He's not anything. Shockwaves's face is featureless.

 

A

Do you STILL have those smokestacks?

 

We've had lots of ugly bots, and lots of less-than-athletic bot designs. And even absurd complaints about people "not liking robots who don't look human" don't really address why many folks who like other Bayformer toys, still think Wheeljack is ugly. Maybe it's because he is ugly?  

And I agree... why can't a bot be ugly? Part of the issue here is that he's not necessarily supposed to be ugly. He's supposed to look comical and professorial. Instead he looks like some kind of fiendish ghoul/geriatric Predator. That head is just aesthetically unpleasant in all the wrong ways. Some ugly things are cool. This guy is... not.

In the end, it's all about preference of course. Some people will like him for being ugly, some people will not. Some people may even try to deny his ugliness, but I think that's just denial.  

Saying something is ugly is not hyperbole. It's simply stating a perception. And in the case of this Wheeljack design, I think a big part of the problem for many of us is actually that he looks too human, with his ridiculous hair and mustache and spectacles and bald spot.

What is perhaps more disturbing is the attitude that no Transformers product should ever be subjected to criticism on aesthetic grounds, because it might mildly annoy someone who doesn't agree.  

I think the robot mode has enough going for it that I'd probably buy this (at retail) just to pop his head off and put something else on there. But I'd prefer the repaint as well.

That's fine. I will point out that it was not necessarily the aesthetic itself, but rather the fact that it was contained with 3 multi-million dollar effects blockbusters that brought all that interest back to the franchise. There are a lot of possible aesthetic variations that exist between "G1 cartoon" and "mandible-faced monsters from space"... and I think some of them could have worked too.

Anyway, I have quite a few movie bots. I have complaints here and there about the style of them, but overall the movies gave us some great toys.

zmog

 

I love some of my movie figs just as much as I do my G1 stuff. Could some be better sure but that could be said for any line. Look at the Armada/Cybertron/Energon and tell me that's better than my movie MP SS, Buster Prime and Leader Brawl......no way.

 

Oh no, what have I started?!  

Funny thing is, I don't really see ol' Prof Que as being particularly ugly. Not denying he looks a bit weird, but I think you hit the nail on the head when you said he looks too human. But Dark of the Moon was getting more human on the new bots face's anyway - certainly Sentinel Prime looked loads more human than Jazz or Jetfire did. Que just got the short end of that same stick, since he was blessed with a mecha-Einstein head.

That's half the reason I call him Que, to my mind, Wheeljack's a different guy.

 

I don't say this much but I hate this figure.

Its like its mocking me or something.

 

I've still pick him if I see him but I won't be hunting him like crazy. I agree, he looks er, human or organic...that's my complaint with the movie designs. We have some TFs that look really robotic like Optimus, we have those that are in the middle like Megatron and we have organic looking ones Que.

 

It's a divisive toy for sure, but whilst i tend to stick up for it, even i have difficulty thinking of it as *the* Wheeljack.

 

Look at this, he's ugly. Since when were TF's supposed to be cute?

 

That's how I feel about his character. I really liked him as Que, the cooky genius gadget inventor. His look fit that well enough too.
If they had called him Wheeljack though, I think would have hated him plain and simple. It was hard enough for me to get over black truck Ironhide and elderly goof ball Jetfire.

 

What, you gonna make me give them back cause I don't think he's pretty?

Good lord. I guess it's a good thing I didn't insult your mother. You might have hired a hitman!

 

I mostly agree. There's always something about my movie bots that don't quite hit the same spot as some of the others in the collection (or maybe it's the fact that they don't really "fit in" with the others, since like many fans, I kind of cobble together my own custom assortment of TFs). But I do enjoy many of the ones I have, for various reasons. An interesting example would be Leader Starscream... I've always HATED that design for Starscream... passionately. But I'll be damned if that Leader Class toy wasn't so nicely designed and executed, I had to have it. Sometimes a good toy is just a good toy.  

zmog

 

I dont think any bots look good. Hes a different design and everybody is bitching about it. GET OVER IT. I like this bots personallity, plus the design is different from all those boring ass head designs (I like the wreakers designs though) Do you wanna know why the vehicle is plain? Because it was in the MOVIE!! Accuracy is very important my friend... and he is a good figure if you dont like the character in the movie thats fine but dont bash on a accurate figure, the head is accurate (well as accurate it can get) so the only reason not to like this figure is if you dont like the character in the movie..Nuff said.

 

Like many others, this dude seems like a separate character from the good ol' Wheeljack.

This toy really reminds me of a deluxe version of this character: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Spiral

 

More like "Autobot Eww" ! Amirite?  

They did a great job capturing the look of the character but it is just such an awful design.

 

Nice gallery!

And I have to agree about the "too human" aspect of the character design (for a lot of the bots in DOTM like Sentinel and the Wreckers, for example). It's the Uncanny Valley effect; there's a certain threshold where if something looks closely human (but not quite 100%) it just triggers a hate/fear response from most folks (no doubt a survival instinct that kept our ancestors alive). Compare an uber cute chibi robot like Wall-E to Que, you get the idea.

Like with Starscream, I hated the design for Que (he's still not Wheeljack to me) but gradually warmed up to him. Sometimes an ugly character with a good toy is still a good toy. And Que is a very neat figure with a unique transformation, decent screen accuracy, and cool accessories. He just needs a little paint on his head (a metallic silver Sharpie works wonders) and he looks much better and even more screen accurate.

 

Awful is too strong a word, imo...but i did laugh at the first part.

It's called banter.



(Now where's that hitman rolodex.......)

 

I got accused of being a dick myself sometimes, because I didn't make it clear I was being sarcastic. Hence why I started using [/sarcastic]. Thank god. Do you know how many tissues I've gone through thinking you wanted them back? Seeing a grown man cry is NOT a pretty sight.


... wait, did you say hitman rolodex?!?!?!?!

 

aside from the head and light blue plastic, this guy seems to be one of the most accurate deluxes in the whole movie line. that's pretty cool.

 

I never said that he was boring or repetitive. I said he was ugly. There are lots of bots whose characters I like and toys I dislike (and vice versa). In this case, I think this figure looks particularly hideous, for many of the legitimate reasons brought up in this thread (if you cared to read them). I don't need to "get over it". What you need to do is get over the chip on your shoulder and stop letting it hurt your feelings. People are going to have opinions about toys. You don't need to rush to poor old Que's defense.

Poor little guy, all alone, movie-accurate and nobody loves him... good thing you're here so he doesn't have to hear people say mean things about him!  

Too much said, really.  

Regardless of whether he's movie accurate or not, whether the vehicle or robot looks good to me as a toy is going to factor into my assessment of it's overall attractiveness. So in that sense, I don't care... even if Que looked like a giant plastic children's toy in the movie, with ball-joints, oversized screws and not enough paint apps. Accuracy counts for nothing if the final product is not attractive enough to secure my money.

Again, if you had bothered to read properly, you would have noticed that my comments about the plain vehicle mode reflect largely the colour, and the rather dull appearance of that blue, which I assure you is not "screen accurate" coloration or texture. Similarly, many of us made the same complaint about DOTM Sideswipe, who looks a hell of a lot worse than ROTF Sideswipe, and the colour of the plastic (and lack of paint apps) was a big part of that. The resulting car mode just doesn't look very good, and certainly doesn't look as good as his onscreen alt mode could look.

Finally, if you want to compare his onscreen head to the toy's head, it's already been discussed how it FAILS to be accurate or to evoke the same goofy charm of the character, instead looking sort of monstrous and terrifying. I might have forgiven this if the resulting inaccurate head actually looked really cool, but it doesn't. Hence "ugly".

So yeah. You get over it. People are going to think he's ugly, and you're going to have to live with that. In fact, you've only made it worse by not actually listening to what people are saying about the figure, instead tripping over yourself to white-knight for a frickin' action figure. Dude, seriously.  

Well put, and a very good point.

Exactly. Sometimes you want something ugly to be screen accurate, especially if your approach to collecting is to reproduce the movies to some degree on your shelf. On that screen-accuracy note, is his head easily popped off to restage his ignoble demise?  

Other fans (like myself) may collect on a toy-by-toy basis, so stuff is judged on how it stands alone (or with the collection, idiosyncratic as it may be). I already said I'd scoop this guy up for a reasonable price because the robot itself looks decent... though I'd prefer a different deco, and that head would definitely be coming off...  

zmog