Fit For Natalie

EDIT: Hasbro says Grimlock is on their shortlist of MPs, and that if Takara make Grimlock first, Hasbro would then release it as well, probably as an exclusive.

SilverStreak and Sideswipe look good, but then they're repaints of molds I already like. I wish Sideswipe had a different head and leg transformation to set him apart even more than just the chest.

Sideswipe will have a different head and hands. The toy in the picture there is *literally* a hand-painted Sunstreaker toy. That's why you can see hints of yellow plastic near the windows and roof.

Here's a pic of Universe Sideswipe with his real head.

mikeszekely: That Classics Prime redeco is an SDCC-exclusive Nemesis Prime.

Those Hasbro retards must really HATE foriegners, because we keep getting redirected to our local versions of Hasbro.com where the news isn't updated. Not only that, (if you manage to get onto the US site) now when you click on pics the window often just loads the frontpage of your local site.

Bloody Hasbro idiots. There, you guys, I CAN get angry at Hasbro

TFormer's Hasbro Panel report (may need to refresh every now and then for updates)

Of interest to me:

* Target Universe comic packs Nov 08: Dirge, Roadbuster, Springer, Ratbat. These sets are Deluxe figure with a voyager figure and a comic:

*Thanksgiving release to kick off G1 re-issue of original Optimus Prime US version also include reprint of issue 1 comic from marvel and more then meets the eye 3 episode digital re-master DVD and a sound box with Cullen quotes. 5 panel window package. Silver foil 25th anniversary logo with classic type package.

* They will be celebrating all eras of TFs not just G1.

+ Universe Deluxe Hound w/ Ravage. G1 type mold. The clips on the back of Hound fit Ravage. Shoulder cannon on Hound comes off.

+ Universe Deluxe Cyclonus w./ Nightstick Targetmaster. G1 type mold. Nightsitck can be held by Cyclonus. Almost looks black. Very nice.

+ Universe Deluxe Beast Wars Cheetor. Eyes turn green to red, maybe thats a running change.

Don't get too excited about Dirge. This comic pack sounds like a War Within: The Dark Ages pack, because Dirge will use Cybertron Starscream's tooling. Roadbuster will be a repaint of Cyb Defense Hot Shot, Springer will be a repaint Energon Bulkhead and Ratbat will be a repaint of Cybertron Sideways (which is fortunate since they look fairly similar to my recollection).

NEW HOUND

Bad news for aussie fans... the AT-TE will cost between $150-200AUD. The Millennium Falcon will cost $300AUD. The latter's box is apparently *much* larger than the Episode 1 Naboo Royal Starship's.

But not all.

Ramjet, for example, had new molding. And was a minor character.

Granted it was probably part of the original Starscream/Skywarp mold in the first place, but the fact is they had new molding for a minor character, and clearly planned to do repaints of the mold in the first place.

And Ramjet was also the release that made us think the other seekers were coming.

They had a conehead mold. They had an alternate wing mold.

Evidence is that they planned for seeker repaints from day one, and not just half-assed Starscream redecos.

That's why I said most of them (some, such as Grimlock and Cliffjumper are now appearing often enough that it's likely Hasbro consider them core TF characters.) You are right, they designed the Starscream/Ramjet tooling with at least 2-3 redecos in mind, but it is also highly likely that they found the market could not absorb the three other seekers after already selling three of them in the original run of Classics.

Proof, please.

Just because Hasbro's official statement was they wouldn't sell doesn't mean it's true.

I don't need proof from Hasbro because its simply logical. You have three plane toys that are just repaints, and two retools of the same toy, two of which are redecos of each other (I doubt Hasbro would create unique Dirge wings). The problem is Thundercracker, Dirge and Thrust were nobodies, and there was no fiction to explain what they were which would make it harder to sell several nearly identical toys. This particular Starcream had no recent mass-market fiction either, but he can sell because his name is associated with several characters. That's core character brand-name identity, like Optimus Prime, Megatron or Hot Shot (now replaced by Bumblebee). Accross several lines they're different characters, but they're also recognisable brand names.

Unlike Star Wars, there is no huge movie with massive marketing to push the other seekers like they can do with Clone Troopers. Its possible for the seekers to be sold with less competition amongst themselves on pegs *now*, but it would have been more difficult back *then*

Classics is probably the ONLY line I've bought into significantly. I own all of them except for Cliffjumper and the MicromastersMinicons.

Every. Single. One.

Admittedly, I PROBABLY would've skipped Ultra Magnus if he hadn't been a Skywarp bundle. More likely I would've thought harder about it, then picked him up anyways, since he'd probably have more paint apps if he was a standalone. Which isn't to say I don't like him. Just that he wasn't really a very compelling repaint and would've had trouble commanding a Voyager price tag.

I've grabbed a few movie toys, and a few more Cybertron toys, and a few Alternators(one or two of which I have some buyer's regret over). Classics is the ONLY line that I can say I liked every single toy that came out of it.

I admit this isn't a statistically valid sampling, but I choose to refer to it as a piece of anecdotal evidence.

Then isn't it largely irrelvant because you are not representative of the average Transformers customer? At most, you are an occassional customer who buys less product than the fans who buy stuff from every line that's released.

I'd mention anecdotal accounts of Ultra Magnus Vs Skywarp sets going on clearance for less than the cost of a single Deluxe class Classics yet evidently not shifting, but I don't know how widespread that was in the US.

Hey look, I'd like the seekers myself, all I'm saying was at the time, Hasbro had fairly reasonable... reasons to do what they did.

Agreed.

This is how a lot of transformers fans, myself included, feel. I remember most of the people defending the decisions kept saying "oh its too similar to whats already out, look at the magical retail statistics that we actually don't have, but just take our word for it, it won't sell

HE WON'T SELL! NEITHER THE 2 CONEHEADS!"

Yet Hasbro, makes Star Wars and G.I. Joe figures, home of plentiful Snake Eyes, and Clone Trooper repaints, every other month. Snake Eyes alone has over 5 versions, more than 2 repaints, all in less than a year since the G.I. Joe anniversary line has hit shelves. How many Clone Trooper repaints do we have on shelves? How many Jedi Starfighters? G.I. Joe, has a harder time at retail than Star Wars and Transformers too.

Agreed.

Because Snake Eyes is undoubtably the single most popular and marketable GI Joe ARAH character ever. Fan collectors hate seeing him in every wave or whatever because they already have their definative Snake Eyes. But really, Snake Eyes (and Duke, the other big Joe character) is largely for the benefit of traditional consumers. The same goes with Clone Troopers and the parade of heroes such as Obi-Wan, Anakin and Han Solo. Clones were very heavily marketed in AOTC, Clone Wars and ROTS, so they are quite mass-market figures that can be expected to sell to all sorts of customers.

In other words, these constant redecos and repacks are there because they are among the most popular characters their respective franchises. And in the case of Star Wars, it has a juggernaut fictional universe to back it up even for the most obscure Jedi Starfighter that appeared in Clone Wars.

Now, by comparison, except for Cybertron Thundercracker, really, Thundercracker as a product is just a blue Starscream. For Classics or Universe, he has no fiction, no significant brand-name identity and is relatively obscure. Thrust and especially Dirge are even more obscure. This could have been trouble during regular Classics, where most of the toys released where what Hasbro considered 'core' Transformers characters or easy repaints.

Now, it is likely the remaining seekers could sell well with Universe 2008 now that Starscream, Ramjet and Skywarp are out of the way, but they would have had a harder time selling during the original Classics run. I know you guys love the toyline, but it was created as a stopgap line because, oops, the Movie wasn't going to be released at the end of 2006 like they originally planned, and as such they didn't think they would be continuing the line in any significant form afterwards. This is very important to consider, because Transformers Animated was in development in 2006, and it was intended to take over from the Movie line as the main Transformers toyline.

So given Hasbro already had two mainlines planned out in 2006 when they decided Classics, its not entirely unreasonable for them to think they wouldn't sell Classics significantly again as they already had a full slate of products ready to go, and that they would have nowhere to sell the remaining seeker redecos. Now circumstances has changed, both Classics and the Movie line did better than they expected them to, and they needed a Movie-style sideline to accompany Animated. It's unfortunate that they gave permission for the convention to release these characters as exclusives, but at the time they didn't think they were going to release them themselves.

What I've never really understood about the Y-Wing was that it is kind of an odd-man out in the C-canon Star Wars vehicle designs. Most of the other vehicles, including the Millennium Falcon, cover their internal parts with external hull plating. The EU explanation is the Y-Wing was in such constant use and constant repair that Rebellion engineers simply left the panels and fairings off to save themselves time.

Isn't that like... dangerous? The hull plating protects the ship from damage by glancing hits and debris, not to mention when the fighter needs to make atmospheric re-entry.

The N1 Royal Cruiser might be fun for displaying with the upcoming Millennium Falcon if you do some kind of space port scene.

I have the shuttle up on a 1" or so set of blocks so that the walkway doesn't look like one has to slither out of it (metaphorically fitting for Palpatine, but at his age, he should have to limbo or crawl out).

hahahaha I would like to see THAT.

Well, there's a confirmed B-Wing redeco coming out sometime this year, but it would have to be a pretty nice EU comic deco to top the 2001 deco. I think its odd that they're doing an EU deco for the toy considering the last release was 7 years ago, and was a fairly obscure release at that.

After all, they've never done an EU deco for the X-Wing. Yet.

FFN's Crazy Vehicle Wishlist (and why they won't be made)

- Z-95 Headhunter: Might be too easily confused with the X-Wing

- E-Wing: Hey, Galoob actually made an Action Fleet toy of this thing, but to be in rough scale with the other fighters, the main fuselage would need to be as big as the X-Wing's, and that's too large for an EU design toy.

- HAVw A6 Juggernaut/Clone Turbo Tank: Given the AT-TE is roughly in figure scale, to significantly compromise the size of this vehicle would be a crime. But a vaugley proper figure-scale toy would be ridiculously expensive, especially for a vehicle that only appeared on screen for about 20 seconds.

- HMP Droid gunship: Was only seen briefly.

- Wookie Catamaran: Was seen even more briefly than the Wookie flier helicopter thing.

I like Fillet O' Fishes.

Thundercracker is my favourite seeker colour scheme, but since I grew up with the cartoon where they never gave him a personality, he isn't much of a character to me. Either way, I'll live without him.

I hope you won't be like him. The goateed guy character is kind of a loser and is used as a stand-in for some of the dumbest TF fans

I don't own the set, btw.

Dude, I completely agree .... although, I am sure the BotCon fanboy and fangirls would cry bloodly "what about the whole concept of convention exclusive" proverbial murder if Hasbro released retooled versions of Classics Thundercracker, Dirge, & Thrust.

Dude, I have yet to see Botcon set owners lord their seekers over the others. Hasbro is likely entitled to make their own versions of the remaining seekers, just not the exact same ones released at Botcon 2007 (Fun Publications owns the molds and deco layouts for those, since they paid for the development and manufacture.

But I figure Hasbro would prefer to wait for awhile before they do so. But the problem is, if the parent toy company does similar-to-convention-exclusive mass releases, then what would be the point of the con organisers doing convention exclusives at all? After all, if it's expected that Hasbro will release something similar afterwards, then comparatively few would buy the convention toys.

Then again, if you guys *really* wanted three largely identical toy planes, you could have saved up for the Botcon set. That's what other people went to the trouble of doing.

The feeling of "Awesome" you get from large toys, you don't get with Titaniums, though

Since this is only Friday of Botcon I believe, they haven't displayed many all-new toys yet since the Hasbro Panel won't be until Saturday.

Universe of possible interest to you guys:

- camo redeco of Classics Starscream named Acid Storm. Conceptually he appears to be based upon the Decepticon Rainmakers from the G1 episode "Divide and Conquer". His deco appears to be based upon a cancelled G2 camo redeco of Starscream.

- Dropshot, a tan redeco of Cybertron Defense Scattorshot

- Autobot Blades, a mostly red redeco of Cybertron Evac

I'd link to pics, but TFW2005's server is extremely unreliable right now I suggest visiting other TF sites for pics.

I dunno man, those still look like poorly drawn Omegas to me. I'm sure I could dig up loads of screenshots where characters have bizarre proportions and/or are drawn off-model. Fat or no, the Guardians and Dark Guardians were intended to look like Omega Supreme, which is why I'm loving the eHobby repaint. Hell the OS toy doesn't exactly look like the cartoon model, either.

Yes, the Guardians and DGs were meant to look like Omega Supreme, but they used *different* animation models, they weren't just drawn poorly. Why? Because Omega Supreme appeared in the same episode the Guardian robots first appeared in.

In fact, the more rounded designs of the Guardians is sort of a trait that Floro Dery would put into his designs, particularly in characters who had no toys.

Well, Omega is a pretty fat bastard to begin with. I blame that one on poor animation. They were obviously based on his design, though. Regardless, as a nostalgia nod (I hated the comics and preferred the cartoon growing up), I'm really loving this deco.

Omega Supreme tended to be of broad of torso rather than fat. Guardian robots were much chubbier by design. The animation model was later recycled to be the Quintesson Dark Guardians during the birth of the rebellion on Cybertron.

We assume that after driving the Quints off Cybertron, the DGs were reprogrammed into Guardian robots to protect everybody.

Yeah, vehicles are too big to display if you collect stuff. I took out my POTJ B-Wing yesterday, and after an hour it went back into my storage room. Just no space for something that large.

I'm quite glad I got it cheap, since secondary prices for it are *steep*.

Yeah, but Guardian robots weren't in the original toy colour. Technically Guardian robots aren't carbon-copies of Omega Supreme, either. They were pretty fat bastards.

I don't customise, so I like a fun toy out-of-the box, though. I really quite liked the engine lights

Does anybody have the V-Wing? It looks like a nice addition to my Rebel armada (being red and white and all)*, and will go along side the upcoming Clone Wars V-19 Torrent. Hasbro is going vehicle crazy lately.

*I predict Hasbro will release an 'Imperial V-Wing' redeco based on the end of ROTS sometime next year.

Transformers were quite accurate to their vehicle forms back then, too (shame the only TF line to ever feature that again would be the BTs).

Weren't the Movie line Autobots accurate to their prop vehicles?

I know its less useful now with the INTERNETS and great, extensive galleries from Rebelscum, but I'd really like to see an updated version of Steven Sansweet's Star Wars Action Figure Archive book, covering all toys up to now. There's some satisfaction with a physical book that you don't get from looking at/reading stuff online.

Hehe.. I beg to differ- it's a big empty accurate toy, at about 1/3 the cost (the original FX cost upwards of $75 new). I didn't mind the lights/sounds so much, but the stupid flight handle/missile launcher gimmick bugged the crap out of me. Aside from the fubared nosecone, I really prefer the fuselage details on the saga versions, not to mention the removable pilot/astromech.

Here's my custom job waiting to happen, personally I think it's pretty when it's all cleaned up.

The engine sounds/lights and blaster sounds would have worked with or without the handle or built-in R2 unit with some minor retooling.

I tried doing that gun thing you suggested for my Red Leader. Problem was, one gun is bent one way and the other gun is bent the other way. Now if both were bent in the same direction...

Because I couldn't think of anything truly funny to reference Blitzwing...

How about something expressed through song

I think Hasbro should have left the engine lights/sounds and the blaster sounds in when they retooled it for the 2002 Dagobah release. Otherwise its just a big, empty toy.

Anybody have the T-16 Skyhopper? I read that the wing mechanism wasn't very well made, so when you deployed the wings, bits of plastic broke off. Is this true?

Cool, well that's encouraging that it's as god as it can be done i guess. I think i should look into getting one when i get the extra dosh.

Shin that does look really well done! Is the cockpit any detailed?

In terms of sculpted detail, the cockpit is pretty spartan. Hasbro didn't bother to use any stickers for the cockpit in their last release, but hopefully they will for the upcoming July re-release.

Gallery of the 1997 POTF2 (Red) A-Wing

Gallery of 2003 Saga (Green) A-Wing

Hasbro glued down the battery compartment in the green A-Wing and (I assume) this latest one, too.

This will never happen due to how protective Lucasfilm is of their IPs, but I'd love to see somebody make a Z-95 Headhunter conversion kit for the old X-Wing toy they last released in 2004.

Glad to see someone make a thread about this stuff, it's fun to see (even if I can't afford it).

I'm gonna have to keep tabs on that new a-wing. I like the new engines on this one, probably have to get one or two eventually (About time I got something to go with all my ginormous x-wings ). As far as movie accuracy goes, I think this one even tops the large scale X-Wings.

Personally, I've been on a crazy quest for a detailed x-wing, without the ridiculous cost of the movie replicas. I've got 4 of the large scale x-wings sitting disassembled in a box: 2 red leader versions, one good FX version, and one incomplete FX version for spare parts. I was happy to get the incomplete FX for about $5 (wanted the pointy, non-child-safe nosecone ).

My eventual hope is to rebuild one of the red-leader versions into a decent display model. It's already been stripped of stickers and some paint, and the nose swapped to the accurate one. I may leave the rear greeblie deck alone, but I really want to rebuild the wings/engines some. I've always hated how the wings constantly droop on the large x-wings, hopefully I'll find a way to fix that, even if it means building new wings from scratch.

It's just the same A-Wing that they've been selling since 1985, in a similar deco to its 1997 release. Yeah, late original Kenner stuff was usually very accurate. Go get yourself a 2007 TAC Y-Wing. It's probably my favourite starfighter mold.

I believe they used a stiffer plastic on the original 1998 Power FX X-Wing, then they switched to a softer plastic for the 2002 Dagobah and 2004 Red Leader versions. Like most Red Leaders, mine has crooked guns

Anybody know if the Saga 2006 Dagobah X-Wing has drooping wings?

Woah, they retooled the engines? Looks like they removed the clear structural integrity pieces around the engines. Unless they just forgot to put them in for this prototype.

I hope that's released in Australia.

ruskiiVFaussie: There's not much they can do. The A-Wing was one of the last original trilogy vehicles in the original toyline (well it was released in Droids) and was one of their highpoints. It's about as accurate as they can ever get. It's quite decently in scale and nicely detailed.