I don't know about "any fan", cause 5 minutes with you and 5 minutes with me would probably go quite differently let alone the rest of the fandom.
I'm definitely happy they listened to feedback to design this Skyquake (and his upcoming bro Dreadwing). I also hope we get redecos/retools for the EuroG1 Skyquake and MW Starscream fans too. I also think this design would work well with an F14 Tomcat sweep-wing backpack retool too. I definitely would like to see those both of those designs get pulled into Legacy Uni/beyond with light tweaks to G1 them. I like those designs for Soundwave & his condors better than his UTCybertron design. I want his blue brother redeco more, but I'll be getting this Skyquake for certain. The only reason I haven't preordered him yet is I've got a Target giftcard that I was planning to use on him. This leader Skyquake clenches it for me: Prime Breakdown needs a leader sized mold to pull off his heft. He'd be much more budget-friendly at voyager, but I just don't think that pricepoint could do him justice.
Like, I'm glad they took the backlash to heart, but I'm a petty little shit who wants a Prime Starscream with his head crest thing painted red. A weird G1-ified version that's blatantly a shared mold with some other unrelated character, with his head crest thing painted red, is a nonstarter for me.
When or if we get a G1-ified Prime Starscream, I think it will be made to be Prime Starscream first and foremost.
it isn’t just the tips you need the entire wing to point down. Then the shoulder pads and wings would create that perfect silhouette. With the wings up the shoulder pads make them look too small. Weird that they ended up flipped after both the first and second draft both had it down. Early reviewers confirmed you can’t transform the back pack differently.
You would need the whole wings but at the least the flaps at the end could emulate the show’s look for the wings.
Something tells me that Predator jets instead of being extensive remolds will just feature (unofficial) detachable fronts of the jets with tabs to fit slots on robot mode chest.
Or maybe Needlenose is not a pretool, he just had the features because Hasbro wanted someone to attach to Skyquake and Needlenose seemed suitable so he might have received last minute changes to the tooling.
When they have revealed Needlenose someone (I think Mark) said they tried really hard to make "deluxe-sized jets", so I doubt it's a happy coincidence/last minute tooling change.
I love how he turned out and obviously the final version will work way better for the G1 version and all the repaints made from that mold, but I kinda wish we'd gotten the first one too, that'd be such a perfect Jetfire pretool. At the very least I wish they could've made his wings able to point in either direction, down for the Prime guys and up for the G1 versions. I hope so, just tweak the detailing and engineering a bit for some combination of these designs: The one we got is literally way more G1 than the initial design. I'm guessing he'll probably just be a straight repaint but if they do retool any parts of him it'll be the head, shoulders, and/or lower legs. The wings and engines are already 100% G1.
I kind of dig how they blended elements of the G1 version with the Prime version. I feel that the Prime version got more of the benefit of it, but I think if they do G1 Skyquake with his colors and head, it will be pretty good. I'm a G1 guy, and of course my personal preference would be them doing a proper G1 Skyquake, but I can see the benefit of them combining the 2 versions together.
Well some people on this board have their own obsessions I don't share such those who want shot of Transparent plastic rather than using it sensibly. But my very reasonable requests for respecting legacy connections and maintaining backwards compatability is not a million miles away from the thoughts and views of the videogame preservation lobby. Which is don't actively harm your product base for no reason. If they suddenly decided all Transformers had to have 4mm or 5mm connectors for weapons instead of the more typical 5mm I would hope that the majority would be displeased. I think the issue here is product compartmentalisation I don't think it for one second crossed Hasbro's mind to put WFC related connections on the Movie toys for example. BUT they did have enough sense to put some 5mm ports on Studio Series 86 toys at least. I was also thinking recently perhaps Transformers should adopt the standard Action Figure foot connector port where appropriate for them to do so too. Anyway a good example of what I am lobbying for is the standardised flight stand ports.
While the last transformers prime-inspired figures (Arcee, Bulkhead, Knockout) were ok. I do feel like they had a thought process on how to improve the g1-ification of the Prime characters. With Skyquake they were able to blend both G1 and Prime versions of Skyquake. He has the gimmick of the G1, which is the ability to attach a smaller jet (like Needlenose) on the back end of Skyquake’s jet. Also from the G1 version is the chest. The weapons if I remember from the transformers: Prime series are accurate.
Looks like a really great figure and they've done an excellent job but it's Euro G1 that my heart desires.
