I would think that he's either a very minor character with a limited role, or just the opposite - he's a key to the plot.

He could be in the second wave of toys for either reason. Secrecy or unimportance.

 

Grimlock looks more than a little bit "Bludgeony" in robot mode.

 

The sonic and Argosy are key to the story, that's why Bay has been really hush hush about them.

 

I agree that it's interesting that they picked the name "Stinger", and his parts look like Bumblebee's. It really does seem to fit together.

 

Loving Lockdown and Drift's box art. They look awesome! Also, glad to see Stinger's bot mode!

 

If it's hush hush, the Sonic better be Someone like

Spoiler

Prowl or Smokescreen

.

 

My uneducated guess would be Smokescreen. He played a huge role in TF  and the rally-car stuff fits previous incarnations of him.

 

wait wait. Bumble Bee.... Stinger... bumblebees happen to have stingers... connection!?!?!?!?

 

When are they going to hit the shelves?

 

Other than the Sonic, Argosy and the Helicopter, what else is being a bit hush-hush for the time being?

 

There is a connection between them in the movie.

 

We don't yet know if Snarl is in the movie or who or what. "Wolf" is.

 

you do realize these are alien robots that can essentially turn into ANYTHING they want. so why not make their face look a little human? they can do whatever the hell they want to any part of their body. look at G1 those were pretty human faces, look at prime, pretty human faces.

 

+100000000

This needs to be posted over and over and over.

 

Too many car alt modes, too human-like designs and too blocky robot modes. (I know these are the kid-friendly toys, but I would expect the main line to be more simplified compared to previous movie lines). Sigh.

 

Actually... on facebook the OTFCC has dropped the bombshell that this is what we should expect to be the main line. So yeah... If we get anything more complex, it will be part of generations, not the AOE mainline.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink....28427478&id=151255348266785&notif_t=notify_me

 

Entire line of One Step Changers, obviously.

Yeah, because ONE preview toy proves that the ENTIRE line will be simplified.

 

G1 and Prime are not good examples because they are cartoons and they kept the same aesthetic throughout. The whole point of the change to the movie aesthetic in the first place was to make them look alien...because they're aliens. Why weren't they doing it before?

I personally think it looks stupid and will look stupid in live action. But besides that, it's inconsistent with the established movieverse. They weren't doing that before. There were some characters with hair starting with RotF and I didn't like that...but this is orders of magnitude worse now. SantaHound and a guy with a completely human samurai face? It's inconsistency in design, doesn't fit with what came before...I hate that.

I would hate it less if we actually got some character development that had Drift and Hound talking about how they liked human culture and did it to fit in...but we all know we're not going to get that - since, you know, the movie is about the Transformers being on the run from Humans?

So really, I hate the inconsistency in design. It's not the designs themselves, though I don't think human-looking alien robots makes much sense even if they do have the ability to do it...it's the inconsistency. It's poor art direction.

 

I did. If you want to drag this back up again, just keep reading through, I'm not touching it any more.