M'Kyuun

Thanks for the heads up. I've never bought anything from XTB or KFC, but I've read many a complaint about KFC stuff over the years which gives pause. As much as I like cassette bots, $70 is a lot of cash to throw at toys, and there are certainly things of better quality I could throw money at, like LEGO, my preeminent vice, or even a legends from MS or NA. Yours is sage advice, and I think I will indeed wait for reviews.

Truth be told, I'm not sure where I'd display them. My Detolfs are getting pretty crowded these days, but I'm sure I could squeeze them in somewhere. I also intend to get the larger MMC versions when they come out, but I thought it'd be nifty to have a pair of updated micro-cassette figs that actually fit in MP Soundwave, or some future MP Blaster, should Takara ever get around to it. I passed on the original KFC cassette releases, as well as his Blaster, and these updated cassettes make me glad I did. To get 'em, or not to get 'em; that's the question, to paraphrase some old British playwright. Anybody got anything recently from Keith? Just curious how the quality of his stuff has been of late.

As an AFOL who's been privileged to attend large LEGO conventions in Seattle and Portland, I've seen my share of large ornate MOCs. That said, this is an extraordinarily impressive display. I can't imagine the investment of time, money, brick, and other resources (lights, stickers, etc) he put into this, not to mention the painstaking research to try and nail all the details. Wonderful job. Love the wall detail in Snoke's holo-throne room. Just so much detail and personal flare thrown in everywhere.😍 I fervently hope he brings this to BrickCon in October; I'd love to salivate over it in person, and offer a well deserved tipping of the hat to the builder. I wish LEGO's official Troop carrier from TFA had looked nearly as good as his. It definitely wasn't the most inspired ship, looking more akin to a flying shoebox, but his MOC makes it look much better to my eyes than it even looked in the film. The greatest missing element of the sequels was George's incredible imagination for ships and such; he may not write good dialog, but the guy's a visual genius, and the blandness and general lack of originality in the vehicles was remarkable for a series notable for its incredible designs over the years.

I'm a big fan of the cassette bots, and KFC has just revealed updated versions of his original Ramhorn and Steeljaw, and to my eye, they both look pretty good. I've never bought any KFC stuff, and my general impression is that it's not the best quality, i.e. loose pins, floppy joints right out of the box. These things are $35 a piece, pretty steep for such a small figure. Should I take the plunge? CST-14 Rhinohorn 2.0 | KFC Toys (tfsource.com) CST-15 Ironpaw 2.0 | KFC Toys (tfsource.com)

I stand corrected, then. It sounded like Ron to me, but I never looked to see who voiced who. I'd have to go back and watch all three series consecutively for a refresh, and honestly, I don't think I'm up to all the stilting dialog, to get a clearer picture of the plot from start to end, but I recall the basics concerning the MacGuffin, I mean Allspark. I think the pacing and the voice acting diminish the experience, though. I know I started dozing off any number of times during the different parts. That could just be me, though- I have a bad habit of getting sleepy when I watch tv. Anyway, I think the differences in the voices also proves challenging to those of us who grew up with G1. Those original voices are imprinted in our psyches, and it's difficult to hear another voice coming from a very G1 looking character. It takes a deliberate effort to mentally divorce the images from the voices and personalities, the latter of which I think they did a better job of preserving than the former. I tried to enjoy it for what it is, and isn't. I do really wish they'd had better voice direction, though- I don't know what they were thinking with those slow stilted deliveries (I'm sure the VA's could do a more natural delivery, but I'm thinking the director/ voice director wanted what we got. ) Alas, I don't think this series is going to be one of the more memorable ones, at least for us older fans. For the younger audience, who knows. This may be their G1. Poor kids. Guess I need to give Cyberverse a watch. Hopefully it'll cleanse the palate of the bad taste WfC left behind.

Geez, what is it with all these highly produced weird, pointless perfume/cologne ads with big stars? They've kinda become their own genre. Just started watching Beastars on Netflix, so the Lamb trailer looks like something that escaped from that world into ours. Looks intriguing- it's my kind of weird, unlike perfume commercials.

10K Achieved! LEGO Ideas Knight Rider: KITT and the FLAG Mobile Command Unit Achieves 10,000 Supporters - The Brick Fan I hope this gets chosen for production.

That's a really well done display; kudos to the owner. Even Skullface and his collection snobs would have a tough time nitpicking that one to death. 😏 And being an older kid when TFs came out, I was certainly more critical than a younger kid, especially since I was aware there were toys like GI Joe and Micronauts that had a fairly full range of articulation. Seeing them move about on screen, and looking at the boxart didn't help but exacerbate my chafing at the nigh immobility of the toys. Glad articulated versions of those characters came about in my lifetime. Especially Prowl.

Well, I'm a lukewarm G.I. Joe fan from the 80's who watched the toon, but never read the comics or delved any deeper into the lore. But the general sense I've always had of Snake Eyes from the various toons over the years is that he's a martial arts master with a military background who can't speak, has extraordinary resolve, and a nigh unshakeable sense of moral uprightness. He's a good guy to the core who does whatever it takes to protect his teammates and see the mission through. That wasn't the direction they took with this iteration. Maybe they thought painting him in shades of grey would make him more compelling. I dunno. Anyway, I just sat back and enjoyed it for what it was. I'll agree with former comments that say Storm Shadow was really the star here, and they did a good job of showing a good guy turn sour. But as @Kanedas Bike said earlier, SS was totally justified for being angry. But given his last words before leaving the family estate, what follows seems counter to his parting statement. Alas, the franchise must be served. So far as Snake's character being out of traditional character throughout most of the film, I consider Di Bonaventura is the same producer behind the live action Transformers films, and look how they butchered and reimagined all those characters, not just physically, but their personalities, or fractions thereof, that some had. So, for Snake Eyes to look more like a generic ninja film with a few GI Joe references makes total sense considering who's producing. It is sad, though, that the animated shows seem to get the essence of GI Joe far, far better than any of the far better budgeted live action films have thus far. Money's no replacement for passion, though. Just like the Bumblebee Movie felt more like the Transformers that I grew up with than any of the Bay films.

Which is why I, a Geewunner, can't understand the appeal that these old toys still hold for collectors. I suppose they have an old school charm to them, but even when I was collecting the odd TF toy in my mid to late teens, I felt more disenchantment with them than anything else. I longed and hoped fervently for toys resembling what we now have through MP, the main line stuff since the Combiner Wars Trilogy, and all the G1 third party offerings. I envy the kids of today, as they're getting the toys I imagined and longed for as a teenager- they just don't know how spoiled they are, so comparisons like these really do drive home just how far Transformer toys have come since 1984. Honestly, though, I'm happier that these things are out now when I'm an adult with disposable income enough to afford this hobby. As a kid, I didn't have much in the way of cash flow, so had these been the reality back then, I wouldn't have had the means to buy too many of them. So while I do envy the kids of today for the improved quality in the toys of their generation, I'm happier still knowing that, unlike most kids, I'm equipped to pick and choose what I want for my collection. It was worth the wait.

Binged Kingdom today: as for the voices, more of the same slow stilted deliveries, especially Prime, and to a slightly lesser degree, Megatron. Some of the VA's try to sound like the original VAs, and some don't try at all and don't sound even close (Ironhide come to mind immediately). Ron Perlman, a veteran, gives a good performance as Primal; he doesn't sound like Garry Chalk, but he gives a good line delivery, and gives the character gravitas. There's little in the way of the sense of humor from Beast Wars here. Kingdom Megs ends a couple statements with 'yes', but it's not played to the same tongue in cheek manner as David Kaye's original performance. Story-wise, they brought the overarching plot to a decent conclusion. I thought the CG models were fine, and on the whole, I thought it was a good looking show with a lot of atmosphere. The voice work and writing holds it back from being great. Some of the dialog is pedantic, cliched, or odd (why would Cybertronians ever use any form of the word, 'damn'?). Too, the writers fall back on a lot of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo concerning the Allspark, and to a lesser degree, the Matrix. While a little metaphysics is ok to add an air of mystique, I think those elements should be kept mysterious while the focus should be more on a straight story with good old greed, ambition, and psychopathic indifference on the parts of the Decepticons to achieve power and authority, with some Machiavellian plans at play, and the Autobots trying to preserve their peaceful way of life in light of Megatron's ambition. The Ark was cool. I noticed they rendered it with all five engines and the aft quarter panels complete and filled in, unlike the toy. The rendered hands looked better than the toy's dishwashing rubber gloved look. For all the buildup, though, the way they used him was a bit underwhelming. Transformations were pretty minimal and rarely depicted on screen, although the old transforming sound effect is employed to indicate that it's happening. I guess, since the renders are based on the actual toys, making them transform like the toys on screen would have been too expensive or too laborious to render accurately (they should have hired Polesdru to do stop-motion of the toys and used those as templates). Anyway, for a show about transforming robots, they don't transform as often as you'd think. Too, gone is the 'too-much energon' excuse for the original BW characters' alt modes. No other beasts are shown, either, as a reason for disguise, although at the same scale as the regular Cybertronians who take on vehicle alts, they would dwarf the real animals. So they exist purely as nostalgic callbacks and reasons to make toys, but make little sense in context. I could probably keep nitpicking things, but I won't. If you've slogged through the first two seasons, you'll want to watch this season just to tie it all up. Even with the slow pacing and awkward voice acting, the story is coherent across all three seasons and comes to a nice conclusion, with a loose string to form the basis of the next iteration. If you haven't watched it, or just couldn't hang after an ep or two, this offers nothing new or better. I haven't watched Cyberverse, but I'm beginning to feel like I missed out. I enjoyed Prime, so I imagine I'd like that, too. At least the voice acting was better. I think Optimus is the worst, with his extremely stilted delivery, over-enunciation, and lack of contractions, his delivery consistently sounds very unnatural, and diminishes the appeal of such a storied character. I think they're building up to the next chapter with Galvatron, or some semblance thereof. Not sure, but I'd wager they're going to move into Unicron Trilogy territory, which would make sense given how it wrapped up.

1.) When they're speaking 2.) Most likely Japanese, but I don't the think the animation followed actual lip movements. I can't say with any certainty, as I don't speak fluent Japanese. 3.) I watched it in English on Netflix.

Read the comic. Y'know, it's just silly enough to be made into a show, sponsored, of course, by Taco Bell. Gotta admire the amount of effort here just to advertise some spicy fries with cheese on them.

Hopefully they can find legit jobs doing the same sort of thing. There's definitely a market for transforming toys, and those toys don't necessarily have to be Transformers. I'd welcome another property or franchise based around transformable vehicles, especially if it had some good media to go along with it. But, I'm a toy guy, so that's never been the main driver for me; I buy 'em b/c they exist and they appeal to me. I've always found it funny when folks only buy toys of the characters that interest them. I generally go the opposite- I buy the toys that interest me regardless of the character or whether I care about the character. If the toy is cool, that's all that matters. Anyway, as I said, it's a terrible waste of tremendous talent if these folks just retire from designing transformable toys. There's room for more, especially at the level they were doing it.

The Carbotix is really nice, but that's a lot of ducats. Looks like they kept the squarish proportions of Green Lion. Probably necessary for the room required to hide the legs. I love that feature, but not enough to canx my PO for the much more reasonably priced SOC. I'm happy with second best. @Syro Sorry for your loss.