I'm guessing we're getting most of those in WFC Pt. 3.

 

id rather have Quickmix, Landfill, Sureshot, Pointblank, Flamefeather, Fangry, Squeezeplay, Sparkstalker, and Star Saber
you know, characters who haven't had a toy since the 80s.
we have 2 Blitzwings (t30 and tr) 2 Blasters (tr and device label) 2 Jazzes (potp and rts) 2 Perceptors (rts and tr) and a Skids (t30) already.

 

The thing is, most of the characters in the first bucket have no presence in pop culture or the consciousness of the audience and little establishment in (Western) fiction. plus they’re mostly meaningless to kids. My feeling is that outside of the characters that they “have to do” (84-86), they might as well do something completely new. Create some entirely new characters. Like I’m a pretty fierce critic of the live action movies, but they did at least create some new characters.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll buy the 87-90 remakes but I sort of want them to break out of this idea that they have to be slavish G1 completionists.

 

Characters that are mostly meaningless to kids would essentially be new characters to kids

 

the 87-90 characters have no pop culture/media consciousness because nobody has used them since the 80s. it's a self-fulfilling cycle

apply the Furman/Roberts approach grab some randos, write some good stories about them, and boom, toy sales.
Furman did it with Bludgeon, Hardhead, Thunderwing, and Nightbeat
Roberts did it with Chromedome, Brainstorm, Rewind, Misfire, Crankcase, Krok, and Skids.

give Starscream a break for a year, lets see what Needlenose is up to.
take the spotlight off of Bumblebee and Ironhide and shine it on Wideload and Fizzle.

 

You’re not wrong. But doing one of those instead of something wholly new still means they’re at the mercy of internet comparisons to the original 88 toy, so that divests them of a degree of freedom.

Agreed 100%. But they need some level of greater success I think in order to do that. Hopefully the Netflix show is a great success so they can kill everyone off in Season 3 and replace them and/or do a spin-off.

 

I think you're saying "create new characters with supporting media to characterize them", right? Because the packaging does jack squat now to identify the characters other than name and faction. Ironworks is essentially a new character since the G1 toy never had a bot mode.

The G1 big-name will always be used to keep the trademarks, but I'm enjoying the later year guys getting sprinkled in. And the #1 audience (kids) only care about 1 "that one I saw on tv" or 2 " hey that toy looks good!"

 

There's also lines like cyberverse, where we got a bunch of new characters alongside returning characters. Hammerbyte is by far one of the best warriors of the line and then there's also the first ever official toy of Rack'n'Ruin

 

Spot on. Thunderhowl looks fantastic. Can’t wait for him.

 

I agree, but I was half awake at the time and I just listed who I could remember off the top of my head.

 

Makes sense. It is a decent representation of the toy, the battle damage is minimal, and they already did his main redeco (Red Alert) in a wide release. His other redecos are much more niche and can be serviced with the same mold. Since Siege Sideswipe is still readily available for MSRP, Hasbro likely doesn't see enough of a market.

With Smokescreen, it can be argued that as a selects character he wasn't widely available and thus will be "new" for many people, all his potential redecos are pretty high profile, too.

Same with Ironhide and Ratchet - both popular characters, and only one was widely available. With both figures regularly selling for $40+, there is clearly a demand for them.

 

Anyone else hoping for this WILDWHEEL cowboy to make it into Earthrise? I don't know why, but I feel like my life needs a cowboy autobot.

 

I feel skeptical about that. For one thing, at the time he made that statement, Siege Sideswipe was still plentiful in stores so that gives a strong incentive to not hint towards an Earth mode (for him or any of the other Autobot cars.) At this point we've only got about 5 major characters left from Siege that would need retooled molds for Earth modes:
*Sideswipe
*Hound
*Mirage
*Soundwave (maybe a new head for Laserbeak)
*Ultra Magnus

I don't think there's enough spots left for all of these to happen in Earthrise, but I think it's highly unlikely that Hasbro will NEVER do them. Why wouldn't they?

 

There's even artwork for an Earthrise Sideswipe:

 

we got box art of sideswipe, hound, and shockwave yet i doubt there showing up again in er

 

I wouldn't get too excited about an Earth mode Sideswipe because of the boxart. Boxart hasn't been 100% accurate since the Trailbreaker that appears is the T30 one.

 

Hound and Shockwave looks just like siege while Sideswipe looks different, it would be weird for hasbro to commission brand new artwork on Sideswipe for no reason.

 

But that artwork did tease that trailbreaker was coming. I admit the chances of sideswipe showing up are low but if they really didn't plan to make a new sideswipe why make a new design for him instead of just using the siege version for artwork?

 

I hope they give us some of these guys!
Absolutely adore the combining gimmick.

 

Those are the two sets I had as a kid (plus the Autobot Space one), so I'd definitely love to see some representation from among those teams as well.

Oiler and Slide would be nice for belated IDW representation (even if people kinda hated the IDW interpretation of Slide).