After seeing the platinum one in the photo, it looks like UM has had his blue pants pulled down and looks to have white underwear. I can't get this now.
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After seeing the platinum one in the photo, it looks like UM has had his blue pants pulled down and looks to have white underwear. I can't get this now.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
I will wait to pass judgement until I can see a better pic. I got the PrimeRID that came out last year because it was a new mold, though I think the BH version looks better in robot mode. Will be interesting to see where this guy ends up on the scale.
Is it just me, or does anyone else miss the days when we just got one really cool (or at least original) version of each character, then they would move on to another character? I know everyone laments how many Primes and BBee's we get now but even Magnus now has 3 large TFPrime (or related to TFPrime) toys. Couldn't they give us a few more different trucks like Motor(breath)master or Clench or something? Look at the 86 catalog, 52 different Autobots, 52 Different Decepticons -
104 Toys to 104 Characters! I miss those days!
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
but now you get to choose the size class you think best suits the character.
and don't forget that a lot of the cheap repaints we get these days are inspired by the original toys cheap repaints.
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Think about the quality of the toys though. Mostly bricks with very little in the way of articulation. Any moulds that weren't brand new to the series had already been sold in other toy lines so money had covered them. And moulds that were brand new were either rereleased as Targetmasters, or a few years later in new lines or as new characters in other countries. There were the occasional new moulds that were never used again, but, the toys were also more expensive too (looking at the catalogues).Originally Posted by BigTransformerTrev
In way the current toylines are like the toylines for the Japanese only series towards the end of G1. Lots of repaints of existing moulds and slight retools.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Considering Hasbro's range and product availability 27 years ago, i'm willing to overlook lack of articulation.
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You'd happily go back to the bulkier, less articulated, worse looking, more expensive toys just to have more 'unique' moulds a year?
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You'd happily settle for poorer quality and design for the time, less product for your money and a smaller roster? Be my guest.
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The toys are really not much smaller. I don't think the quality is actively any worse overall. There's bound to be a change as they use different plastics and construction has changed a lot. The design isn't perfect on every toy but it wasn't back in the day ,either.
You would really take (keeping it 1986 for the sake of the argument), G1 Kup over Generations Kup, for example? Really? Is this just a "rar rar G1" thing?
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Yeah but I have always simply bought the largest version of each character as it usually provides the best in the way or detail and articulation. I have mine for display purposes rather than setting up fight scenes (if only I had the time!). The only time I make an exception to this is if the largest version is rubbish - like the new TFPrime Optimus with the Stargate on his back. I don't need 6 different sized Optimus, just one decent sized good quality one.
Granted, but it was nearly 30 years ago and for the day they were awesome! It's like blaming computers for being crap back then compared to a laptop from today. Of course they weren't as good back then, the technology was/is still evolving.
Yep! Nearly every G1 Character made it to our shores (with the exception of the likes of Countdown etc). And you could find them everywhere - I bought Seaspray in a milk bar in a middle-of-nowhere town and bought Kup from the local newsagents.
Why would the technology used to make these toys regress simply to make more new molds? The production process wouldn't suddenly reqind 30 years.
It's the smaller roster thing that gets me. The conflict has always meant to be two giant interstellar armies fighting over millions of years - not a gang of 5 sitting round. It doesn't make sense - why doesn't Megatron go and conquer the rest of the universe and leave Prime to sit in his little bunker on earth? Who gives a crap about earth and 5 Autobot sitting on it when you have the whole of creation to conquer? Give me giant rosters every time - it makes more sense within the Transformers universe.
No, the reason I love the Generations line so much is that the toys are fantastic and kind of how you wish they had looked like back in the day. But again, it's like comparing an Atari 2600 to a PS3 - of course it is better now! I still don't think them producing different molds rather than lots of different sizes of the same character would equate to a drop in the quality of the figure. Look at TF: Cybertron, lots of different molds and characters and there were some great toys!
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Also, G1 Kup was crap even by G1 standards. I remember that toy being the single worst shelfwarming in 1986. It was either Target or Grace Bros. (Myer) who reduced the price of Kups to $5 to flog 'em off (which is when I finally got one!
Another problem with some of the 1986 figures like Kup and Blurr was that they were the first bunch of Transformers to be concurrently designed with Sunbow/Toei animators - because those figures were designed based on characters who would appear in The Transformers: The Movie. Generations Kup on the other hand isn't based on a cartoon model, so they had much greater creative freedom. As you all know, I'm really NOT a fan of toys being based on show models, because animators design Transformers as robots first, then work out how they can transform into a vehicle based purely on visual aesthetics. Toy designers make Transformers as vehicles first, then engineer them to transform to robots based on reality (i.e. where parts go, how they can fit, make the transformation intuitive and fun, keep toy within defined size/budget limit etc.). So G1 Kup would be more comparable with say a Transformers Prime toy (but not TFP Kup, as he's not a screen character). And yeah, in relative terms Kup would still fare poorly against most TFP toys. But as I said, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel using G1 Kup as an example.
When you look at G1, you really have to look at it in context of what these toys were like at the time they came out. Sure, a Famicom/NES is downright primitive compared to say a PS3, but for the 1980s it was a freakin' awesome games console!
Seriously... did you ever receive a G1 Transformer during the 1980s/90s and thought to yourself, "Man, this toy is complete crap!" -- I cannot say I ever thought that about a G1 Transformer I got during the G1 period. Even some of the worst figures like the Battlechargers, Firecons and Monster Pretenders I didn't dislike because they were cheap! IMO it's all about value for money; how often did you buy a G1 toy - at RRP or less - and felt massively ripped off? Devastator honestly isn't the best gestalt ever (he's mostly popular because he was the first; Raiden's pretty crummy too - he's just popular because he's an 'elusive' Japanese G1 toy), but the Constructicons only cost $9 each! Even as a 'primitive' 1985 toy, I'd say he's a better designed set than say TF Prime Abominus! (similar price point gestalt)
And Transformers wouldn't have been as enduringly successful as a franchise if most of those toys were awful. Remember that in 1984 Transformers made a profit of US$4 million setting the record as the most successful debut toy line [F. Schodt]. And Transformers has endured continuously for the past 29 years. Unlike some other toy franchises, Transformers has never been out of production from 1984 until now. Sure, some years were a lot slower than others, but we ALWAYS had Transformers in production since 1984.
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