The Energon Pub

[PrymeStriker]

I guarantee if they redesigned the movie bots to look more like the characters we are all familiar with from our youth, that toy line would sell like crazy.

From fans and youths alike. Because the kiddies don't care.

[noodles2go]

I've been going through and watching all the G1 episodes and suddenly saw this coming. I thought, with all the rumors we've been hearing, with Bay still directing yet calling it a "reboot" and Megatron being dead along with most of the iconic decepticons, they would be moving on to G2. They will probably want to do the Unicron story since Bay wants to always go bigger and more explosive every sequel.

This all made sense when I realized Bay actually stuck pretty close to the corniness of the original G1 cartoons. Especially after watching the 3-parter "The Ultimate Doom". It was like the kids version of Dark of the Moon. All this time I thought he'd been raping my childhood, only to realize he was just letting my childhood come back and rape me. Seriously, the G1 episode scripts are kind of... ridiculous. Things weren't as cool as I remembered them.

Anyway, that said, I am thinking we are going to get characters like Rodimus, Kup, Springer, Ultra Magnus, Galvatron, Cyclonus, and Scourge. Probably get the dinobots too.

Wouldn't mind seeing the beast wars, but I find it unlikely.

[Arrancon]

Uhh... the reason the toys didn't sell and still clog shelves is because 3/4 of the characters aren't even in the movie. And of that 1/4 of ones that are actually in it, only a sliver are of new characters. I like the movies and all, but the toyline just made me . The only redemption Hasbro has is if they keep their word on re-releasing Soundwave and Que like they alluded to at BotCon.

[Megatron Wolf]

well thats one bit of good news, just wish they would cut every one who has been involved and start from scratch cause thats what the franchise need a fresh start not more explosions. But on another note the toys not selling well wasnt souly due to every one being sick of the characters there were other factors like poor quality, high prices & poor distribution. Yes no variety did hurt it but it wasnt the main factor. When bumblebee & prime are the only 2 figures on the shelves no one is going to buy them especially if they cost $13 or more, look like crap & break the first time you transform it. Instead of making 3 bumblebee repaints how about making the other 2 dreads & a random bot whos not in the movie like hound or someone, also lose the gimmicks cause they are never a good selling point. Not only does hasbro need to rethink the movies but they need to rethink how they handle business as well cause they suck in both fronts.

[wolverinetodd]

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

It has more to do with making over 9000 different versions of Optimuses and Bumblebees while neglecting requested figures like LeaderClass DOTM Megs, Dino and cancelling that Voyager Jetwing Prime that actually looks cool. And stupid designs like Que, Wheelie and Brains.

I have to agree. Even now with the Prime figures, Bumblebee is nothing more than a peg warmer and because all those BB's are still filling up the pegs, other cases of the other new figures aren't being ordered.

Sorry, marketing is to blame for this one. Stop making so damn many versions of Bumblebees. If you're going to repaint him, at least make a completely new character out of him... i.e. Prime's Hot Shot... though I know the Japanese love the same characters repainted over and over and not making it into a completely different character. But if your toy sales are down, perhaps going a different direction with the toys, like creating new characters is the way to go. And don't wait until stores basically stop carrying a line to release new characters because that part really chaps my ass. How many of us paid through the nose for Reveal the Shield Scout Class Windcharger because the stores stopped carrying that line?

Again, look at the Prime figures... who's idea was it to pack so many BB's and/or Hot Shot into a case with only one Vehicon in the first place? Plain stupid. It appears now though, judging by the later series cases coming in at BBTS that there are at least two Vehicons to a case. Rather similar to when Generations Scourge was released and the majority of us had a hard time finding more of him to build up our Sweeps. Of course, towards the end Hasbro realized too late to have more of him in the case and thus so many were left warming the pegs next to Kup. It's like commonsense goes out the window in these decisions.

Oh, and adding an Adjective in front of the name to coincide with the new paint job and maybe giving the figure a different set of weapons isn't the same as creating a completely different character... i.e. Cyberverse Leader Class Night Watch Optimus Prime with Swords or every Bumblebee design in every color ever created.

[TheTigerKing84]

many of the DOTM movie toys felt cheap and lame. The cooler leader Optimuses (Striker and Jetwing)were only in Japan as were the Mercedes bots Que/Wheeljack and Soundwave(both deluxe and Ha)As well as Deluxe Leadfoot.The movies i think need 1 more action/driving scenes with screaching tires and ramming like TF1.2 Actual Transformations in those scenes,When did Sideswipe go Stealth force in DOTM Chase?Did the Wreckers Transform in the movie? As far as toys go here's a hint,Combiners! Say the stunticons doing crazy stunts chases like the Bumblebee Barricade chase or Optimus Bonecrusher chase fight. After that awesome combiner like ROTF Devastator but make each piece standalone badass. You buy them all to make the combiner. But unlike the Supreme Devy or the legends Devy Each piece is its own. FOC Bruticus was going in the right direction but Main piece (Onslaught)too Small. Demand is there (see TFC and Maketoys)

[gothsaurus]

I AM glad to see some new characters. And honestly, I can't believe they couldn't even do a color "upgrade" (like in Robots in Disguise series) for all the movie characters. I didn't think people would just keep buying the same stuff for 4 or 5 years. That's a real fundamental problem with the movie game plan.

BUT all that said... No Peter Cullen, I'm not watching it. That was the ONE single thing that had me going to see the movies and buying any of the movie toy line. I want to see Prime front and center for at least half the movie, ala TFTM (animated movie.)

[Dagon]

I love how like seven consecutive posts all identify the 'sole reason' why the DOTM toyline 'failed,' yet they are all different reasons.

[gothsaurus]

My post above just said "a" reason. I think the movies had a number of issues. Not even going to open that can of worms. Heh.

[what0080]

So... Hasbro is saying that the failure of the DOTM line was NOT because of the ad infinitum Bumblebee toys or the DECREASED quality of the other toys (save Leader-class Ironhide IMO) but because there were too many RETURNING characters?

[ausbot]

I just want to see some sort of Headmaster Tech or like Silas/Breakdown.

[Autobot032]

So, let's say Optimus and crew are cut from the next film...

Has Hasbro learned nothing? Killing off the cast didn't work in the '80s and it's not going to work here. Rodimus and crew never received the love/attention that Optimus and crew did. Critics, parents and kids alike thought offing everyone was a terrible idea.

It will most likely yield the same results now. Problem is, the audience is much larger and people were swayed by Bumblebee and Optimus. (Even the twins.) When you get regular people to care about the characters, that's saying something. You kill them off/replace them/whatever, you not only lose the fans, but the audience that finally connected, as well.

I think this is a bad decision. Change the character models, but don't change the characters. Add to them, don't get rid of them.

And sales were down for several reasons:

1.) The economy.
2.) No one wants to buy several of the same toys over and over.
3.) Pointless figures that were total wastes.
4.) Letting Takara release figures that were meant for the US and cutting them out completely, here.
5.) Distribution was terrible in some spots.

Hasbro has said they're becoming a multimedia company, not just toys anymore. So...why do toys even matter to them anymore? I would think the films would be their bread and butter. I'd think the toys don't matter much anymore. (I mean, the quality has gone down while the prices have gone up. They're not even trying anymore.)

All of this sounds like bad news to me. Even if they keep Optimus and Bumblebee...the damage will be done.

[Roadbuster]

I think this is one of those times where we as a fandom need to sound off to Hasbro over this. It's better than just complaining about it on an internet board. Trying is better than doing nothing.

As for killing off chars/writting the off to be replaced with new ones. I think it was evident they learned nothing with GI JOE Retaliation (you know what I mean).

[gothsaurus]

I'd agree with all of you... and I think these two points are at the top of the list.

- No one wants the same toys for three movies. (ie. 4-5 years)...
- Killing off Optimus was a terrible idea, and the fans were deeply upset by it

There are lots of ways to shuffle in new characters and repaints :
From protoforms falling to earth … to "super" mode upgrade color changes... or like the seeker jet, different names for different color schemes.

Finally a last point I don't think anyone hit on — the movie design aesthetic (especially on screen) had so many tiny parts, the vehicles got lost in transformation. Everyone looked alike — like a bunch of parts.

When you want kids to RELATE to characters and grow to love them (and buy them), they need to be UNIQUE and appealing. That means recognizable parts (like G1 Jazz's car hood chest) and faces, plus great voice and character development (ie. NOT like movie Jazz's trite, two dimensional, questionably-racist 20 seconds of dialogue … or movie Ironhide's slapped on accent. An accent is not a personality.)

I agree they pushed the envelope on detail and complexity, but the end result robots from the movie were nothing you could remember or "bond" with. Bumblebee's inability to emote with words or facial expression also put up a barrier to relating with him.

Hoping someone will take notice. I think the character connections made in the G1 series are what make so many long-term ongoing fans to this day. I hope some of those design cues and character development can return (as I think we've seen in Animated and Prime and Beast Wars) for some unique and relatable bots in the new movie.

[griftimus prime]

lol. they make too many bbs and then blame us

[TimothyR]

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.

[DevastaTTor]

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.

[Sodan-1]

[*]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.

[Autobot032]

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.

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.

we should've gotten the human alliance soundwave.

No argument here.

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.

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.

[ricemazter]

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.

[TimothyR]

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.

[Fires_Of_Inferno]

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

[gavinfuzzy]

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...

[TulioDude]

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

Aniamted cancelletion hadnothing to do with the movies.


THis whole topic is weird.

[kirbenvost]

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