There are a staunch number of people who thoroughly enjoy the movie aesthetic and in the same spectrum there are a number of those who hate it entirely. While the opinions may differ, here are the negative points that I've gathered from being a toy collector in the first era of Bayformers.
- The Transformers Movie Franchise and its subsequent toys are a cash cow. This point governs all other points. Unlike other lines which try to cater to the adult fan, this line is all in on black to make the most money it possibly can. Scale? Complete character cast? Not x100 Bumblebees on the shelves? Those questions are nonexistent - there is no sympathy.
- Not all characters who are present in the feature film get toys. Dino/Mirage from TF3 as one example. I'm sure there are other examples I've missed.
- Even characters who get toys do not receive the proper scale treatment. Bonecrusher. Blackout/Grindor. List goes on
- Not only are the cast of the movies represented in Deluxe/Voyager/Leader scale, but they spawned lines like Human Alliance and Dual Model Kits who also fail to complete entire casts.
- Characters get more than one mold, and its usually not the character you want to get another mold. That means the originals tend to be inferior, whether that's through a new paint job, or a new mold - buying the first wave in a Movie line is a bad idea.
- Repaints rule the day, and for popular characters, these repaints don't even homage anything in prior lore, they are simply a different outfit for [insert popular character name here].
After writing all of that down, I think I have already scared myself from collecting any Transformers 4 toys. I jest, but here are some positives (and I truly hope there are any) that the movie toyline franchise has presented for me.
- After the main movie toy line is pushed out, the secondary and tertiary lines do push out toys of interest. The non movie character movie toys, aside from the alliteration, do tend to be of interest to Classics collectors, with molds such as N.E.S.T. Alliance Bludgeon. Even if the first release of a mold is simply a brand new Transformers character, subsequent repaints or remolds can produce collectable characters, such as DOTM Vortex.
- That's really the only point I had, whoops.
The fact that there was always a newer and better version of a character really burned all interest I had in the movie toys. All the movie figures that I accumulated over the past 5-6 years are now in the hands of other collectors as almost everything has been purged. I simply feel that this is going to happen even if I started collecting AoE and beyond. Really, unless there's a character named Blurr...
This wasn't all going to be about my opinion; What did you guys think of the Movie Trilogy toys? Did you enjoy collecting it? Are you going to collect Transformers AoE?