Μainly for the figures. My to go g1 bumble bee for example is the pretender and not the minibot figure.

 

No

 

Eh, my feelings for Pretenders are somewhat tied to my feelings for mass-shifting: I don't mind it so much when they turn into animals, like the Pretender Beasts, since depending on the animal (like Chainclaw) it could still justifiably be considered a giant robot underneath. Having them disguise themselves as octopus-men or walrus-men, on the other hand, is kind of pushing it, and the less said about "human" Pretenders the better...especially if they have weird-^$$ tongue-tentacle things coming out of questionable places...

 

Concept wise I consider them a bit unrealistic when they don't match the species on the planet, but at the same time I think they look absolutely badass for the Decepticons to make up for it.

 

Didn't like the G1 pretenders. Same with the story line in the comics..

 

I like how they handled it in the IDW continuity.

 

I'm glad I checked the whole thread to see if anyone had already said this, because additionally, I, too, am also not a fan as well, and I did not wish to be redundant in any way.

 

The concept didn't make a lot of sense to me in the Marvel comics. It worked well in Masterforce. But either way, the concept doesn't lend itself to very good toy designs and should probably stay dead in both cases. I do like how IDW has handled the concept though. A new sub-line of "Mega Pretenders" (transformable core robot with bigger transformable shell) would be welcome.

 

RotF definitely did Pretenders right. They're also fine in Masterforce with the hard light tech, Destrons running around as monsters to scare humans (although killer flying robots probably would've been just as frightening), and Metalhawk's crew staying behind on Earth disguised as humans while the rest of the Autobot forces were off fighting Zarak's forces in space. I dont like Marvel Pretenders.

Some of the toys have cool designs but aside from that I dont really care for them. I like the mega and ultra pretenders in a "lets see how much crap we can pile on here" kinda way. I like the idea of the animal Pretenders and see them as a decent enough bridge to the organic animal forms of Beast Wars.

I like Metalhawk and Bludgeon. Black Shadow, Blue Brachus, and Thunderwing as well if you want to count them as such.

 

They're pretty cool actually.

 

I like the advert songs.

 

While the G1 Pretenders were definitely Pretenders done right i would like seeing them get updates in a similar way.

 

Me too.
I always got a kick out of the pretenders idea. If they could update them so the shells were more articulated. I would buy them in a heartbeat.

 

Chances are slim with their lack of popularity, but i'm hoping for at least a few MP pretenders one day.

 

That would be sweet indeed. Well that's what wishlists are for.   may never happen, but the dreams will live on. 

 

The only cool thing about the Pretenders shells is how much Pincher's shell looks like Thomas Jane.

 

Yes, especially when they look like ROTF Alice and TLK Quintessa. They should make movie Mikaela, Carly, Vivian, and Tessa into pretenders too.

 

I think the alien monsters thing was a stupid idea. Sure it allows for more creative designs but fiction wise it makes no sense as a disguise.

Humans might be boring design wise but it makes more sense for aliens hiding on Earth to disguise themselves as humans. Aliens disguised as other aliens kinda defeats the purpose of wearing a disguise in the first place.

I also hate the idea of Pretender shells. They're transformers, they should actually transform into their disguise not wear human suits. RotF Alice actually Transforms... though due to the movie design she just looks like female terminator from Terminator 3 rather than an actual transformer she just morphs into her robot mode.

I actually like Animated Sari the best. Though even that has problems. She kinda just looks like she puts on armor like the Guyver. Not sure if anyone here is familiar with Guyver but he was a human who came into contact with an alien suit. The suit when not worn kinda hides inside his body some how and when needed comes out the back of his neck. And he fights alien monsters who disguise themselves as humans. I forget what they're called I thing Zenomorphs or something like that. Anyway they invaded Earth in secret replacing people in power with alien monsters. Another good comparison would be the second Blue Beetle. I'm not even going to try to spell his name, I know I'm going to get it wrong. Just he's not Ted Kord that's the first Blue Beetle. BB2 also has an alien armor that hides as a blue scarab on his back. Ted Kord originally found the scarab and based his costume on it but was never able to figure out how to unlock it. Then this kid comes in and some how gets it fused to his spine.

Anyway... there is still a way you could have creative designs and still make them transform into humans... actually there's three ways you could do it.

1. Look at the G1 episode where Old Snake turned some of the Autobots into humans... I believe it was Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Arcee, Springer, and maybe one other character. Also an Animated episode where Optimus, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Ratchet, and Prowl were turned into humans. They don't all look the same. And there were some design elements that carried over to their human forms. For example their cloths matched the colors of their robot bodies. I think Arcee in G1 also had her hair styled in a similar way to her helmet design... though her helmet design was loosely based on Princess Leia's famous bun hair and translating that exactly back to human hair would of made it a little obvious so it's not exactly right but still clearly Arcee.

2. Apes and monkeys are physically very similar to humans. They're the only other species on Earth with aposable thumbs. They can stand upright. And look at how many Transformers we've had based on them. Someone once told me that having them transform into humans would be boring because they already have humanoid robot modes. But we already have a tone of transformers who transform from one humanoid form to another. Not to mention characters like Punch/Counterpunch and Long arm/Shockwave who have two distinct humanoid robot modes. Even though they all transform into humans they could all have completely different transformations. They don't need to all transform the same way just because they all turn into the same thing.

3. The robot mode designs. Each character, even if they did all Transform the same way could still have very distinct coloring and molding in their robot modes.

Really it doesn't matter what they transform into. The possibility for creativity is only as limited as the imagination of the designers. You might not see the potential for creativity but I do. Frankly I think having them transform into vehicles all the time is boring and limits what they can do with the designs. Sure all the same stuff I said above still applies but when you've seen the same thing on multiple Transformers for 30+ years it starts to get boring. I think that's another reason I like Beast Wars so much. With the designs changing every season and the fact that it was actually something different and not just oh great another truck, plus reuses of the same mold was kept to an all time minimum. At least in the cartoon. The only ones were Cheetor/Tigatron and Tarantulus/Blackarachnia... well also TM Cheetor/Ravage but that was actually a remold/retool. Plus Ravage was a guest character. The other two were straight repaints though in the cartoon they had different proportions. And the spiders had the added bonus of using different heads with Tarantulus being based on the mutant head and Blackarachnia being based on the robot head.

I still wish they would release more show accurate toys of these four. Because of the proportions alone having show accurate toys would mean they can't share the same mold anymore. Cheetor and Tigatron are the most similar in robot mode but Cheetor is a little shorter and has a more slender beast mode. Tigers are more beefier cats so the original mold actually works much better for him but would still like a Tigatron with better articulation and no obvious robot kibble... or at least less obvious robot kibble.

I would draw up some of my own ideas for human Transformers but I don't think I'm really that good of an artist. Maybe if I could find some decent character models of the aforementioned Human Transformers and their robot mode designs then I could make something in Photoshop. It's a lot easier to edit art that already exists than starting from scratch.

 

I kind of like the idea of them. Well, the human ones at least. The concept of they disguising themselves as us seems like a logical progression of them disguising themselves as our vehicles. Both are cause of them hiding in plain sight, seamlessly blending in. I also can get with the idea that they tend to disguise themselves as more attractive members of humanity: it kind of gives us a nod that something may be off without making the mode a tusked boar monster in armor, as well as how it meshed with that vehicle Transformers tend to choose some rather good looking alt modes because Hasbro wants to sell toys.

I just would like a bit more actual transforming involved. The Pretender shells tend to be rather cumbersome and unarticulated because they need to house a robot inside. I would even say that I wouldn't mind if they got rid of the notion of a vehicle mode altogether and just focus on their human mode. Oddly, the movies seem to have done the Pretender concept in the way closest to how I would like it.

These have great potential to be creepy as hell, however, so designing them would probably be rather tricky and would involve some strategic placement of kibble and maybe some shellforming.

Another thing that may be neat is combining the idea with gimmicks involving smaller bots for those craving vehicles, possibly resulting in things like Headmaster-Pretenders (a thought that I have toyed with on several occasions.)

 

I know that the monster-shells make absolute no sense whatsoever as a disguise buuuuuut...

(a) Who cares! And...
(b) Some of those designs were really cool!

Octopunch is so damn creepy. Skullgrin is not bad. Bugly kinda works. Carnivac is cool. And let's not forget about Bludgeon and Thunderwing!