Generations Beast-era figures, ranked

[JediTricks]

And we'll count Universe and BW 10th Anniversary figures that were in Cybertron as well.

1. Rhinox
2. Waspinator
3. Rattrap
4. Megatron
5. Optimus Primal
6. Dinobot
7. Tankor
8. Cheetor

Oh, and let's do Armada as well...

1. Starscream
2. Hot Shot

[Shockwave]

1. 10th Anniversary Tarantulas
2. Generations Rattrap
3. Generations Tankor
4. Generations Rhinox
5. 10th Waspinator
6. 10th Cheetor
7. 10th Dinobot

That's pretty much it for me. I never had the Armada Megatron or Primal, I hated the Universe versions of both Dinobot and Cheetor and I've also hated every version and repaint of Armada Hot Shot.

[JediTricks]

I should have specified, only new molds.

[BWprowl]

This also seems like as good a place as any to be a more stable home for the Generations BW discussion that's taken root in the Hauls thread.

1. Rhinox
2. Megatron
3. Rattrap
4. Dinobot
5. Optimus Primal
6. Tankorr
7. Waspinator
8. Cheetor

Waspinator loses a lot of points with me merely for existing, and the way it executes a lot of the design adds additional burns to it (Yeah, the wings are on ball-joints, but they still can't rotate up and out freely thanks to the chopping gimmick).

Rhinox isn't perfect, and actually has some similar problems to Waspinator, but at least it stops short at just being *inspired* by the show design, and still takes its own cues and ideas and runs with them. The fact that it's actually a really solid toy helps a lot too.

Megatron is just a fantastic mold, probably one of the best T-rexes TF has ever done.

Dinobot's underrated, probably because people take issue with his color scheme. The weapons are rather goofy as well though, if he had a real sword and a better-handled bladething, he'd be better in general. But there's a lot of little touches like the rotating faction symbol and the optional hands that shows some real work was put into him, it's too bad it still fell somewhat short in the end.

Cheetor actually has the advantage of an absolutely fantastic cheetah mode, it's just too bad the robot mode ended up so compromised to make it work. I could handle it not being show-accurate or anything, but it just...doesn't look good on its own, and that's the problem. It also has some of the lamest weapons of all time, the tail-stick is just embarrassing.

Following on the subject of Waspinator:

First, no it wasn't vital to his transformation, that's his chest either way, the moving panel was only a tertiary feature.

Second, that is a pretty luxurious problem to have. The product looks nice, the panel isn't super wide or trying to be anything other than the thorax/chest, and it's far narrower than the original toy, plus something's got to be there because the head splits. You are literally decrying that it's not the same as a rather shitty section of the toy that the show integrated into a likable character, that's so ass-backwards I can't imagine how you could possibly ever accept change in any way whatsoever. It's NOTHING like the faux car chest on Bumblebee, that is a FAKE PIECE OF THE ALT MODE; this is the opposite, this is part of his look which isn't emulating anything from beast mode, it just doesn't have the same ugly function and it's not as clumsy as the original toy was back then since there aren't giant halves of the wasp head gapped open to the world on either side.

The panel was a key part of a defining gimmick of not just the toy itself, but the whole line. Faking that part just because the show-model adapted it misses the point of making a whole new toy in the first place. It'd be like putting a static black square somewhere on a new toy of a character because the original version had a rubsign there. It's stupid and weird.

It's 2 small horns on the kneecap of the figure, and it's not even pointed the same way it was on the original Waspinator, it's literally the smallest, most inconsequential detail, it's a weapon for kneeing an enemy in the nuts permanently, it's no different than the little mace balls on Rhinox's chainguns of doom - the function is different, but they're part of that design because the show adapted the character that way and it's part of that look. There's a million examples of little touches as throwbacks to this and that in Transformers updates, yet there's this toxic attitude in the community that is a fluid perception depending on NOTHING really which makes one thing work and another fail despite being identical concepts.

For the record, I take the same issue with New Rhinox's fake-rhino-skin panels on his hips in Robot Mode. It's less egregious because you can't blatantly tell they're a former beast-mode-part the way you can with Waspinator's legs (and because Rhinox is just a better toy overall), but they're still there and they're still distracting. Waspinator's legs specifically looked that way in the show because they were still following the original toy's transformation. The way they copied that detail for the new toy without regarding any of the original functionality, it comes across like they didn't even pay attention, like they didn't actually know that was the point of the design.

[JediTricks]

The panel was a key part of a defining gimmick of not just the toy itself, but the whole line. Faking that part just because the show-model adapted it misses the point of making a whole new toy in the first place. It'd be like putting a static black square somewhere on a new toy of a character because the original version had a rubsign there. It's stupid and weird.

That gimmick didn't define jack shit. It was an aborted gimmick that the line stopped embracing early on. You don't knock any other character update for not including its Mutant Head gimmick except Waspinator - face it, you're just being contrary, you're swapping this issue in for some personal boner that's unrelated to the situation. Did you shit on Megatron for not having one? No. Optimus Primal? No. Rhinox? No. Cheetor? No. Dinobot? No. There were just 10 molds that had mutant heads, 6 modern updates of those characters, you even PRAISE Megatron and Rhinox, yet somehow Waspinator is the only one whose lack of the idiotic Mutant Head gimmick is causing this huge problem that somehow dooms the figure. I am calling bullshit on this whole line of thinking, it's contrarian nonsense.

[BWprowl]

That gimmick didn't define jack shit. It was an aborted gimmick that the line stopped embracing early on. You don't knock any other character update for not including its Mutant Head gimmick except Waspinator - face it, you're just being contrary, you're swapping this issue in for some personal boner that's unrelated to the situation. Did you shit on Megatron for not having one? No. Optimus Primal? No. Rhinox? No. Cheetor? No. Dinobot? No. There were just 10 molds that had mutant heads, 6 modern updates of those characters, you even PRAISE Megatron and Rhinox, yet somehow Waspinator is the only one whose lack of the idiotic Mutant Head gimmick is causing this huge problem that somehow dooms the figure. I am calling bullshit on this whole line of thinking, it's contrarian nonsense.

Way to completely miss my point. The problem is that Waspinator has a sculpted 'dummy' version of the mutant head panel without actually implementing it. It would be like if the new Megatron or Rhinox had the halves of their mutant heads sculpted on their heads but couldn't actually close them. Hell, the ONLY reason Waspinator's original toy had the whole chest section transform that particular way, with the head splitting and folding around that panel, was to facilitate the mutant head gimmick. The show followed that design because it was patterned on that particular toy, so when time came to make the new version, whatever designer was on it just followed that to the letter, without any thought or creativity given to why the head and chest transformed that way. There's no real reason for the head to split and that panel to be there on the new toy, save for "The cartoon was that way", (same story with the legs, there's no reason for the ones on the new figure to look like folded-up insect legs) which is idiotic in a line like Generations, which is SUPPOSED to be about new, original takes on classic characters, not just 3D-printing out the cartoon models with little to no effort.

The toy is just a cheap, lazy excuse for an effort that does nothing but try to cash in on the fondness some fans have for a particular character without bothering to be a good toy on its own. It, ironically, misses the entire point of what made Beast Wars so great in the first place.

[Tigermegatron]

Generations Rhinox, I felt was the best of the lot.

BW 10th new mold Deluxe Megatron, I felt needed to be Voyager-Ultra size. The tiny deluxe size really hurt the toy.

[Sparky Prime]

which is idiotic in a line like Generations, which is SUPPOSED to be about new, original takes on classic characters, not just 3D-printing out the cartoon models with little to no effort.

When has it ever been said Generations is supposed to be about new or original takes on characters? I've always seen it as a line to make better representations of characters from series across the franchise. Only, due to how dated some of the vehicles are and licensing rights, the G1 characters tend to be more of a modernized approximation (or another version of them altogether, seeing how they've focused more on the IDW designs lately). Characters from more recent series like Beast Wars and Armada don't have that issue and so they instead focus on show accuracy and other improvements to the figure. I'd also argue it's not as easy to make a show accurate design as you make it sound. If anything, it can potentially make the figure even more difficult to design in order to make it work, not to mention, some things can change during the development.

Anyway my rankings....

1. Generations Rhinox
2. Generations Waspinator
3. Generations Rattrap
4. Classics Dinobot
5. 10th Anniversary Megatron
6. 10th Anniversary Optimus Primal
7. Generations Tankorr
8. Classics Cheetor

[BWprowl]

When has it ever been said Generations is supposed to be about new or original takes on characters? I've always seen it as a line to make better representations of characters from series across the franchise. Only, due to how dated some of the vehicles are and licensing rights, the G1 characters tend to be more of a modernized approximation (or another version of them altogether, seeing how they've focused more on the IDW designs lately).

That's exactly it. Guys like Mirage and Grimlock and Sideswipe and Sunstreaker and even Optimus Prime and Megatron are all new, refreshed designs based idiomatically based on the old versions, not just straight-up copies of the cartoon models (that is, arguably, the point of the Masterpiece line these days). So why is it those toys get to be their own new, interesting things, while Waspinator has to be a slab of plastic that looks exactly like the cartoon, to the point of including fake parts that don't need to be there otherwise?

Characters from more recent series like Beast Wars and Armada don't have that issue and so they instead focus on show accuracy and other improvements to the figure.

Cheetor, Dinobot, and Rhinox would disagree. Those toys all take cues from the show, sure (the same way the G1 Classics/Generations figures take cues from the cartoon versions), but they are ultimately their own designs, unique to the toys. Even Rattrap shows some effort put into designing the toy to stand on its own.

A 'modernized approximation' of Waspinator for Generations would have been FAR better and more interesting than what we got.

[Sparky Prime]

That's exactly it. Guys like Mirage and Grimlock and Sideswipe and Sunstreaker and even Optimus Prime and Megatron are all new, refreshed designs based idiomatically based on the old versions, not just straight-up copies of the cartoon models (that is, arguably, the point of the Masterpiece line these days). So why is it those toys get to be their own new, interesting things, while Waspinator has to be a slab of plastic that looks exactly like the cartoon, to the point of including fake parts that don't need to be there otherwise?

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.

Cheetor, Dinobot, and Rhinox would disagree. Those toys all take cues from the show, sure (the same way the G1 Classics/Generations figures take cues from the cartoon versions), but they are ultimately their own designs, unique to the toys. Even Rattrap shows some effort put into designing the toy to stand on its own.

A 'modernized approximation' of Waspinator for Generations would have been FAR better and more interesting than what we got.

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.