The Energon Pub

I can't be the only one that doesn't care about having multiple versions of the same character on a shelf. I have a CHUG shelf for Autobots and another for Decepticons. I don't really have a problem with TR Blaster being my third on the same shelf (with the Universe repaint and FOC Generations). Let alone characters like the Seeker jets or three Powerglides and whatever else. I'm just buying the figures I like, I don't care if they happen to be of the same characters.

Going back to Powermaster Optimus Prime I'm a little surprised his Titan Master will be able to ride inside. I thought there wouldn't be any room inside because I figured his helmet would fold up inside like Ultra Magnus' head, but I guess that isn't the case. We still haven't seen exactly what the Titan Master's head mode looks like, right? The obvious guess would be Orion Pax, but being red and white that doesn't seem likely. I guess it could just be a large Hi-Q head.

Emerje

Emerje wrote: The obvious guess would be Orion Pax, but being red and white that doesn't seem likely. I guess it could just be a large Hi-Q head.

Emerje

His name is apex:

Burn wrote:First release is the original, anything else is just a repaint.

That's not necessarily true since Combiner Wars has taught us that these molds are designed to fit several characters. Motormaster and Prime only came out a few months apart, I dont think either is a redeco of one or the other, they are just two toys using the same mold. The original, to me, would be the one they thought of first, but there is no way of knowing that.

To me, it seems far more logical for a company to release the lesser popular character first and the other as the "repaint" since the novelty of the mold/toy will counter the lack of knowledge of the character. Its just smart marketting, dont let it get the better of you

Burn wrote:
Because I have a nice modern Astrotrain.

Which one?

Hellscream9999 wrote:
Actually, this seems more fair than all the other leader figs... He gets away with it by unfolding into a decently impressive base mode. I'll take occasional hollowness over formulaic and repetitive base mode transformations

I agree, compare him to the leader seekers. This guy has a whole extra mode and is a headmaster. You are getting way more out of a leader than any of the previous generations leader, which makes me think there will be a price increase.

Burn wrote:First release is the original, anything else is just a repaint.

Wow, how very puritanical

So, to you, motormaster is a cheap re-mold of o/p?

Burn wrote:First release is the original, anything else is just a repaint.

I think that Astrotrain though technically a "Repaint" Sentinel Prime can just as likely be seen as a "Pre-Paint" in short the mould was always intended to be Astrotrain from the outset - but someone at Hasbro had theorised or established via research that selling a repaint of a lesser character would shift less units if sold second than selling the main established character second would.

I would be surprised if we see a lot more of this kind of thing in the future too.

Also Burn, which of the jets is the retool? Takara released them all as a boxset:

I'm going to side with burn in this one though obviously opinions will differ regardless. Only way we'll know factually is if we can get designers notes or minutes from designers meetings and find out which was suggested first.

But yes, by my own rules, motormaster is a repaint of op and blades, vortex are both repaints of Alpha Bravo though to be fair I subscribe to the idea that all three are Alpha Bravo anyway so he can sign on with multiple teams and get three times the fun.

As to the idea of withholding the release of the popular character till a later wave, that's only going to work with those who already hold the preconceived notion it. Pretty simply you believe it as that's what you want to believe...and you're free to believe it as we're probably never going to be privy to hasbro's marketing tactics

ZeroWolf wrote:I'm going to side with burn in this one though obviously opinions will differ regardless. Only way we'll know factually is if we can get designers notes or minutes from designers meetings and find out which was suggested first.

But yes, by my own rules, motormaster is a repaint of op and blades, vortex are both repaints of Alpha Bravo though to be fair I subscribe to the idea that all three are Alpha Bravo anyway so he can sign on with multiple teams and get three times the fun.

As to the idea of withholding the release of the popular character till a later wave, that's only going to work with those who already hold the preconceived notion it. Pretty simply you believe it as that's what you want to believe...and you're free to believe it as we're probably never going to be privy to hasbro's marketing tactics

It's not as much retooling as it is pretooling, where two figures using the same mold are designed at the same time and released within a short time of each other, good examples of such being CW Dead End/Streetwise and Offroad/First Aid. In the case of Motormaster and OP, I believe that the mold was designed for Motormaster at first, and the developers realized that they could make a OP out of it. Likely, if OP was designed first, and redone into Motormaster, then the mold would have slimmer proportions. It appears to be a similar situation with SP and Astrotrain. The mold is clearly designed for Astrotrain. The designers must have thought that since G1 SP has never had a toy before, they could use almost any mold for him, and decided to use the mold that could not be made into anyone else. The reason for releasing SP first is that people might still buy the mold multiple times.

Hellscream9999 wrote:So, to you, motormaster is a cheap re-mold of o/p?

Did I say that?

Love how some of you guys are just twisting my words around to suit your argument. I never said anything about Motormaster being a "cheap" or a "remold".

Pre-tooling? See, that's a new term and probably one we should use to describe the bulk of the CW line up.

But I stand by what I said, Astrotrain WILL BE just a repaint of Sentinel Prime. Regardless of Hasbros intention at the design board, he is a repaint.

Burn wrote: he is a repaint.

Even if he is a retool?

william-james88 wrote:

Burn wrote: he is a repaint.

Even if he is a retool?

What do you define as a retool? Swap a head and change the colours? Or is more extensive retooling required?

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Burn wrote: he is a repaint.

Even if he is a retool?

What do you define as a retool? Swap a head and change the colours? Or is more extensive retooling required?

A new head is all that is needed for it to qualify as a retool. There are also extensive retools like Dark Crumplezone and PMOP. But it is safe to say that Gen Dreadwing is a retool of Gen Megatron.

william-james88 wrote:A new head is all that is needed for it to qualify as a retool.

By whose standards? Because I disagree. The head is one of the smallest and easiest parts on the body to change.

But again, this obviously comes down to personal preference, and as has been demonstrated, by preferences vastly differ from others and no amount of debating will change either sides opinion.
Plus a discussion about what truly defines a retool is best left for another thread

william-james88 wrote:

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Burn wrote: he is a repaint.

Even if he is a retool?

What do you define as a retool? Swap a head and change the colours? Or is more extensive retooling required?

A new head is all that is needed for it to qualify as a retool. There are also extensive retools like Dark Crumplezone and PMOP. But it is safe to say that Gen Dreadwing is a retool of Gen Megatron.

Agreed. I try not to call them repaints if they have different heads. I call them "repaints with new heads".

Burn wrote:

Hellscream9999 wrote:So, to you, motormaster is a cheap re-mold of o/p?

Did I say that?

Love how some of you guys are just twisting my words around to suit your argument. I never said anything about Motormaster being a "cheap" or a "remold".

Pre-tooling? See, that's a new term and probably one we should use to describe the bulk of the CW line up.

But I stand by what I said, Astrotrain WILL BE just a repaint of Sentinel Prime. Regardless of Hasbros intention at the design board, he is a repaint.

I guess by the sheer technicality of being produced second - even if he were designed first - would make him a repaint, but, if the head follows suit of every other figure, it will be an entirely new titan/headmaster that looks like astrotrain in bot mode

SillySpringer wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Burn wrote: he is a repaint.

Even if he is a retool?

What do you define as a retool? Swap a head and change the colours? Or is more extensive retooling required?

A new head is all that is needed for it to qualify as a retool. There are also extensive retools like Dark Crumplezone and PMOP. But it is safe to say that Gen Dreadwing is a retool of Gen Megatron.

Agreed. I try not to call them repaints if they have different heads. I call them "repaints with new heads".

Yeah, but now it's stupidly easy to just crap out the same body in new colors since the head is a completely separate figure

Hellscream9999 wrote:

SillySpringer wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Burn wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Burn wrote: he is a repaint.

Even if he is a retool?

What do you define as a retool? Swap a head and change the colours? Or is more extensive retooling required?

A new head is all that is needed for it to qualify as a retool. There are also extensive retools like Dark Crumplezone and PMOP. But it is safe to say that Gen Dreadwing is a retool of Gen Megatron.

Agreed. I try not to call them repaints if they have different heads. I call them "repaints with new heads".

Yeah, but now it's stupidly easy to just crap out the same body in new colors since the head is a completely separate figure

When you put it like that, Astro will be just a repaint as with these titan master figures you're buying, you're essentially getting two figures for your money.

If they really wanted they could take one of the titan master figures change his colours a little and then put him with the repainted bigger figure.

And I could actually see Hasbro doing just that, as the Titan Master figure can be considered an accessory, and switching those out has been done on multiple occasions, even if they're gang-molded. Look at the PCC line.

While there is still no definite source for the following image, we did want to share with the community that a picture of what appears to be Titans Return Blurr has popped up online (on various boards and even image searches). This image, if real, shows that Blurr will be a headmaster, like the rest of the Titans Return figures. What is fun to note is that this could be one of the two silhouettes we previously saw at New York Comic Con (the pictures are also found below)






If anyone has the actual source for this new Blurr photo, please let us know so that we can credit you properly.

Not a fan of the solid dark blue, however the alt mode looks sweet so hopefully we'll get better pictures soon. I don't have a blurr yet.

Interesting not much to go on but the titan master head mode doesn't look like blurr, now, this is speculation but could this be a test shot with a titanmaster that doesn't belong to the body?

I hope that's for real, because it looks pretty cool. Head Master, Target Master, Titan Master, Master Craftsman, doesn't matter to me.

william-james88 wrote:Since there is no source for this image below, I am not sure if it will be newsed. Regardless, here is an image that popped up of what appears to be Titans Return Blurr. If this is to be real, it confirms that he is a headmaster and not a targetmaster. boo hoo



He is really looking G1 here, I just hope the articulation is good.

I submitted a link (in the Submit News thing) to a TFW2005 article about this image claiming that it is from weibo.

I'll hold off on judgement of Blurr until we get larger pics and its confirmed, but it appears to be pretty simple. The TR line seems to be going that route. I was hoping that we'd see more complex figures now that they don't have to combine. Oh well, I'll settle for unique transformations though.

william-james88 wrote:Since there is no source for this image below, I am not sure if it will be newsed. Regardless, here is an image that popped up of what appears to be Titans Return Blurr. If this is to be real, it confirms that he is a headmaster and not a targetmaster. boo hoo



He is really looking G1 here, I just hope the articulation is good.

Oh... MY... GOSH that is EXACTLY what I wanted for Blurr to look like! Of course we still need confirmation if it's real or not but WHO CARES. For the new and bigger deluxe size, it's perfectly sized for Blurr.

http://weibo.com/u/5534602060#_rnd1451926222381

More Blaster images.............