Fit For Natalie

Is this Rumble from Walmart a real offical alternator rumble?  because it looks kinda like one of those Car Robots to me, a really good one. 

you know the ones that look similar to alternator?

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Yes its a real official Alternator. Hence it being called 'TF Alternators' in the listing.

The Rumble picture seen at British Toy Fair was concept art.

I like the imagination in Alt Rumble's design, the outside-the-square thinking. Something SORELY needed in the dull Alternators/Binaltech line.

Then again, I tend to think of collector-focused lines that cater to the G1 or 'old-school' crowd as dull and unimaginative.

From TFW2005:

KISS Convoy w/ a surfboard?

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Its a flaming sword. Flaming. Pink. Sword. *scurries off*

Alternators RUMBLE official bot mode pic

He's red.

95% of the overall movie-going audience that will see Transformers the movie will be non-fans, ordinary people. Maybe even a higher percentage if you add in fans who can barely remember G1.

Fans of any fandom, Star Wars included, will always forget the general population will be the ones who bring in the majority of the revenue.

You think ordinary want to see all robot action? This isn't a cartoon. Excluding the Beast series (which ironically had the most 'human-like' transformer characterisations), all Transformers series have had human characters for the audience to relate to, somebody to see the robots on our level. Older fans would perhaps not care for or not need this human relation, but kids and the general population do.

Another thing - star power is VERY influential in how audiences choose to watch their movies - movies of actors, directors and producers they love, actors, directors and producers they hate. That's why all of that is advertised - because the masses follow it.

Amenbo (a major japanese online retailer) reports that apparently Transformers KISS BT Convoy will instead have the Alternators plastic Optimus Prime.

IF that's true people in Japan (as well as importers) will be paying more-than BT prices for what is essentially an Alternator.

Haha, I'll agree with you that as a series it's really pretty good, but as Transformers designs, it blows.

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*shrugs* I respectfully disagree. Beast Wars was a breath of fresh air in a stale house. When people tire of vehicular Transformers again, they'll return to beasts. Keep the line fresh and it won't die off like G1.

Alot of design elements and engineering advances made during late G2 and Beast Wars are improved upond and carried over to today.

After Beast Wars third season they changed the name to Transmetals something, right?

Is that series decent? I read the plot and some of the character seamed wrong (and I also read the series wasn't a fit continuation of BW).

I'm rewatching BW (had forgotten how good the character development was). I only saw the first season when it first aired but it seams that the other two seasons where even better (from what I hear).

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Nope - just Beast Wars Seasons 2 and 3. Transmetals refers to the theme that the new toys were made in, that is mechanical beasts with a semi-organic robot mode. Transmetals 2, which featured in Season 3, was kind of a fusion between the mechanical and techno-organic.

Beast Wars' strength was its character development, and ironically this was brought about by the cost limitations of the CGI animation - they could only do so many character models on the budget they had. This forced the writers to focus on a small cast of characters who would appear in most episodes, as opposed to G1 where dozens characters drop in and out of episodes at random.

Wow! I thought those beta models are just special edition toys.. I didn't knew they were planning to make animated series. Thnx for the news.

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Erm, I said I didn't know if there was going to be a cartoon. Classics is intended to be a filler line, and a line to get people reaquainted with characters of G1 before the movie.

I love Transformers as giant, mechanical war machines. Smaller, biomechanical creatures is not what I want to see in the franchise, I had a hard enough time swallowing that for Beast Wars, and didn't really care for any of the designs until the Transmetals.

Exactly. This is why I too, hated BW and BW:TM and BM.... ugh... scuh utter garbage designs.

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*points and laughs* Your losses.

Beast Wars shall always remain the best Transformers television series, and the series that is responsible for the true rebirth of the Transformers franchise.

I'd bet if hasbro would remake G1 series with better animation and storyline, a total improvement of the G1 toys, they still got a big chance to pull off a huge success.

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Transformers: Classics coming in October-November (unsure if there will be any animation) will fulfill that for you. From what has been gathered, the line will be updated versions of classic G1 characters including Bumblebee and Grimlock.

Here is a gallery of Classics' prototype for Astrotrain

Convention goers at Botcon 2005's Hasbro Panel said the reps unvieled photos of a gun Megatron and an F-15 Starscream.

Oh I forgot to add TF-BW.  If Takara isn`t doing well, then I don`t think will see any new TF Jap show cuz its unsuccessful in Japan.

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Well, Hasbro said Takara was taking a break from mainline Transformers in 2006. Galaxy Force didn't do well for them which is why the line ended abruptly at the end of September 2005.

So overall TF-G1 and TF-Armada are the only successful shows. BTW did TF-G2 had a show or just comics ?  Now if TF-WWI had its show would become a successes.

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No, I have no idea how you got that. Hasbro's American/Canadian Beast Wars show was a huge sucess - Transformers wouldn't be where it is now without the sucessful foundation Beast Wars established. In fact, Hasbro hasn't had failure (at least not on the level of Takara) since Beast Wars. Beast Machines, was still a sucessful, profitable line.

Without a doubt, Beast Wars is the single finest Transformers cartoon ever made, and probably will stay that way for years to some.

I think you confused Takara's difficulties with Transformers with Hasbro.

There is also the thought that just because you see a problem doesn't neccessarily mean there is one.  I'm also not going to argue with you or anyone that there is or isn't a problem or that Takara is or is not being incompetant with the TF line.  All companies try new ideas, make bad decisions, make good decisions, go through slumps and have streaks of prosperty.  It's not like Hasbro hasn't made any bad decisions or showed their incompetancey with the TF line, and most of their other lines at some point throughout the years.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the sordid Transformers history for the past decade.

NOTE: Just in case people get confused, when I talk of failure, it means Takara, as they have had difficulty with TF for the past decade. Hasbro is usually sucessful with TF.

At the beginning of this period, both Hasbro and Takara embarked upon the then-ambitious project called Beast Wars. The initial line, backed up by the American/Canadian Beast Wars CGI series was a sucess in both markets. Beast Wars initially raised controversy among the established transformers fans because the the change in direction for the line, but over time, most detractors came to see the high quality of the cartoon and toyline.

At this point, Takara developed Beast Wars the Second, a traditionally animated anime. It is said Mainframe, the Canadian studio responble for the US Beast Wars series, was unable to fulfill the number of episodes Takara would require for their usual 52-episodes per year anime. So it is theorisedTakara developed BW2 as a means of keeping momentum in the line whilst providing the output of episodes their market required, at a much lower cost than waiting for CGI. The line was followed up by Beast Wars Neo, another traditionally animated series. Unfortunately, neither BW2 or BW Neo were ever as popular among fans or consumers as the original US Beast Wars. BW Neo in particulalr was considered a failure.

Meanwhile, Hasbro was enjoying great sucess with their Beast Wars Transmetals and Transmetal 2 lines (Beast Wars Season 2 and 3).

Unfortunately, when Takara imported the Transmetals era US Beast Wars cartoon as Beast Wars Metals, they SIGNIFICANTLY changed the characterisations and tone of the series to fit in with the light-hearted slapstick established in BW2 and BWNeo. Eg, Rattrap was a young kid instead of a veteran wise guy, and Megatron screamed like woman. The series, with its extreme changes from the american original series, was hated by japanese fans.

In 2000, came Beast Machines for Hasbro - due to the changes in characterisation and tone from Beast Wars, as well as the extreme differences in design of the toys, the series was not as sucessful as Beast Wars and was controversial.

For Takara, they developed the Car Robots series, a sort of return to their roots with cars and trucks turning into robots. Unfortunately, the line was unsucessful enough that Takara alledgedly almost cancelled their TF line altogether. In 2001, Hasbro and Takara jointly worked on the Armada line. Hasbro needed a line to fill the void, so they imported Car Robots as Robots in Disguise, and it was a huge hit.

In 2002, Hasbro released Transformers: Armada - it go on to become one of the most sucessful Transformers lines ever released. Takara released the line as Micron Densetsu in late 2002/early 2003, where it enjoyed some sucess.

Woo its late so I'll summarise

2004 - Energon: After a slow start, sucessful in US

Superlink: Issues with Takara gutting the electronics from the larger Autobots as a means of cost-cutting. Less sucessful than Micron Densetsu.

2005 - Cybertron: Due to improved Hasbro case assortments (Staggered waves means less shelf-warmers), line has been doing well for Hasbro thus far.

Galaxy Force: Unsuccessful in Japan despite being a well-made toyline. Dark Ligerjack originally a mass-release figure, but dwindling sales shifted him into a limited-production Toys R Us exclusive. Armbullet, Blender and Moledive figures cancelled (would go on to become US Cybertron exclusives). Primus cancelled from line, eventually released as a G1 toy. Many toolings not featured in the show would become US Cybertron exclusives.

Alternators: Though with little, if any advertising or promotion from Hasbro in non-toy markets (a major oversight), the line does relatively well despite being collector-oriented.

Binaltech: Due to the high price, yet regular release schedule of BTs, the line has difficulty achieving mainstream popularity in Japan despite strong sales of the intial Smokescreen and Lambor releases. In 2005, Takara attempts to revitalise the struggling line with a sub-line called Binaltech Asterisk, BT repaints partnered with theme-specific pvc anime girls. One some of the releases, quality standards were lower than previous versions of the tooling. The line was unsucessful and ended up on clearance.

People have been freaking out since the merger of Takara and Tomy that Takara is going to cancel the TF line altogether, and I've never really seen a reason for it.  And if they do drop it, so what?  Another company could pick up the license and maybe even do it better.  Or worse.  All we can really do is buy the toys we like and not buy the toys we don't like and just see what happens.

While it is unclear how much of Transformers as a brand Takara owns, it is Hasbro who (still) licenses the concept from Takara, because they imported the Diaclone and Microman toys to make up the bulk of the early G1 toys. Takara reimported them in 1985 as Transformers, and was a smash hit.

So erm, its not going to any other company unless Takara folds.

I think the real problem is that no matter what TF just doesn't seem to be very popular in Japan, and you can't really MAKE people like something.  Even toylines that were great (in my opinion) ideas seemed to do poorly, like the WST and Robotmasters lines.  It seems like they failed not because Takara handled them poorly, but because there just wasn't enough fan-support in Japan.

I believe that generally, the US created/US written Transformers cartoons (and thus accompanying toylines), assuming they are relatively unmolested in translation and dubbing, are the most popular Transformers series in Japan. After all, G1 Convoy and Beast Convoy, originally US characters, are more popular than their japanese sucessors.

Eg, popularity for G1 Transformers in Japan dropped off when the series switched to the Japanese-written Headmasters series, with its more japanese-oriented themes.

Hell, it was the [uS-created theme of] Transformers that made Takara's toys Diaclone and Microman molds popular in the first place, the reason being Transformers, as a concept of living human-like personality alien robots, is very different from every other mecha or super robot series at the time in Japan. Its very difference is what made it, and makes it popular.

Continually posting as if you are an authority on what will or will not happen if companies do this or that really doesn't get anyone anywhere.  Regardless of how much you think you know, it's all just a guess.  A guess you are certainly entitled to make, but arguing a point which is in essence a guess is rather fruitless.

What I go by is what is more or less well known among the fandom, and is based upon past evidence of Takara's difficulties with Transformers, and their odd attempts to promote the line.

And, no hard feelings man, I just tend to be pretty casual with this hobby since it's a form a relaxation and simple happiness for me.  I always tend to see the sun rise after it goes down, too.  A few years ago I had pretty much pegged the TF line for nothing but garbage.  Until RID was released, TF held virtually no interest for me.  But then it just started getting better from there.  The reissues came out, Takara started doing cool stuff, Hasbro started bringing better lines out.  It's still seems to be getting better to me.  Takara is doing really cool off-shoots like the Hybrid line and the MP line, Hasbro is coming out with the Classics line, figures are going to be made of characters that were up to this point only fan-dream figures (War Within Prime, Jetfire).  And there are some real stink-bombs on the horizen, too, like the 3" Titanium figures.  Those I'll cast my vote against by not buying them.

My point is - shortsighted as it may be - that things go downhill sometimes and then they pick up again. 

No hard feelings.

I just fear for the line in Japan - TF is riding on a high wave (and has been for 10 years) for Hasbro, but for Takara, it is probably at its lowest point since 2000. At Botcon Hasbro said Takara were taking a break from mainline Transformers in 2006.

As for the tall stacks on the MP-01 Prime, I haven't read of that many breaking.  I read reports that the reason Hasbro shortened them is because they were too long for US toy standards, not because they were easy to break.  The stack on mine broke very clean, right where it narrows.  It's such a clean break that when glued back together it hardly looks broken.  I still bought the replacement stacks  just because knowing it was broken bothered me more than how it actually looked.

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Hasbro shortened the smokestacks for the same reasons they shortened them on their reissue G1 Prime. Because of the nature of vaccum metalised plastic, they could not control the manner in which the smokestacks would break, and being long, thin pieces made of brittle plastic, they could break into very sharp pieces. TF Head Aaron Archer said he tried to keep them long, but it just didn't pass safety.

With G1 Prime reissue, they toyed with the idea of making the stacks in normal silver plastic, but decided that would look like crap. However, they did do this for their Grapple reissue : /

I like Takara and Hasbro both, I don't really get the desire some people have to rail either one of them or to put one above the other.  They both make toys, we buy them, that's it.  Why make it anymore complicated?  Who cares if one of them comes up with a "crazy scheme"?  If you don't like it, don't buy it.  I'm happy both companies exists and offer different choices for people.

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You are quite possibly short-sighted, especially going by your reasoning.

The problem you don't seem to see is that Takara cannot (or will not) sucessfully promote Transformers within its own home market. This isn't about barracking for one company or the other.

While the failure or sucess of Transformers ultimately affects Hasbro's Transformers little (Takara will engineer Transformers so long as Hasbro pays them), it is distressing to see a brand that was once sucessful in Japan treated with such incompetance from the company who invented the original toys that made up the early G1 line in the first place.

Who cares if one of them comes up with a "crazy scheme"?  If you don't like it, don't buy it.

That is really short sighted - If they continue to come up with ultimately unsucessful, unpopular 'crazy schemes' (even unpopular among japanese fans and consumers), then Takara will eventually wind down the line, or even cancel it on their side of the pond if it comes to to an extreme.

Then there will be less, or just no choices for anybody.

I'm going to ask again since no one answered my question last time.

For the people who own the Takara MP-01 - are the smokestacks easy to break? Should I be extra careful or worried about breaking them?

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And people wonder why Hasbro made the stacks short

Vacuum-metalised plastic is generally more brittle than regular plastic, so it is more likely to snap, especially because they are long and thin. The broken shards will be extremely sharp, which was Hasbros safety concern for their version.

While they aren't very fragile, you should be careful either way.

G2+?

Unless you mean series after G2 such as Beast Wars, you're possibly confused.

Generation 2 began in 1992 and ended in 1995. In 1996 Beast Wars began.

G1 after the movie was still G1.

G1 US

G1 Season 1

Season 2

Movie

Season 3

Season 4 (Only 4 episodes, The Return of Optimus Prime and The Rebirth)

G1 Japanese

G1 Season 1

Season 2

Movie (Not officially available in Japan until 1990 or so)

Season 3

Headmasters (at this point, popularity for Transformers started to go downhill as the cartoon was now written in Japan)

Super God Masterforce (not taken too well by japanese fans due to massive changes and the fact the head writer argued with fans)

Victory

Zone OAV

TF Character Culture

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I think this sounds like desperation from Takara, to be honest.

Transformers Kiss is still one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard of.

Its a good job Hasbro is actually, you know, sucessful with Transformers that they don't have to pull ridiculous stunts like this.

FFN CRAZY IDEA ALERT!

Takara isn't a real company - its an elaborate tax-avoidance scheme

I mean, really look at their past crazy schemes, poor decisions and desperate ploys over the past few years, as well as Takara Marketing's (incompetance defined) insistance that they be the driving creative force behind the Transformers cartoons of the past 4 years, even though history has PROVEN the American-written Transformers cartoons/toylines have always been more popular with the Japanese fanbase.

I mean, Jesus, Binaltech Asterisk was a retailing DISASTER, so they're doing it again... but with the girlie figures making out with the robots to give them special powers and charging even more money for it? WTF TAKARA? WTF?!?

Compounding the problem is Takara's marketing department doesn't seem to know what to make with this gaijin 'Transformer' thing they have. They keep trying to turn it into a japanese-specific line, ie, aping other popular japanese genres and kids anime. But they fail to see the reason why Transformers was ever popular in Japan in the first place was that it was different, it was a western series, a different take upon the massive robot market in Japan. Its differences made it stand out. Turning it into something more suited to the japanese audience just turned the japanese off it.

Really, I like Takara for its technical and artistic skill. But leave the ideas for Transformers to Hasbro, you know, the company that actually got Takara's toys popular in the first place, and is the one sucessful with the line.

As for Transformers Kiss

TAKARA MARKETING BRAINSTOOOORRRRRMMM!!

Marketing Chief: Okay guys. These Transformer Binaltech things aren't doing very well for us. Our last attempt to make them more hip and popular among the regular consumer, by lowering the build standards on certain models, including a poorly made pvc figurine, and increasing the recommended retail price for the priviledge of these changes, did even worse.

Any ideas?

(long pause)

Marketing Guru 1,234*: I KNOW!! How about we... increase the retail price by nearly 1,000 yen?

Marketing Chief: (Pause)... BRILLIANT! Let's put that idea into effect, immediately!

Narrator: One year later, TakaraTomy files for bankruptcy. They are eventually bought out by rival, Bandai.

THE END

*(fun fact: For every designer and engineer at Takara, there are 50 incompetent marketers)

Sorry guys, dont hate me... I was just joking a bit. 

Too much Yoshinol.

Anyways I did not ment to cause such big deal, It was just and innocent and very usual comment about TFs.

Really, I wasnt trying to insult anybody.

Sorry angain, and now go play with those hugly toys, and forget the whole thing!   

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Well, if your location is accurate, my chinese friends (I'm asian myself) do tell me many chinese robot fans don't like Transformers for whatever reason. *shrug*

Scrambled Steve was making a Cybertrom Bumblebee forever, but then his site dissapeared.

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Well a little while ago, JD Productions had a transformable Cybertronian Bumblebee model/figure for sale on their site before they went under. I never picked one up myself but i heard the QC on them was kind of shoddy and the materials that they used in making the kits (which you had to sand, paint and put together yourself... like most resin kits) was not worth the price of admission. Last i heard Rabid Squirrel Productions picked up all the molds, kits and rights to the stuff JD was originally working on and had in the pipeline. Rabid Squirrel makes their own Cyberfembot Kits that i heard are made of better quality materials, but still have to be put together and painted. Still if you're looking for an accurate transformable Arcee their kits are about as close as you can get to the G1 character without scratch building one yourself heh.

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JDP shut down because they kind of ripped people off on some of their products, such as their disasterous Devastator 'cold cast statue' which was really just bunches of construction toys glued together, sent to the buyer, broken.

Rabid Squirrel is controversial because they make products based upon designs Hasbro owns (but have yet to make a toy out of), and kind of dance around the legal issue and justify the fact their product is original 'BASED' upon Hasbro's designs.

Unfortunately for them, early this year they announced a War Within Prime, and soon after Hasbro unvieled its die-cast metal, fully-transforming War Within Prime toy at Toyfare.

I noticed that too before I went to bed lastnight.  I remember Blurr was in Armada and that this toy carries the EXACT body as the Armada version but with G1 Blurr's head design and repainted.  I was pretty miffed after realizing that wishing I didn't blow 9.89 for the toy.

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Not exactly - they retooled a significant portion of his rear end gimmick activation parts and missile launchers due the fact he doesn't have a minicon partner to activate his flight mode anymore, nor does he have minicon ports to attach minicons.

His Armada retool assortment mates Longrack, Runamuck and Buzzsaw have been similarly changed to use the Cyber Key gimmick instead of minicons.

Blurr isn't a bad toy. Aside from the dodgy articulation, I quite like the sleek design of the vehicle and the look of the robot. I wish I had bought the Universe repaint Swerve when it was available.

It seems at least some of the items you've bought are Cybertron versions, yet you refer to them by their Galaxy Force names? Or in the case of 'Nitro Convoy GTS', assigning them names that don't exist?

Hasbro said the whole Override thing was a case of the Cartoon Network requesting a female character on the Autobots side. By that time, Override had already been designed as a toy and then a cartoon character, but it was also the most feminine looking male character on the show, so he became a she.

Its not really that noticible on the show, to be honest, and as far as canon is concerned, Override is a female robot.

As for the story - the Cybertron dub is Hasbro's attempt to retcon the story back to its original form, before Takara marketing and WE'VE (their television production company) decided to dump the original storyline that linked the series to Armada and Energon, and make the series all-new for some reason. Before the series aired, there was outdated publicity from WE'VE stating the series was a continuation of Superlink (Energon).

There were animated shorts on the DVDs that came with some of the 'special' versions of Convoy ect. Basically something about all the Convoys coming together to the beat up the incredibly outnumbered Decepticons.

An old joke is that Robotmasters should have been called Convoymasters given how the line turned out.

Bombed, too. Some of those toys were pretty unplayable, such as Break, the robot hiding inside a penguin shell.

Big Convoy kinda has an extremely fiddly, somewhat useless alt mode, though. I was never happy with Takara's facination with shell-formers in BW Neo.

Primus is considerably more detailed than any of the others. In fact, he's probably the most detailed Transformer I've ever seen.

Technically, he should only be displayed with Unicron and (for one episode) Starscream if you want vague scale.

And for the hell of it, a size comparison with my tallest TFs.

If you're gonna go for a purple version of that tooling, go for Energon Galvatron. Its big, befitting an Decepticon emperor, and its one of the nicest repaints Hasbro has ever done. Hasbro went into town making the colour scheme as G1-ized as possible.

The Superlink Galvatron G version is strange, piss-yellow instead of orange and basically a series of colour swaps with the original paintscheme. Plus he has pastel blue. Ick. Not even a light blue, but pastel.

yeah that's a pet peeve of mine on this board - Awhile back I noticed alot of people here remote linked pics off other servers without any regard for the bandwith of the owner/originator of the picture, beyond 'HEY LOOK AT THIS PIC I FOUND!'

On most of the mainstream TF boards I think people have gotten the message, and tend to upload the pics they find on their own webspace as well as credit where they actually found the picture.

As for my own pic there - I don't mind because quoting the picture meant it is now posted on this page of the thread, instead of being lost on the last post of the previous page

Hey, so am I! I decided 'Hmm, should I go for a cable connection this year (which is expensive down here), or just continue on using the money I would be using for cable to buy toys and computer crap?

Not a hard decision to make since I don't have much inclination to download