TF Views

Replying to the "BW Prowl" comments in this thread.

1- If you dis-like the IDW TF comics so much,Then just stop buying them.

Are you buying the IDW TF comics,regardless if you hate/like them,so you have something to discuss with fellow on-line TF fans?

It's not hard to stop buying the IDW TF comics,I stopped buying in December 2011.

2- The Beast Wars cartoon series got the extreme attention from the Media BECAUSE IT USED GROUND BREAKING CGI for it's time period. By todays standards the BW CGI is outdated,looks awful & hasn't aged well.

3- TFP/BH is a serious cartoon series that many enjoy because of that. Not all of us enjoy watching TF cartoons with extreme clown/insane/Juvenile humor like the way Beast Wars,Beast Machines & TF Animated had. Some of us are adults & want a higher kid aged/teenager-adult TF cartoon themed series. Not all of us desire a toddler kid/ages 4-9 viewership aged TF cartoon series.

4-Regarding the toys,Nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything. Don't like,don't buy,simple as that.

5- The main problem with the Hasbro BH toy line,Is that someone at Hasbro chose to color all the toys in ugly color schemes. The sculpts themselves are not that bad. Takara chose better color schemes,which made the sculpts look better.

6- As far the the newer TF toys are concerned,things are getting better & not worse. Hasbro is trying to improve things,The proof is the 30th Generations toy line.

6a-My opinion,The TFP/BH toys are far superior to the DOTM & TF Animated toys.

7- Hasbro at Botcon 2013 said they fired a lot of medium to high level Employees working on the TF creative toy teams. These fired guys ideas are probably why the TF toy lines did so badly in sales for the past few years,With them gone,things will get better.

8- Their are barely Five 2014 BH Upsized legends made into simplified deluxes. This won't be the new norm,Just think of this as BH's version of the overly simplified movie-verse "Fast action Battlers." As most on-line fans speculated this was done because Hasbro ran out of new molds & wanted to stretch the line out a bit longer. Making them simplified was done to get toddlers interested in the TF toy brand.

9- Blame the bad economy not Hasbro. Every company is suffering & had to make cut backs,decrease product & raise prices.

10- Yes,I agree,Hasbro has made a lot of mistakes in the TF toy lines from 2009 thru 2013. But this is not worth getting overly stressed out about,not worth getting a heart attack,not worth getting hospiatlized over,it's not worth spending hours a day complaining on all the top 5 moderated TF forums using different user names & so forth.

11- Has USA retail confidence been lost on the TF brands? YES,Proof is in all the empty shelves/pegs,Stores are afraid to over order due to Previous TF toy lines not selling that great.

12- Most of Hasbro's TF toy line mistakes that make retailers order less on all the TF toy lines brands,are all the side lines & newer TF venue ventures toy lines they create like: role play,bot shots,2 inch statues,cyber-verse,RPM's,play sets,smash & bash,robot replicas,KREO/KREON was a bad idea that tanked from the start,The better approach would have been Hasbro partering up with lego to create some lego liscensed building blocks TF themed toys. I suspect Constructibots is another sales disater waiting to happen-->The smarter venue was to contact lego & to have them create some Bionicle TF themed sets. This way if the stuff tanks,it's not on Hasbro,it falls on lego. KREO's largest failure in stores is due to lego having a mafia type control in stores,as far as shelf space goes & it's loyal customer base.

13- A lot of Hasbro's TF toy lines mistakes stem from them not knowing how to use their HTS.COM site properly & not importing some of Takara's TF toy lines. Robot masters could have easily fitted into the TF universe or AEC toy lines as Basic sized TF toys. Alternity could have easily been sold as deluxe size Human alliance movie-verse TF toys. Those cancelled TFP Deluxes & Voyagers could have been sold on HTS as site exclusives. those reissues & MP TF toys could sell on the hts site. Recent Example---> Those Takara GO combiners could easily sell under the Generations toy line as repainted homage TF characters---> The samurai go trio team could be prowl,inferno & starsabre. The ninja go team could be repainted into Victoryleo or lio prime,Airrazor & Sky byte well make him a bad guy turned good---> I suspect the GO ninja & Smurai teams can interchange with each other like the scamble city combiners,that's why i picked the names starsabre & victoryleo,so they can cross combine in this line. I think a good USA Hasbro name for the GO Animal ninja Gestalt is Magnaboss.

14- From my point of view,Things are getting better & not worse for the 2013-2014 TF toy lines years. Most of the Generations FOC/30TH toys seems like decent toys. TFP/BH 2012/2013/2014 toy lines seem better than the DOTM & TFA toy lines were. The 2014 TF4 movie toys are bound to have a few decent toys in their that i'll buy.

JT wrote:Tell that to the episodes where they replaced Crow and Doctor Clayton Forrester, the Sci-Fi Channel seasons. OH THE HUMANITY!

Those seasons were my introduction to the show. I can't hate them.

Prowl wrote:How is it that Beast Wars, only the second iteration of TF past G1, was more unique and innovative than TFPrime, which is out nearly thirty years later, but has infinitely more in common with the original iteration of TF than that series that was out barely a decade after? If anything, shouldn't the series out later look LESS like the original, not more?

You want an example of a franchise that tries to "reinvent" itself so much that it doesn't even fucking know what it's about anymore? Watch all the Hellraiser movies.

(better yet, is BM on Netflix and coded to show in HD? That could be telling).

It isn't, which sucks, because that means I have to download it again if I want to see it. (What, pay for television? Fuck that.)

BWprowl wrote:

JediTricks wrote:Yeah, but RTS Lugnut was an throwback-style of plane where this is not.

*Shrug*, I think it looks cool anyway.

Sure. I wasn't arguing against it, just trying to make sense of it.

Right, I can see 'Beast Hunters' being the 'Transmetals' of TFPrime, where they keep the same basic content but introduce new spins on it to keep the line moving forward. I guess I just figured it would keep going and go somewhere...else afterwards. I dunno, it just doesn't feel like BH has even been around that long, to me. There's only been five Predacons released so far (discounting Legends)!

I hear ya, hope can be the worst poison. I think BH just wasn't developed thoroughly enough to tap the market properly - if it had been more successful, it would have continued. But Hasbro seemed to develop it almost on the fly, no real vision behind it, just throw something new at the audience and then try to cram it into the existing media support and hope for the best, and because of that the market didn't respond favorably enough to carry it beyond a single year.

Why are you discounting Legends? A lot of meat on those bones. Is it that they're a scale that doesn't interact with the majority of your collection? If so, seems like Hasbro cannibalized their own sales just as I predicted they would.

Look, a topic got started that was 'react to the toy reveals', and my reaction was one of disappointment and distaste. You asked why, I described why, and we got into a circuitous argument about it. I'm sorry I carried on a bit more than I should have, for now I'll leave it at "These toys don't appeal to me because neither their premise nor the media behind them can carry them for me" and be done with it.

Until new stuff gets revealed, so I can bitch about those too.

I guess I took issue with your reaction being one that lashes out at other fans and their interests rather than at Hasbro. I don't like Kre-o, but I didn't get all huffy at Kre-o just because there wasn't much new in Generations.

But see, this is what I mean when I say I worry about the line go all GI Joe on us. It's a slippery slope to go from "They should make another new Brawn since the previous one wasn't perfect and was hard to find" to "They should make a new Brawn EVERY year!". New Cosmos just a couple years after the last New Cosmos isn't at that level yet, I admit, but it's getting there. And I don't want to get there.

The concept of a slippery slope is a thought experiment that demands everybody think the same way you do, but not everybody sees your viewpoint as the logical, reasonable extension of the scenario. You somehow see "they should make another new Brawn 5 years after the last one which also SUCKED" as being a direct behavioral connection to "they should make a new Brawn every year" despite it being 24 years between the last 2 Brawn figures - that just doesn't have logical connection. Not everything is Bumblebee, and even Bumblebee is more than just "the G1 fans wanted more", there's a complex business decision about marketing a character to that extent.

I can't think of the last time TF had multiple multicolored varieties of dragons fighting guys turning into Mad-Max'd up vehicles with capture gear, but maybe that's just me.

Variation on a theme. The Hunt for the Decepticons subline 3 years ago did something similar, only not with beasts, but some characters like Ironhide did get Mad Max'ed out. Beasts fighting vehicles though, that's been done.

Combiners are nothing new, sure, but the way PCCs did them, with the limbs treated more as 'Super Mode' extras with auto-transforming and being able to add Mini-Con armor on, *that* was something new.

Energon Optimus Prime. The original concept of PCCs, where they were just robots, that would have been new.

You're missing the point quite handily. We'd seen stuff like Powermasters and Targetmasters before, but Armada made them the *whole line* took it further, and made the Mini-Cons a separate faction to further distinguish them (and I even pointed out that Armada was a step back in terms of innovation). To say that Energon's combining gimmick was anything like the Scramble City Combiners in any way save for 'robots sticking themselves together' is just nuts, they were very clearly doing something else there. Cybertron's various planets thing was less about 'mixing vehicles and beasts' and more about defining characters based on their environments by the aesthetics they were designed in: Velocitronians all being racing vehicles with their clear wheels, Beast Planet guys all being...beasts, Gigalonians being fantastical construction equipment with more intricate detailing to define them as being 'Giant' and coming with Mini-Cons, etc. I agree that it wasn't as innovative or envelope-pushing as BW and BM, but it was still unique.

Which is it, they're truly innovative, or they merely "took it further"? It can't be both, it can be one or the other. Either something is steeped foundationally in new ideas, or it's an extension of an existing idea. You seem to think changing some details, the little things like how parts interconnect, are what makes a line innovative, but that's not really it. They can be clever, but innovative is going from a cassette deck to an MP3 player, not going from an 8-Track cassette deck to a compact cassette deck.

That was my whole point with that though, that after that 'rut' started, it was all the same stuff. I recognize that Animated, the Movies, and Prime fall into that 'rut', I pointed that out. That 'rut' being the brand is precisely what I'm complaining about. I don't *want* it to be the brand anymore.

My point was that TF's rut started with G1, you simply see it as not found in the UT or RID or BM, you see it as a rut because you view it from a narrow lens, but that "rut" is actually the core of the brand and has always been there, it's what defines it. You don't want Transformers to be Transformers anymore, but I bet if you were to start collecting the original Go-Bots line right now you'd still complain, because it seems like what you're looking for is just "something else", you're not looking to extend the brand into new territories, you're looking to redefine what makes it a brand in the first place. And that's a losing battle because Hasbro isn't about to let that IP go freely only to pay more people to design a new line from scratch - look how poorly Transformers: Animorphs did, despite being based on a successful novel series outside the brand, and having TV media support.

Look at that other series I like: Kamen Rider. It reinvents itself every year, and almost every new Kamen Rider has bug-eyes on the helmet, transforms with a belt, rides a motorcycle, and might finish bad guys off with a flashy kick of some sort. But they aren't all named Takeshi Hongo, they aren't all green and black, they don't all fight villain groups named Shocker. And they still continue to dominate the toy sales in Japan. If that series can do it, why can't TF?

Because TF is developed for a Western audience that has different tastes, and because they are different brands with different cores and goals. Look at how poorly Kamen Rider has done in the US in its several attempts at cracking that market.

The problem is that there are finite combinations on the colorwheel. I think red and black and silver look amazing together, totally, but I wouldn't want *nothing* but red and black and silver toys. Variety, my friend.

There are a lot of combinations on the colorwheel though, it takes going through a whole lot to get to bright pink and brown.

The difference is that I to no degree want Hasbro to make a new toy of K-9.

Yet you still make it the basis for your opinions.

RID: Fantastic setup for ideas and concepts brought down to soul-crushing disappointment by an author that doesn't have the balls to actually follow through on those concepts and employed terrible, hackneyed means to keep things in a holding-pattern status-quo instead. Barber seriously thinks that mind-control and the Hate Plague are genuinely interesting 'plot twists' that are *better* to shift to from what previously appeared to be subversive, intriguing stories about well-intentioned extremism, self-serving faction loyalty, and conflict as an inherent part of the species.

They were plot elements, they're not overarching story arcs, and both seem to be on the back burner as the Autobots look inward while trying to survive being cast out.

MTMTE: Interesting ideas and good ability for writing characters, but Roberts is simply too excited to be working on a large-scale project like this, the way he flits from character to character and concept to concept like he can't wait to play with a new toy, without giving each character or concept room to grow or develop or be followed through on. He's also seriously in need of a more stringent editor, having a serious problem with writing PAGES of dialogue to get across points that could be done in a panel or two, and throwing out ideas and world-building in said sequences that are minimally important or completely inconsequential to whatever story he's telling at the moment (I'm a big believer in the law of conservation of detail; basically, if something isn't important or necessary to the story you're telling then, do not waste my time putting it out there). It also has Skids, who is a Deadpool-level annoying shitbird and I cannot wait for him to die.

None of that rings true from my experience reading the book, there are a lot of stories that continue to be layered from issue to issue, even if they don't get a lot of play in one place they're still hinted at and reminded of as they get through. There are a lot of balls in the air at once on that series, how do you show someone learning to cope with pain, or learning to trust, or feeling betrayed, or creating belief systems in just a panel or 2? The person who can DO that, rather than criticize about its lack, is probably the next big comic creator in the waiting. And Skids has barely done anything, offensive or otherwise, since his over-the-top introduction.

O6 wrote:Those seasons were my introduction to the show. I can't hate them.

My deepest condolences. I didn't say they're hateful, just they're as far from perfect as it gets.

You want an example of a franchise that tries to "reinvent" itself so much that it doesn't even fucking know what it's about anymore? Watch all the Hellraiser movies.

So true.

Why is this "less in need/more in need"? It's not a bread line, it's not about who has had it last. Tailgate is getting a toy, but where's Brawn? He's more recognizable from the G1 cartoon, but since he's not in the comics, no toy. Oh, right, he had another of those shitty Legends that nobody could find and wasn't very good. Here's a crazy idea, why don't they make characters that the majority of fans might want to buy, regardless of when they came out or how popular they are. Cosmos is a figure many fans want to own in modern quality, this is not a complicated recipe for success.

I can see what Prowl is saying though.

Cosmos had a toy 4 years ago. When did Tailgate last get a toy? When did any number of other comparably important characters last get toys. Does the new Cosmos add anything? When is the last time Cosmos did anything (that would warrant a new toy)? Does the upcoming toy look like Cosmos in the last important appearance? What about Seaspray or Bumper?

(For the record, I like the 2009 Cosmos figure. And, I also like the Legends Brawn mould.)

Never seen Minicons before that came with figures and caused different things, not Powermasters or Targetmasters, nope. Energon had combiner swapping, haven't seen that in Scramble City, not at all. Cybertron mixed vehicles with beasts? Wow, haven't seen that since... Beast Machines.

Minicons unlocked specific gimmicks on specific figures though. That was an upgrade of sorts. But, in general terms, yeah, most of the UT was an update of the "Master" G1 era.

Waspinator is not good: he's simple in sculpt, his deco is thick and lacking all subtlety, his alt mode is awkward and has problems staying together thanks to the robot legs while his robot mode arms are just sitting underneath, he's a very static creature, his robot mode is gappy and floppy around the chest, he's got too much kibble, and he's pretty basic in transformation.

And, Waspinator was one of the better toys of that era. Waspinator, Rhinox and Silverbolt looked better by comparison to much of what came before. But, those moulds have not aged well.

I think another part of it might be that, as much as me and other people like Beast Wars the show, it and its characters have been discussed to death and there isn’t a lot left to ‘think about’ with them. But guys like Sky Shadow and Jawbreaker (and the Deluxe Insecticons, tangentially) have cool looks and cool bios and nothing else, so it’s easy to get caught up imagining what adventures they would get up to

There is nothing to say about Jawbreaker or Skyshadow. They have on-package profiles, entries in IDW's sourcebook, maybe a spoken line or two in IDW's "Beast Wars" series (which was....iffy at best), maybe an appearance or two in some old BotCon stuff and K-9 showed up for a few panels in a Dreamwave" BW story. None of that is fodder for any real discussion beyond checking to see how much of that list might apply to a given character.


-Distracted Dom....

Dominic wrote:I can see what Prowl is saying though.

Cosmos had a toy 4 years ago. When did Tailgate last get a toy? When did any number of other comparably important characters last get toys. Does the new Cosmos add anything? When is the last time Cosmos did anything (that would warrant a new toy)? Does the upcoming toy look like Cosmos in the last important appearance? What about Seaspray or Bumper?

I can see what you guys are saying, I just don't agree or find that a convincing argument since it doesn't take audience context into account enough. Does the new Cosmos add anything? Fuck yes he does! He adds articulation and variety and recogizability while being something that is abnormal for the current line, he adds much-needed flavor to an expression that hasn't really caught fire yet - Legends 2.0.

Cosmos looks like the '09 figure in that they're both green flying saucers with red and yellow heads. That's it though, the new figure actually looks like a real figure of Cosmoso, while the '09 figure looks like a Happy Meal toy of a skinny tire store mascot with 5 moving parts.

What about Seaspray? And Bumper would be a poor choice right now, this is not a welcome environment for little yellow car characters thanks to Hasbro going Bumblecrazbee.

(For the record, I like the 2009 Cosmos figure. And, I also like the Legends Brawn mould.)

No accounting for taste.

Minicons unlocked specific gimmicks on specific figures though. That was an upgrade of sorts. But, in general terms, yeah, most of the UT was an update of the "Master" G1 era.

Variation on a theme, which was my point to begin with. There's nothing wrong with that either, but it's largely cyclical, that's what my point was.

Dominic wrote: I can see what Prowl is saying though.

Cosmos had a toy 4 years ago. When did Tailgate last get a toy? When did any number of other comparably important characters last get toys. Does the new Cosmos add anything? When is the last time Cosmos did anything (that would warrant a new toy)? Does the upcoming toy look like Cosmos in the last important appearance? What about Seaspray or Bumper? (For the record, I like the 2009 Cosmos figure. And, I also like the Legends Brawn mould.)

I also often complain about all these repeative homages toys,the current core cast has been getting since 2006. the world doesn't need dozens of Starscreams,hundreds of bumblebee's,dozens of ratchets,hundreds of megatron's & optimus. dozens of soundwaves,dozens of prowls,etc..

Their is literally thousands of TF character toys that are in desperate new of newer homage toys. With so many G-1 character toys,the current core cast can get swapped out with different characters. Examples: Swap out bulkhead with ironhide. Swap out bumblebee with rodimus,Swap out Megatron with Galvatron. Swap out ratchet with perceptor. swap out arcee with elita-1. swap out starscream with G-1 Cyclonus. Swap out Soundwave with Swindle.

G-1 Cyclonus,I feel deserves a 2nd homage new mold toy in the classics-verse toy line. Due to the 2.0 Cyclonus toy being made at the wrong small deluxe size scale. I think a 8 inch ultra sized toy in classics or the Masterpiece line is what I want to see. 1986 Cyconlus's toy was twice the size of most of the 1984 Transformers toys. 1986 movie/season 3 was shown as a decent sized big guy in the cartoon/movie. G-1 Cyclonus in season 3 had a high ranking second in command position,when Galvatron went nuts,Cyclonus would assume the leadership role.

I might be in the minority here,But I find the on-line fans desire to repaint every starscream mold into 5+seekers colors/persona's a bit OCD & Tiresome.

Even the season 3 guys have had a lot of exposure too. Rodimus, Cyclonus and Arcee in particular have had more new figures than we really needed. If they're going to keep mining the G1 character well for new toys give us updates of stuff from beyond the first three seasons: Joyride, Getaway, Slapdash, Pinpointer, basically all of the "master" figures which only had one episode of the cartoon and very little comic time. Or better yet: use the Micromasters. Let's finally give Erector something important to do.

EDIT: So I was looking at the BBTS Exclusive Platinum Edition Predaking reissue and I noticed that the sword he's holding looks almost exactly like the sword that the Voyager BH Optimus Prime comes with, just molded in gold. I wonder about the other weapons included with it as well...

Shockwave wrote:
EDIT: So I was looking at the BBTS Exclusive Platinum Edition Predaking reissue and I noticed that the sword he's holding looks almost exactly like the sword that the Voyager BH Optimus Prime comes with, just molded in gold. I wonder about the other weapons included with it as well...

Oh yeah. Lookit that, that is a new sword. Now I'm kind of curious about all that, too.

Also, man, I'm glad I got the Predaking reissue that I did, because I don't care much at all for the gold replacing the yellow on this version. Give me the big pile of bright colors any day of the week.

I view the TM2 toys as vastly inferior to TM1 toys.

138 Scourge wrote: Oh yeah. Lookit that, that is a new sword (for Hasbro Reissue Predaking). Now I'm kind of curious about all that, too.

I just went to the BBTS site & clicked on the USA Reissue Predaking pics. According to the box art,Predaking's huge side arm weapon now has a light up led light in it. Looking at the toy pics,The front black barrel has been remolded.