o.supreme wrote:william-james88 wrote:As with the G1 characters, the Beast Wars characters have a lot of simple straight redeco options, which I think plays a big part in them being new molds
Actually I saw it as Hasbro kind of biting a bullet in that repaints/remolds of BW characters are much more limited than OG characters (not saying its good or bad, just an observation). I think they have done well with what they had, with some exceptions. I mean they could have done straight repaints of Tigatron from Cheetor, and a slight retool of BA into Tarantulas, but by creating new molds they've kind of limited themselves.
There's really no way to reuse Optimus Primal (I think we can all agree Netflix Primal (barely any color change), and Buzzworthy "Nemesis Primal" were pointless cash grabs).
Not much you can do with Rhinox (except maybe the Predacon Rhinox from one episode). Toy color "repaints" to me are also pretty lame as well.
I think most of the versatility of BW characters is more fabricated based on toy vs animation deco, also Botcon and other past exclusives, which were made
originally, because some of the molds had no secondary use, so of course they ae going to do it again.
I mean a Selects or retailer exclusive Antagony from BW Inferno is pretty much a given. Same for Cryotek from TM2 Megatron.
I think Hasbro takes into account however, If they can use the WFC Seeker molds, or WFC Megatron like 10 times, it compensates for the cost of one time uses such as Siege Astrotrain, ER Doubledealer, and most likely Kingdom Rhinox, as well as commanders such as Skylynx or RP, although with SG Jetfire, I guess nothing is off the table.
It might take some further retooling or reshelling but I'll add quite a few ideas to the redecos that you and others mentioned.
B'Boom from Primal. A mandrill is close enough to a gorilla. Faux mandrill head for the chest plate and maybe some flip out missile racks for the sides. Prime jet guns can be B'Boom's shoulder guns or his missiles when in his backpack. Guns instead of swords. It's workable. They could take it all further and redo the arms and legs to be thinner/longer to make B'Boom taller than Primal. Maybe even give him those weird shoulder pauldron things that his BW toys gets from his kibble too.
Polar Claw from Rhinox. It sucks Polar Claw got cut from Kingdom but Rhinox could serve as a base for a reshell. Give him the Batscout and a chain claw weapon or something instead of Rhinox's Chainguns of Doom. If they want to take it further then Rhinox's shoulder system does allow for the front legs to go to the back so they can become the over the shoulder weapons from the original toy. They could then add new robot arms to that same hinge system that work and transform the same as the original Polar Claw toy.
Torca from Rhinox.
Bonecrusher from Rhinox.
Ironhide from Rhinox?
Transquito from Inferno. Most insects have similar shapes already. Insect head becomes chest as normal but make the abdomen become the legs instead of whatever they're going to do with Legacy Inferno. It's difficult to tell what Hasbro is going to do for Legacy Inferno so I'm just going to assume they're going with the original toy's transformation scheme for the rest of this speculation. To take it further they could make the robot arms form part of the mosquito's chest area instead of being insect legs. It can even keep the triple changing feature. That back cavity will be filled by the mosquito head for antlion mode and the antlion head while in mosquito and robot modes. Split the abdomen like the original toy and then flip around the antlion head that came from the back of the mosquito and transform the wings into pinchers. The insect legs will be attached to the robot arms that become part of the chest of the insect like the original instead of the insect legs being formed by the robot arms, legs and the pair of kibble legs as with the original toy Inferno.
Convobat and Nyx from Airazor/Terrorsaur. This one's pretty self explanatory. The original Convobat wasn't all that different from the original Terrorsaur.
Sonar from Convobat. I don't see why not as the beast mode parts end up the same places in robot mode anyway. Just add the small arms to the retooled Transmetal 2 bat wings.
Noctorro from Airazor/Convobat/Sonar. Again, parts end up the same places and he's part bat like Convobat and Sonar.
Airhammer from Airazor/Terrorsaur. Have the shark jaw and tail come off to become arm gauntlet weapons. The shark head could either become the chest like Airazor or be sent to the back like Terrorsaur.
Manta Ray from Airazor.
Insecticon from Tarantulas. The only real difference would be the pinchers becoming the lower arms for Insecticon but oh well. They both even have crossbow style weapons.
Beetle from Insecticon.
Powerpinch from Tarantulas. Instead of the two weapons from Tarantulas they could be worked into the rear pincher/weapon.
Drillbit form Tarantulas.
Snarl from Rattrap. Parts go similar places in robot mode. Similarly shaped beast modes at least from the original toys anyway.
Razorbeast form Rattrap.
Armordillo from Rattrap.
Snapper from Rattrap.
Spittor from Rattrap.
Panther from Cheetor. Too similar to Shadow Panther maybe?
Sea Clamp from Scorponok.
Razorclaw from Scorponok??? I can kinda see it if they take the entire scorpion tail and use that plastic to make the back larger for the crab shell. Take away a pair of beast mode legs. Make the beast mode pinchers smaller and asymmetrical.
Cicadacon from Waspinator?
Injector from...no, no. We better not go there again.
Sky Shadow from Jetstorm.
Jetstorm from??? That's as far as I got. Maybe from Inferno/Transquito? There's not much there other than them all being insects that can fly. Inferno's beast mode doesn't have wings but if it were a male ant or a queen alate it would.
Buzzclaw from Manterror.
Scourge from Manterror.
Manterror from???
K-9 and Wolfang from either Cheetor or Tigatron or one from each. This is quite a bit of a stretch and is more just making characters from existing molds regardless of any accuracy at all. Which would open a whole other can of worms as there's still a bunch of BW characters I didn't mention due to them not being anything close to any existing mold.
I left out Ram Horn and Prowl as nothing really lines up with them either. Ironhide and Cicadacon are stretches from Rhinox and Waspinator as it is. I don't know though, make them from Tarantulas and Cheetor just to finish both now non-combiner teams? Again though, it's a bigger can of worms to open just doing things for the sake of doing them.
I've seen worse mold reuses than these so it's not too outlandish. Warpath from Megatron, they're both tanks right? How about Huffer and Pipes from Optimus, they're all cab over engine trucks right? But if they do a decent amount of reshelling then most of these could work fairly easily like Knockout form Jazz. The rest would need more work to accomplish like all the TR Twinferno retools but there's at least a similar enough base to start with. Seriously though, who thought Twinferno could be used for all of them. You can even still get a decent enough Squeezeplay and Horri-Bull out of that mold too without much effort.
