Do keep in mind, the light is casting pretty much primarily directly downwards in that pic, causing Ironhide to cast shadow on himself; I'm betting the different red parts won't look remotely that different in better lighting or in hand.

 

As much as I'd thought about skipping the ironhide 2 pack they show figure pics and now i want it. So i guess they pull me back in Just when i thought I'd pass but now I'm not.

 

Not sure why I was quoted, but okay. Yeah, it was unnecessary to remold it. More cost to the mold that could have been used elsewhere.

 

I dig it, helps separate the characters more. Make them more unique!

 

i actually like the remolding. helps distinguish between the datsun s1 look and the datsun s2 look. despite smokescreen being the same toy mold he looked different than prowl in s2 cartoon. the remolding def helps with that cartoon accuracy.

 

The Smokescreen toy did actually have that remolding (based on some of the extra stuff that racing model of the Datsun has irl), and that's why the cartoon had the difference as well.

With Earthrise replicating that difference, now we properly have Smokescreen as a racing Datsun-ish, and Prowl (and probably Bluestreak as well) as a normal street Datsun-ish.

 

I mean, not really. Smokescreen has always been retooled from Prowl and Bluestreak in alt mode. He's a rally car, and Prowl's tooling can now be used for Silver/Bluestreak.

Where, though? Prowl has a new head, what else would he need if not for the new bumper?

 

More along the lines that aping the toon to the point of unnecessary retooling seems excessive. The world didn't end when the Universe mold was a straight repaint.

 

This isn't "aping the cartoon" anymore than it's aping the toy. It's just paying homage to the fact that the car Smokescreen turned into wasn't straight-up the same model of Datsun in a different paint scheme, it was a significantly modified racing version with a new front end and spoiler:


And even the extent of retooling they did back in '85 wasn't as different from the base Datsun model as its real life counterpart; the whole siding of the IRL car was different from a normal Datsun as well:

Plus, having a different front end helps distinguish Smokescreen further from the other two traditional uses of the Datsun mold. It's not "unnecessary retooling", it's a useful change to help distinguish them visually and make Smokescreen's vehicle mode closer to what it's supposed to be.

 

Was it unnecessary retooling on the G1 toys?

The universe mould also, like, sucked ass. Plus it was a completely different car.

Also, you didn't answer my question: where would this retooling have been better used? Because otherwise, what is actually the harm here? Are we really at the point where we're going to complain about retooling done for character accuracy?

 

Smokescreen was never a fan favorite of mine but I always loved the small design differences between him and the other two Datsuns bros.