The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[davidwhangchoi]

6 hours ago, Black Valkyrie said:

 

 

why does he look so cheap? no clear parts to see the insides

[mikeszekely]

11 minutes ago, davidwhangchoi said:

why does he look so cheap? no clear parts to see the insides

Animation version.

[davidwhangchoi]

Just now, mikeszekely said:

Animation version.

thanks for the clarification. i guess i'll need missing link wheelie to piggy back.

[sh9000]

[mikeszekely]

Well, @sh9000 just beat me to it.  Dang dance class.

Kranix is fine, if you really want those minor characters.  I had to compare side-by-side with Siege, Shockwave is retooled by barely.  I'm not happy, he really needs to be bigger to scale with the new Megatron.  No surprises with Skywarp, and I guess I already own Wheeljack and Sunstreaker because they're the same as the ones in the Target five-pack.

I don't know how I feel about Astrotrain, to be honest.  Train mode is a huge improvement, shuttle mode seems a little worse at the front, better at the back, still not great.  The robot mode looks noticeably worse, but I'm thinking that the chest is mistransformed and those purple panels need to be folded down.

Oh, and here's the Matrix I mentioned.  No SS86 Unicron.

 

[M'Kyuun]

Oh my, poor Astrotrain. he's only slightly better than the previous version. at least the locomotive looks much improved, but what's with all the nasty kibble along his flanks and the weird cowcatcher-ish extension under the nose in shuttle mode? When the G1 toy did it better, there's something fundamentally wrong. His bot mode, too, which looked great inn the previous release, looks like ass this time around, and still would look a kibbly mess with the chest panels folded down. 

C'mon Takara and Hasbro, Mech Fans Toys, a legends scale toy maker made this: 

Why can't you guys manage at least this at a leader scale budget?

I don't think DNA can clean that mess up, either, at least not without some serious part replacements. I so do wish some of these third parties would start making CHUG/SS86 scaled stuff when the official toys are this bad. Disappointing, to say the least.

Shockwave is a bit disappointing, too. FFS, why can't they just do a space ray gun?!- pretty sure nobody's gonna think that's a real gun being pointed at them. And if someone's dumb enough to point it at a cop or a gun-happy redneck in the dark, they kinda deserve to get plinked. Megatron's Walther is understandable, but Shockwave's groovy purple space gun should get an easy pass.

If Hasbro's wondering why TF sales are declining, perhaps they should re-evaluate some of these things before deciding to release them. Out of all these, Skywarp will likely be my only purchase. 

Edited Friday at 12:29 AM by M'Kyuun

[JB0]

2 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Shockwave is a bit disappointing, too. FFS, why can't they just do a space ray gun?!- pretty sure nobody's gonna think that's a real gun being pointed at them.

But it still isn't NY- or CA-compliant. Actually, without a bright orange muzzle, it is not compliant at the federal level, and I personally don't want a Shockwave with a bright orange muzzle.

 

CA law specifically requires a toy gun to be "the entire exterior surface of the device is white, bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, bright green, bright blue, bright pink, or bright purple, either singly or as the predominant color in combination with other colors in any pattern, or where the entire device is constructed of transparent or translucent materials which permits unmistakable observation of the device’s complete contents".

Sure, Shockwave is purple, but is he BRIGHT purple? Do they even want to have to check that definition? And this version has a gray barrel. (Which isn't even right! Give me a proper SILVER!)

 

I am reasonably sure they don't want to have to even LOOK at toy gun laws outside Nerf and Super Soaker.

Edited Friday at 03:09 AM by JB0

[tekering]

2 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Skywarp will likely be my only purchase. 

I think Kranix looks great... but his dialogue no longer makes any sense. 🤨

[mikeszekely]

7 minutes ago, tekering said:

I think Kranix looks great... but his dialogue no longer makes any sense. 🤨

Maybe they're not ships, but airplanes.🤔

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

Yeesh, some of these new alt modes are just bad.

[Scyla]

I am very disappointed that Shockwave is just a smoothed out version of the Siege toy. And why didn’t Hasbro smooth out/retool the front of the spaceship/muzzle to look in line with the rest of the toy/more accurate to the source material?

Also is the color on Shockwave wrong? Shouldn’t he be more lilac than purple?

I wonder why my favorite Transformers always have to suffer? Especially Shockwave/Galvatron/Star Saber.

On the other hand I am glad that I didn’t buy the dramatic capture multipack.

Skywarp looks good but I am not sure the Studio Series did away with all the disappointing aspects of the Earthrise mold. 

Edited Friday at 06:08 AM by Scyla

[lechuck]

Anybody know what the size/scale of Overdrive is – Masterpiece compatible?

On the otherhand it might of been an opportunity for Takara to finally scale the vehicles to each other.

Edited Friday at 09:45 AM by lechuck

[JB0]

1 hour ago, lechuck said:

Anybody know what the size/scale of Overdrive is – Masterpiece compatible?

 

For actual scale, I think the answer is "whatever scale you want them to be". Given we seem to have a truck and a helicopter of similar size, the vehicles aren't even in scale with each other. And there's no canon height for these two robots. The holy Sunbow chart holds no power here!

As far as actual size, we're gonna have to guesstimate it based on the peg holes, of which they have a metric crap-ton. Most usefully, both of them have 5mm-compatible fists, with articulated fingers.  The hands seem beefy, but not outrageously chunky. In mainline Transformers packaging terms, I'd guess the robots to be ... large Voyager, maybe Leader class?  
As far as what's near me for a reference, I'm guessing Ironhide is comparable to the JAXA crossover Luna Convoy. 

[lechuck]

That didn't take long... Optimus Prime

Also, reveal of MPG Blaster – meh to me, but I have never been a big fan of Transformers turning into just things.

[Scyla]

4 hours ago, lechuck said:

Anybody know what the size/scale of Overdrive is – Masterpiece compatible?

On the otherhand it might of been an opportunity for Takara to finally scale the vehicles to each other.

To me the Overgear releases are meant to fit in with the Diaclone Reboot toys. They seem to have the same design language play features and construction as these toys. 
 

I think size wise they might fit in with either the MP or Movie MP line but to me the difference in style is far too garish.

[edit:] the Anime Export site mentions that the robot is 18cm tall which seems to be a bit small for MP scale. Once I am home I could measure the height of my FM Warhorse to be certain . 

Edited Friday at 02:37 PM by Scyla

[rsvictor1976]

The Transformers Apology Tour 

 

Edited Friday at 04:33 PM by rsvictor1976

[mikeszekely]

3 hours ago, Scyla said:

the Anime Export site mentions that the robot is 18cm tall which seems to be a bit small for MP scale.

18cm is Voyager-ish sized. I don't have a ruler to double check, but iirc Hasbro listed SS86 Optimus as 18.5cm, and Megatron (despite being the same head height) as 21.5cm.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

1 hour ago, rsvictor1976 said:

The Transformers Apology Tour 

 

Hasbro needs to apologize for crappy alt modes.

[M'Kyuun]

5 hours ago, lechuck said:

That didn't take long... Optimus Prime

Also, reveal of MPG Blaster – meh to me, but I have never been a big fan of Transformers turning into just things.

I don't own an MP Blaster, and I've been fine with that as he just never carried the same importance as Soundwave, but oh man do I want that Steeljaw. Hopefully they'll make Ramhorn, Eject, and Rewind for him as well and sell the cassettes as either two or four packs. 

[shazam]

 

[sh9000]

 

[M'Kyuun]

Astrotrain just does not look like a leader-quality toy, certainly not one worth $60. I'm guessing that's the proper config for his chesticles after some debate on TFW. That bot mode looks unfinished and the shuttle mode is burdened by a great deal of unsightly kibble along its flanks as well as some odd cowcatcher-like protrusion under the nose. The train mode is the only improvement, and while it still doesn't look even as good or believable as the G1 toy's, it's the best thing this toy has going for it. I was anticipating this figure the most out of all the new SS86 announcements, and I'm pretty disappointed. Shockwave was my other anticipatory figure, and he's basically the Siege toy minus all the surface detail. I prefer said detail so it looks like I'll be skipping this fig, too. I already have versions of Wheeljack, Sunstreaker, and Snarl that I like, so it looks like Skywarp is the only fig from this wave I'll be picking up. So bummed about Astrotrain, though. ☹️

[JB0]

11 hours ago, lechuck said:

That didn't take long... Optimus Prime

I'm surprised he wasn't the first Overgear they announced, and applaud their restraint.

[M'Kyuun]

33 minutes ago, JB0 said:

I'm surprised he wasn't the first Overgear they announced, and applaud their restraint.

No kidding. How much longer before we see a Bumblebee and Megatron? And then reiteration after reiteration of just those same four characters.

[mikeszekely]

Well, not particularly interested in Ironhide at that price, but I suppose I'll have to get Prime...

[JB0]

So I saw an in-hand picture, which makes judging size a lot easier.

 

And I'm surprised. Blackout is actually notably bigger than Ironhide. 

[mikeszekely]

Someone pointed out that SS86 Skywarp's shoulders are black when they should be purple, and it's driving me nuts because I know it's wrong but I kinda think black looks better...

EDIT: And yeah, Shockwave is WAY too small.

If I were Newage, I'd make a Shockwave that's the same size as SS86 Megatron with none of the Siege holdovers like those heels.  Get one over on Hasbro for making SS86 Optimus bigger so Romulus wound up too small.

Edited yesterday at 06:34 AM by mikeszekely

[JB0]

So someone elsewhere linked a photo of the new Shockwave attaching to Bruticus. And that's all well and good, but I'm looking at the process and just going "So they DID find a way to sneak a gun mode past legal." It isn't a historically accurate pistol grip, and requires you to disarm Bruticus, but... they snuck a gun mode in.

Also, in doing so they kinda sorta published instructions for how an aftermarket parts company can mount a more appropriate pistol grip. So that's something to look forward to.

Edited yesterday at 08:11 AM by JB0

[davidwhangchoi]

9 minutes ago, JB0 said:

So someone elsewhere linked a photo of the new Shockwave attaching to Bruticus. And that's all well and good, but I'm looking at the process and just going "So they DID find a way to sneak a gun mode past legal." It isn't a historically accurate pistol grip, and requires you to disarm Bruticus, but... they snuck a gun mode in.

Also, in doing so they kinda sorta published instructions for how an aftermarket parts company can mount a more appropriate pistol grip. So that's something to look forward to.

that does look neat. 

 

[sh9000]

I'll still be getting SS TFTM Shockwave because I like it more than the Siege version.  I wish the front cannon was removable though.  As for cannon mode, I'm just going to flip spaceship mode upside down.

[Black Valkyrie]

 

The OG Line looks impressive but pricey.  I am  just waiting for the Seekers how they would turnout,  Im hoping for a OG Soundwave, always wanted a SW in  proper vehicle alt mode. 

 

 

[Hikuro]

I'm reading a lot of hatred over SS86 Astrotrain. Infact if you hit Reddit you'll see almost every hour the last couple of days someone has been posting images about how mistransformed the promo images have been, then when new images come in that's a little better, it's still supposedly mistransformed even further but fixed a couple of the gripes. But it seems a ton are in agreement the price tag and what we're getting just doesn't match up well and making others think they will either keep their WFC variant or Headmaster. I for one stayed with my Headmaster but rarely ever saw the WFC which I thought was a nicer figure at the time.

As for this SS86 Astrotrain, I'm not impressed by it, he seems to be overall just a hard character to design as a physical toy. His robot mode is a bit of a mishmash of details with really long heels on him which I just despise when I see stuff like that. Overall just his legs are terrible looking. And then the torso area we can't seem to see what's going on cause every image is still mistransformed one way or another.

Shockwave is gonna be a total pass, I'm fine with the WFC release, I don't need another one for a brighter purple. I have zero need for ANOTHER Wheeljack let alone a 3rd release of Sunstreaker. I'm actually surprised we haven't gotten a chest blown out Wheeljack yet. 

I passed on TC so I'll pass on SW as well.....the biggest reason is due to the quality of plastic people are reporting on TC from yellowing significantly to stress marks and even full on breakage. That's rather sad.....on a black figure like SW it's just gonna be worse on the stress. 

So far, the only thing I see that might be worth getting would be the Matrix...and I can just go and print my own if I really want too.....

[sh9000]

I would have settled for the cleaner looking Dramatic Capture Series Astrotrain to be released as SS TFTM Astrotrain.

Depending on price, I'll probably get the Matrix.

[mikeszekely]

Yeah, I think that even if/when we see Astrotrain transformed proper, the robot mode is clearly not as good as Siege's.  But the thing is, they fixed the mess of a rear on the shuttle, making it slightly better, and the train actually looks like a train with all it's wheels lined up.  So I'll probably get him anyway.  Likewise, I'll probably grab Shockwave.  The colors and the remolded parts are a bit of an improvement.  But I'm very disappointed that they didn't do more with him.

Disappointed or not, preorders will be Tuesday for the figures.  Monday for the Matrix.

[mikeszekely]

Celebrate America's 250th birthday with... a lazy repaint of Airazor. 😒