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Screamfleet wrote:I'm saying, at the time of the films release, they may not have been able to release such a toy. Even if it's a parody. It wouldn't be a loop hole if they agreed not to do it. Now that we're further away from it, they may be able to make a toy that barely resembles the character at all.

Which really, isn't a toy of the character at all. Your bottom line was, Hasbro could make one if they wanted to.

Now it's like, "hasbro could make that pizza if they wanted to, but substitute the sauce for the ketchup, and use American cheese, and use ground beef not pepperoni and stack it like a sandwhich"

I'd call that a cheese burger, not a pizza.

Well, I guess I'd rather have a cheese burger than nothing at all. Using your analogy, I'd say ROTF Sideways turned out to be a pretty awesome cheeseburger.

And I'd say if you think ROTF sideways fits that analogy, all of this is going over your head.

Screamfleet wrote:And I'd say if you think ROTF sideways fits that analogy, all of this is going over your head.

Yea, well I'm guessing it went COMPLETELY over my head. From what I get of your analogy, you're trying to say that if the character has a modified alt mode that isn't completely screen accurate and is placed into a different "continuity" (ala Cyberverse Mirage/Evac/Soundwave), then it's a cheese burger as opposed to a pizza (which is apparently what is preferred). The only difference between placing Mirage in that analogy and Sideswipe is the fact that Sideswipe was actually released in the ROTF movie line.

But yea, if thinking ROTF Sideways fits that analogy is wrong, then I have no idea what point you're trying to make about using that analogy...

If I was Hasbro, and I would be backing a movie based on a TOY-line, I would make damn sure that whatever vehicle or character was featured in that movie, I would be able to make an actual TOY out of.

If Audi or Ferrari or Mercedes came to me stating they'd want their car in this TOY-based movie, but they didn't want toys made out of their vehicles... I'd say: "**** you"; I'd not put those makes of cars in the movie, and I'd just move on to the next car maker who would be willing to allow merchandise based on their vehicles (like GMC did).

Hell... Even if no car makers would cooperate, I'd just CGI up some made-up carmodels and other cool vehicles, so I could at least profit from that merchandising potential!

Imagine you're Paramount pictures, and a car company comes to you and says "we'll loan you a free car, and pay you a few million dollars if you put our car in your movie". You really going to worry about what kind of arrangement the car company and the toy company make?

Screamfleet wrote:Imagine you're Paramount pictures, and a car company comes to you and says "we'll loan you a free car, and pay you a few million dollars if you put our car in your movie". You really going to worry about what kind of arrangement the car company and the toy company make?

If I was Paramount, I'd totally agree.
If I was Hasbro however, and Paramount was offering to shoot a movie based on my intellectual property, I'd make sure that my intellectual property comes out well in that deal, instead of being left with practically empty hands.

Still I think we can all agree that Hasbro's marketing section isn't really 'on the ball' any more. I'd say that, ever since 'Star Wars' came out in 1977, EVERYBODY knows that (toy-based) merchandising can be a HUGE additional benefit to a movie. Back in the day, 'Transformers: The Movie' was specifically intended to introduce a whole new series of TF toys. And both 'The Transformers' and 'TF: DotM' did their toy-marketing a whole lot smarter.