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[Rtron]

So... Here is something that I noticed:

We got Smokescreen as an exclusive in Siege, but he is in the mainline this time.

Ironhide and Prowl are exclusives... Maybe Ratchet is just going to be a late wave mainline toy? And then the Earth-Bluestreak will be another 2-pack with someone else. Or maybe just a Hasbro Selects?

I dunno. But I'm locking in the Mainline-Ratchet theory.

I hope so, as that would also mean it's a mostly new mold. Should have thought of that before saying the two pack thing. If it is a new mold, there's no way it isn't getting at least one mainline release.

[TF-fan kev777]

I just thought of something terrible. These Amazon exclusives are usually recolors or new-head retools of existing toys. What if the new Ironhide is just a red Hoist with a different head. They could justify it with "hE wAs A pIcKuP tRuCk In ThE mOvIeS!", and we'd end up with another awful toy like CW Ironhide... *shudder*

I actually thought of something more terrible, what if the new set is just a re-release of CW Prowl and CW Ironhide, but without any combiner hands/feet.

[william-james88]

I just thought of something terrible. These Amazon exclusives are usually recolors or new-head retools of existing toys. What if the new Ironhide is just a red Hoist with a different head. They could justify it with "hE wAs A pIcKuP tRuCk In ThE mOvIeS!", and we'd end up with another awful toy like CW Ironhide... *shudder*

I actually thought of something more terrible, what if the new set is just a re-release of CW Prowl and CW Ironhide, but without any combiner hands/feet.

Pretty sure that Prowl is going to be the earthrise smokescreen mold. Hasbro's making it clear that a big part of Earthrise is basically Siege in earth modes (Datsuns, Seekers, Prime, Megatron and now Ironhide).

[o.supreme]

Yeah that is a bit of a disappointment. I mean there are so many great characters from all the years (1984-1991) to see in earth Modes no need to rehash. I mean I know we are going to get Legacy Characters pretty much every year, but with all the others its getting excessive. Pretty Much everything in Wave one was good stuff and/or necessary.

On the flip side it does seem that most of what is general release is new and/or stuff not seen in a while while most of the repaints are exclusives of some kind, so there is that advantage for those of us that don't need/want a Prowl or Ironhide every year.

[Gauntlet101010]

Well ... it's not a disappointment to me. I want the prowl Bros. in Earth modes. Not "good enough to pass," not combiner limbs that share a mold with a Stunticon, not a simplified mold, not a Masterpiece. just a regular deluxe.

[Skritz]

Looking at the list of characters from '84 to '85 who haven't had a new toy since Prime Wars and discounting the cheap retools that didn't fit the character or exclusives, here are those I could see needing something that fits in better with the WFC trilogy:
-Huffer/Pipes
-Tracks
-Blaster and cassettes (had a good toy but its vastly out of scale)
-Alpha Trion (still doesn't have a transforming toy of his original design in CHUG)
-Warpath (technically a Minibot too, but could be a Cliffjumper-sized deluxe)
-All 'Deluxe Insecticons'
One could also extend the list to some of the Movie-era cast, especially if they heavily disliked some of the CW/TR treatment (personally I didn't, but I know people hated Headmaster gimmick). One addition I'd personally like to see is a more proper Voyager-scaled Rodimus without any gimmicks, just goes from space winnebago to the Rodimus robot mode. There is also the case of 'missing' headmaster and targetmasters.

Beyond that, most of G1 has already been redone in the past few years. Like I said, Warden's team could extend it to Movies and Rebirth-era if they redoing those guys done during TR but I don't think any beyond Kup/Hot Rod/Blurr and Galvatron are popular enough with the latter being hinted. Arcee is also already coming, so there's that.

[RodimusRex]

I just thought of something terrible. These Amazon exclusives are usually recolors or new-head retools of existing toys. What if the new Ironhide is just a red Hoist with a different head. They could justify it with "hE wAs A pIcKuP tRuCk In ThE mOvIeS!", and we'd end up with another awful toy like CW Ironhide... *shudder*

I actually thought of something more terrible, what if the new set is just a re-release of CW Prowl and CW Ironhide, but without any combiner hands/feet.

The description says Ironhide becomes a van in 22 steps.

Trailbreaker doesn't become a van and is 18 steps. CW is fewer steps than that.

I have a feeling maybe it could use some of Hoist/TB's engineering/legs but those legs if re-greebled actually look like Ironhide's.

[william-james88]

Well ... it's not a disappointment to me. I want the prowl Bros. in Earth modes. Not "good enough to pass," not combiner limbs that share a mold with a Stunticon, not a simplified mold, not a Masterpiece. just a regular deluxe.

I wanted that too and I got it... in siege.

[Hero Alpha]

Looking at the list of characters from '84 to '85 who haven't had a new toy since Prime Wars and discounting the cheap retools that didn't fit the character or exclusives, here are those I could see needing something that fits in better with the WFC trilogy:
-Huffer/Pipes
-Tracks
-Blaster and cassettes (had a good toy but its vastly out of scale)
-Alpha Trion (still doesn't have a transforming toy of his original design in CHUG)
-Warpath (technically a Minibot too, but could be a Cliffjumper-sized deluxe)
-All 'Deluxe Insecticons'
One could also extend the list to some of the Movie-era cast, especially if they heavily disliked some of the CW/TR treatment (personally I didn't, but I know people hated Headmaster gimmick). One addition I'd personally like to see is a more proper Voyager-scaled Rodimus without any gimmicks, just goes from space winnebago to the Rodimus robot mode. There is also the case of 'missing' headmaster and targetmasters.

Beyond that, most of G1 has already been redone in the past few years. Like I said, Warden's team could extend it to Movies and Rebirth-era if they redoing those guys done during TR but I don't think any beyond Kup/Hot Rod/Blurr and Galvatron are popular enough with the latter being hinted. Arcee is also already coming, so there's that.

I would luv a new Scourge and Cyclonus with the current quality. Galvtron would be nice too, but if I ever get a new head for TR one, it would work. I figure all 3 will come in the 3rd part of the trilogy, seeing as Unicron will be here then. Although I do have and luv TR Legends Hot Rod and Kup, non headmasters would be sweet. But I only want both in their Legends deco, specially Hot Rod. Oh and I will say it again; I want a good Goldbug, Cliffjumper mold would suffice.

[Sentinel_Primal]

At this point, Earthrise is starting to make me dislike Siege because I feel like there was no reason to stick so close to Earth like designs when they were clearly planning to redo them the next year anyway. We could have gotten a much better version of this guy:

Or even a bone thrown to IDW fans with a version of that Prowl and his SUV mode or his hovercar mode

But instead we got a design that was practically from Earth, and now we're getting the same thing, but more Earthy. There were so many different designs that could have been used for the Cybertronian modes, but they stuck with G1 earth modes, but spacey.

*sigh* Hopefully Part 3 does better in terms of striking a balance between new and old, but Earthrise so far keeps revealing way too many misses and not enough hits. It's saving me a lot of money so that I can try to complete shelves with figures from older lines, but it's still disappointing to see a new figure be revealed and only feel a sense of bitterness and think "Why didn't you just do that last year and free up a slot this year for a different character"

[Gauntlet101010]

Well ... it's not a disappointment to me. I want the prowl Bros. in Earth modes. Not "good enough to pass," not combiner limbs that share a mold with a Stunticon, not a simplified mold, not a Masterpiece. just a regular deluxe.

I wanted that too and I got it... in siege.

That's what I meant by "good enough to pass." Siege is good enough to pass as an Earth mode if you add some stickers or just ignore the Cybertronian glyphs. But not for me. So I passed on it.

[Skritz]

'80 Nostalgia is big. It's simple as that. They don't need to take risks when they know the GEEWUN stuff will sell. **** I certainly bought plenty but at least I know where to stop. I think the idea is they want all the big names to be available every 2-3 years so any time some middle aged guy with disposable income want to get back into collecting, he can get the character he wants either right now or the next line, rather than go to the after market, third party or wait. Basically from here on out, every 1-2 lines you'll see repeats so we always have an Ironhide, a Ratchet, a Prowl, the seekers...

It make sense business-wise but it certainly kill the interest of people who have been collecting for more than 2-3 years in a row.

[Hellscream9999]

'80 Nostalgia is big. It's simple as that. They don't need to take risks when they know the GEEWUN stuff will sell. **** I certainly bought plenty but at least I know where to stop. I think the idea is they want all the big names to be available every 2-3 years so any time some middle aged guy with disposable income want to get back into collecting, he can get the character he wants either right now or the next line, rather than go to the after market, third party or wait. Basically from here on out, every 1-2 lines you'll see repeats so we always have an Ironhide, a Ratchet, a Prowl, the seekers...

It make sense business-wise but it certainly kill the interest of people who have been collecting for more than 2-3 years in a row.

Yeah, but at this point we're seeing even geewun collectors starting to feel burnout, if not animosity towards the siege trilogy, and they risk turning off a chunk of their market, if the third part is more g1 season 1 again, I think a lot of fans are going to be done

[Skritz]

I also think the designers will paint themselves into a corner, trying to design yet another even MORE accurate GEEWUN Optimus Prime. Masterpiece got overly designed, complicated and has these awful backpacks are a mess to handled purely for the sake of fidelity to the goofy impossible animation models of the cartoon.

What do you think will happen if they keep trying to aim for the toon accuracy constantly, at any cost, on the ever-shrinking mainline budget? They will either hike the prices again or its going to become a mess. Not only that but I suspect this current 'brand unification' and 'evergreen' era of Transformers will eventually crash and burn if the next trilogy is more of the same thing.

[william-james88]

Well ... it's not a disappointment to me. I want the prowl Bros. in Earth modes. Not "good enough to pass," not combiner limbs that share a mold with a Stunticon, not a simplified mold, not a Masterpiece. just a regular deluxe.

I wanted that too and I got it... in siege.

That's what I meant by "good enough to pass." Siege is good enough to pass as an Earth mode if you add some stickers or just ignore the Cybertronian glyphs. But not for me. So I passed on it.

Earth modes can have cybertronian glyphs. Like POTP jazz or ROTF Starscream. It doesnt really factor in.

[ZeroWolf]

I also think the designers will paint themselves into a corner, trying to design yet another even MORE accurate GEEWUN Optimus Prime. Masterpiece got overly designed, complicated and has these awful backpacks are a mess to handled purely for the sake of fidelity to the goofy impossible animation models of the cartoon.

What do you think will happen if they keep trying to aim for the toon accuracy constantly, at any cost, on the ever-shrinking mainline budget? They will either hike the prices again or its going to become a mess. Not only that but I suspect this current 'brand unification' and 'evergreen' era of Transformers will eventually crash and burn if the next trilogy is more of the same thing.

Brilliantly put.

There's also the problem of trying to redesign the wheel, people have said in this thread that they are holding out on ER Optimus to see if hasbro does a better paint job, and if they did, wouldn't it stand to argue they wouldn't need another G1 prime? What could be done to the design? It stands for a lot of these characters.

You can have too much of a good thing afterall. I think a lot of goodwill will hinge on the unrevealed figures of Earthrise, and part 3 (though I'll be shocked if we don't get a new Galvatron and Rodimus to go along with Unicron)

[AcademyofDrX]

If someone doesn't want an Earthrise Prime because of gray biceps or the "wrong" eyes or something, that's on that person, not on Hasbro.

I was happy to get the Siege seekers knowing they could get new figures in Earthrise. I didn't have the same expectation with the Datsuns. I think the problem was that Cybertronian Sideswipe was so perfect and there were so many redecoes that I assumed they wouldn't be double-dipping on so many figures. In hindsight, I could have saved myself a couple hundred bucks on Autobots and Megatron by waiting another year.

On the other hand, I pretty much love all of the figures? In think they're an order of magnitude better than the Classics, and Siege is probably Generations best single year exempting Titans Return. At its core, my complaint is "I got too many awesome toys in two years, I wish I had gotten half as many."

[Skritz]

Personally I'm still 'on board' for the new stuff we do get but once I got a decent enough figure of one character, unless its a really unique alternate version or a really interesting mold I just got zero interest in buying a remake of season one Optimus Prime or the Seekers (beyond adding more members, of course). However the more of a line is dedicated to the same goddamn design, the less I'll be tempted to be a consumer for Hasbro's **** because, barring massive and sudden improvement in toy engineering (which I find unlikely), the current stuff is sitting at a level that's so good (on a mainline budget) that it's hard to feel any further tweak will be an improvement. I mean, damn, we got line-wide ankle tilts now.

I'm clearly just not the target audience for people who will buy a second or third version of Prowl or people who would replace these figures on a yearly basis.

[o.supreme]

I mean I'm as big a fan of the 84-87 cast as any, since those were my formative collecting years, but there are still quite a few characters in that line up, not to mention 88-91 that haven't been revisited in the last few years, at least since TR. You have the remaining Autobot Target Masters, Most of all the 88 smaller Targetmasters and Headmasters, Deluxe Insecticons, About half of the 85 Autobot cars.

Also, while we have surprisingly filled a lot of the gaps of the Japanese Transformers, there's still plenty there that is missing

Additionally when you look at what Hasbro did with outliers like the Powerdashers and Micromaster Stations, taking characters I would not have cared about if they were normal deluxes and giving them a really awesome play pattern, that is great. Also characters that appeared in Animation or comics that never had a toy before. Yeah there's plenty in the original series to make for the first time, without rehashing the same few over and over.

[sol magnus]

Well ... it's not a disappointment to me. I want the prowl Bros. in Earth modes. Not "good enough to pass," not combiner limbs that share a mold with a Stunticon, not a simplified mold, not a Masterpiece. just a regular deluxe.

I wanted that too and I got it... in siege.

And now, you'll get it again.

[Sabrblade]

I get the feeling that what would have made most folks happier is if Earthrise had been released as the first part of trilogy, with all of the characters from Siege who are not getting redone in Earthrise now being included in either the new Part 1 Earthrise or in its new Part 2 successor, and being written off as those unique individuals who simply chose not to scan new Earth forms, thus allowing the new Part 2 and Part 3 of the trilogy to not have as many character repeats in barely-changed bodies.

[sol magnus]

I get the feeling that what would have made most folks happier is if Earthrise had been released as the first part of trilogy, with all of the characters from Siege who are not getting redone in Earthrise now being included in either the new Part 1 Earthrise or in its new Part 2 successor, and being written off as those unique individuals who simply chose not to scan new Earth forms, thus allowing the new Part 2 and Part 3 of the trilogy to not have as many character repeats in barely-changed bodies.

Cool idea. I wanted the entire trilogy to be on Cybertron - you could get all the classics in Cybertronian alt-modes, and you could get a bunch of guys that already had Cybertonian modes (that haven't been made in the last couple of years, which would likely be Japanese only guys that would certainly excite some of our board members - I'm thinking Headmaster Jrs. and such).

All that to say I'm not unhappy with what we're getting - I'm just jumping back into Generations collecting after years of nearly exclusive Masterpiece.

[Skritz]

Calling it 'War for Cybertron' as a trilogy was a bad idea. WFC should have been the name of just the first line, unless they go back to it in the third one.

[Sabrblade]

Calling it 'War for Cybertron' as a trilogy was a bad idea. WFC should have been the name of just the first line, unless they go back to it in the third one.

Over the years, the war for the domination and control of Cybertron has very often been fought on Earth and other planets.

[Emerje]

The thing with Optimus always getting remakes is that Hasbro mandate he be a Voyager or Leader figure every line but, since lines don't have weird gimmicks like Prime Wars, he's always going to up as yet another minor tweak of the GEEWUN design. Call me when we get Leader Thunderclash pretooled as Machine Wars Optimus.

Part of me feels like Machine Wars Prime would be mainline, with Thunderclash being SELECTS

Hasbro isn't THAT ridiculous. When a mold is made for a character, the main use was always in a retail line.

What about when Siege Smokescreen's head showed up on Barricade at retail while Smokey himself was a Selects exclusive? Or the Titans Return G2 Optimus Prime that was sold at retail in Star Convoy colors while the proper G2 colored Laser Prime were a TRU exclusive? Granted, both were already retools of other figures sold at retail, but the point is Hasbro doesn't always do the obvious thing at retail. Heck, a Machine Wars Optimus Prime doesn't even guarantee at Thunderclash figure happening at all. Remember when they gave us a pre-tool of Titans Return Overlord in the form of Sky Shadow instead of the more popular and recognizable Thunderwing and never went back to make Thunderwing despite being such an easy and obvious thing to do? Warden really works in mysterious ways and often comes up short of expectations (and also regularly exceeds them. Again, mysterious).

Emerje