The Energon Pub

News Credits: 1 · Tue May 26, 2020 10:45 am

I'm glad they put the effort of giving him a forked beard and a detachable head over working in a third mode we've never seen before. From the original pitch we were given those weren't features Unicron had. And those things are what this figure really needed. Not a third mode just for the sake of having a third mode. It really looks like Unicron is just lying down half transformed. It's decent enough, I'll give it that. But it's not why I'm buying this.

If we're just tossing random things in a grab bag I'd rather have more tiny space ships.

News Credits: 6 · Tue May 26, 2020 10:46 am

Considering the lower leg is hollow and the pics so far have all indicated both forms will need a stand regardless, they seemed too busy boasting about how much it weighs (like it was a bonus feature) over the logistics of making it so heavy.

News Credits: 1646 · Fri Jul 10, 2020 6:55 pm

Wanted to come here to say something i find very interesting.

The Haslab Sentinel for Marvel Legends was revealed today and put up for pre-order, and in less than 12 hours, they have passed 2/3 of their goal of 6000, and have also already passed what was the unicron number halfway point. It's incredible to see how quickly the numbers have rose.

Also cool, and something Unicron should have done, is that they have bonus tiers, so if they get above 7000, they get something extra, same with 8000 and 9000. And the Sentinel comes with a bonus Marvel Legends figure too.

I think they are doing a better job with this crowdfund project compared to Unicron, and apparently Marvel fans are reacting a lot more positively too.

PS: I am backing the Sentinel too

Fri Jul 10, 2020 7:12 pm

That does sound better-handled.

I'm pretty sure that what we saw with the Unicron funding campaign was panicked flailing after the rug got pulled out from under them by the Bayverse Unicron movie getting shelved.

News Credits: 462 · Fri Jul 10, 2020 7:16 pm

It also didn't help that they had the Cookie Monster campaign running at the exact same time.

News Credits: 56 · Fri Jul 10, 2020 7:35 pm

I think Unicron is going to be a great toy. I couldn't afford it at the time, and I have no regrets, but I'm glad for those who got one. If it had come with a base mode ( and compatible with the current airlock system) I would have regrets. But as it is now, I can be content admiring it from afar.

As for the Sentinel.

1. It's almost half the price and a smaller much less complex figure
2. As much as we don't like to admit. Transformers fans are a much smaller group than Marvel fans in general.
3. It requires fewer backers, "increased bonus tiers" aside

It makes sense such a project would be backed much faster. Also just for grins, I had to do a double take when I got the email yesterday I thought it said Haslab Sentinel Prime .... :lol:

Unicron is bar far the Grandest product from Haslab so far much moreso than the sailbarge or this Sentinel. A far more complex and expensive endeavor offered to a fan base much smaller than Star Wars or Marvel. We should really consider it a small miracle it actually got funded.

In fact I think they had to go with something *safe* as their next project with the almost failure of Unicron to get funded, and the aforementioned poor Cookie Monster who never had a chance.

News Credits: 332 · Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:06 am

Just wait until people find out the Sentinel is completely hollow.

MyFigureCollection.net collection · Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:57 am

Sabrblade wrote:It also didn't help that they had the Cookie Monster campaign running at the exact same time.

They should give us a Cookie Monster costume for Unicron for doing that.

Seriously though, I was thinking their next HasLab should be a big 24" Dino Megazord. Considering what people pay for all those Bandai Japan versions I think it would be an easy sell at $400 with lots of chrome. This one is $300 and only 10" tall and been reissued at least twice. Hasbro obviously wouldn't add die cast, but the size would more than make up for it.

Emerje

Sun Jul 12, 2020 2:04 am

Emerje wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:It also didn't help that they had the Cookie Monster campaign running at the exact same time.

They should give us a Cookie Monster costume for Unicron for doing that.

Seriously though, I was thinking their next HasLab should be a big 24" Dino Megazord. Considering what people pay for all those Bandai Japan versions I think it would be an easy sell at $400 with lots of chrome. This one is $300 and only 10" tall and been reissued at least twice. Hasbro obviously wouldn't add die cast, but the size would more than make up for it.

Emerje

I disagree with you on that hard. The size would be awful. 24" is grossly oversize for a Megazord toy. At 10 1/4", the Soul of Chogokin one is well within the usual range of 10-12" (although shorter than the original version's 11 1/2"). The Soul of Chogokin version is popular because not only does it have die-cast, it remains in the proper size range for a Megazord while also being fully articulated and having fully-articulated components (as opposed to the normal retail fare of being at the same articulation level as G1 combiner limbs, when they have articulation at all).

A 24" Dino Megazord would be grossly oversize, except possibly in comparison to the combining movie Megazord (sad mess that that is). And then there's the fact that the Megazord is only 5 Zords out of the full set of 7. Can you imagine the extra funding needed to produce a Dragonzord and Titanus to go with it?

I think if Hasbro does a big lab project for Power Rangers it should be something like a Legacy Tor to complete the Legacy Thunderzords set. And/or a Legacy Megazord that rivals the SoC one, instead of being the 2010 Dino Megazod but with gratuitous die-cast. Or a 12" articulated monster line. Or maybe better toys of the 2017 movie Zords.

Also, too much chrome would be out of place on the Megazord. Especially on the sword.

News Credits: 462 · Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:52 am

Yeah, no way would I want a giant Dino Megazord that towers over all of my other megazords. I'd want a Dino Megazord that's properly in scale with all my other megazords so that they could all team up together in a big megazord bonanza.

Like these:

News Credits: 1646 · Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:25 pm

You know, seeing as how Sentinel passed 7000 and an alternate head was revealed for that tier, and they are nearly to the 8000 limit, it makes me think of this for Unicron:

What if at 9000 they had offered an IDW Unicron alternate head (the head come off afterall)

And at 10,000 they had offered a bonus minicon package with Dead End and maybe a could other generic ball minicons

And then 11/12000 (if they wanted) they could offer the 3 minicon weapon teams.

Things like that could have gone a long way

News Credits: 1350 · Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:37 pm

Thing to remember is that they've learned a lot from doing unicron and there's nothing to say they would have done it this way if it was launched tomorrow.

News Credits: 1646 · Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:46 pm

They made so many mistakes with Unicron, and by extent Cookie Monster too. Those reeked of overconfidence, and they both suffered. Sentinel shows how much better they are doing with this one. I actually wish unicron had waited a year or 2 to come out, I think they rushed that one, especially since he is the most expensive one.

Also, I have been talking to some main marvel collectors as well as some marvel collectors who also collect transformers, and there were some interesting points brought up about the 2 fandoms/brands.

the general consensus from those conversations is marvel handles it's brand far better than Hasbro with TFs, and that TFs rely too heavily on nostalgia. TFs constantly go back to the same source, while marvel balances it all out, something for everyone out and available at wider retail at all times. And as a result, they have both a larger fan base and a more active one since fans of every generation have something to look forward to, almost the opposite of what TFs are doing.

Couple a wider, happier, marvel fandom with a large potential troop builder, sole focus on 1 project, tiers for bonus parts, and a more palatable price, it shows just how much more cohesive, happy, and excited the marvel fandom is compared to tfs.

If they had simplified engineering and made Unicron $100 cheaper, I don't think that alone would have made a difference.

News Credits: 1350 · Sun Jul 12, 2020 12:53 pm

I wish the brand wasn't so stuck to Nostalgia, but it's giving the company short term gains so that's where their focus is.

Sun Jul 12, 2020 2:53 pm

Well, CHUG has always been nostalgia-based. What annoys me is crap like Bungledbee where the non-nostalgia franchise gets hijacked.

News Credits: 1350 · Sun Jul 12, 2020 3:07 pm

Given the amount of people who wanted it, it was bound to happen

News Credits: 226 · Sun Jul 12, 2020 4:05 pm

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:They made so many mistakes with Unicron, and by extent Cookie Monster too. Those reeked of overconfidence, and they both suffered. Sentinel shows how much better they are doing with this one. I actually wish unicron had waited a year or 2 to come out, I think they rushed that one, especially since he is the most expensive one.

Also, I have been talking to some main marvel collectors as well as some marvel collectors who also collect transformers, and there were some interesting points brought up about the 2 fandoms/brands.

the general consensus from those conversations is marvel handles it's brand far better than Hasbro with TFs, and that TFs rely too heavily on nostalgia. TFs constantly go back to the same source, while marvel balances it all out, something for everyone out and available at wider retail at all times. And as a result, they have both a larger fan base and a more active one since fans of every generation have something to look forward to, almost the opposite of what TFs are doing.

Couple a wider, happier, marvel fandom with a large potential troop builder, sole focus on 1 project, tiers for bonus parts, and a more palatable price, it shows just how much more cohesive, happy, and excited the marvel fandom is compared to tfs.

If they had simplified engineering and made Unicron $100 cheaper, I don't think that alone would have made a difference.

In all fairness, Marvel's been around much longer and kno whow to manage their stuff, and while they've done plenty of reboots and resets over the years, the core timeline is still relatively intact.

They're also more geared towards selling comic books and movie tickets whereas Hasbro is all about toys, and that doesn't give them much in the way of flexibility as kids these days only care about a set group of characters ... plus there's holding onto trademarks.

News Credits: 54 · Sun Jul 12, 2020 5:39 pm

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Well, CHUG has always been nostalgia-based. What annoys me is crap like Bungledbee where the non-nostalgia franchise gets hijacked.

Ah yes because the people who wanted a G1-styled live action film getting 1 after 5 Bayverse films is so darn unreasonable.

Like come on, the Bay films practically ended besides the Unicron stuff, it was over, finished.

Let those who waited get their turn.

MyFigureCollection.net collection · Mon Jul 13, 2020 1:24 am

Sabrblade wrote:Yeah, no way would I want a giant Dino Megazord that towers over all of my other megazords. I'd want a Dino Megazord that's properly in scale with all my other megazords so that they could all team up together in a big megazord bonanza.

I guess I just think differently. I don't care about scale when it comes to one-off figures. I don't play with my toys so I just like nice shelf pieces, be it 4" or 24". I have that big 23" Mattel Voltron, I think it's great aside from being twice the price it should have been (it's much more toy than collectible, the Netflix Voltron line is better made), I don't need it to be the same size as the other Voltrons in my collection (which are all different sizes anyway. For that matter all of my Megazords are pretty different sizes as well. Bandai even did a line of Jumbo Megazords in the 2000s.

Maybe it's just me.

The Sentinel page is now doing the same thing the Unicron page did, the counter just says 6,000+ instead of a live count like before. They've noted that they're over 8,500+ orders, but I'm guessing they're trying to prevent people from asking for more stretch goals after is sails past 9,000 by hiding the actual count. It's the opposite problem Unicron had. If they hid Unicron's count so they could pad disappointing numbers then they're hiding the Sentinel's numbers because they're selling too many too quickly.

If anyone cares the first stretch goal was for a Master Mold head while the second was a battle damaged head. In a way we did get some stretch goals for Unicron as they added a few things to the package after launch

Emerje

News Credits: 462 · Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:41 am

Emerje wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:Yeah, no way would I want a giant Dino Megazord that towers over all of my other megazords. I'd want a Dino Megazord that's properly in scale with all my other megazords so that they could all team up together in a big megazord bonanza.

I guess I just think differently. I don't care about scale when it comes to one-off figures. I don't play with my toys so I just like nice shelf pieces, be it 4" or 24". I have that big 23" Mattel Voltron, I think it's great aside from being twice the price it should have been (it's much more toy than collectible, the Netflix Voltron line is better made), I don't need it to be the same size as the other Voltrons in my collection (which are all different sizes anyway. For that matter all of my Megazords are pretty different sizes as well. Bandai even did a line of Jumbo Megazords in the 2000s.

Maybe it's just me.

Plus, Imaginext already made a gigantic 27.5-inch Megazord that looks nice as it is and is even bigger than the giant Movie Megazord, so the concept has already been done, size-wise.

News Credits: 1646 · Wed Jul 15, 2020 10:35 am

It is incredible, the sentinel crossed its final tier within 3 days of going up.

I hope that if there is another Transformers haslab project, they can take lessons learned and apply it the way they did for Sentinel. There is a clear difference in project success stories

Wed Jul 15, 2020 1:40 pm

Hopefully. Although someone did point out that the Sentinel is a smaller figure that had a lower primary threshold to cross.

News Credits: 1646 · Wed Jul 15, 2020 1:50 pm

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Hopefully. Although someone did point out that the Sentinel is a smaller figure that had a lower primary threshold to cross.

Oh Sentinel was certainly properly proportioned price wise. 2 inches shorter, but a lot less engineering needed. But they used new cues and items that certainly helped the excitement factor. Unlike unicron, there was near universal excitement and joy here. And a bunch of cool stuff to help encourage people to spend the money.

I hope that when TFs do get another Haslab, that things work better

Wed Jul 15, 2020 2:59 pm

Hopefully.
I'll say it before and I'll say again: The performance with Unicron really does smack of them relying on the Unicron-focused 6th Bayformer movie to generate hype, and frantically fumbling about when that rug got pulled out from under their feet.

News Credits: 462 · Wed Jul 15, 2020 4:48 pm

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Hopefully.
I'll say it before and I'll say again: The performance with Unicron really does smack of them relying on the Unicron-focused 6th Bayformer movie to generate hype, and frantically fumbling about when that rug got pulled out from under their feet.

What about the other notion of 2021 (the year in which HasLab Unicron will be released) being the 35th anniversary of TFTM?