TF War for Cybertron - Optimus Prime: Toy vs Show

[underbelly]

Hi guys,

New member here but huge TF G1/RID/BW from back in the days! I started watching the TF War for Cybertron series (Seige & Earthrise, can't wait for Kingdom!)

I've watched a few toy reviews and it seems Earth Rise/Kingdom figure of Prime i.e. G1 style 'earth looking truck' is highly regarded. I wanted to buy him but I have a rule where I only purchase figures if they appear on the show; so am a little confused as I thought the toys/figures are based on their show depiction. However this doesn't seem to be the case? i.e.:

Seige:
- Optimus Prime toy looks like his show depiction e.g. both are Cybertronian-style trucks
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/00...g?v=1539875748

Earth Rise:
- Optimus Prime toy does NOT look like his show depiction. Toy is a G1 style 'earth looking truck' with trailer, while on the show he looks exactly as per his Seige appearance (Cybertronian truck)
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/P6IcE_ueIDk/maxresdefault.jpg

So my questions are:
1. Why does Earth Rise Prime toy completely differ from his Earth Rise appearance?
2. As Kingdom Prime toy is the same as Earth Rise Prime toy, does this mean we may see this version e.g. G1 style 'earth looking truck' with trailer on the Kingdom TV show?

Like I said above, I want to buy the Earth Rise/Kingdom Prime but I was hoping he would appear in the TV show like his toy.

Cheers

[griffin]

I still haven't seen any of the Netflix cartoon, but comments I heard was that the Earthrise Chapter didn't really feature anything Earth-mode... and I think Earth was very late in those six episodes.
I would imagine that the Earth-modes will show up in the third chapter, which will support the re-release of the Earthrise version of Optimus.
(basically, the toys in Siege, Earthrise, Kingdom and Netflix packaging, are not reflected in the cartoon chapters that match up to the packaging names or waves.... and even though I would say that that is a good thing to free up the ability to write a good story that is not handcuffed to "advertising" only specific toys, the feedback I've seen of the first two chapters of the Netflix cartoon hasn't been too inspiring towards it having a well written story or only using characters that need to be there)



Also... if you are including images that are hosted from other sites in your posts and don't have a way of hosting them yourself (or on a free hosting server), just include a link to the image... as we still don't have image hosting here for all parts of the board yet.

[Paulbot]

Spoilers ahead

The Earthrise toys are more for the G1 fans rather than fans of the Netflix cartoon. It’s highly unlikely the Earthrise/Kingdom toy of Optimus Prime will appear in Kingdom. It’s cheaper for them to use the existing models and spend time on whichever new characters are in Kingdom.

In Earthrise there were only a small number of new characters animated, and most of those closely resembled their Earthrise toys (expensive toys too: Scorponok, Sky Lynx, Doubledealer) but some didn’t: Dirge and the other jets for instance are just the Siege seekers with new hats. It’s also why Siege and Earthrise cartoons were full of Recycled characters in new colour schemes whenever they needed extras in a crowd.

In some ways, in a very few cases, the Netflix toys are more accurate to what’s on screen, but only a few.

[Seraphim Prime]

Welcome to the boards!

Siege & Earthrise show, apparently Rooster Teeth were given access to the Siege CAD design models to incorporate into the show. I’m not sure if this was done for Earthrise, but it appears that any character that already had a digital model was not remodelled to match the new form.

its hard to tell what they’ll do for Kingdom. I’d be surprised if Hasbro didn’t make a request to have it specifically included as it will be repackaged as part of the Kingdom assortment.

i appreciate the “show models only” rule as it helps draw a line in the sand for your collection, but Earthrise Prime is pretty fantastic and feels in many ways to be a definitive G1 Prime to me

[Skyfire]

I only purchase figures if they appear on the show

Buy ER Prime, because he does appear from the show - the show from 1984! . Many of these figures are really great G1 cartoon renditions e.g. Grapple, Hoist, all the jets including the tetrajets, OP, Smokescreen, Bumblebee, Netflix Soundwave, Refraktor, Jetfire, Omega Supreme, Sky Lynx... I'm a G1 guy and I'm buying this series because I think they are damn good G1 toys . Unless, of course, you've already got a huge library of G1 stuff and that's why you only buy currently showcased ones .

[underbelly]

I still haven't seen any of the Netflix cartoon, but comments I heard was that the Earthrise Chapter didn't really feature anything Earth-mode... and I think Earth was very late in those six episodes.
I would imagine that the Earth-modes will show up in the third chapter, which will support the re-release of the Earthrise version of Optimus.
(basically, the toys in Siege, Earthrise, Kingdom and Netflix packaging, are not reflected in the cartoon chapters that match up to the packaging names or waves.... and even though I would say that that is a good thing to free up the ability to write a good story that is not handcuffed to "advertising" only specific toys, the feedback I've seen of the first two chapters of the Netflix cartoon hasn't been too inspiring towards it having a well written story or only using characters that need to be there)



Also... if you are including images that are hosted from other sites in your posts and don't have a way of hosting them yourself (or on a free hosting server), just include a link to the image... as we still don't have image hosting here for all parts of the board yet.

Thanks for the clarification Griffin. I haven't been following TF since the mid 90s/early 00s so when WFC came out, I just assumed that the toylines were directly related to the show. Seems that thought is not entirely correct

I've updated the links as per your advice too

Spoilers ahead

The Earthrise toys are more for the G1 fans rather than fans of the Netflix cartoon. It’s highly unlikely the Earthrise/Kingdom toy of Optimus Prime will appear in Kingdom. It’s cheaper for them to use the existing models and spend time on whichever new characters are in Kingdom.

In Earthrise there were only a small number of new characters animated, and most of those closely resembled their Earthrise toys (expensive toys too: Scorponok, Sky Lynx, Doubledealer) but some didn’t: Dirge and the other jets for instance are just the Siege seekers with new hats. It’s also why Siege and Earthrise cartoons were full of Recycled characters in new colour schemes whenever they needed extras in a crowd.

In some ways, in a very few cases, the Netflix toys are more accurate to what’s on screen, but only a few.

Thanks for chiming in Paulbot. Make sense about using existing models in the show instead of creating new one due to development cost constraints but man, I was so keen on seeing the ER Prime toy on the show so was majorly upset when that didn't happen.

Welcome to the boards!

Siege & Earthrise show, apparently Rooster Teeth were given access to the Siege CAD design models to incorporate into the show. I’m not sure if this was done for Earthrise, but it appears that any character that already had a digital model was not remodelled to match the new form.

its hard to tell what they’ll do for Kingdom. I’d be surprised if Hasbro didn’t make a request to have it specifically included as it will be repackaged as part of the Kingdom assortment.

i appreciate the “show models only” rule as it helps draw a line in the sand for your collection, but Earthrise Prime is pretty fantastic and feels in many ways to be a definitive G1 Prime to me

You are correct! show models only rule is just to keep a theme going in the collection, else the collection would get out of hands really quickly lol.

Buy ER Prime, because he does appear from the show - the show from 1984! . Many of these figures are really great G1 cartoon renditions e.g. Grapple, Hoist, all the jets including the tetrajets, OP, Smokescreen, Bumblebee, Netflix Soundwave, Refraktor, Jetfire, Omega Supreme, Sky Lynx... I'm a G1 guy and I'm buying this series because I think they are damn good G1 toys . Unless, of course, you've already got a huge library of G1 stuff and that's why you only buy currently showcased ones .

Haha so true about the 1984 comment. I'm a G1 guy too! but yes, I think I might break my show only model rule just for ER/Kingdom Prime and ER Starscream (was also super sad that Starscream didn't appear as the F-15 jet on the ER show).

All response much appreciated everyone. It's been amazing getting back into TF (thanks to War for Cybertron) after almost a 20 year hiatus (last show I followed was RID in 2001 and no - the Michael Bay movies don't count as Transformers in my eyes - except for that one intro scene in the Bumblebee 2018 film )

[Autocon]

They only reach Earth in the last episode so pointless having Earth modes when they havent been on Earth before.

[Flukey]

.....show models only rule is just to keep a theme going in the collection, else the collection would get out of hands really quickly lol.

indeed it does!! I have some in my collection that now Im thinking too myself did I really need to purchase!!

I currently have two Collections going, Movieverse (just a single chosen Mold for the overall collection, then one for each movie) and G1 inspired based on the carton series from season 1-4 + 86 movie.

For the G1 collection, Im not going to be too picky if the design is not 100% accurate to the character as portrayed on TV, hence the collection of the Siege characters but my rule is one Mold/Design for each character rather then multiples!

During my current obsession for the Hunt/build up of characters I have figures such as Netflix Impactor, Generations Tigertrack, Hot shot + Red wing which I purchased and unsure why but I'm now putting on my Misc shelf of IDW/Armada etc