Hasbro's 2014 timeline of the TFs Brand

[griffin]

From a toy magazine in America comes a small timeline of what we can expect of Transformers in 2014.

1st quarter (Jan-Mar) - Beast Hunters products still in release & first TF4 trailer released.

2nd quarter (Apr-Jun) - Movie product on shelves May 1st (in America, and should be about the same here).

3rd quarter (Jul-Sep) - Movie out in July.

4th quarter (Oct-Dec) - Movie out for Home Entertainment (DVD, BR, Download), & new Animated series out.

We probably won't know much more before Toyfair season now (Jan-Mar 2014).

[Autocon]

Will releasing the toys before the movie create any spoilers?

[Deonasis]

Will releasing the toys before the movie create any spoilers?

Probably not too much by itself that is not already shown in the trailer or movie tie in product. I heard of a Dark Sentinel figure well before the movie so I had a feeling Sentinel Prime was not all good, upon hearing from others this was already spoiled in a comic or colouring book.

[GoktimusPrime]

I didn't know about the Dark Sentinel Prime toy before the movie came out. For me, the toy really did hide the betrayal very well and the tech specs portrays him as being an incredibly noble and heroic character; i.e. who Sentinel Prime was before aligning himself w/ Megatron. I didn't know he would go turncoat until I saw the film for the first time so it thankfully came as a complete surprise to me.

But different people have different levels of what they consider spoilers; for some people, simply knowing which characters will appear in a film are already considered spoilers. So I think asking whether or not the toys will release spoilers is rather subjective. Hopefully Hasbro won't release any story spoilers along with the toys as they did with TF Prime Bumblebee just before the airing of the last episode of TFP in the U.S. That was incredibly annoying.

I hope Generations doesn't take a back seat next year... Hasbro's only started to get good again with revitalising the Classicsverse line.

[griffin]

Each movie (at the end of June) has had the toys on shelves during April & May... so the the characters and their bios will give away some details from the movie for a couple months in advance, but should keep the really big spoilers out.