TFViews questions for Hasbro, round 2

[Dominic]

So long as nobody else is also asking what we have now, I say go with it.

I may want to come back and work on the phrasing a bit, but these are good.


Dom
-really wants to hear Hasbro's answer on the master molds, but can wait.

[onslaught86]

Ack, stupid lack of internets prevented me from clarifying.

I'm on board for this question, but could you clarify that last sentence? I don't really understand how they're different than anything else in the Universe line.

Re: Cheetor and Dinobot. They're not new interpretations like the majority of Universe's new moulds, they're designed to be improved versions of the originals, more like a chunk of Classics V1 was. While Prowl and Sunstreaker and Ironhide, for example, get brand new vehicle modes with everything that implies in the design process, those two do not. And, as O6 mentioned, they kinda suck - so I'm curious to see whether there was anything they did specifically differently for those two when the rest of the line looks a good sight better.

4) - First off, let us make clear that we do understand that repaints are part of Hasbro's business model, and that aspect is often factored into a new mold's budgeting, they are somewhat necessary to make the line happen. That said, why does Hasbro keep making many repaints as the same character, such as Animated Ultra Magnus and Megatron, rather than giving those repaints a new identity? While it might make sense for major characters like Optimus Prime and Bulkhead, something like Movie Jungle Bonecrusher could just as easily have been someone else, right?

I believe Hasbro has gone on record as saying that this keeps fresh product on shelves while still supplying the characters kids are asking for. I'm a little concerned that Animated seems even less likely than other lines to have drastically different decos, ie. Roadbuster Ultra Magnus still has the same head as regular flavour Magnus and would thus struggle to pass for another character as is.

5) - With the tech-specs, who generally writes these? What is the process for writing tech-specs? Where does consistency within the theme of that line fall into the level of importance? Where does holding onto old copyrights fall there? Or are those and other issues largely up to the discretion of the writer?

During Cybertron, Forrest Lee wrote most of the bios, with Archer handling the stats, hence their mismatching. I believe they may have different writers for Animated vs. Universe vs. Movie, so be interested with this one.

How about "Why are most of the offscreen movie characters really really uninteresting?"

[JediTricks]

So long as nobody else is also asking what we have now, I say go with it.

I may want to come back and work on the phrasing a bit, but these are good.

Dom
-really wants to hear Hasbro's answer on the master molds, but can wait.

I sent the questions off last night, so I already went with it.

Ack, stupid lack of internets prevented me from clarifying.

I'm on board for this question, but could you clarify that last sentence? I don't really understand how they're different than anything else in the Universe line.

Re: Cheetor and Dinobot. They're not new interpretations like the majority of Universe's new moulds, they're designed to be improved versions of the originals, more like a chunk of Classics V1 was. While Prowl and Sunstreaker and Ironhide, for example, get brand new vehicle modes with everything that implies in the design process, those two do not. And, as O6 mentioned, they kinda suck - so I'm curious to see whether there was anything they did specifically differently for those two when the rest of the line looks a good sight better.

Hmm, I'm not really seeing this. Cheetor and Dinobot are new interpretations of their alt modes, they transform differently and have different aesthetics and functionality. Just because they're not based on "the new '09 Raptor and Cheetah!" doesn't mean they're not new interpretations. I just don't understand how the disparity between their designs and the G1ers gets us to the crux of the question. Anyway, we'll have to wait 2 months to find out now.

4) - First off, let us make clear that we do understand that repaints are part of Hasbro's business model, and that aspect is often factored into a new mold's budgeting, they are somewhat necessary to make the line happen. That said, why does Hasbro keep making many repaints as the same character, such as Animated Ultra Magnus and Megatron, rather than giving those repaints a new identity? While it might make sense for major characters like Optimus Prime and Bulkhead, something like Movie Jungle Bonecrusher could just as easily have been someone else, right?

I believe Hasbro has gone on record as saying that this keeps fresh product on shelves while still supplying the characters kids are asking for. I'm a little concerned that Animated seems even less likely than other lines to have drastically different decos, ie. Roadbuster Ultra Magnus still has the same head as regular flavour Magnus and would thus struggle to pass for another character as is.

Wish you had said that last night before I sent the question, I could have punched it up better to bulletproof against that. Oh well.

5) - With the tech-specs, who generally writes these? What is the process for writing tech-specs? Where does consistency within the theme of that line fall into the level of importance? Where does holding onto old copyrights fall there? Or are those and other issues largely up to the discretion of the writer?

During Cybertron, Forrest Lee wrote most of the bios, with Archer handling the stats, hence their mismatching. I believe they may have different writers for Animated vs. Universe vs. Movie, so be interested with this one.

I wasn't really on board with this question to begin with only because bios/techspecs don't really do much for me, but I'm glad there is some sense of interest there.

How about "Why are most of the offscreen movie characters really really uninteresting?"

Characters or figures?

[Onslaught Six]

How about "Why are most of the offscreen movie characters really really uninteresting?"

Characters or figures?

Characters. Most of them equate to "Dropkick is Sad Robot!" and such.

[Dominic]

Some of the non-movie guys were interesting. I really liked the idea for Salvage, and to a lesser extent, Longarm.

Dom
-wonders who green-lighted Elita-1.

[JediTricks]

Some of the non-movie guys were interesting. I really liked the idea for Salvage, and to a lesser extent, Longarm.

Dom
-wonders who green-lighted Elita-1.

I knew that you were going to be the one to respond to that.

And what about Real Gear bios, some of those weren't suck?

[Dominic]

I actually have an idea for an RG story....but I need an artist.

Dom
-started round 3.

[JediTricks]

Answers for round 2: FIGHT!

http://www.tfviews.com/news/main/hasbro-q-and-a/283

An interesting side-note, these came in as 2 different batches, questions 1 and 4 separate from the others.

[andersonh1]

Some good, informative answers there. Always good to see that they are planning ahead for repaints now, to the point we'll see new heads. That's what really sold me on Stealth Bumblebee for example, so good to see that we'll see more of it.

[onslaught86]

Interesting. Not a lot we didn't already know on this round, but I'm impressed with depth of the answers for the lightpiping and techspec questions. Disappointing to see video reviews being noted there, shame that. Suppose they're more easily accessed.