Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

[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.

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

It does for me. I get that it doesn't for you and that's great, but for me it ruins the look. I also don't know of any police car with a glass top and wheels; maybe there are around somewhere. But it's just not Earth modey enough for me. And I don't want a Cybertronian mode that's "good enough to pass" as an Earth mode.

I want an Earth mode. No fuss, no gimmicks. I don't want to have to ignore Cybertronian glyphs. I don't want to have to ignore transparent wheels. I want a regular Earth mode on a good toy.

[ZeroWolf]

What about Sideswipe though? He's the most earth mode out of all the Siege figures (excluding Astrotrain of course who I insist was always on the docket for Earthrise to begin with)

[Gauntlet101010]

What about Sideswipe though? He's the most earth mode out of all the Siege figures (excluding Astrotrain of course who I insist was always on the docket for Earthrise to begin with)

I guess I can think of Sideswipe as a concept car. There's nothing I'd have to pretend didn't exist to be happy with him, at least. Except for the blocked out side windows ... maybe they're just red tinted?

Not so with Red Alert. He has glyphs and his "lightbar" is black. I get that glyphs aren't a dealbreaker for most people, but I hate 'em. I hated them on the movie toys with Earth modes. Hate 'em on Siege figures with Earth modes.

But I'm happy with the Universe ones I already have, so I didn't get either. I likely won't get Earthrise versions. Although, I'd be tempted by a repaint, like Tigertracks.

[AcademyofDrX]

Generations fans to Hasbro

[Skritz]

Sideswipe is really the least 'Cybertronian'. He's more of a retro-futuristic concept car, or rather what a futuristic concept car could look like to the 1980.

[Deadput]

Sideswipe is really the least 'Cybertronian'. He's more of a retro-futuristic concept car, or rather what a futuristic concept car could look like to the 1980.

Isn't that a lot of what many Cybertronian vehicle modes have looked like in the franchise?

I mean I agree but I'm just saying there is existing examples for it.

[Skritz]

Sideswipe is really the least 'Cybertronian'. He's more of a retro-futuristic concept car, or rather what a futuristic concept car could look like to the 1980.

Isn't that a lot of what many Cybertronian vehicle modes have looked like in the franchise?

I mean I agree but I'm just saying there is existing examples for it.

Yes, especially if one consider the Movie-era figures and characters, as its a bit unclear if, say, Hot Rod is using his original cybertronian mode or if cars looked like that in the 'far future of 2010'.

However, Sideswipe generally is one of the most sedated examples. Nothing in his altmode is too alien or futuristic (or plain bizarre) like, say, Siege Optimus' big roof lights or Chromia and Ironhide very cybertronian look with exposed kibble. Sideswipe's mold is so coherent and clean that its absolutely plausible as an Earth vehicle from either the past (as a concept car) or the near future making him extremely vague (in a good way) as to what era or even planet he's from.

[Deadput]

True.

[Skritz]

Just had a very very, VERY weird idea and I could just be full of crap with this one: what if the rumours for Fire Convoy makes him a massive reshell of Doubledealer, somehow, where the over the shoulder missile kible is turned into a ladder/laser gun?

[no-one]

This may be old news and kind of random, but I was singing the praise of Cliffjumper to a non collector and really kept comparing him to MP Bee. Well we landed here.




Obviously exosuit guy is missing and CliffyJ is holding his BFG, but it seemed interesting enough to share.

I'm still surprised CJ only cost $20. His engineering puts him metaphorically head and shoulders over the other WFC deluxes. I weighed a few of the other deluxes and Cliffro generally weighs about 40% less than the others. ER Hoist and T30 Trailbreaker weigh about the same. Ironhide and Impactor are the heaviest of the bunch weighing in over 100g each.

[sol magnus]

So, in Earthrise news, I got my random Leader class from Best Buy curbside. I did it because I can't find the Leader Class on the ground anywhere else. My kid's Prime came from Best Buy right before they closed up to customers. I don't have either Prime or Astrotrain. I figured I had 100% odds of getting something I don't personally own so I bought one rather than two (which maybe in retrospect I could have bought and sat on until returns come back).

Anyway, I got Astrotrain. I was pleased because now we have everything currently released between us that we would get minus Soundbarrier, and he's on his way. I haven't fiddled with him yet, but I did notice he's not on Earth in the picture on his Earthrise box based on the fauna.

[Tuned Agent]

I'm still surprised CJ only cost $20. His engineering puts him metaphorically head and shoulders over the other WFC deluxes.

What he lacks in size, he makes up for in parts and personality.

[Glarryg]

This barely ties into something I was thinking the other day, so I'm going to say it and go off on my tangent. Every time I go over the last two years' worth of Generations figures, I'm struck by how much some of them stand head and shoulders over previous versions of the characters, and how much some of them stand out just a little bit more than their predecessors. For example, the new Datsun mold, in my opinion, is way better than the CHUG version, which looks very awkwardly proportioned in comparison. However, I like both the Siege and the Classics versions of Mirage equally; Classics does a great job of re-imagining the character, and Siege does a great job of capturing the '84 proportions. both of them are just plain fun to transform, too. I like Siege-swipe so much better than CHUG-swipe, but ER Cliff and 'Jack have as much charm as their CHUG counterparts in my eyes.

My point is that it's odd to me that I find myself so divided between "Wow, this is a million times better than the last version" and "Wow, this is just as cool as the last version!" I don't think I've noticed such a sharp divide in my attitudes in the last couple decades of collecting, at least within the confines of one toyline.

Glarryg

[Wolfman Jake]

Not so with Red Alert. He has glyphs and his "lightbar" is black.

Do you have the actual Siege Red Alert toy in hand? The lightbar is red. There were a few weird promotional shots that made it look black or very dark and smoky, but in the actual production of the toy, the lightbar came out definitively red, just like the one for Siege Prowl. If you DO have Red Alert, and the lightbar IS black, then we have a variant we never knew about before.

[Wolfman Jake]

Here's something to think on for a while. We now know we're getting several Eathrise multipacks in the coming year. There's the Thundercracker and Skywarp 2-pack from Target, as well as a bundle of the two Takara Tomy versions of the Decepticon Clones, Pounce and Wingspan, slated for Target. Now we also know of a "counterpart" Autobot 2-pack for Amazon.com featuring Prowl and Ironhide. Is there going to be some sort of parity with these multipack releases, or are they going to be a hodgepodge of different things like they were for Siege last year?

What I mean is, are we going to get, for instance, and equivalent 2-pack of Voyager Autobots, or a 2-pack of Decepticon Deluxes? It would seem a safe bet that we'll get the Autobot Clones again in some form to go with the "rerelease" of the Decepticon Clones, but nothing is certain yet. The alternative is that these 2-packs are all one-offs and not meant to be "balanced" between the two classic factions. Last year with Siege, we got a lot of different multi-packs, like the Rainmaker 3-Pack for Target, or the Micromaster 10-pack for Target, which featured more Autobots than Decepticons, or the Amazon's Greenlight bundled with "Dazlestrike," or Amazon's "Fan Vote" 3-Pack. The other two prominent Amazon multi-packs last year were linked thematically, those being the Autobot Alphastrike and Decepticon Phantomstrike sets, but not in terms of content. The Autobot one was two Deluxes and a Battle Master, while the Decepticon one was one Voyager and three Battle Masters.

Why does this make a difference? It goes a long way to predict what else we may see offered under the Earthrise banner. Maybe the price-point equivalent to Thundercracker and Skywarp is Inferno and Artfire? Like the Decepticon seeker set, the two Autobots would share exactly the same mold and be differentiated mainly through paint deco. I'm not sure what the equivalent to Prowl and Ironhide would be outside of making a "Earthmode" Barricade again out of Prowl and sticking in some stocky Decepticon to mirror Ironhide (maybe Armada Demolisher from Siege Impactor?). Or, I'm just overthinking it all and what we'll be getting follows no rhyme or reason know to anyone but Hasbro and Takara Tomy.

While we're thinking up wishlists for Earthrise multi-packs to cover more characters, I think an Inferno and Red Alert pack would be both awesome and adorable. That gets us the Inferno remold we know must be coming at some point from Earthrise Grapple AND potentially a version of Siege Red Alert with more accurate paint apps AND English "Fire Chief" tampographs instead of Cybertronian writing.

[Sentinel_Primal]

Personally, I'd like to see a multipack with either Machine Wars Soundwave and some of Soundwave's cassettes, or CD Red Alert and a repaint of one of the firetruck Micromasters as Longarm, and maybe a repaint/remold of Smashdown in reference to the hammer option for Red Alert's original Cybertron body and CD body.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

CD Red Alert and a repaint of one of the firetruck Micromasters as Longarm, and maybe a repaint/remold of Smashdown in reference to the hammer option for Red Alert's original Cybertron body and CD body.

This is frikkin awesome

[Skritz]

What about Pyro as an Inferno retool? Granted I'm all in favor of Artfire to go with POTP Ricochet/Stepper.

[ZeroWolf]

I've long thought that we could get CD Red Alert in this line to match Hot Shot that got released last year

[Skritz]

I've long thought that we could get CD Red Alert in this line to match Hot Shot that got released last year

Doubledealer retool, maybe?

[ZeroWolf]

That's what I was thinking though he would be gaining a bird mode

[Skritz]

That's what I was thinking though he would be gaining a bird mode

Hey, a bonus mode is a bonus mode! Or they could retool out the bird mode for a Stalker/Red Alert version. Btw, I think what's really holding back a lot of the UT retools (or even new molds) is that, beyond Warden being a G1 fanboy is that Hasbro's suits want a unified brand. Now its fine for Hot Shot because, despite overlapping with Bee and Hot Rod he's still named Hot Shot.

The others, however? Most share a name with a G1 guy and that's a big no-no. Red Alert can't be called 'Red Alert' (or his other Japanese names, Ratchet or Fist Aid) because the name is already 'assigned' to a specific character with a specific robot mode, alt mode, face and color scheme. Presumably this might have been the reason why the Galaxy Convoy of Siege was not given the Optimus Primal-esque mouth for his inner robot. It was mandatory for him to still recognizably look like G1 Optimus Prime in at least one mode.

If they did his Cybertron Defense Form from Doubledealer they would need to name the toy 'First Gunner'.

[ZeroWolf]

That is true which is a shame as it limits certain choices of characters that could be fixed with a prefix

[Skritz]

And then you realize its silly because Generations isn't tied to any specific medium (as anything derived from Generations is made after the toyline), so its not like releasing an Armada, Energon or Cybertron version of a character would really 'confuse the kids'. I highly doubt any younger kid would be too bothered by getting a different design/alternate incarnation of a character and older collectors would know this is an homage to a specific era. Sometimes I think this idea of 'making it easy for the kids' is actually aimed at dumb parents who don't want to hear a fussy kid whine he got Galaxy Upgrade Optimus Prime rather than the Voyager version.

Maybe I'm biased because when I was a kid it was Beast Wars and the main characters changed form a few times between seasons and the sequel, so I wasn't super bothered by a different form, even if it didn't even appear in the show. Who knows, maybe there are kids out there who would throw a hissy fit their grandma got an Energon-inspired Megatron rather than another grey tank Megatron at Christmas 2022. Would kids even care for 'show accuracy' of a cartoon from the time of their parents, if not soon to be grandparents at the rate we're going?

[ZeroWolf]

The only kids I'd say would care are those who have been brought up on the G1 cartoon DVDs and thus would be looking for representations of those characters thinking they are the bees knees.