The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[mikeszekely]

That Soundwave isn't the best... but is it really that much worse than the Siege version's "spaceship?"

[mikeszekely]

Looks like Target's exclusive Buzzworthy Bumblebee line will continue in 2022.  And in it, we're going to get a Kup repaint.

As you can see, they replaced the translucent windshield on his chest with a solid light gray/blue piece, with tampographed markings that look like the wear he was animated with.  *sigh*.  Looks like I'm replacing my SS86 Kup.  Too bad they didn't fix the head sculpt while they were at it.

Similarly, Earthrise Cliffjumper is going to BB, too, and like Kup he's getting a slight repaint to be more cartoon-accurate.  But what's interesting here is that his Buzzworthy box lists him as SS86-13, meaning this is a Studio Series release and could potentially turn up outside Target in regular Studio Series packaging.

Yeah... looks like I'm replacing Cliffjumper now, too.

I wonder if this leaves the door open for other reissues and repaints of some of the harder to get store exclusives, like Earthrise Prowl in a Studio Series box?  Or a more cartoon-accurate repaint of Siege Springer?

[Mechapilot77]

the ER cliffjumper looks so much better than the buzzworthy redeco though.  i mean the grey legs is nice (should be darker still but not black like ER), and forearms but the rest....is better on the ER IMO.

[Mechapilot77]

On 12/8/2021 at 10:58 PM, mikeszekely said:

That Soundwave isn't the best... but is it really that much worse than the Siege version's "spaceship?"

the siege soundwave alt mode IS equally bad if not worse....at lesat it was a pretool for netflix earthrise version

[mikeszekely]

24 minutes ago, Mechapilot77 said:

the ER cliffjumper looks so much better than the buzzworthy redeco though.  i mean the grey legs is nice (should be darker still but not black like ER), and forearms but the rest....is better on the ER IMO.

The only thing I prefer on the ER version is the translucent windows.  I'm not a fan of the solid light blue paint.

And I really wish they could have engineered some way to get the chest spoiler on him.  Either version.

[M'Kyuun]

12 hours ago, Mechapilot77 said:

the siege soundwave alt mode IS equally bad if not worse....at lesat it was a pretool for netflix earthrise version

Gotta agree; actually, I'd take Bee Movie Soundwave over the Siege Soundwave. That was one of the laziest alt modes ever, and as nondescript as the Bee Movie alt mode is, Siege is so much worse. 🤮 Needless to say, I passed on Siege in the hopes they'd eventually do a dedicated tape deck version.  Glad they did, glad I got a copy, and while I have a couple nitpicks, overall I really like him.

Funny how they're crossing over the SS figs to Buzzworthy. I prefer the ER versions of both Clifffy and Kup, although I confess the grey legs and arms and brighter red make Buzzworthy CJ 'pop' more. Agree on the spoiler- it was one of those defining traits, and it's a shame they couldn't make it happen with that mold.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

This arrived today while I wasn't home, and my boys got super excited thinking it was their xmas gift when they saw the Autobot sigil:

It's more like Daddy's gift to himself.  I was really hoping they wouldn't see it until I set it up, so I lied and it was just a box.

This thing can't be THAT limited if it's #21308.  Regardless, my inner child is squeeling with glee-I can't wait to get it rolling!

Edited December 11, 2021 by Valkyrie Hunter D

[Scyla]

I’m now one step closer completing my Cliffjumper and Nemesis/Black Prime collection.

I was browsing Mandarake when I noticed that both the Transformers United Black Prime and WfC Cliffjumper were available at the same store.

Black Prime is an awesome toy of an iconic mold. I have the SDCC Nemesis Prime but he lives happily in his FP City Commander armor so I wanted another standalone copy. I especially love the gray paint they used throughout the toy.

Cliffjumper is a painted version of the War for Cybertron Cliffjumper which is a remold of Bumblebee. Love the cherry red paint job. Otherwise He is a bit shellformery and the transformation is not smooth due to all the panels that need to tab together.

But I’m super happy to have them.

Edited December 11, 2021 by Scyla

[M'Kyuun]

19 hours ago, Scyla said:

I’m now one step closer completing my Cliffjumper and Nemesis/Black Prime collection.

I was browsing Mandarake when I noticed that both the Transformers United Black Prime and WfC Cliffjumper were available at the same store.

Black Prime is an awesome toy of an iconic mold. I have the SDCC Nemesis Prime but he lives happily in his FP City Commander armor so I wanted another standalone copy. I especially love the gray paint they used throughout the toy.

Cliffjumper is a painted version of the War for Cybertron Cliffjumper which is a remold of Bumblebee. Love the cherry red paint job. Otherwise He is a bit shellformery and the transformation is not smooth due to all the panels that need to tab together.

But I’m super happy to have them.

Congrats on scoring these for your specific collections. The Classics Prime mold still holds up as a good looking Prime, and that Nemesis deco looks sharp. I have the WfC Bumblebee fig, and although he is a bit shellformery, I still thought he was an interesting take, and a nice-looking fig as well. Anyway, I'm happy for ya, man. I hope they continue to bring you joy.

 

22 hours ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

This arrived today while I wasn't home, and my boys got super excited thinking it was their xmas gift when they saw the Autobot sigil:

It's more like Daddy's gift to himself.  I was really hoping they wouldn't see it until I set it up, so I lied and it was just a box.

This thing can't be THAT limited if it's #21308.  Regardless, my inner child is squeeling with glee-I can't wait to get it rolling!

Oooh, that's a really nice self-gift.  Ya might have to share a pic and a thought on it once you've had time to put it through its paces. Have fun!

[mark-1s]

On 12/11/2021 at 2:13 AM, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

This arrived today while I wasn't home, and my boys got super excited thinking it was their xmas gift when they saw the Autobot sigil:

It's more like Daddy's gift to himself.  I was really hoping they wouldn't see it until I set it up, so I lied and it was just a box.

This thing can't be THAT limited if it's #21308.  Regardless, my inner child is squeeling with glee-I can't wait to get it rolling!

That totally reminded me of this meme.

[lechuck]

So having had MP-53 Skids for a little over a week now and here are my observations and thoughts...

The transformation is simple and boring - arms are very fiddly to pull out or tuck in when transforming, not an ideal implementation. Generally transformation has no intricacy, sense of engagement or achievement in the process, hardly anything to really to marvel about, maybe the split thighs as a novelty. Also don't forget to shift the thighs outward to have proper spacing between the legs.

A bit ironic that hybrid approach and emphasis on a accurate looking car still has Skid's end up with an additional fake car hatch part for the robot calves. Not sure why they didn't just split the actual car hatch in half and use them for the legs instead of hiding the whole part in Skid's back. Those robot calves by the way don't lock or tab in at all, which is annoying because it comes apart when you try to move the lower leg as the hinge above the shin has a weaker resistance compared to actual knee joint.

Accessories... a sad sight when you open the box, more could have been done here. Chrome fire weapons always looks tacky to me, Skids will not change that.

Alt-mode looks nice, plenty of paint used. To spite TF fans, I think Honda/Takara should have insisted on using the European Jazz model name and plastering it everywhere

Skids can also pull off his show room mode to avoid Decepticon detection.

From the feet to the the waist/abdomen area the robot proportions and silhouette look very good, everything seems to have the right size and ratio. It is the upper part of the robot where it falls apart. The fore-arms are far too thin giving the overall arm the appearance of a twig and this is unfortunately emphasized by the fact that the shoulders are not sitting close enough to the body thanks to some in-between alt-mode part (looks like car suspension to me). So the shoulder line is very wide giving the arms a very clumsy "tacked on" afterthought look. Hollow backpack design, hollow bits around the knees and visible mushroom peg hands don't provide and sense of premium toy feel either. I also wish the head would sit a little more on top of the bonnet, it looks to floaty where it is now.

Articulation is lacklustre, there is no ab-crunch, knees only bend 90 degrees and the feet only really pivot with minimal up movement. Outward leg movement can't go all the way as it is eventually blocked by the hip skirt and the legs can't go backwards either, both of these don't really impede on articulation, but it is a limitation nonetheless. On a positive, the hips work with nice clicky ratchets. Not sure why such a small and light robot needs that, but there you go.
Once again the shoulders become a contention point, no forward pivoting and they are only single jointed at the wheel-pauldron meaning lateral arm upward movement is away from the body looking very weird as the shoulder stays static. Implementing a (second) shoulder joint at the main body would have done wonders. There is also the unfortunate placement of the shoulder rotation point to contend with as it is offset, if you raise his arms up-forward the whole part suddenly sits to low and the shoulder line suddenly looks disjointed.

Overall toy engineering is too basic with some questionable implementation. Much talk was made about it being this new hybrid design approach, but honestly Takara should have done more to celebrate this. Higher engineering could have allowed for optional parts between animation and toy design - like head, thigh or even a front facia that could be swapped out to achieve a different aesthetic or some clever mechanism to change shoulder-wheel orientation. To me this is a missed opportunity. Likewise going backwards with articulation is not acceptable, not for something called Masterpiece in 2021. For some it might be great to have a sub-100 Euro MP, but personally I would have preferred paying more if it meant I get a higher premium feeling toy that provides more entertaining options.

MP-53 is in essence an expensive oversized CHUG Transformer, not really a Masterpiece in a premium toy sense. I hope Shouki fares better and more importantly MP Skyfire doesn't turn out this way.

[sh9000]

 

[Scyla]

@lechuck I think they didn’t want to split the rear hatch of the car. That’s why decided having the fake hatch on the back of the legs.

If that was a request of the licensor (like MP Sunstreaker) or a decision by the designer I don’t know.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

On 12/12/2021 at 12:29 AM, M'Kyuun said:

Oooh, that's a really nice self-gift.  Ya might have to share a pic and a thought on it once you've had time to put it through its paces. Have fun!

Will do, I'm hoping nothing got damaged during transport with the box looking roughed up.

[M'Kyuun]

On 12/12/2021 at 1:17 PM, lechuck said:

So having had MP-53 Skids for a little over a week now and here are my observations and thoughts...

The transformation is simple and boring - arms are very fiddly to pull out or tuck in when transforming, not an ideal implementation. Generally transformation has no intricacy, sense of engagement or achievement in the process, hardly anything to really to marvel about, maybe the split thighs as a novelty. Also don't forget to shift the thighs outward to have proper spacing between the legs.

A bit ironic that hybrid approach and emphasis on a accurate looking car still has Skid's end up with an additional fake car hatch part for the robot calves. Not sure why they didn't just split the actual car hatch in half and use them for the legs instead of hiding the whole part in Skid's back. Those robot calves by the way don't lock or tab in at all, which is annoying because it comes apart when you try to move the lower leg as the hinge above the shin has a weaker resistance compared to actual knee joint.

Accessories... a sad sight when you open the box, more could have been done here. Chrome fire weapons always looks tacky to me, Skids will not change that.

Alt-mode looks nice, plenty of paint used. To spite TF fans, I think Honda/Takara should have insisted on using the European Jazz model name and plastering it everywhere

Skids can also pull off his show room mode to avoid Decepticon detection.

From the feet to the the waist/abdomen area the robot proportions and silhouette look very good, everything seems to have the right size and ratio. It is the upper part of the robot where it falls apart. The fore-arms are far too thin giving the overall arm the appearance of a twig and this is unfortunately emphasized by the fact that the shoulders are not sitting close enough to the body thanks to some in-between alt-mode part (looks like car suspension to me). So the shoulder line is very wide giving the arms a very clumsy "tacked on" afterthought look. Hollow backpack design, hollow bits around the knees and visible mushroom peg hands don't provide and sense of premium toy feel either. I also wish the head would sit a little more on top of the bonnet, it looks to floaty where it is now.

Articulation is lacklustre, there is no ab-crunch, knees only bend 90 degrees and the feet only really pivot with minimal up movement. Outward leg movement can't go all the way as it is eventually blocked by the hip skirt and the legs can't go backwards either, both of these don't really impede on articulation, but it is a limitation nonetheless. On a positive, the hips work with nice clicky ratchets. Not sure why such a small and light robot needs that, but there you go.
Once again the shoulders become a contention point, no forward pivoting and they are only single jointed at the wheel-pauldron meaning lateral arm upward movement is away from the body looking very weird as the shoulder stays static. Implementing a (second) shoulder joint at the main body would have done wonders. There is also the unfortunate placement of the shoulder rotation point to contend with as it is offset, if you raise his arms up-forward the whole part suddenly sits to low and the shoulder line suddenly looks disjointed.

Overall toy engineering is too basic with some questionable implementation. Much talk was made about it being this new hybrid design approach, but honestly Takara should have done more to celebrate this. Higher engineering could have allowed for optional parts between animation and toy design - like head, thigh or even a front facia that could be swapped out to achieve a different aesthetic or some clever mechanism to change shoulder-wheel orientation. To me this is a missed opportunity. Likewise going backwards with articulation is not acceptable, not for something called Masterpiece in 2021. For some it might be great to have a sub-100 Euro MP, but personally I would have preferred paying more if it meant I get a higher premium feeling toy that provides more entertaining options.

MP-53 is in essence an expensive oversized CHUG Transformer, not really a Masterpiece in a premium toy sense. I hope Shouki fares better and more importantly MP Skyfire doesn't turn out this way.

Good review. I appreciate your thoughts, and agree that the arms are bit too skinny comparative to the rest, the shoulders' disjointed attachment, the calf fillers suck when they could have split the hatchback cover (although that would have left a large voids in the legs unless they devised some sort of cover to swing out and cover them in bot mode), the minimized articulation comparative to 2021 standards, and in my own opinion, the rather monochromatic and 'blah' look of the legs all bring this down a few notches.  As to the 'hybrid' look and the sculpted details throughout bot mode, well I'm a fan of that approach, so no complaints on my part there. But there's merit to your suggestion of additional swappable bland parts to make it look more like the animation for those who prefer it. All things being equal, that would have raised the price, and I wouldn't have liked paying extra for parts I'd never use.

As to the chrome, I don't mind it; it's apropos of G1. I do, however, wish they'd gone ahead and included the little scooter accessory, as the price is the same for this without it as for the other color variants that do come with it. Why not just throw it in? Too, woulda been cool if that scooter transformed into a gun or some usable accessory in bot mode. Wasted opportunity.

So, Skid's a mixed bag; a serious step back in a number of regards, but a desirable change from the plain animation aesthetic. I do wish they'd step up the articulation as a bare minimum of improvement. A boring transformation doesn't bother me as much as things being challenging to maneuver into place, as you indicate is the case with the arms. Alas, this isn't the first, nor the last, Transformer toy to have elements of the transformation be irritating or harder than they should have to be.

Even with the negatives, I'm still looking forward to getting this fig. Overall, I think it presents well- the paint looks beautiful, the bot mode is ok, and the car mode looks great.  I wish he was better executed, but as-is, I think I'll still find a measure of enjoyment when he arrives.

[jenius]

22 hours ago, sh9000 said:

 

I can only imagine how long it takes to out something like that together.

[JB0]

So... I was at Target for some other crap, and they had two Kingdom Beast Megatrons on the shelves.

With everyone else having gotten their's A YEAR AGO, I just assumed I was never going to see him and wasn't really invested enough to actively hunt one, so I completely forgot what the pictures and reviews were like.  Was just "This actually looks pretty good, I think I can buy a Barneytron."

...

I have never paid so much for such a massive turd. Right now, I'm kind of furious at Hasbro for declaring this acceptable.
 

 

 

It's a shame. They got halfway to a great tyrannosaurus, by sacrificing the humanoid robot, but didn't commit to crossing the finish line. None of the rubbery pieces are toleranced right. Not a single one. He's a gappy, unpleasant mess in Barneysaurus mode, which makes the sacrifices to the robot mode galling.

And I'm pretty sure the left arm saw a very late rework to reduce costs. The design really seems like the tail was SUPPOSED to come off of it, which would greatly improve the humanoid form. Aside from it being an ugly kludge of an arm, there's no reason whatsoever for the fist to be pinned on rather than molded into the forearm except "well, the fist was supposed to fold away for transformation before we changed it".

[lechuck]

On 12/13/2021 at 8:52 AM, Scyla said:

@lechuck I think they didn’t want to split the rear hatch of the car. That’s why decided having the fake hatch on the back of the legs.

If that was a request of the licensor (like MP Sunstreaker) or a decision by the designer I don’t know.

Most likely that is the driving factor here, keep the car as cohesively clean looking as possible.

20 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Good review. I appreciate your thoughts, and agree that the arms are bit too skinny comparative to the rest, the shoulders' disjointed attachment, the calf fillers suck when they could have split the hatchback cover (although that would have left a large voids in the legs unless they devised some sort of cover to swing out and cover them in bot mode), the minimized articulation comparative to 2021 standards, and in my own opinion, the rather monochromatic and 'blah' look of the legs all bring this down a few notches.  As to the 'hybrid' look and the sculpted details throughout bot mode, well I'm a fan of that approach, so no complaints on my part there. But there's merit to your suggestion of additional swappable bland parts to make it look more like the animation for those who prefer it. All things being equal, that would have raised the price, and I wouldn't have liked paying extra for parts I'd never use.

Definitely would still need those inner leg walls, would be an absolute no-go to have a large visible hollow section on a MP. I don't normally have issues with dedicated parts for robot or alt-mode, but this one just seemed to stick out as being redundant. They could have maybe painted that rear part in the same glossy blue as the rest of the car to increase the illusion.

[M'Kyuun]

11 minutes ago, lechuck said:

Most likely that is the driving factor here, keep the car as cohesively clean looking as possible.

Definitely would still need those inner leg walls, would be an absolute no-go to have a large visible hollow section on a MP. I don't normally have issues with dedicated parts for robot or alt-mode, but this one just seemed to stick out as being redundant. They could have maybe painted that rear part in the same glossy blue as the rest of the car to increase the illusion.

Yeah, painting the faux hatch to match the rest of the car would have been a definite improvement. Sucks, too, as you pointed out, that the faux hatch chunks don't really tab into anything- not the best. I've never handled XTB's Savant, but I may have to watch one of the comparative reviews, as I imagine the XTB is likely superior to the Takara, at least in articulation, if not other areas. I passed on the XTB, but now that I have an official Skids coming, and XTB is the only other contender, I'm a little curious how they measure up.

Along with your idea of swappable toon parts, I'd have loved it if they made a swappable shin piece that resembled the original box art for Skids. Love that window that lets you see the robot-innards.❤️

[mikeszekely]

Well, I'm temporarily taking down my review space, since it's in the guest room and my parents are coming to stay with us for Christmas.  Ah, Christmas... it's got me thinking how a lot of the official stuff we got this year were basically new toys of stuff I got for Christmas 35 years ago.  How does the modern stuff fare with the toys that so captivated my imagination in 1986?  Let's take a three-part walk down memory lane together, starting with some Autobots.

(Note- this series is going to focus only on new characters from the 1986 classic Transformers: The Movie.  By design, I'm excluding toys of characters who appeared in the movie but were already introduced in Seasons 1 and 2, Season 3 and beyond characters that didn't appear in the movie, and Blaster's tapes.  I mean, yeah, I think their brief scene in the movie was their first time on screen, but it was short, I don't have the G1 tapes, and I don't have new toys for them.)

Hot Rod was the first new character to appear on screen, fishing with Daniel, so I think he's a good place to start.  As a kid I loved Hot Rod, he just seemed so cool.  Needless to say, Hot Rod was one of my favorite toys at the time.  I think, minus the stickers on the shoulders, pelvis, and shins, and the fact that the shins are red and his hands orange, as toys went Hot Rod was closer to his on-screen appearance than a lot of Transformers were at the time.  The biggest drawback was his poor articulation.  His shoulders could move a bit on the transformation hinge, his biceps swiveled (another necessity for transformation), and he had elbow hinges.  That's about it.

The modern take, this year's Studio Series 86 figure, does a much better job capturing not just the colors but the overall proportions of the animation model, features much better articulation, and even includes gimmicks the original toy didn't like the glasses he used to zoom in on the landing shuttle and the sawblade he used to free Kup from the robo-squid.

Y'know, I've always loved Hot Rod's car mode... in 1986, it seemed so sleek and sporty.  The original toy was still a car that'd look awesome on the streets, but wasn't quite so sleek.  The SS86 toy comes across as a bit sleeker and more screen-accurate, but it's not without it's flaws, either.  There's the visible gray elbow hinge, the yellow hinge on the roof, and the orange wrist bumps, plus the back of the car is kind of unfinished.

Kup appeared on screen shortly after Hot Rod.  I wasn't a huge fan of Kup at the time, but I think time's been a little kinder to him.  Sure, he's got a chunky torso, big backpack, and no leg articulation, but he's got a ton of arm articulation for the day.  His shoulders can rotate and move laterally, plus he's got wrist swivels and elbow hinges.  Unfortunately, with no bicep swivel his elbows only bend in an out.  I think there's no question that the SS86 toy is more screen accurate and has better articulation, but the blue chest doesn't really match the pale color we saw on screen.  He's got his own backpack, and way too many hollowed-out spaces on the backs of his arms and pelvis.  His head's also pretty bad.  They tried to mold the lines Kup had to make him look old, but the angles make his face look like it's melting.  The fact that it's a bit too long compared to the animation model doesn't help.

Making Kup's truck mode was easy enough when you can wear that much as a backpack and you don't care about the robot mode proportions.  It's more of a feat when you're trying to start with a screen-accurate robot mode get the right shapes, proportions, and colors as the movie in truck mode, too.  I think Hasbro did a pretty good job.

I'm not sure Blurr's 86 toy has held up as well as Kup's.  He's got short arms that can swivel at the shoulders, but that's about it.  Due to his transformation his hips can move backward and his knees have a bit of bend, but you can't balance him too well unless he's standing up straight.  He's got a head like a face on an old CRT TV.  And worst of all, he's a partsformer, with the whole front of the car just hanging out.  You can have him hold it like a shield, but that's about it.  And older design for his animation model actually has the nose of the vehicle on his back, the way SS86 Blurr wound up doing it.  SS86 Blurr also has better proportions and articulation, plus more accurate colors.  His arm kibble is a bit bigger, though.

The original toy folds into a pretty screen-accurate vehicle, but there's a gap between his backpack and his chest where his head is kind of visible.  Based on the animation and line art, this gap is meant to be the actual seat, and Blurr's an got an open top.  The Studio Series toy does a better job conveying that.

I find it amusing that Springer was animated as one of the taller characters, but his original toy was actually shorter than Hot Rod's, Kup's, or Blurr's.  It's colors were working off an earlier design than what was actually used in the movie.  Like most of the Transformers of this era he doesn't have a lot of articulation, although his arms aren't too bad.  

Siege Springer is one of the only figures we'll be talking about that didn't release this year, but rather in 2019.  In many ways it's a big improvement in proportions, articulation, and screen accuracy, yet it's significantly farther off than Hot Rod, Kup, and Blurr.  His shoulder pads go over the top of his shoulders instead of the sides, and most of his green is just the one vibrant shade, lacking the darker green on most of his forearms and the hands that should really match his face and thighs.  As this is one of the only molds that didn't see any kind of repaint from the War For Cybertron trilogy I'm kind of hoping one might turn up yet under the Studio Series banner with at least better colors.

For a Triple Changer, the original toy didn't do much changing between helicopter and car.  You kind of folded the legs up and slid the engine back, then tucked in the arms and removed the rotors.  The animation, though, had the nose sticking out farther than the shoulder pads only in helicopter mode.  The Siege toy got that right and looks better for the most part, but again there's little details that it still misses.  There's no horizontal stabilizers on the tail, and the points on the sides (were they supposed to be landing skids?) should be yellow to match the cartoon.

Wheelie's G1 toy had the misfortune of being a mini bot.  His robot mode is terrible, with an orange face buried int he middle of his chest, a flip-up door just hanging out where his head should be, long, skinny arms with hands drawn inside, and short, skinny legs.  At least the legs can move!  Needless to say, it wasn't a toy that was very close to what you saw on screen, and I found him to be pretty disappointing even as a kid.

While there are rumors that we may get a new Studio Series 86 version of Wheelie next year, 35 years later and the best we've got is 2016's Titans Return Wheelie.  That figure has better articulation, although it's mostly ball joints, better proportions, and a more accurate head.  However, unless you got the Japanese Legends release TR Wheelie's colors are still way off.  Bring on the SS86 Wheelie!

As bad as the robot mode was, G1 Wheelie's car mode was actually pretty cool.  The bubble-ish design was sort of prescient; in 1986 it predicted we'd be driving rounder cars in 2005, and sure enough in the early '00s round really was the design trend.

The TR Wheelie is kind of a bust, really.  With black wheels and sides that flare out with vents and big taillights it's actually much less accurate.  Worse, perhaps due to having to accommodate a gimmick where all the new figures in Wheelie's size class had to make room for a Titan Master rider, it winds up being a bunch of parts that loosely tab together on their edges around a hollow space, so it holds together very poorly.  Again, bring on an SS86 Wheelie, I say!

[seti88]

Does this belong here? No subs but hey just enjoy the toy demo...

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by seti88

[mikeszekely]

11 hours ago, seti88 said:

Does this belong here?

Yeah, this thread is for anything from Hasbro, Takara, or anything with an official license, which I believe the Yolopark Prime does.  The other thread is for toys from companies that are original designs from small companies produced without their actual names and branding because they don't have a license.

Anyway, I'm going to pick up where I left off yesterday with some Decepticons (and some guys who are technically neither).

Up first, we have Cyclonus.  My initial reaction was to kind of hate him.  The big head, think legs, long arms, and slumpy torso are pretty close to Floro Dery's original design, but a far cry from the more heroic proportions he had in the movie.  And that's kind of the thing, he was easily my favorite new Decepticon in the movie, and the '86 toy didn't really do him justice.  I mean, look at those hands!  They're practically drawn on!  And he's got like the entire nose of his alt mode just dangling from the back of his immobile head!  Plus, like Springer, he was depicted as one of the taller characters in the animation, but his toy is actually on the short side (taller than the Autobots we looked at yesterday, but his eye level is below Scourge and up to around Galvatron's belt).  In hindsight, though, Cyclonus is actually one of the best of the '86 toys.  He's actually got a fair amount of articulation, able to swivel at the shoulders, bend at the elbows, bend at the hips, and bend at the knees.

2021's Kingdom Cyclonus has something in common with his '86 ancestor- they're both representative of the best of their line.  Indeed, I don't just think Cyclonus was the best Kingdom figure this year, or the best official Transformer this year, but quite possibly my favorite toy of 2021 period.  His colors are good (he just needs some of that darker purple on his forearms), the sculpt is great (although his face is a little long), his articulation is good, and he cleans up so well with the nose of his alt mode cleverly collapsed into his torso.

G1 Cyclonus has a cool jet mode, for sure... but one that wasn't really screen accurate.  One thing that I find kind of interesting is that you can remove his wings (which means his entire arms).  There's no real point it doing so, and it's not necessary for transformation.  It just seems like a callback to the old Seeker mold (because Cyclonus was Skywarp, don't listen to anyone who tells you he was Bombshell!).

SS86 Cyclonus is more screen accurate, and with a pretty clever transformation to boot.  My only complaints are that he looses some of his sleekness viewed from the underside, and I wish something could have folded out of his shoulders to cover his biceps.

Like Cyclonus, the original 1986 Scourge is a pretty good toy!  Also like Cyclonus, though, he's based on Dery's original design rather than the finalized one that appeared in the movie, leaving him with a big head, thin limbs, a dad bod torso, and smaller wings that wrap around his body more. 

But he's got some knee articulation, swivels in the shoulders, and elbow bends.  The engine on his head is also removable, but it's not clear why.  I mean, it uses a 5mm peg to attach to his head.  When the Targetmaster version was released the following year his his hand holes were made larger, as the Targetmaster partners used 5mm pegs and that version could use the engine on his forehead as a gun, but the '86 version used smaller holes and a smaller peg for the rifle.

Scourge was released early in 2021 as part of the Studio Series '86 line (right).  His wings have a bit of kibble on them, but generally speaking he's much more screen accurate with a darker beard, better proportions, bigger collar, and even the pink fingernails.  The same toy was released near the end of the year in a less purple shade of blue as Sweep, one of the generic Scourge clones seen in the movie (left).

I know some people hate it, but I've always kind of loved Scourge's alt mode.  It's long and sleek, and there's something that seemed vaguely futuristic about a the lack of wings.  The '86 toy has a bit more white than the animation model, and his head with the third engine is almost the whole way back.  The Studio Series toy tweaks the colors and moves the head forward a bit, consistent with the animation.  The transformation is a bit on the simple side, as his wings fold around a mostly unchanged robot.

While I believe Wreck-Gar was marketed as an Autobot in 1986, and the Junkions did ally with the Autobots by the end of the movie, technically they're a separate faction.  I think the 1986 toy tried to copy Dery's design.  It's what leads to the chrome engine dominating his torso, the round arms with small shoulders and shock absorber coils running up his forearms, the exhaust on his right leg, and the seat hanging down past his butt.  But the proportions kind of wound up weird, with his small face tucked into a huge head.  One wheel is permanently attached to his left knee, but the other is removable.  Dery's art seems to suggest that it was meant to be a shield, and indeed he can hold the tire in one of his hands.  However, he also came with a gun (that he didn't actually use in the movie), and if your arm him with his axe in one hand and his gun in the other he can't really hold the other wheel.  I just stuck it in one of the screw holes on the back of his leg.  As goofy looking as Wreck-Gar is (and I wasn't totally a fan when I was a kid), he has a lot of arm articulation with elbow bends and ball joints at the shoulders.

Studio Series Wreck Gar fixes pretty much all the issues you'd have with the original toy.  Better colors, better proportions, better articulation, better screen accuracy.  His wheels can be mounted on either knee or forearm (left side for both is screen accurate).  He only comes with his axe, though.  To get him a gun like the G1 toy I had to get a 3D-printed one.

The original toy is close to Derry's art, down to the visible hands holding the front tire.  The Studio Series toy tries to clean it up for greater screen accuracy, but what's really impressive is that they managed to borrow ideas from Dery's original design but only very implied by the finalized art, like his head becoming the front of the bike, but pulling the front of the bike out of his torso but stuffing his head into it, so the bike's gauges are still on the back of his head.

Much like the Sweep, it's expected that Wreck-Gar will get at least one Junkion retool in the Studio Series line next year, with Junkyard being named (but I'd be down for Scrapheap, too).

We'll wrap up the day with a character marketed as a Decepticon (and still has a very prominent Decepticon badge on his tummy) but isn't actually a Decepticon, and that's Gnaw.  Gnaw was named on his original toy's packaging, but he's one of many identical unnamed Sharkticons.  You could say that, like many of the other 1986 toys, he's based more on Dery's art than the finalized animation model, but aside from the goofy face and a bit more dangly back kibble what Dery drew and what we got wasn't that different.  That said, the Studio Series Gnaw does try to be a bit closer to the what we saw on screen... except the SS86 toy doesn't have the little wings.  Disappointing, I know.

Gnaw didn't have a ton of articulation back in the day.  The new Studio Series toy does.  And unlike Wreck-Gar, Gnaw comes with the gun the G1 toy did even though it wasn't in the movie.  Actually, despite Gnaw himself being smaller than the G1 toy, his rifle is bigger.

The original Gnaw toy didn't have to do a lot to transform, what with his very round body.  The Studio Series toy has to do a bit more work.  It winds up more screen accurate, although neither have the spikey antennae seen in the movie.  I think the arm placement is a little weird on the Studio Series toy.  And you know what would have fixed it?  If it were a little lower and slightly farther back... which could have totally be accomplished if they were on a hinged panel connected to his back instead of the sides of the "shark" face.  Y'know, the way the G1 toy did it.  Which would have given him his missing wings.

At this point in time, I don't know of any repaints for Gnaw.  For the sake of troop building, I do kind of hope for a generic Sharkticon repaint in slightly altered colors.

And that's it for today.  We'll wrap up tomorrow with a look at the bigger "leader" figures.

[Wolf-1]

Really digging the trip down memory lane, along with the comparison to where we currently stand. Considering the TR Wheelie is a Legends scale figure going at Deluxe+ pricing, even the K.O.'s have jumped up compared to the other Legends K.O.'s., he's an easy pass until he is re-released.  My memory said that between my younger brother and myself we split the Transformer collection as kids pretty evenly, though after going through your most recent reviews, Cyclonus was the only 86 figure I've had to this point, assuming I'll the other two later this week.  He always got all the better ones looking back now; still has the Fortress Maximus that I did a sliding grab to nab from another kid at TRU back in the day; parents always seemed to mess up his large gift every year.  He was supposed to get Fort Max and Pop's brought down another copy of Scorpinok, which I had already opened.  So return trip's just after Christmas became a running thing with my brother for years, didn't help he was the Franklin County 81' New Years Kid either.

[seti88]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Yeah, this thread is for anything from Hasbro, Takara, or anything with an official license, which I believe the Yolopark Prime does. 

Roger that..wasn't sure if yolopark was a 3rd party but i think i saw it as being a co-licensee with hasbro on a kit(i thk).

Awesome transformers history re-visit posts!  

Edited December 21, 2021 by seti88

[mikeszekely]

35 minutes ago, seti88 said:

Roger that..wasn't sure if yolopark was a 3rd party but i think i saw it as being a co-licensee with hasbro on a kit(i thk).

Awesome transformers history re-visit posts!  

These threads used to be called the official and Third Party Transformers threads, but most of the 3P stuff was unofficial and it got confusing.  Eventually we decided to change it so that all official stuff, including licensed third party stuff (which is what Yolopark is) would go here, and the other thread became for just the unlicensed stuff.

[JB0]

As I recall, the threads got renamed very shortly after Hasbro started licensing stuff. Basically, as soon as "third-party Transformers" had an actual valid meaning and wasn't just the polite wink-nudge way of saying "pirate goods".

 

 

14 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Cyclonus is actually one of the best of the '86 toys.  He's actually got a fair amount of articulation, able to swivel at the shoulders, bend at the elbows, bend at the hips, and bend at the knees.

Dang, he bends almost as much as Shockwave and Jetfire! I'm impressed.

I actually picked up a copy of The Newest Cyclonus. I really like the toy, in general. Both modes are solid, he's got a pretty impressive finish, and features some pretty neat engineering that makes for a fairly smooth transformation with clean results in both modes, rather than just different for the sake of being different. I always appreciate seeing that.

 

The toon-accuracy approach isn't a winner in my eye(he feels like they forgot to detail the design to me), but I can't deny he's well-built. I'd really like to see a repaint homaging the original toyt(maybe for the inevitable targetmaster redux?).

[mikeszekely]

 I'd hoped to have this done earlier, but despite being in the mid-40s, sunny, and calm the power went out around 9:30 this morning and didn't come back until 3:30.  Fortunately you don't need electricity to wrap your kid's Christmas presents, so I made the most of the time.  But now that the power's back, let's finish our trip back to 1986 with the the bigger "leaders."

We'll start with Ultra Magnus.  Unlike most of the movie toys, who were created new from Floro Dery's designs, Magnus was one of the last Transformers that was a recolored Diaclone toy.  Now, I remember as a kid being a little dissatisfied with the amount of partsforming and the fact that his torso is basically one solid slab, but as an adult taking another look at these toys I'm kind of realizing that a lot of G1 toys didn't have much more than limited arm articulation, and on that front Magnus is probably ahead of the curve with shoulder rotation and elbow bends plus bicep and wrist swivels.

The new Kingdom figure is a bit more cartoon accurate, with the aviator eyes, inverted belt, white thighs, and altered chest.  He sports better articulation, too.  But his proportions are a tad off, some of which I might attribute to the fact that he's a slight retool of the earlier Siege toy, which was mean to be Magnus with a Cybertronian alt mode.

You didn't see it in the movie or the subsequent third season of The Transformers, but the toy Magnus was derived from was meant to be an upgraded form of the toy Optimus Prime was derived from.  As such, the cab wasn't simply the same kind of truck as Prime, it's the same toy.  Magnus' cab turns into G1 Optimus Prime, just done in white, and that white Optimus combined with the trailer to make the Ultra Magnus we saw on the TV.  As a kid (especially one who never had a G1 Optimus) this blew my mind, and I probably spent more time pretending that this white Optimus was the ghost of Optimus Prime come back to help the Autobots who couldn't get on without him.

In the decades since Ultra Magnus came out new Ultra Magnus toys went one of two ways.  In the first camp we had the "of course Magnus was always a white repaint of Prime" club, with members including MP-02, Classics Ultra Magnus, Titanium Series War Within Ultra Magnus, Alternity Magnus, an Ultra Magnus Pen, some Kreo toys, and a Legion-class toy.  The other side, which included Titanium Ultra Magnus, MP-22, and the not-that-old Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus endeavored for something more like the cartoon, where the entire cab and trailer transformed directly into Ultra Magnus, no white Optimus involved.  For me personally, that's what made the Siege toy so exciting; finally, Hasbro was bringing back the cab that turned into a white Optimus that used his trailer to armor up into Ultra Magnus!  The Kingdom version is simply retooled from the Siege version, replacing some of the parts on his torso that made for a "Cybertronian" truck (itself actually an homage to 2001's Robots in Disguise Ultra Magnus) with parts that looked more like the original toy's cab.

So the cab on the original toy transforms just like G1 Optimus; I don't think there's a spot under the trailer to store his fists, like G1 Prime, but I always just opened up the chest and tossed them in the seat meant for the original Diaclone pilot.  There's still a bit of partsforming, though.  The missile launchers have to move from the sides of his shoulders to the tops, and his belt goes under the trailer and actually becomes the connection point between the cab and trailer.  Even as a kid who didn't know about Diaclone or that some of these toys were meant to have pilots, I could tell that Ultra Magnus' chest part was meant to be some kind of vehicle on its own, what with the super obvious seat.  I assumed it to be some sort of jet, but I guess the original Diaclone mold had wheels?  I supposed that the chest piece could stay in place, like Magnus is towing a little jet, but there's still no place to put his head, fists, or gun that I'm aware of.

Kingdom Magnus' robot modes are passable, but his vehicle mode really suffers from being a retool.  The cab's got tiny gaps in the doors, protruding lumps from his arm hinges, smokestacks poking up from inside the cab instead of the sides, arms that jut out from the back of the cab, and super visible robot hands.  The trailer itself is much smaller than the G1 toy, despite the cab being slightly bigger, and it's not at all cartoon accurate.  The way it connects to the cab prevents the cab from turning, and the shin flaps can't open into a ramp, something the G1 toy managed.  Hasbro's designs have suggested that they wanted to do better but weren't given the budget for more than a retool, and that's a real missed opportunity.  I'd have loved if they could have built something around a white repaint of Earthrise Optimus Prime.  Maybe Hasbro will revisit the idea if Studio Series 86 continues to do well.

Bouncing over to the Decpticons we have Galvatron.  Galvatron has a lot of articulation for the time, with rotating shoulders, lateral shoulder movement, elbow bends, a waist swivel, and at least some hip and knee bends.  One of the things that I find curious about him is that, compared to some of the other 86 movie toys, Galvatron's shape isn't all that far off from what we saw on screen.  Instead, the main difference is one of color, where the animation was mostly purple with gray accents while the toy is mostly gray with purple accents.  I wonder why they changed it; the gray color seemed to better connect Galvatron with Megatron.

2021's retail release of Kingdom Galvatron opts for movie accuracy, giving him the more purple color scheme.  Which, you know, is fine, minus the smudges on his shins and lighter purple blotches on his arms and torso; I guess Hasbro had to do something to hit that Leader budget.  A bit later Hasbro released a repaint of Galvatron under their Generations Selects label that's more of a G1 toy homage.  Mind you, I had to use a mix of the stickers he came with, aftermarket Reprolabels, and a little paint to get him a bit closer than he comes out of the box.

Although it was never used on screen, nor in the comics (from what I can recall), the G1 Galvatron toy came with a rifle.  The newer toys do as well, but rather than copy the G1 toy they came with a pair of rifles that are oddly designed to look like his ship from the movie, The Revenge.  To complete the toy look on Generations Selects Galvatron I equipped him with an aftermarket rifle from Nonnef Productions.

The G1 Galvatron toy, like Megatron before him, does have a space gun mode.  However, the designers could probably see the writing on the wall for toy robots that turned into toy guns, and chose to give him an artillery mode first and foremost.  It's not the most impressive piece of kit.  It did leave the designers of the Kingdom toy with some challenges, though.  For the G1 toy, his barrel-shaped torso is the main section of the cannon, and it slides up over his head, leaving just enough crown showing for the barrel of his arm cannon to plug into.  What's more, despite swapping the gray for purple in bot mode in the movie, the cannon mode was still mostly gray.  The Kingdom toy is far from perfect, but credit where it's due they managed to conceal a gray barrel-shaped cannon inside a purple cartoon-style torso.  The Generations Selects version goes a bit further toward copying the original toy, right down to the rub sign on the purple band separating the torso part of the cannon from the legs.

In the film, when Hot Rod takes the Matrix back from Galvatron he becomes Rodimus Prime.  Rodimus is drawn to be larger than Hot Rod, with a more "mature," lined face.  Rodimus hasn't exactly gotten the most respect in toy form.  Even the 1986 toy is a bit of a let down.  Sure, at a glance it's definitely similar to Hot Rod; it's likely working from the same older design, with with a similar stickered pattern on his pelvis, similar reddish shins, and orange hands.  He is bigger than Hot Rod's toy, with taller wings.  That face is kind of a mess, though, looking sort of melty like Kup with tiny, squinting eyes.  He also doesn't have much in the way of articulation, being limited to just shoulder swivels.  My dislike of the G1 toy probably wasn't helped by the fact that I didn't like Rodimus as a kid.  For one, how dare he try to replace Optimus, and for two, he no longer had the youthful cool he did as Hot Rod.

Kingdom Rodimus Prime follows in the footsteps of the '86 toy by borrowing design elements from that year's Hot Rod figure, but cranking it up.  He's taller, with bigger pipes on his arms and a face made to look older with some deep lines and hard angles.  They don't just make him look older, though, the way the lines on the animation model did.  They give him a face that's seen some stuff, that's had Hot Rod's youthful innocence replaced with the battle-hardened expression of a guy ready to mess up some Decepticons because he's just tired of their crap.

So, the one time Rodimus transforms in the movie his trailer seems to unfold from his back.  For the toy, though, it was an entirely separate piece leaving the actual robot to barely transform at all (and even then it involves some partsforming, as his wings are removed and pegged into a different spot.  In the 35 years since the G1 toy, we've had one Rodimus Prime (Titanium) that atttempted this "perfect" transformation without the need for a separate trailer, and two toys that were supposed to be Hot Rod that use his car as the cab for Rodimus' trailer.  Kingdom Rodimus does have a separate trailer, but he's neither a cab with legs nor Hot Rod.  Instead, he seems to homage a very specific episode where Rodimus actually detaches from his trailer.  While the vehicle does have many Hot Rod-esque elements it's not as sleek, sitting higher on its wheels and with a raised rear section.  It's not exactly a futuristic truck cab, but it does seem more rugged and less sporty than Hot Rod.

The downside to this approach, though, is that it's messed with the proportions when combined with the trailer.  The cab is now far too long, and the wings (which no longer sit on the roof) are lost in the bulk of the trailer.  It's really too bad Hasbro couldn't have put the wing on a double hinge or something to move it over the roof and/or allow the car to slide in a bit further under the trailer.

The trailer of the G1 toy opens up to form a little battle platform, although it technically required more partsforming (I sadly do not have the blast shields that fit onto the sides of the gray part).  Kingdom Rodimus' trailer emulates this, but it goes a lot further to add more playability by making the gun removable, and by adding numerous ramps and storage compartments.  Kingdom Rodimus isn't perfect, but there's so much going on that homages the original toy while improving on it in every way makes it one of my favorites in 2021.  This is probably further aided by my newfound respect for Rodimus Prime, who lost the immaturity of Hot Rod that got Optimus killed and who himself found the task of filling Optimus' shoes something he struggled with.  Plus, Space Winnebago!

I could stop there, since that's really it for the new '86 movie cast, but the modern toys haven't just been about selling us new and improved versions of the toys we played with 35 years ago.  So I'd like to wrap this up by acknowledging that Hasbro has finally given us toys for important movie characters that they never bothered with in 1986.  For the Quintessons and the Alicons (and the Bailiff, who wasn't in the movie but would appear in the third season of the show) it's their first time.  They complement Gnaw and help flesh out the idea that they are not Decepticons but a unique faction antagonistic to Autobots and Decepticons alike.  Meanwhile, despite being an important character in the movie, the third season, the Western fourth season, and the Japanese Headmasters, Earthrise Arcee is just the third toy she'd gotten (although a Masterpiece toy would follow).  While I think the Quintesson Judge is fine and the Alicons adequate, the Prosecutor is little more than a semi-articulate stand-in until the day we get something a better (if ever).  Meanwhile, Arcee tends to be a bit divisive.  She's not Blurr with a new head (which beats the Titans Return version), and she's got better proportions and articulation than the Thrilling 30 toy.  However, she's got less of a transformation, as she wears her entire alt mode on her back and simply unfolds it then contorts her body underneath it.  Like Ultra Magnus, I find myself hoping for something a bit better to crop up in Studio Series '86.

On the whole, I feel like Hasbro's had more hits than misses lately, and there's a part of me that really wants to see them redo the rest of the G1 cast to match the aesthetics and articulation of the War For Cybertron Trilogy.  As we head into 2022, though, we've seen Hasbro become more willing to tap into the wider reaches of the Transformers mythos.  I gotta say, while guys like Gears and Sandstorm still need to get made I'm finding myself just as excited to see stuff like Laser Optimus get made.  We might not have hoverboards and exo-suits like Daniel, but the future is still looking pretty bright for Transformers fans.

[Drad]

[sh9000]

 

[sh9000]

 

[M'Kyuun]

Seems like the old cast have fun doing these stop-motion shorts. They featured a couple of them prior to the '86 Movie in the theater, w/ Stan Bush singing a verse or two of The Touch.   Stuff like this as well as Garry Chalk's and David Kaye's annual Christmas vids make this a fun fandom.  Cool that they still have fun with it too, as let's be real, these were just paying gigs for them at the time, but they seem to have embraced it all these years later.  That's good for all of us.

[obakesan]

so managed to get around to unboxing MP-53 Skids and thought the collector card was thicker than normal then realised I had two in the box! Has anyone else ever gotten 2 of the same thing in a box? This happend with my SS86 Sweeps. It had two instructions in the box. just interesting.

[derex3592]

On 12/23/2021 at 1:28 PM, M'Kyuun said:

Seems like the old cast have fun doing these stop-motion shorts. They featured a couple of them prior to the '86 Movie in the theater, w/ Stan Bush singing a verse or two of The Touch.   Stuff like this as well as Garry Chalk's and David Kaye's annual Christmas vids make this a fun fandom.  Cool that they still have fun with it too, as let's be real, these were just paying gigs for them at the time, but they seem to have embraced it all these years later.  That's good for all of us.

@M'Kyuun100% AGREE!!! Loving these! 

[M'Kyuun]

Sad news: Derrick J. Wyatt has passed away

Although his body of work wasn't limited to just Transformers: Animated, that show is how he became known to me. Love it or hate it, or at least the art direction he created for it, it made a mark on TF history for being something different, and the subsequent toys followed suit. Like many fans, I initially balked at the art design, but after watching the show and becoming a fan, I came to embrace it as one of my favorite takes on our beloved Robots in Disguise. That was all Derrick, and I'm thankful to this day that Hasbro took the gamble on that new direction. It certainly posed challenges for Takara, as they weren't designs easily translated to three-dimensional transforming toys, but IMHO, the majority of Animated toys did a fair to excellent job of capturing the nuances of the on-screen characters. They remain some of my favorite TF toys ever made, and take up a fair portion of my desk's real estate to this day, and for the foreseeable future. Thanks Derrick; you left a cool legacy, and you are lost to us, family, friends, and fans alike, way too soon. RIP good sir.

[Tking22]

I'm a bit baffled here, I just watched a review for Takara MP Cliffjumper, and yet, the figure isn't even announced yet? How are these prototypes getting out so easily, and early? I guess I must've missed something, apparently several of these prototypes are out and in the wild already, that's crazy. Figure is ugly as sin, but I'm sure it'll make plenty of other folks happy :).