The Energon Pub

Briggs wrote:I was unaware *most* collectors have said their piece about the TFA line being crap, on the seibertron forums.

Interesting!

If you're referring to what I wrote, I think you should read more carefully.

Counterpunch wrote:

Redimus wrote:Its nice and refeshing to see someone who isnt going oh noes, TFA is teh h0rr0z!

I don't think that's been the case at all.

As I said in the other thread about this issue, the response has been pretty tepid. Most collectors have said something along the lines, like you did, that they don't like the 'look' the toys are putting forward. However, I have yet to see outright slamming of them like the movie stuff got.

Well, I for one don't have a problem with Transdformers Animated's style, but there are alot of other collectors out there who may...I'm still undecided if I'll try that series or not.. the problem is, I have 4 other series to catch up on, various Reissues I want to buy, and the Masterpieces and Movie figures, not to mention repainhts of the leader class I'm gonna have my friend do for me... so buying Animated may be "the straw that breaks the camels back," so to speak...

I'll sit on the fence for a bit... but I would say that the Starscream colors and mouth are just silly...yeah, so I'm more partial to his G-1 ish colors, not necessarily style, just the proper colorings..

Still, If I have to watch Starscream with a giant Tear next to his head or buggish eyes come out when he's excited about something like , say this...



or this...


Transformers the video game from Capcom!!!
would probably look like this when Optimus and Megatron fight..



I'd much rather have toys based on this type of animation...


then look like this...

zemper wrote:

Alex Kingdom wrote:Beast Machines

that none of the previously mentioned series had almost-skewed looking robots that move way too fluidly to be desired.

I don't know about the 'to be desired' bit but Beast Machines robot modes moved very fluidly, they were far less recognisable as Transfomers as were many of the toys. Personally I bloody loved BM but I'm more than happy to admitt that the TFA designs are far more desirable the the predomiantly 'blocky G1 truck not monkey' older fanbase.

Anyway I really couldn't careless if its popular with the large majority of the adult fan base. So long as it's well written, entertaining, the figures are well deigned and the kids like it enough to ensure it runs its full course and isn't cut short becuase they need to gear up for the next movie, I'll be happy.

Yours AK

Alex Kingdom wrote:

zemper wrote:

Alex Kingdom wrote:Beast Machines

that none of the previously mentioned series had almost-skewed looking robots that move way too fluidly to be desired.

I don't know about the 'to be desired' bit but Beast Machines robot modes moved very fluidly, they were far less recognisable as Transfomers as were many of the toys. Personally I bloody loved BM but I'm more than happy to admitt that the TFA designs are far more desirable the the predomiantly 'blocky G1 truck not monkey' older fanbase.

Anyway I really couldn't careless if its popular with the large majority of the adult fan base. So long as it's well written, entertaining, the figures are well deigned and the kids like it enough to ensure it runs its full course and isn't cut short becuase they need to gear up for the next movie, I'll be happy.

Yours AK

dude, we are all hoping the kids like the toys, but that's not why we are on here discussing these, we are collectors, kids are a factor in any toy property... as far as it being well written, entertaining, the figures are well deigned.... if a figure is well designed and accurately models a character, but the design still sucks.. then the figure was a useless waste of plastic..not saying these are...

Still, I sit on the fence wondering if I'll buy these or not...

The fluidity of the style doesn't bother me. I can even live with a bad approximation of teen focused Anime stylistics which has no business being in Transformers and hasn't even been confirmed to be in it yet.

I'm quite happy with the way they're looking too, with the exception of Blitzwing's goofy face which is quite horrific.

And if I'm lucky enough to get a Skywarp repaint of a TFA Starscream it will make quite a refreshing difference to the other twelve angular models I already have. And I think will actually be quite appealing, sans the lipstick of course. I don't see a reason to be too unhappy with anything just yet. I can always use Blitzwing's other face when I get the toy.

skywarp-2 wrote: if a figure is well designed and accurately models a character, but the design still sucks.. then the figure was a useless waste of plastic

I don't quite get you, how can a figure be well deigned and badly designed at the same time? If what you mean is aethetic design verses the actually enginering of the toy then I am already perfectly happy with the asthetic character design, I have no worried there they look awesome IMO. By design I was refering to the mechanical enginering of the toy, if that's good, along with the other things I mentioned I'll be very happy indeed with this line.

Yours AK

Alex Kingdom wrote:

skywarp-2 wrote: if a figure is well designed and accurately models a character, but the design still sucks.. then the figure was a useless waste of plastic

I don't quite get you, how can a figure be well deigned and badly designed at the same time? If what you mean is aethetic design verses the actually enginering of the toy then I am already perfectly happy with the asthetic character design, I have no worried there they look awesome IMO. By design I was refering to the mechanical enginering of the toy, if that's good, along with the other things I mentioned I'll be very happy indeed with this line.

Yours AK

What i'm saying is that a perfect Toy is one thing, but even a perfect toy of a character whose design is crap, is in the end a pointless endeaver...

The more simple designs are meant for kids.

I'm simply going to wait to pass judgement on the toy line and the series until they come out. Until I watch several episodes to pick apart and evaluate the plot lines and see the animation in action, I just don't want to write it off. Same with the toys. If they're as show accurate as they appears to be, are less complex than the movie line with regards to their transformation, and are durable and have a high "playability" factor, then I'll consider them a success. And in regard to the character design and animation, it's in line with what popular with kids now so I don't have a problem with it. No one ever said that the toys and shows couldn't remain current. Whatever keeps Tfromers popular and around for my son is OK by me.

skywarp-2 wrote:
What i'm saying is that a perfect Toy is one thing, but even a perfect toy of a character whose design is crap, is in the end a pointless endeaver...

Your "design is crap" is your personal taste. Doesn't really matter, unless you make up 75% of the Transformer toy buying market!

Obviously, something you think will look like crap no matter how show accurate it is, can be fully countered by someone like myself who likes the original design.

Briggs wrote:

skywarp-2 wrote:
What i'm saying is that a perfect Toy is one thing, but even a perfect toy of a character whose design is crap, is in the end a pointless endeaver...

Your "design is crap" is your personal taste. Doesn't really matter, unless you make up 75% of the Transformer toy buying market!

Obviously, something you think will look like crap no matter how show accurate it is, can be fully countered by someone like myself who likes the original design.

And more than 50% of the buyers will be kids...

Kids *should* eat this stuff up like a lot of us did 20 years ago. big bright fun toys that looks like their cartoon that turn into vehicles. OH MY GOD AWSOME

Briggs wrote:

skywarp-2 wrote:
What i'm saying is that a perfect Toy is one thing, but even a perfect toy of a character whose design is crap, is in the end a pointless endeaver...

Your "design is crap" is your personal taste. Doesn't really matter, unless you make up 75% of the Transformer toy buying market!

Obviously, something you think will look like crap no matter how show accurate it is, can be fully countered by someone like myself who likes the original design.

yeah that's true also, what i'm talking about is if the general concensus is that the design is crap..then no matter how well made a toy is of that design, it's still crap and wasting plastic to produce.. this isn't directed at the TFA show toys, just an issue brought to life by this discussion.. I'm no knocking the animated show..not yet anyways..

Briggs wrote:Kids *should* eat this stuff up like a lot of us did 20 years ago. big bright fun toys that looks like their cartoon that turn into vehicles. OH MY GOD AWSOME

dude..... do you even remember the toys for G-1???

look at G-1 optimus Prime and then look at the cartoon, then turn around and look at Masterpiece Optimus Prime, then look at the G-1 cartoon...



When I first got the Robot Master Prime, not the Hybrid, but the original released version, I kept thinking to myself, if this had been the original prime release from Diaclone and released in the 1980s as Prime with his trailer, that would have been freaking!! Awesome!! He looks way more show accurate then G-1 did...

TBH Im not really sure what your getting at? We already know we wont be faced with your hypotheical senario where everybody hates the design of these characters and therfore they are a waste of plastic. We can already see that opinion is split here on this board and it's clear the deisgns are aimed at kids so they are even more likley to appreciate the designs than us. Therfore the likelyhood of of the general concensus being that the designs are crap is already zero.

Yours AK

skywarp-2 wrote:

Briggs wrote:

skywarp-2 wrote:
What i'm saying is that a perfect Toy is one thing, but even a perfect toy of a character whose design is crap, is in the end a pointless endeaver...

Your "design is crap" is your personal taste. Doesn't really matter, unless you make up 75% of the Transformer toy buying market!

Obviously, something you think will look like crap no matter how show accurate it is, can be fully countered by someone like myself who likes the original design.

yeah that's true also, what i'm talking about is if the general concensus is that the design is crap..then no matter how well made a toy is of that design, it's still crap and wasting plastic to produce.. this isn't directed at the TFA show toys, just an issue brought to life by this discussion.. I'm no knocking the animated show..not yet anyways..

Well, that's obvious. But I think Hasbro has been pretty good about not releasing crap. Yes, some toys suck, but in general, from toy sales, they do pretty well.

But you won't get a general consensus until after the toys are released and you see what the sales are.

Of course, then you get people like me who think some toy designs are crap, but get them for the sake of them being made. haha

We didn't have those 20+ years ago. 20+ years ago we had what we were given, and they looked amazing to us.

Now today, give a 12 year the option of a G1 loose optimus, and a Robot master or classics optimus, I'm pretty sure he'll go for RM or Classics.

And then give him the option of loose antimated prime and g1 loose prime, he'll probably take Animated.. lol.

This is the point: kids will watch the cartoon and buy the toys that look like their cartoon heroes.

skywarp-2 wrote:

Briggs wrote:Kids *should* eat this stuff up like a lot of us did 20 years ago. big bright fun toys that looks like their cartoon that turn into vehicles. OH MY GOD AWSOME

dude..... do you even remember the toys for G-1???

look at G-1 optimus Prime and then look at the cartoon, then turn around and look at Masterpiece Optimus Prime, then look at the G-1 cartoon...



When I first got the Robot Master Prime, not the Hybrid, but the original released version, I kept thinking to myself, if this had been the original prime release from Diaclone and released in the 1980s as Prime with his trailer, that would have been freaking!! Awesome!! He looks way more show accurate then G-1 did...

It would have been impossible for the original Prime to be show accurate unless the animators made him look exactly like the figure, and it was closer than some of the interpretations. A LOT of figures didn't look like they did in the show, and that was due to artistic redesigns to make the characters look better than the toys, and also to make some of them more child friendly. Which is of course why a lot of the first season characters gained new faces. Big thing to remember is that the toys came first, and a lot of discrepency was created by the animators/designers/Hasbro/whoever. Also, technology wasn't quite there at that time, and G1 had more or less standard articulation for the time.

As for the topic at hand...

I'm simply going to wait to pass judgement on the toy line and the series until they come out. Until I watch several episodes to pick apart and evaluate the plot lines and see the animation in action, I just don't want to write it off. Same with the toys. If they're as show accurate as they appears to be, are less complex than the movie line with regards to their transformation, and are durable and have a high "playability" factor, then I'll consider them a success. And in regard to the character design and animation, it's in line with what popular with kids now so I don't have a problem with it.

Same here. I wasn't too big on the designs at first, but they started to grow on me, and a quality show is a quality show, regardless of how it looks. However, I personally doubt I'll get too many figures, cause while the artistic design has grown on me, actually having it in physical plastic is another thing.

I understand where your going warp. but i don't see the back stock suffering in any way due to the animated line ups failures or succeedings. It's just different markets, there's always back stock floating around out there in the world, somewhere.

skywarp-2 wrote:
look at G-1 optimus Prime and then look at the cartoon, then turn around and look at Masterpiece Optimus Prime, then look at the G-1 cartoon...



When I first got the Robot Master Prime, not the Hybrid, but the original released version, I kept thinking to myself, if this had been the original prime release from Diaclone and released in the 1980s as Prime with his trailer, that would have been freaking!! Awesome!! He looks way more show accurate then G-1 did...

It bothered me more that the cartoon and the comics didn't match the toys, rather than the other way around. Sometimes it seemed a little sloppy, like they were ignoring a lot of what they had to work with. For me it was all about the toys.

To my mind as a kid, that's the way I saw it. I always preferred the boxart version of the character to the cartoon version.

For me the G1 Prime toy is much more satisfying than the Robot Master version. Better transformation and alt mode.

skywarp-2 wrote:I'd much rather have toys based on this type of animation...


then look like this...

Try drawing that first picture at 12 frames second on a TV budget. The pencil mileage is insane. Not really doable for hand-drawn animation.

The only way to get away with it would be by cutting back on the movement and using tons of holds. Either that or go with 3D CG cell shading, which has been done on transformers, and in my opinion usually looks very stiff.

It's not that the new designs are 'dumbed down for kids', they are designed to read well for animation, and be quick to draw. All the designs have good 'silhouette value', which makes them more distinctive and easily recognisable.

The TF:A designs will allow for more fluid animation. I think it'll look better than any previous TF cartoon. Whether the storytelling is as impressive remains to be seen.

I like the Animated figures. I plan buying the ones I like and not buying the ones I don't care for.