Imagine Spider-Man reinventing itself the way the UT "reinvented" Transformers:

-Spider-Man/Peter Parker himself would remain largely similar, but maybe he's from Chicago now instead of New York.

-Mary Jane would be Peter's longtime best friend who's extremely unattractive and they never end up dating. She gets to keep the red hair though.

-J. Jonah Jameson won't exist since newspapers are hard.

-Dr. Octopus will be a literal mutant octopus.

-Venom would be a drug dealer with no powers.

-Kingpin would be a bowling-themed gimmick villain.

 

I don’t think that’s right is it? Because in 2010 wasn’t Warden working on GI Joe Pursuit of Cobra? And I know he certainly wasn’t the lead designer when Prime was going strong.

I don’t disagree with your first points, I still think the end result was something more fresh and exciting for us.

I don’t agree with G1 lasting longer than the first time, as Split Lip mentioned already it’s only carried the brand for the last 3 years. I’m not even against G1 at the moment I’m loving the Earthrise figures, it’s just I don’t know how much longer the market will support both a big collectors line, and the mainline being so G1. I just see them canabalising each other eventually.

 

More new designs enters Transformers = More designs that fans of them will demand get remade

Now every fan in this fandom is completely valid. But HasTak shot themselves in the foot by making so many good designs for core characters. Why people are demanding more G1 updates is because more designs were introduced. HasTak can't possibly keep up with that, especially in the Generations line. It's good that they're slowing down. I just hope that every fan of the non-G1 iterations get their fair share of the updates as well out of this mess.

 

...But that'd be awesome.

If you're trying to turn me off from this idea that's not the way you do it.

 

The GEEWUN years will pass and other parts of the franchise will have their chance as well. I don’t know how long that will take, but it will happen. The best way to accelerate that, I think, is to absolutely buy the shit out of everything that isn’t G1 and pass on the G1 stuff you don’t want/already have a close representation of. And yes, I know, the options are limited right now. But, HasTak have to be watching the sales figures and tracking what sells and what doesn’t. If they see the non-G1 stuff flying off of shelves, that should tell them to do some more of those types of products. If you want BW, RID, UT, etc., then put your money where your mouth is and pick it up when it becomes available. Until then, just try to be patient. And if that means taking a break, then so be it. We could all use that from time to time.

 

When did Archer leave? Warden took over at that time, and it was during T30, which is when a majority of the Generations non-G1 updates took place.

 

I think Archer left at the tail end of 2014. Warden wasn’t a lead designer until Combiner Wars, according to TF Wiki, though he did have a few designs in T30, and AOE.

 

2010-11 was when Generations was deluxe only and we were getting stuff like Drift and Warpath.

 

Aside from Masterpiece where BW is being shown some love recently, what other options for the Non-G1 characters are there? Cheetor and Skybyte showing up in Cyberverse aside.

 

POTP leader Optimal Optimus. Siege leader Galaxy Optimus. Hot Shot repaint of Siege Hound (selects line, I think? Or was it just a rumor?). Siege Rung. There aren't many...probably missing a couple, though.

 

I'd count the movie MP's as well.

 

I guess you can, but the movie stuff like Studio Series to me are separate entities. They're not tied to any ancillary media but the movies. If a dedicated comic or video game showcased characters that never appeared in the movies proper and were developed as figures that would be cool, though. As a whole I don't hate the Bay designs, for what they are they're awesome, they're just too far departed from the source material that rubs some the wrong way. Let me put it this way, on the original Bay Megatron design, if they had called the character Galvatron instead, I would've been down with that. Scourge instead of Starscream.

 

I'm surprised that no one on this thread cited the main reason why everything is currently G1.

In an old Hasbro interview they said that they wanted the Transformers characters to be as famous as Superman and Spider-man, that is, when a person on the street sees the characters they know who they are from their appearance, that they have designs iconic.

So that's why everything is G1, for brand cohesion.

Here is an old comment from someone else on another thread that talks about it:

 

That's very much true. Hasbro wants Optimus, Bee, Hot Rod and Windblade to be as household as the Avengers. And Megatron and Starscream is their Thanos and Loki.

 

I totally get that, especially from a business perspective. I just think there's room for new stuff alongside the old. I mean, when Siege starts we'll have two concurrently running shows that are both heavy G1 homages. Couldn't one be a G1 homage and the other be something less safe?

The funny thing is, characters like Optimus and Bumblebee are pretty well known. If you were to show a bunch of average Joes on the street a picture of Optimus, Bumblebee, or Megatron and ask who they were, I'd venture to say about 80% (at least) would be able to tell you. They don't need everything everywhere to look uniform to accomplish that.

Even Superman and Spider-man aren't always exactly the same. That's actually part of the tactic. They'll have a story where Superman turns evil or something, and stick with that for a few years. Then they'll get him back to normal, and everyone cheers to have "the real Superman" back. It's also a tactic fast food uses...deprive people of something they like for a while and then bring it back, and cash in on the hype.

I remember it being pretty refreshing back in 2006 when Classics first came out. It had been a while since we saw the G1 style. I just don't feel that sense of refreshment anymore. If they were to take a break for a few years, it would be super exciting when they finally brought back the G1 style.

 

Yes, but I feel like their point is to have characters be recognizable other than the ones who are plastered on everything. Most people on the street, for example, would definitely think of the black pickup truck guy if you asked them who Ironhide was, if they even recognized the name. Same with Ratchet, Sideswipe, etc. but with their respective movie appearances. Plus, other than being a big gray robot, Megatron actually probably doesn’t look that recognizable to someone who has only seen the films.

This is what mainly drives my view of G1 being ok in the most promoted media, i.e. movies, to give mainstream people an idea of who these characters are supposed to be. Other lines should be more experimental to give fans who have established experience with the brand something new.

 

I totally agree with this, as much as I hate it the brand does need to recenter itself and G1 is that center point. I'm sitting it out though, the new toy designs and characters are far too boring and rehashed for me to bother buying. I just hope that my interest in TFs survives this re-establishing, the WFC and FOC games got me through that "movie period" and IDW is what got me back into TFs around the Thrilling 30 line but there isn't anything out there now that can serve the same purpose for me.... I am picking up the odd figure here and there. The Titan related ones are a must and the new characters fit in perfectly for me but I wasn't dying for a new Starscream, muchless YET ANOTHER a year after one just came out. I really wish it would stop, I loved getting Armada and other franchise updates in Generations as well as the odd movieverse figure getting a Generations version.

 

I honestly feel like after this wave of SUPER G1 toys in the WFC Trilogy, there is no way they can keep it up afterwards unless they go with more obscure G1 characters. I can't imagine how they could make ANOTHER strictly '84 Optimus Prime after the Earthrise mold. If anything, they could make a Powermaster Optimus Prime toy (one that has an actual cab robot as well as the combined form, unlike the disappointing Titans Return one), but other than that, I feel like they've gone too far towards G1 to be able to go any further without even them realizing it is getting completely stale.

 

Same, I grabbed Apeface the other day because I've been wanting him ever since they had triple changer voyager headmasters in Titans Return (though in retrospect, it's awfully good he WASN'T there since those all had the weird spring loaded head gimmicks which really didn't add to the figure honestly), but a lot of the updated characters I don't need. Like, Sunstreaker and Trailbreaker look great...but do I really need them? I'm perfectly happy with my Universe 2.0 and Generations versions to be quite frank.

No, what they need to do is G2 Laser Rod Prime. With Trailer and Sword.

That mold would absolutely print money as an RID Scourge repaint.

 

God, I totally thought that ER Prime was a slight retool when they first showed it off just to be shocked and underwhelmed when I found out it was a brand new model. Talk about a waste of resources (IMO). We've heard for years about how expensive it was to make these figures and that's why retools and repaints were needed and now they're just blowing their wad year after year on new molds for the same character and design. Hell, I also thought the new Megatron was a slight remold of the WFC one until I took a closer look at it TODAY. Ugh. Brand fatigue.

Yeah, for me TR just about killed mainline for me (with all the QC issues mine had) so I'm glad he wasn't made then. I might pick up a couple of Sunstreakers for Cordon and Blaze repaints though, I don't have much need for another Sunstreaker but more background bots are SUPER welcomed. Really, I'm just starving for interesting characters to come out.

10/10 Would buy those and I have zero connection to RID or G2.