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Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby First-Aid » Wed Feb 20, 2013 11:58 am

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Bowspearer wrote:
You cannot turn this:

Image

into this:

Image

with a mere minor retool. Forgetting about the difference in the shoulders, the chest transforms radically differently, the waist is fundamentally different and the feet/legs transformation is fundamentally different.



Two minor mold changes separate Prowl and Jazz. In both cases the head is attached to the roof/front windshield of the car mode and folds down to reveal the head. The chest in both cases is the front of the vehicle from the doors forward folded at a 90 degree angle. In both cases the feet are formed by pulling the rear of the vehicle- from behind the doors back- down and apart. You can turn Jazz into Prowl by:

1. Adding a hip rotation allowing the waist to turn around 180 degrees so that the rear of the car forms the front of the feet and legs; and
2. Turning the wheels/shoulders on Jazz so that they match the angle of Prowl's.

Structurally, as robot modes they are virtually identical. You can keep the robot portion- the infrastructure engineering, so to speak- the same and simply change the exterior to change one to another. Not quite a "repaint", but much less than a new mold altogether, saving wads of money on engineering and time to produce. The infrastructure can remain the same and only the exterior need change. This is why I say Jazz will come from this basic mold. I have both Jazz and Prowl's G1 figures. They really are not that different.
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First-Aid wrote:Okay, did anyone else notice that we all get a wonderful shot of Starscreams crotch anytime he sits in that throne? That's unnerving. Couldn't they have put n extra flap in there? It's....weird.


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Goddammit, now I can't unsee it.
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby mandingo_rex » Wed Feb 20, 2013 12:38 pm

First-Aid wrote:Two minor mold changes separate Prowl and Jazz. In both cases the head is attached to the roof/front windshield of the car mode and folds down to reveal the head. The chest in both cases is the front of the vehicle from the doors forward folded at a 90 degree angle. In both cases the feet are formed by pulling the rear of the vehicle- from behind the doors back- down and apart. You can turn Jazz into Prowl by:

1. Adding a hip rotation allowing the waist to turn around 180 degrees so that the rear of the car forms the front of the feet and legs; and
2. Turning the wheels/shoulders on Jazz so that they match the angle of Prowl's.

Structurally, as robot modes they are virtually identical. You can keep the robot portion- the infrastructure engineering, so to speak- the same and simply change the exterior to change one to another. Not quite a "repaint", but much less than a new mold altogether, saving wads of money on engineering and time to produce. The infrastructure can remain the same and only the exterior need change. This is why I say Jazz will come from this basic mold. I have both Jazz and Prowl's G1 figures. They really are not that different.


While I personally think they'll change a few things to further differentiate them, this is basically what I feel, too.
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Stormrider » Wed Feb 20, 2013 8:22 pm

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lol. I can't believe people are still arguing over mod changes and speculations of making this mold into Jazz. Jazz is not in the line up right now. Let's move on. It's not any different of an argument than saying that if you mod Sideswipe you'll have Sunstreaker.
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Sabrblade » Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:23 am

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It'll take far more than a mere retool job (no matter how extensive to turn this:
Image
Into this:
Image
Jazz needs to have his own mold made for him. To do otherwise would go against the very nature of the Masterpiece line.
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Henry921 » Thu Feb 21, 2013 5:33 am

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Sabrblade wrote:Jazz needs to have his own mold made for him. To do otherwise would go against the very nature of the Masterpiece line.



I'm not crazy enough to get into this argument, but I disagree on this point. I think redecoes and retools are core to the Masterpiece series, just as it was to the original G1 toyline. There will always be ways to redo Starscream, and I don't think we've yet reached the limit on ways to use the MP-10 mold.

While I want to see official MP Shockwave, a rescaled Megatron, and new molds, HasTak obviously want to get as much use out of each individual mold as possible, hence both of Prowl's redecoes to follow.
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby DinobotSix » Thu Feb 21, 2013 7:07 am

Henry921 wrote:and I don't think we've yet reached the limit on ways to use the MP-10 mold.


like maybe reissuing OPTIMUS in quantities sufficient to meet the customer demand as well! =)
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Sabrblade » Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:28 am

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Henry921 wrote:I'm not crazy enough to get into this argument, but I disagree on this point. I think redecoes and retools are core to the Masterpiece series, just as it was to the original G1 toyline.
In that sense, Jazz would still require his own mold since G1 Jazz was still his own mold separate from Prowl.

If they really wanted to milk MP redecos/remolds for all that they're worth, they would have made the Lambor mold be able to work for Sunstreaker. But, they did not, and are even doing the similarly-colored Tigertrack instead to boot.
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Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby DinobotSix » Thu Feb 21, 2013 6:02 pm

Sabrblade wrote:If they really wanted to milk MP redecos/remolds for all that they're worth, they would have made the Lambor mold be able to work for Sunstreaker. But, they did not, and are even doing the similarly-colored Tigertrack instead to boot.


With Tigertrack out there, I've got this sinking feeling that we'll never see an mp Sunstreaker. I expected to see a slight mold retool for him, but seems like Takara is moving on. Maybe Hasbro...
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Wh33l Jck » Fri Feb 22, 2013 6:09 pm

So I think Prowl should come with Chip Chase....What do you all think?
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Stormrider » Fri Feb 22, 2013 6:35 pm

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That's a good accessory.
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby DinobotSix » Sat Feb 23, 2013 6:55 am

warzon3 wrote:So I think Prowl should come with Chip Chase....What do you all think?


COURAGE!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... xMQ#t=204s

actually, that would be a pretty awesome extra!
They could make the figure and his wheelchair separate so he could fit in the car.

Though, I'm not sure PROWL would be a natural choice for Chip. Don't think he ever rolled with Prowl in the G1. *shrug*
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Bowspearer » Sat Feb 23, 2013 6:57 am

First-Aid wrote:Two minor mold changes separate Prowl and Jazz. In both cases the head is attached to the roof/front windshield of the car mode and folds down to reveal the head. The chest in both cases is the front of the vehicle from the doors forward folded at a 90 degree angle. In both cases the feet are formed by pulling the rear of the vehicle- from behind the doors back- down and apart. You can turn Jazz into Prowl by:

1. Adding a hip rotation allowing the waist to turn around 180 degrees so that the rear of the car forms the front of the feet and legs; and
2. Turning the wheels/shoulders on Jazz so that they match the angle of Prowl's.

Structurally, as robot modes they are virtually identical. You can keep the robot portion- the infrastructure engineering, so to speak- the same and simply change the exterior to change one to another.


Right so in other words, you don't own the figures and have no idea what you're talking about. If you did, you'd know that making claims of them being virtually identical and oversimplifying the transformational differences is sheer fallacy.

The fact is that the chest transformation on Jazz alone is radically different. On Jazz, you have to rotate the waist 90 degrees then slide the hood of the car back over the waist. That requires a radically different torso design to Prowl's.

That's forgetting about the radical difference in the sculpts of even similar parts on both moulds.

Furthermore, if there is such attention to detail in the Masterpiece line that Red Alert has specifically crafted upper arms, then why on earth would they cut such corners with a major character like Jazz?

mandingo_rex wrote:I didn't compare the MP line to Binaltech or Classics. I used it as an example of how within the BT line, they used similar engineering from one (the Subaru, for example) and just essentially repeated it (with the RX-8). It was completely new parts, though, yet essentially the same "skeleton" transformation. There's absolutely no reason to reinvent the wheel completely if they create a Jazz in the MP line. They'll likely take a lot of what they learned from the Fairlady figures, and it will reflect in the designs.

As far as Sunstreaker? We won't see a Sunstreaker reusing Sideswipe tooling, I don't think. At least not from Takara. But if we get a Sunstreaker, I can easily see them reusing that Lambo transformation (this is what I meant, I didn't specify because I forgot to include it in my previous post) for Wheeljack. Roof=chest, hood=feet, that sort of thing. I don't recall all the similar G1 transformations, but didn't several of the Autobot cars transform similarly? Granted, feet may have spun around backwards or other things, but roughly there were some similarities in the designs.

Will they reskin it? No, I don't see them doing that or cutting corners. But there are a LOT of changes from the vintage figures to the MP ones. It's not just a simple update on the transformation by adding joints, some parts are significantly different.


On the contrary, you have conflated the Masterpiece line's approach to the BT line and continue to. Your entire argument is an utter prima facie as you have failed to grasp both the engineering differences between different G1 moulds and the fact that every single Masterpiece figure's transformation has built on the transformation of the original as opposed to simplifying it (in fact the arm transformation on Sunstreaker is similar to Prowl/Jazz, rather than Wheejack). Considering that the line has turned into a gravy train for Takara, why on earth would they go against that unless they wanted to hurt their bottom line. Besides, Jazz has a Stepper retool that can be done from him so he automatically has retool value.

Heck even Red Alert had radically different upper arms to Sideswipe when they could have just used the toy design as an excuse to share moulds. Yet that never happened. That should prove how utterly baseless arguments about Prowl and Jazz sharing moulds is- let alone any parts sharing which cannot be justified as being in the best interests of the figure..

Henry921 wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:Jazz needs to have his own mold made for him. To do otherwise would go against the very nature of the Masterpiece line.


I'm not crazy enough to get into this argument, but I disagree on this point. I think redecoes and retools are core to the Masterpiece series, just as it was to the original G1 toyline. There will always be ways to redo Starscream, and I don't think we've yet reached the limit on ways to use the MP-10 mold.


You've just completely contradicted yourself here. The entire point of the Masterpiece line has been to produce "masterpiece" versions of G1 toys. As such the retools and reissues will only extend as far as something was a retool and recolour in the original G1 line.

Will we get the likes of Tigertrack? Definitely, as we already are. However we wont see recolours or retools of G1 characters that were not originally retools or recolours.
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby mandingo_rex » Sat Feb 23, 2013 12:00 pm

Bowspearer wrote:Right so in other words, you don't own the figures and have no idea what you're talking about. If you did, you'd know that making claims of them being virtually identical and oversimplifying the transformational differences is sheer fallacy.

The fact is that the chest transformation on Jazz alone is radically different. On Jazz, you have to rotate the waist 90 degrees then slide the hood of the car back over the waist. That requires a radically different torso design to Prowl's.

That's forgetting about the radical difference in the sculpts of even similar parts on both moulds.

Furthermore, if there is such attention to detail in the Masterpiece line that Red Alert has specifically crafted upper arms, then why on earth would they cut such corners with a major character like Jazz?

----

On the contrary, you have conflated the Masterpiece line's approach to the BT line and continue to. Your entire argument is an utter prima facie as you have failed to grasp both the engineering differences between different G1 moulds and the fact that every single Masterpiece figure's transformation has built on the transformation of the original as opposed to simplifying it (in fact the arm transformation on Sunstreaker is similar to Prowl/Jazz, rather than Wheejack). Considering that the line has turned into a gravy train for Takara, why on earth would they go against that unless they wanted to hurt their bottom line. Besides, Jazz has a Stepper retool that can be done from him so he automatically has retool value.

Heck even Red Alert had radically different upper arms to Sideswipe when they could have just used the toy design as an excuse to share moulds. Yet that never happened. That should prove how utterly baseless arguments about Prowl and Jazz sharing moulds is- let alone any parts sharing which cannot be justified as being in the best interests of the figure..

----

You've just completely contradicted yourself here. The entire point of the Masterpiece line has been to produce "masterpiece" versions of G1 toys. As such the retools and reissues will only extend as far as something was a retool and recolour in the original G1 line.

Will we get the likes of Tigertrack? Definitely, as we already are. However we wont see recolours or retools of G1 characters that were not originally retools or recolours.


No need to start tossing in legal terminology or "debate team" lingo to try and boost your opinion. This isn't a court of law, and there's zero facts to base anything off from either side. There's no right and wrong at this point, it's all speculation! The difference about a courtroom and this is that in a court of law, you can disprove something. You can't disprove something that hasn't occurred yet, no matter how much you argue the case.

Look, I don't care if Jazz gets all-new tooling and hours wasted on semi-redundant new engineering or "reuses" some engineering from the Datsun mold, or if anyone else agrees with me at this point. I'm just enjoying the discussion, as silly as it is. You and those on your "side" of this argument could very well be right and Jazz will share zero similarities with Prowl, but I don't expect that will happen. I actually don't even own the vintage version of Prowl, but I've messed with it once or twice but I do own Jazz, and when I transformed my friend's Prowl, I even recall being like "Oh, it's sorta like Jazz!" The Sunstreaker/Wheeljack example was probably just a bad example. It was a casual one based off first glances with little experience with either vintage toy, so I wouldn't spend too much time trying to deconstruct that example.

Look, here are some things I do know, though, that folks keep bringing up from actual "fact" that isn't actually true, no matter how eloquently it's worded or how many debate-terms are tossed in to try and boost the argument. And I can say without a doubt, I know this from the Takara MP track record because I actually own every MP mold release to date...

• The point of the Masterpiece line is not to recreate the vintage toy with "masterpiece" articulation and design. It's to create a "masterpiece" version of the vintage figure AND the Sunbow cartoon appearance. The best of both worlds, literally. Sure, there are a few compromises, but they did a damn fine job finding the right middle ground for most of the MPs. As an example, Megatron is significantly different from his G1 toy, and while he had to follow the original's transformation somewhat, it achieves the visuals of the cartoon much more effectively than the original figure. Sideswipe's shoulders and wheels mimic the cartoon look, not the toy. True, the doors form the arms, but the wheels hide away completely.

• I'm not sure that the thing you said about Sideswipe and Red Alert's shoulders made sense to me. Did you mean the vintage figures had different transformations? Because the new ones have new molds for the shoulders, they're not exactly radically different, I don't think. The transformation is the same, and Red Alert has fake wheels on them. That's about it. If the transformation happened the same as the vintage figure, the actual wheels would be visible on both, and would've been the actual wheels on the shoulders, not tucked underneath the arms to form the bot's ribcage.

• Ultra Magnus (MP-02) was a total cop-out, and a huge "cutting corners" effort. So much in fact, that I didn't bother with MP-02. True, UM was originally a Prime repaint with a new suit-of-armor/trailer, but the end result looked nothing like Prime in robot mode once he was "suited up". While I do believe (well, really, really hope) that they'll make a new Ultra Magnus with trailer since they did completely retool Prime and not just scale him down (plus, this also milks the tooling for the main market, where not everyone will shell out the money for the Nemesis or "dark awakening" niche repaints), I feel like their efforts so far were just a cash grab. So I do consider that a cost-cutting, lazy cash grab. That's not Ultra Magnus.

Now, to jump to the other side, and argue FOR your stance, here's what is actually starting to sway my opinion, and it's nothing that's been said, really, but from the photos posted of the G1 cartoon models...

Jazz didn't have door-wings in the cartoon! And Prowl didn't have shoulder cannons! For Prowl, I think it could just be that they didn't include them in the promo shot, and we'll get them regardless with the figure. (Fingers crossed here, as I like the toy look versus the cartoon.) But it is cartoon-accurate. I think the MP version of Jazz will likely do their best to either hide the doors completely, or have them be able to be displayed with or without, so that little tidbit alone may require a significantly different transformation for Jazz, regardless of the leg transformation difference (which I personally think they have enough room to simply shift things around below the waist and still use a similar above-the-waist transformation for both Jazz and Prowl... but that's with my old thinking).

Stepper/Ricochet is also not a huge "repaint" draw from Jazz, I don't think. Sure, he can be repainted, but Stepper isn't anywhere in the realm of G1-must-have like Prowl/Bluestreak/Smokescreen or the Seekers. If they do make Jazz, I fully expect to see Stepper, but not as an individual figure. He's more along the lines of Tigertracks or Sunstorm in terms of popularity, with the exception of Stepper actually having a vintage figure.

Anyways, enough speculation and discussion over future things. Takara's more than getting enough repaint potential out of the Datsun mold to even bother retooling it significantly for anything else. I still think we'll get an eHobby or similar repaint of at least Bluestreak in Diaclone colors, so there's also that. 4 figures out of one mold? No need to retool it.

Jazz very well could be a new mold. If it is, kudos to them, and that just makes my future collection even more awesome. I also hope to see a totally-unique Sunstreaker with an alt mode so similar to Sideswipe that I really step back and marvel at the engineering. I think that will be impressive as hell. In the meantime, I just hope they bring on as many Autobot cars as they can. There's plenty of repaint potential with slight retools to flesh out another 10 slots without even talking about significant retooling with just 2-3 new molds in the first place. I hope this line lasts till MP-50 or later.
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Sinnertwin » Sat Feb 23, 2013 6:53 pm

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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Bowspearer » Sun Feb 24, 2013 7:48 am

mandingo_rex wrote:No need to start tossing in legal terminology or "debate team" lingo to try and boost your opinion. This isn't a court of law, and there's zero facts to base anything off from either side. There's no right and wrong at this point, it's all speculation! The difference about a courtroom and this is that in a court of law, you can disprove something. You can't disprove something that hasn't occurred yet, no matter how much you argue the case.


By Zero proof, you mean Mp-10, MP-11, MP-12, MP-13, MP-14, MP-15 and MP-16, which all follow the same design philosophy which you claim there is no proof that exists?

mandingo_rex wrote:Look, I don't care if Jazz gets all-new tooling and hours wasted on semi-redundant new engineering or "reuses" some engineering from the Datsun mold, or if anyone else agrees with me at this point. I'm just enjoying the discussion, as silly as it is. You and those on your "side" of this argument could very well be right and Jazz will share zero similarities with Prowl, but I don't expect that will happen. I actually don't even own the vintage version of Prowl, but I've messed with it once or twice but I do own Jazz, and when I transformed my friend's Prowl, I even recall being like "Oh, it's sorta like Jazz!" The Sunstreaker/Wheeljack example was probably just a bad example. It was a casual one based off first glances with little experience with either vintage toy, so I wouldn't spend too much time trying to deconstruct that example.


First off, my comment about not owning the toys was directed at First Aid whose entire argument was a straight up prima facie (I'm using that civil and impersonal term, because the "layman" version of it is generally personal and inflammatory - which I'm trying to avoid here).

Secondly, we've already seen the attention to detail remoulds get. If there were going to be lazy steps taken then Red Alert wouldn't have had specially tooled biceps. The fact that they would get that pedantic with the designs means that if something isn't true to the design then we wont see it in the MP version.


mandingo_rex wrote:Look, here are some things I do know, though, that folks keep bringing up from actual "fact" that isn't actually true, no matter how eloquently it's worded or how many debate-terms are tossed in to try and boost the argument. And I can say without a doubt, I know this from the Takara MP track record because I actually own every MP mold release to date...

• The point of the Masterpiece line is not to recreate the vintage toy with "masterpiece" articulation and design. It's to create a "masterpiece" version of the vintage figure AND the Sunbow cartoon appearance. The best of both worlds, literally. Sure, there are a few compromises, but they did a damn fine job finding the right middle ground for most of the MPs. As an example, Megatron is significantly different from his G1 toy, and while he had to follow the original's transformation somewhat, it achieves the visuals of the cartoon much more effectively than the original figure. Sideswipe's shoulders and wheels mimic the cartoon look, not the toy. True, the doors form the arms, but the wheels hide away completely.


Which contradicts nothing in what I actually said. Remember the Masterpiece line is essentially doing the original designs with current engineering levels and technology- staying true to the original designs. You bring up the doors being the amrs and the added complexity, but the fact is that added complexity is still built on the foundation of the original transformation.

You can be fairly certain that if a G1 cartoon design looked a certain way that it would be the "ideal" design of the figure by both Takara and Hasbro. Remember that Hasbro had to deal with engineering limitations from 30 years prior and a 1/72 scale line which was pre-existing with the original figures.

Working off the animation sheets and from the original design only proves the attention to detail being taken by the designers and that cost cutting has no place in it.

You might find some measures, like the fake wheels are going to be employed, but it is going to be where scale issues affect the design far more than it is to cut corners. Ultimately though, it all points towards a line where the focus is on high price ticket, high authenticity products.

mandingo_rex wrote:• I'm not sure that the thing you said about Sideswipe and Red Alert's shoulders made sense to me. Did you mean the vintage figures had different transformations? Because the new ones have new molds for the shoulders, they're not exactly radically different, I don't think. The transformation is the same, and Red Alert has fake wheels on them. That's about it. If the transformation happened the same as the vintage figure, the actual wheels would be visible on both, and would've been the actual wheels on the shoulders, not tucked underneath the arms to form the bot's ribcage.


No I meant that with the Masterpiece version they went the extra step and made Red Alert cartoon accurate when they had the excuse of toy accuracy to hide behind if they wanted to cut corners and just re-use Sideswipe's shoulders. However if they're not even going too cut corners with something as minor as that then there's no way they're going to do something as radical as shoehorn Prowl into Jazz. What happened with Red Alert proves that it simply goes against the entire business plan whicch Takara currently have for the Masterpiece line.

mandingo_rex wrote:• Ultra Magnus (MP-02) was a total cop-out, and a huge "cutting corners" effort. So much in fact, that I didn't bother with MP-02. True, UM was originally a Prime repaint with a new suit-of-armor/trailer, but the end result looked nothing like Prime in robot mode once he was "suited up". While I do believe (well, really, really hope) that they'll make a new Ultra Magnus with trailer since they did completely retool Prime and not just scale him down (plus, this also milks the tooling for the main market, where not everyone will shell out the money for the Nemesis or "dark awakening" niche repaints), I feel like their efforts so far were just a cash grab. So I do consider that a cost-cutting, lazy cash grab. That's not Ultra Magnus.


Except that it's already been established that everything prior to MP-10 (you could possibly take MP-09 as that point even) is irrelevant to the current line. As of MP-10, we have a new scale and new approach so any shortcuts which may have previously been taken are almost certain to never see the light of day from this point on.

mandingo_rex wrote:Now, to jump to the other side, and argue FOR your stance, here's what is actually starting to sway my opinion, and it's nothing that's been said, really, but from the photos posted of the G1 cartoon models...

Jazz didn't have door-wings in the cartoon! And Prowl didn't have shoulder cannons! For Prowl, I think it could just be that they didn't include them in the promo shot, and we'll get them regardless with the figure. (Fingers crossed here, as I like the toy look versus the cartoon.) But it is cartoon-accurate. I think the MP version of Jazz will likely do their best to either hide the doors completely, or have them be able to be displayed with or without, so that little tidbit alone may require a significantly different transformation for Jazz, regardless of the leg transformation difference (which I personally think they have enough room to simply shift things around below the waist and still use a similar above-the-waist transformation for both Jazz and Prowl... but that's with my old thinking).


Considering how pedantic the attention to detail on this line has been to date, nothing in that reveal surprised me tbh and when Jazz comes out, I know I'll be proven right on that front too. As for the torso of MP Jazz when it does hit - the radical differece in waist engineering alone will requre a radically different mould, regardless of what happens with the doors.

In fact about the only parts which might see reuse would be Prowl's hands and thighs and even the thighs might be completely different sculpts.

mandingo_rex wrote:Stepper/Ricochet is also not a huge "repaint" draw from Jazz, I don't think. Sure, he can be repainted, but Stepper isn't anywhere in the realm of G1-must-have like Prowl/Bluestreak/Smokescreen or the Seekers. If they do make Jazz, I fully expect to see Stepper, but not as an individual figure. He's more along the lines of Tigertracks or Sunstorm in terms of popularity, with the exception of Stepper actually having a vintage figure.


And yet he was popular enough to get a reissue. Here's the thing though- he requires very little in the way of custom tooling. Besides the mounts, everything is either Jazz or the inevitable Cyclonus Artfire release (whose partners all use the Nightstick mould). If a figure like Tigertrack is getting a release and if everyone is lapping up everything Masterpiece which at this rate they will be, then I can totally see Takara "risking" a Stepper release.
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Henry921 » Sun Feb 24, 2013 8:22 am

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Bowspearer wrote:
Henry921 wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:Jazz needs to have his own mold made for him. To do otherwise would go against the very nature of the Masterpiece line.


I'm not crazy enough to get into this argument, but I disagree on this point. I think redecoes and retools are core to the Masterpiece series, just as it was to the original G1 toyline. There will always be ways to redo Starscream, and I don't think we've yet reached the limit on ways to use the MP-10 mold.


You've just completely contradicted yourself here. The entire point of the Masterpiece line has been to produce "masterpiece" versions of G1 toys. As such the retools and reissues will only extend as far as something was a retool and recolour in the original G1 line.

Will we get the likes of Tigertrack? Definitely, as we already are. However we wont see recolours or retools of G1 characters that were not originally retools or recolours.



Where, exactly did I contradict myself? My point of contention was "the very nature of the Masterpiece line", which I felt was intentionally designed both to select popular characters and molds which could be redecoed and retooled, as indeed, Seekers and OP are, and the Alert/Sideswipe mold has already demonstrated.
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby DinobotSix » Sun Feb 24, 2013 9:11 am

guess it's time to click the ol' "If you no longer wish to watch this topic..." link. =) cheers, all!
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby PrymeStriker » Sun Feb 24, 2013 11:42 am

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DinobotSix wrote:guess it's time to click the ol' "If you no longer wish to watch this topic..." link. =) cheers, all!


Right on, brother. >:oP
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby First-Aid » Sun Feb 24, 2013 1:43 pm

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"Where, exactly did I contradict myself? My point of contention was "[i]the very nature of the Masterpiece line", which I felt was intentionally designed both to select popular characters and molds which could be redecoed and retooled, as indeed, Seekers and OP are, and the Alert/Sideswipe mold has already demonstrated."[/i]

This is my point as well.

Bowspearer wrote:
First-Aid wrote:Two minor mold changes separate Prowl and Jazz. In both cases the head is attached to the roof/front windshield of the car mode and folds down to reveal the head. The chest in both cases is the front of the vehicle from the doors forward folded at a 90 degree angle. In both cases the feet are formed by pulling the rear of the vehicle- from behind the doors back- down and apart. You can turn Jazz into Prowl by:

1. Adding a hip rotation allowing the waist to turn around 180 degrees so that the rear of the car forms the front of the feet and legs; and
2. Turning the wheels/shoulders on Jazz so that they match the angle of Prowl's.

Structurally, as robot modes they are virtually identical. You can keep the robot portion- the infrastructure engineering, so to speak- the same and simply change the exterior to change one to another.


Right so in other words, you don't own the figures and have no idea what you're talking about. If you did, you'd know that making claims of them being virtually identical and oversimplifying the transformational differences is sheer fallacy.


Actually I DO own both figures which I how I know how similar they are. Yes I am aware of the "extension" of Jazz's chest. But superficially, the figures physically appear very, very much the same. If you were the average Joe on the street and learned how to transform Prowl for the first time, you could easily assume just by looking at them that they could transform the same. I premise is that by simply changing the exterior of the MP Prowl version- the car parts so to speak, and by painting a couple parts differently, and keeping the base engineering nearly identical it is possible to reuse the Prowl mold for other figures besides the obvious straight repaints of Bluestreak and Smokescreen (and the inevitable SG equivalents).
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Bowspearer » Sun Feb 24, 2013 4:21 pm

First-Aid wrote:Actually I DO own both figures which I how I know how similar they are. Yes I am aware of the "extension" of Jazz's chest. But superficially, the figures physically appear very, very much the same.


Right so by your own admission, you have disregarded significant evidence and have instead proceeded to put forward a prima facie - an argument which superficially appears to work, but the moment you scratch the surface on it, it shows itself to be a pure fallacy.

First-Aid wrote:If you were the average Joe on the street and learned how to transform Prowl for the first time, you could easily assume just by looking at them that they could transform the same.


And if this were CHUG then your point here might have some grounding (bearing in mind that even in CHUG, Prowl and Jazz got separate moulds). However this is not CHUG - this is the Masterpiece line, where not only has there been a complete lack of shoehorning Sideswipe into Sunstreaker (and considering that Takara are releasing all of one mould at a time, if there was going to be one then it would have been released by now), but Red Alert has special biceps made just for his release.

If a line has that much attention to detail to it then such a superficial comparison is irrelevant to the design paradigm of the Masterpiece line.

First-Aid wrote:I premise is that by simply changing the exterior of the MP Prowl version- the car parts so to speak, and by painting a couple parts differently, and keeping the base engineering nearly identical it is possible to reuse the Prowl mold for other figures besides the obvious straight repaints of Bluestreak and Smokescreen (and the inevitable SG equivalents).


And if Takara went so far as to sculpt unique shoulders for a second tier character like Red Alert, then logically they're not about to take such a shoehorned approach to two of the most core G1 characters like Prowl and Jazz.
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby El Duque » Mon Feb 25, 2013 12:54 am

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Takara Tomy designer Shogo Hasui continues to tease fans with a second Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl silhouette from a slightly different angle. According to the accompanying tweet the figure will be fully revealed in early March.

Site sponsors have this figure listed for a July release, with MP-18 Smokecreen and MP-19 Bluestreak repaints to follow in August and September.

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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Sabrblade » Mon Feb 25, 2013 1:02 am

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Henry921 wrote:Where, exactly did I contradict myself? My point of contention was "the very nature of the Masterpiece line", which I felt was intentionally designed both to select popular characters and molds which could be redecoed and retooled, as indeed, Seekers and OP are, and the Alert/Sideswipe mold has already demonstrated.
The very nature of the MP line is to take G1 designs and makes them super detailed and as show-accurate as possible with modern engineering. The use of redeco-able molds is just a business strategy not inherently tied to the purpose of the MP line. That's a strategy that is used for far more than just the MPs.

The contradiction comes from saying, "I think redecoes and retools are core to the Masterpiece series, just as it was to the original G1 toyline." By saying that they're as essential to MP line as the G1 line, that implies that both any molds that we redeoced and any molds that were new molds in G1 deserves the same treatment in MP form. Meaning that since Jazz was a different mold from Prowl in G1, he should have his own MP mold as well, which contradicts the claim that Jazz would work as a remold of MP Prowl.

That last paragraph made more sense in my head before I typed it, so I hope I worded it coherently enough. (:| I-)
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby Sinnertwin » Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:35 am

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Enough with the teasers already!
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby SKYWARPED_128 » Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:54 am

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So, how does this new dark silhouette that shows you next to nothing differ from the first dark silhouette that shows you next to nothing?
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Re: Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-17 Prowl Teaser

Postby KnightStrike » Mon Feb 25, 2013 5:44 am

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You think by now Takara could afford some light bulbs ;) Seriously wish they would drop the teaser thing and just show pics of their products, its killing me to find out if these bots are indeed Datsun 280Zs :PRAY:
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