The Energon Pub

Glad to finally see Sludge!

Looks like lots of dino neck articulation, and the robot looks pretty alright. PotP Sludge's head was a bit meh...glad this one has more toy queues to it.

Also, the rear legs make his robot arms? Great idea to help with sizing.

I feel dino mode looks a little like a baby brontosaurus next to the others, but I can get past that. That's one of the things I appreciated about the Bayverse Dinobots...Sludge's scale to the others, being a voyager to deluxes, was perfect for his species of dino.

Sludge is... interesting. They could have gone the same route as the PotP mold to have both sets of dino legs articulated, and kept things closer to G1 and a bit less complicated (and therefore less costly). I have to wonder if he's maybe a pretool for Snarl (speaking of, if Snarl winds up in the Legacy line while all the others are SS86 I'm gonna laugh). In any case, they sacrificed the classic look of his forearms for the sake of dino leg appearance. An interesting change... I have to wonder how it would affect the look if they were still black in spite of that, maybe someone can do a digibash for evaluation purposes.

I like that they took advantage of the price point to give him actual dino neck articulation. And the more detailed robot head, and how aside from missing its tail that rocket launcher is super G1-accurate detail-wise.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:In any case, they sacrificed the classic look of his forearms for the sake of dino leg appearance. An interesting change... I have to wonder how it would affect the look if they were still black in spite of that, maybe someone can do a digibash for evaluation purposes.

Actually, I just checked, and in the cartoon, he didn't have black forearms. Who knew? PotP Dinobots were (apparently) toy accurate (well, except for blue Swoop), and SS86 will be cartoon accurate.

MeGrimlock78 wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:In any case, they sacrificed the classic look of his forearms for the sake of dino leg appearance. An interesting change... I have to wonder how it would affect the look if they were still black in spite of that, maybe someone can do a digibash for evaluation purposes.

Actually, I just checked, and in the cartoon, he didn't have black forearms. Who knew? PotP Dinobots were (apparently) toy accurate (well, except for blue Swoop), and SS86 will be cartoon accurate.

Yup! Everyone was hating on PotP for the combiner compromises and the lack of cartoon accuracy, but with the screen-accurate SS86 versions, we have two completely different sets that do completely different things. I had two of the original Dinobots, and I'll always appreciate PotP Slag in a way that's just not possible with the SS86 version. I'll get rid of the retail PotP Swoop after we get our SS86 version, but I'll probably hold onto the PotP team including Red Swoop forever.

I thought it was universally known that, at that point, hasbro was going toy accurate versus Takara's cartoon accurate paint jobs?

Did anyone notice how they kept referring to the Bumblebee movie as "Transformer Movie 6 Bumblebee"? Hasbro is really keen on ensuring that fans know the Bumblebee movie is part of the long line of live action Bay films.

We'll see how they talk of Rise of the Beasts.

ZeroWolf wrote:I thought it was universally known that, at that point, hasbro was going toy accurate versus Takara's cartoon accurate paint jobs?

Sorry, yes. My hesitation revolved around Blue Swoop being the regular release.

william-james88 wrote:Did anyone notice how they kept referring to the Bumblebee movie as "Transformer Movie 6 Bumblebee"? Hasbro is really keen on ensuring that fans know the Bumblebee movie is part of the long line of live action Bay films.

Yeah. They should just roll with it. Where is the harm in drawing a line in the sand between Bayformers and the BB film? Its not like the films have overarching narrative elements linking them together inseparably. Just about every big story moment in BB diverges dramatically from '07, at the very least.

Also is (the eventual) Swoop confirmed at being Leader Class like the rest of the Dinobots? Given he is the smallest of the group.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Did anyone notice how they kept referring to the Bumblebee movie as "Transformer Movie 6 Bumblebee"? Hasbro is really keen on ensuring that fans know the Bumblebee movie is part of the long line of live action Bay films.

Yeah. They should just roll with it. Where is the harm in drawing a line in the sand between Bayformers and the BB film? Its not like the films have overarching narrative elements linking them together inseparably. Just about every big story moment in BB diverges dramatically from '07, at the very least.

Also is (the eventual) Swoop confirmed at being Leader Class like the rest of the Dinobots? Given he is the smallest of the group.

Actually there's nothing in bb movie that discredit it as a prequel hence it hovers in this middle ground. Rise of the Beasts is going to be the one to decide things, which given the time travel hijinks involved, could be the perfect context for the reset button to be pressed.

I assumed Prime's arrival on 80's Earth was a pretty big divergence.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I assumed Prime's arrival on 80's Earth was a pretty big divergence.

As did I but that exact question was addressed by the producer.

https://www.seibertron.com/transformers ... oot/42709/

To be fair though, the Bay films also contradicted themselves with the Last Knight showing autobots on earth throughout history. I guess as long as Bee has the same alt mode, face, and doesn't talk, they will lump them all together even if it makes no sense.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:
Also is (the eventual) Swoop confirmed at being Leader Class like the rest of the Dinobots? Given he is the smallest of the group.

Swoop is the same size as the others in the cartoon.

william-james88 wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I assumed Prime's arrival on 80's Earth was a pretty big divergence.

As did I but that exact question was addressed by the producer.

https://www.seibertron.com/transformers ... oot/42709/

To be fair though, the Bay films also contradicted themselves with the Last Knight showing autobots on earth throughout history. I guess as long as Bee has the same alt mode, face, and doesn't talk, they will lump them all together even if it makes no sense.

Meanwhile, the Bee movie contradicted TLK by having Bumblebee first arrive on Earth in the 1980s when TLK showed him already on Earth as far back as WWII.

And this was a conscious decision since an earlier cut of the movie kept the TLK backstory in mind, meaning the movie was recut to contradict TLK.

william-james88 wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I assumed Prime's arrival on 80's Earth was a pretty big divergence.

As did I but that exact question was addressed by the producer.

https://www.seibertron.com/transformers ... oot/42709/

To be fair though, the Bay films also contradicted themselves with the Last Knight showing autobots on earth throughout history. I guess as long as Bee has the same alt mode, face, and doesn't talk, they will lump them all together even if it makes no sense.

I don't get why this distinction is so important for them to hold on to? I haven't seen TLK, but I did hear it contradicts the first film and even ROTF.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:
Also is (the eventual) Swoop confirmed at being Leader Class like the rest of the Dinobots? Given he is the smallest of the group.

william-james88 wrote:Swoop is the same size as the others in the cartoon.

Oh? I imagine as I predominantly remember them from The Movie, it didn't occur to me that Swoop was the same size.

william-james88 wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I assumed Prime's arrival on 80's Earth was a pretty big divergence.

As did I but that exact question was addressed by the producer.

https://www.seibertron.com/transformers ... oot/42709/

To be fair though, the Bay films also contradicted themselves with the Last Knight showing autobots on earth throughout history. I guess as long as Bee has the same alt mode, face, and doesn't talk, they will lump them all together even if it makes no sense.

Precisely.

Given the talk of Swoop. Was it originally a leaker who started the Swoop is a Voyager talk? Or was it just fan speculation based on Swoops thin physique and simpler alt mode (despite the plastic needed for the wings alone)?

I thought this too. With the span of the wings, a Leader Class Swoop would look massive.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I thought this too. With the span of the wings, a Leader Class Swoop would look massive.

Even if he is voyager sized to make up for the wingspan, that is still a leader class release. Nothing regarding Swoop as a voyager release sounds exciting.

william-james88 wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I thought this too. With the span of the wings, a Leader Class Swoop would look massive.

Even if he is voyager sized to make up for the wingspan, that is still a leader class release. Nothing regarding Swoop as a voyager release sounds exciting.

Not to mention, these Dinobots are massive leaders by today's standards. Even if Swoop is a bit shorter than the other Dinobots, he'd probably still be bigger than almost any other modern leader. There's just no way he'd work as a voyager.

So, it does seen to be that the suggestions of voyager swoop was either just general talking or mischief.

ZeroWolf wrote:So, it does seen to be that the suggestions of voyager swoop was either just general talking or mischief.

Voyager Size or Voyager Class?

I'm really happy with the look of Sludge.
I've looked at the in-hand figure a lot (paused the video) and think he looks better than Slag.
That bot mode is so on point!

I really won't mind if Swoop is smaller than the rest, as long as it's just a very small difference.
And just like Sludge's dino mode is a bit small, if Swoop's is a bit large, that will be completely worth it to me if his bot mode allows him to look good with the others.

Swoop was always a head shorter than the rest.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Swoop was always a head shorter than the rest.

He wasn't.

>Transformers
>Scale

sol magnus wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Swoop was always a head shorter than the rest.

He wasn't.

Swoop being Leader Class is pretty much a given. The question is, how much will his wingspan influence his overall height? PotP Swoop was the same size as the rest of his brethren (by necessity really), so that's possible, plus he doesn't have the same amount of bulk as the rest, which could balance out the size of his wings.

sol magnus wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Swoop was always a head shorter than the rest.

He wasn't.

You know, I was looking at the scale chart for reference, but you're right. Actual cartoon size show he's the same height.