I still actually feel the Aerialbot being repainted into Blast Off is...okay. Not great, but not super bad either. I think my main problem with it has to do more with the fact that I'm feeling slight 'remold fatigue' with this mold just not being any different from the other versions.

The same can be said about Vortex, but the Alpha Bravo head was clearly intended to be Vortex from the start, so I feel I should give that a pass.

Anyway, apart from costs they probably went with a jet instead of a helicopter into shuttle retool because now the jet's nose sticks up in arm mode, just like on G1 Bruticus. With the CW helicopter mode, the nose would be in a totally different place.



But yeah, looking at Takara's Defensor and Devastator, I fully expect them to come out with a space shuttle Blast Off.  

 

???
They've been making Japanese deluxes since the beginning of time. Oodles of them. Every year. It's nothing special.

 

I'm going to throw this out there, completely crazy as it may be...

They can cover their costs of the Groove mold by selling Groove.

They can cover their costs of the potential Blast Off mold by selling Blast Off.

 

They don't care.

They are in the business to make money and the make more thru redeco than the do new molds.

I'm not much of a fan of it either, but that is the reality.

Also deluxe style figures in Japan have multiple price points versus single price points Hasbro style. That lets them do certain things like extra tampos, shiny painted figures and more one off molds since it is compensated for.

Bruticus is by far the best looking CW combiner hands down, most are not proportioned well at all which is a huge turn off for me.

Devestator looks good as well, but man I would pay a couple more bucks so Long Haul had legs and they got elbows on all the figures......

 

I've always thought Blastoff was an odd choice for a combaticon. Jet makes more sense. Someone actually explained the military aspect of a shuttle, but a more common everyday military vehicle makes more sense. But they need to name him Take Off or Lift Off or something. But for nostalgia sake people want the shuttle. But if everyone is waiting for Takara to do a shuttle, you have to remember they did let Slingshot be a repaint. But as I stated before, with all of the repaints upcoming and interchanging with other combiners, I'm ditching this line whereas I wasn't before. Not paying money for three each of the same figures. They lost my interest. Leaves me money for Devastator.

 

errr? because space shuttles are all flown by air force officers? it's not like all military vehicles need to be armed, even if they're being used in a combat arena...

but we all know the real reason, 30 years ago someone came up with a concept design for a space shuttle based transformer and rather than waste that effort they just shoved the character in whereever so they could sell the toy.

I imagine the conversation went like this (except in Japanese probably):

Designer: Hey look at this cool space shuttle bot!
Executive person: Idiot, we already have a space shuttle bot, and it also turns into a train, who would buy something that just turns into a space shuttle when they could also have a train?
D: Oh yeah... um... well we're working on that scramble city project, what if we made him also a limb bot? then people would almost be forced to buy him!
E: yes, extorting money from parents of whiny children that will one day whine on boards when the internet is invented. I love it! do it.
D: But I don't know what group to put him in... let's see... we got jets... well close but not really, cars... nope, rescue vehicles? no don't see it...
E: I'm getting bored here...
D: monsters... definitely not, weird future vehicles? well no, I based this on a fairly realistic form of space shuttle... errr the military bots? I mean, it's a government use vehicle after all...
E: what? huh? sorry, busy smelling my own farts, yeah great do that one
D: but the scale would be all off if was the limb, maybe a torso...
E: what? no, no we've already got all the torso bots, just make it a limb, the kids are too dumb to notice scale until they turn at least 20 when the internet is a thing and then they'll turn it into a meme, whatever that means.
D: huh... dude that makes no sense, and why do you keep babbling about this internet thing? I'm going to quit working for this ridiculous company and take that offer at Toy Box... they'll let me make this space shuttle/platform/puma/crow bot I've been dreaming of...

and the rest is history!

also sky lynx! what? and it looks pretty awesome...
but... but... why go through the trouble of creating such a great sky lynx and not go a bit further and make him separable... you already put in the lynx head, all you need is a release catch and eagle feet... damn you hasbro! Next you'll be telling me that titan wars blaster won't have a place to put a cassette or whatever steeljaw will end up being...

 

a space shuttle was chosen cause it's the greatest spaceship we have.

 

Sky Lynx is a combiner? Not my cup of tea. But after seeing it, I really hope a 3rd party will make a larger one.

 

Yes, but what American that's not as die-hard as the people on this forum is going to want to pay $30 or more for a deluxe sized figure?

 

Only flaw in that argument though is that they are called COMBATicons. Combat is the key word. A shuttle while flown by air force pilots aren't exactly combat equiped. Not that I'm saying I wouldn't have liked to have seen them make him as one, but the change does indeed make senses.

 

(The Japanese sell them to Japanese. They're not $30 when they're not imports)

 

Technically, hasn't Skylynx always been a combiner?

 

Yeah.

Like STUNTicons. Stunt is the key word. A huge rig like Motormaster is equipped to do stunts, right? What kinda stunt can it do, anyway?

Or the PROTECTobots. Protect is the key word. A motorcycle is equipped to protect you, right? Protect by issuing traffic tickets?

 

Seriously. You are really stretching stuff about a shuttle not being able to do any combat or even be combat-equipped.

 

 

since when did the G1 stuff ever make sense all the time? It's not like Blastoff didn't have guns that went PEWPEWPEW when he was in alt-mode... so he was apparently some sort of combat space shuttle. Maybe they figured he was the scout bot, taking satellite photos of the battlefield, I dunno, reconnaissance is combat related right?

CONSTRUCTicons rarely constructed much... ironically enough they combined (which one could argue is a form of constructing) for the sole purpose of destruction... Maybe they could have called them DECONSTRUCTicons...

if we wanna be that logical then most of the transformers weren't equipped for combat, even though pretty much everyone had a laser of some sort.

Does a jet of some sort make more sense for a combat team? well yeah... except you know... there's already a combiner that's basically all jets (and a passenger jet for some reason!), plus there's all the seekers and coneheads on the decepticon team... plus the random off palette seekers... so why not another space shuttle, it's not like the cons don't have enough fighter jets on their side.

maybe they should have made him a transformable ballstic missile and bruticus' secret move was to launch blastoff (hey we can still call him blastoff!) in arm mode a la Mazinger Z, but they'd have to put him together again every time they did that... assuming Swindle didn't sell him for scrap.

 

A smart American who understands value for price. I'd much rather have exactly what I want for $30 than kind of sort of but not really at all what I want for $17.

Blast Off being a jet is not the problem. The mold being an Aerialbot - exactly - is the problem.

 

yeah the combaticons need blastoff to transport them and how can he be named blast off if he isn't a space shuttle. a jet named blast off is silly. why do you think they needed astrotrain? it certainly wasn't for his choo choo ability.

 

Stunticons are the stunt cars and their support rig.
The police motorcycle can protect you by chasing and attacking criminals. Space Shuttle can't even fly by itself. It needs to be piggybacked.

 

Counterpoint: We already get too many fighter jets as it is. Why do you want more?

 

Ahh. Support rig. Motormaster should be called Supporticon instead of Stunticon, then.

Right, right. Chase and attack criminals. How?

By issuing traffic tickets?

Ahh. How does either a motorcycle or a truck drive their respective selves, then? Gravity and an inclined plane, right? Somebody or something still has to pushed them to the plane first, tho.

---

You know, none of these (motorcycle, truck, shuttle, etc, etc) are supposed to be turning into sentient robots, communicate and move by themselves.

All of it simply is science fiction.

Why limit yourself?

 

They're saving that as a gimmick for when they make Waspinator a combiner limb.