Haslab Unicron

Discussion in 'Transformers News and Rumors' started by bearytrek, Jul 15, 2019.

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  1. Lex79

    Lex79 Well-Known Member

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    I'm referring to this picture, from Unicron's display at SDCC:
    IMG_5820.jpg
     
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  2. Lex79

    Lex79 Well-Known Member

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    Now...between yesterday and today I rearranged my shelves to free space for Jetfire and Scorponok that I bought last week. As a consequence I also freed the space where I plan to put Unicron on display next year. Now the hard part is going to be resisting the temptation to immediately buy a combiner to fill that empty spot...
     
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  3. jojo1982

    jojo1982 Well-Known Member

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    Horns are included
     
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  4. Smokescreen38

    Smokescreen38 Fight fire with smoke!

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    No doubt, the stunning speed with which the Sentinel was funded is proof of how strong the Marvel Legends fan base is. A couple thoughts that seem relevant..purely my opinion but I’ve got a quiet house at the moment and a big mug of coffee so bear with me. ;) 

    Unicron was roughly 2x as expensive- worth mentioning again. That $600+ price tag was a tough pill to swallow but it also established a precedent and expectations by which $300 for Sentinel seemed more reasonable.

    Unicron was the second (third?) Haslab project, released alongside Cookie Monster, which to many of us, seemed slightly off kilter. At the least, it muddied they waters for what Haslab would be and made it look like their offerings were not necessarily a worthy investment.

    Transformers have their standardized character models and many of us love them...but they’re also virtually impossible to replicate exactly in physical form assuming they need to transform. Some of the MP grade figures have come close but they’re never 100% spot on. This opens the door to a debate about whether or not this is the definitive representation or even a a “good” representation...which has a way of making people pump the brakes before dropping $600+USD. Marvel Legends designs don’t have this problem to the same degree. It’s vastly easier to make “accurate” or at least non-controversial representations of characters.

    Amidst the doubts about the design, Zeta drops their amazing, clean looking Unicron and steals some thunder, steals some orders, creates even more debate over the merits of the Haslab design, generally steals attention.

    In an unprecedented move from Hasbro, Zeta Unicron gets kiboshed, creating controversy, stealing attention away again and making Hasbro look insecure about the Haslab design which adds fuel to the doubts.

    Many modern Transformers fans, God love them, are a surprisingly entitled group who hyper-focus on flaws. Nearly every damn figure and ever damn line is subject to the. The bigger the cost of the item, the louder the complaints. For example, the stack of planet mode panels on the robot legs/back created a constant din of whining and criticism. I don’t mean to say that these folks are wrong (nor am I saying they’re right) but that prevailing notion took a toll and planted doubts. This tone was carried into podcasts and other media in addition to the boards and it took months and months before people started to get over it and understand that this panel solution was possibly a necessary evil. Plenty have never accepted it, continue to pout and stomp their feet to this day. :) 

    Transformers is, by most accounts, a healthy franchise. However, a significant portion of fans grew up and came into the hobby during the Michael Bay movie era. For years, people have been saying “enuff geeewon” already...Unicron represents the pinnacle of G1 fandom and the absolute antithesis of the Michael Bay era more than any other character. So there was probably some baked-in resistance and a large portion of the fan base saw this as an easy pass.

    Transformers fans of the higher spending tiers have had years and years of 3P and official Masterpiece placing demands on their wallets. This kind of unofficial product is absolutely not tolerated by Disney/Marvel so there is certainly more fertile ground for big ticket items with the Marvel Legends fan base.

    The Transformers the Movie is special (or damn near “sacred”) to many of us but it was a box office flop from 34 years ago. The media in recent years has been all over the place with weirdly violent movies, cartoons aimed at very young children, web based shows of very low quality, comic books that only reach hardcore fans despite the often high quality of those books. Meanwhile Marvel has had 22 blockbuster movies over the last decade or so.

    This is the big one- Marvel Legends fans are the “competitor eaters” of the toy collecting world. The ravenous consumption that we saw with Gigawatt is a common occurrence with Marvel Legends. Any hint that a figure will be scarce sends fans into a frothy panic. This may be due to the fact that unlike Transformers (where we hunt for ways to narrow our focus and somehow try to cap spending while still feeling satisfied) all of these Marvel Legends figures work together in the same universe so any character adds something to the collection. Having a Sentinel means an instant X-Men diorama...

    Finally, Sentinel is coming after months of people, hungry for a little piece of joy, being largely stuck in their homes with plenty of time to focus on toys and shop for stuff on the internet. Unicron was sold to a different world where it had to compete with concepts like socializing, dating, buying clothes, paying for haircuts, paying for gasoline, going outside, etc.

    No doubt, ML kicked TF’s butt in terms of Haslab performance...but that’s fine with me. I’m still absolutely over the damn moon for the Haslab Unicron design and I have enjoyed the anticipation of that giant box arriving. This takes absolutely nothing away from the excitement for Unicron, IMO...

    This is all good for the ML fans and it’s good for Haslab too.

    Ok...That’s enough Sunday morning opinion blathering from me!
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2020
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  5. UtahRobotInDisguise

    UtahRobotInDisguise Herald of Utahcron

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    Sentinel looks amazing. Gonna wait to see what the final two tiers are, then I might order. I don’t collect much marvel stuff outside of the movie figuarts. But I love me the sentinel since the X-men Capcom games. Tad big, but he can arm wrestle Unicron. Last sentinel I had was the toybiz play set in the 90’s.
     
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  6. AOEGalvatronRox

    AOEGalvatronRox Collector

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    I don’t think Transformers fans always intend to focus on the flaws of a figure. I think it’s the price that makes them focus on the flaws. The larger the asking price, the more they’re going to analyze the figure to see if it’s worth their money. With third party developers using what could only be black magic on their figures, the bar is being raised for Hasbro and Takara almost everyday.

    While the backpack on Unicron was already an open wound that developed the moment the figure was revealed, I kind of think the clean looking Zeta version was salt on said wound. A figure that is half the price of the official one and it looked like it literally stepped out of the movie? While I wasn’t interested in either (I just can’t bring myself to get a figure that huge, despite thinking they both looked absolutely incredible), I can’t blame most fans for wanting the Zeta version more

    And it comes right down to the price as you sort of touched upon. A large backpack is something I’d expect on a $20 deluxe, like ER Arcee. I wouldn’t expect it on a 27 inch $600 figure. But that’s pretty much what it came down to. With third party developers making good figures, and official figures also looking good, the $600 asking price was, as you said, a tough pill to swallow. And the backpack, I think, was probably the fans’ next big issue after the price. You do make really good points though.

    And the Sentinels rapidly growing numbers of backers definitely doesn’t take away from Unicron. If anything, it shows that, even in a pandemic, HasLab is viable and it opens the door to more characters and vehicles getting a shot at being backed. It would be insanely cool to see a Star Destroyer get a chance at HasLab.
     
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  7. Rookbartley

    Rookbartley Well-Known Member

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    I do think a very vocal part of the fandom focuses on the flaws of everything. They hate the new RED figures without even having them in hand. They're critical of the new Netflix show without even watching it. They don't like Cyberverse or RID, without even seeing an episode. And Unicron just made that very vocal group even more bitter. And the bitterness will ramp up even more when we start posting in hand pictures and they realize they missed out on the most impressive Transformers figure ever.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2020
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  8. Fenrys

    Fenrys Formerly Tigatron2002

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    Where is this "most fans" you speak of? Because it's usually the vocal minority that bitch and moan and hate everything hasbro does because they do it for profit. Guess what, 3p does it for profit as well, they're not your friends, they're not looking out for the customer, they just want your money.

    This is absolutely true
     
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  9. Paco Grande

    Paco Grande Well-Known Member

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    I’ve never understood the point of view that more cost on a figure equals less kibble. Just because a figure costs more, it cannot break the laws of physics. Some Transformers are simply impossible to design without kibble if the two modes are just too different in shape. It also depends on the project goals. Whether they focus on alt mode accuracy or gimmicks, etc.

    For Haslab Unicron they wanted a very accurate planet mode and they also wanted the articulated planet jaws all moving as one. That forces them to have the kibble. Especially the backpack. The planet jaws have to be a very large chunk because of the gimmick so it cannot be collapsed further. It must stay as one piece. If they didn’t want the jaws gimmick or if they were willing to accept a less accurate planet mode Unicron would have had less kibble. The planet shell has different colours and details than the bot mode so it had to be a bit of a shell former to accomplish that.

    Masterpiece Prime V3 and MP Arcee have the same issues. They wanted accurate alt modes and the vehicle detailing does not match anything on the robot so they had to make Prime turn inside out and have a larger backpack than usual and Arcee has most of the car in her backpack because of her thin bot mode limbs and different colours for her alt mode.

    The third party Unicron does not have an accurate planet mode or the geared planet jaws making them move as one. And the bot mode is definitely cleaner but some of the details like the feet are the wrong shape or colour because they’re made from planet shell parts. It has an impressive transformation but they did not share the same goals as the Haslab version.

    So it depends on the opinions and requirements of a collector to decide which figure is better for them. I prefer planet mode accuracy and the sculpt on the Haslab version. I can respect what the third party Unicron accomplished but it does not look right to me in either mode.

    Anyway if the project team have certain goals in mind when making a figure, simply adding more parts and more cost cannot always solve the issues. Sometimes it’s just too difficult to execute. The prototype sketches for Haslab Unicron have the planet shell parts inside of the lower legs. So they obviously wanted to do that. But the reality is that the planet shell parts most likely would be too thin and fragile to get them to fit. Or the lower legs would have to be huge to hide the thicker planet parts. So the parts ended up on the outside of the leg. Not ideal at all but I can understand why it happened.
     
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  10. T-Hybrid

    T-Hybrid Gnodab Kidult (He/Him)

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    Hell, Earthrise Arcee has the same issues. People wanted cartoon accuracy to scale....and the only way they could pull that off is with a removable backpack.

    But looking at the comments when Hasbro posts updates about Sentinel, it's easy to see things are alike all over.

    1. There are people who brag about having backed it before the bonus tiers were announced, and how that makes them truer fans because they didn't need to be bribed.
    2. There are people who complain the new bonuses at each tier aren't enough.
    3. There are people who complain that Hasbro doesn't truly care about fans unless <insert item here> is included as a tier.

    So it goes to show that Hasbro can't win. Which is why it's frustrating when you see HasTak try to chase them. It'll never be good enough, and the more they try the smaller the nitpicks will be (See also the complaints about SS Blitzwing's intakes being too narrow in jet mode or whatever they're on about now)
     
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  11. edstuff

    edstuff Well-Known Member

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    So I was planning on getting Unicron jr. (zeta) and then Haslab launched this sentinel. So yea I backed that instead. Apparently I'm just a Haslab collector now...
     
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  12. 4249david

    4249david Click my avatar, you won't regret it...

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    To go with my Unicron? Cool ...
     
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  13. Shattered Trousers

    Shattered Trousers That thing Ratchet needed.

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    I have to admit, I am kinda jealous of how much play value there is in getting a gigantic toy with two full-size standard toys included as a bonus.

    I don't want that to come off as ungrateful st all, I'm super excited about what I've got coming to me, but getting two extra toys included is pretty deluxe.

    ~L~
     
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  14. stad

    stad Well-Known Member

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    For those selling off those two figures, they're really going to get a ''discount'' on their Sentinel.
     
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  15. T-Hybrid

    T-Hybrid Gnodab Kidult (He/Him)

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    Given how quickly these guys are getting bought up (I think the window has another two weeks yet, if not more) it's no surprise they're adding all this stuff in. And this latest one (A bonus figure) could easily have been in a release plan down the road and got thrown in later.
     
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  16. Fenrys

    Fenrys Formerly Tigatron2002

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    Agreed, however it must be remembered that those action figures don't require a lot of R&D, the basic engineering of a marvel legends figure was figured out years ago. The sentinel and his smaller pack ins are just poseable action figures where as Unicron is a poseable action figure that also has to transform. It would have been nice to get some deluxes with Unicron but personally I don't think that would have ever been on the table really

    These bonuses were planned specifically for the campaign though, and based on their initial press release there won't be anymore bonuses revealed because they only had bonuses planned through 150% funding
     
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  17. Exodus

    Exodus Well-Known Member

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    My bad, posted wrong thread...
     
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  18. edstuff

    edstuff Well-Known Member

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    Sentinel campaign took off like a banshee from the very beginning. I highly doubt we will get more add ons for the sentinel but I'm good. Heck I backed it before any add ons were included and then they showed master mold head and i kinda lost my shit.

    Also, we DO get add ons with Unicron. the lil figs and ships. And let's not forget Haslab Unicron is MASSIVE in like all directions. Not just height. WITH A STAND!
     
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  19. Juraash

    Juraash Well-Known Member

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    Maybe I'm not thinking grand enough, but about the only thing I'd want in addition to what we got is a little Decepticon ship to chase the shuttle around. The Sentinel is pretty neat, as is the stuff that it's getting to go with, but I'm still really pleased with how the Unicron campaign finished up.
     
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  20. 4249david

    4249david Click my avatar, you won't regret it...

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    I'd be shocked if the ship that Unicron gave to Galvatron wasn't made. Whether it's included is debatable, because Optimus is now a piece of an accessory set...
     
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