TF Views

Onslaught Six wrote:

Sparky Prime wrote:The Alternators are some of my favorite figures personally. Sure a few of them might have some restricted range of movement on certain parts, but overall they still have really good articulation. And they aren't meant to look exactly like the G1 versions of the characters, so that never bothered me if the transformation schemes weren't the same or they lacked racing stripes.

See, maybe it's just me, but like...to me, if you're going to bother doing a new version of a character, and have it clearly 'be' that character, then they should have similar elements. Movie Jazz should have had a blue stripe, as should Alts Jazz. Smokescreen needs a significant amount of red and white on him. And so on. And when you get a line like Alternators, where it's clearly a nostalgia-based line, and you just go and eschew important elements of the characters, to me it's like...why bother, then?

I mean, it's one thing if it's just a random name reuse (Armada Wheeljack) but it's another if he looks, talks and acts like Wheeljack.

At one point I was a Alternators/BT toy line completist. Then after a while,I got rid of about 85% of my Alternators toys. I gave them all away to younger relatives. I only kept about 5 Alternators toys that I felt were decent.

I honestly wasn't a fan of sticking a 1980's TF Homage character HEAD on a robot body & alt mode that looked nothing like the original 1980's TF character toy/media version.

The Restricted range of movement in the joints was a major negative.

The Only Alternators I kept that I felt were the "CREAM OF THE CROP" were as follows: Hound,Prowl,Tracks,Mirage,Rodimus & liscensed Jaguar 4 legged Ravage.

Onslaught Six wrote:See, maybe it's just me, but like...to me, if you're going to bother doing a new version of a character, and have it clearly 'be' that character, then they should have similar elements. Movie Jazz should have had a blue stripe, as should Alts Jazz. Smokescreen needs a significant amount of red and white on him. And so on. And when you get a line like Alternators, where it's clearly a nostalgia-based line, and you just go and eschew important elements of the characters, to me it's like...why bother, then?

Something like a blue stripe on G1 Jazz doesn't make Jazz 'be' Jazz in my view. Both the Alternators and movie versions of Jazz still *is* Jazz, despite having no stripe, so I don't see how that's necessarily an important element that every version of him has to have. And even with several characters in G1 sharing the same mold, the cartoon found ways to make them a little more distinct from each other. I think Alternators highlighted that pretty well. I mean, when I look at Alternator Smokescreen, it still looks distinctly like Smokescreen to me, even though he is primarily a blue car rather than a blue and white car like he was in G1. Maybe you're just more of a G1 purist that you see those small details as being much more significant, but I thought the Alternators line did a great job of balancing the characters look with updating them as new modern day vehicles.

Tigermegatron wrote:5- Rumble was not given any elbow bending joints.

Wow, really? This is one of the ones I never had so I didn't know this, but if that's true I'm suddenly glad I never found one. That would be such a major deal breaker to me.

Shockwave wrote:

Tigermegatron wrote:5- Rumble was not given any elbow bending joints.

Wow, really? This is one of the ones I never had so I didn't know this, but if that's true I'm suddenly glad I never found one. That would be such a major deal breaker to me.

He doesn't have hands either, does he? I haven't pulled Rumble out in awhile, but I think he just had the extending piledrivers from his arms. I don't mind, it's a change of pace.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:AltRumble.jpg

andersonh1 wrote:

Shockwave wrote:

Tigermegatron wrote:5- Rumble was not given any elbow bending joints.

Wow, really? This is one of the ones I never had so I didn't know this, but if that's true I'm suddenly glad I never found one. That would be such a major deal breaker to me.

He doesn't have hands either, does he? I haven't pulled Rumble out in awhile, but I think he just had the extending piledrivers from his arms. I don't mind, it's a change of pace.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:AltRumble.jpg

I forgot it also had no hands. I bought the toy ,transformed it,then a week later gave it away to a younger relative.

Tigermegatron wrote:

andersonh1 wrote:

Shockwave wrote:

Tigermegatron wrote:5- Rumble was not given any elbow bending joints.

Wow, really? This is one of the ones I never had so I didn't know this, but if that's true I'm suddenly glad I never found one. That would be such a major deal breaker to me.

He doesn't have hands either, does he? I haven't pulled Rumble out in awhile, but I think he just had the extending piledrivers from his arms. I don't mind, it's a change of pace.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:AltRumble.jpg

I forgot it also had no hands. I bought the toy ,transformed it,then a week later gave it away to a younger relative.

Damn. I don't blame you, I probably would have done the same thing. And, looking at the pics it looks like the legs were too short too. Not a good way to wrap up the line.

Onslaught Six wrote:

Sparky Prime wrote:The Alternators are some of my favorite figures personally. Sure a few of them might have some restricted range of movement on certain parts, but overall they still have really good articulation. And they aren't meant to look exactly like the G1 versions of the characters, so that never bothered me if the transformation schemes weren't the same or they lacked racing stripes.

See, maybe it's just me, but like...to me, if you're going to bother doing a new version of a character, and have it clearly 'be' that character, then they should have similar elements. Movie Jazz should have had a blue stripe, as should Alts Jazz. Smokescreen needs a significant amount of red and white on him. And so on. And when you get a line like Alternators, where it's clearly a nostalgia-based line, and you just go and eschew important elements of the characters, to me it's like...why bother, then?

I mean, it's one thing if it's just a random name reuse (Armada Wheeljack) but it's another if he looks, talks and acts like Wheeljack.

It's about realism vs character, there is a different level of balance for different lines. Movie and Alternators are meant to be realistic vehicles, nobody drives cars with racing stripes anymore so having a car with a bigass racing stripe down the top and fenders wouldn't make sense if the car isn't a race car (which they aren't). It's not a disguise if the car looks like a museum piece.

Clearly, you haven't seen the douchebags who hang out in the McDonald's parking lot dealing drugs with their tricked-out Miatas at midnight. (Or is that just my town?)

Onslaught Six wrote:Clearly, you haven't seen the douchebags who hang out in the McDonald's parking lot dealing drugs with their tricked-out Miatas at midnight. (Or is that just my town?)

No, we have them too, but those are not common and they all look super shitty.