Question about Reissues vs. Originals

As someone who has only recently gottne back into collecting Transformers.... and also as someone who stupidly and short-sightedly purged all my original Transformers when I a kid.... the re-issues are a godsend for me. However, I've also read that there are actually tangible quality differences between the originals and the re-issues: that they use less die-cast, that they are smaller (which makes no sense to me; isn't the mold identical?), etc.

So what's the story? Are re-issues markedly inferior, quality-wise, to their predecessors? Are there certain specific re-issues that should be avoided? Any other facts pertinent to the "re-issues vs. originals" question?

Help a newbie out! Thanks!

There are a few differences between the originals and Hasbro's Reissues. I'm not sure how much you know, so I'll just post everything off the top of my head.

-Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus have short smokestacks and longer missiles (for safety reasons). Powermaster Prime also has longer missiles with no chrome.

-Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp have longer missiles.

-Most of the Autobot cars, but not all of them, do not have chrome guns and missiles. Hoist, Inferno and Grapple seem to be the exceptions. Then there's Tracks, Sideswipe, and Red Alert who never had chrome weapons in the first place. None of them have firing missile launchers, except for Jazz and Targetmaster Ricochet (but they have longer missiles).

-Astrotrain was released in his Japanese color scheme (white and black) as opposed to his G1 colors (white and purple).

-The upcoming Soundwave reissue will have chrome weapons (no idea if the missile launchers fire, though), but it uses the previously Japanese-exclusive Soundblaster mold, which was a black Soundwave that could hold two cassettes.

-Dirge, Hot Rod, and Rodimus Prime are unchanged.

Aside from the above, the molds for the reissues are exactly the same as the originals. The quality is pretty good, too. I haven't had any of my reissues break.

All of the reissues released in Japan by Takara, on the other hand, are virtually unchanged if any of Hasbro's changes are a real turn-off.

Member of the tfw2005/Cobra Island Shuffle Alliance

Well that's true as far as intentional changes go, but Meister, or Jazz over here, is an exception. The Takara reissue had a really messed up face mold that Hasbro later corrected. Weird toothy grin that didn't look good at all.

I thought Hasbro only fixed the missing tabs on the rear windshield? My CS3 Jazz has the toothy grin. Ricochet doesn't, though.

Member of the tfw2005/Cobra Island Shuffle Alliance

Actually that's not true either.

There were two problems with the Meister reissue. One was a loose roof which Hasbro supposedly fixed.

The face started to degrade with G2 Jazz and had turned into an ugly smirk by the time Takara released TFC Meister. Hasbro's CS Autobot Jazz reissue still sported the smirk. The face wasn't fixed until Takara's Stepper reissue which was also released by Hasbro as CS Ricochet.

There are two branches of reissues American and Japanese.

American

Optimus Prime – springs are removed and the smokestacks are shortened
Ultra Magnus – smokestacks are shortened and the shoulder missles are longer
Rodimus Major (Hot Rod) reissue similar to the Takara one which is a reissue of the Targetmaster.

Star Scream longer missles
Thundercracker longer missles
Skywarp longer missles
Dirge The same as the original

Powermaster Prime has longer missles
Jazz longer missles and they are black as is his gun
Prowl missles and gun are black, they do not shoot
Smokescreen the same
Silverstreak (Bluestreak) the same
Tracks
Inferno
Grapple
Red Alert

Sideswipe
Targetmaster Jazz (whatever his name is) same as Jazz reissue

I may have missed some. Basically, Hasbro tried a couple different approaches to releasing these figures and getting around the toy laws in the US. The final approach was to disable the launchers so that the figures maintained the look of their original counterparts

Japanese

Optimus Prime 15th ann release
Black repaint
Gold repaint
Ultra Magnus
Diaclone repaint
Yellow repaint
Hot Rod
Megatron
Black repaint
Sixshot
Rodimus Prime
Star Scream
Convention/Ehobby exclusives
Iron Hide/ Ratchet
Inferno/ Grapple
Sideswipe/ Red Alert
Trailbreaker/ Hoist
Ramjet/ Thrust
Thundercracker/ Skywarp
Dirge

Then came the bookstyles

The main difference from these releases and the originals was that the Optimus Prime cap’s front tire sticks out a little more than the original figure. For US fans, Rodimus Prime came with rubber tires, score, but the seeker’s arms are a little bit loser than they were originally. I’ve heard that the US releases didn’t have that. As for the bookstyles there were a few issues that people reported, but what I saw was with Jazz being really lose, they fixed that with the US release and Skids back wheel didn’t lock into place correctly. If you can afford the price, the Japanese reissues are the way to go. Personally, I’m trying to finish my bookstyle collection and then its solid G-1 from that point on.

Awesome, thanks for the replies, everyone. Phew, it sounds like the re-issues aren't as different from the originals as I had feared. I have a fair number of them, both Japanese and American. I'm just not able to compare them to the originals since I don't have too many of those... and had started to worry that maybe I didn't know what I was missing.

Thanks for the very helpful listing of the specific changes! That's all great stuff to know.

Yeah most of the differences are in the accesories area, where ones reissued in the US had to be modified to conform to modern US toy safety laws. The japanese ones, speaking from experience, are virtually the same. I can notice diffrences between vintage plastic and modern plastic. It just feels/looks different. Maybe because it is brand new.

Yeah, I agree with what the others say i.e. from Jazz's "toothy grin" to the almost identical Takara reissues to the originals. I also agree with Megatronwp38 - the "feel" of the Takara reissue are different...maybe it because of the different plastics used.