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i wouldn't mind the same characters for each release.. just as long as the molds were significantly improved.. which in leader primes case.. was true.

but, they could've given us a dotm leader megatron, they could've released deluxe que and soundwave earlier. they could've given us a trio of weaponized (aka movie accurate) human alliance wreckers.. same goes for deluxe wreckers go, they could've given us a trio of weaponized deluxe wreckers.

we should've gotten the human alliance soundwave.

rather than repainting human alliance bumblebee and skids, they could've given us an improved human alliance bumblebee. hell, they could've even given us a human alliance sideways, that would've been cool.

they could've given us that four legged constructicon thing. they could've retooled long haul and made him into that trash truck from the invasion scene.

they could've given us a highly improved deluxe bumblebee rather than a bunch of repaints, just one really good one.

they could've improved upon rotf leader prime and given us a great leader prime. (rotf prime was awesome, but imagine if they improved it)

they could've nixed the "ultimate prime" and given us a new (accurate) leader prime with a transforming trailer... pieces from the trailer could make his flight suit, while the other half of the trailer could've been his weapons bay.

and again, for emphasis, they could've/SHOULD'VE given us a leader megatron... just get rid of leader bumblebee, since it made no sense.

oh and lastly, it would've been sweet to get the three dreads.. it would've been awesome to have three different robot/beast modes come from the same style vehicle. .. hell, they could've tried a larger scale human alliance figure with the dreads.

there are just SOOOO many things that could've been done to make the line successful, and these things aren't things that you need a genius to figure out. most of the stuff in this post is more common sense than anything.

it's like in baseball, you need to pay for players if you want people in the seats, if you're unwilling to spend on talent.. well, you'll end up like the houston astros.

Bouncy X wrote:

reluctantyouth wrote:REALLY??!!!???

Really Hasbro are you finally admitting that you screwed the pooch with all too familiar characters and 40 bajillion Bumblebees? Really??!!!?? Had you listened to the fans at all things would have been quite different...Hell who do you think is REALLY??!!!?? reintroducing the brand to younger markets? Is it people that have never heard of the toys or are searching for some lost nastalgia that a mid life crisis won't fix? No...it's the fans who now have children. Where do you get off Hasbro? When will you learn? REALLY??!!!?? I see total disaster coming for TF4 with Bay at the helm...you want to reinvent the franchise then you get a better director. My vote would have been Joss Whedon...that would have been a TF movie I stood in line at midnight for.

Joss Whedon? oh my i can see it now.....Carly woulda been the main character and she'd have some awesome ass kicking skills. Jazz woulda been the pop culture spewing one liner of the bunch. Then about halfway through the movie Bumblebee woulda died only to have the movie end with Prime dying too.

Say what you will about Joss Whedon but the Avengers was 1000x better than the TF movies, earned the respect of the general public, and wound up the third biggest movie of all time. Not too shabby if you ask me. I think it would be great if some like Joss who actually respects the history and lore of the subject matter directed #4.

[*]Transformers 4 will feature a new cast, including new robots, they feel the lower than expected toy sales for Transformers DOTM were due to recurring cast of robots in the previous trilogy. They hope new Transformers characters will reignite toys sales.

Personal growth, Hasbro? Well done.

I'm very interested to see what this means. I'd be surprised if we're talking Rodimus, Magnus, Kup and company, but hopefully the changes will include Optimus, Bumblebee, Starscream and Megatron.

If it wasn't for the fact Michael Bay is still involved I'd be quite excited right now.

TimothyR wrote:i wouldn't mind the same characters for each release.. just as long as the molds were significantly improved.. which in leader primes case.. was true.

That sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. In the end, you're just buying yet another version of the same toy. DOTM Bumblebee is a downsized and modified homage of the HFTD Battle Blade Bumblebee. The inclusion of a MechTech weapon doesn't exactly make up for the paint skimpage and downsizing.

TimothyR wrote:but, they could've given us a dotm leader megatron, they could've released deluxe que and soundwave earlier. they could've given us a trio of weaponized (aka movie accurate) human alliance wreckers.. same goes for deluxe wreckers go, they could've given us a trio of weaponized deluxe wreckers.

I agree with the points on Megatron, Que and Soundwave. (Although, Que and Soundwave were never released by Hasbro US. Asia division, yes. US, no.) As for the Wreckers, if I recall correctly, it was stated they weren't allowed to give weaponized versions of all three vehicles in each size class. There had to be one normal Nascar version per size class. I'm 99% sure I'm right in remembering that.

TimothyR wrote:we should've gotten the human alliance soundwave.

No argument here.

TimothyR wrote:they could've improved upon rotf leader prime and given us a great leader prime. (rotf prime was awesome, but imagine if they improved it)

Eh. With Stryker Prime and Jetwing Prime, they pretty much covered the bases. Now, if Ultimate Optimus had consisted of the Jetwing accessory, plus the Stryker mold, along with the Buster Prime cannon and the new weapons for Stryker...that would've been impressive. That's really the only way to top that mold. The backpack could be streamlined a bit, but really... the figure is excellent in it's current state. The paint job might be imperfect, but the figure itself is pretty solid.

TimothyR wrote:there are just SOOOO many things that could've been done to make the line successful, and these things aren't things that you need a genius to figure out. most of the stuff in this post is more common sense than anything.

I agree that there were things that could've been done to make the line successful. I don't know if it's Aaron Archer, or his second in command, or just some idiot spitballing ideas, but someone's not running the show right. Optimus and Bumblebee are the most recognizable, it's true, but too much of a good thing... Will they take current numbers to heart? No. They'll continue making big mistakes and screwing up. I don't understand why they're seemingly so stupid.

As for the toys...I think case assortments should be this: 1 per case of ALL figures in the assortment. They'll sell more cases, they'll have little to no overstock left over, and everyone gets a fair shake.

Huh, Y'know? I actually have some hope for the next movie line. It seems habro is finally starting to figure out that no one likes their mile high stack of bumblebees. Really when you look at bayformers they really weren't that bad. I actually liked 1, 2 not so much (but lets face it that was an objectively bad film0, and the only real problem I had with three was caused because 2 left a bad taste in my mouth.
This statement, and that little joke about bumblebee sightings in the prime cartoon ("new recruit") give me faith.

Autobot032 wrote:Eh. With Stryker Prime and Jetwing Prime, they pretty much covered the bases. Now, if Ultimate Optimus had consisted of the Jetwing accessory, plus the Stryker mold, along with the Buster Prime cannon and the new weapons for Stryker...that would've been impressive. That's really the only way to top that mold. The backpack could be streamlined a bit, but really... the figure is excellent in it's current state. The paint job might be imperfect, but the figure itself is pretty solid.

that's true.. but those weren't new molds.. i'm talking about a brand new prime mold.. something like rotf was to the TF1 prime.. i wish they would've given us something so nice that it'd make rotf leader prime look like TF1 leader prime..

i also said it'd be nice if instead of ultimate prime, they gave us a brand new leader mold, with half of the trailer being his jet pack and the other half of the trailer being a weapons bay or vault.. or base, or whatever.



i really hope they stick with characters from the lore. no more making **** up. i mean.. with the avengers, they used thor, iron man, captain america, the hulk, black widow, and hawk eye.. none of those characters were made up for the movie.. why do there have to be new* transformers? there are already SOOO many. yet they had to give us Que.. and "Dino" .. are you kidding me? i don't see a "Guido Man" in the avengers..

i'd like to see hot rod, magnus, kup, springer, prowl, sunstreaker, etc.

i just can't see a movie without prime. i can definitely see one with galvatron however.

wouldn't it be SUPER AWESOME if they stole a little from the original movie and killed off ratchet, sideswipe, dino, wheelie, brains, the wreckers, and ..... (even though this didn't happen in the original) BUMBLEBEE.. all in the first 5 minutes!!!! i'd be super happy.

have daniel and hot rod become friends... it sucks that we couldn't get a good classic arcee. there's nothing wrong with her being a car.. why does that seem like such a problem for hasbro..

i don't know, i just loved the story in the original movie.

as for animated.. i don't know those figures felt pretty cheap to me. there were some cool molds, but i definitely prefer Primes style... and to me, the three kids in prime are FAR less annoying than SARI was.

the problem that i have with both of them though is the treatment of starscream. i want him to be a decepticon. i'm sick of him on his own. i love the megatron/starscream banter. i don't understand why he, again, has to go out on his own. it doesn't make sense to me, it's no fun.

The last paragraph is a summary of my rant.


I keep seeing people saying how awesome and wonderful Animated was, and a couple even compared it to Beast Wars. Transformers Animated was horrible! Ok, we can say it was aimed strictly at kids, then why would they put all this effort into G1 references? They knew who was going to watch it, and they still made it unwatchable (unless Blitzwing was on screen)!

Hasbro learned enough to separate story and kid friendlyness this time with Rescue Bots and Prime. Also: G1 was horrible as well. Memorable, nostalgic, awesome, but horrible. Beast Wars was probably the second best Transformers series (Prime being the first). Mostly because some of the dialog was sucky but the story ended up being perfect. Prime is probably going to be the best thing going for Transformers for the next ten or so years. Unless Transformers 4 is bloody brilliant.

I'm sure when they say that there will be new robots, they don't mean that they're going to kill off the current cast. They might do a reboot. They might follow another group of Autobots on a different part of the planet. They might just use different characters altogether.

After about five years to think about it, the first Transformers movie was pretty good. I still fastforward over the part with the big fat hacker, but it was MUCH better than Revenge of the Fallen, which was weighed down by Leo, the twins, and too much bathroom humor. Dark of the Moon was excellent mostly because I can tell the writers watched some season 1 and 2 episodes before making the script, and they merged the two best ideas together, minus the mind slaves and Decepticon Day.

With the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if we got something like The Key to Vector Sigma mixed with Starscream's Brigade, The Revenge of Bruticus, and Starscream's Ghost.


.......


That might work out pretty cool actually.


Toy-wise, I just hope to Odin that, whatever new characters they come out with, we won't have to see Bumblebee's garish colours on store shelves anymore. I personally have so many Bumblebees that I'm surprised that I have as many as I do! I have Movie 1 Bumblebee in two flavors! The 76 camero and the 08 camero! Then I have ROTF Bee, the one with the battle axe, arm cannon, and battle mask. Then I have DOTM Bee with the mechtech weapon. And I want (one that I WANT to get) the Cyberfire Bumblebee/Murderbee. Not to mention I have G1 Bumblebee, Classics Bumblebee, Pretender Bumblebee (without the shell), and First Edition Transformers Prime Bumblebee! I have a f*cking swarm of bees in my room! I'm glad I stopped there and shudder to think what a Bumblebee completionists collection looks like!

Anyway. To summarize: Transformers Animated sucked. Hasbro is learning but their distributors aren't, so give them some credit. The only Transformers movies that didn't suck were THE movie, and DOTM, so have some faith in TF4. They won't kill Optimus Prime (again). And hope they DO kill Bumblebee.

Hail Odin

Maybe if Hasbro dropped the price of Transformers down by a few dollars for the deluxe & above classes, more people will be inclined to buy it. Sue, you might loose some profit per figure, but as a whole you could potentially sell more. I guess it's just human psychology doing its work when you see something cheaper than it regularly is, and feel like its a good deal...

People need to chill out a bit and have clear things.

Aniamted cancelletion hadnothing to do with the movies.


THis whole topic is weird.

Maybe they'll do a 'IN THE YEAR 2035' so they can justify dropping LaBeouf & co.

TulioDude wrote:People need to chill out a bit and have clear things.

Aniamted cancelletion had nothing to do with the movies.


THis whole topic is weird.

Actually, did we ever find out why Animated was cancelled?

Why are we talking about Animated?

I'm confused.

I'll give the movie a chance and a ticket purchase. My hopes dont go any higher than that.

Give me Fillion as Rodimus already....

PrymeStriker wrote:
Actually, did we ever find out why Animated was cancelled?

Why are we talking about Animated?

I'm confused.

Hasbros development of the 'brand' dictates that there is only a couple of continuities 'on the go' at any one time;

A lot of mentions of Animated refer to how it was treated (or, more clearly, 'jilted') in favour of TFPrime - the inference being that the new movie may possibly do the same;

Animated was originally lined up as 'filler' between the 2007 movie and ROTF; (this might not have been the case originally, but how it ended up anyway) - there was only a projected Wave 1, 2 tops of the figures, depending on customer interest (in the same way they said TFPrime 'wasn't going to get any toys' until people started asking for them)

I love the Animated toys, but, each time I try to watch the fiction, I can't. I suspect I'm not the only one, but I rarely bother with the fiction, the only exceptions are G1, movies and TFPrime.

Tie that in with the leap forward computer generated animation had taken at the time (simplified animation like South Park, which tries to look like crap, but actually uses quite clever computer animation, and is created only about a week ahead of time), and compare it with the traditional 'look' of TFAnimated - which looks a LOT older than it is, and took much longer to create, using more 'traditional' methods, and Hasbro seemed to realise they had 'backed the wrong horse', as it were...

The jump was made to dump Animated, and go with TFPrime - Prime is one long (admittedly, impressive) computer game 'cut scene', where the CGI assets are moved around in the 'sandbox' - the main overhead is the design/creation of them, once they go 'into rotation' on the show, the more cost effective they are - the renders for Prime, Bulkhead, Ratchet etc haven't changed much since the beginning, IMHO.

Hasbro made a conscious decision to unceremoniously 'dump' it like an 'inbetween girlfriend', and start from scratch, along with bringing it more 'in house' - which made a lot of people angry, for various reasons (me? I liked the toys!)

Regime changes at the head of Transformers brand marketing have brought in this 'aligned continuity' which will serve to join the games, TFPrime and the movies, past and present, to some extent. (Good 'old fanwankery will also fill the gaps)

The movie itself will be a mix of old and new characters- Bulkhead, for one, will DEFINITELY be in it, maybe Arcee , Wheeljack, Breakdown, Smokescreen (which is a pastiche/homage of all the 'young bucks' like Rodimus, Cliffjumper, etc over the years)- Movie Prime will still be there, I'm hoping they'll go with a couple of old G1ers as well (Magnus, Kup, Mirage, Inferno, Cyclonus) -

With all the Wrecker love over the last couple of years, I'm guessing they'll repopulate the Wrecker team, hopefully they wont be as one dimensional as last time, maybe they'll be the main plot, or subplot of the film;

And with Megatron killed off in the final reel of DOTM, I'd lay money on Galvatron being the 'big bad' of TF4. Nemesis Prime may also be a player.

Hopefully, they won't screw up by letting Bay add, or change characters on a whim (name changes/rollbacks were rife in the last couple of films), or that can't be licensed for toys (Dino/Mirage/Rush/Whatever, but without it being a GM festival either); or add these comic relief characters that seem to stray from the brands continuity (Skids, Mudflap, Brains, The Doctor, Que)

I'm cautiously looking forward to it, as long as they don't screw it up.... again.....

Now if they can have this cross-over with G.I.Joe, I think a lot of people would see it in hope of getting a jolly out of them recreating the scene where the Joes killed Bumblebee (as they thought he was an alien threat).

Oh, and I blame Spielberg and not Bay for a number of issues that kept the first three movies from being G1-fans friendly.

Hmmm, a lot has been said.

I just hope they do the scales right and make the figures screen accurate. ROTF was the best of the 3 toyline wise.

I don't mind getting 3 versions of Ironhide, but the DOTM one were so bad compared the the very first. Why make moar if they are less then the original?

Screen characters need to be made into a toy FIRST, and the weapons have to be screen accurate, no huge ass boxes that have a little gimmick. I find the DOTM weapons horrible.

Since TF4 will be more in space, I guess we'll see less humans.

And Hasbro, plz repaint/mold ROTF Leader Megatron into a DOTM Megatron or Shockwave. Y U NO have DOTM Decepticon Leaders?????????

Come on Hasbro, you didn't manage to make sales because the markets wanted to you to make so many god damn Bumblebees that won't sell instead of releasing SW (Deluxe & HA), Deluxe Que and Leadfoot during the line's run, then you nimrods blame us?! The hell with it!

In the next two years the Transformers will turn 30, and if this TF4 toyline is proven successful, then we might have proved you a little wrong. If not, you have failed us and we expect to take you jobs and get Takara's employees stateside to teach you how business should have went since 1984!!!!!!!

Anyway, I hope you reissue the G1 toys in 2014, then we'll make up our minds. You have two years before the anniversary, Hasblo!

El Duque wrote:Hasbro has posted the contents of the UBS Best of Americas 2012 Conference that was held a couple of days ago, and there were a few interesting tidbits regarding our favorite transforming alien robots.

• Transformers 4 will feature a new cast, including new robots, they feel the lower than expected toy sales for Transformers DOTM were due to recurring cast of robots in the previous trilogy. They hope new Transformers characters will reignite toys sales.

They need to pay more attention to fan comments. Yes, there were way too many Optimus and Bumblee toys. (I counted literally about 30 Deluxe Optimus on the shelf upon release vs. one to five of most other characters.) But there were a lot of other problems--downsizing of toys, horrible paint schemes and a generally ugly design aesthetic on most new molds, gimmicks that overwhelmed their toys (mech tech), and oh yeah, a crappy writing/directing staff for the movies. DOTM was no more or less than you'd expect from the previous two movies--not as bad as ROTF, but no better than Movie 1, except for having more robots--but the movie formula got old, and the toys were totally out of touch with what fans wanted.

But while we're talking about characters, where were Leader Megatron and Shockwave when you needed them? Ironhide and Sentinel were nice, but WTF was that with Leader Bumblebee? You wasted your budget on THAT when you could have given us a couple nice new Decepticon molds? And on top of that, you blew your chance to do Optimus right by giving him a trailer: One was nothing more than a plastic box that opens up in a completely nonsensical way, and the other was too stuffed with kibble to do anything but turn into a useless set of butterfly wings.

My guess is it will take much more disappointing sales from Movie 4 for them to get the point. I'll hold out the possibility that they'll surprise us and do something really interesting and worthwhile, but I'm not holding my breath.

Why don't they realize that the drop in sales for DOTM was because of the damn downgrade in figure quality? That and the obnoxiously poor decisions of classes they made some of the characters. They gave Bumblebee a Leader sided figure. For what!? That space belonged to Shockwave or Megatron!

Regarding the gimmicks, I'm curious. Does everyone else think the Mech Tech gigantor weapons that are too oversized for the figure, and make silly Wiley Coyote contraption grabbing motions... are a waste? I want that money to go into the figure... to add functionality, posability, features, paint apps, or simply to make it 1/3 larger.

I think my only exception was Soundwave's little mech tech weapon that makes a broadcast dish. That little thing was brilliant... and nicely proportional.



Where does everyone else sit on this?

Thoughts?