rpetras wrote:Yes, we are getting a new Jetfire, but we have still never gotten an official Skyfire, which is the itch the 3p's are trying to scratch.
Ah, but the Classics Jetfire, if you popped off his helmet, had a perfect Skyfire head!
And before you complain, "Still, it wasn't a proper Skyfire, was it?" How so? Because it wasn't 100% G1 accurate? Classics was all about modern
reinterpretation of figures. None of them were 100% accurate to G1.
Or are these third party figures supposed to fit into another collection? They don't seem quite screen accurate enough to be Masterpiece. They seem to complex to be modern figures designed to fit into a G1 collection (kind of like the Glacialbots).
rpetras wrote:Many, many collectors regard the Deluxe Galvatron as utter failure in a number of ways; size, design or bot mode ... often all three.
I admit I
almost didn't mention him, for that reason... I suppose there is a grey area for figures Hasbro failed on, and that grey area can be somewhat slippery. (For example, I was all for a third party Devastator!)
But personally, he is
my Galvatron.
rpetras wrote:The official Wheelies are either too big or too small for a lot of collectors.
Personally, I found the Legends Class figure to be perfect. After all, he was a mini-car in the G1 line.
And unless it is something painfully mismatched, like if Hasbro gave us a Legends Class Metroplex, and
only a Legends Class figure for Metroplex, I'd have a hard time seeing scale as a reason for the need for a third party figure to replace an official one. (Before anyone responds, the proceeding usage of Legends Class was a bit of an exaggeration to emphasize the point. Anything smaller then the G1 figure would have been a pathetic size for a Metroplex, and matching the G1 scale would be the lower end of acceptable. What Hasbro did release seems to have been an excellent size.)
rpetras wrote:Metroplex is pretty confusing when the official Metroplex is all around well regarded. But, that said, the new one does look really good, and will be a lot smaller, which may work for some collections. If they putout a Trypticon in the same size, many people may want their city bots (including Omega Supreme) to be the same size.
O shan't hold my breath, but personally I hope for a Hasbro Trypricon to match their Metroplex.
rpetras wrote:Personally, I'm glad 3p's are covering retread territory.
I just got Orion and Bii ... about as heavily retread characters as you can come up with ... and both are really great!
Oh, I'd forgotten about Orion and Bii. As someone who loves collecting Optimi, especially G1 inspired ones, I really didn't see the need for Orion. Didn't pick him up, didn't think he looked good. And seeing as I have that one that turns into a train, I'm obviously not completely against third party Optimus figures. Of course, as a
train the figure had something unique to offer. This was a third party G1-ish Optimus flat nosed truck. My goodness, there was obviously a
huge lack of Optimus Primes who transformed into flat nosed trucks on the market, wasn't there?
Bii looked good, but again I could not help but feel he was pointless.
If you didn't think Orion and Bii were pointless.... well, I guess you're the target market for these figures. Enjoy them! But me... I continue to fail to see the point of them. And I find it ironic that whenever Hasbro themselves release the same character two or three times in fairly quick succession, everyone complains about the retread. But when a third party then goes and does a figure someone else has already done, suddenly some (not all, but some) of those people are instead saying, "Hey, awesome! Finally, I can get
this hugely expensive figure that
might offer some minor improvements over what Hasbro can do, and toss out the perfectly acceptable one Hasbro released a year ago!"
Personally, I'd rather see them concentrate on uncovered figures, or on accessory sets upgrading official figures. Of course, that's because I see third parties as a tool to augment a collection of official figures, and I get troubled as it seems like some of them are more determined to actively
replace Hasbro and Takara. But without Hasbro and Takara, we wouldn't have these characters and the fictions that draw us to them, and there would be no existing fanbase for the third party companies to be catering to. This drive to act as replacements rather then supplements just seems to me like third party companies biting the hand that feeds them. (In this case, the food being the fanbase.)
And to completely confuse my potentially already muddled metaphor, Hasbro and Takara get bitten not only by the ones being fed, but by the food as well, when the fanbase abandons them. Now, I'm not saying Hasbro's perfect, or else there would be no need for third parties in the first place. But when they do do something well, we should appreciate it, and buy their products. But I increasingly see some sections of the fanbase instead saying, "That is good, but it could be better. Hopefully eventually one of the third party companies does that figure, instead! I'll wait for that!" (Or, to open up a whole different can of worms, why is it that these days any discussion of a higher end figure includes a decent percentage of people saying, "Wow, that's awesome! I can't wait for the knock-off!")
These things happen, and the figures that Hasbro makes to cater more to the fanbase end up not selling as well... so what is their incentive to make more such figures in the future? Frankly, I'm amazed that the Classics/Universe/Generations line of figures has lasted (in one form or another) as long as it has, since it seems like an unappreciative fanbase is always trying to put it down.
I just don't get it...
