I was wondering this at times before but the Barricade news story showing how he's back in TFTM2 made me think it again,
What is Hasbro going to do for toys for returning characters who are the same or very close to their first movie counterparts?

They've already re-released the heck out of the first line of molds (repaints, allspark, premium, etc.), so that would be ultra-lame if they just retooled them once again. Would they release new molds of the same characters? Not release molds for returning characters? Lamely redo existing molds? Any ideas?

 

Maybe that won't be Barricade's alt mode the whole movie. Maybe he'll scan something else some point?

My guess would be re-molds.

 

they could always make him switch sides and become prowl with a new paint job

wishful thinking

 

It's already been established that there's a high possibility that most of the original cast will be killed off early in the movie for the addition of new characters to sell toys. (You know Barricade will not be in the movie for long considering he was such a minor character, and Ratchet and Ironhide will die most likely in a similar fashion of the original animated film) As for the returning characters that will either have a LARGE role in the film and die in the end *cough* Starscream *cough* or those who won't die until the end of the franchise *cough* Prime *cough* chances are they will have new alt modes. Think about the Batman series, aside from Batman and Batman Returns, no two Batmobiles were alike (including Batman Begins.) Chances are they will still be the same essential alt mode although perhaps a different model (Starscream will most likely chose something more menacing such as a stealth bomber or something for his new place as "leader of the Decepticons) with different character model for the CGI.

Basically it all boils down to money. On the one hand they might not want to produce new models for old characters, but then again they know people are not going to buy the same toy for an old character either.

 

If a returning character survives, and doesn't scan a new form, perhaps a larger/more complex toy?

 

knowing hasbro most likely they will all be killed off in the first five minutes and then they will just release new molds of all the new characters

 

I've thought of this too and started wondering again with the new images of Barricade (who is now blue & white instead of black & white).

Looking at Barricade my conclusion (at least in this case) would be a repaint out of the original mold with the possibility of him getting a voyager 'alternator' styled version a little bit later that people were beginning Hasbro for last year. And, of course, there's also the possibility that he scans something else and turns into that.

Personally, rather than all this talk that's been going around of characters getting killed off in the new movie... I think there's more of a precedent set in the last couple of years by Hasbro (remember they're involved in this too) for a returning character to have received a new alternate mode so that Hasbro can sell an all new toy in the sequels. Upgrades are a constant in Transformers so I don't see why the movie would be any different really.

 

I could imagine Starscream getting a new toy, since the one we have now could definitely be improved upon.
Prime is going to be killed by a reborn Megatron, so that Rodimus Prime can take over. Barricade will be reformatted by Unicron into Cyclonus, while Scorponok becomes Scourge. Ironhide and Ratchet will die at the hands of Starscream, and Bumblebee will be rebuilt into Ultra Magnus by the Junkions.
That pretty much settles how the old characters will be handled.

 

Interesting responses.

One thing about killing all the old characters off is that although Hasbro needs new characters to make money, the movie makers are probably pro-old characters because of the limits on time and money to do new cg rendering for a whole slew of new characters, where reusing the old models for as much as possible saves them big time (again on time and money).

So if they do kill off characters as a solution to this my guess would be that it will take the first hour of the movie to do so rather than the first 5 minutes (which will be lame because it will be 1 hour of getting rid of the old characters, 1 hour to slowly introduce the new characters, have one single battle, and then the end, not quite what I'm looking for, not to mention that patterns allows easier inclusion of lots of human scenes).

 

That alone almost guarantees that you won't see too many deaths in this series. Though, I wouldn't be opposed to 'red shirts' showing up during the movie.

I think they'll honestly keep most of the older characters that didn't die in the first movie around for the second and if they do decide to kill say Ironhide or Ratchet I'd beat it'd be closer to the end of this movie or not until the third film.

Also, something else to keep in mind is that while Hasbro does need knew characters to make money they also like to keep around the older characters for name recognition and such. And, given that, it wouldn't surprise me to see Megatron resurrected at some point in this movie either by the lingering power of the Allspark in his body or by some outside force (please no Unicron... I just don't think a giant transforming planet would look good on the big screen outside of the fandom).

Hell, if I were writing it I'd have the thing that seemed to have saved the day (Sam plunging the Allspark into Megatron's Spark) in the last movie be the Autobots undoing in this one. Basically, have it so that the Allspark power only overloaded Megatron's systems and he only appeared dead, but in reality he was being reshaped and reborn by the Allspark the entire time... so, at some point in the movie Megatron awakens reborn (and with a new body, but no renaming to Galvatron please) and more powerful than ever before.

 

Chances are, that, as they claim there are alot of new characters AND THE ROBOT MODELS ARE ALREADY DONE, there won't be that many deaths. How many retoolings of previous lines toys have we seen? A ton. Prime MAY get a new form, but my bets are on new or better remolds. Bets for me are on a new gimmick for some characters (voyager versions for those that never got them last time, maybe some ultra molds, and obviously leader and a supreme toy). And don't count out them rereleasing the original toys with new packaging, especially with the shortage last time.

And remember, Hasbro has INPUT into the movie, not all final decisions will be made by them. Spielberg and Dreamworks want a successful franchise, and GONZO style killing will ruin a franchise. They sold the same lame star wars figures (with few changes) for years.

 

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=168488

 

Oop, I got owned by a month

 

Doesn't mean the conversation has to end. Just ask a mod to merge.

 

The movie is different from other Transformers toylines/universes, though. Story comes first, hence why we got designs that were difficult to make into conventional toys like Frenzy and Scorponok. I can't see them changing the alt modes of more than two or so returning characters (Megatron, definitely, maybe Bumblebee into the 2010 Camaro or something too). Having the recurring cast constantly changing alt modes would not only make the movie seem even more like a "toy movie", but it would confuse audiences who don't pay as much attention to this stuff as we do.

I'd say that recurring characters without new alt modes will get larger toys in general. Barricade will likely get a Voyager class toy, and given his purported large role in the sequel, I'd say it's almost certain Starscream will get a Leader class toy.

 

The SFX company is not going to redesign the old characters from scratch, it was already stated in an interview how expensive those models are to create and how they are used to them now, they won't waste budget on doing them all over again simply because Hasbro want new toys.
If anything Hasbro will simply release new molds of the characters in question.

Tweaks to the CGI models of Ironhide, Ratchet etc are a possibility but re-doing them completely I don't see happening at all.

 

Yeah, hopefully Starscream will get a leader class toy... that design sorely needs one. Too bad Bonecrusher is dead... we might have finally gotten that voyager everyone wanted...  

 

police depts use different style cars....barricade is done...prime could always be repainted or altered in a subtle way...megatron could be altered with the same mold but maybe different wings or arm shapes....ironhide could be changed to a different style truck and same with ratchet...different style ambulance....I would think they are going to have to go with different style vehicles unless GM did a multi movie contract with licensing rights with given the idiot corporate culture at GM ; i doubt a multi-billion dollar company would ink a long term contract with a "unproven" franchise/ They would be more for the fast $$$ up front...short term.

 

Didn't ILM say that they spent so much money on the existing character models that it'd be a waste not to use them again? I think this means that the returning characters will look at least somewhat alike to their TF1 versions.

I choose to think of this as the visual differences between characters in the Batman or Spider-Man series. Between Batman 1 and Batman Returns, Batman had some subtle costume alterations. Spider-Man has had a different costume design all 3 movies, but you'd have to be an eagle to see where these differences are.

Think of the mold difference between Robot Master Prime, G1 Prime, and Deluxe Classic Prime (2-pack). All had the same robot mode and same alt mode, but were unique molds. Or, think of the many, many different versions of the VF-1 Valkyrie.

It would be neat to have the same alt modes, same robot modes, but completely redone from scratch. Some characters, like Bumblebee and Ironhide, probably don't need too much improvement. Others, like Prime and Starscream, will really really really benefit from having a second ground-up round of engineering.

 

Where exactly has this been 'established'? I'd really like to see this.


Hasbro have a somewhat minimal input in this film, they gave the rights to the filmmakers, gave them the backstory of the franchise and characters, the rest is up to Bay and his crew, and any filmmaker with a shred of intelligence knows that killing off/not bringing back the popular characters in movies ruins the sequel. Why would people go see TF2 if there's no characters from the previous movie? Why do they all look different?

Hasbro will simply either re-tool the existing molds, create better molds for existing characters, as well as NEW MOLDS FOR NEW CHARACTERS - that's where Hasbro will make the money.