Dominic wrote:Remember when we used to get new characters concepts for BotCon toys that complimented existing collections etc? Yeah, that is right, I am nostalgic for Hallit style exclusives.
Alright, first I need to say that this definition is *precisely* what the ’11 BotCon set is. It’s a set of new (for Animated) characters designed to compliment a series collection many fans had. That’s all it was. No mirror-universe shenanigans, no versions of characters in older, off-screen bodies, no virtually-context-free G2-color scheme nonsense, just a bunch of extra Animated characters that fans could add to their Animated collections. There even was a truly new character included in the form of Toxitron (which you dismiss because, apparently, he’s not srs bzns enough to count). In your own words, this set was exactly what you want from a convention set.
Anyway, I’d contest whether that alone makes for good exclusives. What, for instance, makes Fractyl more desirable to fans at a convention than, say, Lazerbeak? What makes Vice Grip desirable at all? And stuff like Antagony, Apelinq, and Shockaract are *very* context-heavy characters tied to a story that’s arguably worse than Shattered Glass (hell, Shockaract and his goons now have TWO terrible stories on their shoulders). Most Transfans have a hard time justifying repaints in the first place, if they want us to buy a repaint at 3-5 times its original price, it better be fucking *special*. The AM Thundercracker from last year’s a good example. There’s a toy that a lot of people had said they wanted, but had virtually no chance of being released at retail. A fan convention is the perfect place to put that thing out. As much as I hate Shattered Glass, that’s a thing that a lot of fans had said they wanted, but there’s no way Hasbro would launch what would effectively be a separate line just to appease a niche group of fans. Boom, barely 2000 people could possibly think this idea was good, and they made less than that many SG convention sets. That is an economic use of such things.
Both are marketed as official reference guides to a given franchise. Sorenson was writing professionally for Hasbro when he wrote the Almanac. Thus, he did have canonical authority. He added a stupid throw away joke to the Almanac, which is obnoxious enough. Then, he came out and said "oh not really, derp".
All Willis did was make a legitimate change to a wiki page to reflect what was clearly written in an official source. As much as I cannot stand Willis, he did nothing wrong in that case.
Y’know what the kicker is? Sorenson never even says anywhere that Animated Sideways is either RiD/RM/UT Sideways or ROTF Sideways. He never actually says “This guy came from the Armada universe, and now he’s going to the Movie universe where he’ll turn into a silver Audi.”. No. He mentions that this guy, who *kinda* looks like his alternate-universe counterparts (as do, uh, everyone from Animated ever), *may* come from an alternate universe, and that later, he is heading towards some place called ‘Shanghai’. Never says if it’s Shanghai, Earth, in the Movieverse, or Shanghai, Earth, in the Machine Wars universe, or Shanghai, in the same system as Quintessa, from a Shattered Glass version of the GI Joe vs TF universe. He just says this guy, who may or may not be the same Sideways as other Sidewayses (who, let’s be frank, were never fully confirmed to be the same guy anyway) *might* be going towards some place called Shanghai. That tiny, non-specific blurb is no excuse for a wiki overhaul/flame war, much less accusing Sorenson of being evil, an idiot, or both.
Jesus.
EDIT: And you know what? Fuck the wiki on stuff like this anyway, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. These are the douchebags that decided that Hammerstrike is apparently the same character as Cybershark based on the fact that *their techspecs are kind of similar*. Fuck those guys.