I think it's obvious they know they overreached with that redesign, he is absent from all marketing material and barely visible in the trailer, with his only clear shot being his back.

 

Couint me another on the doubting side. While I can't say why stuff's being delayed, its worth noting that, in the past when we'd be served well by things being re-designed, it hasn't been. Just about every Jolt figure we've had except for the Studio Series one were based on concept art, for example. Hasbro aren't afraid to just, release an inaccurate Studio Series figure, as Crankcase fans have suffered

I'm going to call it: He's going to appear in only a few scenes and be the casuality to show the Terrorcons are scary and give the Autobots more drive to fight them. He's going to be Prime Cliffjumper's role, especially given Arcee's probably going to be taking a few traits from Prime Arcee. Or the Jazz. Or the Ratchet.

EDIT: Also, like... If the head was being redesigned, why would the Jada model, which is just the vehicle, be pulled? I think this, more than anything, speaks to him being a bit player in the movie. You don't get rid of main character vehicle mold stuff, and any robot mode redesign wouldn't affect vehicle mode. But, hey, for all I know his role was that inconsequential they just removed him in editing

 

You know, its going to be hilarious if they don't change his head.

 

If they were gonna stick with the head, it seems odd that they'd push his figure specifically back and hide all of his advertising (Stratosphere isn't marketed either, but he's probably the actual case of very little screentime outside plane mode), considering that design edits have been made before to characters that would end up still using concept art as their final figure designs regardless of the changed designs onscreen (Namely ROTB Arcee's multitude of changes going by her SS Figure art and possibly Cheetor's Coloring now).

DoTM Soundwave was a case of hiding the spoiler he was the Mercedes in the Movie, but we know well in advance that Wheeljack was the van and the Director had no qualms hiding that fact compared to hiding his robot mode the entire time even back with the trailers specifically never showing his face.

It's hard to say whether they're changing it starting now (Which requires a GREAT deal of crunch time that would result in some iffy designs) or they were essentially changing it since at least December back with the leaking, which gives them time of up to more than at least 6 months from the release of the film.

They went and made an entire scene meant to try to sway Bumblebee away from its prequel status (Try being the key word because I'm not gonna say it is until they've reached 2007 or further and show they didn't go to their 07 designs) with those scenes on Cybertron from the Live Action backlash a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶b̶o̶x̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶t̶u̶r̶n̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶i̶m̶a̶l̶ before, and those scenes were less than 5 minutes altogether but people watched that scene set multiple times over.

Hasbro and Paramount may as well be playing the coy card to then pull the initial Wheeljack detractors in the seats but show they stuck to the original design at the end, but they could just as well be changing it since as opposed to a full body redesign, they might really only be touching his head, which wouldn't be as intense a labor as it would to make a whole robot body since the resuse of parts lets you cut on time and resources needed to make new stuff (And this is going off the assumption they really would be making a wholly new head instead of essentially surgically applying the BBM Wheeljack head onto the ROTB Body and applying a quick recolor and render, which saves modeling time significantly)

 

At least Que had the "ears" in the form of a blue wig patch on either side of his head.

 

Possible theory as to why the toy sales have been pushed back: Hasbro somehow manage to license the vehicle brand at the last minute (the toy we saw was a generic van instead of the Vokls Wagen one.

 

I’m not saying Wheeljack absent from the standee is 100% proof they’re changing his cgi design from the backlash. It’s also possible he is a minor character with few screentime.

With that said, apple and oranges maybe, but the Suicide Squad video game just got delayed because of the fan backlash after the recent trailer. May not be another Sonic situation, but it’s proof that companies are willing to listen to fans complains and change stuff over negative reception.

 

Why does the yellow guy still have the gimp mask on? :|

 

Yeah but this is only when the backlash threatens their profits. If Rocksteady released the game in May like planned, the fan backlash and overall negative reception absolutely would’ve impacted initial sales. And if Paramount went ahead with ugly Sonic, the reception would’ve been so bad, the movie would’ve most definitely underperformed.

 

I don’t know one way or the other but if the head is getting redesigned, perhaps the Jada Toys release would be delayed on account of the box needing to be redone. I believe it features CGI art of the bot mode.

 

It does, front and center on the left hand side of the box, also the underside of one of the WJ toys has his robot mode underneath the van.

 

i hope they are changing wheeljacks head so i never have to hear about it again.

 

If they are indeed redesigning ROTB Wheeljack, a simple BBM Wheeljack head is more than good enough for me.


DOTM comic head would be excellent too.

 

The DOTM comic head works, I mean if Prime has a Bayverse face why don't they give Wheeljack the head from the DOTM Bayverse comic? It's way different from Que's head.

 

I would have named him Hot Shot. Or even Crosshairs, his mainline toy head sculpt reminds me a bit of him.

 

Rename him Huffer.

 

So... Arcee is really a Wheeler from Return to Oz.... ok got it.

 

I'd LOL if all they did was change Wheeljack's glasses into sunglasses.  

 

Bumper

 

I still can't get over this standee, just so badass looking. Just cool to see the Maximals next to the Autobots for a live-action TF film. And I know not everyone might love the design style for the Maximals but I think the techno-organic look is done right and is just so badass looking. Love'em.