The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[M'Kyuun]

40 minutes ago, anime52k8 said:

MP-11 isn't really a version 2.0 though. It's more like a Ver1.5

I agree- it was the same base toy with some retooling to make it look like a C model rather than an E. It failed to fix the most egregious issue with that mold- the fuselage and head sitting above the shoulders. God I hated that more than anything else.

But Greenscream did have a really nice looking alt mode.

[technoblue]

Nah. It’s confusing.

This is what happens when engineers from different disciplines are unable to agree on a versioning standard and marketing peeps are left to run wild.

Not accounting for repaints, like @tekering

Optimus 

• MP-1
• MP-4
• MP-10
• MP-44 ver 2.0???

Bumblebee

• MP-21
• MP-45 ver 2.0 (this makes sense)

Ultra Magnus

• MP-2
• MP-22 no ver 2.0???

Megatron

• MP-5
• MP-36 again, no ver 2.0???

Starscream

• MP-3
• MP-11
• MP-?? but somehow this third iteration is ver 2.0???

It seems contradictory to me that a number of the vocal members here who have strong feelings that keep them from accepting nuScream's design are okay with Takara's marketing which downgrades the design changes made to MP-11. When looking at how 2.0 is used (or not used) across the entire Masterpiece line I don't see any consistency which backs up this understanding.

I can only assume that what is being shared with regard to Starscream here is just group speculation and Takara trying to alter its own history.

Edited September 30, 2020 by technoblue
fixed mp-2 magnus

[Mechapilot77]

wow that bump on the underside....wtf.  i guess i'm extending my streak of NOT buying takara mps (trying to even remember which was the last one i bought....it was mp-42 cordon).  i think takara needs a new approach ASAP.  takara MPs are what got me back into toys so i'm loathe to give up on them but between mp-44s price/durability/backpack, mp-45's wierd feet/chibi alt mode, mp hound's fragility and now #bumpgate (thats what i'm calling it now)...its hard for me to be excited about this line at all anymore.  i wanted to like this guy....his bot mode is bloated but still very G1 starscream to me - superior in many ways to mp3 and mp-11...mostly the lack of an overraised center section (with the head on it) is key.  i can't get behind that alt mode though and i'm sure the price will not be friendly either.

[Dobber]

I still don’t get the reasoning behind the splitting the main wings to hide the stabilizers. If the point is to make a toon accurate bot surely those pieces could’ve been hidden somewhere else. The seekers didn’t have split wings in the cartoon so why is this ok? All it does is put ugly hinges on the wings and makes them less accurate in both modes.

Chris

[JB0]

56 minutes ago, Dobber said:

The seekers didn’t have split wings in the cartoon so why is this ok?

Because the goal is a toon-accurate bot when looked at from one specific angle, and a backpack full of random parts from any other angle.

[Dobber]

39 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Because the goal is a toon-accurate bot when looked at from one specific angle, and a backpack full of random parts from any other angle.

Lol, simple explanation but true.

Chris

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, JB0 said:

Because the goal is a toon-accurate bot when looked at from one specific angle, and a backpack full of random parts from any other angle.

Takara's MP design philosophy for about the last five years in a very concise nutshell.  

Part of me can't wait for the whole hyper-toon accuracy approach to fade away, but the other part of me fears what may follow will be worse. Or they may just quit the line altogether, which I don't want either. That said, I haven't bought an official MP since Sunstreaker, and I don't intend to invest in the new Seeker either. So the line is rapidly losing its appeal for me. 

[sh9000]

If regular release of Gigawatt gets listed later today then someone please post the links.

[technoblue]

3 hours ago, sh9000 said:

If regular release of Gigawatt gets listed later today then someone please post the links.

It's up now on Pulse:

https://hasbropulse.com/collections/new/products/transformers-generations-collaborative-back-to-the-future-mash-up-gigawatt

[sh9000]

Thanks.  It sold out and I missed it because I’m at work.  I’ll see if I can get it somewhere else.

[M'Kyuun]

Ah, crap; I wanted Gigawatt more for the novelty than the execution- it looks very CW simplistic to me, and I wish they'd found a way to shrink that huge chest, or give it some taper. Anyway, looks like I missed the boat, and since it's already ten bucks over the average cost of a deluxe on Pulse, I'm not willing to shell more for this thing on markups. To those who scored a copy or two, congrats, and I hope you enjoy him. I'll be enjoying him vicariously.

[sh9000]

https://www.amazon.com/Transformers-TRA-Project-Future-Deluxe/dp/B085JRK7T1/

It’s on Amazon but for $20 more.  Not sure why it’s higher there.

https://www.gamestop.com/toys-collectibles/collectibles/figures/products/transformers-collaborative-back-to-the-future-mash-up-gigawatt-back-to-the-future-35-edition-figure/11102590.html

https://www.target.com/p/transformers-generations-transformers-collaborative-back-to-the-future-35-edition-mash-up-gigawatt/-/A-80173148

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers-Generations-Transformers-Collaborative-Back-to-the-Future-Mash-Up-Gigawatt/154588355

Edited October 1, 2020 by sh9000

[technoblue]

That is an odd price at Amazon. Maybe their price matching algorithm will kick in now that the other sites are up?

I'm still thinking about this one. I gotta say, of all the mash-ups it's the most tempting. Gigawatt's head sculpt is well done.

[sh9000]

I ordered Gigawatt at Target with 5% off and free shipping.  It’s a little better that they tinted the windows.

[danth]

Yeah, I hope the windows are as dark/opaque as those pictures make them look. Much better.

[JB0]

4 hours ago, danth said:

Yeah, I hope the windows are as dark/opaque as those pictures make them look. Much better.

It is how they should've been to start with, and I'm glad they made the change.

[mikeszekely]

Caught some of the pictures coming out of Asia of Gigawatt.  I'm 100% sure he's a remold of Siege Sideswipe, now.  Not a bad thing; that's a better mold to start with than Combiner Wars Hot Spot.  It's been busy my way today so I just checking in with you guys, but I guess I was online early enough that I did get a preorder on him at Pulse.

[M'Kyuun]

I appreciate those links, @sh9000. Got a PO with Target. Unfortunately, unlike you, I paid full price plus shipping, making the total $39.25. Bit steep for a deluxe, but given its unique nature, I'm happy to pay it.  I'd love to see Airwolf, the '89 Batmobile, the Tumbler, and Firefox all get the Transformer treatment.

[sh9000]

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

I appreciate those links, @sh9000. Got a PO with Target. Unfortunately, unlike you, I paid full price plus shipping, making the total $39.25. Bit steep for a deluxe, but given its unique nature, I'm happy to pay it.  I'd love to see Airwolf, the '89 Batmobile, the Tumbler, and Firefox all get the Transformer treatment.

No problem.  I originally asked for the links and ended up posting most of them.  If you have a Target card then you get 5% off and free shipping.  If you don’t have one then I recommend that you get one.  It comes in handy especially for everyday purchases.  You could always cancel that order and reorder with the Target card.

[M'Kyuun]

I've been turning down those cards for decades; why change tradition? I appreciate the info, though. I may have to reconsider one of these days, especially with the ever-increasing exclusivity stuff.

Speaking of which, I got my shipping notification for Amazon-exclusive Ratchet & Lifeline. Honestly, I got them to help complete my G1 CHUG shelves, but I'm kinda meh on both of these. I already have Arcee, and I'm not impressed. I do like Siege IH/Ratchet, and this is that with a snap on roof and a different front end, so the basic mold is good, craptastic partsforming notwithstanding. I so wish the ER vanettes had their own dedicated mold sans partsforming.  Sigh. 

 All that potential 

[mikeszekely]

I'll second getting a Target card, either their credit card or their debit card.  It's not just good for the free shipping, it's 5% off everything you buy there, in store or online.  I'm in Target probably at least once a week buying stuff.

The Quintesson Pit of Judgement arrived today, and again I didn't get an email from Pulse that it shipped (although they kindly sent one later to let me know it was delivered).  Not going to go in to a ton of detail, since nothing in the box is exactly new.

The new Judge (left) is the same exact mold as the standalone one (right).  While I like the lighter gray for the body I'm not a fan of the green tentacles.  I do like the blue energy beam it's standing on better than the clear, but pink would actually be the more accurate color.

As you might have noticed from the Death face the colors of the new Judge's faces are a bit different and a bit less cartoon accurate.

He comes with the exact same accessories, just molded in different colors of plastics.  The tools and cages don't make a big difference to me, but I prefer the light gray throne, as it's the more movie-accurate color.

The Bailiff is a remold of the Alicon, and based on what I recall that's actually pretty accurate.  He's got a new head, new shoulder pads with bigger spikes, and some of his torso is remolded.  He's also got a new weapon that you put into his hands by splitting in the middle and feeding each half through an end of his fist.  The Bailiff's colors are an odd choice; most of his appearances are closer in color to the default Alicon.  However, he did appear in colors like this in at least one episode, so I'll give it a pass.  My main complaint with the Bailiff is the same I had with the Alicon- it's just a lazy design with beast arms hanging obnoxiously off the robot elbows and robot arms that do nothing to tuck away in beast mode.

You get a Sharkticon.  The Sharkticon is a repaint of the Legends-class Titans Return Gnaw.  I don't own the original and so I never reviewed it.  It's... OK, I guess.  For a Legends-class.  The big difference between this one and the original is blue.  The blue biceps, tail, beast arms, and fin are all lighter.  The silver teeth on the original are a darker blue,  The purple abs and pink stripes on the thighs are blue.  The gray plastic originally used on the head, forearms, and legs is blue.  The parts at that aren't blue are the metallic pink lips (originally purple on the top and pink on the bottom), the browning-gray robot face and torso (originally just gray), and the yellow robot eyes (originally red).

You get a small Prosecuter and Kranix, the last survivor of Lithone.  The Prosecutor's head (which is really just pegged on and prone to popping off) can swivel, and you can remove the energy base (again, just pegged on) but that's it.  Kranix has no articulation at all, but he does have the same little holes on his feet that Titan Masters do.  And he fits into the Judge's cage.

I guess the final accessory is the box.  Well, maybe not the outer box, I tossed that, but the inner box (which you will beat up trying to clear tape and get the plastic inserts out of) is designed to look like the Quintesson court from the movie.  It's a little small; the Judges throne had a lot more stairs (with landings) between it and the pit, and it's missing an Executioner, but I'll admit it looks pretty cool.  Although, having them all together does raise one big issue for me... scale.

I can't find a scale chart with the Quintessons on it.  But here's an Alicon, a Sharkticon, the Prosecutor, a Judge, and Kranix with Earthrise Optimus, Titans Return Kup, and Titans Return Hot Rod.  I know that Titans Return was before Hasbro said they were trying to keep figures in-scale, but based on Hot Rod and Prime that looks pretty good.  Now, based on this picture, my gut reaction is that the Alicon and Judge look OK, but the Sharkticon, Prosecutor, and Kranix are too small.

Without a scale guide, the only thing I can check my gut against is the cartoon.

The Judge might actually be too small.  While there's a scene in one episode where Galvatron grabs one by the tentacles and it's maybe half his size, in that same episode Galvatron is hanging with them later and they're at least as tall as he is.  Likewise, in the Five Faces of Darkness it's hovering with the top of its dome above Ultra Magnus.  Even if we assume Magnus mass-shifts to Prime's size the Judge should still be bigger than what we got.

Note the Bailiff in the same scene with Magnus.  About waist high to Magnus, yeah?  So the Bailiff checks out.

In the '86 movie the Alicons are a bit shorter than Kup and Hot Rod when they're getting the Energon goodies.  And the Alicon figure is a bit shorter than TR Kup and Hot Rod.  This too checks out.

This one surprised me.  When the Sharkticon jumps on Kup in the '86 movie it seems smaller than I remember.  It's definitely smaller than Kup, and I'd have guessed the other way around.  Still, I don't think it's a small as the Legends-class figure.  Probably something along the lines of the Alicon's size.  Oh well, if the rumors are to be believed Gnaw is going to get a Studio Series release, hopefully something bigger with better engineering.  Although, if you can't wait Hasbro released a Cyberverse Warrior-class Gnaw that has nearly identical engineering but should be closer to the correct size.

I prefer to use the movie for a reference, since the animation was usually a bit better than the regular episodes and for a lot of fans it's had the bigger impact.  Now, it's hard to say because the Judge is closer to the "camera" than the Prosecutor, but I think if the Judge moved forward or the Prosecutor moved back they'd be fairly close in size.  This is borne out in the third season of the show, during a flashback scene to the Quintesson's inspecting a Transfomer assembly line.  There's a Judge and a Prosecutor in the hovercar and they're the same size, so the one included in this set is around a quarter of the size he should be.

The angles aren't the best again, but while Kranix is definitely shorter than Kup or Hot Rod he looks to be somewhere between waist-high and chest-high on them.  So, just like the Prosecutor, Hasbro's Kranix is maybe a quarter of the size he should be.

Anyway... the regular retail release of the Judge is more accurately-colored, the Prosecutor and Kranix are way too small, and the $70 price tag is a big much.  Unless you really wan that Bailiff or you're interested in troop building you can pass on this set.

54 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

I got my shipping notification for Amazon-exclusive Ratchet & Lifeline.

Oh?  Amazon emailed me a few days ago to say the delivery date moved up from December to tomorrow.  But as of yet they haven't shipped mine.  As it's nearly midnight here a delivery tomorrow seems highly unlikely.

Edited October 2, 2020 by mikeszekely

[M'Kyuun]

My EDD is between 9-14 of October as of the email I got on Tuesday. I've got Ironhide and Prowl PO'd with Amazon as well, but no shipping notification for them. I wish they'd just sent them all together in one box.

Target and Amazon seem to be on the ball with all these WFC releases, but Walmart has yet to have ER Soundwave back in stock. I check it every day, and he's always sold out.  I didn't get the Siege version because I expected there'd be an Earth version with a dedicated cassette player alt mode, so I don't want to miss it when he becomes available again.

[mikeszekely]

5 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Target and Amazon seem to be on the ball with all these WFC releases, but Walmart has yet to have ER Soundwave back in stock. I check it every day, and he's always sold out. 

Walmart is, unquestionably, the worst when it comes to preorders and I sincerely hope that Hasbro never gives them another exclusive.  For the record, Walmart has never fulfilled any of my preorders.  Never.  When the first wave of Netflix preorders went up I ordered Hotlink and Decepticon Mirage.  The date moved from whatever it was at the time to June, then to "delayed".  By July I'd found both Hotlink and Mirage in stores so I bought them and there and canceled my preorders.

I preordered G1 reissue Blaster the day they put the preorders up, June 26th.  I think it was supposed to come out in August.  Currently my order says, "Delayed, check back later for status update."

The day they were announced I managed to get preorders for Netflix Prime, Chromia, Soundwave, and Bumblebee.  Walmart canceled my order for Chromia, then relisted her.  I didn't reorder her; all the figures together got me free shipping, but a new order for Chromia alone would hit me with an $8 shipping fee.  I'll look for her in stores.  In the meantime, Prime and Bee are supposed to be out in around two weeks, and Soundwave a few days later.  We'll see if Walmart actually gets me any of those three.

[M'Kyuun]

UGH, that's not sounding good at all. My nearest Wally, a handy 2 mi down the road, has empty pegs more often than not in their tiny Transformers area. Not until this year, and not since Prime and IIRC, the last Bay movie, have they carried anything bigger than deluxe scale. A few months back they started carrying voyager scaled figs when they put up the big aisle cardboard stand with all the Netflix repaints. They still haven't carried any leader or above, which boggles my mind. The Walmart where I used to work, which is 20 minutes away, has always been very good about stocking toys in a timely manner and with good quantities and a full selection. I don't go over there very often, but when I'm in the area, I usually try to make a stop and see what they've got, as it's usually much better than what my local store has. All the Targets in my area are a half hour or more away, in no small part due to all the abysmally poor WA drivers, so I maybe only visit Target once every couple of months. I'm a serious homebody, and prefer not to drive if I don't have to, so online or local is usually my recourse of least inconvenience. Hopefully, with Kingdom set to release soon, my Wally will expand their repertoire to include all size classes, or at least up to leader for a start.

 

[sh9000]

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

I wasn't sure where to give a heads up on this one:

This is Goodsmile's Cyclion. It fits a Figma figure just fine apparently. I'm totally diggin it-already got one on preorder.

[M'Kyuun]

I saw this a couple days ago. The transformation is reminiscent of Bike Robo (Cy-Kill), as she's basically in a tight crouch with knees to chest, but her arms just fold on either side of  the fuel tank area.  The bike mode looks cool- shades of Cyberpunk mixed with an ounce of Tron. I love the colors they used. The bot mode looks great except for the back wheels hanging off her thighs. Too bad they couldn't have engineered them into the leg design, a la Prime Arcee, fold around to sit at the hip as armor, or attach them to her back somehow and let them function as a jetpack of sorts. They're a bit of an eyesore just hanging out there, and they'll likely hamper any attempts to put her in a sitting pose.

There are a number of cool innovative transforming figures coming out of late, several, like this, not tied to any IP. Whether or not that's due to the legal crackdowns in China, IDK, but it's good to see fresh designs. 

[mikeszekely]

So earlier this week Amazon emails me to tell me a few of my TF preorders go moved up and would be delivered by today. Then today I wake up to emails asking me to approve delays right back into the original dates.

@M'Kyuun you'll have to let me know if you get your Ratchet and Lifeline. That's also delayed for me.

[technoblue]

Cyclion looks great. I have a copy on pre-order too, and I'm really into how Goodsmile took the original garage kit (which is near impossible to find outside Japan) and made improvements to it. Here's a pre-review (not in English). The transformation from bot to motorcycle begins at 7:15s. I think there are some unique twists to that crouched robot expectation.

 

Edited October 2, 2020 by technoblue

[mikeszekely]

No word on what accessories he's going to come with, but it sounds like MP Starscream will retail for around $275.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

1 hour ago, technoblue said:

Cyclion looks great. I have a copy on pre-order too, and I'm really into how Goodsmile took the original garage kit (which is near impossible to find outside Japan) and made improvements to it. Here's a pre-review (not in English). The transformation from bot to motorcycle begins at 7:15s. I think there are some unique twists to that crouched robot expectation.

 

Yeah, that kit was nigh-impossible to find.  It's a total win that Goodsmile picked it up.  There are a few design cues in there that remind me a lot of EDI from Mass Effect. 

[technoblue]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

No word on what accessories he's going to come with, but it sounds like MP Starscream will retail for around $275.

It's nice to see that US shops are pricing MP-52 lower than $300, but I'm hoping that the Japanese shops bring that closer to $200 after the usual discounts. After paying $120 each for the Maketoys seekers (plus $15 for the wing fillers), it would be nice not to have to pay a high Takara tax this time 'round.

[JB0]

5 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

No word on what accessories he's going to come with, but it sounds like MP Starscream will retail for around $275.

Credit where due, that's a lot lower than I was expecting. My money was on 350.

[mikeszekely]

43 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Credit where due, that's a lot lower than I was expecting. My money was on 350.

Yeah, I can't believe it's coming in under $300.

[M'Kyuun]

I'm surprised, too, but I still feel it's too much for what's on offer. But, knowing this fandom, plenty of folks will embrace it, and hopefully be selling off their Maketoys figs- I'll be there to scoop those up.