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Thread: The Random Transformers Thoughts Thread

  1. #1031
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jellico View Post
    It is a hard business case to provide support for a series that has been off air for 10 years and had poor official support to start with.
    Animated EARNED its love the hard way. But we are never going to see any characters beyond Lockdown, Lugnut, Slipstream, and Bulkhead.
    I don't know if I entirely agree with that. Animated came along at a time when Transformers was already massively popular. Animated toys first came out in 2008 and we know that Transformer toy sales doubled in that year against 2007 sales. There was also a looooot of merchandising for Transformers Animated. Stationery, apparel, games etc etc. And they even pushed the show to begin airing before the toys hit stores to give the line additional exposure and thus boost toy sale potential.

    I personally think that BEAST WARS earnt its love the hard way. BW came out at a time when the Transformers franchise had hit rock-bottom. Just think back to what being a Transformers collector was like in the mid 1990s. It SUCKED! So many stores just weren't carrying late G2 toys because retail buyers had stopped ordering stock, while other stores were overflowing with G2 toys because nobody was buying them! I remember searching for ages to find Laser Optimus Prime and finally finding one lone figure at Toyworld, then years later finding mountains of them gathering dust at TRU. They couldn't even give these toys away, and Laser OP is a bloody awesome toy!

    And support from Hasbro for BW in the beginning was pretty low. Hasbro even refused to put their name on the packaging, instead they used Kenner's logo! Hasbro was even afraid to put the "Transformers" logo on the packaging, instead they made "BEAST WARS" really big and transformers in smaller font sitting underneath the BW logo. And we know that the cartoon was created and released after the launch of the toy line, which is why the initial toy-canon was so different from the cartoon, and also why Optimus Primal and Megatron started off as Ultras and never appeared in their early Basic toy forms (although this was considered).

    We also know that there was a lot of initial backlash and negative reactions from fans, spawning the fan-saying, "TRUKK NOT MUNKY" and early claims of "RUINED FOREVER" and "RUINED MY CHILDHOOD" etc etc. Seriously, remember some of those early online comments? And remember how some of us joined pro-BW groups like BWADL (Beast Wars Anti-Defamation League) to combat all of these naysayers in support of BW? Man, those were not fun times! But all of these critics were eventually silenced when BW won the fans over with its excellent toys and TV show, creating an enduring legacy.

    But getting back to Generations, we also know that Generations has touched on characters that Hasbro haven't touched in yonks. As great as BW was, Hasbro's done bugger all with it since 1999, yet we got BW toys in CHUG and we have more coming up. They even gave us BM characters like Tankor! And BM was very poorly received by fans and Hasbro hadn't touched it since 2001. Generations gave us Lioné (Sawback) and Shuffler! Characters that Hasbro's never touched before and Takara haven't touched them since 1987! If they can give us characters as obscure as Shuffler then surely they can do Animated Omega Supreme.

    And it wouldn't need to be Titan Class. I'd be happy with a Leader Class. A Titan Class wouldn't be in scale with Deluxes, Voyagers and Leaders anyway -- I'd rather a smaller toy that's well made than some overpriced and oversized Titan Class. And it'd be easier to find space for smaller toys! One reason why I'm skipping LG Grand Maximus is because I just wouldn't have the bloody room for it.

  2. #1032
    Jellico is offline Rank 6 - Dedicated Member
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    Wasn't it Teen Transformers or Transformers 10 or something? In the middle of Bayverse hype they released a cutsie homage to G1?

    Different environments different challenges. Beastwars was reviving the Transformers concept in the public mind. Animated was a homage when people were expecting something more like Prime to mesh with the movies. We all know how the fandom reacts with something new.



    I have been struggling with the bit about the CHUG toys. Objectively they can do what ever they like. CW Armada Megatron shows they can drag in all sorts of weird universes. Things like BW and Shuffler are a little different as they are extensions of G1.
    I guess the aesthetic I get from CHUG is that they are going for the old cast of thousands as long as the character only shows up once. They can have multiple bodies but they are all the same character.

    I agree a Leader Omega would work well size wise and I would like to see it. I just think that ship sailed a long time ago.

  3. #1033
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    Walked into my local EB Games to get a two for one deal on Xbox Live Gold. I saw a MPM3 Bumblebee behind the counter. Someone had let their laybuy on him expire (3rd time it's happened to this particular figure). It took a little convincing but the store manager let me laybuy him (I would have just simply bought him but I have orders at HLJ this week).

    So bottom line, I guess I'm now a MPM collector.

    For those that know how much I hate the Bayverse movies and are wondering why I'd buy a Bayverse toy. I dislike the movies, not the really cool Transformers designs that ILM created, though I think I'll pass on a MPM Demolisher.

  4. #1034
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jellico View Post

    Wasn't it Teen Transformers or Transformers 10 or something? In the middle of Bayverse hype they released a cutsie homage to G1?
    Is that all? Mate... cast your mind back to the sheer virile hatred that spewed forth from people's keyboards and mouths when Beast Wars came out! Animated's big gripe was that it looked too cartoony. BW was accused of being the Transformers' Anti-Christ!

    And Animated IS very cartoony. This was deliberate! Remember that Animated was conceived before the first Bayformers movie came out, and before then, nobody knew if Bayformers would be a financial success or failure. Hasbro felt the need to prepare for a worst case scenario - if fans reacted really badly to Bayformers and it bombed, they wanted the follow-up line to be as aesthetically distant from Bayformers as possible. So whereas Bayformers went for photorealism and making the Transformers look alien, Animated went to the opposite end of the extreme and made the Transformers look cutesy and cartoony. Animated was conceived as Hasbro's Plan B in case the first live action movie flopped. But it didn't, but since Hasbro already started putting in the work for Animated, they decided to run with it as a filler line until Revenge of the Fallen came out. And we know that Hasbro prioritised Bayformers, as evidenced by the fact that they never made toys of the Animated Constructicons.

    None of the claims made about Animated were untrue though. They are visually very 'Cartoon Network,' but that was the whole idea of it. And people may love or hate it. It's not just because it's new, but also because fans are generally wary of anything that goes outside of the Transformers' traditional Japanese mecha design aesthetic. But this always happens whenever something unorthodox comes along. Despite all the great things that Beast Wars has done - the fact that we still enjoy CHUG and MP toys today whose design and engineering come directly from BW - there are still some fans who don't like BW. And it's because they just don't like the unorthodox aesthetic of the designs. BW was the first series to break away from the Mecha feel and went with something more organic looking. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just different. Bayformers did the same thing, and there are still some fans who don't like the designs. Animated, Prime, RiD, Rescue Bots... they've all continued to try to give us something new/different to Transformers beyond the traditional Mecha feel. But people like tradition.

    CHUG and G1 MP have gone back to that traditional mecha design and have proven hugely popular. Just look at the way that Power of the Primes is flying off shelves even at the higher prices of independent toy stores. I haven't seen something like this since RiD came out here in 2001, and that was the same thing. After years of BW and BM RiD came along and gave us something that hearkened back to more traditional mecha aesthetics and licensed vehicle modes. People loved it and those toys were selling out fast months before the TV show even started airing!

  5. #1035
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    3 weeks until New York Toy Fair. Hopefully we get to see a bunch of the leaked POTP toys we haven't seen any images of yet.

  6. #1036
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    Come on, POTP Time Warrior. Don't let me down!

  7. #1037
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    ^ I wouldn't be all surprised if there is a press release this April.

  8. #1038
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    LG Overlord is a bit of a throwback in that he is most brick like Transformer I've bought since Star Convoy. Grant it he has more articulation than the Transformers from G1 people call bricks, but he just has the same feeling to him that I get from G1 Star Convoy, G1 God Ginrai and G1 Magnus.

  9. #1039
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    I disagree.

    Comparison pics between G1 and TR Overlord - G1 Overlord has 2 points of articulation. Titans Return Overlord has 15 points of articulation!

    See here: Ginrai vs Overlord

    G1 Overlord is definitely a brick that's comparable with Star Convoy, Ginrai and Ultra Magnus. But TR/LG Overlord? Really? I highly doubt that I'd be able to get even half of those poses in that battle sequence that I made using G1 Overlord!

    Let's compare G1 and TR PPOP/Ginrai for a moment. Here's a shot I made using G1 toys, obviously recreating that famous moment from the Matrix Quest where Thunderwing blasts Optimus Prime with the Matrix.

    Now compare it with TR figures...

    Even lying in defeat, I was able to get a more dynamic pose out of Magnus Prime than I ever could out of my G1 Powermaster Optimus Prime.

    I don't own G1 Overlord - I borrowed a friend's to take those comparison pics. But having handled this toy on several occasions I can tell you that, as an action figure, TR/LG Overlord is a VAST improvement. G1 Overlord is still the better play set, but TR/LG Overlord is by far the better action figure. The combined vehicle mode is no better or worse than the G1 toys' -- it's daft, but it's meant to be daft. Even in the cartoon it looks silly! Yeah, the base mode really isn't as good. The designers have really just whacked it in there as a homage to the G1 toy's ability to become a base, but it's not really a main feature of the contemporary toy. G1 Overlord is a play set that transforms into a robot. TR/LG Overlord is a robot that transforms into a play set (and a one that's meant for those little Titan Masters).

  10. #1040
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    Well so much for patronising local retailers. It's way cheaper to buy a bunch of Takara products HLJ doesn't have that I'm after from RK than TLTC even after factoring in shipping and exchange rates.

    That said I'll still get the POTP stuff from TLTC, much cheaper than Kmart, Target, etc.

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