TF Views

My biggest problem with the movie and "Animated" is that neither really displays well with much of what I have on hand. (Mind you, I really do not like "Animated" to begin with.) But, there were also aesthetic reboots during the beast-era and the AEC years.

I am just sick of hearing how great it is to see a toy based on some obscure character. It is even worse when Hasbro builds it into their marketing. Those Target exclusive comic packs are the worst. We get 2 sets of half-@$$ed homages packaged with incomplete comic stories.


Dom

Well, here's my thing--some of these homages are to characters who are so obscure, they actually build into blank slate New Characters themselves. I have no idea who Countdown actually is. I've got some vague information that he was a Micromaster with a launch station or something. I dunno.

I figure one thing, though, and that's that these guys are at least outright *being* these obscure characters. It's not like, say, Energon, where we got a guy who was designed to look like Wheeljack (but not named Wheeljack because of an oopsie the year before?) who...mostly just went around and looked like Wheeljack. He didn't act like him or evoke him at all. Meanwhile, in UniClassics, we could conceivably just get a new Wheeljack toy and be done with it.

Also, these repaints give people a new shot at an old mould. I never picked up CybWays because, by the time I decided I wanted him, he was gone, and I never picked up Evac because he was bright orange and I didn't consider it worth it. Here, though, I get CybWays' mould as Ratbat, in awesome colours, and Evac in Springery colours. I can just use him as a Cybertron-era upgrade for Energon Bulkhead/Sprang, instead, if I so choose. I could also grab the Roadbuster/Dirge set since I own neither of those moulds, and I'm definitely getting Countdown because I never got the CDAlert mould. So I get chances at cool moulds again. On the other hand, I don't want either of the CD Scattorshot repaints because they suck.

I can see the appeal of getting cool molds you missed, or more iterations of a good mold you have. (I could deal with getting Dirge, but not Roadbuster, for example.)

But, half-arsed homages, like Springer/Ratbat are just pointless. They do really evoke the old characters or comics. And, they are not strictly the only ways to get older moulds. There is another, and frankly better, recolor of Evac on the shelves in the form of Blades. Ratbat is a terrible homage that wastes a great mold. (Hey, how about some of those troop-builder guys we saw on the "Cybertron" cartoon? Call it "X-Raider" or something.)


Dom
-really liked "Cybertron" Evac.

IIRC those troopbuilder Noisewayses 'did' get a repaint in Japan...as part of the DVD set, or something crazy like that.

Besiding that, hey, I dig the purplyness, it looks good on him. And Blades is far less interesting because I find Protectobots boring, plus he's all bright red and stuff. Eh, oh well.

Dominic wrote:But, half-arsed homages, like Springer/Ratbat are just pointless. They do really evoke the old characters or comics. And, they are not strictly the only ways to get older moulds. There is another, and frankly better, recolor of Evac on the shelves in the form of Blades. Ratbat is a terrible homage that wastes a great mold. (Hey, how about some of those troop-builder guys we saw on the "Cybertron" cartoon? Call it "X-Raider" or something.)

Some people aren't going to know who that theoretical "X-Raider" is though, in which case the homages to older characters may well work far better. Just to pick a personal example, I never saw the second half of the Cybertron cartoon, so a homage to a generic Sideways clone wouldn't interest me at all. I didn't find Sideways himself interesting enough as a character to buy the toy, from what I saw of him in the earlier episodes. On the other hand, I enjoyed the second volume of the War Within series quite a bit, so a Springer/Ratbat set appeals to me. I don't own either mold, and I don't have the G1 figure for either character, so a chance to own a version of Ratbat and Springer is something I enjoy.

Homages to characters like Springer and Ratbat are part of the reason I enjoy Universe as much as I do. Neither are really top tier G1 characters, even though Springer was a major character in the third season and the movie, so it's nice to see them pulled from obscurity and made available. It's certainly far preferable to another recycling of Grimlock or Prime or Starscream.

I like Ratbat as much as anyone here. The idea of an accountant taking over the Decepticons really appeals to me. But, how many people know/care who the heck Ratbat is? And, how many are going to recognize this homage?

If they want to do a new version of an old character, like Sunstreaker or Prowl, that is fine. But, half-assed repaint homages are a waste.

Dom
-rather likes Blades.

Onslaught Six wrote:And Blades is far less interesting because I find Protectobots boring, plus he's all bright red and stuff. Eh, oh well.

I like Blades, but there's just too much red on the helicopter. I'd have preferred more white, like the original figure. It is a better and more realistic color scheme than Springer's, but it's not close enough to the original to suit me. I may still buy it at some point though.

Dominic wrote:I like Ratbat as much as anyone here. The idea of an accountant taking over the Decepticons really appeals to me. But, how many people know/care who the heck Ratbat is? And, how many are going to recognize this homage?

If they want to do a new version of an old character, like Sunstreaker or Prowl, that is fine. But, half-assed repaint homages are a waste.

Dom
-rather likes Blades.

If they don't recognize the homage from the old comic, or the WW pack-in comic (which is only a few years old after all), then the figure would either appeal or not based on the deco and bio, like any new figure introduced in Animated or the movie line. I'm not sure the homage to Ratbat really hurts anything. The same with Springer. Some kids might dig a purple space plane and a green helicopter. Who knows?

I get your point about poorly-done homages, but that's the nature of repaints though, isn't it? They're never going to be entirely accurate in their representation of the character they are supposed to be. Some work better than others. I think Springer fits the Evac mold fairly well, while Ratbat is a reasonable fit with the Sideways mold. An example of a poor fit would be Henkei Wildrider. I look at that figure, and it's just Hot Rod painted black. It doesn't work. Overkill looks pretty convincing as a dinosaur, but when transformed is just Grimlock in white and teal.

On the other hand, I'm the guy who wants homage repaints of ClaRod, ClaSwipe and ClaIronhide as Speedbreaker, Mach Alert and X-Brawn. Come on! You know it'd rule.

EDIT: I get where Dom is coming from, though. New characters are always a plus and a Good Thing. I think the major thing is that this is the ClaUniverse/25th Anniversary line right now, so a lot of us are willing to be more...forgiving in this department. Besides, we've got Animated, which gives us entirely fresh interpretations of old ideas as well as lots of new characters like Bulkhead and Oil Slick and Lugnut. Then there's the movie, which does the same thing in an opposite way. So between those two, we've got tons of new ideas and characters coming in.

The thing is that there have been more "homages" in recent years. What JT is complaining about is the sheer number of homages, (and both the movie and "Animated" lines have their share of those), we are seeing. At this point, Hasbro has said that they design molds with recolor potential.

A recoloir/homage is kind of the worst of both worlds if you want something *new*. Look at movie Cliffjumper. We get a red recolor of Bumblebee mkII. Now, I like that mold, and bought Cliffjumper. But, we have a prevously, (and well), used mold with a new character applied to it. There is nothing *new* there.

A big part of the reason that TFU Heavyload is so much fun is that it is a new character, albeit with an old name. But, even then, it is still a recolor. Howzabout a new mold with a new character applied to it.

Dom