They are often more awkward than they ought to be.

Complexity in itself shouldn't be seen as the ideal.

I'm very much of the opinion that full on, excessive shell-forming is 'doing it wrong', 'cheating', and basically missing the point. The more it's kept to a minimum, the better.

 

My impression of this optimus prime is he is just damn ugly.

 

I doubt it. I imagine it's much more simpler to put a shell around a folded up robot. I prefer Transformers to be like puzzle boxes.

 

I like it more than not......

 

Have you played with Mach Kick?

 

Incorrect. Those shell pieces are supposed to integrate into the robot mode in some form or another. Designing something like that's a bitch. DOTM Sentinel Prime is one of those panel formers that would be a puzzle box and a shell former.

 

It's fugly.

Love the alt mode though.

but it's really just a fugly robot.

sigh.

Yeah.

 

It did not need to be that complex. The voyager version was more of a shell former and the transformation was a lot simpler. This Optimus feels like an oversized voyager figure just like how many of the BH toys Hasbro showed at SDCC looked like oversized legion toys.

 

I would rather have oversized Voyagers than oversized legion class figures

 

The alternate mode looks really good. The robot mode just looks like a mess. Nowhere close to the CGI robot mode. Not liking the backpack of the rear wheels on his back like that. I was expecting better from Hasbro. They did a great leader Prime for ROTF which was a big improvement over leader Prime from TF1. Really surprised that this leader Prime for the upcoming new movie is a lazy effort from them. Could be better.

 

What disgusts me about this thread is the number of Hasbro apologists who would do anything to say good things about their low quality offerings such as this AOE optimus prime.


What kind of 'fans' exist to condone hasbro's conjob?

I've stopped collecting TF for a while because not only are they getting more expensive, the quality is also dropping a lot and they look like counterfeits or low quality knock offs from China cloners.

 

Things like Leader G1 Jetfire make me think they can still do great figures. It is just the movie designs are getting worse and more complicated all the while costs are rising and they are looking to simplify the figures. The two simply don't mix at all.

 

Worth bumping, I hope, to add that, now that we have the toy in-hand – yes, yes they did assemble the NYCC display model wrong. They put the left fender on the right leg and vice-versa.  

 

Ohp! He put 'fans' in quotes. That's basically "true fans" right? I don't have my bingo card anymore.

I just love this mentality. "How dare they find MERIT in something I don't like!"

 

I got mine today!! I was at TRU with my kids, strolled by the aisle and sadly saw nothing new. I was hoping for at least a Cosmos by now. Walked the rest of the store with them for 20 minutes and went back - LO AND BEHOLD Leader Prime and Grimlock were stocked while I was meandering!! I almost bought Grimmy because he looks badass in bot mode, but the brown zucchini he turns in to doesn't work for me.

Naturally at the register the manager had to be called, she apologized but let me buy it anyway  

I like him - sure he's nowhere near the complexity of DOTM Prime whom I adore, but is was nice to be able to actually switch him back & forth in under 5 minutes. So mission accomplished there. I wasted no time returning some missing details with my silver & bronze metallic Sharpies, and blasted the hilt of his frozen-piss-blade with some silver spray. Looks pretty good!







I do wish they had done more of his head in silver, since it APPEARS in the movie clips that the sides of his head are predominantly silver. I didn't want to mess with marking his noggin all up with Sharpie, it doesn't look good over larger areas.

 

I think it would have been beneficial for Hasbro if they had their TF toy designers work closely with the movie CGI designers. It seems that there is a lot of "cheating" going on with how the CGI characters transform, and this is making it very difficult for Hasbro designers to achieve copying the the look of the CGI robot designs.

I'm not thrilled with Optimus Prime not having his trademark chest windows this time around. That's his signature look just as much as his red and blue colors are. Even though he has the faceplate, and the colors, the design does not evoke "Optimus Prime" to me. That said, he does look like a "Prime" in overal design and proportions. If I decide to pick one up, he'll probably be my stand-in movie Ultra magnus.

I think that TF4 Leader Prime is an improvement over FE Prime. He still has truck-loads of massive kibble all around him, but somehow they don't look as atrocious to me compared to the FE TF4 Prime.

The 2007 movie Leader Prime is built like a tank, and it has a few gimmicks built into it. This added some unwanted bulk to him, but overall, I still believe he is a great figure. This was Hasbro's first movie Optimus Prime, and it turned out pretty good for their first attempt. I don't think it's fair to use it as a comparison. And yes, the ROTF Leader Prime is essentially a masterpiece. But those days are gone starting with the DOTM toys, just like die-cast parts and rubber tires.

Hasbro's going in a different direction this time around. With a transformation target of around 20 steps or less, there's bound to be sacrifices in design and aesthetics. I'm not exactly happy about it either. In fact, I'm pretty disappointed. Hasbro is stuck with trying to make transformations feasable for young kids on characters that have highly complex transformations on the big screen. Hence why I think Hasbro should have worked very closely with the CGI designers.

But we got what we got, and in my personal opinion, it looks better than the DOTM Voyaer Prime. Yeah, I like that one too, but not for its realism. While I don't think it's the greatest thing since sliced-bread, I also don't think it's the worst Prime ever. Is it worth the $44.99 price tag? I haven't been ablle to come to that conclusion yet. But it isn't worthless junk. It has good things going for it like decent articulation, a nice chrome grill and smoke stacks, sharp red and blue colors, and some nice detailing all over, for example.

 

Another pic after I added more "knight silver" to his head, making it a bit more accurate to the new photos we got today...

 

I don't think I can get past the weird yellow windows. I guess since Hasbro didn't put a light up feature in him and then put in the wrong color LEDs, screaming yellow windows would have to do

 

What's confusing to me is that I usually use the smug, condescending "fans" in quotes to describe the people who complain about everything, not the ones who are enjoying the hobby.

I think this toy is kind of garbage and I won't buy it. But it's not the end of the world, nor do I like it less than the original Leader Optimus from the first movie. So, whatever. And the vehicle mode is pretty great.

 

Yeah I don't get that either. Guess they thought, "We're on a roll with ugly green windows nobody likes on this Beast Hunter Prime, let's keep this party rolling." Well he won't spend much time in truck mode anyway, though it does look decent otherwise.