Love or Hate for Animated Toys!

Some cartoon with big chins and a little girl that got beloved by fans and taken off TV to make way for a different show on another network. Yeah, that's fair.
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Onslaught Six
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Re: Love or Hate for Animated Toys!

Post by Onslaught Six »

Bwuh? There was an Animated Sunstreaker?
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Re: Love or Hate for Animated Toys!

Post by 138 Scourge »

I'm gonna guess he meant Sunstorm.
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Re: Love or Hate for Animated Toys!

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138 Scourge wrote:I'm gonna guess he meant Sunstorm.
Yes, thank you, precisely. Fix'd
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Re: Love or Hate for Animated Toys!

Post by Tigermegatron »

I didn't care for the ANIMATED toys. they seemed & felt like caricatures mocking various character/toys from previous TF toy lines. similar to when that super deformed SD Gundam line was a caricature mocking the gundam toys to make them more toddler appealing.

About the only 2 animated toys I'd reccomend getting is leader sized megatron & leader sized ultra magnus.

I just wasn't a fan of the smiley & kiddie faces most animated toys had.

it's plainly obvious since most animated toys were craicatures & cheaply made. why bother getting these character animated toys when you can get the better made character toys from previous TF toy lines like as follows: BM deluxe sized Blackarachnia instead of animated deluxe blackarachnia. classics 1.0 Rodimus instead of deluxe animated rodimus. classics 1.0 bumblebee instead of animated bumblebee.
and the list goes on.

it's funny that TF Prime toys are following in the same path as animated toys. why bother buying the TF Prime toys that are obviously being made for a younger toddler customer. why not just pretend the live action movie toys are the more grown up TF Prime toys. these TF Prime toys are obvious CARICATURE toys based off the live action movie toy designs. like TF Prime optimus prime looking like the TF1 2007 voyager sized optimus prime toy. TF Prime megatron looking like the TF1 2007 voyager sized megatron toy. TF Prime bumblebee looking like the camaro from the TF1/TF2 toy line. TF Prime starscream being a fusion cross between the animated & live action movie designs. and the list goes on.
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Re: Love or Hate for Animated Toys!

Post by Mirage »

I think you're confusing "caricaturized" with "stylized". If that STYLE doesn't work for you, you're not alone. But I don't think it's fair to characterize Animated as a parody of the other segments of Transformers when it obviously isn't. If anything, it tries (and succeeds, at most levels) to pay homage to the Transformers brand as a whole. And as far as the "smiley" faces, I actually own most of the Animated toys, and looking at my shelf, the only ones smiling are the Bumblebees, Wreck-Gar, and Swindle, with Starscream and his clones doing the trademark smirk. The facial expressions are just to give that added boost of personality present in the series.

As far as toy quality, the Animated line was about even with Classics/Universe/Generations, I'd say. There's a few figures that could've used better execution, but most of them succeed at bringing to life a hyper-stylized robot AND a solid vehicle. No easy task, and the engineers really outdid themselves with some of these figures. Lockdown and Blurr, in particular, are amazing.
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Re: Love or Hate for Animated Toys!

Post by Tigermegatron »

Mirage wrote:I think you're confusing "caricaturized" with "stylized". If that STYLE doesn't work for you, you're not alone. But I don't think it's fair to characterize Animated as a parody of the other segments of Transformers when it obviously isn't. If anything, it tries (and succeeds, at most levels) to pay homage to the Transformers brand as a whole. And as far as the "smiley" faces, I actually own most of the Animated toys, and looking at my shelf, the only ones smiling are the Bumblebees, Wreck-Gar, and Swindle, with Starscream and his clones doing the trademark smirk. The facial expressions are just to give that added boost of personality present in the series.

As far as toy quality, the Animated line was about even with Classics/Universe/Generations, I'd say. There's a few figures that could've used better execution, but most of them succeed at bringing to life a hyper-stylized robot AND a solid vehicle. No easy task, and the engineers really outdid themselves with some of these figures. Lockdown and Blurr, in particular, are amazing.
At best most animated toys are Caricatures homages mocking & making the original designs their based off geared for a younger kid buying age. similar to what the Hasbro tonka play-school go-bots toy line was all about.

Like I said the cycle is now repeating itself with the TF Prime toys. As hasbro thinks the live action movie toys were too grown up,too scary & too complicated for younger kids. thus TF Prime's toy line was born,to please the younger kids/toddlers. TF Prime toys appear to be the tonka play-school go-bots toy versions caricature homages based off the live action movie TF toys.
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Re: Love or Hate for Animated Toys!

Post by Tigermegatron »

Mirage wrote:I think you're confusing "caricaturized" with "stylized". If that STYLE doesn't work for you, you're not alone. But I don't think it's fair to characterize Animated as a parody of the other segments of Transformers when it obviously isn't. If anything, it tries (and succeeds, at most levels) to pay homage to the Transformers brand as a whole. And as far as the "smiley" faces, I actually own most of the Animated toys, and looking at my shelf, the only ones smiling are the Bumblebees, Wreck-Gar, and Swindle, with Starscream and his clones doing the trademark smirk. The facial expressions are just to give that added boost of personality present in the series.

As far as toy quality, the Animated line was about even with Classics/Universe/Generations, I'd say. There's a few figures that could've used better execution, but most of them succeed at bringing to life a hyper-stylized robot AND a solid vehicle. No easy task, and the engineers really outdid themselves with some of these figures. Lockdown and Blurr, in particular, are amazing.
I take apart TF toys all the time to do various parts swaps when recolors come out.

I've taken apart several animated toys in all sizes. the animated toys inside are extremly simplified with almost no gears,no springs & so forth.

as far as plastic quality goes,the animated toys definately use thinner or cheaper plastic quality compared to armada,energon,cybertron & the movie verse toys.

Another thing I noticed about most animated toys is the toy engineering isn't that great. most animated toys have hard time standing up properly on display shelves. their needs more bending of the knees,more adjusting the hips backward & so forth just to make the figures some what stable on display shelves.
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Re: Love or Hate for Animated Toys!

Post by Mirage »

I'd say "TF: Prime" is really more of an effort to blend the Animated style with some movie elements. In my opinion, the results are a pretty mixed bag. But I wouldn't say there's anything "pre-schoolish" about them. That obviously isn't Hasbro's intention, anyway, as they've got "Rescue Bots" coming out for the younger kids, complete with a TV series. And the Prime series at least TRIES to present itself as being more geared toward older viewers. Didn't you see the first episode? Cliffjumper DIES, comes back a zombie, gets cut in half and then blown up! Mind you, I'm not saying these things actually MAKE the series more mature, but I think it's their attempt to show us what they're going for with this series. *cough*shockvalue*cough*... :roll:
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Re: Love or Hate for Animated Toys!

Post by JediTricks »

Gears, springs, motion gimmicks, those aren't what made Transformers the brand that it is. While the recent automorph concept stuck as a concept, the mech alive one really flopped. Animated isn't about the newest gimmicks, or toys that play with themselves, it's about expressing the stylized concepts of the show in a way that streamlines detail without sacrificing character. Look at the most automorph, gimmick-laden Animated figure and you'll see one of the line's biggest failures, that of Voyager-class Starscream, whose gears and such only serve to make a bulky, unattractive vehicle mode and a difficult, fragile bot mode.
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Re: Love or Hate for Animated Toys!

Post by Tigermegatron »

Mirage wrote:I'd say "TF: Prime" is really more of an effort to blend the Animated style with some movie elements. In my opinion, the results are a pretty mixed bag. But I wouldn't say there's anything "pre-schoolish" about them. That obviously isn't Hasbro's intention, anyway, as they've got "Rescue Bots" coming out for the younger kids, complete with a TV series. And the Prime series at least TRIES to present itself as being more geared toward older viewers. Didn't you see the first episode? Cliffjumper DIES, comes back a zombie, gets cut in half and then blown up! Mind you, I'm not saying these things actually MAKE the series more mature, but I think it's their attempt to show us what they're going for with this series. *cough*shockvalue*cough*... :roll:
I personally/honestly don't see the point in getting various TF Prime toys,if their going to be closely/loosely based off some movie verse character toy designs.

I just don't need nor want a couple of TF toys based off certain characters that all look extremly similar. That's why with the movie verse toy lines,I picked & chose which toys I wanted in my collection basedf off certain characters. I just didn't want nor had the space nor had the cash to buy all the movie verse optimus prime new mold toys. same deal goes for other movie verse characters like bumblebee,ratchet,ironhide,starscream,barricadem,jazz,etc.......

Some TF Prime toys look like play school toddler Go-bots transformers versions based off the movie designs,like Optimus prime,starscream,bumblebee,arcee & so forth.

While I can understand hasbro is creating TF prime toys with a toddler/play school appeal. I'll just let the toddler kids enjoy this line & not buy any toys from it. I don't need to be a TF toy buying completist nor do I need to get a tiny handful of TF toys from every TF toy line ever made.

I'll just use my imagination & pretend I have several TF prime toys already. like the year 2007 movie voyager optimus prime toys makes a great TF Prime deluxe sized toy stand in. the 2007 deluxe movie arcee toy is a decent stand in for TF Prime arcee. the various movie verse bumblee toys are great stand in's for TF prime bumblebee. various movie verse starscream toys make decent stand in TF Prime toys. Animated voyager sized megatron & 2007 movie verse voyager megatron makes great stand in's for TF prime deluxe megatron.
classics ratchetm,animated ratchet or 2007 movie verse voyager ratchet in those white colors make great stand in's for TF Prime ratchet. and the list goes on & on.
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