I honestly feel like so much of the stuff they release is half-assed.

I hated all the Beast Wars, Armada, Energon, and other miscellaneous weird filler they've had over the last decade. Not that the G1 toys were great by any means, but nothing felt right and worthy of the TF name. And so, a few of the issues I have right this instant, at midnight on this Friday...so bear with me. Heh.


--Why have we only had 4 different Masterpiece molds so far? After all these years, they could've made at least a couple per year. Is the demand that low for $100+ collector Transformers?

--Binaltech/Alternators: is that it? So much cool and so much wrong with that line... And Alternity? Why bother? It doesn't make a lick of sense, and while the figures are amazing, they don't have any relevance on the TF universe.

--Why, oh why did they allow the Movie Devastator toy to be half-assed? The "combining" versions don't have individual bot modes. Really, Hasbro? And the 4 seperate Constructicons we did get, 3 Voyager and one Deluxe, don't combine, and it wouldn't matter anyway due to the fact that the rest of the team wasn't even released.

--And what's with the scale conflicts? Why all the Legends, Scout, Deluxe, Voyager, Leader BS? I understand the point of making the toys available for the masses of kids' parents who don't want to shell out $45 bucks for Prime. But why bother with the little crap versions at all? Dead End is a Scout red car, oh wait, Dead End is a knockoff Deluxe Sideways... WTF? I don't get it.


Something I have fallen in love with: TF Animated. I hated it at first, HATED it! I thought the animation sucked, the characters were unbearable, and the designs blew.

And then the toy line caught my eye more and more, and they actually MATCHED their on-screen counterparts. They transformed beautifully, they were easy to pick up and play with, and the light mood of the show brought that warm fuzzy feeling I had as a kid right back to the surface when I started picking up a few of the Animated toys I had some customs ideas for.

Weird for me to say this, but the TFA line is the one series that, in and of itself, they actually got right.








.....Holy CRAP I'm not reading all that  

 

So why do you collect them? Why even bother if they "can't get it right?"

 

You obviously don't understand the point of making the toys available for the masses of kids' parents who don't want to shell out $45 bucks for Prime, if you have to ask why they make "little crap versions".

 

DETOUR is the ROTF Scout, and Legends/EZ Devastator?


pull your nostalgia goggles off, enjoy the series since "GEEEEWUUUUUNNN!!!" for what they are, Multiversal similarities, but unique and stand alone, Cybertron fits into the unicron Trilogy best as a parallel universe affected by the Armada/Energon 'verse's destruction by the black hole.

 

I don't collect them really at all. My modern collection, as I see it: MP Prime, MP, Megatron, MP Starscream, MP Skywarp, and MP Grimlock. The rest of the crap I have is for customs. The passion I have for Transformers drives me to the customs angle, now with the ability to transform the mediocre into something...more.

Still practicing though.  


Oh and I love your user text.... 

 

Point is, why are they so crappy and out-of-context with the rest of the line? In G1, the mini-bots were smaller than everything else, because, well, they were smaller than other characters on the show! It worked very well. And Mini-cons are miniature because they actually ARE! The current size classes and their ever-smaller versions are just marketing mystery-meat filling that gets shoved down kids' Christmas stockings.

 

Yes, the ROTF "Dead End" Scout class, and not only the EZ but the "Supreme" Devastator as well are what I'm referencing.

And you lost me at "Multiversal".... I don't give a crap about G1 toys, they mostly suck as far as toys go these days. And most of those old cartoons are near unwatchable.

The "Unicron Trilogy" stuff... it was so tough to get into, to really appreciate. The Armada animation was great I thought, and so was the CG stuff, but I once saw an episode where some little human girl was yelling at a couple Decepticons for misbehaving or something, and the 'Cons kinda cowered and backed off.... it jut lost me completely right there.

 

I'd imagine it's because there's a lot of engineering that goes into it and it's more difficult to slate time for a line that, no matter the price tag, doesn't make as much money as something like ROTF.

I figured you'd complain that there were no Constructicons, Wheeljack, or Perceptor made. That kind of sucked.

Yeah, those kiddie versions do sell to some degree. It's not what most of us want to buy, but we're just a sliver of the purchasing pie.

Everytime someone complains about something, there's always the first to shout out "Geeeewunnnn!!!!" It just seems odd, especially after praising Animated so much.


My personal opinion is that if something sucks, I don't buy it. There's a lot out there I still want to own and in a way, releasing sub-par stuff means I don't have to be tempted to buy it and I can hit eBay up for something I know I want.

 

You know what I want to bitch about! Why hasn't Takara reissued an Anime Correct Thundercracker?????? Thats what I want!!! Thundercracker is not dark blue!!! bbbbbooooooo............. 

 

I wish we could implement a new rule stating that anyone using "Geewun" or any form of it be permanently banned.

 

Though not a fan of anything related to Beast Wars, Armada, or Energon I still don't think it's fair of me to bash it. Though in my opinion, I agree a lot of what is produced by Hasbro is kind of crappy (especially the movie toys); Takara has brought us the Masterpiece, Binaltech, Encore and Henkei toy lines, all of which are winners in my book!

I also agree the lone thing that Hasbro got right but even failed at marketing was Animated (it came on Cartoon Network at 5:00am CST, what a joke!!!), like most I hated the show at first but once I watched a few episodes and saw the toys, I was hooked. I'm not sure why Hasbro decided to cancel the show when it had such potential, quite a few key characters will probably never see a decent toy either (Constucticons, Omega Supreme, Perceptor, Wheeljack, Alpha Trion, or a deluxe Cliffjumper). Just my 2 cents, but if Hasbro would've put at least half the effort into TFA that they do into the Clone Wars cartoon and toys, it would've been a hit with adults & kids alike.

 

Frankly, collectors make such a small portion of the transformers fandom that it's not an economically sound strategy for Hasbro to produce these. And if you recall, only Takara has actually released $100+ masterpiece figures; it's a different market in Japan.

Again, it's a Takara slash Japanese market thing.

Who knows. Budget, economics, etc. Just keep in mind these toys are meant primarily for children, who in general are far less critical than us collectors.

Transformers toys have never been in scale. Also, budget, economics, etc.

You answered your own question. It's for the kids who's parents can't shell out $45 for Prime.

You're definitely not alone there. I can't claim to be a big of animated, but I have to concede that it's the first series that feels even remotely G1, despite the numerous differences. Aye, warm and fuzzy.

 

I won't go into detail on all of the points, but it is like anything else in life, you are going to love some things and hate others. I personally think that the past couple years have been an amazing time to be a collector (though I have only been back into it for a few years total). We have gotten two sets of movie toys, animated toys, classics/universe, Takara/Store Exclusive MPs, Alternity, Disney Label, Encore and other reissues, Robot Heroes (thought I would throw that in cause I dig em). Not all of the lines may interest you, but something must. It is great/expensive to have some choices, and if there is nothing that is currently out, focus on past lines, and if you have everything you want from past lines, take pride in your collection and save money now for stuff that you want.

I personally am not a fan of Beasties, or the trillogy, but many are, more power to them (just aint my thing). But there is enough out there to keep my pockets empty. I think that between classics, animated, and the movies, there is some very interesting innovation going on right now in the world of Transformers. We may not like all of the lines/figures, but (I think) we can see what the design teams are trying to achieve. You have pointed out what you like about the Animated line, and I am sure many people can do the same with each line. It all comes down to personal preferance. I just wish I hadnt taken a 20 year break, because I still probably have another two years of catch-up to do.

 

The G1 Minibots were small because the toys originally came from another line than the larger Autobot cars. The cartoon tried to justify that by making them small characters. So you have Cliffjumper and Jazz, two Porsches that are awfully out of size with each other. And Huffer, a truck cab, is a helluvalot smaller than Optimus Prime. That's not "toys matching the fiction", it's "fiction trying to explain the toys".

And if you think scale problems are a recent thing, you must be wearing some thick rose-tinted glasses.

 

meh. I guess your right in some ways but who do you have in mind to make transformers for a good price? XD

 

after watching a 7 year old destroy his 07 movie line Deluxe Swindle (that he swore up and down he could transform even while dead and wouldn't break it- until he learned that not all cars were Autbots) before he finished his birthday cake, i am glad for the half assed, 1/3 the cost smaller figures.

parents don't want to buy serious, collector grade/complicated toys for kids they know can't even play with a Lego brick without calls to the Police.

and IMO, without the classes (or Toy Caste system) we wouldn't have some of the best molds out there at all.
Ransack woulda been locked in a Patent Clerk's cabinet instead of 2 sitting on my shelf.

dude, pick yer battles carefully and enjoy the gems you do find in all the dirt piled high around you.

 

agreed 100% that word alone makes coming into this forum less and less fun everyday

 

I 3rd that. Lets get it done.....

 

I would have to agree with you that Animated is probably one of the most show-accurate TF lines out there. Especially when compared to the Movie stuff. My theory is that the design process for the movie robot modes was made with very little Hasbro input. The way some of these Bayformers translated into toys leads me to believe that Hasbro was handed a bunch of robot designs and was asked to make them work as is. On the other hand, Animated feels more like the design process bounced from "screen" to "toy" and back again multiple times, while finding an optimal result for both needs.

 

I guess I have two main rants.

The first is they make it so insanely hard to get together a sub-team any more. Hasbro the place that can't get enough repaints makes it insanely hard to do something like collect a Seekers team of Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker because at least one of the figures will be an insanely hard to track down or expensive exclusive. But hey at least you have a chance there because some lines don't even include a full team. Yea I'm looking at you Animated for only having three Dinobots.

The other thing that burns me up some times is repainting movie character in G1 colors like that is the same thing. It seems like if a movie toy gets repainted in G1 colors then that means there is no chance in hell of that figure ever getting released as a deluxe sized or better G1 style figure. Movie Jazz got repainted as G1 Jazz and we never saw a deluxe sized Classics/Universe Jazz even though he was an important character in the cartoon. Why can't the people at Hasbro get it that repainting a movie character is not the same as that character in the Classics/Universe style?