BotCon Generations Reveals

[BWprowl]

So it's a shades of gray situation, but somehow your reaction is complete polarization? That doesn't seem balanced.

There’s a scale to it. If a ‘perfectly fine’ version of an established character already came out recently (EG: 2-3 yeas, though frankly I think ‘Classics’ was still plenty recent enough) we don’t need ANOTHER new version at pretty much the same scale and style. Because it’s wasteful, and will greatly harm the line in the long run.

I have this fucker on my table with my minibots, I did this just a few days ago, mentioned it in the forums and everything, so I have this figure right here and while it's more G1 than some DOTM stuff, there's no mistaking it for a Generations figure at all. The face has those creepy eyes, the painted and sculpted tech detailing is way beyond anything generations, the weird feet, it doesn't fit in that well. While YOU might accept it, this is another shades of gray situation where the idea that YOUR opinion trumps everybody's, that you are getting actively upset and freaking out because something is slightly newer than you'd like, that thinking seems very closed-minded to me.

Closed-minded is thinking Hasbro needs to waste time and resources on a whole-friggin’-new G1 Powerglide when the DOTM figure is at least already 90% of the way there. Just retool that thing, save time and make good use of your resources, and don’t pollute the line with redundant remakes.

Notice how you said "arguably" in there, how you aren't really SURE how they could do this because none of us actually work with the company budgets and retailer demands and so on? That's why we can complain we want things, but we can't force changes; we can have ideas, but not true solutions.

So the solution is to waste a repaint/retool on making ANOTHER Windcharger right after the previous one that really is only going to lead to people complaining that Hasbro didn’t just re-release the ‘good’ Windcharger in the first place?

Seriously though, Hasbro straight up said so to TFwiki during the 2010 brand Q&A:

Is the new Voyager Sea Spray a character who lives in the live-action film universe?

Sea Spray is continuing under the design philosophy that we started with Classics line and continued through Universe. It is all about reimaging classic characters in a new, 21st century styling.

And backed that up with this answer they gave us at ActionFigs.com 6 months later on December 1st, 2010:

Lately, the Revenge of the Fallen line figures seem to have been moving away from the movie aesthetic, especially since the start of "Hunt for the Decepticons". Brimstone and Hubcap, Terradive and Tomahawk, Seaspray - even Human Alliance Jazz to some degree - those are all movie-line figures that feel in many ways more traditional in their styling. Was that shift away from some of the movie universe's more outlandish design stylings intentional with the latest toys, and what prompted that shift?

Brimstone, Hubcap, Terradive, Tomahawk and Seaspray do not exist in the movie world, so that would explain why they do not fit the aesthetic that was established in the first two movies. Our goal continues to be to design realistic vehicles that could exist in today's world that of course convert into cool looking figures, but at the same time are great toys to be played with. As such, some of the "design" aesthetics might change to fit character designs into the vehicle designs, thus the reason for the style change.

Sea Spray was even designed with Classics in mind, but with no Voyager class in the line at that time, they moved it to the other line. The idea that Seaspray with the simpler detail and classic features is movie and Powerglide with his mountains of modern tech detailing and features is Classics boggles the mind.

I don’t do this often, but I will challenge Hasbro on this one: They have no clue what they’re talking about. HFTD Sea Spray may not be overtly ‘Movie-styled’, but he sure as hell doesn’t look anything like G1 Seaspray. He has the color scheme and general vehicle mode, but NOTHING else; Universe Powerglide is closer to his original version than that Sea Spray is to his. It’s a great toy, don’t get me wrong, but it sure as shit isn’t acceptable as ‘a new toy of G1 Seaspray’.

Oh yeah, they're Battle Chargers, I always get them mistaken for Stunticons. So they're WORSE than a combiner bot, they're just plain ol' shitty, and we just got them 2 years ago from FunPub.

Club-exclusive repaints hardly count in this situation. If that were the case, Springer should never have gotten new toys (and I’ll get to that in a bit). You can’t argue that the shitty BotCon Scourge was a reason for the fantastic Generations Scourge not to exist. Really, had Cosmos’s and Powerglide’s toys they just got a few years ago been cruddy Club repaints of Cybertron Legends Soundwave and Starscream, I wouldn’t be saying anything.

And you can’t sing the praises of friggin’ Powerglide then turn around and say the Battlechargers are shitty.

Look out, ridiculous hyperbole incoming, get to the shelters! Duck and cover! Keep your head low or some hyperbolic nonsense might hit you!

That's code for

That’s my point though. I went through this back when Cosmos came out, saying it was going to eventually doom the line to nothing but the same characters remade every couple years, and you all said I was panicking and there was no way that was going to happen. But here we are now, and now we’re getting new Powerglide and Windcharger after just a couple years, which is escalatedly worse than the Cosmos situation. So how far does it have to go before you understand where I’m coming from here? Three years from now, when the line is nothing but new Springers and Whirls and Cosmoses and Windchargers? Will you still be accusing me of hyperbole, or will you finally see what Hasbro is doing here and why it SUCKS?

I just QUIT buying GI Joe barely 2-3 years after I started collecting it because I already ‘had’ everyone and nearly everything on shelves was just another revision of someone I already ‘had’ (exacerbated by all GI Joes being kinda samey to begin with). Now TF has been looking like it’s heading that direction, and I don’t WANT it to get to that point because I LOVE TF as a line and would hate to stop collecting it.

and PS the Generations line had 2 Springer figures in a year, where was the bitching then when we went from a FOC remold to an all-new triple-changer? Oh right, there was none? Got it.

There is a world of difference between Springer getting by on half-assed remolds followed by him getting a near-perfect fully-new toy, and Powerglide getting two toys at the same scale that look basically the same within two years. Read my review of Springer, I acknowledge that Hasbro had kept ‘trying’ to make new Springers in different ways, but also pointed out that they can STOP now that Generations Springer exists and is basically the best thing ever. If they ever replace THAT toy, you will see more bitching than I’m putting forth now, that’s for sure.

I simply don’t want to live in a world where, three years from now, we’ll be sitting around bitching about how crappy Generations Warpath and Springer suddenly are and how Hasbro needs to dedicate resources and space in the line to replacing them.

Powerglide is well-remembered for his unusual flying Autobot figure and for his cartoon appearances, he's somewhere between Lando and the Biker Scout. But here's the good news, YOU STILL DON'T HAVE TO BUY HIM.

But the LINE would be BETTER and I could have more stuff I WANT to buy if they didn’t waste time making him!

I'm sorry, what? You mean new revisions like TF:Prime, which you found endless ways to bitch about, and in fact are now bitching about its sequel, TF:Robots in Disguise?

Who’s new and interesting in TFPrime? Knock Out? Okay. It’s a whole different situation between the 1987-1988 lineup with all-new movie-cast guys and Combiners and Headmasters and Targetmasters and Pretenders, and the TFPrime lineup, which is just them ticking off boxes: “Okay, new Optimus Prime, new Bumblebee, new Ratchet, new Megatron, new Starscream…”

Had TFPrime legitimately been almost nothing but new guys like BW, or 2000!RiD, then I’d have complained about its character/style choices far less. (Or if it had been, y’know, good. Animated recycled just as much as TFPrime, but was actually a good show, so it was hard to complain about.)

And this brand endures because sticking to that old marketing system FAILED in 1990, remember? Times have changed, branding has changed, markets and economies and kids have changed. The Generations brand has endured because it is able to navigate the seas of change, and your argument is to drag it back down to when it stopped working? Nobody is forcing you to buy these figures, but to pretend that the line would survive without them is just as wrong-headed as my Star Wars friends who say the line would survive without new main character figures every once in a while - and if we're getting new releases, they damn well better at least be somewhat new toys.

I’m pretty sure the success of Transformers as a brand does not hinge on them releasing new Powerglides and Cosmoses every couple years. Somehow I don’t think the whole line would Titanic if they just reissued or mold-tweaked the existing Commander-Class Powerglide instead of wasting time making that stupid new one.

Yeah this new Voyager looks like shit so far, and it's not a quality Leader class we should have to offset Leader Megatron, but Legends is NOT the answer, and Teenamus Prime doesn't really fill that void either.

It makes me wonder, does anyone from Hasbro *look* at these things as they’re being made? They showed this…thing off at Botcon, paraded it out like they were proud of it. Nobody supervising the design team looked at this at any point and told them “No, that looks like shit. Don’t do it this way, do something else. This is Optimus Prime, we should probably get it right.”?

Don't know why I'm seriously considering the Armada version, but for some reason i am.

It's an illness.

He’ll go nicely with the new ArScream, if nothing else.

[JediTricks]

So it's a shades of gray situation, but somehow your reaction is complete polarization? That doesn't seem balanced.

There’s a scale to it. If a ‘perfectly fine’ version of an established character already came out recently (EG: 2-3 yeas, though frankly I think ‘Classics’ was still plenty recent enough) we don’t need ANOTHER new version at pretty much the same scale and style. Because it’s wasteful, and will greatly harm the line in the long run.

Regardless of the fact that it's an entirely different style from a totally different line? That's too hardline for me.

Closed-minded is thinking Hasbro needs to waste time and resources on a whole-friggin’-new G1 Powerglide when the DOTM figure is at least already 90% of the way there. Just retool that thing, save time and make good use of your resources, and don’t pollute the line with redundant remakes.

A lot of folks at Botcon saw it and were excited, a lot of folks who heard about it are excited. Saving budget by using a reuse of the wrong expression of a figure would soil that passion, leading to lower sales. If this figure pegwarms, then you might have a point, but right now you're playing a lot of "what if" games to get you riled up over a move that is better than SOP for this brand. And I don't see how that's closed-minded, this is a brand celebrating the nostalgia of Transformers, it has brought back the feeling from Minibots and Powerglide is popular in nostalgia because he was in a lot of cartoon episodes. Recycling Optimus as Legends Nemesis Prime while sending Laser Prime as Scourge to the subscription service, that's closed-minded.

I don’t do this often, but I will challenge Hasbro on this one: They have no clue what they’re talking about. HFTD Sea Spray may not be overtly ‘Movie-styled’, but he sure as hell doesn’t look anything like G1 Seaspray. He has the color scheme and general vehicle mode, but NOTHING else; Universe Powerglide is closer to his original version than that Sea Spray is to his. It’s a great toy, don’t get me wrong, but it sure as shit isn’t acceptable as ‘a new toy of G1 Seaspray’.

They know exactly what they're talking about, the commissioned design for Seaspray was as a "Classics" figure. Regardless of his G1 accuracy, his STYLING is not movie at all, he has smooth panels and thick limbs and a simple head, he isn't a shellformer, he isn't digitigrade, he has fans on his shoulders, and he has the same color scheme. So you can designate it whatever you want in your collection, but to challenge what the originator of the item states over and over is the intention comes off as fanboy hubris - "I know the brand's intentions because I'm a fan" sort of thing.

Club-exclusive repaints hardly count in this situation. If that were the case, Springer should never have gotten new toys (and I’ll get to that in a bit). You can’t argue that the shitty BotCon Scourge was a reason for the fantastic Generations Scourge not to exist. Really, had Cosmos’s and Powerglide’s toys they just got a few years ago been cruddy Club repaints of Cybertron Legends Soundwave and Starscream, I wouldn’t be saying anything.

And you can’t sing the praises of friggin’ Powerglide then turn around and say the Battlechargers are shitty.

Yeah, I can argue Battlechargers are shitty - they don't have hands, they aren't poseable in any way, they are just pullback-motor cars that fold up slightly, they can't even stand all the way up; they make the Jumpstarters look good by comparison. They are not well-remembered, which makes them perfect fodder for Funpub. People remember Springer and Powerglide a hell of a lot better than the Battlechargers, which is all the justification needed for a nostalgia line - we don't have to be reminded of every tiny aspect of the brand, only the ones that are actually generate a notable amount of nostalgia.

That’s my point though. I went through this back when Cosmos came out, saying it was going to eventually doom the line to nothing but the same characters remade every couple years, and you all said I was panicking and there was no way that was going to happen. But here we are now, and now we’re getting new Powerglide and Windcharger after just a couple years, which is escalatedly worse than the Cosmos situation. So how far does it have to go before you understand where I’m coming from here? Three years from now, when the line is nothing but new Springers and Whirls and Cosmoses and Windchargers? Will you still be accusing me of hyperbole, or will you finally see what Hasbro is doing here and why it SUCKS?

You have got to be kidding me. Cosmos is selling well, it's well thought of and popular, it's in demand. As long as it's in demand, your point doesn't hold water, we don't have another Cosmos a year later after the last one came out, your point about Powerglide is so narrow that you miss the larger issue because you are so focused on "gotta get them all now, they could have done anything else" as if that's what it is about. Windcharger never even made it to regular retail 4 years ago! You are Chicken Little, worrying that the sky is falling because it isn't doing things the way you want them to.

I just QUIT buying GI Joe barely 2-3 years after I started collecting it because I already ‘had’ everyone and nearly everything on shelves was just another revision of someone I already ‘had’ (exacerbated by all GI Joes being kinda samey to begin with). Now TF has been looking like it’s heading that direction, and I don’t WANT it to get to that point because I LOVE TF as a line and would hate to stop collecting it.

Apples and oranges there, and GI Joe was on the decline for a while. This comes off as fear-based hysteria, desperately trying to protect the brand from its own success because your narrow focus keeps you from seeing the greater truth, that it's not all about you. Is Generations tanking? No, it's continuing through a movie year for the first time ever, it has enough power to deliver better and better each year, but you still keep saying it's ONLY gazing backwards and rehashing recent figures without recognizing that the demand has changed and the product has largely changed with that. The brand isn't floundering, yet you still see only your worst fears while ignoring that your fears are part of what keeps this line going.

There is a world of difference between Springer getting by on half-assed remolds followed by him getting a near-perfect fully-new toy, and Powerglide getting two toys at the same scale that look basically the same within two years.

The 2 Powerglides will be 3 years apart, not 2, and only look the same because your eyes are closed, and your eyes are closed because your mind is closed - you have made up your mind without even looking. This:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:DOTM-toy_Cy ... rglide.jpg
and this:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:TFGeneratio ... rglide.jpg
have as many differences as similarities. At first blush, they share a color palette and vehicle mode, but the detail in vehicle mode and the difference in robot modes are notable enough to divide them. If you don't want it, don't buy it, but to say that it's the sign of the apocalypse when it hasn't hit shelves and shown any level of brand failure, that's ludicrous fearmongering.

I simply don’t want to live in a world where, three years from now, we’ll be sitting around bitching about how crappy Generations Warpath and Springer suddenly are and how Hasbro needs to dedicate resources and space in the line to replacing them.

Well, maybe it'll happen, maybe the brand will continue reaching out and have to make a new Warpath figure and it'll be better, and maybe that figure won't sell because the brand won't support it, and Hasbro will learn their lesson. But so far, we haven't even gotten a new Starscream in G1 body (and we REALLY could use one) so cross-pollination from other lines and unusable scales is really not the obvious stepping-stone that you're making it out to be, the brand appears competently-managed, it's just that it's managed to appeal to MORE THAN JUST YOU.

But the LINE would be BETTER and I could have more stuff I WANT to buy if they didn’t waste time making him!

First, you are only assuming the line would be better without him - you ignore that they could have made another figure you don't want; and you ignore that the brand may sell more product thanks to this figure, which is better for the brand in both the short run and long run.

Second, this line isn't only about your wants and never ever will be, because that would be impossible to market strictly to one person's demands.

Who’s new and interesting in TFPrime? Knock Out? Okay. It’s a whole different situation between the 1987-1988 lineup with all-new movie-cast guys and Combiners and Headmasters and Targetmasters and Pretenders, and the TFPrime lineup, which is just them ticking off boxes: “Okay, new Optimus Prime, new Bumblebee, new Ratchet, new Megatron, new Starscream…”

Knock Out, Breakdown, the Vehicons both road and air, Hardshell, all the beasts from Beast Hunters, Dreadwing and Skyquake, Airachnid, Bulkhead, the Star Hammer, the Apex Armor, the Nemesis. And that's not even taking into account the notable G1 characters who were greatly reimagined for the series like Arcee, Soundwave, Smokescreen and Unicron.

BTW, you know the '87-'88 lineup you are crowing about? They helped kill the line, they tanked at market, they flooded liquidator chains, the brand went into a tailspin because of them. You are demanding change for change's sake without considering that rampant change isn't how a brand builds into a franchise.

I’m pretty sure the success of Transformers as a brand does not hinge on them releasing new Powerglides and Cosmoses every couple years. Somehow I don’t think the whole line would Titanic if they just reissued or mold-tweaked the existing Commander-Class Powerglide instead of wasting time making that stupid new one.

A) that figure isn't actually that good; B) that figure has electronics and is at a scale they no longer have the budget to afford; C) that doesn't help bolster the growing Legends assortment that is trying to continue building itself into a solid nostalgia-based line. And when I say you are acting like Chicken Little, I mean it with statmeents like when you just described that flat disc piece of shit $5 Walgreens Cosmos from 2009 as "every couple years". 1985 - 2009 - 2014 is not every couple years, even if that '09 Legends figure were findable in reasonable quantities.

[Almighty Unicron]

The 2 Powerglides will be 3 years apart, not 2, and only look the same because your eyes are closed, and your eyes are closed because your mind is closed - you have made up your mind without even looking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlkKYpnFu5o&feature=kp

[JediTricks]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlkKYpnFu5o&feature=kp

Quaaaaaaaaaaid.