Jump to content

mikeszekely

Members
  • Posts

    12001
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by mikeszekely

  1. Honestly? I think all three being over $200 puts them firmly in realm of more serious adult collectors... no one is funding Haslabs on a whim, the way someone might randomly buy a Transformer at Target. Because of that, there's certainly overlap in the people who bought Star Saber and or Deathsaurus and Omega Prime (like me, for instance). And I think Prime probably outsold Victory Saber and Deathsaurus because he is Prime, sure. But, in a way, I think all three are targeting niches. Victory Saber and Deathsaurus target the hardcore G1 fans who either grew up with Japanese G1 in the East or cared enough to learn about Japanese G1 in the West. And Omega Prime targets the fans who grew up later with RiD being their G1. And that's the thing, I don't think that group is particularly big. Yes, in hindsight RiD marked the return of Autobots and Transformers turning into vehicles and an Optimus that wasn't Primal, but RiD hit before Dreamwave started publishing their Transformers comic book and the '80s revival boom began, and it was by and large overshadowed by the Unicron Trilogy.
  2. If I'm not mistaken, Victory Saber and Deathsaurus both ended around 27,000, making Omega Prone the most-successful Transformers Haslab so far.
  3. Target Prime is up. https://www.target.com/p/transformers-target-optimus-prime-and-autobot-bullseye-action-figure-set---2pk--target-exclusive-/-/A-89230384 Pulse also has the first four of Walmart's Star Riders, but Filch has already sold out. EDIT: Gotta love the fan stream on Pulse that's for toys that why up for preorder an hour before the stream.😒 At least they confirmed next week is Legacy United Wave 2- even though that's all been leaked it'll be nice to get preorders in. And in two weeks they'll be showing BMac's favorite figure of the year. 86 Swoop? 86 Commander Optimus?
  4. Darn, I shouldn't have spent so much time cropping and re-editing the promo pics. So yeah... kind of weird that they're using the Legacy Laser Optimus figure instead of the Volvo one. Maybe because, unlike Walmart or Amazon, Target doesn't own trucks, only trailers, so they don't care to get a license from Volvo. Thing is, Legacy Op's sword and gun are part of his trailer, and Target Op uses the Earthrise trailer instead (decoed like an actual Target trailer). And unlike the Volvo Op, they didn't bother to include the Earthrise gun, leaving Optimus with just Bullseye and the trailer drone for "weapons." More than a gun, that box art has me wanting a red ball (like they have in front of the store) for Prime to throw for Bullseye. All-in-all, it's a very niche sort of Optimus, but in my house we visit Target probably once a week as it's our preferred store for non-grocery stuff, so it might just be my sort of niche. Side note, for as many uses as they wound up getting out of this mold it's really a shame that they used the crappy Siege legs on Laser Op. And I'm extra peeved that if I do buy Target Op it's my fourth time with the mold and I still don't have a cartoon-accurate Scourge.
  5. Forget Transformers, I don't get Super7’s audience, period. It's like they make your for people who aren't just nostalgic for the IP, but also nostalgic for when toys had bad sculpts, bad paint, and bad articulation. The only toy I bought from them was the Unicron they did based on the G1 prototype toy, and I didn't even open it. I just bought a hook and hung it up on display.
  6. Yeah, I took my kid to McDonald's a week or two ago and we noticed it. It has something to do with anime, I guess? I don't get it.
  7. It's funny, MMC's preview of Scrapper and Mixmaster has people talking about XTB and FT's Constructicons. Some of the FT fans are attacking XTB for their QC, but I'm thinking that hey, at least they finished a combiner.
  8. Minus One got a Blu-ray release date in Japan, too. On May 1st they'll be enjoying a 4-disc set that includes Blu-ray and DVD copies of both the regular and Minus Color versions. Still no word on a US date, though, but given how well it did here theatrically (roughly half of the film's total box office) I'd imagine we'll be hearing something soon.
  9. This topic's gotten a little quiet... can't speak for the rest of you, but I know I've slowed down a lot due to a combination of factors... I've got MP-ish representations of most of the Sunbow cast, prices have gone up a lot since COVID (and, if I'm a bit cynical, since the bigger 3Ps saw what people were willing to pay for MP-44), fewer companies competing in the MP space, and Hasbro's mainline stuff doing a better job of giving me what I wanted for a lot less since Siege. Still, there was a TFCon this weekend, and I did want to share a few things that I did find interesting. First up, we have the prototypes for MMC's all-built-in Mixmaster and Scrapper. Both are looking pretty good to me. Maybe a little on the thin side, but MMC abandoned the OX look a long time ago for Sunbow, and the Constructions did have pretty thin (and sometimes just plain weird) animation models. On looks alone I think you could make a pretty compelling case for any of the three Devastators being worked on right now, but I loved MMC's Bruticus, and I love their Protectobots. I'm definitely in for these guys, and if I bother with XTB or FT's it's just because I've got most of the 3P Devastators so far. At modes. Oh, and speaking of Fans Toys, I try not to deal with them. They're often more expensive than the competition, I frequently find them to have lifeless sculpts and transformations that make BadCube's look good, plus for all their vaunted reputation I've had enough QC issues with the FT figures I have bought to be be wary. That said, I want to call attention to their Ultra Magnus... As most 3Ps are leaning hard into that super-Sunbow aesthetic I think it's actually getting a bit harder to tell these figures apart from each other at a glance. Like, if it weren't for the metallic paint if you'd told me that this was XTB's already-released Ultra Magnus I might believe you. Actually, with the unsightly red hinges on the sides and the pretty visible torso on the trailer floor, Maybe FT's Magnus looks worse than XTB's in alt mode. But, FT is doing on thing that could get me to upgrade from MP-22 that XTB couldn't... The cab turns into a white Optimus Prime, and the trailer turns into armor that fits over the cab robot! And yeah, there's an obvious question there, and the obvious question has an obvious answer. Yes, FT is doing Optimus Prime. I'm sure the plastic will be better, and he'll have diecast and weigh like 4x as much, but I'm not seeing anything here that really makes me think it looks any better than Magic Square's MS-02. Of course, I have MS-02... and MS-01, and TE-01, and MP-10, and MP-44... it'd kind of be weird if I didn't get FT's. Since XTB announced they're doing an MP Ironhide and Ratchet last fall, FT of course has to hurry up and announce theirs so you don't accidentally give your money to a competitor. Normally, this wouldn't be a blip for me. I just don't feel like chasing "upgrades" for the rest of my life. I already have Voodoo Robots' Salus for Ratchet and MP-27 with the hip kit for Ironhide, and sure, XTB's looks more cartoony, but so what? Fans Toys' looks to be even more cartoon accurate than XTB's, and look, they've even got working doors! But still... so what? Well, the "what" might be the sled. "Wait a minute," you're thinking. "MP-27 came with a sled. Come to think of it, XTB's is, too! What makes FT's so special?" Glad you asked! Did you notice how small it looks compared to the weapons on it? OK, take a good look at the front tips of the rear treads. Now, go back to the robot pictures. Behind Ironhide's head, in the crouching pose, at his collar. Do you see what appears to be that front tip of tread? Looks to me that FT's Ironhide transforms completely from van to robot, like the MP and like XTB, but rather than have a separate sled accessory it looks like his backpack comes off to transform into the sled, and that's just clever engineering if you ask me.
  10. Dang. I mean, Dragon Ball, obviously, but how do you make another Dragon Quest game without his character designs?
  11. Did anyone else catch the stream today? I wanted to bring it up earlier, but I'm under the weather and wound up sleeping most of the afternoon. Anyway, if you missed it, you didn't miss much. A good portion of the stream was dedicated to 40th anniversary merchandise (that is, non-transforming stuff). The only new toys they showed off was 86 Blaster, who was sold out on Pulse before the stream even started, and the Mayhem Attack Squad stuff that was up for preorder on Amazon like a week ago. Really, I think the biggest news of the entire stream was that, now that Omega Prime is funded, they figured out a way to give Blue Bolts his missing barrels.* *For those that haven't followed, the original Magnus' gun came with a pair of firing missiles. Those missiles were animated as gun barrels in the cartoon. The design team originally left them off the Haslab version, because (1) no firing missile gimmick, and (2) they'd end up on his feet in robot mode. The new design is 5mm port into Blue Bolts with 3mm tips for blast effects, and tab-shaped fins that will allow them to be stored on Blue Bolts' back in bot mode.
  12. For all the stuff I've known about, somehow I missed an 86 Blaster... who already sold out on Pulse. It's actually a Target-exclusive, and still available to preorder on Target's website. Personally, I like the subtle differences in the reds and grays, and I like that they ditched the random black details. I like that Eject is solid instead of transparent. I think if I see it at my local Target I might upgrade from Kingdom/Legacy Blaster. But the differences are ultimately minor enough that I'm not preordering this one.
  13. Maybe? I don't know that they've done anything with it since 2011. But trademarks are one of those things, y'know? Like Hasbro would sue you to pieces if you made a transforming robot and tried to name it Optimus, but Art Lebedev could make a keyboard called Optimus because the public was very unlikely to confuse a computer peripheral with a toy robot. I don't think a 45 year old Atari computer game (no matter how influential on the genre) or a mediocre (if I'm being charitable) re-imagining that's still over a decade old will have much bearing on what Hasbro calls a Walmart-exclusive sub-brand of Transformers.
  14. Legacy United Voyager-class Cybertron Starscream. There are leaks out there for the Core-class Bumblebee Starscream and Beast Machines Cheetor, too. And with Dinobot and Sureshot moved to a wave 5, I do believe we've now seen all of Legacy United Wave 2, and we're just waiting to see Swoop from Studio Series. Meanwhile, the Walmart-exclusive Star Seekers are now the Star Raiders, because seeking stuff doesn't seem as piratey as raiding stuff. Cannonball turns out to be a retool of Skids/Crankcase, and I was right about Ferak, Filch, and Lockdown. However, just like we got preorders for some of Amazon's Mayhem Attack Squad packs but the one with Bludgeon and Ruckus is still MIA, I don't have any leaks for the Star Seekers version of Thundertron or Roadpig.
  15. Hasbro announced there will be streams every Thursday this month (11:00am ET) celebrating 40 years of Transformers. One will likely be an update on Haslab Omega Prime, but I'm expecting reveals for the next wave of both Legacy United and Studio Series, as they're both due for release by next month (and indeed, some of the Studio Series figures have been spotted in the wild already). I'm wondering if they'll even bother with preorders or just start taking orders for shipping now.
  16. Well, I'm back from seeing it. Remember, I'm someone who is totally unfamiliar with the source or any other versions, but my impression of it was largely the same as the first. That is, it was visually interesting, well-acted, and there's obviously a ton of lore and worldbuilding that went into the story, but I was kind of confused about what the different factions' motivations were. Then the movie comes to an end, and I'm again left asking, "but then what happens?" I guess the difference is that what happens is another book, and I'm starting to get the impression that I might not care for the story's actual conclusion. Like, yeah, I get that Dune is a very influential bit of sci-fi, but I also think that maybe the best parts have been lifted and done better while the rest is sort of a product of the time it was written. All-in-all, though, I thought this particular movie was solid, and that if you liked the first one you'll probably like the second one.
  17. All I can tell you is that, as someone unfamiliar with the books or the '84 movie, I spent a good portion of part 1 confused and overwhelmed. I don't think a lot actually happened, but there was a ton of world-building going on. When the movie ended, though, and I'd had more time to digest it, I really wanted to know what happened next. So, sure, part 1 isn't one of my top 10 movies or anything, and I'm definitely not as hyped as some people are for part 2. But I definitely liked the first one enough to go see part 2.
  18. One of my tabletop group hasn't confirmed he's available for Sunday yet. If he's not, me and the rest of the group might go see Dune instead.
  19. Ransack came out two years ago, in a Buzzworthy pack (Creatures Collide) with a Goldbug (Netflix Bumblebee with a new head and paint), Scorponok (Kingdom Scorponok in his original toy colors), and Skywasp (Waspinator in black and purple). The Predacons also came with the alternate heads based on their non-mutant faces, and Ransack came with a toy-version of Kickback's head. My review was here. You can still find some ebay sellers offering the entire pack without too much markup, but you'll have an easier time finding a G1 Ransack than anyone selling a loose Ransack, so you'd better at least want Goldbug, too. (Scorponok and Skywasp can be easily had loose for around $15.)
  20. I need something to do to stay awake until the Amazon preorders go up. Lucky for me, I just got Studio Series Deluxe-class Rise of the Beasts Wheeljack, so I suppose I can ramble about him for a bit. Heads up, for the rest of this review I'll be referring to this guy as Pablo, because the crews on these movies have a bad habit of designing a character to be Wheeljack then changing the design to something more stereotypically "smart" but looking nothing like Wheeljack. Yeah, that's right... once upon a time Que had a head design that looked more like Wheeljack before they changed him to look like Einstein, and Pablo here at one point had his ears and face mask before they decided that he should look more like Steve Urkel. Anyway... it's been the case that, even if the mainline figure was pretty descent, the Studio Series toy was decidedly superior toy. I'd say the only real exceptions so far have been Nightbird, which is 99% the same toy but, to be fair, has a much better alt mode, and Mirage, where their licensing deal ensured that his Porsche 911 alt mode looked fantastic but seriously impacted the robot. Pablo here is somewhere in between, I think. He's definitely not the same robot, and there are some improvements here. Although his suspenders don't come up all the way, his chest and torso is much more accurate overall. His door wings are facing the wrong way, but they're angled upward and much more prominent. His feet are more proportional with the CGI model's, and the two-tone shoulder pads are more correct. Subjectively, I think I might also prefer the head on SS Pablo. For every step forward, though, we've got a step backward. His forearms somehow have more kibble. Despite being part of the ostensibly more-premium Studio Series line I think the robot mode is also lacking paint. The lights on his shoulders and thighs still aren't painted, he lost some gunmetal/black detail on his pelvis, hips, and biceps, plus some of the white on his knees and fingers. There's also the fact that the mainline Deluxe has a nice, smooth section of roof for his back while SS Pablo has some folded flaps just dangling there. Like the previous Deluxe, Pablo's sole accessory is a gun. Weirdly, it's made out o the same translucent plastic they used for his doors, and the sculpt is more like Studio Series 86 Ironhide's than the gun that came with mainline Pablo. Perhaps SS Pablo's articulation is an improvement over the non-SS version? Head's on a ball joint that can look up and down a bit, and tilt his head sideways in addition to swiveling. That's similar to, but slightly better. His shoulders swivel on ball joints, which is the same, but the cutout for the ball is more behind the shoulder than above it and really doesn't provide lateral movement. Instead, he's got a hinge in his chest that can move the shoulders 90 degrees laterally, but that puts it on the wrong side of the ball joint, giving him Hot Rod arms. That's a downgrade. His biceps swivel, his elbows bend 90 degrees, and he lacks a wrist swivel... same. His waist swivels (same), and his hips are again ball joints. They go 90 degrees forward (same), a little under 90 backward due to his back flap (a little worse), and only about 60 degrees laterally (slightly better, actually). His thighs swivel, and they have more range than the previous Deluxe, and his knees bend 90 degrees (same). His feet tilt down a little (worse), up about 45 degrees (better), and pivot about 45 degrees (better). They don't swivel the way the previous Deluxe's do, but I don't think that's super necessary. All-in-all, I'd SS Pablo gets better feet and ankles at the expense of worse shoulders, and is pretty similar everywhere else. I'll call articulation a wash. Pablo can hold his gun in either hand via the 5mm peg handle. There are thin tabs on the sides of the gun, too, and you can plug them into a slot on his back flap for storage. It's interesting that SS Pablo's parts wind up in pretty similar places- arms tucked in so the wheels on his shoulders fit just under the now-closed door wings, chest in the front, front of the roof formed from his back, rear of the van formed from his folded-up legs. Yet, their engineering is quite different. SS Pablo is a much bigger pain-in-the-rear to transform, and it's almost entirely down to his arms. First, you have to use the hinges to move his shoulders under his chest, which is tricky enough because the hinges for his doors are in the way an the cutout for the ball joint limits your ability to swivel the arm. Once you do manage to get his arms in place, you have to open up the forearms and wrap them around his waist to form part of the sides and roof, but the panels don't open wide enough and his arms are locked at his sides, so you have to bend the plastic and force it around his waist. Once you've done that, though, turning his legs into the rear of the van is pretty smooth sailing. As was the case with Mirage, where the mainline Deluxe lacked a license from the Volkswagen Group the Studio Series figure does indeed have that licensed alt mode. This of course means that the alt mode, at least, is far more accurate. The front end is distinctly a Volkswagen Type 2 T1, the roof rack looks more intentional and less like some weird waffling, the rear is pretty accurate (minus the weird and purposeless cutouts in the rear window), and the side now has the fuller "Reparacion de T.V. Pablo" in right red instead of just "T.V. Pablo" in a color more akin to dried blood. It's also nice to seem the silver trim around the sides swooping toward the front bumper, the door handles, and the headlights all painted in silver, though the marker lights on the roof and the rims could have used some of that, too. It's also a shame that they didn't put a little red on the taillights. Side note, I absolutely love that Pablo's head is looking out through the windshield. Yeah, it kind of defeats the disguise part of "robots in disguise," and no, it doesn't really leave room for humans to sit in the front, but there's something I dig about Transformers that appear to be driving themselves. Pablo can carry his gun in alt mode the same way he does in bot mode. Simply plug the tab on either side of the gun into the slot in his sunroof and you're good-to-go. I can't help but feel a bit let down by Pablo. While the sculpt is arguably better in bot mode and the licensed alt mode is definitely more screen-accurate, there's no meaningful improvements in articulation or accessories over the previous Deluxe, and the transformation clearly isn't as well thought-out. But what really hurts him, in my opinion, is just how drab he looks. Sure, he wasn't the most colorful robot in the film, but a bit more silver in spots, or just a touch of red on the shoulders and taillights (which would still be accurate) would help immensely, and making his hips and pelvis a more-accurate gunmetal color and/or adding the white to his knees or painting the lights on this thighs would have broken up a lot of the brown on his lower body. All-in-all, I'd say that if you don't have Pablo in your collection yet then the Studio Series toy is the one to get, especially if you're handy with the paints and don't mind touching him up yourself. However, if you already have the previous Deluxe and can live without the licensed alt mode there really isn't any definitive reason to "upgrade" to the Studio Series toy.
  21. Well, I got one thing wrong here... we're not getting another Knockout (thankfully). We're getting his partner, Breakdown. And he's a Voyager, and basically Bulkhead with a new head. He comes with the hammer that the Wreckers version of Bulkhead did. But yeah, he's still packed with Windsweeper, and yeah, Windsweeper is still a retool of Needlenose. I didn't really want Windsweeper enough to also buy another Knockout, but I'll probably buy it for Breakdown, even if he's kind of a lazy retool. Much less lazy, surprisingly enough, are the retools of Bombshell and Shrapnel into Barrage and Chopshop. I'm definitely in for this, kind of excited to see Venom now, and feeling a bit sorry that Ransack was just Kickback with a new head. The Insecticons will also come packed with a Battlemaster, the little minotaur-looking fellow that turns into a hammer, done in gray. No word on the Bludgeon and Ruckus pack, but this pair of Amazon-exclusive two-packs will go up for preorder today at 1:00pm EST.
  22. I'm not going to defend Hasbro's marketing decisions 100%, as I've already said plenty about decisions like putting Knock Out in the main Legacy line while making Cosmos a Walmart-exclusive, or finding the budget for brand-new gimmick characters like Scraphook while not retooling Breakdown enough from Wildrider. But I do think I should clarify a few things. First, yeah, store-exclusives can be frustrating, especially when the exclusives are at stores like Walgreens that do such a bad job distributing and stocking them. But you need to remember that, in most cases, it's you get the figure as a store-exclusive or the figure doesn't get done at all. The main line only has much budget and so much room, and Hasbro is able to expand beyond that because stores pay them to do so. Second, yeah, stores pay for exclusives. These exclusives are planned and negotiated, and once the contracts are signed it's in the stores' hands. Walmart decides to cancel a planned second wave of Velocitron? Guess what, we're never getting that SS86 Hot Rod in toy colors because Walmart owns the design.* Sometimes Hasbro can get around a contract like that by changing the figure. That's what you're seeing here with Hound. That original leaked design is Target's. Going with a painted-window, extra cartoony deco is likely the only way that Hound ever gets released, because Target decided to cancel it. *In addition to changing the deco or included accessories, I assume control reverts back to Hasbro at some point. Hence Dirge getting a package refresh in Legacy Evolution.
  23. Heads up, Walmart Collector Con is coming. There will be a sneak peak on March 7th, and figures drop on the 14th & 15th. I expect that Walmart's exclusive Star Seekers line of Transfomers. While Walmart has given us some new molds (Velocitron Cosmos & Velocitron Override come to mind) and a few heavier retools, I expect we're getting fairly minimal retools and repaints here. Leader-class Thundertron. No idea what will differentiate him from the United version. Voyager-class Ferak. Likely a repaint of Cyclonus. Deluxe-class Lockdown. There's an argument to be had that Chase is a pretty good mold to make a Lockdown out of, but realistically it's a repaint of Axlegrease. Deluxe-class Roadpig. There's been so many Transformers that turn into motorcycles lately, but I believe that this one's a repaint of Crashbar. Deluxe-class Cannonball. I don't know for sure what mold they'll use, because Hasbro likes repainting stuff into a yellow-and-black pirate. The originals were Cybertron Red-Alert and Prime Ratchet. I'm going to throw out an out there possibility- a repaint of Studio Series Kup, as an homage to Timeless Kup, who himself was a repaint of Cybertron Red Alert. Deluxe-class Filch. AFAIK, the only Transformer previously named Filch was from RID15. Realistically, that's going to make her a repaint or retool of Airazor
  24. Weird. Wonder why the end got clipped off when I tried to post?
×
×
  • Create New...