Universe Starscream

[Saintly]

gosh... that's some heated discussion above!

to me, it's just another starscream (yes, I'm a parent but I also grew up with it!)

the paint apps is nothing special... it's more white which means it's going to go through the yellowing process. The other colours maybe brighter and more accurate but it doesn't really make it any better... it's still the same classic mould afterall... which I feel is a good one.

There's nothing stopping you from buying this and selling the other if you feel you got ripped off by HasTak

[sifun]

I'm a sucker for repaints, but I don't like this and won't buy it. Its still a step up from classics "gummy safety plastic" starscream though.

[TheDirtyDigger]

there was this devious meeting a few years ago when Starscream was originally developed where the evil Aaron Archer came along and said to the designer, "Are you serious? You can't put that many paint applications on? That looks WAAAAAAAYYYYY too good. And that gray? No freakin' way! Let's use a much more dull, shallow gray... you know, like the KO manufacturers use. THEN, we'll pretend we CANCEL the Classics line and we'll let Funpub release the remaining seekers, and finally years later, we can release the premium version and sucker all these stupid collectors in again!!!!!!!! HOO HOO HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I can actually picture that happening.

[Pulse]

Actually - just curious... How much is a Henkei figure for the Japanese? Is it comparable to the US$10 price tag that the Americans pay for?
Anyone know enough about this to shed some light on this?

EHobby are listing their deluxes @ $18.70 USD while HLJ don't currently have any Henkei deluxes in stock...

[jaydisc]

Actually - just curious... How much is a Henkei figure for the Japanese? Is it comparable to the US$10 price tag that the Americans pay for?
Anyone know enough about this to shed some light on this?

Seemingly not. I just checked toyhobby.jp, which is Takara's equivalent of Hasbro Toy Shop, so I'm expecting they're at RRP, and deluxes go for JP2310, which by my calcs is AUD26 or USD21. Interesting.

[kup]

I can actually picture that happening.

When I read it I also pictured the same thing!

I pictured them sitting around a Dr Evil type conference table with Archer starting to go "MUU-HAA-HAHA" after announcing a deceiving promo pics campaign and severe production cost cuts and then all the other Hasbro designers joined in the evil laugh.

That deserves a web comic of some sort.

[dirge]

Do Loki & Bartleby burst in on your mental image, kup?

[MV75]

The point of Hasbro redecoing main guys like Starscream is there are now many more Transformers customers than there were back in 2006 when this mold was originally released as Starscream. They don't expect or demand you who already own Classics to buy this. They're thinking of the big picture of other customers who don't own the Classics version or the Henkei version.

Fully agreed on this POV.

Classics starscream is so G1 it hurts. Maybe people should be complaining that this is the toy they should have released 24 years ago instead of waiting all this time and stroking their white cats while penting their fingers in supreme evil.

People buying now would be highly grateful they can get this toy again (for their first time). Just like I'm highly grateful they do lines like Encore.

[jaydisc]

I'm still [politely] having a hard time with this "exploitation" angle.

Is Toyota exploiting customers when it releases a new model Camry with new bells and whistles? Do you apply the rationale that these are features the 2007 model should have had?

What about when Apple releases a music player with a larger capacity? Are they taking advantage of Apple fanboys?

Why is Hasbro's feet uniquely held to the fire in this same type of circumstance? How do you differentiate the two/three?

[GoktimusPrime]

I don't think it's so much exploitation, but a sign of lack of effort in the first place. Now, Classics/Universe Starscream is not a good example of this. I will concede that in this case it is a case of making an improvement.

An actual example of what I mean is Animated Deluxe Bumblebee. The fact that the weapon doesn't sit in flush in the forearms to me feels like slackness. They should have made sure that this gimmick worked properly before approving it for mass-production and release!! Now they later fixed it with Elite Guard Bumblebee repaint.

What they should've done was what they did with the first batch of movie 70s Bumblebee. There were widespread reports of the automorph gimmick breaking in the early batch, so Hasbro fixed it with subsequent production runs. Full kudos to them for fixing that problem. Hasbro saw the problem and promptly acted on it.

Instead of giving us a repainted Elite Guard Bumblebee, I would've preferred it if they'd just simply fixed the existing Deluxe Bumblebee toy in later production runs of the figure. When Hasbro gives us a dodgy Bumblebee, then fixes it but only in a drastically different repaint... it feels exploitative to me.