See, I don’t get the snarkiness/bitterness about “fudging.” It’s a business and it’s controlled wholly by Hasbro. It sets the rules. There’s no virtue here. It’s not (as some people seem to think) a transparent competition to see if Hasbro can do it. It’s a business transaction, and one where Hasbro is incentivized to recognize a lot of revenue. It won’t say no to that opportunity, and it will twist the “rules” if it has to.

This is less of the Olympics and more of the Hasbrolympics, where it can change the rules mid competition and disqualify its competitors if it wants to because the only goal of the whole charade is that Hasbro gets what it wants. And that’s not a moral judgment. It’s just business.

Hasbro could just reset the counter to 8,000 today and call it a success. It’s entitled to do so and I don’t understand why anyone would be upset or surprised.

 

You didnt see the big fire bird ex01 nicee thread, this is nothing in here compared to that

 

I am quite the sucker for pawsome puns, especially still pawtaining to the main topic and would be quite pawplexed why anyone would be upset at your puns, especially meow. (Ok, it was a stretch with some puns, but I had to bring some corny humor into this board, FUR sure  

 

Yep. Athough, I don't think there is any funny business going on. If Hasbro/Haslab only wanted, say, 5,000 backers they'd've said so from the beginning. Not gotten 5,000 commitments then added 1,800 imaginary backers to mix just to make it look like 6,800 people were interested.

I think that, as has been advertised upfront from the beginning, international orders are being tacked on. And more will follow based on whatever agreement Hasbro has with various secondary vendors.

They all said, if HasLab gets, I don't know, 7,800 backers, I do think that we will see production.

 

It's funny how people get so worked up about the idea Hasbro might be fudging the numbers or not, because it doesn't really mean much.

"OMG Hasbro is being so disingenuous by misrepresenting their actual order numbers! This means the people that wanted one and pre-ordered it will... get one! - and... those who didn't order any ... still won't get any! How dare they - I guess!"

 

Complete waste of time. Spend you time curing cancer or doing something important. This ain't a fucking ER. It's a Cantonese basket weaving forum. Even if they are sincere and not trolls they aren't gonna care about being wrong about malibu stacy being funded or not. They are going to be in their troll caves looking for the next concern troll to run.

Act like you've been there before. Don't act like a Jets fan. Never go full Jets fan.

 

It's the same thing it always is with things of this nature. Some subset of self-righteous people think the price is ridiculous, unfair, etc and are outraged by it. They think it's a rip off. They don't want it to happen. And when facts come to light that challenges their constructed reality, they created new excuses as to why *they* were in the right.

Like seriously, imagine getting worked up over a toy. Sure a $575 toy. But a toy. I've spent $575 on far stupider shit than Unicron.

Some folks just do not want this to happen. They do not want the $575 Hasbro official release to exist, never mind that it's a crowd funded one off.

A good example of this is when XBOX One was announced. Sure you could buy the cheaper model without the expensive motion camera thing. But the very existence of the motion camera-included model, at a $100 premium, was incredible distressing to some people. Even though they had the option of the cheaper model, the existence of the more expensive model was some kind of insult.

Another example is with $1000 computer video cards. For most games their performance improvement over $500 video cards is marginal. You really only see a difference with VR games. The $1000 video cards are by definition premium products. They don't even make all that many of them. But it's like an existential insult that they are even on the market to a subset of the gaming community that gets mad that nVidia and AMD dare add more cores and a better heat sink and more memory and make a super-premium card. And when it is out they construct scenarios as to why it is a failure. They overheat. They're cheaply made. The performance improvements are illusions, and so forth.

There's really interesting psychology behind all of this. I think the base of it is just some unhappy people.

 

you're right, this aint an ER, but not sure how that comes into play...and yeah, I spend alot of time doing important things, so calling people an idiot when they act like one is a fun past time thing to do because its mindless. i find it hilarious how much energy and passion goes into the thought process and typing and arguing by them. one of them insulted me and my family, so hey, why not do a simple click of a button and take a screenshot to hold onto? throwing shit back in a shit throwers face is one of my guilty pleasures. especially to trolls living in caves.
btw - no idea who malibu stacey is...and don't really care to learn about it.
and why do you care? you do you while i do what i do.

 

Wow nice to see that number boost and actual updates! I was already on board but was disappointed that my Armada Unicron with G1 head sculpt had more finger articulation, I'm very glad to see that is no longer the case! LOL those extras are NOT to scale even with each other but whatever, I appreciate them as bonuses. Comic is cool but being digital it might as well be free to everybody. Head mount is nice, when the inevitable Primus figure comes out he better be able to have Unicrons head orbit him in Cybertron mode.

Kinda thinking of things to do with the planet plate kibble. I wonder if you can spread them out like peacock feathers. If so I'm gonna stick prints of Unicron movie scenes in the plates, maybe cut them to shape. Do something similar to what Mega Bloks did for their classic TMNT line. It would still be kibble, but with some creativity the kibble might also become a bit of a feature.

 

Yeah and at this point, you folks need to grow up. No mincing words.

Price - Hasbro can charge whatever it fucking likes. If you don't want to pay it, don't.

Kibble - This is the toy that is engineered this way that they are selling. I have done a ton of engineering walk overs in this thread. That is what is being sold. If that's a problem, don't buy it.

Color - Judging by the photos from SDCC, I think the orange photographs weird. But if it doesn't... that's the product they are making buy or don't.

Weight - It's 20lbs plus a 10lb stand. Is this a problem?

Unknown QC - The Air Force just had QC issues with KC-46 tankers. Finding tools left in places that could cause damage. QC is a concern on all engineering enterprises, much less toys. If you want absolutely perfect QC, don't collect Transformers.

Upfront payment - As I wrote before, I believe this is essentially a made-to-order product by another name. As a business Hasbro is in their rights to demand payment at any time. If that is a problem, don't buy.

18 month lead time - We in a rush or something?


Really these gripes to the point that months later they're still being voiced are *crap*. If you don't like the price, the pay scheme, the kibble, the color, the weight, the QC and the time, then don't buy and move on... back in August. It is now October 2nd. What in god's name are you doing? Letting your displeasure be known and intent not to buy 3 months later. This is what you do? This is how you spend your time? Do you need more to do?

There is an entire sub-forum of 3P products that I think are over-rated, overpriced trash. Should I do as you have done and register my disapproval of every aspect of them from sunrise to sunset, until they ship? No. I just say to my self "not for me" and move on.

Especially given the near certitude that Unicron *is* happening, it's so silly at this point. The cousin of this, by the way, is people being like "I'll order if and only if there are more bonuses". Like... the fuck? Did we skip the day when the 2nd grade teacher defined "bonus". We're buying a $575 planet former and folks want another minifig? Or Galvatron's ship? Or some goddamn poster? Like come the hell on! Are we getting a $575 planet former or the crap that comes with it?

And FINGER articulation. Oh my word. That topic. Yeah its great Hasbro improved it. Always should have been like that. But seriously, how many more poses to people do for fucking Unicron that aren't "clawed" and "clench fist". Hell, I have 3P hands for every single one of the CW combiners, and you know what I do with them? Clawed, fist or point. All that articulation... three poses. What else am I going to do? Have Unicron do the Vulcan salute? Have him flip off Primus?

Folks have their own taste, and they are entitled to that. But I really see this Unicron episode as the Transformers Community version of something I've seen time and time again in other settings regarding very unhealthy relationships between consumer and producer. Short version - if folks get this worked up over a toy, a video game console or a video card not being *exactly* how they envision it, they probably have an unhealthy relationship with that community and need to walk away a while.

I'm really looking forward to the sequel to this - shit storm that $200 Titan-class transformers are. Get ready. It's coming in the next line or two.

 

I did a work over of it many pages ago.



Basically most of the planet mode kibble goes on the legs (side and back, each on the left and right leg. The backpack kibble is the the "Main loop" that you see in the image that's basically a big doughnut that connects to the arms in the back. It rotates on a joint and folds up. The front piece of Unicron with the mouth and grabber claws is monolithic and rests against the back.

You'll probably be able to remove parts of the kibble if you really want to by knocking out pins, but fanning them out isn't really an option. The "main loop" plats basically fold up twice, then rotate, or rotate then fold up (to put curved side in curved side).

Unicron also has big voids in his back and legs specifically because the planet plates are supposed to be the bulk to those parts. If you were remove the entire back plate stace (the main loop folded up), you'd see a very, very flat back.

 

here is my step-by-step transformation analysis again with some edits.

-------------------------------

So watching the transformation video again, he has a lot of steps but he actually doesn't look too hard to transform at all.
Short version:
(1) You open up the four hemispheres , two per side, and collapse them along their hinges. The hemisphere are connected to the main body by bulky connector arms. This leaves a planet mode loop with the robot folded up inside of it a specific way.




We see from this angle that the Robot mode is folded up so that the back of the legs are moved up against the back of the robot with the waist presumably split. The Shoulder/arm construction is actually similar to Armada Unicron, in that they are on a hinge that will have to be folded up to connect them to the upper body. They did this because they wanted the arm-splitting effect from the movie's transformation scheme. The "main loop" that goes from the back of the planet, over the north pole, through the front/mouth, down through the south pole and to the back of the planet again, is anchored to the arms to create this effect.


(2) You disconnect the bottom half of the remaining planet surface (the main loop) from the arms, which is connected to the planet mode mouth (which is connected to the robot mode body via the arm you see there behind it))....



... and you do the same to the top too and rotate it back.


(3) there are some intermediary steps, but you largely just unfold the crunched up humanoid robot, which is all extremely logical (legs go down, arms go up, head flips down, etc)


While you are doing this, planet mode surface parts just kind of hang.


(4) Once robot mode is standing and humanoid, you fold /rotate back the top and bottom parts of the planet surface "loop" into their compressed form.



And then you rotate the arm the stack of surface plates are connected to back so it becomes a back pack.


(5) Now what's left is tidying up the series of plates on the legs that make up the four hemispheres from (1).



(6)You tidy up the small details (bring out hands, flip up horns, tuck away spikes, put on wings) and you're pretty much done.


Unicon is basically Beast Wars Neo in its level of shellformerish. The entire planet shell is held onto a robot that crunches up by 5 connector arms (one on the side and one on the back of each leg, and one on the back for the "loop"). Robot mode parts are not integral to the Planet Mode at all, except for the partsforming wings/ring and using the fore arms as anchor points for the main loop. .

I'm sure you could knock out the pins and remove all the kibble with relative ease. I think we're going to be literally talking about 5 pins, where the connector arms attach to the body.

It would then be, theoretically possible to reconstruct most of the planet mode sphere independent of the robot . Hell if you could somehow scare up a duplicate pair of wings/rings and some kind of internal support skeleton for the connector arms to attach to (3p?), you could probably display Unicron Robot mode in full next to his planet mode, just like Big Convoy can sit next to his mammoth parts. You'd have to replace the arm-anchor somehow though.


I think Unicron is going to be pretty easy to transform from planet mode to Robot mode. Transforming him from robot to planet though is probably going to be far, far, far harder and longer. It's going to be like RotF Leader Prime. Getting him out of vehicle mode is pretty easy... you know what movie prime looks like and stuff folds away fairly naturally. But getting him back into truck mode is (or was) extremely difficult.

Really looking forward to this!

 

Ok, I may have missed something important, but it seems like the Backer number has had a sudden rise of about 1000!

That’s the second time that’s happened during this project so far, and it seems kinda suspicious...

 

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it’s coming this Thursday.

 

6884 now!

It would help. When the same people come next time with their grand economical and legal "knowledge" to tell us peasants how wrong we are, we could say "ah weren't you the expert who proved without doubt Unicron cannot be made?"
I myself have been wrong before, and I was not afraid to admit it. Like how I barely wanted to watch Age of Extinction because of my hatred of the first three movies, not even willing to give it a chance, but ended up liking it far more than I expected.

 

Same. I think it is too. And I'm gonna tell you why.

We know that Transformers lines have a two year lead time. They are planning for basically 2022 / early 2023 now. Which means that $160 Omega Supreme was planned before TRU went under, just like the $150 Titans before it. The death of TRU left it without a US retailer. It's at retail internationally, but in the US, Omega is Online only.

Earth Rise is the first line that'll be *mostly* planned in the post-TRU era, and the Titan, which will likely be late in the line, will probably be entirely post-TRU.

So what I think they're going to do is make it basically a non-retail product... i.e. somewhat grander. It'll have somewhat more than than Omega Supreme (though probably not $40 more) and a somewhat larger box. But because the concern isn't shelf space anymore, or excess inventory, they're going to set a higher price point... really make it premium. It's the "big" christmas gift for Christmas 2020.

Another reason why: look at the Star Wars offerings put out last week. I remember when Star Wars vehicles were like $30... maybe $40. The new X-Wing for the 3.5 inch Vintage collection has a $100 MSRP. $100 for a better version of what used to cost $30ish. But they do it because the X-Wing is iconic, and people will pay for it. So they are pushing it up across the board, especially since Walmart probably won't stock it. People will buy it online.

It's as I've said elsewhere a lot. I think Commander-class is the effective "top" of the line now at retail. It is, adjusted for inflation, about where the old Supreme Class used to be (albeit Supreme class offered a lot more... there is no mistaking Armada Unicron for Jetfire). And from a business angle, that makes a lot of sense. It was really strange for Transformers to jump from $45/$50 to $130/$150/$160 with no product in the $70/$80/$90 range. But now that that's there, and with lack of retail, there is no reason to think $200 Titans aren't in the future, especially if they are a little more ambitious. What does that look like? Titan Class Scorponok including more reimagined versions of his G1 toy accessories (ramps, addon pieces, the gun and shield) as opposed to just bing a headmaster Scorpion that transforms into few forms with limited additional parts, or just the shield.

But Transfans will cry bloody murder all the same. But it has nothing on the worst price-entitlement out there - the $60 video game. A price unchanged in nearly 15 years. That era is ending soon, and lots of folks are going to treat that like blasphemy.

 

Thanks, finding that post in 850+ pages would be a nightmare. Shame I can't fan the kibble but I won't be removing it either way. I prefer functionality even if it compromises aesthetic.

 

You should bookmark this post for when it comes true. It’s absolutely dead on. I think the $200 Titan is coming soon and it will be better than the last few - but only incrementally so.

Something with Micromaster base integration seems to make sense given that we know they’re going in that direction.

 

I'd take a look at the post the one you replied to below for an even more detailed look (not sure if you saw it).

 

Am I the only one displaying in planet mode only?