Generations Beast-era figures, ranked

[BWprowl]

You're missing the point that most them couldn't use the old G1 designs for one reason or another. Megatron especially given the US laws about toy guns. And some characters like Bumblebee, Hasbro and Takara tried in vain to get the rights from VW years ago to make the Alternators figure that never was so there was no way they could make him a Bug. I'm still surprised to see they somehow (and only recently) got those rights for the Masterpiece version. And that's where the Masterpiece line differs, they have the licensing rights for those vehicles to make them like the G1 figures, not to mention it's a line dedicated specifically towards older collectors rather than kids that probably have never seen a 1980's Lamborghini.

Yet that doesn't explain Grimlock, for one thing, who differed completely from his G1/cartoon incarnation despite having a completely fictitious altmode that wouldn't have been encumbered by licensing. Further, the licensing issue is indeed one reason the altmodes of these re-made toys differ, but it doesn't explain why many of them still went out of their way to diverge from the cartoon models without worry.

What? Cheetor I'd give you, considering it appears they decided to focus on making his beast mode a better cheetah (the original toy was supposed to be a panther) and compromised the robot mode as a result, but not Dinobot and Rhinox. They are closer to the show model's than their original toys are (which is saying something considering how much their animation models 'cheat'). Sure they might have a few unique elements to them, but they are no where close to having their own unique design like some of the G1 Classic/Generation figures do. Heck, Dinobot even has fake claws just for the purpose of making his hands look like the show. And if you look at the original design sketch for Generations Rattrap, he was meant to be more like the show model than the actual toy is. Waspinator is no different from them.

Have you actually compared Generations Rhinox to the show model? The overall shape is similar, but almost all of the actual details are completely different. Like I said, it was clearly inspired by the show, but still went along with the standard Classics/Generations philosophy of being its own idiomatic take on the character, and the toy is stronger and less compromised because of it.

Dinobot specifically has optional robot hands as a new design element added onto him, as well as the rotating faction symbol (something not at all incorporated into the show design). The way the weapons are handled is also different, to say nothing of the colors.

Despite Rattrap starting out more slavishly close to the cartoon in the design stage, things clearly diverged at some point, particularly in the legs (the tail/back kibble section is also handled differently than in the show), and again, the toy is stronger for it. Some reason they couldn't have worked that same sort of creativity into Waspinator?

[Sparky Prime]

Yet that doesn't explain Grimlock, for one thing, who differed completely from his G1/cartoon incarnation despite having a completely fictitious altmode that wouldn't have been encumbered by licensing. Further, the licensing issue is indeed one reason the altmodes of these re-made toys differ, but it doesn't explain why many of them still went out of their way to diverge from the cartoon models without worry.

If you already have to diverge from the established designs for so many characters, it makes sense to go ahead and do that for all of them. "In for a penny, in for a pound" so to speak.

Have you actually compared Generations Rhinox to the show model? The overall shape is similar, but almost all of the actual details are completely different. Like I said, it was clearly inspired by the show, but still went along with the standard Classics/Generations philosophy of being its own idiomatic take on the character, and the toy is stronger and less compromised because of it.

I completely disagree. Again, the show is able to cheat with the models in ways the toys can't replicate, but as far as they're able to do, the toy is as accurate to the show as it can be. It's not its own idiomatic take on the character at all, it's meant to be like the show.

Dinobot specifically has optional robot hands as a new design element added onto him, as well as the rotating faction symbol (something not at all incorporated into the show design). The way the weapons are handled is also different, to say nothing of the colors.

Yes, the toy has optional robot hands, but that just reinforces the point they didn't have to give him the claw hands like he's got in the show. Probably could have hidden them better in his beast mode if they hadn't decided to give him robot hands though, making a case for the toys being stronger if they hadn't tried to incorporate new design elements (Cheetor certainly wouldn't have suffered so much if they'd gone with a more show accurate design). And the rotating faction symbol is clearly meant to be a reference to his changing sides in the show rather than an element of the character's design. The weapons are still reminiscent of the weapons he had in the show. Even though the colors are off with the Hasbro version (the Takara version is much better), it's still a more accurate representation of the character than the original toy was.

Despite Rattrap starting out more slavishly close to the cartoon in the design stage, things clearly diverged at some point, particularly in the legs (the tail/back kibble section is also handled differently than in the show), and again, the toy is stronger for it. Some reason they couldn't have worked that same sort of creativity into Waspinator?

I'd argue Rattrap is actually weaker for it. I don't like the changes they made to the legs at all. I recall you complained about the legs when you mentioned the figure in the Hauls thread a couple months ago as well. I don't see why you think Waspinator isn't a creative design personally, I think they did a better job with him than they did Rattrap.

[BWprowl]

If you already have to diverge from the established designs for so many characters, it makes sense to go ahead and do that for all of them.

Except for Waspinator, apparently?

I completely disagree. Again, the show is able to cheat with the models in ways the toys can't replicate, but as far as they're able to do, the toy is as accurate to the show as it can be. It's not its own idiomatic take on the character at all, it's meant to be like the show.

But they *don't* look just like the show, certainly not to the degree that Waspinator does, that's the point I'm trying to make. The other toys make their own changes and compromises and decisions that emulated elements of the show designs while still acknowledging their need to be independent toys at the same time. Waspinator has none of that, they just straight-up copied the show look, down to including a fake chest panel and fake bug-leg details on his legs, without even trying to actually incorporate those elements into the functionality of the figure. It would be like if Generations Rattrap had a secondary pair of rear rat legs stuck to his back in robot mode.

Yes, the toy has optional robot hands, but that just reinforces the point they didn't have to give him the claw hands like he's got in the show. Probably could have hidden them better in his beast mode if they hadn't decided to give him robot hands though, making a case for the toys being better if they tried making it more like the cartoon. And the rotating faction symbol is clearly meant to be a reference to his changing sides in the show rather than an element of the character's design. The weapons are still reminiscent of the weapons he had in the show. Even though the colors are off with the Hasbro version (the Takara version is much better), it's still a more accurate representation of the character than the original toy was.

First off, the original Dinobot toy wasn't and didn't need to be an accurate representation of anything; it came first, it was the show that was inaccurate. The claw-hands are on the new toy as an acknowledgement of the old design's feet-hands and the cartoon's adoption of that, but now he ALSO has optional regular hands as a point that the toy doesn't NEED the claw-hands anymore on account of not transforming that way anymore. It pays homage to both the toy and the show, and moves the design itself forward via modern engineering and new design work! Amazing!

Waspinator, meanwhile, has a stupid panel behind his pointlessly-split beast head that does nothing.

I'd argue Rattrap is actually weaker for it. I don't like the changes they made to the legs at all. I recall you complained about the legs when you mentioned the figure in the Hauls thread a couple months ago as well.

The façade cartoon legs molded into the fronts of the legs do bother me (really should have just designed the fronts of those legs to be their own thing and incorporate the new shape of the leg parts), but the way of getting there, and the actual transformation of the rat legs and incorporating them, that's a nice touch. Way better than just jamming all four rat legs on his back and having plain old robot legs fold out simply because that's how the show did it. The fact that it takes a feature from the show (the bomb hidden in the arm) and turns it into a gimmick that actually enhances the toy and makes it more fun, and manages to do something interesting with Rattrap's gun (in the show it was just a regular gun, but the toy lets it do that neat separating thing) are more points in its favor, nice little touches the designers worked in that make the toy better overall.

I don't see why you think Waspinator isn't a creative design personally, I think they did a better job with him than they did Rattrap.

They didn't do anything with Waspinator though! There was no creativity involved, they copied the cartoon design down, then folded the modes into each other in the simplest, laziest ways they could conceive (just strap the legs to the bottom and clip the arms to the side and presto! A wasp!). There's just nothing to it.

[Sparky Prime]

Except for Waspinator, apparently?

Except the figures you've been talking about on this particular point (Grimlock, Bumblebee, Mirage and so on) were the early Classics figures. Most of the more recent Generations figures however have been much more accurate to the comics, video game and show designs rather than a completely new design all on its own.

But they *don't* look just like the show, certainly not to the degree that Waspinator does, that's the point I'm trying to make. The other toys make their own changes and compromises and decisions that emulated elements of the show designs while still acknowledging their need to be independent toys at the same time. Waspinator has none of that, they just straight-up copied the show look, down to including a fake chest panel and fake bug-leg details on his legs, without even trying to actually incorporate those elements into the functionality of the figure. It would be like if Generations Rattrap had a secondary pair of rear rat legs stuck to his back in robot mode.

Again, the show models can *cheat*. Waspinator just happens to be the most accurate figures in terms of the show, as one character that remained fairly close to the original toy design. Rhinox they got as close to the show model as they could, but there are things they did with the show model no toy could possibly do (like having the entire lower jaw of the rhino mouth stretch out to form his entire chest). They made them as accurate as they could while still making the figures functional. If they were meant to be their own independent design, then what's the point of making them so close to the animation model at all? It's because the designers wanted them to look show accurate (the guy who actually helped design Rhinox, Waspinator and Rattrap even said as much on his blog).

First off, the original Dinobot toy wasn't and didn't need to be an accurate representation of anything; it came first, it was the show that was inaccurate. The claw-hands are on the new toy as an acknowledgement of the old design's feet-hands and the cartoon's adoption of that, but now he ALSO has optional regular hands as a point that the toy doesn't NEED the claw-hands anymore on account of not transforming that way anymore. It pays homage to both the toy and the show, and moves the design itself forward via modern engineering and new design work! Amazing!

I'm not saying the original Dinobot needed to be an accurate representation of the show model, the point I'm making is just that they made the Classics figure a better representation of the show model because that's mainly what they were going for with that version. Hence details like the claw hands. If they were going for a totally new idiomatic take on the character, do you think they would have bothered with an unessisary second sets of hands for robot mode? As it is, I think the figure suffered because they tried to incorporaccuracy new elements when they should have just stuck to show accuracy.

Waspinator, meanwhile, has a stupid panel behind his pointlessly-split beast head that does nothing.

Why does it have to do anything? I like the aesthetic of it that way rather than just having the beast head fold down so that it looks like he's got a full wasp's head on his chest personally. We had plenty of toys in Beast Wars like that, it's good to see some variety.

The façade cartoon legs molded into the fronts of the legs do bother me (really should have just designed the fronts of those legs to be their own thing and incorporate the new shape of the leg parts), but the way of getting there, and the actual transformation of the rat legs and incorporating them, that's a nice touch.

Even if the front of the robot legs were designed differently, I still don't like how the rat legs are just jammed into the back of his robot mode legs. That doesn't look like they incorporated them to me, it just looks like they tried to hide them but didn't have enough room to actually do that, so they just kind of stick out from his heals.

They didn't do anything with Waspinator though! There was no creativity involved, they copied the cartoon design down, then folded the modes into each other in the simplest, laziest ways they could conceive (just strap the legs to the bottom and clip the arms to the side and presto! A wasp!). There's just nothing to it.

Again, I'd argue it does take creativity to make something so accurate to the cartoon design. You can animate the characters however you want (cheating to make them do things a toy can't), but when it comes to the toys, you have restrictions with what the actual figure can do. They have to be able to transform, and it needs to look right in both forms. That isn't as easy to do as you make it seem.

[Onslaught Six]

Yet that doesn't explain Grimlock, for one thing, who differed completely from his G1/cartoon incarnation despite having a completely fictitious altmode that wouldn't have been encumbered by licensing.

Let's back up for a second--part of the Classics ethos seems to be "modern altmodes," for better or worse. Grimlock is a case where you simply can't make him his old altmode verbatim, because our ideas of what a T-Rex is have changed drastically since 1985--hell, they've changed drastically recently, too. Grimlock required a differently-designed T-Rex mode, and at his scale, doing his old transformation verbatim probably wouldn't have worked as well, so they went ahead and did something newer. If I'm not wrong, he was the same wave as Mirage, who was equally divergent. You could also argue Bumblebee, who I think was a Wave 1 figure, was pretty divergent from the "cartoon" design as well. Prime, Megatron, even Hot Rod--you'll actually find that many of the original Classics toys weren't that slavish in their "cartoon accuracy" as you're implying.

(the guy who actually helped design Rhinox, Waspinator and Rattrap even said as much on his blog).

Can I get a reference link? I'm just interested to read it.

[BWprowl]

Let's back up for a second--part of the Classics ethos seems to be "modern altmodes," for better or worse. Grimlock is a case where you simply can't make him his old altmode verbatim, because our ideas of what a T-Rex is have changed drastically since 1985--hell, they've changed drastically recently, too. Grimlock required a differently-designed T-Rex mode, and at his scale, doing his old transformation verbatim probably wouldn't have worked as well, so they went ahead and did something newer. If I'm not wrong, he was the same wave as Mirage, who was equally divergent. You could also argue Bumblebee, who I think was a Wave 1 figure, was pretty divergent from the "cartoon" design as well. Prime, Megatron, even Hot Rod--you'll actually find that many of the original Classics toys weren't that slavish in their "cartoon accuracy" as you're implying.

No, no, what you're saying IS what I was saying: The Classics toys (and to a similar degree, the Universe and Generations stuff) took liberties and did redesigns and creative reinterpretations of the characters they were new toys of. My ENTIRE problem is that they could do stuff like that, but for whatever reason Waspinator went and was a slavish adherence to the cartoon model, down to including fake, pointless parts just for the sake of that.

(the guy who actually helped design Rhinox, Waspinator and Rattrap even said as much on his blog).

This is idiotic. If he really wanted Rhinox and Rattrap to be as cartoon-accurate as Waspinator turned out, why didn't he do the same sort of stuff he did on Waspinator? He could have included a fake lower-jaw part on Rhinox's chest to match the show better, or had all four rat legs end up on Rattrap's back instead of folding into his robot legs. But he didn't, he actually creatively reinterpreted those designs to work better as transforming toys unto themselves. Which makes me wonder if he did those first and was just burnt out by the time he got to Waspinator, which is why that one ended up being such a lazy lack of effort.

[Sparky Prime]

(the guy who actually helped design Rhinox, Waspinator and Rattrap even said as much on his blog).

Can I get a reference link? I'm just interested to read it.

Sure...
After the official reveal of Generations Rhinox, Cosmos and Waspinator figures by Hasbro, Rhinox's design, Waspinator's design, and Rattrap's design.

This is idiotic. If he really wanted Rhinox and Rattrap to be as cartoon-accurate as Waspinator turned out, why didn't he do the same sort of stuff he did on Waspinator? He could have included a fake lower-jaw part on Rhinox's chest to match the show better, or had all four rat legs end up on Rattrap's back instead of folding into his robot legs. But he didn't, he actually creatively reinterpreted those designs to work better as transforming toys unto themselves. Which makes me wonder if he did those first and was just burnt out by the time he got to Waspinator, which is why that one ended up being such a lazy lack of effort.

Look at the links I posted above. Again, the designer *himself* said they were going for show accuracy, not to 'creatively reinterpret' them like you keep insisting. Besides, how could they include a fake lower-jaw on Rhinox? I mean, where would you propose they could have hidden something like that in his beast mode? The figure really doesn't have the room for something like that. And look at his design for Rattrap. He actually does have all four rat legs on his back in robot mode, but for some reason that got changed down the line of development of the figure. He also mentions Rattrap was designed after Rhinox and Waspinator, so you can't claim he was burned out when he worked on Waspy.

[Onslaught Six]

Look at the links I posted above. Again, the designer *himself* said they were going for show accuracy, not to 'creatively reinterpret' them like you keep insisting. Besides, how could they include a fake lower-jaw on Rhinox? I mean, where would you propose they could have hidden something like that in his beast mode? The figure really doesn't have the room for something like that. And look at his design for Rattrap. He actually does have all four rat legs on his back in robot mode, but for some reason that got changed down the line of development of the figure. He also mentions Rattrap was designed after Rhinox and Waspinator, so you can't claim he was burned out when he worked on Waspy.

Actually, all he says is that he was "trying to capture the right attitude, silhouette and the details form the cartoon," not that they were directly based on the cartoon designs. Details, sure, like his big-ass mace chaingun, his forearms and legs, etc.

But look at, say, Rattrap, and you can clearly see that these are just preliminary things done with no engineering focus. Rattrap's arms look like they're connected to gears or something--perhaps trying to emulate the original flipchanger toy? And there's no way his legs would have worked in any real capacity, they're much too thin to be formed like they are on the final toy.

Also, having seen both the drawing and some pics of Waspy for the first time in months--I can't believe you're actually bitching about this, Prowl, his chest isn't even there. What, are you complaining that the head splits open at all? It does it because it looks cool and it's an old detail of both the toy and show models. I mean, what, would you complain that a new Cheetor has his beast head as the chest?

[Sparky Prime]

Actually, all he says is that he was "trying to capture the right attitude, silhouette and the details form the cartoon," not that they were directly based on the cartoon designs. Details, sure, like his big-ass mace chaingun, his forearms and legs, etc.

He said more than that. Go back to the first link, the one with the Hasbro pictures of Rhinox, Cosmos and Waspinator. There he specifically says: "Especially with the Beast Wars figures, the goal was to make them as close as possible to their cartoon counterpart."

But look at, say, Rattrap, and you can clearly see that these are just preliminary things done with no engineering focus. Rattrap's arms look like they're connected to gears or something--perhaps trying to emulate the original flipchanger toy? And there's no way his legs would have worked in any real capacity, they're much too thin to be formed like they are on the final toy.

I don't agree, there is some engineering focus in the sketches, albeit more so with Rhinox and Waspinator. With Rattrap he mentions he only designed the robot mode, so perhaps he wasn't as focused with engineering with that one, but still, if you look close enough you can tell he was still thinking about how the figure would work. The gears where present on both the original toy and the show model, and did make it to the final version of the Generations toy as well. And I'm not seeing why you think the legs look too thin.

[BWprowl]

Sure...
After the official reveal of Generations Rhinox, Cosmos and Waspinator figures by Hasbro, Rhinox's design, Waspinator's design, and Rattrap's design.

How can you look at these and say they're anything remotely 'creative'? All he did was copy down the cartoon designs, verbatim. I don't see that he even gave any thought to how these things would actually work and be engineered as toys, it's absurd. Obviously something happened at the engineering level where some legitimate work and effort was expended on Rattrap and Rhinox, but with Waspinator they just went and followed his copies of the cartoon control art. Ridiculous, did he even try? Anyone who draws BW fanart could have produced those 'designs'!

Also, having seen both the drawing and some pics of Waspy for the first time in months--I can't believe you're actually bitching about this, Prowl, his chest isn't even there. What, are you complaining that the head splits open at all? It does it because it looks cool and it's an old detail of both the toy and show models. I mean, what, would you complain that a new Cheetor has his beast head as the chest?

The chest-panel is there, it's this single stupid static piece that looks like the part that folds down for the mutant head on the original toy. It's just 'there' because it was in the show. The head splitting on the original toy was solely for that functionality, that's why later iterations of Waspinator (Animated, the Legends Targetmaster guy) just had it flip down as one piece, since they didn't have to maintain that functionality. The new Generations toy could have had it done that (or transform any other way), but instead they went ahead and had it split open with that panel behind it for absolutely no reason, other than to appease the designer's apparent fetish for the cartoon.

Animal heads for TF chests happen as often as car hoods for chests, there's nothing wrong with that. But when you copy down a specific technical detail from the show model without understand or acknowledging why it was there in the first place, it comes off as shallow and lazy, and that *bothers* me. Ditto the legs: He just copied down the design of the robot legs as big folded-up insect legs without any attempt to incorporate the fact that they were supposed to *be* big folded-up insect legs. It's like fake truck chest-windows on Optimus Primes that don't even turn into that kind of truck, except with way less precedent and even less excuse!