BWprowl wrote:JediTricks wrote:Yeah, it could be that, but why would they paint a shark on a character that used to be a bird?
I dunno man, but...
Those look like teef to me.
They do at that, so I guess that's just utterly nonsensical then. "We took a bird and made homage to it with a shark!" geez Hasbro.
The fact that they barely ran it for a year before cutting it off and running on fumes and upscaled crap for this last stretch pretty clearly comes across as "You weren't supposed to get interested or invested in this."
It was a subline, what did you expect? What line has run longer than 3 years lately? Prime will run 3 years, seems like your grand expectations are ultimately what doomed your feelings on this, not Hasbro. And it's not like TFPBH is really burning up sales records on the aisles, it's not like the market is keeping it alive, it exists now and eventually it'll be gone - most sublines last about as long and behave that way. All things are transitory.
It had a better run than PCC.
There's *some* stuff, certainly, but it's still drowned out by the majority of samey stuff that the other fans apparently want.
This is what I'm talking about, that's a very "wah, everybody else has more" mentality. You are coming off as more invested in being miserable that the line appeals to more than one type of collector than crowing about the myriad of figures that are up your alley.
And that's a LOT of figures in your wheelhouse considering you have a very specialized interest. I think your list actually is bigger than mine since almost everything in BH is an avoid on mine.
I mean, like Shockwave pointed out, Cosmos jut got a new figure a few years ago, you can hardly cite him as an example of innovation.
Cosmos 2009 was a middling-quality toy made for drug store consumers, a poor representation of the character, and exceptionally hard to find, but because his name is on a list of figures that came out at one point, it's somehow a knock against you as a collector... somehow.
Most of the other stuff that you mention that I should be happy to be tided over with...isn't super-compelling.
Again, I feel like this isn't the line's fault or the fans' fault, but an issue with you - even when confronted with a sizable list of product that fits in your category, you're not feeling it. You defend Legion Twinstrike loudly and yet most of this stuff that's similar gets a "meh" from you. How can Hasbro make you happy with that attitude while still running a successful mass-market line?
Repaints, whee.
SO?? BH Prowl is a repaint, I'm excited. Probably a quarter of the characters in Transformers are repaints, that's how it goes.
As good as Rhinox looks, I just pray this isn't a precursor to them spamming BW remakes on the same level they're spamming G1 remakes. That line is even less in need of a second pass.
Wow, that's your reaction? That's impossible to please. You like this figure enough to worry it'll cause it to make more good figures, that's a real fuckin' dilemma. You gripe that the new Beast Hunters line isn't enough, you gripe that there might be too many beasts, where can they go from that?
Look, believe me, I *KNOW* I'm in the minority in wanting back the variety and constant innovation that TF had in the late 90's/early 2000's, I saw PCC tank the same way you did. In that respect I probably should have expected Hasbro would cut off my Lord and Savior Beast Hunters the way that they have. But just because I see and know that that's the way it is isn't going to stop me from thinking that it fucking sucks.
HA! Rose tinted glasses of nostalgia. The "constant innovation" was basically in presentation, once Hasbro handed the reins over to Kenner and Kenner went whole-hog with ball joints, that's all it was until Armada, and then Armada was just a playskoolized version of G1 design crossed with BW/BM. They didn't cut anything off prematurely, there was 3 years of Prime, 1 year of its subline, most sublines last a year.
Mostly I'd want the guys with the unique, interesting mix-n-match triple-combiner gimmick with the aesthetics that are wildly different from anything we've seen in TF before. Like I said, THOSE are something I would want. Go Takara.
We saw it in Voltron Gladiators, and we saw something similar in Energon, and neither really were popular here for the same reason these GO figures don't look that great.
I'm saying I would buy the shit out of a bright pink Blitzwing repaint.
WHHHHHHHHYYYYYYY do you hate the colorwheel?!?
This was actually a point I meant to bring up here too, anyway. It's all a kind of circuitous, in that you would expect popular characters to get new toys and also win vote-offs by fans, so trying to argue which precursed which isn't really worth anything.
Popular characters are winning popularity contests voted on by the populace, wow, that's really a rough one.
You mean I have to listen to these people for like six more months?!
You can choose not to read those, or just accept that other people are excited by something you're not, or just stay here where sanity rules... mostly.
This brings me to another point I wanted to make: That I find it interesting that the majority of Hasbro's TF action figure product for the next year is based on one of the least 'kid-friendly' comic books ever put out by the franchise. First thing I thought of was the 'success' of the Spawn line in the 90's, and wondering if we weren't headed for another go-around of those days.
The "Generations" line is collector-oriented. Spawn didn't have a second line focused on kids, 3 ancillary kids lines (I just realized there were no Bot Shots this year, I guess they're dead), and an entire junior-themed expression with entertainment and its own toy line. TF isn't Spawn... thank god.
I know this was aimed at Dom, but it genuinely surprised me too. I had no idea that toy collecting had that sort of audience, it always seemed like a pretty niche, sidelined thing; a group with little influence or say that most brand managers and what-have-you rightfully treated as an afterthought. It's interesting to hear about a visible statistic to the opposite like that.
Yup, toy collecting is still really big and active, it's just not a very public hobby. You should have seen at Botcon the thug type guys in their late 20s and early 30s getting all excited over toys, not just this year either, it always cracks me up to see "urban street tough" guys who get giddy over Predaking and BH Prowl and whatnot. It's there, it's just not generally seen because it's a "grab and go" type of hobby, not a stand around in the same place doing something hobby.
Wasn't it innovation and crazy new ideas that brought people into the franchise back when it was practically dead in the mid-90's? Remember that?
I remember 1 innovation, ball joints. That's it, that's all the real innovation. The rest of it was marketing the line and creating media support that garnered attention. We had had beasts before, shellmasters before, Megatrons and Optimi before, drones and combiners and Spychangers and Powermasters before - all I just listed was BW, BM, RID, and Armada, how innovative was that really? It's a lot about presentation.
TM wrote:I wasn't a fan of either.
My speculation is both men got fired because of the lack luster ideas/concepts/designs they put forth in the last few years from 2009 thru 2013. These failed ideas translated in poor sales/profits,retailers losing ordering confidence in the TF brand. Fans getting upset about the awful TF toys & not buying them.
I don't know if either got fired or quit or what. Archer was a VP of marketing though, seems like they couldn't easily fire him, that's a board issue.
O6 wrote:FunPub loves to make horrible sets of toys that make no sense. Why did anyone need a pre-BW Rampage toy? They didn't! So why not make ANOTHER useless toy to go with it?
I wonder if OTFCC are limited in creating new characters so they have to work chiefly with what's come before.
Because it sets precedent. If it sells to kids, maybe Hasbro will think it'll sell to collectors, too. And then you get upscaled Legends Generations toys.
That's a little spurious in thinking. Hasbro markets and designs Generations for collectors primarily, otherwise there'd be no reason to do the line at all. I'm worried the upscaled Legion will be enough to push Hasbro out of making Generations altogether, but not worried that it'll infect it.
See, to me, my Doubledealer reaction was the exact opposite. I heard, "New Doubledealer!" and I went "ehh," and then I heard "Blitzwing repaint!" and went, "Oh, hm," and then I saw it and went "Fuck yeah."
I bet Hasbro wishes you had been there.
I mean, shit, if nothing else, this is celebrating all 30 years of TF--so there's going to be a couple Autobot Car guys in the mix. You should be lucky that of that, only two of them are Bumblebees!
Oh fuck, you just pulled the wrong lever in the temple and now the boulder is going to crush us all... RUN!!!
That's not a reveal, if you've kept your ears to the ground. Lots of people are gone--Siebenaler and Joe Kyde are gone too. (Siebenaler apparently now works on Star Wars.)
I have not done so, as the last 8 months of Hasbro have sucked the life out of this hobby.
Because jets have that on them? They just do.
Not recently.
PCC didn't fall on its face because it had new characters; it fell on its face because all of it sucked ass. Comparatively, the DOTM Human Alliance Basic guys were fucking awesome, and I bought at least a few of them.
I love new characters, even if they have recycled names. I don't like it when they're attached to shitty, forgettable toys with a shoehorned in gimmick.
PCC wasn't THAT bad, the basic packs were fine, should have sold better, but the market didn't care because 2 other TF lines were on shelves that had marketing support and recognizable characters, while PCC had... Huffer.
HA Basics sold ok, not stellar, they're not really helping or harming the point. But it's not like the line did super great enough to bolster your point about new characters not being the problem.
It was a well-written television show that wasn't all that better than much else on children's TV in the mid-90s. ("Then why was BW so well remembered?" Because people were comparing it to G1, which wasn't all that better than anything else in the 80s. The real answer: Shows like Batman TAS and Gargoyles raised the bar, and everyone else in the 90s had to compete.)
I'm sorry but no, I lived through that era as a kid, you're wrong, TF was better-written than the majority of toy cartoons of its era, it ended because Hasbro fucked with the recipe to make New Coke Transformers via The Movie and season 3. BW is so well remembered because it was the first successful CGI cartoon to tell relatively deep, personal stories while selling toys. TF G1 paved the way for B:TAS and its ilk.
I mean, it's telling that the thing everyone remembers about Beast Wars is the fucking cartoon, and not the toyline. I see people talk about Rhinox and Silverbolt and Waspinator and Megatron and Depth Charge all the fucking time. When was the last time someone talked about Wolfang, or Magnaboss, or Polar Claw? Serious question.
When was the last time someone talked about how incredibly shitty Rhinox and Silverbolt and Waspinator figures were, even? Those characters are so good on the show that we forgave how terrible their toys were. Depth Charge is essentially a NERF Disk Shooter gun with legs.
BWp wrote:Which is the big problem. What the hell do I need, say, Skids for? I just got TFP Hot Shot and Rumble last year, what does he do that they don't?
Are you practicing for the opera? Because all I'm hearing is "me me me me meeeee!"
Skids is a character in current media that is interesting and different as a character from others. Why does someone who owns Bluestreak need Prowl or Smokescreen? Why does someone who owns Shrapnel need any other Insecticon at all? Thundercracker, Ramjet, Dirge, Thrust, Skywarp? I HAVE STARSCREAM ALREADY, THANKS. TWINSTRIKE? NAH, I HAVE SINNERTWIN FROM 25 YEARS AGO, AND WHAT DOES HE DO THAT AIRACHNID DIDN'T LAST YEAR?
Hasbro is in the business of making fun toys for kids and totems of characters that collectors want to own. What Skids does that TFP Hot Shot doesn't do is look like the recent incarnation of Skids with all the crazy weapons and the updated look, and also he's not a shitty, gappy repaint of the most overused annoyance character of the last decade. What he does that Rumble doesn't is deliver a product to mass retail, and he does it without being a kibble-queen with giant shoulders and low detail and hollow accessories. Does that mean TFP Hot Shot and Rumble suck? No, I own them both, they're relatively alright, but they're not Skids.
Because I fucking hate Skids?
Pavarotti?
But those Joe things were actually packaged just as 'vehicle drivers'. These IM3 and Spider-Man toys look like those, but aren't even justified in being vehicle pack-ins, they're just sold on their own for full, regular price! I mean look at this shit:
Those are $5/$6 figures, not $10. They are meant for younger kids with less money to spend, not collectors.
See, that's just sad. TF didn't used to be that way at all, from BW through Cybertron it was something brand-new with new characters and toy concepts *every year*. Around Universe 2.0 I started to get fearful that the line would take a turn towards the Joe-y, and here we are, with a sea of Optimus Primes and Bumblebees to match the Joe side's piles of Dukes and Snake Eyeses.
Yeah, it's really tragic how there's no Breakdown or Skyquake or Dreadwing or Vehicons or Hardshell or Airachnid or Knock Out or Predaking or Terrorcon or Evac or Flamewar or Star Hammer or Energon Drillers or Twinstrike or Hun-Gurrr or Windrazor or Blight or Rippersnapper or Apex Armors or Rot Gut or Ripclaw or Skystalker or Vertabreak or Grimwing. That is a FUCKING SHAME THAT NONE OF THESE NEW OR SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT FROM THEIR NAMESAKE CHARACTERS EXIST IN THE CURRENT LINE.
And here we are with Prime, which is derivative and same-y AND it's a shitty TV show! Can't win on either end!
Aaaand by "samey" you mean not like any previous Transformers show in presentation or scenario, at its closest bridging the live movies to the G1 cartoon's first season to BW to Animated, right?
Man, how come the non-show BW guys were all WAY cooler toys than the guys who showed up in the cartoon?
Be....cause they weren't? Seems like you have a bias against show characters, there's nothing about K-9 that's better than Cheetor, nothing better about Polar Claw than Megatron, nothing better about Retrax than Optimus Primal.
Oh Six wrote:Oh yeah! You hated him in MTMTE, because you never saw Memento. (Also, they completely dropped that gimmick anyway, so, um...yeah.)
It may just be on hold.
BW is actually on Netflix, so I've been watching it here and there. When does it start to actually get...you know, good?
Right around 1997, do you have a working time machine? That'd help quite a bit. It's an alright show but its flaws are on display horribly when viewed from a modern lens.
Dom wrote:They have not made a Skids toy in 25+ years.
SHHH! Nobody tell Dom that Alternators existed.
Oh yeah, all of that important and defining stuff those characters did....uh....where? And, yeah, Wolffang's awesome beast...mode and.....great engineering and sculpting...and......
No.
But he stands there and looks terrible, that's a marketable skill now!
This. Exactly this. Twinstrike looks like a knock-off that somebody would buy an Easter Basket for and end up regretting.
Or a christmas stocking stuff for very poor children who think THE CORPS! is a major toy line.
I am not even a huge fan of "Beast Wars". But, I will say that those characters need better toys. Show me a *good* toy of any season one character. Even Inferno, arguably the best of the bunch, looks bad by modern standards. (Look at the hands.) The Transmetals looked good partly by comparison with lack-luster earlier toys.
Two points for Dom.
Even if I were working, even if I were making crazy grown-up money (that I hope to making soon), I would not spend that much on a toy like Metroplex. Yeah, it is big. That means it is going to be a pain in the ass to get home and it is going to take up space. Oh, and look, it has stickers (and the retail variant is missing at least one piece).
If Hasbro can use the toy's size and branding to cover for obvious short-comings, good for them. But, I am not going in for it.
We'll see in about 6 months if others feel similarly. I doubt that'll be the case, but large TFs generally don't sell out. Still, I don't see them taking a huge loss on this, there's a lot of interest at the show.
Which one do you think will work out better, repeating the days of collectors sinking their kids' college funds into Spawn figures, or Armada where toys were kept on the super cheap and appealed to a younger audience and took off?
Wow, still bashing on Armada huh?
"Armada" toys were at least fun. They looked like they were designed after the year 2000. Hasbro invested in giving each figure a unique (often character based) gimmick. There was plenty of fiddle value with "Armada" figures.
That was a point in Armada's favor I just made, dingus.
I am not saying that adults did not stick with comics (or toys) before the product improved. I am saying that I cannot understand *how* or *why* they did. I cannot even read most Silver Age comics. I just....can't. This is similar to how I cannot understand how Trekkies did it before "Next Generation". I got in to "Star Trek" in the early 90s, when there was a stream of new content. I would not have been able to sit for reruns for more than a cycle or two.
Right, hence "you are a bad analyst of such things". Trek is in that as well, the appeal of TOS and TNG and DS9 reruns carried fans a looooong way.
PCC failed because it was released in to a flooded market with new toys of old characters and movie stuff. Something had to give. With a little more support, or a less flooded market, PCC would have taken hold.
That is unlikely, its combiner appeal seems to focus solely on existing fans rather than new ones, but the product itself is designed to appeal the opposite way.
BWP wrote:That's the thing though, I like those guys because they're fun toys, with cool bios who are under-utilized as characters. They stir the imagination, y'know, like *toys* are supposed to.
And magically Skids and Whirl don't because they were in media? I don't see the logic of your point.
AU wrote:Didn't Skids get an Alternator?
I SAID SHHHHH!
O6 wrote:You actually completely described the line, more or less. (And yes, I guess I would, considering there is very frequently some new guy with camo who I want. For example, I love Hit & Run! Look him up, he is literally just a green camo guy.)
Spoken like someone who doesn't see the trees for the forest. GI Joe ARAH characters work best when they are individuals, the '82 figures are all samey and nobody really likes them that much. The more colorful and unique characters that came after are what define the line. The movies never understood that.
Oh, c'mon! Look at all the fucking guns he has!
Yo dawg, I heard you like guns so I put g-- OH FORGET IT, YOU GET THE JOKE ANYWAY!!!
AU wrote:I can count the number of transformers whose heads/helmets I give a shit about on one hand.
Is it the unproduced G1 figure, Handjob?
Then again I agree with Prowl in the sense that I'd rather have new characters than rehashes of the same old ones. You gotta have your prime, your megs, your screamer, and it's increasingly looking like you gotta have your bumblebee in a line... but other than that? I want a new cast of characters every year. If I were grand poobah of hasbro I'd say a line (that isn't intended to be full of homages) should have at least 50% new characters- not that these characters need to be new molds or have appearances in fiction, but still.
Why generate a ton of forgettable names in new content when you can use existing names and loosely-applied archetypes that the company is required to continue using and defending or else they lose the right to claim copyright on them? There are already HUNDREDS of characters in the TF brand already, why risk half-assing some new guy that often? So a handful of old-timers like us *might* buy a few new characters without griping? That's not much of an advantage compared to millions of potential customers new to the brand who might positively recognize a classic character name, and writers who can start writing a new series hitting the ground running, and legal control over existing characters free of any concerns of lawsuits.