TF Views

As in, it'll never happen.

Alternators is the one Transformers line I've attempted to be a completist on. Which has been difficult, since I've never seen some of them in retail at all. I managed to get the majority of the line, but I'm missing four of them, namely Wheeljack, Swerve, Mirage and Hot Rod. And odds are I'll never get them, because the prices in the secondary market are just absurdly high. Last time I looked, Swerve was $70 and up.

I'm sure this will sit at the back of my mind somewhere and nag me. Normally I don't care about getting every figure in a line... not enough money, not enough storage space, dont' like every figure, and don't care to put in the effort to hunt the more obscure figures down. But Alternators is a line I really enjoyed, and there were few enough figures that the goal of collecting them all seemed achievable.

Maybe if I win the lottery... nah.

I'm the same! Except I'm only missing Camshaft and Decepticharge, who're just as bad. Bah.

If it's any consolation, Mirage sucks, and Rodimus Prime (Seriously, he's Rodimus Prime, it says so on his instructions) is awesome. I lucked out on Swerve, and got a loose one locally when another collector sold up. A good chunk of them were never released here, and although I sensibly sought out Nemesis and Rodimus Primes at the time, I never thought Decepticharge and Camshaft would skyrocket in price. Siiiigh.

I'm not 'that' big a fan of Alts, but when this close, it irks.

Well, if it helps any, guys...I'm missing TONS of the Alternators. Tons, I tellya.

Of course, I never intended on being all completist with 'em. I do feel sorta silly for passing on Swerve and Camshaft when I saw 'em in stores repeatedly, but...I just couldn't stand the look of either of 'em.

I would be feeling kinda wistful had I missed Rumble and Ravage, but as luck had it, they showed up on clearance one day after months of not being anywhere in this whole frickin' metro area. I have ungodly luck some days.

Hi. I'm Onslaught Six, and I do not like Alternators.

It's not any one factor. It's Cheetor Syndrome--there's just a whole bunch of little things that combine to bother the hell out of me.

For one, it's the scale. I Do Not Like This. They're just 'too big.' My G1ish Autobot army consists mostly of early G1 reissues and recent Deluxes like Classics and some select Cybertron and crap...so the Alternators 'tower' over almost everyone. Not just that, but due to their general designs, I find it 'very' hard to find anywhere decent to display them all. It's a real pain in the ass.

For two, it's the transformations. They are Not Fun. They're worse than the Cario Bros. but they have one flaw--at least with the Carios, you can usually pop off some of their kibble, get them into a proper bit, and snap the kibble back on. The Alternators tend to be more solidly designed specifically to 'not' do that. It's a real shit pain.

On top of that, the price. These things were $20 apiece. This makes them all, in my eyes, Pretty Damn Expensive. $20 on toys is where I start to feel dirty, like maybe I'm spending too much in one go. (For reference, I had $30 worth of toys on my way out of Wal-Mart today, and put Sunstreaker back because of this feeling.) It's not a social thing, it's a "Maybe I'm not gonna have enough money to pay my shit," thing.

Lastly, it's how 'insane' the line really was. Half the figures aren't who they're intended to be. They've got, like, a body designed for one character but with the head of the guy it's supposed to be, or the head of someone else but a proper body, or a body for someone else and a head that's clearly someone else but with an entirely 'different' character's name and deco. What the hell.

The new Classics fixes 'all' of these. $10. Deluxe scale. Generally less complex transformations. Proper homages. Woo.

For the record, I only own four Alternators: Smokescreen, Sideswipe, Tracks and Skids--and I only got Skids because Skids was $10 on clearance. For $10, Skids is 'awesome.'

Some of the things you don't like about Alternators, such as the complex transformations and size, are the very things I like about them. I wouldn't want every last Transformer to have those attributes, but I enjoy them from time to time. The size allows for greater detail. As far as the price goes, the size also helped justify that for me.

I do enjoy Classics as much or more than Alternators though. Better homages in many cases, and definately more fun. I tend to treat Alternators more as collectibles and display pieces than something I set on my desk to fiddle with when I'm bored.

I was fine with the size and price (I'd better be, considering how many of the things I have), but the 'complexity'.. It's not so much being, well, complex, since I enjoy a challenge and love clever transformations. They're the very thing that keeps me coming back again and again. Problem was, some of the Alternators were neither graceful, nor fun. Just unecessarily hard to transform, to the point of being counter-intuitive. The Mustangs' arms are just ridiculous. I admire the way they turn inside out and frame the car body, but detest the way they do it.

When I've moved and have had to transform 'every single figure' to vehicle mode, it's definitely a chore rather than a pleasure.

Y'know, one thing about the Alts that I really dig? When were standing there on a display shelf looking all awesome in robot mode, some of my friends who'd give me the ol' eyeroll or give me the "You're functionally retarded, aren't you?" look when they'd see other parts of my collection would have a look at the Alts and go "Yeah, that's a robot, all rig...holy shit, does that guy turn into a Mustang/WRX/RX8?"

Not that I'm particularly concerned what other people think of my collection, or anything, but it was fun seeing even non-fans do a double-take at 'em.

As far as some of the more whacked-out kinda updates Alternators brought on...I was actually okay with most of 'em. As awesome as, say, Smokescreen or Hound were for being a near-perfect update of the originals, or, say, Sideswipe or Jazz, for being rrrreally dang close, things like Grimlock, Shockwave, and the first Ravage impressed me for sheer whacked-out-ness and "didn't see that coming"-ness.

The complexity I was more or less okay with, too. The only ones who still give me trouble are...I think...Cat Ravage and, of course, the damn Mustang. It's like it's taunting me when I try to transform that one these days.."Ha, Ha! I, Grimlock, do not wish to revert to my disguise as a motorized conveyance! So suck it!"

I tend to agree with O6. Alternators was just plumb no fun at all. I can appreciate the consistent scale of the line. But, for the price, I wanted more variate in aesthetic and engineering. (Not only were they not fun to fiddle with, if you fiddled with one, you fiddled with a few of them.) And, the only story content available was aweful enough to ruin toys I was on the fence about.

But, I can see where Anderson is coming from. (STUPIDHASBROFRIGGINNOTMAKINGENOUGHDOCFIGURES). If you are trying to complete a line, or even a sub-line, and the toys are needlessly scarce and rare, it takes away from the hobby.


Dom
-happily dipping in and out of "Universe" for the moment.

Dominic wrote:I tend to agree with O6. Alternators was just plumb no fun at all. I can appreciate the consistent scale of the line. But, for the price, I wanted more variate in aesthetic and engineering. (Not only were they not fun to fiddle with, if you fiddled with one, you fiddled with a few of them.) And, the only story content available was aweful enough to ruin toys I was on the fence about.

Yes! That was the other thing. It seemed like every time we'd get new pics of a figure, it'd just oddly feel like we somehow already had seen this toy. It's more tolerable with Deluxes and such, though, because, yeah, $10. $20 is a big chunk to drop on a single figure when you can get 'two' that're likely equally as good or Better.

onslaught86 wrote:I was fine with the size and price (I'd better be, considering how many of the things I have), but the 'complexity'.. It's not so much being, well, complex, since I enjoy a challenge and love clever transformations. They're the very thing that keeps me coming back again and again. Problem was, some of the Alternators were neither graceful, nor fun. Just unecessarily hard to transform, to the point of being counter-intuitive. The Mustangs' arms are just ridiculous. I admire the way they turn inside out and frame the car body, but detest the way they do it.

When I've moved and have had to transform 'every single figure' to vehicle mode, it's definitely a chore rather than a pleasure.

Yeah, I'll give you the Mustang's arms. A great looking figure, but incredibly annoying to get those arms back into place. The figure crossed the line from 'enjoyably complex' to 'I want to rip off your arms so you'll look right, only then I'd lose the front wheels". Or something like that.

I think my favorites were the ones who updated the originals the best. Smokescreen and Bluestreak were updates of the original transformation scheme, which scored points with me. Hound was close as well. Tracks had some clever design ideas, but a lot of robot visible from underneath.

I think my least favorite was battle Ravage. Seemed like a wasted repaint/head remold to me, particularly after we got Ravage at the end of the line's run.