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 Friday 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 Friday 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 Friday at 10:30 AM 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 Friday at 08:55 PM 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.  😅

[m0n5t3r]

Preorders for SS86 Sunstreaker finally showed up here. But the comments on Hound several pages back made me rethink my preorder. So, I canceled Hound after preordering Sunstreaker. Aside from the weird looking feet and incomplete rear in jeep mode, the ultimate deal breaker for me is that panel at the back of the head. You would think that that would be something that should have been eliminated from modern toy engineering. I've been content with my Henkei Hound for the past 18 years, what's another 18... or whenever Hasbro or Takara admit that it's now entirely possible to miniaturize MP Hound.

Edited Sunday at 06:14 AM by m0n5t3r

[mikeszekely]

I actually like SS86 Hound.  Yeah, he's far from perfect, but as retools of Siege molds go I think his was alright.

In other rumors, take all this with the usual salt, but...

1. I'm hearing rumors of a Pulse-exclusive set that will contain Ironhide, Bluestreak, and Mirage.  I do NOT know which versions, though I expect that Bluestreak and Mirage will be Earthrise.

2. I don't know if it's going to be an exclusive somewhere or not, since it's not part of the mainline Age of the Primes releases, but expect another release of the Armada Megatron mold as Megazarak.

3. I've mentioned before that Walmart will have an exclusive Energon capsule line.  Sadly, it doesn't seem to be based on the Energon/Superlink.  The first four releases will be Cybertread ( a retool of Kingdom Slammer), Cybertronic (a retool of Siege Sixgun), Optimus Prime (a blue repaint of Siege Optimus), and Dark Energon Megatron (a black and purple repaint of Miner Megatron).

4. I'd heard something about transforming faction symbols that seemed a bit out there.  Well, my sources tell me it's real, they're going under "Icons" branding, and the first one will be Icons Optimus Prime, who turns from Autobot leader into Autobot insignia.  Retail price around $46, should be out this fall, expect preorders in the very near future.

[shazam]

 

[rsvictor1976]

Studio Series Hound. I think this is the first ever Hound toy I’ve ever owned.

[26662]

11 hours ago, rsvictor1976 said:

Studio Series Hound. I think this is the first ever Hound toy I’ve ever owned.

What’s your impression?  I’ve only owned the G1 version - as a military brat and science nerd, he was always my favorite.  I think I have maybe half a dozen sitting MISB.

[rsvictor1976]

2 hours ago, 26662 said:

What’s your impression?  I’ve only owned the G1 version - as a military brat and science nerd, he was always my favorite.  I think I have maybe half a dozen sitting MISB.

The toy itself didn’t have any issues. The joints were tight, no stress points, everything fit well. Besides the color, it doesn’t really look accurate to the screen character. I know it’s an older mould. Overall I’m happy it’s in my collection like Jazz and Perceptor but I don’t think it’s something I’ll play around with a lot and it’ll just sit in the display cabinet.

[mikeszekely]

Life's been busy so I've had this stuff on the backburner for awhile.  But I have some more stuff coming this week or next, so I better get these repaints out of the way.

First up, we have Studio Series The Last Knight Nemesis Prime, who is a retool of Age of Extinction Optimus Prime.  He comes with the same sword, shield, and gray part that lets you plug them onto his back.  And, because Nemesis Prime was just a mind-controlled Optimus, deco changes are pretty subtle.  The blue plastic is a little lighter, the gray plastic a little darker.

There are some mold changes, too.  The most obvious one is that he's porting a new head.  In addition to having the extra purple eyes and red "I'm evil now!" stripe, they've swapped his masked face for his unmasked face, which I kinda like.  They also remolded his forearms.  That's because, for reasons I do not fully understand, Optimus gets like 95% of his new knight body when he scans a passing truck, but his arms change again to have a more armored look when he picks up the Sword of Judgement later in the film.  That armored look is the one that carried over into The Last Knight.

In addition to a new head and new forearms, Nemesis Prime has a few more accessories.  The larger arm blade that could also be used as a handheld sword is gone.  In its place Nemesis gets a smaller arm blade and the quad-barreled shotgun he used in the film.

With the retooling being fairly minor, you can expect that Nemesis and Optimus have the same articulation and the same transformation.  With none of the remolded parts showing in truck mode the differences are even more minor... again, there's the fact that the blue is a tad lighter and the gray plastic a bit darker, but that's nearly it.  The only other difference, which seems to come down to cheaping out on how many parts need to be painted, is that the flames on the sides of the cab are shortened so they don't spill over onto that last panel.

Prime's sword and shield can still work with the storage part, and despite being a new mold the smaller arm blade is designed to plug into the the shield, same as the bigger one.  This allows the whole shebang to be stored on Prime's back in robot mode or on his trailer hitch in truck mode.  The new shotgun is a bit trickier.  It has a slot on one side that can fit over the edge of the window on Prime's backpack in robot mode.  It can be stored on the side of the truck over the rear wheels by grabbing onto a tab there as well.

I like the new head, forearm, and accessories... I kind of wish they'd left off the stripe and given him normal blue eyes as just regular The Last Knight Optimus.  Personally, I think if you wanted a copy of this mold that I'd go with this one over the Age of Extinction version, but if you already have that one and aren't keen on shelling out 2026 Leader money on another one it's mostly the same toy.

Next up, we have the Takara T-Spark 40th anniversary Lio Convoy.  This toy reminds me a lot of what Takara used to do with their Legends figures (or what they've been doing with their Dramatic Capture Series).  They took a mainline toy, in this case Legacy Evolution Leo Prime, and spent a little more money to "fix" it.  Fixing it, in this case, means swapping the blue paint with a metallic blue paint, redoing some parts that were painted metallic gray/silver in white on his chest, adding metallic silver over the white on his inner thighs, finish painting the bottom of his abs, and coloring his shoulder joints.

Of course, some minor deco corrections alone wouldn't be enough to get most people to shell out a premium to import Lio Convoy.  No, the big change here is that they completely remolded the lion head and mane, including the bits on his forearms.  This doesn't just change the look (which we'll address in a bit), it adds the spinning gimmick "Lion Typhoon" from the cartoon/original toy.

Transformation is basically the same, but the result is something else.  Gone is the Kingdom/Legacy habit of trying to make the beast modes look a little more realistic, a move that really didn't pay off for Leo Prime in the first place.  I think a lot of people's main complaint with the figure was the doofy lion face.  T-Spark Lio Convoy's lion face is very cartoony.  I think you could fairly question whether it fits in with the other Kingdom/Legacy Beast Wars toys, but it's undeniably far more cartoon-accurate, and, IMHO, a marked improvement.

That said, they come with some drawbacks.  T-Spark Lio Convoy comes with half the accessories of the Legacy toy.  He's got the longer, thinner weapons, which are now very nicely painted and can still store in the lion's back.  However, the shorter, fatter blasters are omitted.  This is because, due to how his mane was remolded, there isn't room to store them.

Yes, there are still 5mm ports there.  And yes, you can still flip the mane over and put the blasters there for an attack mode.  There's even enough room to stow them there in robot mode (though, again, his back works).  But there's not enough clearance to close the mane in lion mode.

A side effect of this is that Lio Convoy has no handheld weapons, as the tabs on the blasters he does have do not fit in his fists.  You can still plug them into the mane bits on his forearms, though.  He's also got longer Lion Claws, which better match the original toy/anime.  The longer claws are too big to fold entirely away inside the lion leg, but are oriented the other way around to hug the contour of the back of the leg.

I've always been a fan of Lio Convoy's design, and while I was happy to get the Legacy toy at the time the fact that they didn't paint the rest of his abs and the terrible lion head were definitely sore spots for me.  The T-Spark version fixes all of my biggest complaints with the toy, but the reduction in accessories is a bummer.  On the whole, I'd say it was worth it to me to upgrade from the Legacy toy, and this is 100% the version I'd recommend getting if you want a Lio Convoy but don't have one yet.  But if you already have the Legacy toy I can definitely see why it might not be worth it for you to upgrade.  I'm not sure I would if they release the T-Spark mold in Nemesis/Dark Amber colors, and I don't have any plans to buy the announced Legendary Green version.

Last but not least... ok, well, actually least.  Yeah.  It's Junkion Jalopy.  Jalopy is a repaint of Axlegrease from the neck down.  No mold changes, same exact accessories.  The only difference is his head, which isn't even new.  It's the head that Hasbro created for the Tow-Line repaint of Scraphook.

I suppose I prefer the car retool that is Jalopy/Axlegrease/Lockdown to the truck version that is Scraphook/Towline... but if I'm being totally honest, while I was fine buying all the retools of SS86 Wreck-Gar (and would probably be willing to buy a few more), I was never a fan of these fan-fiction, waste of slots and new tooling budget (that would have been better spent on making a proper Breakdown instead of sticking a spoiler or Wildrider, and no, I will NOT let that go).  I don't recommend Jalopy, because I don't recommend ANY of these Junkions.

So, if I don't recommend Jalopy, a fair question to ask is why I bothered to pick him up at all.  Honestly, I didn't, at first.  But the answer is actually Axlegrease.  See, I get where the team was coming from... the Junkions don't have to be this monolithic species, so why not make one that's a girl, and why not make her a Decepticon instead of the usual Autobot ally?  See, whether I actually like/recommend them or not, I do already have Scraphook, Trashmaster, and Crashbar.  Aesthetically and conceptually, Jalopy just fits in better with them than Axlegrease does.  Now, again, maybe it's fine to have three dudes in the usual Junkion colors hanging with the Autobots, and one misfit who decides to run off with the Decepticons, except that an undocumented feature of the Junkions is the ability to combine into Junkasaurus as long as you have one Trashmaster (or, I suppose, Animated Wreck-Gar, who I definitely will NOT be getting), one Crashbar (or, I suppose, Road Pig from the Walmart Star Raiders line), Scraphook, and Axlegrease (or, in a pinch, Tow-Line or Star Raiders Lockdown).  Swapping Axlegrease for Jalopy will give Junkasaurus a more cohesive, uniform color scheme.