TF:Prime Figure Review Thread

[Onslaught Six]

-and show accuracy is kind of the point.

No it isn't. Good toys are. And I'm not budging on this. I give exactly zero fucks about Prime as a show and that clearly influences my purchases.

I actually found two or three Vehicons hanging on pegs the other week and actually passed up buying them. (I went back and grabbed one for a friend who was looking for him, but still.)

[BWprowl]

I'm with Six on this one, it's a cinch for a toy to be awesome without being accurate. Take the Deluxe BM Jetstorm mold. It looks nothing like the character on the show (who, in fact, I'm quite fond of), but is just a great mold in its own right, so it doesn't matter. And honestly, it's the job of the show to promote the toys, not the other way around, so if the character designs don't match up, that's the fault of the show.

One thing I'm liking about the TFPrime line is the inclusion of a decent smattering of toy-only characters; guys like Hot Shot, Kup, Rumble, etc. Takes me back to Beast Wars, where there were TONS of unique guys on shelves, many of them far more interesting than the toys the cartoon had chosen to advertise.

Anyway Dom, just for posterity:



Protip: Try having your Vehicon in a well-lit area, the purple can blend into the black in the shadowy catacombs of a minimally-lit apartment.

Also Six, you might consider picking up Vehicon anyway. He's as impressive a mold as you may have heard, and well, his name's Vehicon, so that's got to count for something, right?

[Onslaught Six]

Also Six, you might consider picking up Vehicon anyway. He's as impressive a mold as you may have heard, and well, his name's Vehicon, so that's got to count for something, right?

Maybe if I find another one, and have some extra cash, and nothing else I want is out. Shit, I still want Dead End, here.

[Dominic]

The the sigil is kind of hard to see. But, Prowl is right. It is there. (I checked my copies recently.)

O6, even with my complaints about the mould, I would have to say that it is worth picking up.


And.....Legends figures:

-KnockOut: (car/robot)
The paint work on this figure is actually better than the KnockOut packed with the Energon Drill, but the colouring on the drill driver is more accurate. Making allowances for this being a "Legend" class toy, this is not a bad effort by Hasbro. The biggest problem is that the panels do not match up easily in vehicle mode. However, that is balanced by the fact that the robot mode so perfectly captures the character. The vehicle wheels roll pretty well on a wood floor. But, as is often the case, the car does not roll perfectly straight. (I am tempted to get some HotWheels track to see how this toy works when forced in to a straight line.) Grade: B


-Wheeljack:(car/robot)
The single carded Wheeljack figure uses the old Takara "Marlboor" colours. This is, as far as I know, the first time that Hasbro has officially used the "Marlboor" colours and the first time that those colours have been officially applies to Wheeljack. A character informally named "Marlboor" showed up in "War Within", but he was a Decepticon. (And, ironically, he may have been indirectly killed by Wheeljack.) Aside from me wanting this to have been "Marlboor", I have no real complaints. The figure is a competent, if not stellar, "Legend" class figure. Similar to KnockOut, Wheeljack rolls freely if not perfectly straight. Grade: B


-Breakdown: (suv/robot)
This one is a mixed bag. The toy itself is very well designed. Considering its size, the transform is nicely complex. And, while the articulation is not as good as a full-sized toy, it is better than average for the "Legends" class. The biggest, (ironically enough), problem is the figure's lack of size. The back of the package (and the alternate mode) describe a much larger character than this toy conveys. (Breakdown is noticably shorter than the "officially" petite KnockOut.) Worth getting for fiddle value. But, in context with the rest of the line, it should have been made at the "Commander" class. Grade: B


Dom
-more and more tempted by HotWheels track....

[Tigermegatron]

-and show accuracy is kind of the point.

No it isn't. Good toys are. And I'm not budging on this. I give exactly zero fucks about Prime as a show and that clearly influences my purchases.

I actually found two or three Vehicons hanging on pegs the other week and actually passed up buying them. (I went back and grabbed one for a friend who was looking for him, but still.)

When,I buy any newer Transformers toy in stores,I could care less about show/movie/comic accuracy.

All I care about is buying a TF newer toy that meets my preferred designs.

I can easily seperate from media fiction from the toys. I can enjoy the TF fiction & hate the toys. I can enjoy the toys & hate the fiction.

I love the TF Prime cartoon series,but I hate more that 70% of the TFP toys. Thus far the only TFP toys I felt were worth buying were as follows: Weaponizers Optimus Prime, TFP Deluxe Vehicon,TFP Deluxe Airachnid. TFP Voyager Bulkhead. TFP Voyager Dreadwing. Stuff on pre-order are TFP Voyager Ultra Magnus,Voyager Skyquake,Voyager Thundertron. I might pick up TFE Voyager Bulkhead if I can find him easily in a TRU store.

[Shockwave]

For me, it depends on which came first. One of my main complaints with G1 was that the fiction didn't match the toys which came first. On the reverse, there's Beast Machines where my main complaint is that the toys didn't match the show which came first. Then there's Prime which I really don't care about either way. The show is meh and I have yet to see any toys that I'm interested in. Then there was animated which seemed to have the closest toy/show model accuracy.

[Onslaught Six]

On the reverse, there's Beast Machines where my main complaint is that the toys didn't match the show which came first.

Wrong!

*Price Is Right failure sound*

Beast Machines was CONCURRENTLY developed as a TV series and toyline from Draxhall Jump designs and artwork. The toyline established one aesthetic while the cartoon established another, and apparently communication didn't go so hot between them. This is especially important because Draxhall Jump's design work, while awesome, was not exactly what you'd call...clean.

See, when toys get made, they do what they call "control art." Basically someone (during BW's time, it was someone at Hasbro) draws up artwork of what the toy will literally look like in both modes--no embellishments, no cheating, just literally what the toy will look like. (This is, presumably, after the kitbashing stage and concerns about engineering and transformation are worked out.) So every joint, kibble piece, etc. will be on this artwork.

Here's some examples of TMII Megatron (drawn by Aaron Archer, no less!) and Tigatron, whose artwork features extensive remoulding that never actually happened:

http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/d/d6/BWRConcept35.jpg
http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/7/74/BWRConcept07.jpg

Now, everything after this post is, on my part, pure conjecture from evidence presented to me, but this is what I seriously think happened.

I don't think any proper control art was made for BM--or if it was, it wasn't made the way we think of it. I think the US TF team was in the middle of a big change at the time. The BW team was moving out and the Hasbro Cincinatti (formerly Kenner) offices were being shut down. People were being let go or transferring to other departments. The TF team on Hasbro's side was greatly reduced and didn't consist of as many people as it did during BW. This is partially why Draxhall Jump was contracted out for the extensive amount of work they did. (Groups like them are still used today, actually!) A lot of people only know them from the unproduced Transtech stuff, but they actually did most of BM as well.

Draxhall Jump had a habit of giving Hasbro back stuff that...didn't always look like control art. Stuff that looked like this:
http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/d/d0/BMJet ... oncept.jpg

Now, as you might be able to tell, that looks pretty much like Deluxe Jetstorm, just in different colours. (At this time, he was also called 'Skybolt.' What a kickass name!)

It's my conjecture that the Hasbro (and thus Takara) guys AND the Mainframe guys were both given this same piece of artwork, and basically told to run with it in whatever direction they felt like.

It wasn't a case of one group diverging from another, but two groups diverging from a third, concurrently. Kind of like how The Protomen and The Megas both write songs about Mega Man, but they aren't really anything like each other besides that.

Here's another example I managed to find. Here, you can see how this design became the Deluxe Primal, but looking at his uncoloured robot mode, it's much easier to see how this became the cartoon design:
http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/a/ad/Optim ... oncept.jpg

Same thing with Cheetor:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:CheetorBMconcept.jpg

Meanwhile, some of this same stuff is available even for non-show guys like Scavenger, whose toy was relatively unchanged from this art:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:ScavengerBMconcept.jpg

[Tigermegatron]

2008 Animated toys I view as complete garbage because the design team lowered the intended kids buying age to the toddler ages 4 & below level. I hated the teen titans super hero styled skinny limbs & beefy torsos on the robot modes. Nothing upsets me more than seeing TF toys with exteme misproportioned & mangled robots limbs & parts. Then their was the exteme simplistic robots inner face sculpts that either had toddler aimed at smiley faces or toddler themed angry frowns. lastly the enginerring & transformations on the toys was overly simplified,their were tons of shorts cuts that made the toys feel like KO toys.

I only bought about Five Animated toys,they are. Animated leader & voyager sized Megatron. Voyager sized Blitzwing, Leader sized ultra Magnus. Deluxe Arcee i'm using as a temp place holder until a generations sports car arcee gets made.

I hated the Beastmachines show & toy line. The only Beastmachines toy I still have & I think was made decent was Ultra Sized Jetstorm.

[Dominic]

When,I buy any newer Transformers toy in stores,I could care less about show/movie/comic accuracy.

All I care about is buying a TF newer toy that meets my preferred designs.

I can easily seperate from media fiction from the toys. I can enjoy the TF fiction & hate the toys. I can enjoy the toys & hate the fiction.

I can separate the toys from the content to a point. But, the association between the two is always going to be there on some level.

As much as I like many of the TFU/Generations moulds, part of me still associates them with really bad Fan Club comics. (This is particularly true in the case of figures that only showed up in Fun Publications comics.)

In some cases, I want the toy because I like the character. And, in those cases, the toy had damned well look like the character as they show up in cartoon/comics.

I don't think any proper control art was made for BM--or if it was, it wasn't made the way we think of it. I think the US TF team was in the middle of a big change at the time. The BW team was moving out and the Hasbro Cincinatti (formerly Kenner) offices were being shut down. People were being let go or transferring to other departments. The TF team on Hasbro's side was greatly reduced and didn't consist of as many people as it did during BW. This is partially why Draxhall Jump was contracted out for the extensive amount of work they did. (Groups like them are still used today, actually!) A lot of people only know them from the unproduced Transtech stuff, but they actually did most of BM as well.

"Beast Machines" had a series of last minute changes. Many of the early toys in that line were intended to represent the characters as they would have appeared in the "first draft" (called "Beast Hunters" of all things) or wholly different characters. BW Blackarachnia's faction switching would have been relevant. And, Tigerhawk would likely have been a faction switcher as well. (Consider the column where Tigerhawk's spark was held.) Characters like Jetstorm and Tankorr would have been Silverbolt and Rhinox is new bodies that they chose or were transferred to after being injured.

Elements of this early draft carried over in to early publicity and even early toys. The Vehicon we knew as "Jetstorm" was billed as being "Skybolt". Quickstrike the wolf's character profile looks like it was hastily edited from being the Fuzor's profile. And, as has been pointed out, Voyager Jetstorm's toy could have been an upgrade of Optimus Primal. )Look at the helmet and chest cannons.)


In more general terms, the toys and animation models should sync up. That is what annoys me about many of the newer figures. Either the designs do not match between the animation and the toys, or they match with cheating. The design process used to ensure that they toys and content models would match. The designs worked for screen/page and plastic. Now, we get animation or game models that only work as toys with obvious cheating.

I would really like a return to the UT design standard, where everything matched. The toys had fiddle value and looked like the cartoon/comics.


Dom
-had to work with a client and partake in the school's annual Thanksgiving feast.

[BWprowl]

"Beast Machines" had a series of last minute changes. Many of the early toys in that line were intended to represent the characters as they would have appeared in the "first draft" (called "Beast Hunters" of all things) or wholly different characters. BW Blackarachnia's faction switching would have been relevant. And, Tigerhawk would likely have been a faction switcher as well. (Consider the column where Tigerhawk's spark was held.) Characters like Jetstorm and Tankorr would have been Silverbolt and Rhinox is new bodies that they chose or were transferred to after being injured.

Elements of this early draft carried over in to early publicity and even early toys. The Vehicon we knew as "Jetstorm" was billed as being "Skybolt". Quickstrike the wolf's character profile looks like it was hastily edited from being the Fuzor's profile. And, as has been pointed out, Voyager Jetstorm's toy could have been an upgrade of Optimus Primal. )Look at the helmet and chest cannons.)

I’m gonna be completely honest: I have no idea what you’re talking about with most of this, and the majority of it sounds completely insane, where did you even here any of this? Let’s count the wrong:

TMII Blackarachnia and Tigerhawk are toys that have nothing to do with BM, as they were likely developed while BM was still in the concept art stages. BA’s faction-switching references the character’s treacherous nature in the Beast Wars cartoon (which was irrelevant in BM) and that her TMII body is the one that she officially became a Maximal in. Tigerhawk wasn’t even *in* Beast Machines, and has absolutely no reason to be a faction-switcher (Tigatron and Airazor are both Maximals), and even if there ever was a nonsensical plan to stick a Predacon spark crystal on the central column of his robot mode (which rotates the way it does purely due to his transformation scheme, and is actually *blocked* from turning the other way around),it wouldn’t have worked at all anyway, since his arms would be on the wrong side, that spark crystal gets covered up by the chest in robot mode, and there’s a Maximal symbol molded onto his chest.

‘Voyager’ (I’m assuming you mean Ultra) Jetstorm being an upgrade of Optimus Primal?! What the flying hell are you on about with that one? That toy came out WAY after the designs for characters had been established, looks nothing like any Optimus Primal, is a player on the complete opposite *faction*, and Jesus Christ and I can’t even think anymore dammit Dom did you drink a big bucket of crazy before you made that post or what? Seriously, what is this I don’t even.

I would really like to believe that you were just trying to provoke a reaction, since that's the only remotely logical explanation for some of the nonsense you throw out there.