The Energon Pub

It is a bit of an eye opener to think that in less than a year, the frenzy and rampage of Movie toys will be among us once more. The shelves that have been stocked with Prime, Prime: Beast Hunters, Generations and even Masterpiece exclusives for the past few years will now be concentrating on Bay and company's Transformers creations. Before all of that happens, I just want to take a step back as a collector and have a serious discussion (or not so serious, really, I'm talking about plastic toys) about the movie trilogy toys, and the impact that it has had on the fandom and on collectors as a whole.

There are a staunch number of people who thoroughly enjoy the movie aesthetic and in the same spectrum there are a number of those who hate it entirely. While the opinions may differ, here are the negative points that I've gathered from being a toy collector in the first era of Bayformers.

• The Transformers Movie Franchise and its subsequent toys are a cash cow. This point governs all other points. Unlike other lines which try to cater to the adult fan, this line is all in on black to make the most money it possibly can. Scale? Complete character cast? Not x100 Bumblebees on the shelves? Those questions are nonexistent - there is no sympathy.
• Not all characters who are present in the feature film get toys. Dino/Mirage from TF3 as one example. I'm sure there are other examples I've missed.
• Even characters who get toys do not receive the proper scale treatment. Bonecrusher. Blackout/Grindor. List goes on
• Not only are the cast of the movies represented in Deluxe/Voyager/Leader scale, but they spawned lines like Human Alliance and Dual Model Kits who also fail to complete entire casts.
• Characters get more than one mold, and its usually not the character you want to get another mold. That means the originals tend to be inferior, whether that's through a new paint job, or a new mold - buying the first wave in a Movie line is a bad idea.
• Repaints rule the day, and for popular characters, these repaints don't even homage anything in prior lore, they are simply a different outfit for [insert popular character name here].

After writing all of that down, I think I have already scared myself from collecting any Transformers 4 toys. I jest, but here are some positives (and I truly hope there are any) that the movie toyline franchise has presented for me.

• After the main movie toy line is pushed out, the secondary and tertiary lines do push out toys of interest. The non movie character movie toys, aside from the alliteration, do tend to be of interest to Classics collectors, with molds such as N.E.S.T. Alliance Bludgeon. Even if the first release of a mold is simply a brand new Transformers character, subsequent repaints or remolds can produce collectable characters, such as DOTM Vortex.
• That's really the only point I had, whoops.

The fact that there was always a newer and better version of a character really burned all interest I had in the movie toys. All the movie figures that I accumulated over the past 5-6 years are now in the hands of other collectors as almost everything has been purged. I simply feel that this is going to happen even if I started collecting AoE and beyond. Really, unless there's a character named Blurr...

This wasn't all going to be about my opinion; What did you guys think of the Movie Trilogy toys? Did you enjoy collecting it? Are you going to collect Transformers AoE?

I pick up stuff as I see it if I really like it, or if I expect to see it again in a later wave, I'll hold off until then (and maybe it ends up at discount retailers ).

As for TF4 in particular? I love the Veyron and I'll be picking that up, whoever that ends up being. It's such an amazing car and I'm really happy that they managed to get it for a Transformers character. I like my Primes, too, so I may or may not pick up a voyager Optimus when it hits discount depending on how that mold turns out.

I've found tons of movie gems, but I almost always waited until they were old before snagging them, never keeping up with the "current wave". Some are main line figures like Soundwave (the satellite, not the car, and the blue one at that ), Human Alliance Barricade, RotF Leader Class Megatron, DotM Striker Optimus Prime, DotM Shockwave and others are amongst those you mention, such as Vortex and the figure he was repainted from (Tomahawk, one of my favs and the better paint scheme for that mold IMO), Terradive, Skyhammer, Mindwipe and his mini sidekick Skystalker. Movie Laserbeak was a pleasant beastly surprise as was Ravage, who I ended up snagging every version of (I loves me some beast repaints ).

I still have all of these figures and many more from the movie lines gracing my shelves. Hell, I even took a bunch of mostly movie figures and kitbashed and repainted them into my pre-Earth Maximals and Predacons and they turned out looking more like those characters than the Botcon versions in my opinion.

Now, all that being said, you will buy you some movie figures. We all will. How can I possibly know this? One word my friends: DINOBOTS!!!!

You know you're going to buy them. We all will. It's the frickin' Dinobots who we haven't seen any version of aside from Grimlock since Transformers: Animated.

My only real gripe about the movie lines is how fiddly they are to get their alt modes right, not all of them but enough of them. Oh and deluxe brawl nearly made me give up on them. Other than that I love quite a few of them.

I liked a few...HA Jazz, and ROTF Voyager Megatron, Voyager Ironhide, ROTF Pime (though I never had him).

I think I didn't like how the aesthetic gave them the ok to make some of them super kibblely, which sometimes seemed like a cop out. Also some deluxes were so complex they didn't tab together nicely.

I am really looking forward to what the Dinobots will look like, but lately I've been dreading what kind of proportions they will have in robot mode. Bay formers are also known to have really long arms and short legs. It might also be kibble overload.

Movieverse is probably the closest thing to my ideal aesthetic (realistic vehicles + alien mechanical-bits-heavy robots = ), and it's what got me hooked into the series. Obviously I'm a fan. That being said, I do cherry pick.

What's really nice about the multiple size-classes is that it's a bit easier to get a scaled collection together. Case in point:

What's even better is that the Movie crew were good at keeping the scale consistent between robot and vehicle modes, Starscream being the obvious exception.

At the time I was all for them, but looking back I really don't care for some of the overly-fiddly transformations that some had -- especially the RotF-era toys. Mixmaster, Long Haul, Jetfire, Blazemaster... they're all such a bother. Demolishor, Highbrow, and Leader Starscream are about as complex as I'd like.


Didn't get too many mainline figures in DotM, since a lot of those were remakes and cars/trucks. Not sure how much of TF4 I'll pick up; if it's nearly all cars again I'll pass.

I did enjoy the movies toylines,i think they pretty awesome.They brought many cool things to the table.
Licensed and realistic vehicles modes in a main line.
Since the movie toys,there is been a feeling that no design is so hard/complex that can't be made into a figure.
With characters avaliable in different size classes,it gives more options to both children and collectors,adding a nice variety.

I'm excited for future TF 4 toys,since its looks like it will feature some fun vehicles.(Optimus truck looks awesome!)

I have a unique skill where I don't struggle with any and I mean ANY Transformers toys. I will defend the movie lines and any other lines because they haven't changed much since Diaclone. Allow me to explain this. I'm only 20, and my inro to transformers was the tail end of rid and the unicron trilogy. That being said, I've noticed something that validates my previous statement. Every transforming robot toy has a base for all the parts to attach to and doesn't move at all during transformation. For example, DOTM Thundercracker. His base is the two colored combo of his waist and back. They don't move but the parts attatched to them do. I'd go so far as o say that knowing hat, everyone is simple. For an example you geewunners give a damn about, Cliffjumper's base is his torso. Only the head, arms, legs and feet move for transforming. So have I enlightened anyone?

I've got multiple versions of Movieverse characters in different size classes because my collection is laid out in different scales:







So because I want a collection that's in scale I can almost achieve this, just never with a complete cast in one group.

As for AoE, it's looking like a crappy line with crappy looking toys based on impossible to recreate designs where the alt mode parts disappear in robot mode. At this point I see my collecting going on hiatus. This is particularly frustrating as I love the aesthetic of the first three films.

I really warmed up to the movie line - especially gems from the first movie and ROTF. What I discovered is that, in all lines there are gems and duds - just some lines have more duds than gems (DOTM -> Duds; Generations -> almost always good) or the gems can be very much small releases. Early on I happened to get a hold of some real duds (ROTF Arcee, Dead End).

I cannot stand the faces on most of the movie toys, and so I never bought any except old editions at discount stores - but in many cases the designers found a good balance. The ROTF line is really an "adult" line - the robots look fearsome and not too childlike - compared to Generations Blurr in his G1-accurate baby blue or Warpath as a red tank - both awesome toys, but compared to some of the better movie editions (HA Jazz, ROTF deluxe Sideswipe) those look like real toys, while the movie ones look like scaled models. Play value - low, Display/adult fiddle value - High!

I enjoyed it and I didn't at the same time. The movies really got me back into Transformers and made me more of a permanent fan than I ever was.
The 2007-2008 line was okay, but not the best. A lot of the figures were lacking screen accuracy and most of the non-movie characters were bland.
When ROTF came around, I bought a lot more stuff because many of the figures were huge improvements over the first movie, but I still didn't buy a ton in 2009, and I skipped a lot of the later waves including the NEST series. It wasn't until the 2010 line came out alongside Generations that I really got back into the movie toys. A lot of great new molds and retools came out of it (Battle Blades Prime, The Fallen, Battle Blade Bumblebee, deluxe Ironhide, legend Ravage, etc). I eventually went back and got NEST Ironhide and Bludgeon, and I'm glad I did. There are still quite a few figures I'm kicking myself for not getting while they were at retail from ROTF.
I was pretty amped for DOTM, and I got a lot of the first wave or so, but the smaller scale with BFGs, the lack of scale variety, and the incompleteness of the cast were all a disappointment. Considering how ROTF spanned from before the release of the ROTF film to the release of DOTM toys, I was hoping DOTM would go a full year also, but it didn't.
As for Age of Extinction, I'm not keeping my hopes up. It seems they want it to be a kiddie series and if DOTM is a template to go by, it won't be that great.

When the first movie came out I bought one of each on-screen character. After that I really stoppec caring about them. I didn't feel the connection between a lot of these character and their G1 selves. I bought a couple of the figures (ROTF Leader Prime, Supreme Devastator, Leader Starscream) and bought 0 DOTM figures. I am pretty sure I will continue not buying much from the next movie. I won't buy any characters that I already have. Any new stuff will have to be awfully cool for me to want it (I'm looking at you, Dinobots and Leader class figures).

I've even given serious thought to selling off what I have. If the right offer came along I don't think I would turn it down.

I love the movie lines, they've given us some of the best figures ever. Its where Hasbro had to step up their game and because of that the bar has been raised a significant amount. They had their problems like the avalanche of Bumblebees and the overall half-assing of the DotM line, but the good far outweighs the bad.

However, from what we've seen and heard of the AoE line so far I'm not getting too excited. I just hope the Dinobots are good.

The 07 movie, re-introduced me to collecting since G1. I bought most of what came out with the only real exception I did not buy leader classes and wish I would have gotten a leader Brawl.

ROTF/HFTD I pretty much bought everything except for Leader Prime and Leader Megs, but I did buy Leader Jetfire. Something about scale with all of the TF's bugged me since the first movie. I was happy with BB Prime and Bee but like Blurrz said, waste of buying the original Bee when this one came out.

This series introduced me to start collecting Cyberverse as I was not impressed with Demolishers toy vs his on screen appearance.

DoTM brought me into reality. I stopped collecting everything and really only went with what looked interesting to me. I did buy Voyager Ironhide, however prefer the 07 version to this. Did not buy a prime, as Battle blades Prime was good enough for me. I thought Cyberverse stepped into its own with this movie and Commander class.

I no longer collect repaints unless it is done on screen. I am afraid some of the current generations issues will play into this 4th movie like the hollowness of FOC bruticus but time will tell. I am not impressed with the simpler transformations / up-scaled cyberverse. Leader Prime looks disappointing at best (IMO)

dirk2243 wrote:I no longer collect repaints unless it is done on screen. I am afraid some of the current generations issues will play into this 4th movie like the hollowness of FOC bruticus but time will tell. I am not impressed with the simpler transformations / up-scaled cyberverse. Leader Prime looks disappointing at best (IMO)

Actually, the Generations subseries of AoE will not be simplified, and they will be less gimmicky than any of the previous movie series as they are being targeted as collector items rather than trying to target all ages at once. And I think they are having trouble with leader Prime's accuracy just because his alt mode is radically different.

OptiMagnus wrote:And I think they are having trouble with leader Prime's accuracy just because his alt mode is radically different.

That, and the fact that most of the new design's truck parts seem to magically disappear. To be fair, there was a good amount of CGI magic even in the first movie, but in AoE, even more of Optimus's alt mode parts are missing in bot mode. From the pics we've seen so far, only the fuel tanks and tires are visible, whereas the windshields, air horn and other parts are either molded into the torso or just gone.

For OP's original design, it took them a second try and (supposedly) a designer from Takara's MP line to give us ROTF leader class OP, and there were no restrictions on how complex it could be.

What with the AoE toy being the first one made based on the new design, and what with the new "simpler steps" policy by Hasbro, you can't really expect a screen-accurate version of OP's AoE CGI model.