One of the biggest concerns for Hasbro as a toy company is the future of it's toy sells. With Bay's help Hasbro has had it's fair share of good revenue due to three Transformers movies.

From the beginning the movie toys poised a challenge for the engineers in mass producing their best attempts for a Transformer character. Somewhere along the line Hasbro called the complicated toys quit.

I know Bay must be proud of how well his version of Transformers turned out (most) and cocky at times. But what I want to know is how does Bay feel about the new changes Hasbro wants for his characters? What made the TF's so popular is how real and highly detailed they were.

All the work to make the Tf's so different and unique could be gone for good because kids can't transform toys.

 

If the new designs were prompted by Hasbro requests, then that's rather odd - seeing how they have so few vehicle parts integrated into the robot mode. They certainly haven't made them easier to adapt into toys, seems like the opposite.

 

....Bay gets a percentage of toy sales, either straight from Hasbro or through Paramount. As long as it maintains, or improves, his cut i doubt he gives an *expletive deleted*


'Hey kids you want more simple and larger toys' is probably a smokescreen for cost cutting, much as Mechtech was.... but at least there is some possible benefit to kids this time.

 

Actually the fewer vehicle parts on the main robot mode - the better it is for Hasbro as like many shell formers they can just have the robot hidden inside and have the vehicle shell become a backpack of sorts or even just be removable.

 

Which is kind of cheating, if you ask me.

 

Why they just dont release an easy to transform and a more movie accurate version of every figure?

 

Maybe because it takes more money to make 2 different versions of each character.I could be wrong though but I would want for them to make 2 versions

 

I was going to start a similar thread. Why do you think Optimus and Bumblebee have two different vehicle modes in TF4? More toys of course. If Grimlock ends up "upgrading" then that will also encourage more toy sales as well. The franchise is a cash cow, and they will capitalize on every opportunity. So, Hasbro, TAKE MY MONEY!

 

Given he's gone on record as saying certain films were "the last one" and that he wouldn't be returning, and then he did, I don't think Bay is as personally invested in the Transformers as you might think.

Honestly, he's probably spent his career hearing producers saying "we'd like to go in a different direction", so he's probably used to it and just acts professional as he can be in those situations.

 

Hasbro sold a lot of Revenge of the Fallen toy, but retailers were not happy because they got stuck with a lot of Revenge of the Fallen toys they couldn't move even at clearance prices. When Dark of the Moon got close to release there were stores with shelves full of Revenge of the Fallen toys the store hoped might sell at last.

Later waves of Dark of the Moon went to Asia because the big US retailers didn't like how the Dark of the Moon toys were moving so they refused to get stuck with the later waves and did not order them.

Thus on the Hasbro side of things I think the changes were so they could go into meetings with Wal-Mart and Target to say things have changed and these toys will move much better than the 2nd and 3rd film toys. You have to remember the big retailers hold most of the cards so if Hasbro wants it's products out there they have to please places like Wal-Mart first.

For Paramount and Bay in the US the first film got a good bit of traction under it so Revenge of the Fallen was very successful for them at the US box office taking in $402 million compared to the first film's $319 million. But the franchise started slipping in the US when Dark of Moon brought in $352 million compared to Revenge of the Fallen's $402 million. Paramount and Bay likely figured they needed to make some big changes if they didn't want to watch the franchise continue to slip at the US box office as it aged and newer fresher franchises tried to be king of the summer box office.

It's also likely that Dark of the Moon really didn't change many opinions about the film franchise. The people who love the films will be back no matter what. But the people who hated the films really didn't get enough to make them like the films now. People on the fence weren't really swayed that much either. To have a shot a changing opinions I'm guessing Paramount and Bay figured they needed some changes. With all the choices this summer and it getting easier and easier for people to just watch at home they want people feeling like it's something to see at the movie theater not a rental later on in the year.

Not hard to make money outside of the US because of more and more movie theaters in nations where more people are getting the disposable income to have a movie night, but where the disposable income isn't high enough yet to have a kick ass entertainment system at home. Even the duds and bombs at the US box office have done well if they can get shown in places like China.

 

I'm pretty sure AOE will have the most varied and unique robots yet, as far as the movie itself goes.

 

That's what they're planning on doing.

People don't seem to understand that this is exactly the plan. People are using AOE Prime as a yardstick, but he's a pretty unreliable one, as the implausible nature of the design makes any faithful translation to toy form out of the question. He is, at the time, without experimentation and ability to design a toy without a tight design schedule, the best attempt.

 

That's the point of having deluxe and Cyberverse. From Leader to Cyberverse its suppose to go from hard to easy, that is why there is a skill level on the box. Kids already have rescue bots and others for this reason. It's just a bullshit excuse on Hasbro's side, "to make things easier for little kids". They can't be bothered, or it costs to much to engineer, or it costs to much to produce, pick your reason. Look at the D.O.T.M. line for example. The size of the toys shrunk compared to R.O.T.F. toys, the plastic felt and look nasty, and the engineering was quite shit, take Voyager mechtech Optimus Prime, or Leader Ironhide for example, how basic was the transformations. Hasbro doesn't care about the quality and engineering at all anymore. $60 for a Leader shellformer 1st edition OP, what a ripoff. Watch there share price fall 2 months after the movie is released.

 

Well I don't think Bay really gives a rats butt.
It's pretty obvious he has no real respect for the franchise, he's in this for the $$.
The only thing he's probably annoyed about is that for AOE he's got to add dinosaur robots in his movie, which he openly hates the idea of.

Michael Bay? Professional?
I suppose it's been a while since one of whinny rants, so maybe he's trying.

 

the only problem is we have yet to see anything screen accurate. I have a feeling that Hasbro meant the Generations stuff to be the detailed stuff us collectors would want. And so far, I see garbage even in the generations line.

 

but if we get the mess of a Truck TF in OP even as a leader toy, do you really think many of the other toys will be much better? Im really worried about what The Argosy is going to look like. All I can think of is how the font grill my open, the whole upper body of the TF will fold out and the entire boxed cab will just fold back and sit on his back lol.

 

It worked for Huffer.

 

The Freightliner IS Huffer, calling it now.