oh yea, like he deserves to be downgraded to ass hand  

 

red print on voyager boxes is hell expensive...and yellow print on boxes is dirt cheap!

I would not care if they slapped the stupid RTS rubsign on him, get it done!

 

Yeah, that old Toyfare interview with I think, Bill Rawley?, gave a lot of hope for Beast Wars fans that has so far gone unfulfilled. He said that a Voyager Rhinox was just one thing that he would like to do if Universe Classics came back after ROTF. It was just fantasy talk really, though he did mention G1 Soundwave and Blurr as guys that he really wanted to do too as well...  

Unfortunately, even though Hasbro said that Generations wasn't limited to realistic vehicles and was open to "all eras", so far they've stayed pretty strictly to G1 and realistic vehicles. The only real exceptions are RTS G2 Optimus (an upgrade of a G1 character from the direct sequel to G1) and the WFC toys.   

So it seems that the line is still kinda limited to realistic vehicles, as even the WFC toys were limited to only four and even then were packaged in robot mode to hide their unrealistic vehicle modes, anyway. It's possible that they may simply not have gotten around to doing BW characters in the line yet, as there was a limited amont of time before the big movie push and they could only fit so much in. But I don't think so. My heart tells me that beasts of any sort, even ones from G1, are off limits for this line, and they just don't want to out and out say it.

Now, Dinobot's victory in the Hall of Fame may have changed things, and opened the Hasbro TF team's eyes a bit, and it sounded like they wanted to do something with Beast Wars at last year's Botcon in the Designers' panel Q&A (does anyone who was there have an exact quote on that?).

I think that one of two things is likely at this point. First, the 30th Anniversary is coming up in 2014. If they celebrate all eras again like they did for he 25th, and there's not a movie coming out that year, then we'll probably see some Beast Wars figures.

In the interim, the only way I could see them getting any figures is if they decide to have a subline where the gimmick is that they're all animals. Kinda like how we had a whole subline devoted to combiners last year, maybe in 2012 we'll get a subline devoted to beasts alongside Prime and Classics? Once DOTM ends of course. It seems unlikely, but it's possible, and really I think that's our only hope at this point...

 

I'll say this:
If the only proof of its existence is a hint from more than a year ago, it probably isn't happening any time soon.

He tell me?

 

Well, here's the prototype:



(he's the big guy next to Hot Rod)

 

what is that hot rod?

 

These were for TF:Heroes, which was in development but eventually fell apart. Animated carried forward many of the ideas developed during this time. Hot Rod/Hot Shot and Rhinox would have filled the roles ultimately taken by Bumblebee and Bulkhead.