Fit For Natalie

Dunno why he chose the crappier pic of Jazz where he's obscured by Ratchet, though. Here's a better pic:

From fan's own stories, there's alot of in-store thievery of toys in the US (and switcheroos), so twisty ties are there to to stop the toy from becoming dislodged while in transit or damaged when it falls off the shelf or something, and to stop thieves from easily stealing them. Its not so much the gimmicks alone that crippled Armada's toys (though they contributed significantly), it also had to do with a small budget and the beginnings of an all-new line style of Transformers. Budgetry restrictions were cited as to why Armada figures had such piss-poor articulation, even when the design allowed for it which dissapointed the Hasbro designers themselves (Aaron Archer cites Smokescreen and Hot Shot as his biggest dissapointments in the line, IIRC). However, Armada being one of the most sucessful Transformers lines ever allowed their design and engineering budget to be increased steadily since then. Yes, its true, Armada was enormously sucessful for Hasbro. Cybertron largely uses the same sorts of gimmicks, but with much more articulation and less compromised designs, no? That weird weathering is there because originally that part was to be vac-metal chromed plastic (like certain parts of G1 Dinobots). But they found out the now-brittle plastic couldn't take the stress of being the load-bearing legs. So they came up with that paint wash in a hurry.

Not much they can do about the actual missile sizes, as they need to be a certain length to pass the choke test.

EDIT: Unfortunately the video has been taken down off that youtube clone Here's some screencaps http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=129826

It turns out that silver-painted version of Voyager Movie Prime is an Target exclusive that costs the same as the normal release, apparently.

Yeah, Prime's ankle ball joints are a huge problem. He's very top heavy, yet the ankles are rather loose, and pop out very easily.

Takara sounds really old fashioned - they still use pencil and paper where Yamato uses computers to engineer their toys.

Eh, being made by Takara usually makes no difference. Takara usually design TF toys to adhere to US and Hasbro's own standards, even if the toy was not commissioned by Hasbro or developed in cooperation with Hasbro. Otherwise they wouldn't need to use long missiles for toys that have never been released in the US under Hasbro's TF brands. This time they didn't bother because they knew Hasbro would have no way of selling this in the US

And with that we can see this toy was never designed with Hasbro's playwear and durability standards in mind (like most TFs are, regardless of if it is never sold in the US). That sounds dissapointing.

Too bad then that they can't test toys the old fashioned way like Hasbro and Takara. Of course, Hasbro and Takara make far fewer collector-focused products. And of course, Hasbro mass produces low-cost products on a near constant basis, so they always have a presence in their markets, and can afford to take the time to test their products for wear and tear.

What gimmicks are there? (aside form the LED scope)

Reading various horror stories about Yamato products (particularly first releases) here, I've always wondered why a manufacturer of such expensive collectors toys have such a poor quality control and design record? Isn't it bad business sense (not to mention costly) to not extensively test the product for flaws first before approving it for manufacture? This would save them millions of yen in replacement toys, replacement parts and redesigning the figures further to iron out flaws. Just does not seem to be very logical, especially as I would figure a primary market of older collectors would be much less forgiving than say, collectors of a children's toyline.

Nah, sorry.

And he was clearanced for $25-30 at some Toylands/Uncle Pete's

HOC Thundercracker was merchandise, a low-cost product meant to (in the end) support and advertise the brand in an inexpensive manner. To a lesser extent, Titanium 3" figurines do the same, though it is much more important as its own toy franchise. Cybertron Thundercracker was grey with bright orange and baby blue. He was not black. G1 reissues are not an kid-targeted mainline. Starscream was released about a year or more before Skywarp, Thundercracker and Dirge. Also, the reissues as I understand were not released in similar sorts of waves that Mainline toys are. They are confined to their assigned assortments, and when its gone, its gone. As I have repeatedly tried to explain, in a mass-market mainline the stores do not want 6 jets of near identical design on their pegs at almost the same time. When I talk about popularity, I mean by recognisability in name and character with kids and the general public. Starscream has been a very prominent TF character since 2002 and is the best known of the three F-15 seekers. That's why he was reissued first, and why he gets pimped the most out of the 6 original jets, and why he's the Decepticon jet character who is recycled in every subsequent TF series, and why the other remaining jets usually aren't seen too often, at least not all together in a single line anymore.

G1 Thundecracker's (toy) colours have only been used once since his G1 release, as I recall, for Armada Thundercracker. Cybertron Thundercracker is a new character who doesn't even have the G1 scheme. Titaniums are primarily collector-focused line. I believe they released Thundercracker first because of the many Starscream toys (G1 or not) that have been released on the market lately, and the fact he (the G1 version) hadn't been seen around for awhile. I believe Ramjet and Thrust were going to follow Dirge in the TRU Commemorative reissue series, but by then they had begun winding the line down. I think they did Cliffjumper because he's a car (cars are always popular TF toys) and he appears to be a friendly character to kids, even if his bio depicts him as a crazy paranoid. No idea if Hasbro will continue Classics in some manner. Right after the movie they're moving onto TF Heroes, and that has been described as quite different from TF series that have come before.

Those toys you cited were also available in other markets as well, not just HTS. So for a HTS to work for TC, they'd most likely need to make enough to sell as exclusives under different arrangements, assuming they find willing retailers to carry them. TC would also cost more to manufacture per unit than a simple SW figure. I believe the 6 pack of BATs you are talking about were made for the cancelled GI Joe: Rise of the Robots/BATS line. Most of Hasbro's DTC GI Joe line are remnants of that series. I presume it is because the 5 or 6 Rangers are all main characters. The 5 other seekers are less famous than SS, and there's no cartoon to flog them anyway. But those repaints you cited were released gradually over several years. Transmetal 1 Cheetor was only repainted once, not counting differences between the US and Japanese Metals release. I think you meant the original Cheetor tooling, who was repainted 6 times over 11 years. There are 6 repaints of Supercon Armada Prime excluding running changes, original release (Late 2002), mail-in Crystal Convoy (2003 - Japan Only, limited numbers), Mail-in Scourge (2003 - Japan Only, limited numbers), Nemesis Prime (2003), Universe Battle in a Box Ultra Magnus (2005), Cybertron (deluxe truck) Optimus Prime (2006).

Naturally there's no verification, official or unofficial. What it boils down to is logic, and educated guesses based upon past actions, past comments made by Hasbro. Walky has said the same thing about the unlikelyhood of them being released, and he's good friends with Kyde, and friends with some other Hasbro people in the TF team. Actually the extent of retooling Ramjet/Starscream's tooling into Thrust and Dirge would have neccessitated two new toolings. Hasbro has stated that surface retools (such as the removal of a faction logo) just modifies the existing tooling, but new parts require an all-new tooling. What you propose is too many repaints within a short period of time with retailers who are looking beyond to the movie line onslaught. It is unlikely they would have been interested, and they didn't ask for an exclusive TF product (sometimes exclusives are offered, or requested by the retailer). As for sales, maybe, maybe not. It would cost Hasbro a hell of alot of money (if retailers were willing) to sell the remaining seekers at retail. What happens if they didn't sell? Most of these toys aren't bought by us, and not every average parent is going to buy all 6 planes (or 5, discounting Skywarp) for their kids. Australia had loads of Nemesis Prime at retail, and nobody wanted it. When pics first surfaced, people were bellowing about how unimaginative he was. Then he was revealed to be an exclusive, and suddenly everybody wanted the lazy repaint, and they were mad as hell when they couldn't get the toy they had previously slagged off. I'd be pleasantly surprised if Hasbro released a slightly different releases of these toys, but I'd rather not hope for the unlikely. No they couldn't. When there is already a standard-release carded Jet Dude, with a slightly retooled Jet Dude on pegs, Target wouldn't want another exclusive with three more Jet Dudes, not would anybody else, really, as even though these would be restricted to their exclusive stores, that would mean 6 of (more or less) the same toy on the market, and sales of one or the other would just suffer in the long run. Hasbro Toy Shop sells too few units for Hasbro to bother making an exclusive run of Thundercrackers for it. Even Alt Nemesis Prime was made in considerably greater quantities than people realized. Australia became a dumping ground of Nemesis Primes last year. As I pointed out, as it would have been highly unlikely that Hasbro would have made those toys anyway, all parties figured this would be the only way those characters would ever see the light of day within the near future in toy form. Before anybody says anything, Titaniums can get away with several repaints of WW Thundercracker in the same line because those figures are usually shipped once in their assortment, and don't appear again afterwards. And as a collector-aimed line, they have lower production numbers

Just get a tiny christmas ribbon thing decoration. Its the same thing Oh yeah, I was right about Hasbro not going to release the other Seekers at retail anyway. Eg, Skywarp was only retooled in Armada because it made him 'differen't enough for retailers to accept him as a 'new' toy. No retailer in their right mind would carry Starscream, Ramjet, Thundercracker, Thrust and Dirge. They wouldn't even get away with that with a full 18 month mainline, I reckon, given that most of the toolings get 1-2 repaints, max.

As a vioce actor he can raise and lower his pitch, you know. Obviously he isn't hamming it up dramatically like he did for the movie or the series. Hasbro presumebly had no interest in doing the remaining seekers in the near future, given Classics is over and all, and the Heroes line will immediately replace the movie line after the latter is done. G1 fans hardly matter at the end of the day. This is a mass-market line, not a collector line. They need to flog toys to kids, as well as keep retailers happy. That's why they didn't shove 6 variations of the same plane on pegs and why Skywarp was packed with Ultra Magnus as a store exclusive. They're all almost the same toy. If Classics were an on-going line, maybe you would have seen the remaining three planes gradually released over several waves (so they don't all end up on pegs at the same time). Maybe some other time if Classics did as well as Hasbro would like.

He IS a movie trailer guy. Listen to some samples of his work at www.victorcaroli.com

You can download both trailers here The voice over at the end of 'Hidden' is Victor Caroli, the narrator of the G1 cartoons and original movie. I reckon the bit where Ironhide shoot-dodges in the street and Starscream mid-air swing and transformation somersault are awesome.

I was told that Hasbro did base the driver figure (its part of the seat and folds away) on Cullen, so its a happy coincidence. Eh? The Leader class Prime does have knees - that's why the wheel assemblies on his thighs have a hinge joint through the middle of them.

Pics of Voyager-class Movie Prime figure. The little driver figure appears to be Peter Cullen, voice actor of Prime, who usually appears at conventions dressed as a kind of cowboy.

If the kids of today are familar with TF mythos since BW, they'd know TFs are more than just robots, they have sparks, a living soul. Serious damage to one's body can in turn damage or extinguish the spark. Wasn't Ratchet dead at that point?