The Energon combiner re-issue thread got me thinking about if Hasbro would have possibly any other plans on a G1 Re-issues after Prime for the 25th anniversary. I could see a nice compliment to Prime being a box set of re-issues containing the entire set movie Autobots. I would love a G1 re-issue of Megs too to go with Prime, but hey US toy gun laws are what they are and I still kind find places selling the Encore re-issue. That got me to then thinking what G1 molds are still available for Hasbro or Takara/Tomy to do Encore Re-issues. IIRC, Wheeljack and Sunstreaker are lost along with the Dinobots and Shockwave and Jetfire/Skyfire are owned by other companies. So all of those molds would be ruled out. What other molds are dead, lost, MIA, etc? I apologize if this has been asked before because I remember lost molds being brought up before, but has there been a list of all the lost molds comprised?
Nobody is entirely certain, but Wheeljack, Mirage, and Sunstreaker are said to be lost or destroyed, while the Dinobot molds are simply "missing", according to Hasbro's panel at Botcon.
This might be a stupid question, but why can't they make new molds? I would ASSuME Hasbro would have some of the original toys that they could base the molds out of.
Agreed, all they'd have to do is find and reverse engineer the toys, that's how all the KO's are being made. They could just do the same & use better plastic. I also think the Devestator mold is gone.
Maybe they could change the molds too, like give them better articulation etc. etc. I know i've seen places on rodimus prime that could have been given articulation, namely, the legs.
Unfortunately, that would require more of their design team to be pulled away from the movie/universe/animated lines that they currently support. I'd be more happy if they would just design new versions of the characters instead of attempting to find or re-engineer older molds. For the ones they already have, I would love to see the US reissue line return.
i still hope they would re-engineer the lost molds, i would give chance to those like me who didn't have the chance to get them during their original release
I know GaiHawk and HellBat from the Breastforce are missing. Thats why they were never released with the rest of the rescue force in the UK.
I remember reading news about Aoshima releasing G1 Roadbuster as a kit sometime back. Any idea who owns the rights to the Dorvack figures now?
Autobot Mirage Sunstreaker Wheeljack Grimlock Sludge Snarl Swoop Slag Jetfire Omega Supreme (although now available due to Takara/Tomy merger) Roadbuster Whirl Silverbolt Air Raid Sky Dive Slingshot Fireflight Hot Spot First Aid Blades Groove Streetwise Decepticon Shockwave Chop Shop Barrage Venom Ransack Soundwave (current release is reverse-engineered) Scrapper Scavenger Long Haul Bonecrusher Mixmaster Hook Motormaster Dead End Braekdown Dragstrip Wildrider Molds i'm assuming are gone: Rumble/Frenzy Technobots Terrorcons I made a thread about this a few months back, can be found here: http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=148643
I'd hate this idea - they're taking too many liberties at subtly altering some of the moulds already. Some of us want genuine G1 reissues, warts-and-lack of articulation and all!
Um, they have changed the molds on a lot of these, giving them better articulation and whatnot... they call them CLASSICS. I know they're not the original molds, but they ARE the characters. (Granted no Wheeljack yet, but a lot of characters mentioned do fall into the Classics/Universe line.)
Motormaster Dead End Breakdown Dragstrip Wildrider ^===I think these molds are usable by these statements: Talking about Piranacon, the team suggested that if people were in favour of it they might go back and redo other older unreleased toys, for example, the Generation 2 Stunticons. (from Collector's Panel at Botcon 08) Pete said regarding G2 Menasor/Stunticons being Club Exclusives: "We are looking into it, but we are looking into many different options so who knows..." -TF2
They have said at botcon that while making a mold out of a figure can be done, it is not the same quality of a mold from a mold and that they do not want to mess with trying to reverse engineer a mold from a figure and losing quality. Look at the mess with the JAZZ head reissue. If they did try it and the quality was less, people would shit bricks and then Hasbro would say 'SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE? We told you so!" If they can't make a 100% reissue, they said they won't do it. Even if they could do KOs of their own figures and licence them they don't want to.
Cool, thanks. I too would like for US Re-issues to return but for now I am happy with the Encore Re-issues from TakaraTomy. Definately wouldn't want design team pulled from the new stuff just to have re-issues though. Same was true for Sky Lynx and Omega Supreme at one point. Maybe some day TakaraTomy would buy out the company that owns the Jetfire/Skyfire mold too (Bandai I think). I am not holding my breath on that though.
I agree with this. Although I think it would be nice to see some reissues of the key characters from the old series (Cyclonus, Scourge, Wheeljack, Mirage, maybe the Arialbot team) I can also equally dig new, updated versions of these designs. It'd be awfully cool if they hired on the JizaiToys dude to mass-release that perfect Cyclonus of his, but I think that's wishful thinking.
I don't know, that 25th Anniversary Cyclonus (w/Nightstick!) coming next year looked pretty sweet at Botcon. All-new mold intended to represent the Targetmaster gimmick (and be a more show-accurate version of Cyclonus) as part of the anniversary.