Not long ago, the anticipated Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover lost its director, Steven Caple Jr., with new reports suggesting his departure followed a heated argument with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura.
So, new Amazon US listings today include "TRA GEN Studio Series A Level DLX DEV OP," along with the first Devastator component, Studio Series VOY TFOne Sentinel, and some bayformer I forgot already due to negative fucks to give about bayformer toys. Given the DX price point I might suspect it just being a screen colors (and possibly extra cel shading tampos like the 35th anniversary OP and Megs) repaint of the toy-colors Missing Link OP At Home, but Studio Series usually have at least some fairly decent amount of remolding if they're not first-run molds entirely (as with WFCS VOY Springer to the not-Leader S86,) it's scheduled to release only a couple months after that Legacy version, and there's not a lot to change on the Legacy DX Optimus except MAYBE the head without basically remaking it entirely given how simple the OP transformations usually are.
All that points to a new mold to me, though that would then make, what, four new Deluxe-plus OP molds in a year? SS Deluxe TFOne OP, S86 not-Commander OP, that Leader class TFOne OP shown at one of the Asian toy shows a couple days ago, Legacy DX OP, that's four, maybe even five if you count Prime Changers as "Deluxe" instead of Warrior." Even with the big "face of the franchise" characters like OP and Dumbassotron they don't usually go that hard outside the lower-end gimmick toy sublines.
The big question is what exactly "DEV" is supposed to indicate, but the best guess I've seen would be the Devastation game version - which would support the cel shading deco possibility, at least, but could be the MP-10 At Home to the Commander class's MP-44 At Home, or just filling the midpoint step between WFCE not-Leader OP and WFCK Core OP with a modern animation-/screen-model style interpretation. That would fill a hole in the lineup, since otherwise the Earthspark Warrior class (no, not the Deluxe, its backpack isn't any better, the arms are more enkibbled, and the hips are more restricted) is the best animation-model Optimus to be had at roughly five-inch scale, and he's both pretty well out of the retail supply channels and not really much closer to the G1 animation model than the Legacy DX looks from the photos available so far, just in a Post-BtAS DC Comics Style way instead of going for toy accuracy.
In My Holy Opinion ahem, I mean, that's my take, anyway. Wot u got m8s?
... and now they're gone again -- super gone; following a link to the listings gets you the Amazon dogs who are sorry but can't find that page -- but the preorders are still on the system as far as it will tell me, and the shipping dates got moved up from next April to December. Whiskey tango foxtrot, over?
And while I know this thread tends to be more lenient due to low activity, I sincerely apologize about the triple post. In my defense, they do each have something approaching legitimate "breaking news" as far as TF toys are concerned, each having appeared hours after I made the previous post.
MP Rhinox is what I'm most excited for. Beast Wars is my all-time favorite Transformers series, and Rhinox is in my top-ten favorite characters franchise-wide.
Leader (for USD $79.99) class TFOne Orion listings are up on Pulse (sold out) and some of the asia-market supplied sites. At least they admit it's not actually a Commander class this time, even if they've packed in a bunch of crap that will just get thrown in the parts bin. Small progress is still progress, right? Even so:
HOW? HOW DOES THE SUB-DELUXE CLASS PRIME CHANGER END UP LOOKING BETTER THAN THE PREMIUM BIG-BUDGET FIGURE? HOW DO YOU FUCK THIS UP, HASBRO!?
Head! No giant cheek blocks!
Shoulders! In proportion! No giant tumors hanging off the back!* Iconic smokestacks, not some freakish multi-stepped spindle-gun-things!
Lower arms! Not stretched out like a monkey!
Lower legs! In proportion!
Hell, even the backpack is smaller, since they don't have to hide the front of the truck away for a fauxforming chest!
* Well, okay, the tumors are still there, but they're much smaller compared to the rest of the part. With how oversized the rest of the shoulders are on the Leader version, they could have been the upper arms all alone.
Hasbro Pulse now sucks, for the record. Their 'update' has made it slow. I've got to enter information several times. Yes, Pulse. I'm verifying I'm from the US... like the last twenty fucking times. Good lord they screwed the pooch!
Hasbro Pulse now sucks, for the record. Their 'update' has made it slow. I've got to enter information several times. Yes, Pulse. I'm verifying I'm from the US... like the last twenty fucking times. Good lord they screwed the pooch!
At least they fixed the search filtering and layout size, immediately after the update there was no "sort by newest" and you could only get three-across on the product listings. Fine for mobile users I guess, but severely wasting screen space on desktop, or if you just prefer landscape mode. You still have to set it to four across every single time, and setting the thumbnail size and letting them stack however many across as your screen has room for would be the way that actually made sense, but it is at least minimally functional after that fix.
edit: In related news, I had to cancel my Flame/Xaaron preorder just now, so if you ride the F5 key you might get lucky. Not actually sold out, surprisingly. Well, I did just prune it myself, so...
All right. Here's what will hopefully be a weekly series. A review of one of the toys from my collection. I'll basically be doing random picks from my collection. one week a BW toy, another from G1, then maybe Animated. I won't go too much into detail, just showing off, talking about the toy but will share some info from the Wiki.
So, to start with, I'm gonna start a the beginning of my own Transformers fandom. Sorta. Ladies and gentlemen, here is G1 Bluestreak!
G1 Bluestreak
This is an Encore Reissue of Bluestreak from the mid-2000s. The original toy was one of the original 1984 Transformers and was repurposed from Diaclone. He transforms into a rather lovely Datsun 280ZX Turbo. What's amusing is my dad owned a Datsun back in the day.
There's not much to say. His doors open, and there's some small play in his wheels. Unfortunately, like most G1 toys, he's got no place to store his weapons in vehicle mode.
Transformation is basically Transformers 101. Pull out the back and fold it down to form the legs and feet. Rotate the front around, pull the arms out from under the hood and fold the hood down. Then attach the missile launchers.
And here's Bluestreak in his robot mode. Again, this is car-robot 101. I like that he's made of his car part, and he's got really no backpack. The door wings form a pleasing silhouette. Articulation is... not that bad for a 1984 toy. Wrist swivels. Forward elbows, and universal shoulders. If you flip up his waist tab you even get a waist swivel.
Bluestreak's bio is he's the last survivor of his city-state, and he was very traumatized by it. He 'talks a blue streak' to try and keep the demons at bay. I really think he's a very overlooked character and 10000% should get more exposure.
So, that's my first review. Any thoughts and/or concrit would be appreciated.
Not even - Bumblebee and Cliffjumper had the same engineering but different car modes, obscured ass that was by the SD squooshing of the Penny Racers that they were adapted from. All three of the Datsun bots have the same base car and only Smokescreen even got a different head sculpt and weapons IIRC, while Prowl just had a lightbar and colors to differentiate from Bluestreak.
Not even - Bumblebee and Cliffjumper had the same engineering but different car modes, obscured ass that was by the SD squooshing of the Penny Racers that they were adapted from. All three of the Datsun bots have the same base car and only Smokescreen even got a different head sculpt and weapons IIRC, while Prowl just had a lightbar and colors to differentiate from Bluestreak.
How big should that size be? Preferably somewhere between the size in Transformers Prime (1,220 km radius, ref. Unicron being Earth's core) and the size in the Marvel comics (58,232 km, ref. Cybertron being stated to be Saturn sized)
They should definitely not be smaller than in Prime or bigger than in the Marvel comics, and somewhere between those extremes would be ideal
Seriously though, just Cybertron itself is canonically both larger than Saturn and smaller than Luna on screen in G1 alone, while Unicron goes from being double or so the diameter of Lithone as a planet to small enough for Galvatron to be visible standing on his "collar" and (at a different relative size again) falling into his mouth and Grimlock to leave a visible scuff on his ass in robot mode to standing maybe one and a half to two times the diameter of Cybertron, and then for a Quintesson corkscrew ship to be maybe half as wide across the lobes as one of his optics is the short way. Make them whatever size suits your plot in a given scene, and that will be more accurate than giving them a hard number.
All three of the Datsun bots have the same base car and only Smokescreen even got a different head sculpt and weapons IIRC, while Prowl just had a lightbar and colors to differentiate from Bluestreak.
Toy-wise, all three Datsun brothers are the same. In the Sunbow series, though, all three had different heads. Prowl and Bluestreak had different waists, and Bluestreak had the shoulder launchers deployed while Prowl didn't. Smokescreen's bumper chest was thicker, and his launchers were quite different from Bluestreak's. Their Masterpiece toys reflect these differences. It's quite honestly a hell of a lot better than the first three Seekers, who have no physical differences at all.
More TFOne merch has appeared - kids-size costumes. The guys are kinda meh (which means still a million lightyears better than the Earthspark-labeled ones) but Elita actually looks like something I wouldn't be embarrassed to shepard a niece or neighbor's girl wearing it around on Halloween - maybe because the head doesn't look so out of scale, when she's always had a big poofy-hair/lion mane kind of effect going on, versus the others' tight fitting helmets? The less over-emphasized shoulders help a lot too.
Images from Amazon again, but I'm a bit afraid I might get get dinged for spamming if I keep linking to listings, so instead I'll just say that "transformers disguise" (the costumer brand name is "Disguise" which is at once usefully descriptive and a common word, so I have no idea how they managed to register it) and sorting for the newest will bring them up.
So, it's Tuesday. Time for Transformers Tuesdays as I pick a random toy from my collection to review. I'm sticking with G1 as I find my way with this new thing I'm doing. So now it's time for...
G1 TOPSPIN
This is Topspin, released in 1985. This is actually my vintage one, from when I was a kid. He transforms into a... well, the Wiki calls him a pontoon-fronted air-skiff vehicle. Is that a hovercraft? I don't know. He always looked like a starship to me. This might be one of the earliest examples of what i've dubbed the 'Yogaformer', or a Transformer whose alt mode really isn't much of anything. They just fold up into a shape. Anyway, the rifle there isn't something official, but at least he can hold it so it has somewhere to go in vehicle mode.
Topspin is a Jumpstarter. Pull him back and it winds up a little motor inside. He goes forward a bit and 'jumps up' into robot mode. In theory, at least. In practice... mine never worked. The legs were released, but Topspin never really launched himself upright.
Here he is in robot mode. Sadly, most of his stickers are gone. The two left on his wings with the DAR stand for 'Diaclone Attack Robo'. In this mode all he's got for articulation is in his shoulders. They can swivel 360 degrees. I do like the amount of firepower he's packing.
Topspin's bio paints him as an adventurer. He's more at home fording rivers or climbing mountains. 'The thrill is in the journey'. Like Bluestreak, he's another character that I feel is severely underutilized and could do with a bigger role.
All right. Tune in next week when I go beyond G1. What toy will I review? Not even I know that!
That would be one of those fan-propelled pontoon boats stereotypically used in swampy areas, like any movie or TV show that is (or is supposed to be) set in the Florida Everglades or Louisiana bayou pulls out. But with attack helicopter winglets grafted on the side for some reason The RL ones are a practical craft for the purpose, as the pontoons give it a shallower draft than a V ghull, and the fan means there's no propeller in the water to get tangled or run into obstacles/the bottom/etc. I guess you could call it a hovercraft without the actual hover parts, or perhaps a precursor before someone got the idea to add a lift fan and air skirt, depending on which actually came first?
In any case, I remember these guys as being the first Transformers I ever saw on the shelves and said "Nah, I don't want one." I am annoyed at having missed out on the Titans Return version, though, and Hasbro for doing a rerelease of Twin Twist for the Amazon Wreck-n-Rule subline but never Topspin.
I think the premise is flawed and the argument presented for it is poor.
SPAG B+ but it argues against itself by beginning with "TFTM ruined a bunch of childhoods by killing off the old cast" and ending on "TFTM proved children could handle having their favorite characters die in a movie," when TFTM's theater performance very much proved that no, kids do not want to see their heroes get killed and parents don't want to deal with their little angels breaking out into wailing tears from the trauma. I would also dispute the idea that a movie rated PG-13 in 2019 is made for the same audience as a movie that had to have a cuss word added to the script to get a PG in 1986, for a franchise where thirteen was the top end of the target demographic rather than the floor.
Even beyond that, the direct, cause and effect result it had on movies was that the next toy-based kids movie, for GI Joe, got a hasty rewrite and voice over change to explicitly not kill off the leader of the good guys, while commercials saying "don't worry, Optimus Prime will return" were running on TV before the end of the week and the in-produciton third season got a resurrection jammed into it immediately after the "unconfident new leader accepts growing into the role" episode.
It's a bold move that older fans can appreciate with their wider perspective, but in both the immediate reaction to the film itself and in having such an impact on the series and industry as a whole to need an immediate IC retcon as soon as it could be pushed out the door, the effect was essentially the opposite of what the article is proposing.
serpentorslair.com
