Sabrblade wrote:Well, the differences between each portion are essentially as distinctive as the toylines of other "sequel" series. Beast Wars and Beast Machines are one continuity but with separate aesthetics, Armada/Energon/Cybertron are one continuity with three aesthetics, etc. etc.
Like how there's no single toyline for those, there's no single Aligned toyline either. Two Beast Era toylines, three Unicron Trilogy toylines, and three Aligned toylines (Generations "WFC/FOC", Prime, and Rescue Bots).
True, but the Unicon Trillogy toys are a LOT close together in aesthetics than any of the aligned continuity toylines so far. You can put them together on a shelf and pick your favorite representation of characters that got several different versions, and they will more or less look coherent together. Even with Beast Machines, you could almost ignore the Maximal molds completely and stick in the Vehicons with the few new characters and your favorite character representations from Beast Wars proper to round out that "shelf" if you wish (Before any Beast Machines fans cry out in rage, I assure you, I say most of this with tongue in cheek).
Also, I don't think many fans want to mix in the WfC/FoC figures or the Rescue Bots figures with their Prime displays. WfC and Foc were always designed with G1 aesthetics in mind, even if it's a part of the "aligned" continuity. The fact that those character designs are for Cybertronian forms, where Prime is mostly earth-based vehicles, just makes that distinction all the easier for fans to make. Finally, there's plenty overlap between the character rosters of each toyline. Add in a Prime version of Sideswipe, Jazz, and maybe Blaster, and you're good to go, really. Rescue Bots is just its own thing for its own target demo, regardless of being (nominally) part of the aligned continuity.
It would be nice if the next cartoon could at least "fit" alongside Prime, even if it does something a little different with the look or theme, much as how I described the compatibility of the Unicron Trilogy toylines, despite their distinctions from one another.