After a delay and a slight change in format from Hasbro, our readers came up with these 2 questions to send in on March 8th, and after a couple days’ delay, Hasbro was generous enough to supply us the answers.
TFviews.com: Will we see more secondary characters from one aesthetic being translated to others? This questions is especially focused on new character-specific molds (like movie Lockdown) rather than recolors (like movie Gears). We know it helps when the character has an interesting story to add to the lore, or interacts with a main character in their line. So beyond that, what is the process behind deciding which characters get that treatment?
Hasbro: This is something that is determined case by case. Choosing characters is a very selective process. Many factors come into play, but few are as important as Vehicle type and Character Variety within the line. ROTF Lockdown was a good candidate because there was a need for his type of vehicle in the toyline, and it was a perfect opportunity to make some parallels between different continuities by making him mortal enemies with Ratchet. As we move forward we will certain take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.
TFviews.com: Why is it that Leader-class figures in the ROTF line have just 1 voice clip per figure, yet the Animated line had 3 lines of dialogue per Leader figure? It can’t just be about paying actors since ROTF Jetfire uses a different voice actor altogether. And why is it that all of these Leader-class ROTF figures single voice line are just them introduce themselves rather than having interesting movie lines or at least exciting, in-character dialogue? Even some of the little-kid-themed ROTF toys do more talking than these $40+ figures, doesn’t that seem like a waste of a voice chip to use merely 1 line of dialogue?
Hasbro: So the short answer to this question is this, we felt it was important pack a bunch of different sounds into each toy including speech, conversion and vehicle sounds. Thus the 15 sec sound chip that we have in each of the Leader figures filled up pretty quickly only allowing us to put in 1 line of speech for each figure.
– Well, that’s it for this round. This is a bi-monthly Q&A series so we’ll have more great questions ready to go on May 3rd. Thanks to all the readers who participated by coming up with these questions, and thanks to Hasbro for making this Q&A possible.
If you’d like to discuss these answers with other fans, or you’d like to submit a question of your own, join us in the Transformers Q&A thread in our forums!