Our readers came up with these 2 questions to send in a month ago, and today Hasbro has supplied us the answers. To what does Hasbro attribute the popularity of G1? And why vehicle-only drones in the PCC line? Click in to read ‘em.
TFviews.com: To what does Hasbro attribute the long-term popularity of the Generation 1 characters and concepts? We get reissues, remakes that have appeared in Classics/Universe/Generations, Masterpiece figures, and the G1 characters currently appear in IDW’s Transformers comics. What do you think gives these characters lasting appeal that most characters from the Beast era, RID, or the Unicron Trilogy don’t seem to have achieved?
Hasbro: A great question! All in all, we believe that it is a combination of many different factors that has led to long-term popularity of the original G1 characters. Some of these factors include the depth of character, the newness of the concept of Transformers, the great story writing of the original series (the other series had great writing as well) and most importantly the connection that many of you fans have with that era of the brand. When you look at all of these factors combined together, you create a strong and powerful brand that creates an even more powerful set of emotions and memories for our fans.
TFviews.com: At Comic-Con, it was mentioned that the Drones in the Power Core Combiners line originally were conceived as having robot modes as well, but the idea got costed-out as the line developed. Why then use vehicle-only limb drones instead of robot-only limb drones? Was there a conscious choice to make them “faceless” vehicle drones that are not characters? Was the original PCC concept with robot-to-vehicle-to-limbs also meant to be drones, or were they to be unique characters like classic TF combiners?
Hasbro: Since day one of the Power Core Combiners concept, there were always only two modes for the “drones”. Ultimately, our goal was to create a new way to play out the cool concept of combination. Based on this goal, we felt that having vehicles that automatically converted into limbs for the bigger robot was fun, new and easier way for kids to play out the fantasy of combination. From there, we felt that it was important to wrap the fantasy of drones into the story line so that this new concept did not conflict with previous iterations of combiners in the lore.
– 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 in January. 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!