That was my observation, too. Coming from an aviation background, it's pretty obvious, given their long history of egregiously atrocious and inaccurate aircraft alts, that no-one at either Hasbro or Takara has any such background or the initiative to do some research. It's frustrating for an aircraft fan to get all these nice-looking car alts but oft terribly compromised jet alts. They need someone like Kawamori on the design team who understands how to do a realistic looking jet that can still turn into a good-looking bot.
Metalhawk looks fantastic to me. Other angles made the jet mode better than my first impressions, which wasn't bad but something seemed off, the all angles video fixed that though and the bot mode is perfect. I can't wait for this.
I wholeheartedly believe that Thunderwing should be Commander class, just so they can finally do a "proper" Pretender. It's not happening at deluxe-voyager, and it's debatable that they could pull it off at leader (sure they could go the armor-up Ultra Magnus route I guess, but I feel that would still be pretty compromised). At Commander, the inner bot could be done at more of a core size, and fold up somewhat comfortably into the "shell", whatever form it might take. A smaller core would also line up well when combined with the shell's jet mode. Anyway, that's my thoughts on it, I just feel Thunderwing is the best character to maximize the pretender concept on, due to his size and playability.
If anyone has a Kingdom Cyclonus laying around nearby them, could you check for me if the chest cavity can accommodate a Primemaster inner robot? That might be what pushes me from the Titans Return version to this one, since I currently have Titans Return Metalhawk wielding PotP Metalhawk as a Targetmaster- in which the Titanmaster can enter the Primemaster shell while the Primemaster can become a quasi Powermaster for the Targetmaster shell...and the Titanmaster can pilot the vehicle mode while you attach the Primemaster shell as a weapon in that mode.
Whooooooooooooooo I like Metalhawk, I'm definitely getting him. The jet mode looks better here as well when compared to the livestream pictures, but I'm leaving mine in robot mode on the shelf. Looks like this will be my first experience with the Cyclonus mold, since I missed out on Cyclonus and his toy-accurate redeco (actually, I didn't like them).
They could do a Leader Thunderwing fine as a Pretender. You'd just get a small deluxe inner robot as a result. And that's not really a problem, since most fans wouldn't display the inner robot anyhow.
Aren't the majority of those guys just renamed G1 figures tho? I'm pretty sure at least the pretender monsters are just straight repacks.
Considering what Evan said about Japanese G1 Pretenders being likely, we probably have a good chance of getting both Black Shadow and TWing.
Yeah, the Masterforce Pretenders were released in Japan with different names. There were four Autobots and three Decepticons. They're the only Pretenders I'd want, and it seems unlikely all four will get new toys, but to hear it's not off the table is good news!
I'd guess we'll see the non-Mega Pretenders at core class w/maybe one or two cool looking ones up at deluxe (the beasts might be easy partials of various TM BW figures, Octopunch, maybe Stranglehold if everyone is on a bender). Black Shadow, Thunderwing, and hopefully (but not likely) Blue Bacchus at something large (I think leader would be ideal, but could survive w/voyager and would be ecstatic with commander)
Im really impressed with this, plus giving jet bots ports for flight stands is long overdue. They pulled a lot out of the bag given its a partial of Cyclonus.
pretty neat how much of Cyclonus they could reuse shows some impressive foresight (or is it simply coincidence?) in reusing parts... might also say something about how cost-concious they are getting...
TR Blurr's head almost fits if Cyclonus is in jet mode, but the Unicronian herald's bunny ears are unfortunately in the way. Maybe you could pull it off with this upcoming new Metalhawk though, since he has a much more traditional, square robo-head.
I'm all for the Autobot Pretenders to be made in this style. Except for Longtooth....he needs to be handled like the Deception Pretenders.
REALLY wish the alt mode wasn't so trash. The robot mode is freakin' fantastic, but if it wasn't for the utterly bizarre "neck" on the G1 mold I'd argue it has a better alt mode then this, and there just doesn't seem like there's any reason for it to be so bad. Reversed cyclonus wings look/feel weird, back is so boxy, arms push the wings to far away from the fuselage. just a mess. but seriously, the bot mode is amazing, so I probably still get him.
