eriku

I just don't like organic animal modes. In MY view, my limited and narrow point of view, they are not aesthetically pleasing. I can think of other reasons why they don't appeal to me, but mostly it's because I think they look like ass. And like I said before, I'm not a Transformers 'fan'. I don't like any of the series and I'm only in it for the toys. The reasons they do what they do in the show means very little to me as long as I have a cool-looking transforming toy in my hands. Oh, and I DO have one Beastie TF that is a prized posession, but it's only because he is a tanuki who has balls.

....still waiting for the Mass Production Eva.

Especially in shows like gundam where the TF is more like robot lying down. The cool thing about vehicles, is because they are machines as well, you appeal to the fan of that vehicle (car nuts) as well as fans of science fiction. (could a robot really be made to drive the vehicle by itself? Why not? ) But when you say: "they live on an alien planet and they are alien vehicles" it opens up the possibilty that the vehicles are just there for half assed reasons and the toy designers can make up any excuse. Example: if the aliens can fight in humanoid form, what advantage would there be in turning into another object? There wouldn't be. So now we don't have to put as much thought into the complexity of the transformation because we don't have to make an alt mode accurate to any real life thing. In the cartoon (or was it the comic?) it made sense the computer (teletran 1?) thought cars were the 'alien' lifeforms so creating robots that look like 'aliens' as a disguise, was a beneficial trick. Not only could you take advantage of what that the machine's purpose was (example the constucticons are acutally useful as construction vehicles and are seen being used) but natives would not get suspicious. The good guy robots could then go to any planet to hide from the decepticons (note how the autobots are like a resistance that has to go underground?) and fight both 1. with the advantages of being machines that can get work done efficiently, and 2. without those people giving clues to enemy where they are. (becuase they are disguised amongst common objects in that world. Making it easier to stay hidden. Although in the cartoon this rarely happened, as a toy it works when people see it and don't realise that the toy is a robot in disguise - the alternators really do look like ordinary car models on the outside.) For me the diguise element (and the fact that they were machines) was what made it cool. You can have a transforming "alien tree", or a transforming "alien" monster, but where is the usefulness in that as a toy which transforms to look like an object another person sees as a disguise and is actually fooled by it? You'd want to transform into something that can be used and stuff. (that doesn't mean the insides have to be functional parts and mimmick the real thing, but that on the outside at least you will not be seen to attract attention or give away your position to an enemy) This is why I didn't like Beast wars. I don't mind beasts amoungst the machines to break up the team and introduce some variety, but not as a "theme" (like everyone is a beast). The dinobots were mainly cool because dinosaurs are a "cool" animal and deadly real life animals, than because kids necessarily think robots are better as beasts rather than vehicles/machines. You look at Grimlock as a dumb dinosaur with no intelligence becuase he is like this big dumb animal. If grimlock is a car that personality of a Giant imposing T-Rex is lost. You don't look at grimlock in car mode as this "big dumb animal" who goes into a rage and gets out of control and won't listen to commands when he is turned into a machine. So It's not that I'm against beasts if thought has also gone into the characters and thier personality as well. I'm also not saying that as a tv series the story of beast wars was not good, or that the toyline itself was poor quality, but that the concept of prime as a truck IMO is more appealing to me than prime as an ape. Mainly because I like the idea that a robot transforms into something cool or "useful". (like jetfighters are cool cuz they would fly in the air, a construction vehicle can be used, a cassette can be used to record for spy purposes, a gun can be held to actually shoot people, cars can be used to actually drive to a place with little fuss etc) 394364[/snapback] That pretty much sums up my own feelings. The writing on Beast Wars was better than most TF series, but the fact the characters were transformers really seemed inconsequential to me, almost pointless. Why did they really even need to transform into anything, especially animals? The world they were in just seemed so lifeless and void of anything that wasn't a Predacon or a Maximal that there seemed to be little reason for any kind of alt mode, kind of like how there seems to be little reason for any alt modes on Cybertron. I'll never argue that G1 is better than Beasts or demand TRUKK not MUNKKY!, because different people like different things. In my opinion, beast Transformers and vehicle Transformers are apples and oranges. People like what they like and it's nice to have variety to appeal to different tastes. On a whole the newer 'random sci-fi vehicle' designs haven't appealed much to me, but there are some that I really enjoy (GF Prime, the upocming WWI Prime) so I'm glad that aspect of Transformers is there, too. There's plenty of room for all sorts with this franchise.

It's the piledrivers that ruin Rumble for me. I like TFs to have normal arms. If he's got them somewhere in that mess, cool. Otherwise Rumble's not making it into my home.

Wow, that bot mode is more aweful than the previous illustration suggested. Dig the G1 nod, but man...yuck. Oh, and this should be in the Transformers thread.

The dozens of entries of "Predators arrive for their feasting ritual on xenomorphs and humans (Alien vs Predator)" pretty much taints the project. Otherwise it's good for a chuckle.

Just to add my 2 cents to the discussion at hand, I'm one of those trans-fans who is pretty much only in it for the toys. I haven't liked ANY of the TF series (I loved G1 as a kid but can't stand it now), and even though I think the TF Movie is enjoyable, the non-orchestrated music is like ice-picks in my ears. I gave RID, Armada, Superlink and Cybertron a try and found them all rather tiresome. I haven't checked out any of the Japanese-only series, but I might get around to it someday. While I can see where many people like the Beast Wars series, I still find it relatively unwatchable. The storylines aren't as weak as most TF series, but they're still fairly uninteresting. Add to that a lot of undesireable character designs fleshed out with widely undetailed CG animation and that makes for a show I just can't be happy with. That's fine though, I can enjoy the toys on their own.

I read that Hayao is pissed. He doesn't think his son is ready to direct but somehow the son got the job anyway. I heard he's so mad that the two are refusing to speak to each other. I think I read that in Anime Insider or something. 392341[/snapback] Once they reconcile they can co-direct a killer Ghibli production about their story.

Wow, I didn't even know Hayao had a son, much less one who was following in his footsteps. This is wonderful news! The trailer looks as marvelous as every other Ghibli film.

You are quite possibly short-sighted, especially going by your reasoning.The problem you don't seem to see is that Takara cannot (or will not) sucessfully promote Transformers within its own home market. This isn't about barracking for one company or the other. While the failure or sucess of Transformers ultimately affects Hasbro's Transformers little (Takara will engineer Transformers so long as Hasbro pays them), it is distressing to see a brand that was once sucessful in Japan treated with such incompetance from the company who invented the original toys that made up the early G1 line in the first place. That is really short sighted - If they continue to come up with ultimately unsucessful, unpopular 'crazy schemes' (even unpopular among japanese fans and consumers), then Takara will eventually wind down the line, or even cancel it on their side of the pond if it comes to to an extreme.Then there will be less, or just no choices for anybody. And people wonder why Hasbro made the stacks short Vacuum-metalised plastic is generally more brittle than regular plastic, so it is more likely to snap, especially because they are long and thin. The broken shards will be extremely sharp, which was Hasbros safety concern for their version. While they aren't very fragile, you should be careful either way. 391386[/snapback] There is also the thought that just because you see a problem doesn't neccessarily mean there is one. I'm also not going to argue with you or anyone that there is or isn't a problem or that Takara is or is not being incompetant with the TF line. All companies try new ideas, make bad decisions, make good decisions, go through slumps and have streaks of prosperty. It's not like Hasbro hasn't made any bad decisions or showed their incompetancey with the TF line, and most of their other lines at some point throughout the years. People have been freaking out since the merger of Takara and Tomy that Takara is going to cancel the TF line altogether, and I've never really seen a reason for it. And if they do drop it, so what? Another company could pick up the license and maybe even do it better. Or worse. All we can really do is buy the toys we like and not buy the toys we don't like and just see what happens. I think the real problem is that no matter what TF just doesn't seem to be very popular in Japan, and you can't really MAKE people like something. Even toylines that were great (in my opinion) ideas seemed to do poorly, like the WST and Robotmasters lines. It seems like they failed not because Takara handled them poorly, but because there just wasn't enough fan-support in Japan. Continually posting as if you are an authority on what will or will not happen if companies do this or that really doesn't get anyone anywhere. Regardless of how much you think you know, it's all just a guess. A guess you are certainly entitled to make, but arguing a point which is in essence a guess is rather fruitless. And, no hard feelings man, I just tend to be pretty casual with this hobby since it's a form a relaxation and simple happiness for me. I always tend to see the sun rise after it goes down, too. A few years ago I had pretty much pegged the TF line for nothing but garbage. Until RID was released, TF held virtually no interest for me. But then it just started getting better from there. The reissues came out, Takara started doing cool stuff, Hasbro started bringing better lines out. It's still seems to be getting better to me. Takara is doing really cool off-shoots like the Hybrid line and the MP line, Hasbro is coming out with the Classics line, figures are going to be made of characters that were up to this point only fan-dream figures (War Within Prime, Jetfire). And there are some real stink-bombs on the horizen, too, like the 3" Titanium figures. Those I'll cast my vote against by not buying them. My point is - shortsighted as it may be - that things go downhill sometimes and then they pick up again. As for the tall stacks on the MP-01 Prime, I haven't read of that many breaking. I read reports that the reason Hasbro shortened them is because they were too long for US toy standards, not because they were easy to break. The stack on mine broke very clean, right where it narrows. It's such a clean break that when glued back together it hardly looks broken. I still bought the replacement stacks just because knowing it was broken bothered me more than how it actually looked.

I like Takara and Hasbro both, I don't really get the desire some people have to rail either one of them or to put one above the other. They both make toys, we buy them, that's it. Why make it anymore complicated? Who cares if one of them comes up with a "crazy scheme"? If you don't like it, don't buy it. I'm happy both companies exists and offer different choices for people.

I'm tempted to get a DS for Animal Crossing alone. I'm still playing the Cube version and I still can't figure out why I like it so much. It's like a boring game that I can't stop playing. Zelda has my ears perked as well.

I'm going to have to say Sumomo from Chobits, purely for the portability.

That's not a bad idea...but I might feel guilty allowing someone else to feel screwed.

damn man... that blows... 391170[/snapback] Yeah, and yet I still find myself tempted to sell in and blow another 100+ for one in pristine condition. Good thing the VF-0 is coming out soon to eat up every last cent of my toy money.

Wonderful. I just paid almost $200 for a Takara MP-01, like, a month ago. And it's got chipped paint and a broken smokestack. I even bought those custom platinum stacks from Ebay to replace the broken one. Those were $20 after shipping. Drat.

All reports so far have indicated that they will be the same standard size as the current mainline TFs, which is Deluxe, Basic and Voyager if I remember correctly. So I would assume they'll be bigger than the G1 toys. As far as limited edition, from what I've read it's a filler line until the movie toys come out, so it should be fairly standard production. Filler or not, these are the kind of TF toys I've been waiting for (regardless of the mostly excellent Bin/Alt line, which is great to look at but no fun to play with). Hopefully the wait will be worth it.

Maybe he's running low on Yoshinol*... And in an effort to bring the thread back to happy super-fan land, now that there has been a possible case-assortment announced for the Transformers Classics line (Prime, Megs, Astrotrain, Starscream, Hot Rod and Bumblebee), does anyone want to speculate what the designs may be like? I guess the one I'm most curious about is Bumblebee. Assuming VW is still taking a non-TF toy stance, I wonder if the little yellow guy will be made as his Cybertronian self from the first episode. I'd love to see that. Speaking of Cybertronian Bumblebee, didn't someone do a custom of him a year or two ago? *please tell me I'm not the only one who remembers Yoshinol

What does "HUGLY" mean?

You and me both, although I seriously doubt they'll only do one run of these. I'm half tempted to sell my 1S Roy 1/48 to help pay for a 0S.

Honestly, I think ZP has a cool look, but I can't navigate their site for the life of me. Do they have pics of anything?

Toy shopping has definately become a drag. Any "thrill of the hunt" I once experienced has long since been replaced by the 'thrill' of waiting for a package to come in the mail. And now that Sam Goody, Musicland, Media Play and Suncoast are being systematically shut down, (not to mention KB and TRU) it's only going to get worse. I hated buying any kind of media at those places, but damn if they weren't a toy jackpot sometimes. Now al that's left is comic shops that are filled with crap nobody wants and the K-Tar-Mart chains. I still get pretty much everything I want from online sources, but I miss the good old days of walking out of a store with a bag full o' goodies. One of my fondest memories was when me and a friend drove around for a whole day, in a 100-mile radius, hitting all of the stores we could find, focusing on the lesser-shopped stores like Shop-Ko, Pamida and Ben Franklin. We came home with literally a car-load of stuff. Ahhh...mammaries.

It's probably common knowledge and I wasn't paying attention, but I didn't realise Primus was so much shorter than the rest of the big boys. Shouldn't he be at least the size of Unicron?

I got my THS-02 earlier this week but didn't have time to open it and play around with it until last night. While it is very small and fiddly, with tiny and intricate moving pieces, it still seems very well constructed. I also have to agree with wolfx in that the cab does look a lot better when connected to the trailer. I've got it in truck mode right now surrounded by a bunch of other Convoys and it looks great. I love all of the accessories that come with it, and that fact that you can store every single one of them in the trailer (aside from the stand) is really, really brilliant. And the fact that his chest compartment opens up and has a microscopic removable matrix is even more amazing than it was on the first THS Convoy (this one has more moving parts in the matrix chamber). Kawamori did a great job on this toy. It's one of those I just want to keep picking up to fiddle with. My busy hands are happy.

I still think the only worthwhile toy Toynami has made in the Robotech line is the SD Alphas. They're an original design, they're actually well-made, the paint is great and they are affordable. I still wish someone would make a larger and more detailed/complex SD Alpha, but that seems unlikely.