The movieline's succes resulted in retailers asking for more movie stuff, hence the Allspark Power line. Because of this, Animated toys were postponed.

I don't think anybody is to blame. It's just the circumstances.

 

You may as well go tell it to a brickwall.

 

Exactly what I was saying. This success was 100% predicable and almost expected by Hasbro. They therefore knew this might happen so are to some extent responsible for Animated being overshadowed and pushed off the shelves by their own rival product. Im not blaming them in the sense that it made sense for them to hedge their bets in case the movie bombed, but I under no illusions that once the movie line took off Animated's success and longevity was of less concern to Hasbro.

 

I'll buy any new Animated Decepticons and a DVD box set... if they ever come out.

 

None of the toylines that Hasbro has released are "dead." That seems like a rather absolute term that would best describe complete and total avoidance of any further product related to that IP.

Animated is not "dead." Hasbro has simply shifted its focus for the time being. Whether the time being is a year or a decade depends on how marketable they believe the Transformers Animated toy line will be in the future. Additionally, Animated peripherals (such as party supplies, art books, etc.) will probably continue to be licensed out by Hasbro to other third party production companies.

So no, Animated, as a controlled Hasbro IP, is not "dead." It's certainly still marketable, just not as marketable as upcoming products (like the Transformers 3 film and the Transformers: Prime TV series.)

 

I sure wish they would release the last season on DVD, though.  

 

My understanding is that Animated is pretty much dead other than Rodimus and Ironhide being released at TRU. Since they are tied in with Cartoon Network, they can't make any more of the series (even if they wanted to. we know that we're WAY past that now), or even market the third season without getting them on board. I don't know if this limits their ability to continue the fiction in comics. I would love to see something more out of this, but Hasbro really isn't motivated to fight for it. Everything is tied up with movie stuff, new series this fall, and new movie next year. Even if they wanted to do something as a sub-line after movie fever is gone, the fans of animated will be 3-4 years older than when they originally watched the show and a lot of them won't be in Hasbro's target demographic any more. No kid fans, not enough toy sales, no reason to bother.

 

On the other hand, maybe Takara has the rights to do whatever the hell they want in Japan. I wouldn't be surprized to see them expand the fiction. They did it with G1 and with Beast Wars. Come to think of it, if they didn't expand the cartoon fiction of Animated past what Has/CN produced, it would be the first time they HAVEN"T added to an American produced cartoon continuity.

 

I hope we get the new toys soon. All of them look awesome, especially Rodimus and Blackout.

 

Transformers doesn't make Takara enough money to do a Beast Wars 2nd equivalent of Transformers: Animated. At least, not in today's crappy economy.

They'll promote the movie, and then it's straight to the more in line with the movie TV series 'Transformers: Prime'.

At this point, Animated isn't COMPLETELY dead until Hasbro says we're never getting the toys they announced at Botcon and Comic-Con last year. But anything beyond getting some or most of the toys they announced is a pure pipe dream. Animated will go the way of all past Transformers shows: if we're lucky, we'll get some Animated characters in a Universe-style line a few years from now, and maybe a comic mini-series written by Simon Furman. MAYBE.

 

  Well put dude, I love the closing sentence.

I am glad Takara is at least carrying the torch, I am hoping we get some repaints we never got over here like Wasp and the rest of the Seekers.

 

WHY would you want an Animated comic written by Furman? WHY?

Why not Marty Isenberg?

Simon Furman would be awful writing animated. he didnt "get" beast wars, he certainly wouldnt "get" animated.

 

Furman barely gets his own stuff.

But yeah, why not have it writen by the dude that, well, WROTE Animated?

 

and then we could see it continue as it was actually supposed to.

 

Well...I don't mind people expressing their hate for "animated." People say "leave it alone you don't have to buy it, etc." BUT anything in our little TF world moves energy away from something else. I can easily see people being frustrated with it due to not liking the aesthetics of the animated line.

I personally love the first movie. Bought Devastator and Ironhide(actually the whole line at walmart at the time but Devy and Ironhide got opened first)...they both fell apart. I couldn't get a satisfying peg out of ironhides shoulders. Devy(was he called brawl on the toy card?) autotransform feature was completely broken. So I returned all of it. I haven't bought another movie toy. And so everytime movie toys takeover, I want to cry.

Hated the second movie.

I love animated, toys and cartoon. I don't blame anyone for liking movie toys. BUT I blame the movie toys for pushing out anything I have interest in collecting. I felt like all the "classics" line get put on the back burner when the movies came out. I never found Ratchet, Hot Shot, or the minibot legends on store shelves due to spotty distro (and still haven't managed to pick them up :-(.


I think Hasbro is getting more on the ball though. I'm super excited for Generations and Powercore. I'm really liking that bludgeon and Seaspray are being snuck into the movie line.

 

I EXPECT that to happen.

I never said I WANTED it.

In fact, I DREAD the possibility, after the train-wreck that was said Beast Wars comics.

 

Isenberg's certainly down for it if the idea ever comes to pass.

 

I always thought it was more up to IDW now to take up the idea of doing another TFA comic series. I'm sure Hasbro would be more than happy to let them do it. But it's just that IDW is so caught up with all the other TFs titles they're releasing at the moment and in the forseeable future.

Anyone remember how the Animated: Arrival series did sales-wise? It was unfortunate that our UK TFA comic didn't last very long due to poor sales. I'm thinking if previous Animated comics didn't do well, then that might be another reason IDW is reluctant to pursue the idea of anymore TFA comics.

 

I never said I was "mostly ignoring" you, did I?

Of course I'm not hatin' either, merely pointing out that what you're doing is not ignoring, 'mostly ignoring' , or anything close to ignoring.

You're free to ignore ME though, as that would mean one less reply in this thread.

 

Fixed that for you. Sorry, I'm a huge Animated fan, but I thought those comics were insultingly bad for a free comic, let alone one that they wanted money for.

You'd think that without a show, that enough fans wanted the Allspark Almanac to warrant a second one, IDW would take the chance.