It's very strange ankles and waist are standard and must be on every figure no matter the cost, for years yet the more useful double elbow is not.

It has culmated to where we now have a commander class Optimus Prime with only 90 degrees in the elbow??

So Prime can't naturally pull of many poses involving lifting guns or swinging his axe.. in a franchise about a war.

 

Because it requires another part, and therefore more money.

Also, why would he need double elbows to swing his axe?

 

Double elbows are good, but double knees are even better.

 

I just want double everything.

 

I feel like waists havent been quite as standard as ankles these days due to transformation concerns, but I get your point. They are generally bulky robots, so I'm not too bothered when they can't do all the poses a well articulated human figure can. It is still nice when you get a really dynamic one.

Personally I'd trade double joints for standard wrist rotations any day. Especially for anyone with a melee weapon.

 

Same reason not every figure gets a wrist pivot.

 

And it's always a character with a sword :sad

 

I think a better question is why do they not let some designs have deeper elbow bends when there's clearly room. MP-44 for example has just a single jointed elbow but can go the full range, while SS86 Optimus also has a single jointed elbow but is still stuck at 90 degrees.

 

It’s quite bizarre to me that deluxe class gears is more articulated than the commander class optimus

 

Optimus has a more complicated design.

 

SS86 Optimus has a full 180° range at his single joint elbow. It's just that half of that range bends backwards instead of forward, for transformation

A double jointed elbow would be possible, and should have been there imo. The above is just an objective explanation for why his single joint elbow is limited to 90° of forward bend

 

His elbows dont

 

Yes, but that would take part of the budget, and while they might have possibly been able to fit it in, Hasbro will cut a few small corners given that it will sell despite that.

 

Then they could take out the blast effects or raise the price two bucks to add 4 extra parts.

They already raised the price, I just don’t find budget to be a compelling argument for something of this price point.

and I say this as someone who has ordered multiple copies. I think it looks great. Just don’t feel the limited articulation is justified

 

Because that will be one thing they can add in later to improve it yet again and resell ya another G1 Prime.

 

Finally, a good answer.

I just wonder what they'll remove or omit on the next version.

Heck, they could not even put this one together correctly.