Where has the FT Phoenix (not Skyfire) thread gone? Can't seem to find it...
About a dozen new topics were started on the weekend and most had hotlinked images from TFW. The poster was notified and given 3 days to replace images with links or free-host site images... the posts have now been unapproved so that only the poster can see them, and when they are fixed they will be made visible again.
If it was one or two I would do it myself, but this was dozens of images in over a dozen topics.
Understandable. Thanks for the explanation, i had no idea they were hotlinked posts
Just placed a preorder for MP Thrust at RK and a preorder for UW Skylynx and PC. I'm broke now. Damn you Takara!!!
I have a list of all G1 characters that have been released in CHUG form. You can find it here. Please feel free to let me know if I got anything wrong so I can fix it.
Punch/Counterpunch would make a good double Headmaster & could have a counterpart for each faction form. Punch's head should be called Judy!
Continued from here
Don't forget that the fandom in general was quite critical against Armada. Remember that this was the line that followed Car Robot/Robots In Disguise, a line saw awesome that it went on to inspire Binaltech/Alternators and Masterpiece. Armada on the other hand was so bad that it gave rise to this running joke:
...which was in reference to Armada Hot Shot's abysmal upper body articulation (or relative lack thereof) because it was compromised by the Mini-Con activated gimmick. And this was fairly indicative of how many of the Autobots and Decepticons were designed in Armada. As figures they really felt like a great leap backwards, especially after the awesomesauce that we'd experienced throughout Beast Wars and Car Robot. And don't forget that 2002 was a pretty dry year for Transformers with mostly just repaints and reissues coming out; the only new moulds we had were Air Attack Optimus Primal and Megatron Megabolt... and even they were just abandoned Beast Machines toys, they weren't new designs that Hasbro had created for that year. I remember buying toys like RiD Galvatron despite already having CR Gigatron as well as RiD Optimus Prime despite already having Super Fire Convoy simply because there was literally nothing else to buy. Even Japanese fans were whinging about how they had no new moulds since 2000 (remember that unlike RiD, Car Robot only lasted for one year in Japan) other than G1 reissues. 2002 was one of the most frustrating years as a TF fan since the mid 1990s. When Armada came out, I started lapping it up... the Mini-Cons really impressed me, they are by far the strength of the Armada line... but boy did the Autobots and Decepticons leave me feeling disappointed. And I really, really desperately wanted to like these toys.
Hasbro has even made a small acknowledgement of the critical reception that Armada received. When they released Universe Hot Shot in 2008, they used proper contemporary engineering and didn't bother implementing a Mini-Con activated gimmick. The result was what Armada could've been if they'd never bothered with the Mini-Con gimmicks -- just a solid and decent action figure! But Hasbro's nod to the criticism of Armada can be seen on Universe Hot Shot's licence plate which reads: JAAM. This comic is even funnier when read aloud and you shout for all of Hot Shot's upper-case letters but lower your voice to normal for all of the lower-case ones.
SWEEEET.. I share my birthday (today) with Peter Cullen Oh yeah!
Happy 75th Pete!
"I am not a gun. I'm hitting people with a hammer. On Mars."
The Iron Giant / David Wildgoose
You've said this a few times, I would love to know who has said this is the case. I don't see a correlation between the lines apart from realistic alt modes, which we first saw in G1, all car robots did was go back to the roots of the franchise and add some newer engineering concepts and materials.
that's pretty neat!
Happy birthday to you and Mr Cullen.
A Takara designer mentioned this in an interview published in a Japanese magazine in 2004.
Here's the correlation:
- In 2000 Takara releases Car Robot, which is basically Beast Wars engineering (e.g. fully articulated robot modes) with licensed vehicles such as Dodge Viper (Speedbreaker), Lamborghini Diablo (Mach Alert), Mercedes Benz ML320 (Wild Ride), Nozomi 500 (J-Five), E4 Max Type (J-Four), Railstar 700 (J-Seven), Hino Brandbilar (Fire Convoy) etc.
- In late 2003 Takara releases BT1 Smokescreen and MP1 Convoy. In the interview it was explicitly stated that these lines were inspired by Car Robot. They really liked the idea of articulated Transformers action figures with licensed vehicle modes and wondered what they could do if given the budget to make these toys in high detail for adult collectors.
They didn't say that BT/MPs were explicitly based off Car Robot, but they did say that Car Robot inspired them to make BT/MPs. Stranger things have happened. After all, it was this toy that inspired the Headmasters (as explicitly stated by Ono Koujin in the Transformers Generations book interview).