Even though it shouldn't feel like it, we're essentially getting dumbed down versions of the characters in the movie, just like TF1, except they couldn't do anything about it as it was the toy designers' first attempt. They absolutely made up for it with RotF's line. DotM felt cheap imo. AoE, however, has zero excuse for the poor AoE (Leader) Prime, Grimlock, Crosshairs, Drift, (Hound is okay imo), and Galvatron was the worst. Seriously, why bother with the damn movie's version of a transformation or design? Has/Tak, make your figures like your life depended on it! You guys certainly showed that you can put up your best work at any time with Evasion OP, so why stop that now? That shellformer Galvatron could have used it. Spoiler He had no transformation, so you could have done anything, but you chose to do shellforming as the nearest idea of the re-shaping Transformium
I've heard this is also a new design team. If that's the case, we might get "better" figures for TF5, or some sort of secondary "Hunt for the Decepticons" sort of line in between.
I also another problem is the CGI of certain TFs. For example, AOE Optimus and Galvatron bot modes looked so humanoid with very little of their alternate modes showing in them.
When I first heard that TFs were going back to simple transforming, I was afraid we were going to get something like oversized Cyberverse movie toys that looked like BH upscaled Cyberverse BB or Smokescreen. But fast forward to the Gen AoE line, and playing devil's advocate, I personally, enjoy the simple getting back to the basics in terms of transforming. Is it perfect? No, far from it in terms of some figures in regards to kibble, but some figures from later movies like ROTF where pretty damn complicated in transforming complexity and were a pain in the butt at times. And I feel like we got the best of both worlds with simple transformations while still trying to keep them on par with the level of articulation most older fans were used to and not just a mainline of larger Cyberverse figures that suffered in the articulation dept, especially with the legions size. With that being said, this design team will hopefully take this simple approach and maybe improve upon it a bit in terms of hiding kibble but also keep it where one does not need an engineering degree to get the figure from one form to the next.
If they wanted simple toys they should just have used simple film designs. That's one of the problems with the films, the transformations are one step removed from being basically T1000.
Or let the toy designers do their work first, and then the movie team turn the toys into workable animation designs. You know, how it was done for most iterations of the franchise?
But but I like AoE prime, drift, crosshairs and hound.... Galvatron would of been ok if he had a more silver paint job.
Honestly I am enjoying the AOE line much more than I did DOTM, mostly because I am being far pickier with my purchases. I bought almost every single DOTM mold and two years later half of them are in storage. Voyager Grimlock, Deluxe Stafe, Scorn and Slug and Evasion Optimus Prime are all amazing figures, most are actually better then the majority of what DOTM had to offer. Deluxe Modern Bumblebee and Hound seem to be similarly awesome and Evasion Bumblebee looks at least on level with DOTM Bumblebee. Drift and Crosshairs look pretty "meh" but I'm happy to buy them in the five pack in order to get a well-painted Prime, Hound and Bumblebee. Galvatron and Lockdown only suffer from their fantastical transformations from the film. There was really no way either of those figures could be screen-accurate and I think they did a pretty darn good job with them with that considered. Leader Prime is pretty sucky and Leader Grimlock is the worst of the line, but I can ignore them because both characters have awesome Voyager versions.
The problem with that last statement of yours is that there is no voyager version of Leader Prime's Weststar truck mode, nor a leader version of the voyager G1 flatnose truck.
While that's true, its not a major problem to me. Optimus is Optimus and Evasion Optimus more then makes up for Leader Optimus' shortcomings, which still stem from the film design being literally impossible to translate into an actual transforming toy. While it'd be cool to get a Voyager Knight Optimus its not a massive loss not having one because of how great Evasion is.
Well its a spiritual reboot. With a new Autobot Team, so just looking at the line from the autobot cars and trucks its similar. But the dinobots are everywhere in the toy line as well. And that's nothing like TF1. Where we had the other half of the line as the millitary vehicle decepticons. Retailers do seem a bit scared of loseing money this time. Their kind of tiptoeing on how much product they order.
