TakaraTomy Transformers Unite Warriors: Defensor & Groove Tweets

Is it me or does the face of Takara's Blades look much friendlier than Hasbro's grimacing Marvel G2-esque Blades face?

I think, with the exception of those who need Groove as a limb and not a chest minion, Hasbro Defensor winds out. That one just doesn't look as good with that paint work. And I do not like the white Superion hands. They blend into the arms.

I kinda don't care that blast off isn't a space shuttle. never liked him as a space shuttle. Not really...combative. I'd actually applaud Takara if they just leave this one alone.

This looks very nice. Much better then rook and a stupid chestplate bike. I really hope takara does a proper blast off as a shuttle with a faceplate. Slings**t just doesnt cut it for me.

Optimum Supreme wrote:

Rated X wrote:This looks very nice. Much better then rook and a stupid chestplate bike. I really hope takara does a proper blast off as a shuttle with a faceplate. Slings**t just doesnt cut it for me.

The faceplate issue could easily be improved by using the mold's Firefly head. It's a hastily mocked up hand painted preproduction figure. Who knows what they might do for the actual figure.

Keep the head, as the official stock photo still has Slingshot's head. Doesn't matter, he can be Blast Off's little brother called Take-Off.

griftimus prime wrote:so glad we get 50 repaints of everything but not groove

Makes me wonder if even Takara are going to do anything else with it. Surely they see how well Slinger and Brake are selling? Are they really making so much on a limited release boxed set that they can afford to use a unique mold for no other markets?

munkimus prime wrote:So first aid gets his rear windows painted here which is nice but Streetwise looks grey for some reason. In all I'm not that bothered by this release.

Streewise was light gray in the cartoon.

I would appreciate a new mold for Blast Off, just because I feel that a lot of the more common G1 Decepticon characters haven't been given proper updated versions.
And no, Blast Off is not some unique character that deserves special treatment.
But with all of the molds being re-used in this line, my personal bias makes me want a new mold.

Do I think the current offering is bad? Absolutely not. I think it works very very well.
Will I buy the UW version if it offers a shuttle alt mode for him? Maybe, and most likely.
Knowing that all of the other paint jobs would be more cartoon accurate, and that Bruticus's head will probably be gray and not black/dark gray would probably be enough to pull that trigger.

I will say, if we find out that Hasbro's version in fact uses a different, more accurate head sculpt, who knows, I could stick with their's.

The more I think about it, the more I know it's possible that I will be changing Menasor and Bruticus into their separate team members regularly,
making the bot modes as if not more important than how each limb/torso looks combined.

The exception to this will be Devastator. Although, if I could get an extra Hook and Scrapper to keep in bot mode, I would. Love those guys.

I'm prone to thinking that they may remold blastoff's head. Much of the shots for the figures displayed at the panel look like mock-ups and not actual photos. It has rightly been pointed out that many of the pictures look like they are renderings from a 3D program. They probably just ran out of time before the panel reveal and retouched Quicksling vs. rendering a new head for him.

It's easy to believe then, since most of these figures won't see the light of day until mid-next year at the earliest, that Blastoff's head was a placeholder, and that his actual head will be much more show-accurate. Or so it is to be hoped. They've gone through a lot of effort to make sure that all the other figures have show-accurate heads at least. I can't imagine the would just totally broom blastoff like that. Why go through all the time and effort to make G1 accurate heads for Sunstreaker, Ironhide, et. all, and then ignore Blastoff?

william-james88 wrote:

Gearslide wrote:So Takara started off with giving us repaints with new heads (Slingshot and Wildrider) for the first two combiners (Superion and Menasor), to make them more accurate to their original incarnations.

Now Defensor is getting a brand new figure to increase his accuracy, most likely because there are no bikes to give a new head to for Groove.

At this point, I'd be amazed if Takara DOESN'T make a Space Shuttle Blast Off (versus Hasbro's Purple and Brown Slingshot) figure for Bruticus.

To be fair though there is no confirmation that it was Takara who gave us those wildrider and slingshot heads since Hasbro also released those very molds. It could have been Hasbro who designed those heads since they designed everything else combiner wars related with the exception of Groove (which is the only mold which was said to not be available (at retail price of course) overseas). Since they made their own mold with Groove it wouldnt surprise me they make their own with Blast Off. Here is hoping he isnt a takara tomy mall exclusive either, jacking up the price again.

If they do, it will most-assuredly be done similarly to groove, as there would be no reason not too - unless the tomy mall groove set doesn't sell well (which I don't see why it wouldn't do well ).

However, IF groove is a remold of the technobot that would be why it was easy for TT to do this, just replace a piece of the vehicle mode to get a different bike mode, that would mean that TT would need a figure to remold blastoff from or into. This could mean that the flying technobot could be re-interpreted as a futuristic shuttle (which would fall in with the general theme of futuristic vehicles) and therefore capable of remolding into a normal shuttle.