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I'm much more interested in Sunstreaker and Jazz, if they're done well I'll get the set.

We thank Sowndwave76 for letting us know of an image that popped up online as a leak. It is an image of Earthrise Trailbreaker in toon colours with no more use of clear plastic. This would be from the upcoming Autobot 5 pack within the Generations Selects line, the same 5 pack which includes Hound. That means that the other figures in the pack, like Sunstreaker and Wheeljack, would also be in toon colours. Let us know if this news helps lessen the blow of buying the 5 pack for Hound.

sol magnus wrote:According to the Trailbreaker I saw, we're definitely getting solid plastic Cartoon-esque models this time, so there's the value in that pack for me - but the set is gonna be 110 bucks.

A $15 savings, I'm fine with that.

Emerje

The pack should be cheaper IMO, especially if they're going to inflict the smegging Happy Meal toy windows on the figures.

Ugh, I guess the only good thing about this pack is that the people who for some reason like their Transformers to look like cheap Happy Meal toys might unload their good Trailbreakers and Sunstreakers.

Just another example of g1 toys or cars from other Tf lines being better. G1s hoist/trailbreakers chest with the window was one of my favorite things on the old toy. Cthru windows, no visible bot kibble behind the window and seated a visible pilot. I'll be repainting this anyways but the window will look a bit like a sore thumb compared to the other versions.
If the windows paint matches the side windows it could be the one improvement over the er version.

The Windows Purists should just buy their respective Reprolabels sets.

For everyone else, they will be glad to get rid of the fragility and colors mismatches that the clear plastics bring.

WOW, the comments reacting to this reveal take me back to...has it really been over 7 years already? Yes, I mean the great CW vs. UW Computron debate.

A decade prior to that, Hasbro's Classics line FINALLY gave lifelong fans what so many of us had been begging for since before even the demise of the G1 line: Toys of iconic characters more accurate to the media portrayals that (mostly) made them iconic. Sure, all great toys exude some personality, and in a few cases it eclipses their media personas in the minds of fandom (Six Shot and Fort Max are the best examples that spring to mind), but in general, improvements over the Transformers toys of the previous millennium have usually been measured first in accuracy to some consensus on what the characters should look like, followed closely by articulation (transformation being inherently part of that), and then other factors like QC, durability, etc. all weighing against each other.

And that consensus always seemed to default to Sunbow-cartoon-accuracy for nearly all characters worked into the 'toon, as evidenced by the fact that I still can't find a G1 Ratchet with red-helmet, white boomerang and face, despite him getting 99% of his meaningful character development in comics that used that color scheme. Whenever I see white-helmet, black-boomerang, gray-face Ratchet, I see a medic who was routinely cranky about his work load, and...that's it. Even assuming he was crankier about getting shot to death in the shuttle is technically fanwank, or presumption that TF:TM is just as much a part of Marvel continuity, where Ratchet was truly iconic.

But despite favoring Marvel over all other TF universes, I'm fine with show-accuracy, because it's closer to what I wanted the G1 toys to be back in the day, awesome though the majority of them were, and still are. With obvious exceptions being made for comic-exclusive characters like Jhiaxus and Tarn, and parts of MP Skids and CW Superion who needed elements of the original toys worked into their updates to replace parts of their shoulders and head/neck that were badly drawn in their respective character models, greater cartoon-accuracy was what all subsequent toylines in that vein aimed for, as they CHUGGed towards their current Legacy. Like it or not, it made sense, and kept as many fans as possible happy. Great.

But seeing the posts above sh!tting on this Trailbreaker reveal so hard just gave me flashbacks to that Computron thread, wherein several Seibertronians apparently took it for granted that toy-accurate elements like Strafe's visor and Nosecone's color scheme in Hasbro's version were automatically THE look for proper Technobots, and Takara's show-accurate set was, by default, inaccurate. When I saw the same pics, I too got hit by a nostalgia train full of memories of opening my Technobots on Christmas morning in 1987, but it passed me in less than a minute once I saw Nosecone's stupid Brawl-head and joke-drill and compared that to Takara's take on him. And while Strafe's visor does look cooler and more Marvelous, the Technobots were characterized better in their brief U.S. cartoon stint, so UW all the way by me.

The toy-over-show-accuracy for Technobots sentiment just seemed extremely jarring since those Computrons were effectively the coda to Combiner Wars, a toyline largely defined by Hasbro denying fans the show-accurate toy of one character per team they'd needed for decades, and Takara having the "common sense" to rectify this. That view was predictable and understandable enough (other fans deifying Alpha Bravo to preemptively mock said reaction was funny), but then Takara making the greatest improvements of all to the 3rd Autobot gestalt and therefore getting such an automatic 180 from so many fans has confused the slag out of me ever since.

So as for this Trailbreaker repaint, he looks so much like he stepped right out of the cartoon that I'm suddenly a lot less averse to buying this upcoming set to get Hound. I certainly understand wanting a clear plastic windshield if you have fond memories of the original toy, but then why not just hold onto or reacquire the G1 toy? Could it be that their windows are all broken or yellowed with age? Well then that's actually a good reason to shift to opaque plastic painted in show and/or comic colors. Until we develop affordable clear plastic that doesn't become brittle or photodegrade, I'm always worried that clamoring for more of it is akin to asking HasTak to put that lovely glitter back into their plastic so we can have GPS toys again, just like in the G1 days!

As for show-accurate paint making it look like Happy Meal Trailbreaker, is that automatically a bad thing? I don't know how many fans beside myself have been trying to suppress the memory of those two years, but the McDonald's Beast Machines tie-in produced Happy-Meal toys of Rattrap and Nightscream that seriously were better than their "real" toys, in terms of scale and some aspects of transformation.

I'm not going to derail this thread by sh!tting on Beast Machines, there never was any organic core, rise above it...

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, I'm just curious as to what makes the steady desire for ever-more media-accurate Transformers occasionally backlash towards elements of the original toys that the current toys are supposed to be improvements on. Has it just been so long since the Classics of 2006 that we take show-accurate toys for granted? As Plato would surely ask, were he currently alive and a Transformers fan, when does the FORM of a Transformer resemble the first shadow that was their original toy more than the shadow cast on printed page or screen?

Are there already serious studies on the psychology of this? We all want the toys we want, but it's a question that needs to addressed as our favorite brand marches ever forward.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:The pack should be cheaper IMO, especially if they're going to inflict the smegging Happy Meal toy windows on the figures.

Ugh, I guess the only good thing about this pack is that the people who for some reason like their Transformers to look like cheap Happy Meal toys might unload their good Trailbreakers and Sunstreakers.

No. It's not about the windows, although I dom't mind that. The good thing about this set is the durability of the toys being increased over the original versions due to the hard plastic. And because Hound was always going to have the 'happy meal toy' windows, if you were going to get him you were going to get that.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Ugh, I guess the only good thing about this pack is that the people who for some reason like their Transformers to look like cheap Happy Meal toys might unload their good Trailbreakers and Sunstreakers.

I will be selling my Trailbreaker and Sunstreaker once I’ve opened (and inspected) one of the greatest combo packs ever created. I’ve got ER Trailbreaker tooned up with Hoist’s Toyhax window stickers, and Sunstreaker sporting Spin-out’s window set, plus the color correcting chest label. Wheeljack and Jazz are perfect additions to this pack. Jazz for obvious reasons, and Wheeljack because he doesn’t look right in toy colors. Hopefully we can get a toon Bluestreak with a fixed roof and an undamaged 86 Prowl in a future release.

This makes me want the 5 pack way less. I didn't grow up with the Cartoons, while I watched the episodes they released on VHS and the Movie when I was a kid, my nostalgia is linked to the toys. I find the cartoon designs bland and the colors muted. I was planning on getting the pack, but now I am not so sure.

Oh hey, it's another update for a GoBot. This time it's Scratch. Pocket and Geeper-Creeper are in this set too right?

While the window issue isn't a big deal to me, I can appreciate not seeing "parts" behind the windshield. I feel the bigger issue is the color miss match. And if it weren't for that, or seeing parts I'd fully back the clear window versions because it adds a bit of "realism" to the them being cars, having shaded windows make them look mor like toys. IMO

My only problem with this new "gimmick" is that we will now see this more often as just another "cheap repaint" and gives them an excuse to go back and redo every Autobot. Which is fine for those wanting it and no real problem for those who don't as we can simply pass, but it still adds fluff to the line making it take even longer to get "new" things or updates to much older versions.

It's also going to cause OCD issues for some(me) who weren't able to find the first release with clear windows, and now will have a shaded bot amongst all the clear. lol

EDIT: I saw someone brought up CW vs. UW Computron in comparison. That's not really a good comparison to this argument because that argument wasn't just a matter of deco (for my money, UW Computron sweeps both the show-accuracy and toy-accuracy categories, due the far more extensive retooling; actually having, y'know, Computron's face and chest instead of Superion's counts for a lot).

Anyway, a far better comparison is Classics Hot Rod vs. RtS/Challenge at Cybertron Hot Rod, and the arguments surrounding that. It's the same deal of transparent windows vs. opaque windows. And I seem to recall that back then, many fans were outraged at how cheap the opaque windows made the RtS/CaC version look.

-Kanrabat- wrote:The Windows Purists should just buy their respective Reprolabels sets.

Ah yes, we should totally buy Reprolabels sets for the Sunstreakers and Trailbreakers we don't have because we weren't able to buy them during Earthrise and now don't want to have to pay $60+ per figure for Deluxes on eBay. If anyone should be told "just buy Reprolabels uwu" it's the people with the preference for the Happy Meal toy windows. You can't magically render an opaque window transparent with stickers...

As someone who had to buy a Sunstreaker WITH ONE FOOT to be able to get him at a kinda-sorta-not-godawful price, this pack infuriates me. If we were getting unaltered refreshes (or at least, refreshes with clear windows) of Sunstreaker and Trailbreaker like we desperately need, I wouldn't be mad. But no, the only rereleases Hasbro is doing are 1. in a multipack and 2. reductive versions with cheesy opaque windows.

-Kanrabat- wrote:For everyone else, they will be glad to get rid of the fragility and colors mismatches that the clear plastics bring.

Ah yes, the exaggerated (as far as I can tell) fragility and the color mismatches that tbh really only stand out on Sunstreaker (and even then, worse in photos than in person).
ETA: Also, unless they changed his forearms to yellow plastic and made the black paint (instead of yellow paint on black plastic), Sunstreaker is still going to have notable color mismatches.

sol magnus wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:The pack should be cheaper IMO, especially if they're going to inflict the smegging Happy Meal toy windows on the figures.

Ugh, I guess the only good thing about this pack is that the people who for some reason like their Transformers to look like cheap Happy Meal toys might unload their good Trailbreakers and Sunstreakers.

No. It's not about the windows, although I dom't mind that. The good thing about this set is the durability of the toys being increased over the original versions due to the hard plastic.

1a. The original versions were already hard plastic. Inflicting them with Happy Meal toy windows won't magically make it be any harder. 1b. Softer plastic is often actually more durable, because it's less brittle.
2. AFAIC literally the only good thing about this set - and even then, it's a case of "every cloud has a silver lining" - is that people who get it selling off their Earthrise versions of Sunstreaker and Trailbreaker might mean this still gives people a shot at getting those for a reasonable price.

sol magnus wrote:And because Hound was always going to have the 'happy meal toy' windows, if you were going to get him you were going to get that.

1. Hound has exactly ONE window, his windshield. 2. Your proof of this is...? Especially considering Detritus has a clear windshield? 3. Even if Hound was stuck with that, why should the rest of the pack be rendered inferior on his account?

EDIT: I realize I'm being really down on the opaque windows, but... AFAIC they just look fundamentally less nice than transparent windows do (especially with the cheesy cel-shading), and to a significant degree. I have not found clear windows on post-G1 figures to impact the durability in any significant degree (for one thing, post-G1 stuff seems to use a much less brittle clear plastic), it's easy to ignore it if robot bits are visible below (and it's offset by the niceness of having clear windows that you can see through and that light can shine through), and any paint vs. plastic color issues are usually minor and also easy to ignore. It is more noticeable on ER Sunstreaker, because bright yellow is an annoying little sod when it comes to painting and tends to need a white undercoat to not get tinged by the underlying material. But IMO it looks worse in photos than in person, and I think it's a lot worse on his arms (which are opaque plastic anyway) than it is on his windshield.

I like cartoon accuracy... but with some caveats. I don't think it should have to extend to things that were goofs (or "Eh, that hue's close enough" *cough*Jumpstarters*cough*) rather than careful deliberate changes. And I feel that it should add, but not take away. I also don't really consider cel-shaded windows to be more cartoon-accurate. While it's true that windows and canopies were cel-shaded by default due to the simplistic animation... there were also plenty of moments where we did get to see through them, either looking in or looking out.

EDIT AGAIN: The windows thing aside, this pack should really be cut down to a 4-pack. Literally nobody was asking for more of Earthrise Wheeljack, Hasbro! Especially after you already gave him a rerelease he didn't need in Kingdom!

I'll be one of those who are selling existing clear-window figures, to replace them with the figures from this upcoming pack. And doing so for the reasons cited above. I haven't had any of the clear plastic stuff break on me yet, but that's likely only because I'm extremely careful with my figures. But there is also the difference in color between plastic that is actually a color, and clear plastic that's only painted to try and match a color.

So I'll be looking into this bundle as soon as it's available. And I hope that enough people are adverse to it that it gives ME a shot at getting one, and not suffer from the disastrously poor distribution that other exclusive sets have suffered.

And that seems like a nice plan, if you can acquire all the new shaded window versions. Problem is when these tend to be niche Exclusive and are unable to locate them. Granted, it does feel like thing have improved with being bale to get Target Exclusives at Pulse for a limited time. But still it's not risk free. I never came across Cliffjumper so I'm already 0-1, and how many more times will that happen?

Sure maybe I can get this five pack and have Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker and Wheeljack with shaded windows. Great that's three down! Who's next though? Because Ironhide and Prowl are battle damaged, I'm still missing Cliffy. Oh and as a side tangent why are those two packed together again? They did the same duo for the ER 2pk, almost as if they're some kind of "pair". I mean you'd think Prowl would be paired with another emergency vehicle and not random van. lol

Anyways, I just don't know about this whole road. Not when you think about how long it took to build what you already have, not to mention the difficult task involved with just some of those. Such as ER Prowl or Amazon Ratchet.

Till-all-R1 wrote:Oh and as a side tangent why are those two packed together again?

Because they were both killed in the same scene in the movie.

Till-all-R1 wrote:They did the same duo for the ER 2pk, almost as if they're some kind of "pair". I mean you'd think Prowl would be paired with another emergency vehicle and not random van. lol

Thing is, unlike with how they made the guy who turns into an ambulance be a medic, or with how they paired the two fire department vehicles up... the original G1 cartoon and comics never really made much of Prowl's altmode being a police car, and prior to Takara creating Cordon the only other police car Autobot was Streetwise. And Prowl and Ironhide are at least both soldier-y enough to work together as a set.

With all this talk on the windows, am I the first/only one to dislike the shade of grey they went with? Animation accurate or not, it just looks bad to me at least. I understand he wasn't shown as dark as the black parts on other bots on the show, but he needed to be darker than this.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:With all this talk on the windows, am I the first/only one to dislike the shade of grey they went with? Animation accurate or not, it just looks bad to me at least. I understand he wasn't shown as dark as the black parts on other bots on the show, but he needed to be darker than this.

Don't give up hope based on the early photos. If Trailbreaker appears lighter than you might like in the photo, that doesn't necessarily mean it's how he'd look in-hand. There could be a stronger light source for that photo, or they may have fiddled with the levels in Photoshop before posting. And always keep in mind that with a picture in a web browser, you're experiencing projected light from a monitor, instead of reflected light from an actual object. In real life, things tend to look a shade or two darker than they would in a computer photo.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:With all this talk on the windows, am I the first/only one to dislike the shade of grey they went with? Animation accurate or not, it just looks bad to me at least. I understand he wasn't shown as dark as the black parts on other bots on the show, but he needed to be darker than this.

Yeah, that's just goofy. Just like a certain dumb redeco of Masterpiece Grimlock. That's like doing a Superman action figure with blue hair, or a blue action figure of Venom.

On a subject other than this five-pack, have we had any whisper of a G2 redeco of Motormaster, in Selects or elsewhere? I know I haven't heard or seen anything about one...

I don't want to build The Great Wall of Text by quoting Zelda's post, but I can admit that the fragility of clear plastics is exaggerated... depending on the figure. I got the Beast Machines deluxe Optimus Primal who shattered in my hands.
I never had any issues with SS86 Jazz or his repaints.
Legacy Tarn's chest plate assploded in my hand.

Also, the flaw in having clear windows that are too clear is you see ugly bits of bots inside. Dark clear works best.

As for the repros, they are still available.

Finally, the color mismatch can be annoying, especially with white, yellow, and red.

If you had the original ER Sunstreaker on hand, it's pretty obvious.
It's also quite noticeable on SS86 Ratchet and Ironhide.

-Kanrabat- wrote:Also, the flaw in having clear windows that are too clear is you see ugly bits of bots inside. Dark clear works best.

I've never been particularly bothered by seeing bits of bot through them, and most figures do use a darker clear anyway so...

-Kanrabat- wrote:As for the repros, they are still available.

Well, obviously the reprolabels are still available.
But what aren't still available, at least not at reasonable prices, are Earthrise Sunstreaker and Trailbreaker themselves. Which is what I was complaining about, and which is a situation this five-pack does smeg-all to directly help. Which is what I'm mad about.

-Kanrabat- wrote:Finally, the color mismatch can be annoying, especially with white, yellow, and red.

If you had the original ER Sunstreaker on hand, it's pretty obvious.

I do, in fact, have the original ER Sunstreaker in hand. Did you skim past the part where I mentioned having to buy him with ONLY ONE FOOT to get him at a kinda-sorta-not-godawful price? Or are you just refusing to believe that I own him because I said that the yellow paint on his roof looks less-mismatched in person than it does in photos?


Well, I do own him - have this photo for proof. And while the mismatch between the yellow paint on his roof and the yellow plastic definitely stands out like a sore thumb on camera (partly because the yellow plastic looks paler on-camera), I find it's a lot less noticeable to the direct eye. Not seamless, but low-key enough to brush off.

What is just as glaring in-person as it is on-camera is the mismatch between the yellow plastic, and the yellow paint on his forearms. And that has nothing to do with clear plastic.

-Kanrabat- wrote:It's also quite noticeable on SS86 Ratchet and Ironhide.

Didn't look that noticeable to me when I saw them on the pegs in stores. *shrug*

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:It's also quite noticeable on SS86 Ratchet and Ironhide.

Didn't look that noticeable to me when I saw them on the pegs in stores. *shrug*

Forgive me to skim over your posts because they are quite long and TlDr and such.

But man, that Sunny-T of yours will be impossible to fix, unless by some miracle you land on a scrap ER Sunstreaker, or the Selects repaints that happen to have the part you need unbroken. But I never say never. I once completed/fixed a ROTF Bludgeon this way. That tank turret was not easy to repair.

As for the color mismatch for SS86 Ratchet and Ironhide, there's no way you can see it in the box at the store. The way it's apparent is only on the vehicle mode. Ironhide have reds that are all over the place. As for Ratchet, the painted white over the clear blue appear to "have suffered from yellowing" under certain lighting. It's a transparency trick.

Oh, and speaking of SS86 Ratchet and Ironhide, I know most people are afraid of those two clear tabs on the roof that you must snap in HARD. Yet, no break ever happened on mine. Not even a stress mark. So the clearophobes can buy them with confidence.
And call me a vandal, but I bought the repros for both and covered their windows.

All I know is that for me, even just with seeing Trailbreaker, this is an instant preorder.
No, I don’t love the idea of another Wheeljack or Jazz. But I’m sure those will also look great.
If anyone doesn’t like this set… Cool…. Skip it & leave more for those of us that are ready to buy.
Oh, & here are some more photos.
I personally think that tint of blue looks incredibly good, and the gray is also really nice.
I was relatively frustrated that I could never find Trailbreaker or Sunstreaker... I have to say good on Hastak for making this happen.

We now have more images of Earthrise Trailbreaker in toon colours. This would be from the upcoming Autobot 5 pack within the Generations Selects line, the same 5 pack which includes Hound. That means that the other figures in the pack, like Sunstreaker and Wheeljack, would also be in toon colours. The new images from Yahoo and E-Bay also give us a look at the alt mode. Since the main plastic colour is grey rather than black, the wheels are molded in the same colour and become grey as well. Let us know what you feels about this deco now that you have a better look at it.

That is way too light, geez. That is Takara-deco Galvatron levels of too light. That is not cartoon accurate at all. He shouldn't be any lighter than a charcoal color N64, and frankly just the same black as the regular deco would be fine.

Maybe instead of firing artists, Crispy Cox should have demoted or at least reprimanded whoever it is that picks coloration by just scrolling down to the first couple cartoon ref pics on the TFwiki page and then calling it a day. But then, Crispy Cox hasn't shown himself to be a very intelligent or wise person.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:It's also quite noticeable on SS86 Ratchet and Ironhide.

Didn't look that noticeable to me when I saw them on the pegs in stores. *shrug*

Forgive me to skim over your posts because they are quite long and TlDr and such.

But man, that Sunny-T of yours will be impossible to fix, unless by some miracle you land on a scrap ER Sunstreaker, or the Selects repaints that happen to have the part you need unbroken.

Nothing's broken per se, the missing foot was popped off cleanly. And I was planning on scratchbuilding a replacement left foot using the right foot as a guide.