M'Kyuun

God, yes!

Cool, something to look forward to. I thought they were done with this series, but I'm glad I was wrong.

At this point, all the tension and mystery are gone; it's more of a gratuitous exercise in body counts at this point. I had high hopes when Prometheus was announced, and I do like Fassbender's creepy 'artificial person' David, but that movie was more of a bad mansplanation for how Earthlings and the xenomorph came about. I wish Scott had prolonged the mystery instead of spoon-feeding all the history to us. This show looks to add nothing new or interesting beyond the typical post-Aliens Alien film. I wasn't crazy about Romulus, so I hope this will be better than that at least. I think the tv series format offers the potential for the writers to put more flesh on the bone narrative-wise, and I hope what they've cooked up offers at least one or two surprises beyond the expected monster trope.

I'm just not a big fan of statues. I still prefer my Technic version of K-2SO as he was fairly-well executed and had better articulation than this. Admittedly, this gets his details and proportions far better and he could be modified to introduce the missing articulation. Moreover, it looks like a good parts pack for black elements.

Well, I didn't say it'd be easy! 😄 The OG definitely presents some challenges. Ultimately, they may just opt to fold prime up into a cube and keep him isolated in the top half while trying to work in the cuts and articulation of the armor without having to work around the core bot. However, as you say, that moves away from toy accuracy by a fair amount. In the end, a white Optimus may be all fans get. In cases like this, where the OG toy was nigh impossible to translate to a workable standard, either fans should be prepared for shortcuts, bad takes, or Takara should just leave them be.

I hope not; I hope Takara's more committed than that. While they've pushed some white Optimi toys as UM over the decades, G1 UM is synonymous with his armored look and I would hope that if they indeed choose to do him as a Missing Link entry, they go all-in and figure out a way to make the trailer work as his armor, even if it means a bit of partsforming to achieve the trailer and the armor. I think that'd be more acceptable in most fans' eyes than just a naked white Optimus clone. I believe they're up to the challenge; after 40+ years of making these things, they certainly should be.

The issue, since the goal is to approximate the OG toy, warts and all, would be to reproduce the added fist without partsforming, meaning they'll have to figure a point to insert elbows and then figure a way to create that oversized fist and make each fold into a wafer the same width as the upper arm to fill in the belly of the jet as unobtrusively as possible since the OG toy didn't have anything in that space. Much like slavish devotion to toon accuracy has affected certain figs, the most recent MP Starscream's ghastly alt mode comes to mind, the Missing Link's slavish devotion to preserving the look of the original toys, many of which suffered poor proportions and other shortcomings, will prove to be the line's Achille's Heel, IMHO. The OG Seeker design hasn't aged well and most toys now emulate a cross between toon and toy or straight toon, which benefitted from some of the toy's proportions being adjusted to look better, especially the arms and legs. Unfortunately, Takara can't incorporate any toon magic to spruce up the look of these figs, so for a number of them those poor proportions and partsforming bits are going challenge the designers while also somewhat hindering the toys themselves. The old adage, "You can't polish a turd' comes to mind, and while that may sound harsh and disrespectful, that's not the spirit in which I mention it; I mean it more from a practical design perspective. Theses shape-shifting toys represented an interesting new play pattern with a lot of thought and craftsmanship put into them (the prototypes were often carved out of wood!); however, ultimately so much more focus was placed on the puzzle aspect and creating realistic believable alt modes while the robot modes remained secondary considerations, which is generally where we see the greatest weaknesses of the Diaclone and Micochange and hence G1 toys. Those weaknesses are going to carry over by dint of preserving the look of the toys in both modes and many are going to fare poorer than others. If indeed they do the Seeker, or Megatron, both are going to suffer from carrying over the minuses of those early toys. That said, I'd still pick up a Missing Link Megatron having never owned the OG toy but still finding it pretty darn cool in its own way. To that end, I favor what Has/Tak did with the Legacy United deluxe class Optimus Prime where they closely approximated the look of the G1 toy, but made little improvements i.e. different shaped, better proportioned forearms with integrated fists and a nicely hinged cover for his back (no gaping hole like the OG). I think a furtherance of this line would be interesting, as, lacking that imperative to mirror the OG toy exactingly, they could introduce more "fixes" to correct the odd proportion or hindrance of the OG toy while still skewing very closely towards how it looked. I like that approach, and it would make for an interesting third option for folks like me who aren't really all-in on the Missing Link line and who aren't interested in collecting the G1 toys, either, due to their shortcomings. My feeling is that LU deluxe Prime is probably a one-and-done sort of figure, but I wouldn't object to more characters getting the treatment, especially at the more affordable price range compared to ML.

The ML Seeker would pose a little challenge, as the arms were a bit short and the hands were separate bits that had to be "partsformed". I love the transformation of the arms, though, and the only other Seeker toy to fold the arms into the F-15's spine was part of the Robot Masters line. albeit done much better. If Takara simply followed that toy's solution with a ML design, I think it'd work well. Honestly, I wish every Seeker toy followed that design, as well as more jetformers in general to reduce the number of jets with robot arms just hanging off their sides.

I appreciate it, but don't worry about it. Just checked my stash and all I have left of Prowl is the upper torso. I thought I'd saved the legs, but if I did, they're not with the rest of Prowl in the box where I keep most of my old G1 toys which means I have no idea where they are or if I binned them at some point. The latter is unlikely b/c I rarely throw stuff like that away, but at this point, my interest in replacing or restoring him had all but waned in light of the various modern toys I own. A Missing Link version is the only version of G1 Prowl that really interests me at this point. I certainly appreciate the offer, though. Way too kind. NGL, I'd be tempted to pick up the other variants of the Fairlady Z bros. I just love that design. That they used it to make three different characters in Transformers in addition to the lovely blue Bluestreak Diaclone just means more of that mold in the collection, generally. ML's kinda expensive, so I think I'd limit myself to Prowl, my favorite deco for that mold. While I love the Dinobots, I'm not sure if I'd go in on a set of ML versions, as they'd be pricey and between my Fans Toys Dinobots, my Newage Dinobots, and my SS86 Dinobots, I've got really well-done figs across three scales in my collection that already represent a lot of money and space dedicated to those loveable brutes. While ML is obviously a novel approach, and while I'd appreciate having the whole team, at some point I have to hit the brakes. Oh, and I also have the CW Dinos and Takara's MP Grimlock, but I don't consider them to be as polished as the aforementioned figs/teams. Yeah, Jazz was somewhat similar but still distinct. I got him as a kid, too, (Christmas surprise) and I still have him. The little clear plastic loop that lets his hood and roof slide broke decades ago, but there's still enough of it intact that it stays on the fig. I'd be a little tempted to get an ML version of him too. Oh Nostalgia, you parter of man and his money!

I appreciate it. My email's in my profile- reach out and we'll discuss compensation. No good deed must go unpunished in kind.

My Wally also did a reset recently and they moved their Transformers section, too. They're still in the same isle, just moved to the middle instead of being on the end conveniently next to a main aisle. I liked just being able to pop around the corner from the LEGO aisle to check the TF situation quickly, but both have been reset now so I have to travel the length of both to look at stuff. Anyway, I haven't seen much of the Primes stuff, although they did have a copy of Armada (AotP) Red Alert, and a few copies of Party Wallop which have been shelf-warming for a while now. Part of me wants to pick up Alchemist Prime if I see him, but I can't help but think he'll be retooled into Bulkhead, and I'd prefer that. They could say he's based on Animated Bulkhead, but I contend still that Legacy Bulkhead has far more in common with the Animated character, and Alchemist has far more in common and would translate well to Prime Bulkhead. I hope it happens, but I guess we'll see.

I do. I kept him. He's just in two pieces like Bayformers Jazz. I hated that he had no articulation below the waist, so a Missing Link version of him would be grand.

No interest in G2, well anything, but at %30 off, I might've considered picking up the Aerialbots all of whom I planned on skipping due to their horrible jet modes. Oh well. At this point I'm waiting to see if Magic Square or Newage will tackle the Aerialbots and hopefully at least one of the teams has decently passable jet modes that look like the planes they're supposed to be.

I've seen retro Bee and Gears at my local Wally, but no G2 Grimlock (yet). I like that they gave Gears his G1 toy face, but it's disappointing that they didn't do the same for Bee- he's just cast in a different shade of yellow. What's odder still is that they used the Netflix Bee mold, with its licensed VW beetle mode instead of the SS86 mold which more closely resembles his G1 Choro Q chibi design. Having the regular releases for both of these guys, I passed on their retro releases, although I appreciate the card packaging with all the G1 art and tech specs. IMHO, they could just card today's figs, too, at least the deluxes. It would save on the amount of cardboard being used/tossed in the rubbish bin. And for those like me who keep the boxes, cards take up much less space than boxes.

Ultra Magnus is going to prove challenging, especially to maintain the look of the G1 toy, which was basically a big red slab with a white robot standing behind it. To integrate articulation into that without changing the look too drastically is going to be tough. So many of the G1 bots do not lend themselves to updating while maintaining their G1 looks. I'm just waiting for ML Prowl. He's probably the only one I'd pick up, as I destroyed my original toy while trying to give it hip articulation. A master toy upgrader I was not in my teens (or even now). Anyway, I'd welcome that into my collection.