Fit For Natalie

So, anybody see the pics of Transformers Crossovers Thor at the Hasbro Marvel panel at SDCC? He has a pretty impressive A-10 mode. Far more accurrate (aside from the colour) than Universe Powerglide. Dude, this thing has interiors. Regular deluxes don't have interiors, or even functioning doors most of the time. Don't you remember how difficult Alternators and Binaltech were to transform compared to normal Transformers? Now think about the same type of toys but much smaller. That's where your "more difficult to transform than your average deluxe" comes from!

Both Hasbro and Tomy have been having issues with quality control in their most recent lines for some reason. Hasbro's Animated and Universe (2008) lines have a well-documented slide in quality control (compared to the Movie line) while Tomy's BT redeco/headswaps Bluestreak and Argent Meister are suffering paint issues. Alex: I am apprehensive about Alternity. The problem I have is Alternity will likely be twice, if not thrice, as complex as the relatively complex Prowl, and you'll have to deal with painted die cast metal, which, in my opinion, is asking for trouble at this scale. I think it would have been better if they were made entirely out of plastic, but painted. Paint seems to adhere better to plastic than metal, at least with Transformers toys. Nobody really cares man. And this finally explains why TakaraTomy was so reluctant to manufacture the BotCon 2008 exclusives (the 2006 Classics molds weren't being used by Hasbro at the time): Tomy were coincidentally doing very similar exclusives as well.

I want a new Nightbeat, Siren and Hosehead. This a command. I should have said new toolings. Unicron is an existing tooling, and Hasbro's design team said they kind of had to 'sneak in' the Beast Wars and G2 designs they wanted to do for the 25th Anniversary. They will probably only be able to do Jetstorm and Tankor for Beast Machines if they visit that series. Too bad. I wanted them to completely redo Beast Machines Silverbolt, his cartoon design was quite cool. To be fair, Cybertron Metroplex is actually sitting down with his knees split in half when in his... excavator mode. Chromedome is the one I take issue with, because its really quite hard to make a car look strange as a car, but he's so meched out that he's like a car somebody put giant robot armour upon. I think Hardhead is more recognisable as some kind of tank or self-propelled howitzer, and thus can be easily redesigned into some Earth vehicle and still keep the same sort of general look.

I still say Hasbro should make all Thundercrackers have Armada Thundercracker's colour scheme. Dark-ass blue, big red stripes and a red face. RED FACE. YEAH. It's been my observation that you guys don't like unrealistic bizzarro vehicle modes, and even scifi stuff that's not realistic in the real world (like Macross mecha), still has to have a semblance of pretend realism within the rules of its own fictional universe. The early HMs (with the exception of Hardhead) were all vehicles that you took their word on were the vehicles they were advertised as.

With Hasbro's insistence on realism-only for Universe, Hardhead would probably be the only early HM toy that could be made and not have his design significantly changed. The Decepticons are all crazy beasts and the other four Autobots turn into futuristic stuff that you guys hate. Its not our fault they're in recession and their dollar is worth much less now so that we can catch up to near-parity

Man, you americans are cheap

See... despite how many people refer to the line as 'Classics 2.0', Universe 2008 is a different toyline incorporating all sorts of series and toys. These things take months to plan out. They would have decided back in early to mid 2006 that they weren't going to have the original Classics toyline go beyond the final waves (Cliffjumper and Ramjet), since the Movie line immediately took over afterwards. Since they didn't think they were going to revisit the line again, they let Fun Publications use them so the toys would be released in some way. Classics turned out to be more popular than they expected when the line was released months after they made these decisions. Universe was commissioned partly because of Classics success, and partly to provide a 'realism' line alongside the cartoony style of Animated. Obviously Hasbro didn't do Thundercracker to respect the deal they made with Fun Publications. Thrust was not part of Starscream/Ramjet's tooling as the mold for the wings were commissioned and paid for by Fun Publications, I believe. Besides, TakaraTomy have already come to the rescue with an affordable version of Thundercracker that looks even better than the BotCon version.

I think RID Scourge is the most logical choice given Hasbro (marketing and big wigs) seeing Universe as a realism line. G1 Scourge can't really be turned into anything without him not resembling his original form. Deluxe Class Cyclonus probably got away unscathed because he's already a fighter, and Galvatron's G1 laser howitzer is thematically similar to a tank, but G1 Scourge.... not sure what the real-world equivalent of a flying space boat thing is. Plus Hasbro did say they were going to visit RID at some point in the 25th Anniversary. That's really cool. I love that truck, flames and all, David I actually posted a link to pics of the other vehicles seen at Edwards in the TF2 movie thread.

Finally more TF2 set pics, including clear shots of the mystery car: Anybody know what car this is? YAY! Ratchet is back!

Ultimate Bumblebee is a really poor man's robosapien That thing is still going to be clogging shelves in 2009.

They're making a Classics Prime trailer instead. Apparently they abandoned the Apex Armour idea they were having to turn Prime into Powermaster Prime (probably due to the similarity with Ultra Magnus).

What about Return of the Joker? I loved that. Great animation, dark story, great soundtrack.

That's *not* by Fans Project, the guys who are releasing the Magnus armour set. From what I recall, this Roller is by TF Club, the main chinese transformers community. Huh? What exclusive Japanese Roller? I've never heard of it.

Ahh those. I haven't looked at this thing in 5 years.

If you mean airbrake by 'plastic flap with gun attached to it' and landing gear that sometimes gets stuck inside. I think I need to sell this thing.

Really? Its not that good. I find it cumbersome.

Considering Henkei Thundercracker costs the same (more or less) as aussie retail for deluxes + shipping, eh, its not that much money. Sell some of your unwanted toys to buy him or something. That's what I did. Acid Storm is pretty awesome considering he's a seeker representing a character from a G1 episode, and Hasbro paying tribute for a member of the fandom. I thought fans liked it when companies didn't act like faceless coporate entities?

That's actually an electronic gizmo gonzo toy like Ultimate Bumblebee. I'm not sure if its categorized in the normal size classes. As such, there's no regular line Prime larger than Voyager.

Hasbro has repainted Classics Jetfire into G1 Tread Bolt. Click for pics Tread Bolt was a G1 Micromaster who had a similar Blue Angels-inspired deco. Yeah, funny to see Hasbro throwing so much attention of Micromaster homages lately.

I believe the motivation is that the larger the toy gets, the more difficult it becomes for a child's hands to manipulate, so they generally tend to make the transformations more simple than smaller toys.

First picture of a movie bot, taken by princetonphotog over @ TFW2005.com

I would say its a very vocal minority of the fanbase that complained without end (legitimately or otherwise). Unfortunately the perception was 'most' fans were doing it, hence Bay's sometimes mocking attitude to fans. And Peter Cullen was awesome as Prime, man Excellent decision in not casting Welker as Megatron, as his most famous Transformers voices are very heavily flanged and processed. Both G1 Megs and Soundwave sounded like creepy old men the few times they voices weren't electronically altered in the G1 cartoon. Oddly, he remarked that they overdid it on Hugo Weaving's voice, leading me to suspect he believes they hired Weaving out of 'star power' rather than talent, despite the fact Transformers never used Weaving's name in any sort of promotion or advertising, to my knowledge.

Hate your G1 Terrorcons, do you? (Joke in reference to the unfortunate plastic-destroying incident with your paint).

That's terrible to hear, David

From what I recall of the Takara designers interview from that Binaltech book, 1:32 was Takara's original planned scale for Alternators (hence the tiny prototype Smokescreen/Bluestreak prototype seen at Hasbro's offices during BotCon 2007), but during discussions with Hasbro they scaled up to 1:24.