Visual aesthetics (i.e. G1 bias) aside, how do you think that this toy is superior to the previous Generations Kup? I don't have this toy and I've never seen it IRL, so admittedly I can't form a full opinion, but based on photos and reviews from the likes of BTT and BWTF (a very generous reviewerOriginally Posted by doublespy
) I'm inclined to agree with their sentiments.
As with TR Hot Rod and Blurr I'm just going to wait until I find this toy going for cheap before I think about getting it. It's a character that I already have in my CHUGUR collection so it's not a priority figure for my collection. And as per Lord Zed's sentiments, I much prefer a less G1 accurate CHUGUR toy that was well made over a toy that is just too slavishly G1 (but loses that element of imaginative creativity). When CHUGUR toys become too G1 accurate, even great toys like Sixshot, they risk coming across as feeling like "Poor Man's Masterpiece" rather than the original spirit of the Classics line when it started in 2006 - G1 characters reimagined (not just updated) with modern day engineering/designs. I really like the fact that Generations Kup is a definitive ute (and an old school lookin' ute to boot!), cos I gotta be honest, when I first got G1 Kup in 1986, I had no idea as to what sort of automobile he was meant to be. Even G1 Takara designer Ono Koujin has stated that Kup was one of their more disappointing designs, especially with the design of the rear section. But it was something that they had to do because Hasbro wanted the toy to be based on Floro Dery's design for the TFTM character. I even liked how they placed that small faux-windscreen on the top of Gen. Kup's chest, a reference to G1 Ironhide's design as Ironhide is meant to be the other Autobot old timer, so it suggests that the two of them are from the same vintage (Don Figueroa did the same with Kup and Ironhide in DW's War Within and Dark Ages comic series). There was just so much love and attention to detail poured into that figure compared to TR Kup who appears to have little else put into its design other than to look G1 (again, slavishly so). And let's not forget that the G1 Kup toy was a horrific shelfwarmer in 1986; I remember seeing shelves overflowing with this toy at either Grace Bros. or Target (it was one of thsoe "red bag" department stores in the 80s) and the toy was slashed to $5 each (my mother literally bought a trolley load of them and they were used as "gift fodder"* for the next year).
And this isn't a criticism towards Hasbro's decision in going more G1-slave per se. They are essentially responding to consumer demand. Fans want their toys to be more G1-accurate, and both Hasbro and TakaraTOMY are responding to this demand. They are giving fans what they want. So it's completely logical, but I just don't agree that it necessarily makes better toys. IMHO MP Inferno would've been a whole lot better if it had a more G1 toy-accurate detailed sculpt instead of a G1 cartoon-accurate simplistic sculpt. But the majority of fans are crying for toon-accuracy, so hey... democracy in action.We certainly can't say that HasTak aren't listening to their fans.
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*All of my male relatives and friends received a Kup from us between 1986-87, and even then we still had one left over (so my brother and I had a Kup each - the only time that we ended up with a boxed double in our collective collection).
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