Wait... Are they saying if you preorder 2 MPM Ratchets they'll throw in a free MP30 Ratchet? That's... A really good deal. I don't even need another G1 MP Ratchet but I'd take that.

 

MPM Alice?

 

Sooooo ready to preorder Ratchet, when he hits TCP or BBTS, since I don't have a TTMall account.

 

Ummm, when does the whole reveal start......USA Central time/date?

 

June 1st 7:00am (ct)

 

Exactly? At this point we'll get toys of the entire damn cast before the next film comes out because "muh G1"

Also, nice quote beneath your username "Show accuracy's overrated" takes some balls to say that on a board filled mostly with G1 fanboys.

 

The designs are actually what made me start hating the reboot, I ended up giving away my Bumblebee Optimus Prime and Bumblebee figures because I already have two shelves of G1 Autobots, I'm not going to make a third just because it got a live action movie. I also agree with your takes on the bay designs, going from films where the main strong point was the badass designs and great figures to a movie with borderline lazy nostalgic designs and a shit toy line really killed any hype I had for a following film, I mean seriously just look at SS Blitzwing, that figure is boring mess that will obviously be repainted and shelfwarm because people want more seekers. They can make him inaccurate but I still cant get an SS Dino? WTF!

 

Please, just a Crumb of ROTF Megatron...

I'm happy it's ratchet. Is this the first time ANY masterpiece line has finished a full line of characters? It helps that there's so few 07 Autobots, but hopefully the same will happen with S1 of Beast Wars.

 

It should happen with S1 Beast Wars, I honestly don't get why BW didn't just get it's own MP line like Bayformers did, it's really stupid that the BW releases get so split away from each other because they're cramming redoes of MP's, new MP's, JPG1 MP's and BW MP's all into one line.

 

They definitely should have their own line, but the frequency is fine with me - especially with more expensive figures these days.

 

Takara teams up with Phicen/Tbleague for that one.

 

Yeah, I could imagine a new BW figure every other month would mean death for many fans wallets, lmao

 

It’s a safe bet it’s Ratchet. I don’t generally buy Mastepriece figures but I might make an exception. Apart from some good deluxe figures, he hasn’t gotten a lot of love over the last 13 years.

Disagree. I would argue that the Bee movies staying power has, more or less, hinged on the G1 Cybertron designs. It’s a safe bet if those Cybertron scenes hadn’t been added and the movie had been released as it had been originally filmed, it probably would’ve been tossed to the wayside by the fanbase several months after release.

 

Totally agree. Your average movie-watching person (non-transformers fan) doesn't remember Charlie's plight. They don't comment on John Cena. Everyone says, "The one with the old school toy designs." I know people who avoided the first 5 movies because "they didn't look like my transformers" who saw the Bumblebee movie after seeing the trailers with the G1 designs. My brother-in-law loved "The jet guy" (Blitzwing) because he "had that toy as a kid" (G1 Starscream). He didn't remember the names, but the designs triggered nostalgia. It's a powerful tool. If the next Transformers movie uses more G1-esque designs and kicks it up a notch, it will blow away previous Transformers movie records. If they do a G1 homage to either the Sherman dam fight or TFTM final battle with a G1-looking tank Megatron with the G1 prime, I will die having lived a satisfied life. LOL

 

A movie shouldn't survive solely on nostalgia though. Bumblebee was a decently solid movie on its own merits. It had "live action Transformers" weighing it down, but "nostalgia" holding it up. If it didn't have the stain of previous tf movies, then it wouldn't have needed the Cybertron scenes. I don't think the Cybertron scenes and g1 designs were the sole reasons it was critically successful.

I think they've had a solid enough restart that if they can make the next movie just as good or better than Bee, then they won't need to rely on nostalgia as much to be successful. And I hope that they don't. Straight G1 Optimus in live action was cool at first but I've kinda grown bored of it. I think the way they did Bee's designs and Shatter, Dropkick, and Blitzwing were all really good and fun. Clean, clear. But not straight G1. The Seekers had clear influences and you could tell who they were, but they weren't as copy and paste G1 as Optimus and some of the others. I hope that they redesign Optimus with the same design language as the 4 characters listed above. Clean, clear, easy on the eyes, and clearly Optimus Prime, but not just "G1 with greebles"

 

Nostalgia is powerful. It works. It keeps Starwars going. The prequels and sequels were banking on 50 year old men feeling nostalgic, because they really aren't well crafted films either. Jurassic World banked on nostalgia for the first JP film. Blitzwing was totally G1. Just not G1 Blitzwing. The Cybertron scenes were something the Bayverse really should have had. Our views of the Cybertron war was merely bland, wide angle shots of protoforms shooting at each other. The Cybertron scenes in Bumblebee managed to sum up the Transformers brand in those shots better than the Bayverse films in 5 films. I say that as a fan of the Bayverse. As of now, I list the Bee movie as the quintessential film for TF fans. It's a better story, better concept, and better execution than the Bayverse films or the 1986 film. If no other Transformers films ever get made, I think Bee has a better chance of aging as a "classic" than the other films.

 

Nostalgia is powerful, but a brand shouldn’t become reliant on it, especially Transformers. It’s baffling to see this mentality that this brand should constantly rely on G1 as a starting point for the last several years. Transformers has been around for 35 years and has a such a diverse history of characters, designs, settings, continuities, and universes.

 

The Transformers are now Super Heroes. G1 is their original outfits. G1 sells because that's the version that the most people identify with. Same with X-Men. Every movie, cartoon, comic, toyline, etc has Wolverine and Storm... even though they were added 10+ years later into the X-Men. All the other takes on the characters haven't had nearly the success as G1. Even Beastwars pales in comparison to G1 in it's heyday. Not saying BW wasn't successful, but it had a lot more competition than TF did for kids' attention - TMNT, tons of superhero cartoons, pokemon, etc.

 

It’s almost like...that’s what Hasbro markets. Backpacks, school supplies, office supplies, clothing, backpacks, etc. Other than the Bayformers, no other part of this brand has gotten the marketing push that the G1/Evergreen designs have gotten. It’s a safe bet that if shows like Beast Wars or Animated got half the marketing push that G1 has gotten, public interest would spike in those shows.

 

Nostalgia is a HORRIBLE marketing tool. Let’s look at the Pokemon fanbase and Gen 1 vs the other 7 gens. Gen 1 is their nostalgia baby and ever since 2016, the game developers have been abusing nostalgia by giving the gen 1 pokemon new forms or giving them the generations gimmick alongside the new gen. And fans are sick of it, and righfully so. For 5 years straight, fans have been fed the constant Generation 1 original 151 pokemon getting all the love while the other gens are lucky if they get ANY new form. It’s become so annoying and tiressome to see the same old same old getting love while your favorite gen gets the short end of the stick.

Nostalgia can only get you so far and eventually fans will get sick of it because it’s the same tired old designs and any other designs like Armada or Prime would be lucky to get 1 character to resemble their appearance from the show. The movies shouldn’t rely on the same tired designs because people will start to get annoyed by it. Look at Optimus over the different incarnations. Almost all are instantly recognizable because of the design elements of having: mouthplate, smokestacks, wheels on legs, red upper body blue lower body, ear attenenas, head crest, window chest. The 2007 design strayed away from the red and blue by having the colors more spread out and no real head crest, but it is still instanly recognizable as Optimus. Blitzwing was mistaken as Starscream because he had the things that made him recognizable: wings, cockpit underneath his head, traditional design. But he also had things that strayed away like gas mask type of mouth and no blue on him. Soundwave and Shockwave from the cybertron scenes are just blatant copies of the G1 designs with very little to make him stand out as his own. Sure his tape deck chest is a divit in the square, but that’s about it. He doesn’t have much to make him distinguishable from his 1984 self other than looking more realistic.