Red white and blue. He really is a true American. He's self centered, heroic and has the right colors and can fly.
like an eagle. Edit: I'm American and I think he is a tad bit cool. Also hello to my fellow Americans!!

 

Exactly
Except you misspelled howdy in that last sentence.

 

No disrespect but I don't see how this is a discussion at today's pricepoints. Everything is more expensive...fake parts make these budgets. MP has all the complexity alot of people look for.

 

I can’t imagine that budget is the reason for fake parts.

either way, these days MP has more fake parts than any other line and costs a hell of a lot more (other than skids of course)

 

Fake parts add to the part count in most cases and require more engineering to hide.

Exactly

 

Conversely, for those who want good transforming toys and want cartoon accuracy, fake parts aren't a problem. Heck, they've been going on for over a decade. I remember Classics Prime's fake grill abs. It was still a great figure.

 

would you have complained if they used the the actual part for Tracks’s chest rather than the fake one?

 

No, I wouldn't.

But that being said, compared to Sunstreaker, the faux chest looks much better on Tracks and much more toon accurate. Just as it does with Runamuck and Runabout. Even Masterpiece Sunstreaker went for a faux chest that looks perfect.

 

Aw man that red model/product stamp right on the front of the right leg will annoy me.

 

see I don’t think the fake chest looks good. I think it looks fake.

I won’t argue preference or say you shouldn’t like fake parts either, everyone has their own tastes, and I completely respect your opinion and what you like.

Personally, I don’t mind small parts being fake on occasion, depending on what it is and where it is, but a major part (like tracks’s windshield and whole cockpit area) destroys the illusion for me. The details on Sunstreaker’s feet are fake, but I can pretend they’re just a weird detail on the bottom of the bumper on an imaginary car design. I can pretend the grill on classics prime is just a different grill that is needed for his robot mode.

But my point is: if you wouldn’t have complained about the real part, then hasbro is shooting themselves in the foot since a number of collectors won’t buy this kind of product. I regret buying runabout and, frankly, they couldn’t pay me to buy this Tracks. I’m not the only collector who feels this way.

I went from buying every single MP figure until they started relying on fake parts, then I just stopped. I actually did order the skids since it looks like a return to form for the line.

Same thing is happening here, I went from being almost line complete with siege and prior lines, to now buying only a handful of figures in kingdom.

If it overwhelms the line like it did with MP, I’ll just stop buying. I can’t be the only one. That’s money on the table that hasbro will be missing out on.

 

But the opposite can also be argued, Hasbro loses sales because fans dislike the robot designs that have clunky car parts hanging off of them. A lot of folks complained about ER Sunstreakers blocky chest (including me).

Like you said, it’s a matter of preference and simply different routes you can take when designing the figure.

 

Sure, but did you actively stop buying figures because they used real parts? Did using the actual car part stop you from buying Sunstreaker?

Until they started doing adding big chunks of fake parts in WFC, there really wasn’t an alternative and sales of prior generations lines were still great.

Plus, don’t forget the real parts have to go somewhere and typically have been adding fragility to the figure. You said you don’t like clunky parts hanging off figures, but the real windshield on runabout and tracks are now big backpacks relying on clear plastic for hinges. The backpacks end up unwieldy and there’s a dangerously high chance of breakage there.

Maybe this debate really isn’t even about fake parts as much as it is about the pursuit of cartoon accuracy. MP and Generations both used to be about reinterpretation of old designs.


I guess more than anything there’s really no alternative anymore, which is what’s most frustrating. When they went to fake parts and extreme cartoon accuracy for MP, at least we could still buy generations, but now there’s no choice in design philosophy. Everything G1 has been chasing Sunbow, rather than reinterpretations like we used to get.

 

The faux chests on Tracks, Runabout, Runamuck look great. The proportions are neater and tighter than a big square roof sitting on their chest like Sunstreaker's. I can just pretend that's their real chest and the car roof moves out of the way to give them better mobility.

True, but at the same time, there might also be collectors who will buy this Tracks because of how it looks. I know I will. They don't even have to pay me for the pleasure. I can't wait to get this figure.

There is no correlation that says faux parts will drive fans away any more than it will bring in new fans.

 

I disagree. A collector who isn’t bothered by fake chests would have likely bought tracks whether the chest was fake or not.

and I disagree with the proportions looking neater. Runabout is a mess, with parts collision everywhere and an oversized backpack. With Tracks, I feel the MP’s proportions look much better and it doesn't cheat.

 

The actually corvette has a much smaller greenhouse (windows and roof) than the kingdom tracks alt mode. If the greenhouse were more proportionate, it would be about the size of the fake roof if it were real. I'm mostly anti fake parts. MP Sunstreaker does it in a cool way so I like that. Runamuck and Runamuck look better in the fan mode thatuses the real roof

 

I disagree as well. Especially since you already bought Runabout. So Hasbro probably won't miss out on that much money even from collectors who don't like faux parts. And as I mentioned, there's no real correlation that faux parts chase off buyers in droves. Anecdotal evidence not withstanding.

Runabout's not even much of a mess. The backpack sits just fine and is actually a nice homage to his original G1 toy and character model. It's serving a nice purpose there.

I agree MP Tracks looks better. But that's a completely different price point.

That is an excellent point. There are already multiple interpretations of the figures out there. MP Tracks, Alternators Tracks, Generations Tracks, even G1 Tracks.

What's the problem with those of us who want cartoon accuracy finally getting it in mainline figures? Why can't we have a turn?

 

An good example of fake parts and rabid toon accuracy is MP Hound. The fake wheels look stupid. The engineering is way too complicated and combined with bad plastic causes him to literally crumble to pieces.

 

You’re not a collector who doesn’t mind fake parts, so how can you make assumptions on what that collector likes or dislikes?

Your argument that collectors no longer have the option between MP and Generations for figures that don’t use fake parts is also odd (IMO). You’re implying that your collect figures based on whether they use fake parts or not, regardless if they are MP or Generations. I’ve never heard anyone say that before but each his own.

I’ll just say that it’s common to judge alt modes based on how clean the vehicle mode is- no visible robot parts and fairly accurate alt mode appearance. Why can’t we judge the robot mode appearance with similar criteria? It’s more subjective because robot designs naturally vary but just like we don’t like robot parts dangly off alt modes, I don’t like ugly car parts dangly off robot bodies for the sake of “no-fake parts.”

 

Edit: I guess we should include partsforming, like on ER Cliffjumper, in this conversation as well.

Why do we need to have a cartoon accurate mainline and a cartoon accurate MP line? I don’t understand why we need both?

I’m not defining my purchases by whether the parts are fake or not, I’m defining it by the quality of the engineering and the transformation. Use of fake parts means that parts are not transforming. We call it cheating for a reason. To me, that is a failure in engineering.

Either way, I’m surprised you’ve never heard this before, the fact that many collectors don’t like fake parts has even been acknowledged by Takara designers in interviews they’ve done.

as is, you are getting those random parts hanging off the robot every time they cheat. Runabout and Tracks have the real parts hanging off their back. Every figure with fake sculpted tires has extra tires (look at any TFP Bulkhead figure).



Anyways, to add an analogy, to me a fake chest is like looking at a fat man wearing a tshirt with a muscular body printed on it. It looks fake.

 

This is a fair point. I think the nature of discussions like this tends to ignore that.

This is a varying opinion. On g1 stuff there are multiple ways the robot modes can be and still look G1. The "clean" look can mean toon accuracy, but personaly I like the kibble and mechanical stufffz that make it look like a robotic machine covered in armour of car parts.

Thats kinda why I havent bought any WFC stuff yet, but I'll probably cave in and maybe try and mod them