Are we becoming jaded or more discerning as Transformer fans?

[GoktimusPrime]

From HasTak's POV, G1 makes more sense because adult G1 fans are the ones with disposable incomes that they can exploit. The Unicron Trilogy is only 12 years old, and even 12 years after G1 started Hasbro wasn't attempting to tap in on the G1 fandom. In fact, 1996 saw the very modest start of Beast Wars which took and its ultimately successful attempt in rescuing the franchise from extinction. Takara didn't really start seriously trying to exploit the disposable income of G1 fans until 2000 (16 years after G1 started). Because by that stage, most children of the 80s had well and truly finished their vocational training and/or tertiary studies (I was doing postgraduate studies); many had disposable incomes, and Takara started reissuing G1. But that's arguably a "lazier" form of tapping the consumer base, as it doesn't require R&Ding new products. HasTak didn't really start doing that until 2003/4 with proper adult-focused product lines like Binaltech and Masterpiece -- all as part of the 20th anniversary of G1.

And because G1 was the first, it does seem to overshadow everything else, which I agree is unfortunate. The Transformers franchise owes so much to Beast Wars. Even when we look at Generations/Combiner Wars today, they're still basing these toys so much on Beast Wars innovated standards. Yet the 10th anniversary of Beast Wars was relatively low-key, and with BW commemorating its 20th anniversary next year, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot planned to celebrate that. I mean, sure, we have an MP Optimus Primal on the way, but anything else?*

But I guess that's what happens with many franchises -- the original base line which started the whole thing will always be the "metric" by which the rest of the franchise will be measured by. During the EB Games Expo my daughter got a whole bunch of the new Topps Star Wars cards. I had a look through them yesterday and there were lots of cards based on the Original Trilogy and The Force Awakens, but not a single card showcasing anything from the Prequel Trilogy. And the Hasbro booth had the new upcoming Force FX lightsabres, and they're marketing Anakin Skywalker's lightsabre as "Luke Skywalker"'s lightsabre. Yeah okay, it did belong to Luke when Obi-Wan gave it to him in Episode IV, and Luke used it during that film and in Episode V, but it was originally Anakin's lightsabre. Obi-Wan swiped it from Darth Vader after defeating him on Mustafar (thus forcing Vader to construct a new lightsabre).

But this is something else that I really liked about Beast Wars -- it gave us something really different and fresh from just another reiteration of G1. Even the Unicron Trilogy is essentially another iteration of G1. But BW did that because Hasbro (Kenner) were deliberately moving away from G1 because that line was seen as weak (after nearly dying by 1995). They wanted to distance themselves from G1 to some degree in order to allow BW to stand on its own without being dragged down by the failing G1 brand at the time. But now that G1 is popular again, Hasbro are inclined to do the complete opposite.

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P.S. *Just noticed this thread. At least the BotCon people are doing something. Interesting to see if HasTak do anything else for the more mainstream line.

P.P.S. The GenerationS line is meant to be exactly that -- plural. As in, not only Generation 1. It should be encompassing all generations of Transformers, including Beast Wars, UT etc. Having said that, it's a lot less exciting when post-G2 toys get made as Classicsverse figures because, well... the engineering with Beast Wars was already so good that there's not really all that much that current day designs can offer to improve on it that much. At least, not nearly as much as they can improve on G1. I own Generations Waspinator and Rhinox, and I personally don't think that either toy substantially improve on the originals at the same level as a G1-based Generations toy does (bear in mind that the original Rhinox was a much cheaper Deluxe Class figure). I find it easier to make a direct comparison with the two Waspinators, as they are both Deluxe Class figures -- I actually still prefer the original Waspinator over the Generations one. Okay, the Generations figure has a more show-inspired aesthetic to his robot mode, and the wing flapping gimmick is cool, but the original Waspinator has a much more solid beast mode that does a more convincing job at concealing the hands and doesn't have an unsightly gap). I also own Universe Hot Shot and Armada Hot Shot -- while I appreciate the former's improved head and shoulder articulation, the rest of the toy pretty much doesn't offer much more than the original. And of course, it's sacrificed the Mini-Con gimmick (so there's trade-off). I've seen/handled Universe Cheetor and Dinobot, and I personally felt that neither of them offered any improvement over the originals, and was happy to skip both figures.

I got Armada Unicron as soon as it came out. And there have been repaints and retools of this mould to make it look more like G1 Unicron, and that's cool, but none of those redecos offer any real/substantial improvement over that toy's design (only cosmetic/aesthetic changes), which is why I've been happy to just stick with my Armada Unicron. Besides, he's a universal singularity!

Even with MP Optimus Primal, it'll be interesting to see how much more they can improve over the new toy. I suspect that there will be a lot of 'little' improvements here and there, mostly to make the toy look and play more like the cartoon model, but I'm not expecting it to be as massive an improvement over the original as say, Masterpiece Ironhide! The original Ultra Class Optimus Primal figure already boasts 12 points of articulation. MP Bumblebee has 14 points of articulation and the MP Lambos have 16 ... so the original Ultra OP figure nearly has as much articulation as an MP anyway. So yeah, I think another thing that's not seeing the demand for updated post-G1 toys is simply the lack of a perceived need, as many post-G1 toys were reasonably well designed and haven't been outdated nearly as badly as G1.