume tutorial) panel. It was one I was curious about, and wanted to sit in on it (we rarely have fan-panels anymore), but since I was running out of time to get the last few photos of the Dealer Room exhibits and Hasbro toy display, it was another one I had to miss.
