The Energon Pub

[Nemesis Destron]

[Nemesis Destron]

The only thing that could have made Earthrise Prime near perfect IMHO is if they could have painted the back of his legs blue to match the rest of his legs.


I found it interesting how his eyes are yellow or appear to be on the box images versus the final product. Funny if some 3rd Party manufactures a head with yellow eyes!

[The_Cryptid_Person]

Found these beauts at my local Best Buy. They had empty pegs for deluxes as well but someone else got there first. I bought Grapple and so far he's really great!

[ZeroWolf]

The gap between Transformers toys made specifically for kids and those made to appeal to adult fans and collectors is widening. There was never a distinction before, but now, Transformers made for kids are becoming less complex and cutting plastic usage and paint apps to keep costs down and sizes up. Conversely, the stuff from Generations and the Studio Series has become smaller, but more intricate in terms of complexity of transformation, sculpting, screen accuracy, paint applications, etc. This has all come at the cost of...well...cost.

As meaty and satisfying as a lot of Unicron Trilogy toys were, particularly those of Cybertron, they were far simpler toys with loads of play gimmicks, like Minicons or Cyber Planet Keys that deployed spring-loaded extra weapons or other surprises. They were from a time when there wasn't a distinction between what kids want and what adults want from Transformers. They could afford to use more plastic, because it cost far less to develop those simpler toys, even with gimmicks attached to them.

What we are getting now for adult collectors are "mini Masterpieces." Masterpiece used to be the "adult" collector line, but now it's become more of a luxury line, with an emphasis on screen accuracy never before seen in transformers toys, calling for incredibly complex transformation schemes, to get the looks right. Generations and Studio Series are approaching the complexity of the Masterpiece line at a smaller scale, so of course the figures are going to be a bit more fragile. There are now many more small parts that go into making these figures look "right" in both modes, something that Hasbro doesn't see as a priority for the "kids" lines.

Always keep in mind as well the effects of inflation. Many of us who grew up with G1 began being able to buy our own toys around the time of Beast Wars and the Unicron Trilogy. Transformers toys then were fully plastic, used lots of cost-cutting ball joints, and generally weren't as faithful to their media appearance. The production costs were down compared to the beginning of the franchise, when a lot of the legacy Diaclone and Microman stuff still used die-cast metal and rubber tires. G1 toys were expensive, almost as much (given inflation) as Generations and Studio Series toys are now. We don't remember that since our parents bought G1 Transformers for us, or they were given to us as gifts. I didn't get a lot of Transformers as a kid in the 80's because they cost a lot of money. Regular plastic action figures cost a LOT less than Transformers then.

In short, Transformers toys have come full circle at this point. They started off as higher end toys, with authentic vehicle or alternate modes, die-cast metal, chromed parts, rubber tires, clear plastic windows, etc. Later on, when toy technology advanced and the cost of using plastic over metal was much more economical, production costs dropped and so did retail prices. Now we're back figures that look very close to their media appearances in robot mode, alt mode, or both, requiring new engineering techniques and transformation schemes to get the looks just right in an era where plastic material production is getting more expensive again, making Transformers as we want them higher-end toys once more.

From one wolf to another, that was beautifully put.

[Wolfman Jake]

:APPLAUSE:

From one wolf to another, that was beautifully put.

Much appreciated, fellow wolf! It's good to know that someone enjoys reading my huge blocks of text, lol!

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

As meaty and satisfying as a lot of Unicron Trilogy toys were, particularly those of Cybertron, they were far simpler toys with loads of play gimmicks, like Minicons or Cyber Planet Keys that deployed spring-loaded extra weapons or other surprises. They were from a time when there wasn't a distinction between what kids want and what adults want from Transformers. They could afford to use more plastic, because it cost far less to develop those simpler toys, even with gimmicks attached to them.

Actually, the best toys of the Unicron Trilogy and the movie 1 through 3 lines have engineering on par with what we have today. So did the new molds of 2001's Robots in Disguise - whose breakage and stability issues probably played into some of the simplification and articulation restriction of Armada. Like, seriously, I blame Omega Prime for Armada Megatron not having back-and-forth hip articulation.
The difference between now and then is that articulation and transformation are mostly not playing second banana to action gimmicks these days, and space-hogging electronics are mostly a thing of the past.
Also, I think "kid appeal" is still a factor in Generations and Studio Series. I'm pretty sure that if Generations banked principally on the older fans... then it would still be at the limits of the 2008-9 Universe line and we wouldn't have Leader-class figures at all, never mind Titan-class.

Generations and Studio Series are approaching the complexity of the Masterpiece line at a smaller scale

The movie toys have already been there. And Generations only goes there when it needs to.

Always keep in mind as well the effects of inflation. Many of us who grew up with G1 began being able to buy our own toys around the time of Beast Wars and the Unicron Trilogy. Transformers toys then were fully plastic, used lots of cost-cutting ball joints, and generally weren't as faithful to their media appearance.

1. The media appearance is designed after the toy, not the other way 'round.
2. With the exception of Beast Wars' first-season cast, you're dead wrong about toy-media fidelity being worse in post-G1 lines. Most of the G1 cartoon's designs were heavily dumbed-down compared to the toys in terms of detail to make them cheaper to animate, some had modifications and reinterpretations of features (to the point that people complain to no end that Megatron's G1 toy doesn't look like his cartoon self), and some (like the Combaticons) were completely wrong compared to the toys. Later series had a much higher degree of accuracy between toy and media, reaching its peak in Cybertron.
3. You do, however, have a point about inflation. Inflation (combined with keeping shareholder profits up) is the main reason for the toys shrinking and/or getting gappy while prices creep up.

[Hellscream9999]

IMG_9472.JPG

Found these beauts at my local Best Buy. They had empty pegs for deluxes as well but someone else got there first. I bought Grapple and so far he's really great!

just make sure to sand down the pegs on his neck plate or you'll have a broken grapple when you finish transforming him

[D-Maximal_Primal]

Was travelling around this weekend, and still no Earthrise anywhere, whether it was where I was travelling or when i came back home.

It's just sad, my shelves are stocked full of Siege wave 1 and 5 (yes I know it's 1 cause there are Cogs and Flywheels). I'll probably not see them for a while at this rate

[chuckdawg1999]

IMG_9472.JPG

Found these beauts at my local Best Buy. They had empty pegs for deluxes as well but someone else got there first. I bought Grapple and so far he's really great!

just make sure to sand down the pegs on his neck plate or you'll have a broken grapple when you finish transforming him

I have to do that with mine, should I file the sides of the peg to make them more narrow, or just file down the flat end and shorten the length?

[Hellscream9999]

IMG_9472.JPG

Found these beauts at my local Best Buy. They had empty pegs for deluxes as well but someone else got there first. I bought Grapple and so far he's really great!

just make sure to sand down the pegs on his neck plate or you'll have a broken grapple when you finish transforming him

I have to do that with mine, should I file the sides of the peg to make them more narrow, or just file down the flat end and shorten the length?

You have to sand around the side of the peg cuz it's too wide to fit into the holes on his feet; I just used the emery board on my pocket knife, took a bit, had to take a fair bit off, I just kept checking incrementally to see if I had taken enough off

[TF-fan kev777]

IMG_9472.JPG

Found these beauts at my local Best Buy. They had empty pegs for deluxes as well but someone else got there first. I bought Grapple and so far he's really great!

just make sure to sand down the pegs on his neck plate or you'll have a broken grapple when you finish transforming him

I have to do that with mine, should I file the sides of the peg to make them more narrow, or just file down the flat end and shorten the length?

You have to sand around the side of the peg cuz it's too wide to fit into the holes on his feet; I just used the emery board on my pocket knife, took a bit, had to take a fair bit off, I just kept checking incrementally to see if I had taken enough off

Here is what you can do to make sure you are sanding exactly where you need to. Since the holes on the feet are hexagonal instead of round, you really only have to sand where the 6 sides of the hole touch the peg. Put each peg into the respective foot hole, but just barely. Then take a fine tip marker and draw a line up the side of the peg along where the sides of the hole are touching the peg. Then focus on sanding each line away, and test fit along the way as needed. It is a bit tedious no matter what you do.

[Nemesis Destron]

IMG_9472.JPG

Found these beauts at my local Best Buy. They had empty pegs for deluxes as well but someone else got there first. I bought Grapple and so far he's really great!

just make sure to sand down the pegs on his neck plate or you'll have a broken grapple when you finish transforming him

I have to do that with mine, should I file the sides of the peg to make them more narrow, or just file down the flat end and shorten the length?

You have to sand around the side of the peg cuz it's too wide to fit into the holes on his feet; I just used the emery board on my pocket knife, took a bit, had to take a fair bit off, I just kept checking incrementally to see if I had taken enough off

Well I found a couple Youtube users that show a simple goof like me to remedy this damn problem! Especially since it's been weeks since I haven't opened my Grapple.

[chuckdawg1999]

IMG_9472.JPG

Found these beauts at my local Best Buy. They had empty pegs for deluxes as well but someone else got there first. I bought Grapple and so far he's really great!

just make sure to sand down the pegs on his neck plate or you'll have a broken grapple when you finish transforming him

I have to do that with mine, should I file the sides of the peg to make them more narrow, or just file down the flat end and shorten the length?

You have to sand around the side of the peg cuz it's too wide to fit into the holes on his feet; I just used the emery board on my pocket knife, took a bit, had to take a fair bit off, I just kept checking incrementally to see if I had taken enough off

Well I found a couple Youtube users that show a simple goof like me to remedy this damn problem! Especially since it's been weeks since I haven't opened my Grapple.

I build model kits and I've been experimenting with glass files and I think those will work well.

[TF-fan kev777]

So I've been obsessing over the Walmart listing for Sky-Lynx in hopes he will come available again and Amazon will price match before he gets back to full price. While looking at their product details, I noticed something strange, he is supposed to come with 8 accessories. Considering this is Walmart, I went right to Hasbro Pulse and Amazon to compare the details across all 3, and all 3 say 8 accessories.

The info on all 3 does say 2 fire blasts, 2 cannon accessories and a shield/ramp accessory, but that only brings us up to 5. I wonder if they are counting either the lynx or bird portions as an accessory? Possibly the decoder piece?

However, the Amazon and Walmart listings also have this nugget buried in the description right after the fire blast effects and cannons Comes with Astroscope figure with a satellite mode.



I hadn't seen that mentioned before. I'm assuming it will be a mircomaster and count as one of the accessories.

Here are all 3 for anyone who wants to compare.

https://hasbropulse.com/collections/tra ... 4-sky-lynx

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083V ... UTF8&psc=1

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers ... =3&veh=aff

[Nemesis Destron]

Man I just enjoyed transforming Wheeljack for the first time and it was very cool. He is definitely a cool figure and now my Neo-G1 replacing Henkei WJ.

[Sabrblade]

However, the Amazon and Walmart listings also have this nugget buried in the description right after the fire blast effects and cannons Comes with Astroscope figure with a satellite mode.

I asked about this elsewhere and, apparently, this was addressed at Toy Fair and it was dropped during development to keep the cost down. So, no new Astroscope, unfortunately.

[TF-fan kev777]

However, the Amazon and Walmart listings also have this nugget buried in the description right after the fire blast effects and cannons Comes with Astroscope figure with a satellite mode.

I asked about this elsewhere and, apparently, this was addressed at Toy Fair and it was dropped during development to keep the cost down. So, no new Astroscope, unfortunately.

In that case, I'm going to guess that the number of accessories is also questionable at best being 8.

[william-james88]

:APPLAUSE:

From one wolf to another, that was beautifully put.

Much appreciated, fellow wolf! It's good to know that someone enjoys reading my huge blocks of text, lol!

I liked reading it too. Not in full agreement though. The studio series deluxes, cyberverse deluxes and generations deluxes are all at the same price point and sold in the toy sections of Walmart next to other kid toys (in my case, star wars). They are still kid toys for kids, with a and Hasbro keeps reiterating that, since that's where most of their money is coming from (well, their parents, but you know what I mean). there are different age groups among kids though. For preschoolers, there's rescue bots, for a bit older (their sweet spot where kids are 5 and haven't been fully consumed by video games yet), you have most of the cyberverse line, and for older kids (age 8 and up) you have the toys that collectors like too. They do of course cater a lot to fans, so they can get their money too, which is a nice chunk. But you can compare those to actual collector toys, like the new McFarlane DC line and that one makes it clear that it's not for kids and parents should not buy them, thanks to a big bold 12+ marking for all to see.

And I don't see much of a divide price wide either, it's just a numbers game. The cyberverse warriors and deluxes are an excellent comparison. One is 33% pricier, but also has that much more paint, articulation and complexity (or more). It's just the idea of pricing things correctly so that parents can still buy them, and collectors too, while competing with other lines. I still think that these are the best toys on the market for the price, the engineers (not designers, the actual engineers who come up with plastic composition to fit the price points) and working overtime on this.

[sol magnus]

I'm pretty sure that as ZeroWolf said he'd have to shed more mass than that. He'd be noticeably gappier, thinner overall in terms of plastic, and possibly missing some transformation steps.

Maybe, maybe not. Is Astrotrain by himself heavier than Megatron or Starscream?

FWIW, here are some numbers using a digital scale. Neither are wearing any accessories, so Megs is missing both the sword/gun thingy and his fusion cannon while Astro does not have any of the 5 guns on him. Astro is an almost 25 grams heavier figure alone.

Astrotrain might appear somewhat lighter in robot mode...

[Tuned Agent]

I'm pretty sure that as ZeroWolf said he'd have to shed more mass than that. He'd be noticeably gappier, thinner overall in terms of plastic, and possibly missing some transformation steps.

Maybe, maybe not. Is Astrotrain by himself heavier than Megatron or Starscream?

FWIW, here are some numbers using a digital scale. Neither are wearing any accessories, so Megs is missing both the sword/gun thingy and his fusion cannon while Astro does not have any of the 5 guns on him. Astro is an almost 25 grams heavier figure alone.
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Astrotrain might appear somewhat lighter in robot mode...

That's just the shuttle without any of the other stuff, the base robot mode would weigh the same.

[Nemesis Destron]

So a side from Earthrise Optimus can we expect a new Megatron in this line? If not then that is simply dumb!

[Sentinel_Primal]

So a side from Earthrise Optimus can we expect a new Megatron in this line? If not then that is simply dumb!

I mean, we have a slightly redone Siege version being rereleased

[ZeroWolf]

So a side from Earthrise Optimus can we expect a new Megatron in this line? If not then that is simply dumb!

You mean a leader Class Megatron? No idea, though leader Class Prime will still be the same height as Earthrise Voyager Class Megatron.

[william-james88]

So here are my thoughts on Earthrise so far: basically as good as Seige. Here are my quick thoughts on the figures:

Soundbarrier: not great. Mine snapped at the leg with that clear plastic peg. Not a fan of how simple he is or the lack of articulation but I knew what I was getting into. Wont get more than 1 though (well, after returning the broken one for a replacement).

Micromasters: they are literally the same as siege, not much to say

Hoist: looks the part and I appreciate the extra playability. I like how the leg transform. Not a fan of where the arms end up, reminds me a bit of hound. Also, this is a toy you should use the instructions for. It's not tough at all, but there are parts that fold that SHOULD NOT BE FOLDED. I am referring to that pelvis hinge that connects to the clear plastic. It is not meant to be unhinged from that clear plastic well. I did not know that since I did not read the instructions.

Wheeljack: Not a huge fan. I don't get why the whole mechanism with getting the front pieces of his windshield cut off and inserted into his legs is necessary. Not only does it give him an inaccurate chest but it is also frustrating with the front pieces popping off when transforming. Also not a fan of his pop eye forearms.

Cliffjumper: I admit, the size dissapointed me. He's the right size, of course, but man is that a small "deluxe". But, I gotta say, I think he's my favourite. the parts count and complexity is definitely deluxe class. I love the look of both modes. To me he is literally as good as MP Bumblebee. Since most of these new toys are redos of toys we already had, I have not had a "wow" effect in some time.
But this transformation gave me a wow.

Ironworks: Original concept for me so that's fun. But he's small, I will get more fun from him when I connect more of these types together. I do like that the crane arm still has a fist hole.

Starscream: Perfect. I love the classics deluxe toy and this just improves on him. I finally have the right Starscream for my collection.

Grapple: My first one was a dud, nothing stayed pegged in. My new one is great though and I don't mind the look of the alt mode as much anymore. I have nothing bad to say about this toy. But he is one of the few figures who,s previous figure I will not be getting rid of. I like that toy too much.

Didn't get the leader(s).

[william-james88]

So a side from Earthrise Optimus can we expect a new Megatron in this line? If not then that is simply dumb!

yes, they revealed a Megatron to go with this Optimus