Fit For Natalie

Transformers apparently sets yearly DVD sales record. Well, they can call the combiner anything they want. Hasbro doesn't even have the names of all of the G1 Constructicons anymore. Unless they introduce mass-shifting and/or drastically change the vehicle modes of these combiners, combiners are unrealistic in a continuity that keeps relatively consistent scale relationships between the characters. For example, in real life Long Haul would be large enough to theoretically carry most of his Constructicon team mates in his dumper.

Dude, don't leech images off another site like that. If you really want to show an image, then upload it onto your own web or image space or just link the URL. Have you considered getting Final Battle Jazz for his fairly movie accurate crescent cannon?

He seemed to base the colour scheme on Voyager class Prime. The real Prime trucks have a much darker metallic red and blue colourscheme, on the front the blue flames are contrasted by orange as they fade into the red. Since this is a 1994 379, assuming its in decent running condition, would it run better than the 1980s 359s or whatever the production used for Prime?

I hope this will sound good on my PC's allegedly THX-certified speakers. Just a week and a half to go. Apparently, the real reason is that Bay preferred Devastator over Brawl.

I thought his colour scheme roughly approximated the colour used on rescue vehicles these days? I believe they're slowly replacing the usual red and white colours. Btw, Tomy's first-half profits have doubled because of the Transformers movie line: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home Yes, once again AMERICAN Transformers fiction is responsible for TF success in Japan. Do you guys know what will happen next? Japan will get crazy ideas and fart it all up. History shows this.

Don't believe rumours and get your hopes up. Hasbro stated that they would like to make an MP Grimlock. No indication if this will ever happen of course, since they don't really need one. Binaltech never did very well in Japan. At best you'll see repaints of Alternators Hasbro have released but Takara hadn't in the Kiss Play line, possibly. Or maybe a totally random 'Binaltech' release like Black Convoy and Mirage.

Bay's webmaster says the leaked TF2 treatment (I assume its that one I read about, as I am avoiding reading it) was written by a professional, so it was a real treatment, but not one that they're going to use. At the very least I'd expect bits and pieces from it to appear in the actual movie. I don't think what DeSanto says matters anymore, because: 1. He was barely involved with the first movie and tried to get himself a writer's credit. 2. His treatment for the first movie was bloody awful. You guys think Bay's movie was bad? You've not seen DeSanto's original vision. Hehehe - really, his treatment was awful... anybody want to read it? Why is that a bad idea? Tidal Wave was awesome. Doesn't this forum revolve around a series with a transforming space battleship?

You mean Transformers Animated? They won't be out until March, I believe. If I recall correctly, to coincide with the series premiere they will release a two pack of Optimus Prime and Megatron in January. The movie line will continue into 2008 until Animated takes over.

Congratulations, and welcome to the thread that keeps spawning new threads! Metroplex's failure point is his connection between the upper and lower halves of the body. Apparently Sludge and Swoop's toolings are missing. Not really a surprise then that chinese bootleggers generally have the toolings of toys neither Takara nor Hasbro can reissue anymore. Yeah, I read in a review they were probably rearranged for better listening. What do you think of the score? Any favourites? Not sure about that - if you look at the line up of figures, just like the Encore line, they're releasing Classics counterparts of characters from the movie. (G1 Soundwave counts for Encore because Blackout was originally going to be Soundwave)

The DVD content across the stores is the same. Walmart's version is simply the single-disc version with another disc containing TF: Beginnings. The exclusives across the stores have to do with how they're packaged and what merchandise comes with them. The DVDs themselves remain the same.

The G1 Metroplex tooling is apparently still around, as of 2003. Hasbro reported that it investigated Metroplex as a possible alternative after they cancelled the RID Fortress Maximus release, but found that Metroplex too failed safety tests. Its a pretty fragile toy. The Dinobot combiner has always been one of the worst fanboy ideas, because what makes the Dinobots 'badass' is their ability to be devastatingly powerful individually without resorting to combining. The petition didn't really have anything to do with the score being released from what I read. Before the movie was released, there was a photo article about Jablonsky scoring the film, and said there would was a score soundtrack in the works. Later, Jablonsky heard about the petition and thanked the organiser (and the other fans), but confirmed the score was always going to be released. He later sent the organiser two personalised signed copies of the score and another one that was just signed to be auctioned off to help fund music education. David posted the link about that article/score review a page or two back.

Omega Supreme's toy was never released as a Transformer there, either, and he's arguably a more well-known character. This is Takara we're talking about. Poor business decisions leading to them merging with a rival company while complaining that their relationship with Hasbro results in little profit, but they put up with it, is part of what makes them a floundering, yet arrogant Japanese company.

Does your in-car CD player have MP3 playback capability? Could burn the MP3s to CD

Classics Bumblebee is the best of the Classics line, in my opinion. Perfectly captured the character.

I'm a fan of his and 24, but really, if he was drink driving, he deserves it. Could have killed someone if he stacked the car.

David, why don't you just get the iTunes downloads for the roadtrip now and buy the CD later? Depends. If Hasbro seriously wanted to do it, then it will get done. Hasbro will work with Takara-Tomy to design the toy and pay for its development, like they did with Masterpiece Convoy (one of the early designs was by Don Figueroa for Hasbro). Until the merger with Tomy, Hasbro had been propping up Takara financially and footing the bill for Transformers development. Takara was in seriously bad financial trouble after the failure of various toylines, such as Car Robots in 2000. Up to that point, The Movie toys were probably one of the most difficult Transformers line that Hasbro or Takara-Tomy had ever worked on, because they had to translate extremely complex designs into working toys, and these were also all-new, sometimes radically different kinds of Transformers. By comparison, with the exception of Mirage*, Classics was safe, familiar territory that designers both sides of the ocean were used to, because they had made similar toys hundreds of times before for the past few years. So I foresee them making better movie toys with the next few movies. *Mirage was actually designed by the same Australian Takara employee who also developed the Real Gear Booster X10 (originally made during the Cybertron series), possibly the control pad Real Gear and the Deluxe class Camaro Concept Bumblebee.

The Voyager one has a fairly inaccurate truck mode, though. I know David would like an accurate (well, prop truck accurate) 379 Friends of mine who went to BotCon this year said the Prime truck was beautiful in person.

The Walmart version includes a DVD with an animated version of IDW's movie Prequel comic mini-series. I'm not sure to what extent the comic is animated. I'm not sure why Walmart is advertising it as narrated by Peter Cullen, because IDW editor Chris Ryall has reported that other actors are also involved, there are sound effects and animation. Awhile back Mark Ryan reported he had just finished recording lines as Bumblebee for this very prequel, so it will be nice to hear Bumblebee speak for himself given he has big speaking roles in this.

3 Chinese fans built a 4.5 meter tall Movie-style Transformer http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=153488 Holy crap.

David, did you buy any of the Movie Prime toys? There's apparently two different versions of Nightwatch Prime in slightly different colour schemes now.

I finally bought Leader Brawl today. I've found that he is MUCH more stable on smooth surfaces if one folds the pieces that forms the sides of his feet into their vehicle mode stage, so that that form a kind of rectangle. They make larger numbers of exclusives now to so the end price is more affordable. That's why Botcon stuff costs so much - relatively low production numbers. A few test shots of Ironhide repainted as G2 Motormouth (apparently) have appeared in the past few months, but with no indication as to who he is, but given the bright blue parts and deco, he's likely to be released during the AllSpark Power segment of the line later this year, possibly as an exclusive.

Even Prime? Prime's head is perfectly Prime, except modernised and detailed. The problem is Transformers Movie stuff was essentially under ordered by comparison to other blockbuster toylines, so the retailers are filling the gaps with other Transformers stuff.

Well, by big CGI summer blockbuster standards, Transformers was rather cheap to make, though it helped that Michael Bay is relatively economical in the way he shoots (gets through scenes quickly and doesn't waste time and money). But what we saw in TF is pretty much all of the robot footage they could afford, apparently. I could see $150 million or so allocated to it, and human-piloted mecha have one advantage in cost compared to Transformers - they don't have to convey 'living being' movements, or make any expressions. That was a challenge for ILM in TF, to sell the Transformers as living robots, and not just mecha.

Fun fact: The Real Gear toys were originally created in line with the designs of the Cybertron, but held back, presumably to take advantage of the fact everyday devices turn into Transformers in the movie. That's why the Real Gear Toys have the traditional Transformers design style.

But those designs are farting awful. They're based on PAT LEE's renditions of the two characters! Too bad these toys were actually sculpted in 2004. If they were made now, they might have based them upon the work of a popular TF artist who's actually good, like Don Figueroa or Guido Guidi.