The Energon Pub

Anyone miss the design astethics & creativity of the AEC toy lines? do you want to see this return in 2012 thru infinity?

I loved the AEC Toy lines astethics designs. they looked very G-1 & Generation 2 in both toy & animation design.

It seemed like the AEC toy lines strongest point was pushing the creativy factory. by doing all those optimus prime combining with other robots super robot combiners. all those energon combiners. unicron,primus,doing those armor modes like energon landmine had. the pop out gimmicks. tidalwave.

SORRY THESE DAYS IT JUST SEEMS LIKE THE TF TOY LINES TAKE TONS OF SHORT CUTS,DO SIMPLE DESIGNS,HARDLY ANY COMBINERS.

Animated was the most dissapointing TF toy line to me. because the toys were scaled down simplistic designs/sculpt/engineering.

the movie verse was awful due to the hideous designs/sculpts.

classics/generations/RTS isn't the main toy line. so their limited in toy budget. the toy designs are very simplistic & not very complex in design/sculpt/gimmicks. their are no new mold combiners. currently generations only does deluxes new molds.

it just feels like all the creativy that AEC had is gone. it seems like the new way after AEC lacks creativy,doing simpliistic sculpts/engineering.

I need the AEC toy lines creativity back for newer TF toy lines in 2012 & beyond. I need to see a optimus prime in 2012 thru 2013 combining with other robots to form a super robot mode. i need combiners in 2012 thru 2013. I need tripple changers in 2012 thru 2013. I need awesome complex megatron toys like AEC toy lines had. I need armor modes like energon landmine had. I need supreme toys aimed at adults like armada unicron & cybertron primus were. I need hyper modes in 2012 thru 2013 like energon's decepticons had. I need some 2-in-1 energon combining styled robots in 2012 thru 2013 but this time for the decepticons so we can get flywheels,overlord,battletrap,etc...

Sorry, but Animated owns Armada/Energon/Cybertron 100 times over.

Hope this doesn't turn into another slug fest Tidalwaverex.
First it's (-) feedbacks of TRU, now aesthetics.

Though I am kind of barfing on the Movieverse style, maybe back to the blocky but articulated of Galaxyforce. No more of the insect/alien humanoid anymore....and the size, cut it to Voyagers and quit this deluxe size limitation.

I absolutely miss the AEC style. I think Tidalwavex hit it on the head with the creativity part and the refreshing diversity of gimmicks. Moreover, I miss the actual QUALITY of that line. It seems that after AEC, quality in terms of design and materials took a nosedive. TFs are now flimsy and riddled with QC issues. AEC bots were much sturdier and very rarely used "garbage plastic" (pvc) except in one or two annoying yet isolated cases such as Vector Prime's sword. It was very rare that I hade to take an AEC bot back to the store because of a defect issue. Not so nowdays.

AEC were a joy to behold in terms of paint apps. Not only were the paint jobs neat and clean, but a variety of colors and colored plastics were used. Today, our TFS get uglier and uglier as Hasbro cuts more and more corners, offering us mostly unpainted masses of nasty looking gray plastic. I guess they need all that extra paint to make better looking versions for the Japanese market.

Yes, poseability may have suffered, but darn it, they looked good, they held up well, and they were fun to play with. You didn't need to set aside half the day to transform them. Sure there were some klinkers in the line, such as Armada Scavenger and Sideswipe, or Energon Grimlock and Swoop, or Cybertron Thundercracker, but the majority were pretty dang cool and individually distinctive in appearance.

There are no doubt many here who would disagree with me, so bear in mind this is only my opinion, but I see AEC as sort of a renaissance for TF toys, and sadly, I doubt its like in terms of the afore mentioned points will ever be seen again.

Tidalwaverex sure does like to complain about stuff.

No, thanks. Gimmicks take up too much room in a figure, I'd rather a better looking, more accurate, more articulated figure(like Classics and Deluxe animated) vs gimmicky bricks like Unicron trilogy gave us.

Armada not simplistic? Movieverse took shortcuts? I'm staring at Armada Scavenger, then turn my attention to ROTF Prime and DOTM Sentinel and wonder what the hell you are smoking.

I loved Armada... For it's simplicity.

am i the only one here that has no complaints about the movie, animated and unicron trilogy lines? i just love em all!

Doubledealer93 wrote:am i the only one here that has no complaints about the movie, animated and unicron trilogy lines? i just love em all!

You are not alone buddy

Doubledealer93 wrote:am i the only one here that has no complaints about the movie, animated and unicron trilogy lines? i just love em all!

As a whole I'm with ya. Certain characters bug me, but in general I like them all.

Erailea wrote:

Doubledealer93 wrote:am i the only one here that has no complaints about the movie, animated and unicron trilogy lines? i just love em all!

As a whole I'm with ya. Certain characters bug me, but in general I like them all.

i just dont understand. i love the movie designs, animated TFs were simple but fun to transform and unicron trilogy was amazing and perfect in my opinion.

Doubledealer93 wrote:
i just dont understand. i love the movie designs, animated TFs were simple but fun to transform and unicron trilogy was amazing and perfect in my opinion.

My issues with the movie-verse guys tend to be like ROTF Chromia who has a chest that doesn't clip together (disfunctional toy) xP As far as cahracter designs go I like the movie guys, I always have.

Always adored Animated too.

I prefer Armada better as a show out of that trilogy (the bad 3D bugs me in show D; ), but the general designs for the toys I like.

I loved the Unicron Trilogy toys too. I have a ton of them. But they came out before all the classics, movie and animated toys came out and I frankly think the toys we have now are better. And i'm sure the toys that come out 2-3 years from now will be even better. It's called progress.

A/E/C has passed. Hasbro is doing much better with their design work these days and I can't wait to see what they come up with for TF: Prime figs. Going back to A/E/C is a step backwards. However if we could have the plastic quality of the Armada figs on today's toys, that would be awesome.

A lot of the Armada and Energon toys sacrificed functionality for the gimmick. Give me elbow and knee joints over minicon ports any day of the week. Cybertron was a lot better, but some of the toys still suffered from gimmick.

So, no. Let's not go backwards there. Mkall is right, though, that having their level of QC with today's designs would be an immense improvement.

I do not miss that era at all.
The creativity especially so, because it seemed to lack creativity all together.

Erailea wrote:

Doubledealer93 wrote:
i just dont understand. i love the movie designs, animated TFs were simple but fun to transform and unicron trilogy was amazing and perfect in my opinion.

My issues with the movie-verse guys tend to be like ROTF Chromia who has a chest that doesn't clip together (disfunctional toy) xP As far as cahracter designs go I like the movie guys, I always have.

Always adored Animated too.

I prefer Armada better as a show out of that trilogy (the bad 3D bugs me in show D; ), but the general designs for the toys I like.

the designs look good on paper but due to, quality control and TRYING to make to make a representation of a character and not doing so hot makes not a good toy. by some peoples standards. like TF:prime and movies, the designs are great, but turning those designs into a toy is another story.

and plus, in the unicron trilogy, in the actual show the transformation sequences were actually animated and shown so toy makers could have more to work from. with the movie and TF:prime, they are shown, its just really hard to put that into toy form.

Making a toy is always harder due to the cheats you can get away with through animation. Lol. Intersecting geometry doesn't work so well with toys thanks to the laws of physics and whatnot.

Powermaster Jazz wrote:Sorry, but Animated owns Armada/Energon/Cybertron 100 times over.

I'm curious do you own some armada,energon,cybertron & animated toys?

IMHO,The animated toys looked like highly stylized playschool tonka Go-Bots toys in sculpt,sadly they didn't have the thick durable plastic that tonka toys have.

IMHO,The animated sculpts/designs were made & catered towards a much younger kid buying age like toddlers under 4 year of age & younger.
I didn't like the simplistic smilley faces on most of the autobots. I didn't like the simplistic mean faces on most of the decepticons.

I actually bought all the animated deluxes,voyagers & leader sized toys. played with them,transformed them & put them on a huge display shelf. the Quality control problems I noticed were as follows: (1) Cheap thin flimsy plastic,most of the deluxes felt so light. (2)most of the deluxes & some voyagers had stabilty problems in trying to stand up in robot modes on display shelves. some were a real challenege to adjust the hips,feet & bend the knees just to get the animated toys to stand up on display shelves. (3)Engineering was really weak & inferior. this caused display stability problems. the material was cheap,this caused the toys to be very fragile. (4) I took apart some of the toys because i'm a low level kitbasher. their was nothing inside the deluxe toys,no gears,no springs. these toys were made cheap with tons of short cuts to save hasbro/takara money & to get more profit.

ROLL OUT Supreme sized animated optimus Prime. was a horrible sculpted & engineered toy. the toy really looked like it was meant for toddlers under the age of 4. that vechicle bumper sticking out too much in robot mode just ruined the whole look of the robot mode.

IMHO,Their was no creativy in the Animated toy line. animated was steps down from AEC in creativy,design,engineering,plastic quality,quality control,display stability.

I sold 80% of my animated toys & gave some away to younger relatives.

About the only Animated toys I liked & would reccomend are as follows: Leader sized Megatron. leader sized ultra magnus. deluxe sized swoop,voyager sized shockwave.

Lastly & most important. I didn't like the Animated toys proportions. almost all the toys were more mis-proportioned than the beastmachines toys. I think the animated designers tried to go for super hero designs mixed in with robot designs. I didn't like the skinny robot legs or arms & huge torso's. or the super tiny torso's & huge legs & arms. most of the animated toys waist/abdomen were streamlined & too tiny. this is not how I picture my transformers robot toys. they shouldn't look like super heroes,they should look like bulky robots or at least be well proportioned. some of the animated toys had very short legs & big torso's which looked awful like bulkhead & lugnuts. voyager grimlock had those weird distorted robot arms that looked like bent metal hangers.

Powermaster Jazz wrote:Sorry, but Animated owns Armada/Energon/Cybertron 100 times over.

To each their own. I personally dislike the Animated aesthetic. In fact, I love my bricks!

I've just spent the last couple of weeks unpacking and putting on display all my A/E/C figures and I tell you what, it was great fun. There are some awesome figures in the A/E/C lines, there's also some shockers, but overall, you take that look and throw in some of the more "modern" tech and you'll have some bloody good figures.

Tidalwavex wrote:IMHO,The animated sculpts/designs were made & catered towards a much younger kid buying age like toddlers under 4 year of age & younger.

Most Transformers are geared more for kids more than adults, so that's a pretty odd comment. The simpler designs for TFA are easier and better for kids to understand and play with than the more complex Movie-verse (which they play with anyway, so it's a mute point). I fail to see how they are any more simplistic than AEC. Less chunky is perhaps the better term to use xP

Tidalwavex wrote:I didn't like the simplistic smilley faces on most of the autobots. I didn't like the simplistic mean faces on most of the decepticons.

Wait... What?

Erailea wrote:

Tidalwavex wrote:IMHO,The animated sculpts/designs were made & catered towards a much younger kid buying age like toddlers under 4 year of age & younger.

Most Transformers are geared more for kids more than adults, so that's a pretty odd comment. The simpler designs for TFA are easier and better for kids to understand and play with than the more complex Movie-verse (which they play with anyway, so it's a mute point). I fail to see how they are any more simplistic than AEC. Less chunky is perhaps the better term to use xP

Tidalwavex wrote:I didn't like the simplistic smilley faces on most of the autobots. I didn't like the simplistic mean faces on most of the decepticons.

Wait... What?

Regarding your first paragraph reply comment. I fully realize Transformers toys are meant for kids. However Hasbro before the animated toy line Always tried to design the TF toys for older kids ages 8 thru 13. For the animated toy line Hasbro designed the toys for kids under the ages of 5 & lower.

Regarding your second reply comment. I was referring to the toys not the cartoon animation. FWIW,Most early 1984 thru 1985 TF toy faces were designed for adult collectors. As Takara originally designed the Diaclone & microman/change toys for adult collectors & not for younger kids in the 1970's thru early 1980's before hasbro stepped in to the equation.

Sorry,the proof is in the animated toys. most of the autobots have smiley faces,weird huge chins & simplistic faces. while the decepticons animated toys have simplistic mean faces & huge chins.

those pics you provided in this reply mean Zero. I wasn't referring to the animation,I was referring to the actual toys.

Tidalwavex wrote:

Erailea wrote:

Tidalwavex wrote:IMHO,The animated sculpts/designs were made & catered towards a much younger kid buying age like toddlers under 4 year of age & younger.

Most Transformers are geared more for kids more than adults, so that's a pretty odd comment. The simpler designs for TFA are easier and better for kids to understand and play with than the more complex Movie-verse (which they play with anyway, so it's a mute point). I fail to see how they are any more simplistic than AEC. Less chunky is perhaps the better term to use xP

Tidalwavex wrote:I didn't like the simplistic smilley faces on most of the autobots. I didn't like the simplistic mean faces on most of the decepticons.

Wait... What?

Regarding your first paragraph reply comment. I fully realize Transformers toys are meant for kids. However Hasbro before the animated toy line Always tried to design the TF toys for older kids ages 8 thru 13. For the animated toy line Hasbro designed the toys for kids under the ages of 5 & lower.

Regarding your second reply comment. I was referring to the toys not the cartoon animation. FWIW,Most early 1984 thru 1985 TF toy faces were designed for adult collectors. As Takara originally designed the Diaclone & microman/change toys for adult collectors & not for younger kids in the 1970's thru early 1980's before hasbro stepped in to the equation.

Sorry,the proof is in the animated toys. most of the autobots have smiley faces,weird huge chins & simplistic faces. while the decepticons animated toys have simplistic mean faces & huge chins.

those pics you provided in this reply mean Zero. I wasn't referring to the animation,I was referring to the actual toys.

Stop confusing your opinion with facts. Seriously.

RhA wrote:

Tidalwavex wrote:

Erailea wrote:

Tidalwavex wrote:IMHO,The animated sculpts/designs were made & catered towards a much younger kid buying age like toddlers under 4 year of age & younger.

Most Transformers are geared more for kids more than adults, so that's a pretty odd comment. The simpler designs for TFA are easier and better for kids to understand and play with than the more complex Movie-verse (which they play with anyway, so it's a mute point). I fail to see how they are any more simplistic than AEC. Less chunky is perhaps the better term to use xP

Tidalwavex wrote:I didn't like the simplistic smilley faces on most of the autobots. I didn't like the simplistic mean faces on most of the decepticons.

Wait... What?

Regarding your first paragraph reply comment. I fully realize Transformers toys are meant for kids. However Hasbro before the animated toy line Always tried to design the TF toys for older kids ages 8 thru 13. For the animated toy line Hasbro designed the toys for kids under the ages of 5 & lower.

Regarding your second reply comment. I was referring to the toys not the cartoon animation. FWIW,Most early 1984 thru 1985 TF toy faces were designed for adult collectors. As Takara originally designed the Diaclone & microman/change toys for adult collectors & not for younger kids in the 1970's thru early 1980's before hasbro stepped in to the equation.

Sorry,the proof is in the animated toys. most of the autobots have smiley faces,weird huge chins & simplistic faces. while the decepticons animated toys have simplistic mean faces & huge chins.

those pics you provided in this reply mean Zero. I wasn't referring to the animation,I was referring to the actual toys.

Stop confusing your opinion with facts. Seriously.

Rha,Hasbro & Takara both said at several fan conventions like botcon,toyfair & on-line Q & A interviews. Hasbro said that Transformers toys are created for older kids 8 thru 13 & probably the last toys they play with when they grow up & don't play with toys anymore.

Hasbro did say at a few botcons & on-line Q & A's,that they designed the animated toys for much younger kids.

C,mon just look at the Animated toys,the proof is in the toys themselves. animated toys are not as complicated a CR/RID,AEC & movie verse toys.

Hasbro didn't make the animated transformations easier for adult fans nor older teenagers. hasbro made the transformations easier for much younger kids ages 5 & under.

The simplistic animated robot faces weren't catered/designed for older fans nor older teenagers. the simplistic faces were created/catered towards toddlers to not scare them & make e'm toddler friendly.

compared to other TF toy lines like CR/Rid,AEC,MOVIE verse,Alternators. Animated toys look like their stripped down Simplistic under-complex TF toys meant to save hasbro money,get more profits & more important make e'm easy for toddlers to play with.

Tidalwavex wrote:Rha,Hasbro & Takara both said at several fan conventions like botcon,toyfair & on-line Q & A interviews. Hasbro said that Transformers toys are created for older kids 8 thru 13 & probably the last toys they play with when they grow up & don't play with toys anymore.

Hasbro did say at a few botcons & on-line Q & A's,that they designed the animated toys for much younger kids.

C,mon just look at the Animated toys,the proof is in the toys themselves. animated toys are not as complicated a CR/RID,AEC & movie verse toys.

Actually, it was said at the 2008 Botcon that TF: Animated as a whole was targetted to the 5-8 age range, not the older range that the previous A/E/C range was aimed at, so in that aspect your oppinions and observations are on the money; they are designed for younger audiences because that was the demographic Hasbro was aiming for. TF Prime is aiming for an older demographic, hence the plots and (hopefully) the toys will be more up to the complication you hope for.

The simplistic animated robot faces weren't catered/designed for older fans nor older teenagers. the simplistic faces were created/catered towards toddlers to not scare them & make e'm toddler friendly.

compared to other TF toy lines like CR/Rid,AEC,MOVIE verse,Alternators. Animated toys look like their stripped down Simplistic under-complex TF toys meant to save hasbro money,get more profits & more important make e'm easy for toddlers to play with.

Yup, though whether or not they saved Hasbro any money is debatable