Down_Shift wrote:Agamemnon wrote:I'll make a couple of bets here. The obvious is that Thundercracker will be a strict re-paint of Starscream and Skywarp (hopefully with a more show accurate paint scheme than the guesses I've seen here so far. The black and blue Thundercracker is pretty neat, but too much black in my opinion.)
Here's the sticky ones. Despite what should be done, I'm betting that:
Dirge will be a strict re-paint of the Ramjet mold. No alteration of the wings, just blue body and beige wings with appropriate accents.
Thrust will be a repaint of the Starscream/Skywarp mold with the only mold change being the Ramjet conehead. He will be red. Perhaps a paint scheme that implies thrusters in the wings, but I'm betting there will be no re-mold of the wings to include the vertical thrusters.
This is what I am betting for Dirge and Thrust. Any takers? This guess is based off of what they did a few years ago with Ironhide/Ratchet and what they could have done making a few minor mold changes, which they did not do.
Well one thing that the exclusives are good for is getting at least minor re-moulds. I could see Dirge and Thrust getting new wings from the Ramjet mould. Bugbit I doubt would need any remoulding and I can't see dreadwing getting any special treatment. I would guess that the figures outside of the five piece set will get some re-moulding. kind of like Darksyde Megatron.
I'll have to find some pics of the Darksyde Megatron.
The problem I see is that changing Ramjet into Dirge would require more than a minor mold change. The wing engines are rather a large part of how Ramjet transforms, and I think the changes necessary might be more work than I have seen in the few remolds I have found pics of.
Maybe Thrust will be easier to remold the wings. Then I wonder if the transformation will have wings that fold up like Starscream or stay more static, being cartoon accurate.
I'll still stand by my predictions for now.

[edit] Okay, comparing Darksyde Megatron to Red Alert, the only remold I notice is the head. Am I missing something else? I thought these Botcon Exclusives had very minor, if any, mold changes. Which is why I predicted what I did.