Yeah I was about to say Galvy was bigger than Megs

 

I had been weighing on whether to get Kingdom Galvatron or skipping it and buying Shapeways head, hinge and bicep cannon hole adjuster for my TR Galvatron. The pic of them standing next to each other pretty much pushed me to option #2. Unlike everyone else in the world, I liked TR Galvatron's space-jet mode, I prefer the early IDW Galvatron look over the 86 movie Galvatron look, I have no problem with how TR Galvatron's cannon mode looks (OK, treads are a bit small, but that's pretty much true of every Galvatron ever), and once you get rid of that stupid headmaster nonsense and get the cannon oriented correctly on his arm, he's pretty much what I want in a Galvatron. And based on that pic, he's just got much better proportions than Kingdom Galvy. So, order placed to Shapeways and I need to get some purple, silver and red paint...and learn to paint better.

 

Not bigger than Cyclonus though.

 

Same problem as with Studio Series Kup. Not enough open price points for the larger size classes, so compromises had to be made.

 

Looks like Galvy has been lifting 

 

Toy lines have been filled up and down with examples of this. My favorite is how the 2008 "New" Millennium Falcon for Star Wars 3.75 inch, original MSRP of $200 is now a $400 Target exclusive. That's more than the Haslab Sentinel. The other one of course is 2003 Supreme Class Unicron, sold at the then unimaginable price of $50 was reissued as 25th movie anniversary unicron in 2011 at $60, and then again as part of Platinum Edition in 2016 for $150. Or more recently, Cybertron Primus, originally a $50 toy in 2005, reissued as part of The Last Knight for $130 (I got it for $70 during the TRU shut down, which I consider more than fair).

I don't think the driving cost of increases has been inflation, which has been almost non-existent, or the cost of production. I think (and this goes far beyond toys) over the last 10 years big data analytics has made producers of goods far more attuned to what consumers are willing to pay for than ever before, and they've taken to precisely calibrating their offerings around that.

The 2008 Millennium Falcon points the way.It's huge. It's the size of a small table. A child could barely run around with the original Millennium Falcon mold. No way could they do it with one that was over twice the mass. It's really more of a closable a playset that an older child can lift up for a younger one. But there it was, $200, a dozen boxes stacked in a TRU aisle, not moving.

We've gotten several millennium falcon's since then. But they've all been smaller. The size of like a mid-sized serving plate. Also not remotely in scale with the 3.75 inch line. Really, it scales the falcon down to the size of a X-Wing. But at $99, they'll sell far more of them, more retailers will carry them (lower risk) and crucially, it's big enough that any kid can pick it up and run around with it. $100 is a gift for any random occasion. $200 is a christmas present.

So what was the point of the 2008 Millennium Falcon? Was for kids? The optimal recreation - sure, but of a vehicle from a movie that came out 30 years prior. No. It was clearly an adult collectors item that was positione das something kids might like too. That's a quick way to not move inventory, looking at you Platinum Edition Transformers and $150 Red Ranger Sword.

So now when it comes back, it comes through a single venue (DIsney Parks technically, but also Target), at a price ($400) designed for collectors. Kids aren't going to have that gifted to them. Few kids will have interest in a $400 toy and few parents can afford it. It's priced for the Adult Collector, likely with the production run to support that. We can look at this another way: 12 years ago, the Razorback from the Mandalorian would have been a $150-$200 toy, a TRU exclusive, mass market. Now it's a $325 Haslab piece.... less than the 2008 Millenium Falcon Reissue. The $325 Marvel Legends Sentinel too, would have likely been such a mass market release.

This is also why I believe that after Kingdom, we'll probably be done with Titan class. Target barely stocked them. I believe every story got 2 cases (so 4 boxes) of Scorponoks each, in August 2020, and then another couple of cases before Black Friday. And that's it. Sides that, Scorponok was online only in the US. Distribution of Titan class figures has been so poor int he US in recent years, folks are relying on second production Runs through Pulse and Amazon. Titan class at $125 with Metroplex in 2014 existed right at the line between "gift" and "christmas gift", but it also had TRU to support it. Since then, the rising cost and ambition and elimination of TRU has moved it firmly into the "big Present" category. That's why I'm thinkin that the next Transformers Haslab will be Metroplex 2.0, at $325 (like the Razorback and Sentinel) and absolutely featureful, and that will replace Titan class. Because getting the "ultimate Metroplex", and "Ultimate Fortress Maximus" is something that'll appeal to us adult Transfans collectors. Kids? At the very top end, they'll have $80 Commander class that parents will be more willing to buy.

All this comes down to Hasbro, like everyone else, just getting a very good idea about who is buying what. I'll give another potent, non-toy example. Pre-Pandemic / 3000 series Video Cards. Once upon a time, "Mainstream" cards were $200-$220, Enthusiast cards were $300-$400" and then there was a lot of nothing and you had the $1000 top end for crazy Titan cards. Then in pre-chip shortage times (putting the price changing effects of that to the side), mainstream became $300+, enthusiast became $450-550, enthusasist++ became $700 and top end became $1200. Chip shortage + Pandemic has worsened this. Now, Mainstream = $ 375, Enthusiast = $750-$950, Enthusasti++ =$1300 and Top end = $2000. Chip shortage changes (likely temporary) aside, it is not labor and parts changing this. It's market forces (bitcoin notably) and producers realizing that "hey, consumers will pay more for this.


G1 Transfans have been mercifully spared, because the next stop for us if Hasbro ever gets wise is $40-$50 NECA-style "deluxes" aimed at the adult collector. Sub-Masterpiece but above CHUG, it'll be the greatest Sideswipe outside of MP, but also cost 2.5 times as much as the last one.

So reportedly from the leaks, "Sleep Mode" Optimus was originally going to be a reach goal addition to Haslab Unicron, which makes a lot of sense and is kind of fitting. It then got moved to Studio Series 86 as the other Wave 1 Leader when Part III added Beast Wars and moved figures in it to SS86. I think that's hilarious. "Hey kids, who wants to buy the corpse of Optimus Prime after he was beaten to death and shot five times?".

"Sleep Mode" is such a great euphamism. Yeah he's sleeping alright. Just like every 4 year old's goldfish after he was taken out to play.

 

Yeah I'm leaning towards keeping my TR Galvatron with Renderform upgrades.

There was only so many times I could accept the weird photography argument until I realised that most of these photos show the same proportional problems, with a very wide torso and a head sitting on top of a mound atop his torso.

I was anticipating replacing the TR figure, but I've always been a bit of an apologist for it so it doesn't come as a major disappointment.

 

"the camera angles are off; it's unfinished; it's mistransformed..."

Have you considered the possibility that maybe he just sucks?

 

When the guy making those critiques of the photography actually has the toy in-hand, I'm willing to take his opinions to heart more readily than the knee-jerk reaction posts.

 

I also don't entirely get the poor photography argument. Like sure, there's a noticeable fisheye effect on a couple of them, but predominantly they're better than a lot of pictures I see on this forum.

 

Seasalt99's photos sucked. And the shoulders weren't properly transformed in the first photo. Aside from that, I've loved everything else I've seen. Looks like Galvatron to me.

 

Whether he sucks is up to you, but the camera angles have definitely been extremely off. These are two photographs of the same toy.

 

To be fair, that entire line felt like cheap hollow knockoffs.
Especially Elita 1.

 

Since I already have Ss86 Scourge and Kingdom Cyclonus I will get Kingdom Galvatron to replace TR Galvatron. Some of the Galvatron pictures with what looks like distorted camera lens is having me doubt myself on if this version is better than TR Galvatron but I will wait for official pictures before I make my final determination.

 

But yeah, none from the seasalt99 guy taking the recent pics. ...yet.

 

No, the camera angles aren’t “off”, the person who took the photo on the left chose a much more flattering angle to mask his goofy low shoulders. If anything that’s the photo that’s “off” because it’s misleading. The new photos are straight on and that’s exactly how you’re gonna be viewing the figure most of the time, not from below.

 

Are these misleading?

 

I gave up. Can be as passionate to this point. Sure keep y'all TR figure with all the upgrades yet a hollow piece of plastic. I cannot believe they went such far to recreate almost perfect G1 Galvatron and then all comes down to these knee-jerk reactions and bring out more armchair engineers. Happy fandom, all they want is revert back to glorious era with Big ass hollow leader class figures.
I just , just cannot believe that one can say that abomination Titan Return Galvatron figure look and feel better than Kingdom Galvatron , after handling both of them , the first can go straight to oblivion.
But guess that's that.