The Energon Pub

william-james88 wrote:Also I dont get the hate for the removeable top of Ironhide's van, it's a G1 homage. No one was upset when we saw it with Blurr in TR.

TR Blurr is a G1 homage, both used part of the vehicle mode as a shield. ER Ironhide utilising the van roof as a shield is not. If it was going to be a homage it would be a sled. They instead decided that would look silly and instead turned it into shield. Definitely not a homage.

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Also I dont get the hate for the removeable top of Ironhide's van, it's a G1 homage. No one was upset when we saw it with Blurr in TR.

TR Blurr is a G1 homage, both used part of the vehicle mode as a shield. ER Ironhide utilising the van roof as a shield is not. If it was going to be a homage it would be a sled. They instead decided that would look silly and instead turned it into shield. Definitely not a homage.

The could have gone the MP route. Make it a sled with lots of 5mm ports so we could go silly.

Truly a missed opportunity.

I don’t mind Ironhide (and I guess by extension the inevitable Ratchet) having a shield; I like to imagine Ironhide as being the Reinhardt of Transformers; a heavily armed bruiser with a bigass deployable shield. I blame the War for a Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron games for that mentality.

Tuned Agent wrote:

sol magnus wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

That head on Earthrise Prowl is Bluestreak's head. I've already made arrangements to get another Prowl to swap heads when my set arrives.

Hey, wait a minute... with all the inaccuracies with these renders, how do we know that there isn't a Prowl head mold too, and the render just used the wrong one?

Could be, but going by what we have in the render, if it stands, I need to change the head.

Jeddostotle7 wrote:Something interesting that I don't think anyone's brought up yet: Soundwave is majority new parts. Looking at the new one (both the render we just got and the in-hand sample that was leaked last month) and comparing it to Siege, the only parts that are shared between the two figures are the feet, the pelvis flaps, the chest window, the arms from the biceps down, the head, and the weapons. The shoulders, almost all of the torso, and the entirety of the legs, are all newly sculpted; even if they look very similar to Siege's, they have different detailing or shaping.

Oh, he's definitely been tweaked to make the cassette desk mode look more solid and clean. I'll bite even though I have Siege and all the cassettes, just because of how much cleaner the cassette deck looks. But seeing how it folds up and transformers, I still think Hasbro got the idea from the Siege version's fan mode. Or this was always coming and the Siege fan mode is almost like an easter egg you'd find in a video game.

-Kanrabat- wrote:The could have gone the MP route. Make it a sled with lots of 5mm ports so we could go silly.

...I think silly may be an understatement.

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Also I dont get the hate for the removeable top of Ironhide's van, it's a G1 homage. No one was upset when we saw it with Blurr in TR.

TR Blurr is a G1 homage, both used part of the vehicle mode as a shield. ER Ironhide utilising the van roof as a shield is not. If it was going to be a homage it would be a sled. They instead decided that would look silly and instead turned it into shield. Definitely not a homage.

It was said in the livestream that the shield is itself a hoverboard/gun turret triple changer.

Burn wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:The could have gone the MP route. Make it a sled with lots of 5mm ports so we could go silly.

...I think silly may be an understatement.

Seriously, with the "armor dudes", the potential is NUT!

Sabrblade wrote:It was said in the livestream that the shield is itself a hoverboard/gun turret triple changer.

Indeed. Not the same as the full-fledged battle platform from G1 that was made of most of his altmode volume, though.

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Also I dont get the hate for the removeable top of Ironhide's van, it's a G1 homage. No one was upset when we saw it with Blurr in TR.

TR Blurr is a G1 homage, both used part of the vehicle mode as a shield. ER Ironhide utilising the van roof as a shield is not. If it was going to be a homage it would be a sled. They instead decided that would look silly and instead turned it into shield. Definitely not a homage.

More like they decided the battle platform would be more work and would bump him up a size class (frankly, I would have been fine with that).

At least in Ironhide's case the shield usage of it doesn't look stupid, it actually has the proportions of a decent shield and even curves to a point at the bottom because of what they did with the front windows.

Jeddostotle7 wrote:Something interesting that I don't think anyone's brought up yet: Soundwave is majority new parts. Looking at the new one (both the render we just got and the in-hand sample that was leaked last month) and comparing it to Siege, the only parts that are shared between the two figures are the feet, the pelvis flaps, the chest window, the arms from the biceps down, the head, and the weapons. The shoulders, almost all of the torso, and the entirety of the legs, are all newly sculpted; even if they look very similar to Siege's, they have different detailing or shaping.

....You're right.
Which officially makes ER Soundwave garbage in my opinion. They should have just made a whole new mold in that case, with a taller and slightly wider tape door.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:You're right.
Which officially makes ER Soundwave garbage in my opinion. They should have just made a whole new mold in that case, with a taller and slightly wider tape door.

Uh? Why? So that ER Soundwave is not compatible with ER Micromaster cassettes?
Come on, don't be silly.
Also, G1 Soundwave have his chest window WAY too large proportion wise if that's your reference.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:You're right.
Which officially makes ER Soundwave garbage in my opinion. They should have just made a whole new mold in that case, with a taller and slightly wider tape door.

Uh? Why? So that ER Soundwave is not compatible with ER Micromaster cassettes?
Come on, don't be silly.
Also, G1 Soundwave have his chest window WAY too large proportion wise if that's your reference.

I think Zelda is talking about the fact the Siege Soundwave's chest is barely able to fit Laserbeak, everyone else seems to get stuck. I have all the cassettes and, other than Laserbeak, they fit but the door will not pop(!) open, like it should when the button is pressed. Something catches somehow and I'm not sure what.

aronjlove wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:You're right.
Which officially makes ER Soundwave garbage in my opinion. They should have just made a whole new mold in that case, with a taller and slightly wider tape door.

Uh? Why? So that ER Soundwave is not compatible with ER Micromaster cassettes?
Come on, don't be silly.
Also, G1 Soundwave have his chest window WAY too large proportion wise if that's your reference.

I think Zelda is talking about the fact the Siege Soundwave's chest is barely able to fit Laserbeak, everyone else seems to get stuck. I have all the cassettes and, other than Laserbeak, they fit but the door will not pop(!) open, like it should when the button is pressed. Something catches somehow and I'm not sure what.

The only tape I have problems fitting in his chest is any of the Ratbat molds; something about them always gets them stuck in there. Personally I’m hoping they retool Soundwave to be able to have more capacity to fit more than one tape in there, but at this point it’s wishful thinking.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:You're right.
Which officially makes ER Soundwave garbage in my opinion. They should have just made a whole new mold in that case, with a taller and slightly wider tape door.

Uh? Why? So that ER Soundwave is not compatible with ER Micromaster cassettes?
Come on, don't be silly.
Also, G1 Soundwave have his chest window WAY too large proportion wise if that's your reference.

1. Oh, yes, I forgot - making more room in the tape compartment would magically make the Micromaster "cassettes" (quotes used because they do a worse job looking like cassettes than Universe Ravage) not fit. Wait...
As I have made clear, I think the Micromaster cassettes are undersize junk, so some cross-compatibility with better-sized ones would be nice
2. How the hell is G1 Soundwave's chest door "WAY too large proportion wise" if it is exactly the size it needs to be to accommodate figures with 1:1 microcassette altmodes and not one iota larger?
Unless they were able to pull off the Titans Return mold's trick of having extra room inside the torso below the bottom edge of the door (which on a Generations toy would require making the tape buttons part of the torso once more, rather than part of the pelvis), it would have to be that size to do the job.

aronjlove wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:You're right.
Which officially makes ER Soundwave garbage in my opinion. They should have just made a whole new mold in that case, with a taller and slightly wider tape door.

Uh? Why? So that ER Soundwave is not compatible with ER Micromaster cassettes?
Come on, don't be silly.
Also, G1 Soundwave have his chest window WAY too large proportion wise if that's your reference.

I think Zelda is talking about the fact the Siege Soundwave's chest is barely able to fit Laserbeak, everyone else seems to get stuck. I have all the cassettes and, other than Laserbeak, they fit but the door will not pop(!) open, like it should when the button is pressed. Something catches somehow and I'm not sure what.

I have 6 cassettes and I tested them all. If the objective is for the door to spring open one shot and quickly with a casette, here's my report.

The casette literally peg inside the door. Not the empty space behind.

Ravage and Lazerbeak work perfectly. Door spring open with force.

Both bats and dudes from the Select box get stuck. Pressing the button unlock the door and the rest is done by hand easily.

The whole space could use +1 millimeter all around the blue cavity space, not the door to prevent things from getting stuck.

Also, Zelda, if EVERYTHING you don't like is "garbage" it just show that you can only see the world in extremes with absolutely no middle ground. Better work on that.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:You're right.
Which officially makes ER Soundwave garbage in my opinion. They should have just made a whole new mold in that case, with a taller and slightly wider tape door.

Uh? Why? So that ER Soundwave is not compatible with ER Micromaster cassettes?
Come on, don't be silly.
Also, G1 Soundwave have his chest window WAY too large proportion wise if that's your reference.

I'd say if anything makes a figure garbage, it's hollow forearms (or legs. Or any large open gaps that take away from the appearance aesthetic).
The design for any supposed giant, tough, metal, robot should be a solid, filled-out appearance.
It's 2020... How is this not happening consistently with every figure?
ER Soundwave's overall look is still good. I'll still consider getting him.
But hollow forearms is definitely a letdown for me.
Imo, the only exception is a figure's chest cavity that's behind a windshield; "filler" usually isn't necessary and probably isn't always physically possible.

And I get it, especially with this character-- should one of his main functions (gimmick, really) work properly? Of course.
But let's all keep some perspective. These are toys.
If hearing that makes you see red, then at least please consider that it literally can't be wrong that someone else may not share the same level of passion that you have.

Also, I think Kanrabat's comment about the tape recorder window to figure proportion ratio refers to the original G1 toy vs. what is seen in the illustrated cartoon character. He's right if that's what he was comparing.
I'm sure that figure's design was a compromise of the cassette figure's size and the budget allotted for the Soundwave toy himself.

I too, hate the hollow gaps on the arms, legs and such. Especially those "ice cubes racks".

But it's all part of count parts, amount of plastics allowed and the overall budget of the figure. It suck, but it's something we have to deal with the mainline figures. "Current year" have nothing to do with this.
On second thought, yes it does. Overall cost of things have increased tremendously over the years but the prices barely increased all things considered. Only with TLK and the Siege lines did the price made a jump. But to cover and eliminate ALL the gaps and go back to Cybertron amount of plastics, the prices should have DOUBLED. So budget saving must be done somewhere. At least, our Hasbro figures now all have the "premium Takara" paintjob so it's at least that.

As for G1 Soundwave, yes I was talking about the overall LOOK. Best proof is to compare the MP and the G1. Both have the exact same cassette door but the body all around that door is much bigger for the MP, making the MP the one with the best proportions relative to that door.

And to end this wall of text, am I the only one who really love Siege Soundwave spaceship mode? I think the overall shape is just genius and is a great framework for his future earth mode. My only complain about that ship is that he lose most if not all of his "combat" 5mm ports in spaceship mode. I would have love to cover him in cassettes armor plates all over.

-Kanrabat- wrote:I too, hate the hollow gaps on the arms, legs and such. Especially those "ice cubes racks".

But it's all part of count parts, amount of plastics allowed and the overall budget of the figure. It suck, but it's something we have to deal with the mainline figures. "Current year" have nothing to do with this.
On second thought, yes it does. Overall cost of things have increased tremendously over the years but the prices barely increased all things considered. Only with TLK and the Siege lines did the price made a jump. But to cover and eliminate ALL the gaps and go back to Cybertron amount of plastics, the prices should have DOUBLED. So budget saving must be done somewhere.

This. Exactly this. It's an austerity thing that started setting in around 2011 (although even before then, covers for foldaway fists were considered optional, and the current design team shuns slide-retraction fists...), and it's not going away without a major economic shift somewhere.

Consider this, Sowndwave: HFTD Battle Blade Bumblebee was a Deluxe class when it came out. When Takara rereleased it as part of the Movie Advanced Series in 2014? They had to classify it as a Voyager. That should give you some idea.

-Kanrabat- wrote:As for G1 Soundwave, yes I was talking about the overall LOOK. Best proof is to compare the MP and the G1. Both have the exact same cassette door but the body all around that door is much bigger for the MP, making the MP the one with the best proportions relative to that door.

But the MP doesn't scale with Generations figures. I'll take the cassette door being an enormous part of the body if it means he can hold better (and better-scaled) cassettes.

-Kanrabat- wrote:And to end this wall of text, am I the only one who really love Siege Soundwave spaceship mode? I think the overall shape is just genius and is a great framework for his future earth mode. My only complain about that ship is that he lose most if not all of his "combat" 5mm ports in spaceship mode. I would have love to cover him in cassettes armor plates all over.

You are not alone. I like the "flying barge" mode too, I think it's a cool, mobile alternative to the canon lamp-post altmode (which he can still assume).

sol magnus wrote:

Tuned Agent wrote:

sol magnus wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

That head on Earthrise Prowl is Bluestreak's head. I've already made arrangements to get another Prowl to swap heads when my set arrives.

Hey, wait a minute... with all the inaccuracies with these renders, how do we know that there isn't a Prowl head mold too, and the render just used the wrong one?

Could be, but going by what we have in the render, if it stands, I need to change the head.

Just so we have all the info when discussing this, if you watch the presentation, the designer really highlights Prowl's head, saying how much he loves that they pulled off the G1 toy look.

-Kanrabat- wrote:I too, hate the hollow gaps on the arms, legs and such. Especially those "ice cubes racks".

But it's all part of count parts, amount of plastics allowed and the overall budget of the figure. It suck, but it's something we have to deal with the mainline figures. "Current year" have nothing to do with this.
On second thought, yes it does. Overall cost of things have increased tremendously over the years but the prices barely increased all things considered. Only with TLK and the Siege lines did the price made a jump. But to cover and eliminate ALL the gaps and go back to Cybertron amount of plastics, the prices should have DOUBLED. So budget saving must be done somewhere. At least, our Hasbro figures now all have the "premium Takara" paintjob so it's at least that.

We all get money rules, budgets are limited, etc.
So first off, lose the extra weapon... What's that supposed to be unfolded? An antenna? Something for the cybertron ship mode? I don't have this figure, but that seems pointless, or at least an unnecessary extra.
Then, what's under his forearms? Those look like they swivel towards his hands for alt mode?
What are those?
Get rid of the extra weapon and those gray parts, and I'll bet solid-looking forearms were quite possible without breaking the bank.

Still have that Battle Blade Bumblebee. Still impressed with the insane amount of parts and it's huge size.

This remind me of WfC Optimus Prime. If sold today, it too, will be a Voyager. Not because of the size, but especially for the parts count. No gaps everywhere, and so many, many steps in it's transformation! MP level of steps. And that was a DELUXE.



Back to Soundwave, yes, what's up with that irrelevant gray gun? Arms panels would have been way better than that useless thing. At least, it can be dumped in the cassette space.

Wow, lots of stuff, but little that interested me.

I secured Hubcap, Greasepit, and Exhaust, as well as the Amazon seekers set. But that was it. None of the new netflix reveals interested me at all, neither did any of the Siege retools.

A lot of the Earthrise/Netflix feels redundant to me at this point, less and less to get. Which feels nice

Sowndwave76 wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:I too, hate the hollow gaps on the arms, legs and such. Especially those "ice cubes racks".

But it's all part of count parts, amount of plastics allowed and the overall budget of the figure. It suck, but it's something we have to deal with the mainline figures. "Current year" have nothing to do with this.
On second thought, yes it does. Overall cost of things have increased tremendously over the years but the prices barely increased all things considered. Only with TLK and the Siege lines did the price made a jump. But to cover and eliminate ALL the gaps and go back to Cybertron amount of plastics, the prices should have DOUBLED. So budget saving must be done somewhere. At least, our Hasbro figures now all have the "premium Takara" paintjob so it's at least that.

We all get money rules, budgets are limited, etc.
So first off, lose the extra weapon... What's that supposed to be unfolded? An antenna? Something for the cybertron ship mode? I don't have this figure, but that seems pointless, or at least an unnecessary extra.

A different sort of gun, or a hammer handle. It can also work as an antenna if you want.

Sowndwave76 wrote:Then, what's under his forearms? Those look like they swivel towards his hands for alt mode?
What are those?

Cannons as well as landing gear.

Sowndwave76 wrote:Get rid of the extra weapon and those gray parts, and I'll bet solid-looking forearms were quite possible without breaking the bank.

Cover panels for the arm sockets might have been possible by dropping those, but..
1. Even in the pre-austerity days, cover panels for the sockets that the hands fold into (Remember, this is a transforming toy, so robot bits like that have to be put away when possible) were considered optional.
2. Getting rid of them reduces the play value and features present.
3. A lot of people, especially kids - and Generations would still be comprised of Legion, Deluxe, and a handful of Voyager molds if it wasn't selling with kids - care more about features and play value than having the hand sockets be covered when the hands are out.

william-james88 wrote:

sol magnus wrote:

Tuned Agent wrote:

sol magnus wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

That head on Earthrise Prowl is Bluestreak's head. I've already made arrangements to get another Prowl to swap heads when my set arrives.

Hey, wait a minute... with all the inaccuracies with these renders, how do we know that there isn't a Prowl head mold too, and the render just used the wrong one?

Could be, but going by what we have in the render, if it stands, I need to change the head.

Just so we have all the info when discussing this, if you watch the presentation, the designer really highlights Prowl's head, saying how much he loves that they pulled off the G1 toy look.

Uhh...that's disturbing. The Siege Prowl head is designed with a look like the Masterpiece head (with no goatee). The Earthrise head looks like Masterpiece Bluestreak's head (with a goatee - the Masterpiece doesn't have one IIRC).

I haven't watched the presentation, but either way that's his opinion - an opinion I don't share.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Cover panels for the arm sockets might have been possible by dropping those, but..
1. Even in the pre-austerity days, cover panels for the sockets that the hands fold into (Remember, this is a transforming toy, so robot bits like that have to be put away when possible) were considered optional.
2. Getting rid of them reduces the play value and features present.
3. A lot of people, especially kids - and Generations would still be comprised of Legion, Deluxe, and a handful of Voyager molds if it wasn't selling with kids - care more about features and play value than having the hand sockets be covered when the hands are out.

I see what you're saying... I really do... And still disagree...
Landing gear, and something that is basically an extra weapon when he already has a hand-held gun and a shoulder cannon...
Not to mention, nix all the landing gear and that frees up even more plastic.
And wait, landing gear really adds that much play value for a kid?????

Either way, it's super weak justification for huge holes in a figure's arms.

I've always seen it as a forward-protruding chin, not a goatee.

I'm more irked by the spoiler and the modern-looking front end. If not for the lightbar and the wheel clips, you could mistake that for Universe: Classics 2.0 Prowl.