The Energon Pub

Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:16 pm

I can't say I'm really a fan of them. I'm not sure what it is about Skids' proportions, but something about them just doesn't feel right to me.
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As for Bulkhead I was really excited for him but I think I don't think I'm gonna pick him up. His legs are way too long and I'm not sure if maybe they were trying to have a more realistic version of TFA Bulkhead's altmode, but regardless it reminds me too much of AOE Hound personally.

If a third party company put out an upgrade kit for him to replace his head with a more AOE Hound-esk headsculpt and to give him a ton of guns than I'll probly get him, but otherwise I don't think I will.

And are those minicon posts on him? That's definitely a good sign for Unicron Trilogy fans, and it's a good sign that we're gonna get more than just G1, Beast Wars and Prime in this toyline.

As for the transparent weapons I'm gonna guess they're a part of some new gimmick for this toyline but I don't really care for it, at least it looks like this gimmick won't impact the figures at all, though I'd still prefer for the budget for them to just go into the actual figures or different accessories.

Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:17 pm

I can't say I'm really a fan of them. I'm not sure what it is about Skids' proportions, but something about them just doesn't feel right to me.
=
As for Bulkhead I was really excited for him but I think I don't think I'm gonna pick him up. His legs are way too long and I'm not sure if maybe they were trying to have a more realistic version of TFA Bulkhead's altmode, but regardless it reminds me too much of AOE Hound personally.

If a third party company put out an upgrade kit for him to replace his head with a more AOE Hound-esk headsculpt and to give him a ton of guns than I'll probly get him, but otherwise I don't think I will.

And are those minicon posts on him? That's definitely a good sign for Unicron Trilogy fans, and it's a good sign that we're gonna get more than just G1, Beast Wars and Prime in this toyline.

As for the transparent weapons I'm gonna guess they're a part of some new gimmick for this toyline but I don't really care for it, at least it looks like this gimmick won't impact the figures at all, though I'd still prefer for the budget for them to just go into the actual figures or different accessories.

News Credits: 17 · Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:31 pm

Tracytron54321 wrote:And are those minicon posts on him? That's definitely a good sign for Unicron Trilogy fans, and it's a good sign that we're gonna get more than just G1, Beast Wars and Prime in this toyline.

I don't think that's a minicon post, I think that's so that he can hold the cover as a shield.

News Credits: 10 · Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:52 pm

Emerje wrote:
RIP weapon effect parts.

Emerje

Skids totally has 3mm points on the front of his weapons for blast effects.

News Credits: 7 · Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:31 pm

As other have posted,Bulkhead reminds me of Movie Hound,which is cool,I hope they consider Hound for a future remold.
If he and Beast Hunters Optimus are gonna share the same mold,his proportions make more sense.
If HasTak are goind to make more characters from other continuities,I hope they consider Movie Crosshairs.

Credit to DeviantArt user MaximumOverdrive:
https://www.deviantart.com/maximumoverd ... -649526839

Day 660 of waiting for Transformers Armada Masterpiece news.

News Credits: 8 · Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:32 pm

Honestly I am digging these guys. I can definitely get the disappointment in Bulkhead but personally I dig him. Also the only other Bulkhead I have is the beast hunters version, so there is that. Skids looks good also I really dig his car mode. I do have the thrilling 30 Skids but I think I have room on my shelves for both.

News Credits: 54 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 12:16 am

It's different but I've been wanting a Bulkhead in this kind of G1-Chug type design anyways, and I think the vehicle mode itself looks great, the mold itself looks solid too regardless of it fitting Bulkhead or not, if you swapped the head out for something else it would be a solid design, box chests don't bother me as long as their proportioned well and not massive, heck that's what G1 Optimus can be simplified as, he just has a slight waist most of the time.

Skids is a bit rougher yeah, but at the same time he also looks like the type of figure that might look better in person or in less "stock" type photography.

At the least it's an actual G1 Skids and not...that IDW based looking thing. (I hate IDW Skids as a G1 version, it looks like a WFC game design (and more so with the Takara deco) and is absolutely out of place with any G1 Collection, the vehicle mode of that toy is awful for him and it's robot mode hardly looked like a G1 Skids...kinda what people are saying about this line's Bulkhead compared to his TFP counterpart.)

I'm just grateful to actually have a Skids that looks like Skids.

And not one that only works for an IDW shelf.

News Credits: 4 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 2:30 am

Bulkhead looks like trash, my FE isn't going anywhere. Skids looks like Skids. As a lesser-known character there's not much to say about him. May grab him. May not. My collection needs more decepticons than autobots but I don't know if I want to wait another 8 years for a new take on him.

EDIT: one addendum to Bulkhead. I've seen a bunch of digibashes of him into other characters: Animated Wreck-Gar, Rescue Bots Heatwave, even G1 Optimus Prime. Every one of those digibashes works better than Bulkhead does. I know the main reuse is Beast Hunters Optimus Prime but maybe down the road we'll get something. If not, customizers away.

News Credits: 101 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 4:38 am

King Kuuga wrote:EDIT: one addendum to Bulkhead. I've seen a bunch of digibashes of him into other characters: Animated Wreck-Gar, Rescue Bots Heatwave, even G1 Optimus Prime. Every one of those digibashes works better than Bulkhead does. I know the main reuse is Beast Hunters Optimus Prime but maybe down the road we'll get something. If not, customizers away.

As if Bulkhead is just a pretool for a whole bunch of other characters and repaints.

:-?

Even though I think the mold don't work for Bulkhead, I anticipate collecting every single last one of them! 8-}

News Credits: 4877 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:39 am

Just some things I wanted to point out.

I think there was some confusion online with the listings. The Legacy Soundwave is listed as Soundwave PR. PR means Pack Refresh, meaning it's not a new toy. And we see this come up for a few others. But I think some leakers saw that PR devoid of context and that's how we got the rumours of a PRime Soundwave coming. And now we can see, that's not the case.

Speaking about PR, there is no PR following Blaster. So it could very well be that he is not in Wave 5 of Kingdom. We'll see.

Also, about Bulkhead, glad to know what those wheels on his shoulders are spares and fit the look of the vehicle. He definitely looks more like a body meant for another bot with this being the redeco with a new head. When I first saw these pictures, it was on Facebook and I my initial reaction was that this was a custom of some sort.

News Credits: 251 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:01 am

Definitely down for Bulkhead, boxiness and all. I think he’d look great next to 2010 Lugnut. I also have a sneaking suspicion he could be a pretool to a Prime Breakdown, given how that gat piece mounts to his shoulder :-?

Skids is exactly what I want from a Generations Skids. 2014 Skids can finally join his homeboys on the IDW shelf!

Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:08 am

Yeah, I do find Skids robot mode proportions and looks to be a little funky there. But I really like his vehicle mode. The boxiness vibe. I just like it.

Bulkhead....The proportions definitely feels off. It feels like when you do an amalgamation of Prime Bulkhead, AoE Voyager Hound, Unverse 2.0 Inferno and Prime RiD Voyager Ultra Magnus. On the other hand I can probably understand for those who wonders what would those characters with unique design styles would look in the current G1-ish generations design. However, it's still weird to me though.

News Credits: 17 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:19 am

I understand why people would prefer a Prime or Animated design over a G1 version, but for those who dislike this but would accept a G1 design, what were you expecting? I feel like an SUV would be too similar to Hoist, and I don't know of any real-world vehicles (or Cybertronian equivalents) that would be a better fit than what they went with.

I agree that Hound from the movie continuity seems to be in the mix, so it may be that this character is doing double-duty adapting two different characters to G1. They wouldn't call him Hound since we already have one of those.

Usually a Generations release mean Classics and Universe figures get cheaper as collectors upgrade, but I expect the opposite to happen with the Prime toys here. I decided to pick up a Prime Bulkhead a couple years ago pre-pandemic; even then the First Edition version was too rich for me and I got the smaller Voyager instead. I plan to hold onto it.

News Credits: 462 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:58 am

I'm beginning to notice a lot of people misremembering something about the Bulkheads of Animated and Prime. I'm going to make it clear. The Bulkheads of Animated and Prime were never military vehicles.

Animated Bulkhead turned into a police SWAT van. This is what he scanned:

His altmode was only green because Bulkhead himself was already green. His body only took on the vehicle's shape, but not its color. He's the only one of the five main Autobots who scanned a vehicle that wasn't already in the same colors as himself.

And before scanning that SWAT van, his Cybertronian altmode was a bulldozer.

Prime Bulkhead, meanwhile, was a 4-wheeled off-road SUV, the kind of truck an off-roading enthusiast would own. And again, only green because green is Bulkhead's color.

The stain of AOE/TLK Hound's similarities to Bulkhead in robot mode has perverted people's memories into thinking that Bulkhead was also a military truck like Hound, when he has never been one before now.

News Credits: 17 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:09 am

Sabrblade wrote:I'm beginning to notice a lot of people misremembering something about the Bulkheads of Animated and Prime. I'm going to make it clear. The Bulkheads of Animated and Prime were never military vehicles.

I've got some bad news for you about the militarization of American policing. But in seriousness, this type of design isn't that different than the one Hasbro used, though it definitely reads as "more" Bulkhead.

News Credits: 22 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:10 am

1 more reason why this should not have been called Bulkhead.

News Credits: 462 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:12 am

Animated's Detroit PD wasn't militarized.

We never even saw a mobilized Earth military unit of any kind in Animated.

News Credits: 17 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:18 am

Sabrblade wrote:Animated's Detroit PD wasn't militarized.

We never even saw a mobilized Earth military unit of any kind in Animated.

I'm saying something more basic: SWAT vehicles already are military vehicles, quite literally in some cases. Take the BAE Caiman which is the vehicle in the image I shared. This is military hardware that was later distributed to police departments. I'm not saying this model is the basis for Animated Bulkhead, but it's as good a real-world corollary as any.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Caiman

News Credits: 462 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:20 am

Well, it wasn't in use for military purposes.

Porter C. Powell even tried to market the van for civilian ownership in such gaudy colors as these:

News Credits: 2 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:25 am

AcademyofDrX wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:Animated's Detroit PD wasn't militarized.

We never even saw a mobilized Earth military unit of any kind in Animated.

I'm saying something more basic: SWAT vehicles already are military vehicles, quite literally in some cases. Take the BAE Caiman which is the vehicle in the image I shared. This is military hardware that was later distributed to police departments. I'm not saying this model is the basis for Animated Bulkhead, but it's as good a real-world corollary as any.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Caiman

Also consider that second hand military vehicles are a cheap way for police to get good quality, protective vehicles at relatively low cost to the public.

News Credits: 17 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:27 am

Sure, but I'm not taking issue with the vehicle's narrative purpose. Your Bulkhead criticism is "he's not a military vehicle, he's an armored police vehicle painted green." I'm saying in the real world, often the only difference between those two is the green paint.

News Credits: 17 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:31 am

First-Aid wrote:Also consider that second hand military vehicles are a cheap way for police to get good quality, protective vehicles at relatively low cost to the public.

For the purposes of this discussion, I'm not speaking to whether this is a good thing or not. It's just something that happens, and a justification for a Bulkhead design that is aspiring to a G1 aesthetic.

News Credits: 2 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:37 am

AcademyofDrX wrote:
First-Aid wrote:Also consider that second hand military vehicles are a cheap way for police to get good quality, protective vehicles at relatively low cost to the public.

For the purposes of this discussion, I'm not speaking to whether this is a good thing or not. It's just something that happens, and a justification for a Bulkhead design that is aspiring to a G1 aesthetic.

Agreed. It is efficient, promotes safety for the officers, recycles equipment, and keeps overall costs for departments low, so it is logical. Since I live in a rural area, militarization of the police force involved the county deputies getting a UTV. Have to admit, seeing a huge Dodge Ram with a lift kit and smokoestacks pulled over by a little UTV was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. :DANCE:

News Credits: 462 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:38 am

Well, on a related note, designer Mark Maher has weighed in on his intent behind this figure's design:

I felt honored to finally be able to make Bulkhead look like he belongs in our G1 universe!

As if there was something wrong with Bulkhead's design fitting into a G1 world in the first place. What, are fat rounded TFs not allowed in G1?

Makes me almost wish we could see what a Floro Dery take on Bulkhead might look like, since he designed a number of big bulbous dudes like the Guardian Robots and the Sharkticons. If those guys can exist, then so can Bulkhead without putting him through such a weight loss regimen.

News Credits: 11 · Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:39 am

I've just noticed that the EAN code lists the Voyager Soundwave as "S Soundwave (repack)", when the massive leak from TFW with the case breakdowns last month claimed it was a new Prime Soundwave. I take it from this list of EAN codes that Legacy Soundwave will just be a re-release of Netflix Soundwave (or perhaps just the original Siege Soundwave) after all. What a shame.