Upcoming Generations Figures 2013-2014

[Raptormesh]

But some jets actually have a mouth like that on them. I don't think many jets have feathers painted on though.

I'd rather the nose be plain myself so it didn't look at all like they were trying to homage his bird mode.

[ILikeSoundwave]

Not a beast wars fan myself but I am digging that Rhinox!

[UltraMarginal]

that's a fairly exclusive paint job I think...

[Zommael]

Octopi is common. Viri is definitely wrong - it's not an English word.

If Octopunch, Tentakil, Scylla and Ikard (with his Takotank) had a massive fight, who would win? And which one should first be made into a Generations figure?

Tentakil, but they have to keep his whacky bipedal squid alt mode. None of this realistic squid nonsense!

[griffin]

They didn't do a Doubledealer though...

I don't know why I was thinking Overlord... yes, it's Doubledealer, which is completely different.

[Cat]

So how did they get away with using the name "Tarantulas"? Because that's an accepted plural for "tarantula."* Would simply pluralising the noun make it passable? Bumblebees and Hounds... hmmm... or maybe they could modify the spelling. They might not be able to have a toy iguana called Iguana, but they could call it "Iguanus." Maybe they could do "Bumbelbee"... not sure how they could modify Hound... Hownd looks dumb (though arguably not much worse than Bumbelbee or Grappel ). I wonder if they could get away with "Maximal Bumblebee" and "Maximal Hound"... that could be tricky... I know that Hasbro wasn't able to use "Autobot Jazz" with the Alternator version of Binaltech Meister, so the Alternator toy was also called "Meister" (IIRC it was because Alternators fell under the domain of being replica/model cars and not action figures, and they wouldn't allow a Mazda RX8 to be called Jazz at all since it would infringe on Honda's trademark).

Also... now that Doctor Who has become a revitalised franchise since BW came out, I wonder if Hasbro can still get away with using the name K-9 They might have to call him Kay-Nine... or just go with the original Latin "Canis."

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*Although some would argue that the proper plural should be "tarantulae," but English being the "ye wut-eva" random language that it is, "tarantulas" has become an accepted plural (much like how "octopus" can be pluralised as "octopi" or "octopuses"). Interestingly enough, this board's automatic spell check is telling me that "tarantulae" and "octopi" are wrong, but "tarantulas" and "octopuses" is correct, even though from a linguistic traditionalist POV it should be the other way around

I don't know, to be honest. My gut instinct answer is simply that Tarantulas could have skated by due to lack of interest from other parties, and maybe the pluralisation played a teeny tiny part. That's just speculation, though.

It's just something I've seen mentioned quite a bit, by people who are more knowledgable about this stuff than me.

Could it be because a tarantula is a specific species of spider, while bumblebee and hound are often used as very generic, non-specific terms used for their respective animals these days?

The way it was explained to me (and I wish I could remember it exactly) was focused more on Bumblebee, as he seemed like the biggest ommission, really.

Kids call all bees 'bumblebees'.

They don't call all spiders 'tarantulas'. Potato, po-tah-to, and all that.

Maybe the pluralization did make a difference, but it would probably be a fairly negligible one, if at all.

Another factor is probably that more companies want to use the name 'Bumblebee' for their product/s than 'Tarantulas'. Maybe Tarantulas could have fallen easily too, but nobody else ever had any interest in it.

I know the depiction does matter though. Hence why a yellow bee named Bumblebee is a bad idea, but a car is okay. It's a MUCH stronger claim.

And remember, the Robot Heroes version was called Predacon Tarantulas, so odds are that yes, it's too generic to be defensible.

[Verno]

I showed my Girlfriend a picture of Generations Rhinox and she got the giggles. All she could see was the scene from Ace Ventura 2...

[Trent]

I showed my Girlfriend a picture of Generations Rhinox and she got the giggles. All she could see was the scene from Ace Ventura 2...

Gah!! Can't. Un. See.!!

[Hursticon]

I showed my Girlfriend a picture of Generations Rhinox and she got the giggles. All she could see was the scene from Ace Ventura 2...

Gah!! Can't. Un. See.!!

Hehe, funnily enough that has reminded me of this.

[Trent]

Hehe, funnily enough that has reminded me of this.

Fantastic!