The Energon Pub

So we all know and love/hate the Seekers. They are one of the only kind of repaint characters we won't go and cry "REAPAINTS" over in a derogatory fashion - in fact some of us love these things so much, they demand even more than just the traditional sets.

Now, with the release of Takara's MP11SW Skywarp through Hasbro Asia, we finally have a full set of Seekers based on the MP version 2.0 remold. And things are starting to become very, very clear.

Skywarp suffers from mold degradation. I just fiddled about with him for the first time after unpacking and then displaying him (I've handled the same toy in two different colours now, so the "magic" is lost on me) and noticed a few things. The diecast parts Hasbro made in plastic for Thundercracker, are now diecast once more. His deco is somewhat of a hybrid of Takara Starscream and Hasbro Thundercracker along with its own unique deco thrown in for good measure. Oh, and his jet-mode has ugly and obvious gaps where the plastic has warped due to mold degradation.

The mold degradation is especially obvious in:

• Nosecone
• Cockpit
• Boobs
• pretty much the entire fuselage

The only things that look to be OK and up to the same standard are

• head
• arms
• the sides
• waist
• lower legs
• Wings

In other words, all the parts that have been remolded for MP11, and most of those parts would have to be replaced with new parts for the Coneheads anyway.

The only things from the remold (save for the degraded stuff) Takara would be able to actually keep are the arms (just not the hinge that connects them to the body, that part is well f**ked), the tights and half of the lower leg assembly.

They might as well just make an entirely new mold.

i think a brand-new mold wouldn't be a bad idea, but i would prefer it if takara then actually released all of them in that new mold, and as general releases, instead of some through hasbro and some through takara or as an exclusive of some kind.

Do you not think we have had our fill of Masterpiece Seekers? Seem to be a great variants and they haven't touched the coneheads yet.

Having said that I wouldn't mind a Starscream with a properly proportioned head.

Ravage XK wrote:Do you not think we have had our fill of Masterpiece Seekers? Seem to be a great variants and they haven't touched the coneheads yet.

Having said that I wouldn't mind a Starscream with a properly proportioned head.

Oh believe me, I've had my fill of Seekers, I'm kinda sick of them. But I do want to finish my G1 lineup, and for that we need Coneheads.
And now while handling MP Skywarp (officially, the most expensive TF I have ever bought ) I realized that the only way we'll get Coneheads is if they're based off of their own new mold. That's all I'm saying, not that Takara should make a brand new Starscream mold and repaint that thing a billion times.

while i agree about the MP11 mold issues, hoping for a new MP seeker mold is a bit... out there. and if/when they tackle the coneheads, who knows how theyll go about it. but id put money on them altering the MP11 further instead of making entirely new molds.

That does it, I'm keeping my MP-6. I love the MP-11 mold, but I can't stand mold degredation. If there's that much damage at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they started from scratch for the coneheads, as no one knows how many runs they'll get

I have to say, this is not good news. I haven't picked up MP-11SW yet (money snafu), but I intend to. It's not a total loss since I display them in robot mode, but I'd definitely hope for a new mold for Thrust, Dirge and Ramjet this being the case.

The only Seeker 2.0 I have is Sunstorm, and you can see the degridation on him for sure. I'll bet it's even worse for Skywarp. Warp is and always has been my fave. I had even thought I would replace my $20 Walmart exclusive with him. Not now. Thanks for the warning.
It would be cool if they did an all new mold for the Cones, but the way things have been going, I kinda doubt it. Here's to wishful thinking.

If Skywarp is the MP-11 mold's last gasp, then I think it had a great run. I don't feel like there's a need for a 2.0 style upgrade to the newer F-16 MP Jets, since, well, it basically is the MP-3 Mold Version 2.0.

Need for a new production mold? Yes. Need for a new master? Nah.

This thread is extremely useful. Thank you.

So I decided to take another look and found that I may have jumped the gun a bit.
It does feel less good than TC or SS, and it does suffer, but it's not as bad as I first thought.

The part that connects the arms to the body, is lose on both SS and TC, but SW's loser, more floppy.

There is a large gap in the nosecone in robot-mode (you see this when you look down on it from the top, much more pronounced than on SS and TC. The silver paint on the parts makes it even more obvious.



I noticed that the alt-mode looks far less crappy and degraded if you use more force. When I started this thread, it had gaps almost everywhere, I did it again, but used more force than I usually would with this mold, result much less gaps. The cockpit though, still has the large gap in alt-mode.



Some of the details, especially the plane panels of the fuselage look deformed. And one of the panels that hold the wings seems to have slumped down, and is no-longer flush with the rest of the alt-mode. It's the one on the right.



Some plane panels look like they've been scraped out of the mold. Can't really explain it properly, but while the rest of the part look nice and smooth and has a shine to it, an area of it (mostly curved areas) look like someone scraped or cut part of the surface away. Kinda like where they would cut away the sprue, just, they're not sprue parts. Not noticeable in any pic I shot, but you can see it.

Again, most of this is only noticeable in alt-mode, or bot-mode from the back, but it's still there.