The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[sh9000]

Monstructor.

[M'Kyuun]

Sheesh! These look like cheap toys you'd get out of one of those coin-operated dispensers where the little toys come in plastic bubbles. Can't believe these are part of AotP line. Fortunately, I've no interest, so money saved.

Lots of vitriol and criticism toward SS86 Astrotrain, much of it earned, alas. As more pics of it surface (especially screenshots of Hasbro's stop-motion video) showing it from different angles, I fear I must agree with a great deal of the criticism. I'm coming around to wishing they'd done a heavy retool of the Siege toy to address its most glaring deficiencies instead of producing this figure. SS86 Astrotrain is simply not a good capture in virtually any context. Train mode is his only redemption, and only just.

Edited yesterday at 01:11 AM by M'Kyuun

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

Sheesh! These look like cheap toys you'd get out of one of those coin-operated dispensers where the little toys come in plastic bubbles. Can't believe these are part of AotP line. Fortunately, I've no interest, so money saved.

To be fair, Monstructor is a retool of Dinoking, who himself was a repaint of the Core-class Dinobots.  If you'll recall from my reviews the were never the best, as Core-class toys were pretty limited by their budget when they only had to do a robot and alt mode, but the Dinobots (and Dinoking) were further hampered by having to do the combining gimmick.  Frankly I'm impressed that that Hasbro even bothered to do any remolding to make their alt modes look a bit more like G1 toys (sans Pretender shells).

 

[M'Kyuun]

9 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

To be fair, Monstructor is a retool of Dinoking, who himself was a repaint of the Core-class Dinobots.  If you'll recall from my reviews the were never the best, as Core-class toys were pretty limited by their budget when they only had to do a robot and alt mode, but the Dinobots (and Dinoking) were further hampered by having to do the combining gimmick.  Frankly I'm impressed that that Hasbro even bothered to do any remolding to make their alt modes look a bit more like G1 toys (sans Pretender shells).

 

Ah, elucidation most appreciated. I wasn't sure what size/price class these were in, and forgive me, but I likely didn't read your review of the core-class Dinobots, as I've no interest in core-class. Either way, these aren't for me, but as you say, it's cool of Takara/Hasbro to retool these guys into Monstructor, combining gimmick and all, for those to whom they appeal.

[davidwhangchoi]

21 hours ago, m0n5t3r said:

That must have sucked really bad. Right up there with getting a cheap, sucky toy instead of the Optimus Prime you wanted .

Good thing we have these toys now instead of having to go to therapy .

it was tough...

But Michael Bay brought out a new generation of fans that brought transformers back into the spotlight. now we get all these new offerings of the g1 line and fans are still into TF.

Edited yesterday at 05:12 AM by davidwhangchoi

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, davidwhangchoi said:

it was tough...

But Michael Bay brought out a new generation of fans that brought transformers back into the spotlight. now we get all these new offerings of the g1 line and fans are still into TF.

Indeed he did. I'm quite frank about my vehement dislike of the Bay films; I think they're utterly irredeemable as entertainment, let alone Transformers media. However, there are those who like them, quite a few I've gathered, which led to their making bundles of money for Hasbro, who in turn, funneled some of that cash back into toys. The overcomplex, illogical, mechanically unfeasible, and shardy look of the Bay-bots forced Takara to push the boundaries of their engineering skills resulting in some of the most complex toys we've ever seen from the company. Moreover, those funds helped pay for excellent shows like Prime and Animated, each of which explored unorthodox aesthetics which informed the toys, which also benefitted from Takara's stretching their engineering skills for Bayformers toys. Additionally, as you said, it drew new generations of kids into the Transformers fandom and the results are manifest in the still thriving franchise we have today. For that, Mr. Bay deserves thanks. I just hope Hasbro reconsiders letting him direct another film, as I doubt it'll end as well as they're anticipating. I think they should focus on doing quality animation. Quality.

It's a terrible shame that Transformers One did so poorly at the box office; I hope it'll redeem itself on streaming. It was a good Transformers film, light years better than all of Bay's movies put together.

[26662]

2 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Indeed he did. I'm quite frank about my vehement dislike of the Bay films; I think they're utterly irredeemable as entertainment, let alone Transformers media.

light years better than all of Bay's movies put together.

This.  I was still a grad student when the first Bayformers (my first time using that term) movie was released.  My labmates knew I was stupid-obsessed with TFs, and since we all enjoyed playing hooky now and then, we caught the first matinee showing available.  I still remember apologizing to them for making them suffer through that experience.

Edited 22 hours ago by 26662

[JB0]

I'm personally deeply disappointed with Bristleback and Slog. (The teal+gold one and the gold+black one). They're both very far off the original designs, and not really in a good way. However, I greatly appreciate that Hasbro didn't decide to replace gold plastic with yellow plastic for these two, as I've seen them do for other characters with a lot of gold.

Slog fares worse, and because he forms the upper body of Monstructor, his faults carry forward into the combined form's chest. His monster mode has gone from short and stout to tall and plump. He still looks like a difficult-to-define lump of gold plastic, so I guess he has that going for him... His humanoid mode is much lankier than I expect for a Slog, making him the only one whose humanoid form I have complaints with, but they're minor aside from the Slag-style hood over his head. All-around, he is the one it is most obvious is repurposed from a design that was never meant to be him.

Bristleback originally had cool bladed wings that are totally absent from the new toy in favor of a huge armored shell that totally off-balances his color set and changes his image. He was a much sleeker robolizard-thing originally. But I GUESS it aligns with his original toy bio, where he hated becoming a pretender because it turned him from swift and nimble to slow and bulky. I'd give them credit if I thought it was intentional.

Icepick(thea teal+red one) has the weakest transformation, but it's...  actually pretty faithful to his original toy presentation, honestly. He has the same problem Optimus Primal has, where he transforms from a humanoid robot into a humanoid robot and the result is somewhat underwhelming.

His leg-mate Scowl(yellow+purple) is actuall;y much improved in the update, in that he actually HAS a monster form instead of just pulling his head down and walking on his knees. 

Birdbrain(black and purple) is ... well, I like it even though it's deviating fairly widely from the original. I never understood how the original was supposed to be a bird, and this one has wings... but on his head for some reason? The potato monster form looks more like a sloth demon than the vulture theming he was supposed to carry, but that vulture theming never carried forward to the original robot, just  to the pretender shell.

Wildfly(red and yellow) is Wildfly. My only comment is the robot head sticking out through the monster head, but... that's honestly not far off the original either. 
 

On the whole this is better than I expected when the possibility of the Dinobot six-pack becoming Monstructor was put forward, but... it's not GOOD.  There ARE some things I'm genuinely impressed with, though.
And I especially like that Icepick and Scowl are flipped "upside-down" so their heads are at the knees instead of buried in the feet. I just like how it looks, especially for a combiner that's intended to be a horror  show. 

 

 

Or as some would say... "Monstructor." A picture is not always worth a thousand words.

 

-------------------------------------------------------

 

8 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Ah, elucidation most appreciated. I wasn't sure what size/price class these were in, and forgive me, but I likely didn't read your review of the core-class Dinobots, as I've no interest in core-class. Either way, these aren't for me, but as you say, it's cool of Takara/Hasbro to retool these guys into Monstructor, combining gimmick and all, for those to whom they appeal.

 

The original Pretender Monsters were also pretty weak, in all honesty. Despite my very strong opinions on them. They were basically Micromasters, with all the rich engineering complexity that subline was known for, so their transformations were ... minimal, to put it charitably. 

Figure I'll attach a photo of the original Monstructor here for reference, since I know he's late in the original line and fairly obscure.
Image stolen from TFWiki. I know where my originals are, but I am not brave enough to push Birdbrain into the solid mass of ancient decaying gold plastic that is Slog. Also, my Bristleback's shiny metal rear-end shattered some time ago, so I can't exactly plug a fist into his exhaust pipe. 

[26662]

Hasbro Pulse just listed Overgear:

https://www.hasbropulse.com/search?q=overgear

Picked up 2 of each.  Ouch.

But Hasbro wasn't done with me. I then cancelled my Power of the Primes Predaking sitting in my Pile of Loot (BBTS) after watching a handful of lackluster YouTube reviews. I then immediately rolled the store credit into two anime-colored G1 Grimlocks.

Expensive Friday for yours truly.

Edited 11 hours ago by 26662

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, 26662 said:

Hasbro Pulse just listed Overgear:

https://www.hasbropulse.com/search?q=overgear

Picked up 2 of each.  Ouch.

But Hasbro wasn't done with me. I then cancelled my Power of the Primes Predaking sitting in my Pile of Loot (BBTS) after watching a handful of lackluster YouTube reviews. I then immediately rolled the store credit into two anime-colored G1 Grimlocks.

Expensive Friday for yours truly.

But Pulse doesn't charge your card until they ship, so you won't fee the Overgear stuff until December... when you're trying to buy Christmas presents.

I just went it for a single Blackout.  Until/unless he gets a G1-ified Generations version, Overgear Blackout will be my stand-in.  I'll definitely go in on Prime, too, but I just don't care enough about Ironhide.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

1 hour ago, 26662 said:

Hasbro Pulse just listed Overgear:

https://www.hasbropulse.com/search?q=overgear

Picked up 2 of each.  Ouch.

But Hasbro wasn't done with me. I then cancelled my Power of the Primes Predaking sitting in my Pile of Loot (BBTS) after watching a handful of lackluster YouTube reviews. I then immediately rolled the store credit into two anime-colored G1 Grimlocks.

Expensive Friday for yours truly.

Thanks for that, I didn't know Pulse would sell em - snagged a Blackout.

[26662]

12 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

But Pulse doesn't charge your card until they ship, so you won't fee the Overgear stuff until December... when you're trying to buy Christmas presents.

I just went it for a single Blackout.  Until/unless he gets a G1-ified Generations version, Overgear Blackout will be my stand-in.  I'll definitely go in on Prime, too, but I just don't care enough about Ironhide.

True re: when the funds leave my account, but I have enough financial discipline -  just barely enough - to account for the future charge today.  So I feel it but don’t yet have anything to show for it.  😅