because amazon sucks and is unreliable

 

Hoist the Mater of all Transformers

 

Look at how Hoist's shoulder joints and door/body panels are slightly angled upward and outward. That's because the panels are attached to the shoulder joints, and thus rotate with them, so they have to be angled to get out of the way of the truck hood belly and its wheels, and thus inherently stick out at an angle. As someone who as Hoist, those panels are stuck at that angle away from the body.

Now, notice Trailbreaker:

Those panels are now completely parallel with the body, and stuck much closer in. If they were still attached to the shoulder the way they are with Hoist, they wouldn't be able to rotate very far forwards because they'd run into the wheels on the belly, as well as probably other parts of the torso, especially because he shoulder is now also completely parallel/perpendicular to the chest instead of at an angle. So, they have to be separate from the shoulders now.

 

Looks likes it's just a matter of a render vs a physical object. All the relevant shoulder/arm parts look the same as on Hoist. There's no variance to allow the positioning seen here. My bet is that the render is just cheating and ignoring parts collision.

 

Thing is, Hoist's arm panel is in line with the wheel, so if it was just a clipping issue, then the panel would be clipping into the wheel on the side of the belly, but the fact that it's also set farther back tells me there's more going on here.

Also of note, I discovered a subtle difference between the panels on Hoist and on Trailbreaker:


Notice how on Hoist, that angled bit goes up to meet flushly with the flat side perpendicular to it, but on Trailbreaker it sticks up past it a little bit? I did take a look at that area on my Hoist at the same angle, and confirmed it's not just the angle, that is an actual sculpting difference. There's no detail difference between Hoist and Trailbreaker that would necessitate such a change, so if the panel and arm wasn't remolded at all between Hoist and Trailbreaer, there'd be no reason for that change.

As well, the whole panel is set slightly lower in relation to the shoulder on Trailbreaker than it is on Hoist. Yes, again, I did check my Hoist at the same angle to make sure.

So, in conclusion, the fact that the panels are angled further down, shifted downward, AND shifted backward leads me to believe this is an actual change in the toy rather than a clipping issue.


The main reason I'm even thinking this hard about this is because I think it's the exact kind of minor retooling between largely same-mold characters to match animation differences that I think John Warden's team would do.

 

Bruh, it's a cg render.
Discrepancies will happen.
It's never going to look like the physical products.
Most of Trailbreaker will be the same as Hoist. Door panels included.

 

I don't think we've witnessed parts clipping or improper movement on any of these stock renders before. They've been quite indicative of the physical product.

 

Can't believe I'm about to get involved in this argument, but...

If Trailbreaker's arms are now independent of the side panels, then what exactly are his shoulders pinned into? The panels are still right behind them, and there isn't enough room to fit another swivel in between his shoulders and the panels.

 

Notice the part of the arm panel bit that's between the shoulder and the "mount" I guess? On Hoist that's part of the same part that the front of the shoulder rotates outward on, but maybe on Trailbreaker it's now just a panel with a hole that rotates on the bar that now exists between the new separate inner shoulder joint and the "mount". Sorry if none of this makes sense, just spitballing engineering I guess.

Thing is, the sculpting of Hoist's CG render matched the toy in the sculpting and positioning differences with the panel I'm talking about, while the CG render of Trailbreaker is notably different.

 

And I highly doubt they've gone through the trouble of engineering and entirely different shoulder section for Trailbreaker.

 

Why though? When it's too different in positioning and sculpt to simply be mistakes from the posing of the render, and when it'd represent one of the notable differences between Trailbreaker and Hoist in the cartoon, which is the kind of thing John Warden's team would definitely do?

 

You're reading too much into a cg render.
Look what it says below my name.
Don't trust the renders.
They have tendency to lie.

 

I don’t participate in retool discussions..buuuut...I 100% see what you are saying but so far it’s pretty dim that there will be any mold differences for such a minute change. They would differ in far more obvious ways if it were...but they do not. For CHUG these guys are now just repaints of each other.

 

I just wish Sunstreaker and Trailbreaker would've been shown at the Australian Toy Fair so this could be solved quick.

 

I did exactly that, and I have no regrets. I'm happier!

 

honestly i dont think my masterpiece collection will grow much past my ghostbusters crossover stuff, partly due to mp prices and partly due to how good generations has gotten in the last 2 years

 

Aha! I noticed the shoulder panel thing with trailbreaker a day ago but didn’t post because I thought I was wrong. I suppose we’ll just wait for in-hand photos before we’re certain.

also, a time traveller spotted on the sideswipe thread from 2018-

 

If you look at the renders, you'll see that Hoist has the black shoulder hinges resting outside of his wheel wells, which is why the shoulders are propped up at an angle. On Trailbreaker's render, they're tucked behind the wheel wells instead, locking them down.

 

Exactly. On Hoist, there is physically no way to get that shoulder joint "locked down" like that, the joint itself can't quite fit in that space, and the door/frame panel would have to clip into the wheel on the belly to make it work, so just too many surfaces in the way.

If that were all that was different, I might assume Trailbreaker's render was just slightly erroneous, but as I've mentioned above, there are just a few too many differences otherwise for me to write it off like that.

 

Ah, I see. I don't have Hoist in-hand yet, so I had no idea if that was possible or not.

The way you were describing it, I was looking in completely the wrong area for potential remolds.