Fit For Natalie

Henkei Powerglide is WAY TOO RED. What I want to do is get both, then swap the arms...

I hated Armageddon. Nah, I just read alot of stuff online It turns out they're actually filming the Paris scene at City Hall, standing in for Ecole Militarie in Paris. Sam's parents are in this scene, along with Bumblebee, a green Chevy Beat and an orange Chevy Trax concept. Maybe they're the rumoured 'twins'? They look almost the same, yet different.

I think I'll just buy the Universe versions of those pictured Henkei toys. They barely look any different. I believe the point of Animated was to do something unique and new for Transformers, and to make it stand out from the crowd of six or seven other relatively similar looking cartoons with similar looking robot designs. One advantage of this stylised art style is it allows for pretty dynamic animation, especially compared the the past three japanese series where the only visual 'excitement' came from stock footage

Apparently Rittenhouse Square in Philly will double as Paris. Maybe the Decepticons blow up Paris. Bay did it in that stupid asteroid movie of his.

I wouldn't call the 90s Batman cartoon as not being aimed at kids, but more being written to allow people of all ages to enjoy it. The sequel series Batman Beyond was similarly quite mature in its own way, but was created solely to sell toys, according to the showrunners. If you're still talking about Batman, the style isn't kiddy, its stylised. I believe the term they came up for the look of the series was 'Dark Deco'. Ironically back in the early 90s Batman caught flak for being 'anime looking' despite the style being created by Americans (and never mind anime and manga being heavily inspired by American animation).

There's also a couple of Crystal Convoys up the back, too. All of the toys out now using the Classics 2006 molds (Botcon 2008, SDCC, Henkei) are being manufacturered by TakaraTomy, who traditionally seem to have much tougher security (or just less intense interest) in their leased factories, judging by the fact that, until 2006 or so, we didn't see test shots of their stuff on eBay. One of the problems is none of the toy companies actually own the chinese factories that produce their toys, and they go to factories based on the costs of doing business with them and their safety record. Transformers has an unusually intense focus for test shot and proto thieves for some reason, even before the TF movie. It appears to be a feature they dropped, but forgot to remove from the paper work and packaging.

Off-topic: Looks like I was wrong about the demise of Binaltech in terms of new toolings. There's solicitations of a Nissan GT-R for later this year.

I would assume they either worked with earlier concepts, or they just couldn't get that design as a toy, and sort of came up with their own. Or they just made up an alt mode that they thought worked better as a toy given he only appeared in vehicle mode in the cartoon for 20 seconds. This is what happened to the Voyagers: Those aren't 'samples', but production toys off the line. Of course, western fans should take some blame for providing a lucrative market for this thievery in the first place. I doubt TakaraTomy will release Animated in Japan. Might be too different to what they're used to over there.

This is off topic, but I doubt there will be a serious rebirth of Alternators in the forseeable future. It was a line created during Hasbro and Takara's joint projects period, where Hasbro provided the capital (money) for development of Transformers, which is probably why there were so many Alternators released early on. Now that they're no longer doing joint projects, I doubt either company will care enough to make new molds. Tomy is pretty stingy with Transformers (nearly all of their TF product since 2006 have been redecos) and Hasbro sunk millions of dollars into Alternators, with little to show.

Cybertron mode Animated Prime's vehicle mode is actually based on a real truck, a Mitsubishi Fuso hybrid concept. Of course, the real one isn't a half-track.

Now, let's all talk about the F-22 Raptor prop they're using for some reason............... interesting, yes?

Considering Bay was 19 when G1 came out in 1984, he probably never even heard of it then, and even if he had, I don't know how he could be interested at that age. So he was right when he said he was into girls when it originally came out, because he would have already been in college. There wasn't as much of an 'adult collector' movement then, and in any case they would have been collecting what they grew up with, not some stupid new cartoon about badly animated robots. I think saying he loathes Transformers is waaay overstating things. I would say he loathes some of the Transformers fans, which is fair enough, considering some of them wanted to kill him for not adhering to their narrow view of what Transformers *should* be. And really, anybody protesting outside his offices deserves to be mocked and derided.

Pics of what appears to be the Starscream/F-22 Raptor maquette.

I want a Leader class Starscream with a proper fighter mode, goddammit. Is that too much to ask Hasbro? IS IT?!? I assume this is a modified prop Camaro due to the visible cut vents in front of the rear wheel arches that the pre-production cars driving around the US and Australia lack. And the lack of window frames on the doors, which I heard the production model will have to have for safety.

I believe the silver and gold Autobot and Decepticon logos are normal, based on the Movie's decos, I suspect.

That's just one of Arcee's concepts from 2005 - hence 11.15.05 on it. It's what the Movie Arcee toy was based upon.

I believe the 2 pack deluxe class Earth Prime is one of those 'similar engineering, different toolings' deals, because all of his arts are different.

So we gonna split off into a Transformers 2 thread?

Besides the fact your statement is inaccurate, in the absence of robot news earlier on, people talked about about the confirmed news of human actors being cast or returning from the last movie because it was the only news available, or it was the latest news. What in the heck are people supposed to do, totally ignore those news items?

Optimus Prime should only be displayed on the finest crimson velvet cloth with a hand-embroidered Autobot sigil.

I do hope the stress of transformation doesn't crack or break the vaccum-metalized parts.

This movie looks like a disaster. Hey, since I hate Dragon Ball, should I go see this for comedy value?

yeah, its the same one.

Not bad considering it costs the equivalent of $30US in Japan at retail, and that nobody (besides the two Japanese retailers selling these) can get them for wholesale prices. That means Retail cost + markup from Japanese middle man + shipping to middle man + shipping to the US + markup from BBTS.

Maybe, or just order directly from Japan. These things won't be running out until June 20