The Energon Pub

Honestly, I'm not very impressed. The limb robots look awesome, with not-Air Raid looking particularly cool (dat Seeker mode) but Silverbolt looks like a massive failure.

Quite aside from the QC issues, he's such a block. He's literally a blocky robot doing yoga underneath an SR-71. Heck, you can literally unscrew the entire jet mode and be left with a complete Blackbird (well, whitebird...) and a complete robot. I know that the SR-71 is a hard jet to make into an altmode, what with it being so flat, but they could have done better than this. Really I think it would have made more sense to give him a more bulky alt mode, like a C-17. Also, as cool as Phantom Ray looks, his chestplate mode doesn't look to hold together very well.

Also, the hands and feet seemed kind of lazy. The arm bots legs seemed to be solid blocks, so you could probably fit in a flip out hand. The feet would be more tricky, but I reckon with clever use of the tail fins a stable foot could be made.

So, yeah. I really hope TFC makes a replacement for not-Silverbolt. Otherwise I might just get the Energon Aerialbots and the Fansproject add-on.

Uranus is pretty awesome in my opinion. I also have the fansproject superion and the upgrade to make him taller and better shoulders. But even with all that, it still looks a bit too hasbroish. Im more happy with uranus.

Yeah, the combined mode is pretty awesome, and the limb-bots look great. It's Silverbolt that's the problem. QC aside, he's just such a blocky mess, and his plane mode sucks. I dunno, if someone made a replacement Silverbolt I'd buy the other 4 guys, but as he is I just don't dig it.

Also not sure what you mean by "hasbroish". Seeing as the Transformers are Hasbro's (and Takara's) creations, technically anything that looks like a Transformer looks "Hasbrosih".

Delta Magnus wrote:Yeah, the combined mode is pretty awesome, and the limb-bots look great. It's Silverbolt that's the problem. QC aside, he's just such a blocky mess, and his plane mode sucks. I dunno, if someone made a replacement Silverbolt I'd buy the other 4 guys, but as he is I just don't dig it.

Also not sure what you mean by "hasbroish". Seeing as the Transformers are Hasbro's (and Takara's) creations, technically anything that looks like a Transformer looks "Hasbrosih".

Well I dont mind silverbolt, but I would have preferred him to be a Concorde. Seemed kinda silly to make 4 out of 5 cartoon accurate in jet mode. Every silvebolt toy, including ROTF has been a kibble block attached to a jet, so Im cool with it. What I like about TFC silverbolt is that the robot mode scales with his teammates nicely. They didnt do the same with their predaking and defensor torso bots.

Well im the guy who created the term "hasbroish" on this site. I cant speak for how others interpret it. But what I mean by "hasbroish" is that it has a very toy like aesthetic done with kids in mind rather than adult collectors. Especially when they change up the alt mode so todays kids can relate to it. (example-blaster) I also consider things like cannon arms, animal tail whips/swords, extra long kid proof rockets, and chomping jaw gimmicks, to be very hasbroish. You wont find stuff like that on 3rd party figures.

Does Silverbolt have underside kibble?

Yea. But at this point, it is almost a trait of the character.



I flip his head around, so at least he isn't staring right at me.

rpetras wrote:Does Silverbolt have underside kibble?

Yea. But at this point, it is almost a trait of the character.

I really don't think that's an excuse.

It was 1985. We didn't have the same technology we have now. He had that kibble out of necessity, not because it looked good.

We could easily make an SR-71 Transformer who didn't have a huge amount of kibble and still looked good/turned into a combiner torso. You could probably do it with a Concorde, although seeing as a Concorde is completely out of scale with the others and is a commercial plane on a military jet team, I think it's for the best that they changed him into an SR-71.

Silverbolt was one of the worst combiner team leader designs in G1 (possibly trumped by Motormaster). It really wouldn't hurt to change the design a bit. The robot mode looks really fat and silly anyway, so it's not like he has all the kibble to make his robot mode look better.

Actually thought TFC Silverbolt was the best made sculpt out of all the TFC Aerialbots.

Delta Magnus wrote:I really don't think that's an excuse.

It was 1985. We didn't have the same technology we have now. He had that kibble out of necessity, not because it looked good.

We could easily make an SR-71 Transformer who didn't have a huge amount of kibble and still looked good/turned into a combiner torso. You could probably do it with a Concorde, although seeing as a Concorde is completely out of scale with the others and is a commercial plane on a military jet team, I think it's for the best that they changed him into an SR-71.

In 2008 it couldn’t be done…



They failed again in 2009…



And Combiner Wars Silverbolt seems to keep the tradition alive.




I don’t think it’s done intentionally. There’s just no place to put the kibble. If you want a jet of that shape to be kibble free, it would have to transform into a slender, weird Gobot looking robot mode.

I'd be up for a more slender robot mode if it meant a less kibble-tacular jet mode. Heck, I'd even be happy with the robot parts disguised as FAST-Pack style boosters and the like. Anything is better than a robot doing yoga strapped to a jet.

The problem is that nobody seems to be prepared to even try and make a less kibbly Silverbolt. Hasbro is limited by budget and the fact their stuff has to be sold to kids, and 3rd parties don't seem to be prepared to diverge from the G1 material enough. Silverbolt could probably work as a slender, lithe robot that formed a slightly bulkier than normal SR-71, but I think people are scared of shying away from the G1 blocky robot mode. I reckon if you just slimmed down the robot parts and made them look less obviously like bits of robot you wouldn't need to change the transformation.

I will agree that making an SR-71 or a Concorde into a convincing robot mode without tonnes of kibble would be really difficult, but...why not just pick a better vehicle mode? They were prepared to change the vehicle mode from a Concorde to a Blackbird, so why didn't they pick, say, a C-17 or another, bulkier aircraft?

I dunno. He does form a good torso, but the robot mode looks like he needs to lose weight (fitting for someone who's scared of heights) and the vehicle mode is...yeah.

Eh. I dunno. Maybe if I had him in hand he'd be less bad. He just looks kinda daft to me. A shame as I really like TFC's style, but this guy just doesn't work.

Well a C-130 doesn’t exactly scream speed like a Concorde or a Blackbird does. Silverbolt was afraid of heights, not speed. So a cargo jet really doesn’t work in my opinion.

Im one of those guys who doesn’t want to loose the G1 aesthetic. Like I said before, you can have a kibble free, but the robot mode will be of a totally different aesthetic that seems more Gobot than G1 transformer. It can be passed off as Movie aesthetic easily. It’s been done at least a couple times. But you just cant achieve the G1 aesthetic without the kibble. And throw the combiner torso into the mix, achieving G1 aesthetic without the kibble would ne impossible.

Rated X wrote:Well a C-130 doesn’t exactly scream speed like a Concorde or a Blackbird does. Silverbolt was afraid of heights, not speed. So a cargo jet really doesn’t work in my opinion.

Im one of those guys who doesn’t want to loose the G1 aesthetic. Like I said before, you can have a kibble free, but the robot mode will be of a totally different aesthetic that seems more Gobot than G1 transformer. It can be passed off as Movie aesthetic easily. It’s been done at least a couple times. But you just cant achieve the G1 aesthetic without the kibble. And throw the combiner torso into the mix, achieving G1 aesthetic without the kibble would ne impossible.

I was thinking more like Cybertron Jetfire:



Obviously not exactly like that, but I reckon he'd look good.

As for the SR-71 itself, I can think of one Transformer that turned into one without (too much) underside kibble. Armada Terradive, a Minicon at that. I reckon if you took the basic transformation principles (boosters for arms etc), upscaled them and of course massively upped the complexity, you could get a decent figure. I might draw up a rough idea of how it could work to get the idea across better.

As a mild aside, looking at ROTF jetfire fills me with inarticulate rage at how much of an utter piece of (*(*&^$$&*()(%$ that toy is and how it failed so badly. Seriously, I don't give damn one what mode it is, year it was made or anything else. That level of fail is unacceptable. Period. End of discussion.

Anyway... Uranos for me wasn't bad, but about 75% of a step down from Hercules.

theres a whole lot of talk about silverbolts jet and bot mode being said here. but how do you feel about the actual combined superion mode? isnt that what he'll be displayed as on your shelf?

from the sounds of it, you have a strong connection to superion. and if thats the case, you should start considering having two superions. one to display combined and one as separate bots. that way you can have two completely different superions (say combiner wars and uranos) and choose which looks best for each type of display.

or you could just wait. since every 3P seems to be doing combiners, we should have a couple more superions to choose from in the next year or so.

shajaki wrote:theres a whole lot of talk about silverbolts jet and bot mode being said here. but how do you feel about the actual combined superion mode? isnt that what he'll be displayed as on your shelf?

from the sounds of it, you have a strong connection to superion. and if thats the case, you should start considering having two superions. one to display combined and one as separate bots. that way you can have two completely different superions (say combiner wars and uranos) and choose which looks best for each type of display.

or you could just wait. since every 3P seems to be doing combiners, we should have a couple more superions to choose from in the next year or so.

I'll confess: I don't have a "display shelf" for my Transformers and probably never will. Aside from logistical problems (space, money etc) I don't believe in just having a Transformer stuck in one mode, forever standing on a shelf. I've always believed that Transformers, be they official, 3P or whatever, deserve to be played with, transformed, reposed and generally loved. Obviously I don't "play" with them in the way 10 year old me would, but I do regularly repose, transform and fiddle with my figures. If I were to get a combiner, I'd want one that looked good in all modes, was fun to play with and was high quality. Uranos has a cool looking combined mode and his limb bots look great, but the not-Silverbolt looks to be disappointing, both in design and QC terms.

A shame, as I reckon they could easily have made him look good in all modes if he transformed like this:

>Boosters become arms
>Back of jet folds down to become chestplate and reveal head. Various panels and gubbins of "trunk" of jet folds up to give more robot-y torso shape.
>Jet cockpit and "neck" split and compress to form legs. The gun is formed from the end like on the original TFC version.
>For combined mode, the boosters/arms are configured so they form the shoulder mounts and also give him back boosters. His robot mode chestplate folds down to become crotchplate whilst Phantom Ray (upsized and redesigned) forms chestplate. Head transforms like original. Legs do what every combiner ever does- compress, widen and reveal connectors.

Alternatively, just get Shoji Kawamori to do it. Say what you will about MP-03, nobody does jetformers like Kawamori. He isn't one of the most respected mecha designers in the world for nothing after all. Obviously he wouldn't do work for TFC, but if he did Masterpiece Aerialbots (or Takara made a subline that were essentially "official" 3P figures with collector level quality/engineering but being original toy designs)...we can hope, anyway.

i getcha. looks like your best bet is patience. id hold out for the next 3P superion. im really hoping maketoys tackles superion, though i think their next combiner is defensor so it might be a while. but MT is where im camping

my apologies if its been answered already, but what were your thoughts on combiner wars superion and more specifically silverbolt?

oh! and yes, MP03 was amazing. not the G1 screamer we wanted at the time, but a phenomenal take on the character and the best jet mode ever made IMO.

i have Uranos and i think he's so-so. While the individual bot and planes modes are all very nice, the combiner connections are incredibly tight and the gestalt mode has stability issues due to the very limited amount of ratcheting positions in the ankles and hips.

Eh, it is what it is. It's impossible to get anything close to G1 Silverbolt or Superion without resorting to the plane being a backpack.

shajaki wrote:i getcha. looks like your best bet is patience. id hold out for the next 3P superion. im really hoping maketoys tackles superion, though i think their next combiner is defensor so it might be a while. but MT is where im camping

my apologies if its been answered already, but what were your thoughts on combiner wars superion and more specifically silverbolt?

CW Superion looks nice, but he's not for me. Silverbolt suffers from "brick strapped to a plane" syndrome and the other bots jet modes look a little Tonka for my liking. Also the fact that the hands and feet are much too big and are separate pieces (I really think, given that their legs are basically blocks, they could have fitted in flip-out hands and feet in there) puts me off. TFC's offering attracts me because of the sheer size (I like semi coherent vehicle scale) whilst the Energon Superion + addon kit attracts me as I already have 2 of the limb bots (which are fun little figures in their own right, although sadly Terradive's weapon is broken) and Fansproject make good stuff (although my Bruticus kit has had some QC issues- one of the shoulder blocks/ missile pods had a joint so floppy it couldn't hold up Vortex and thus needed tightening with varnish, Swindle's connector port had a loose ratchet, both Swindle and Blast Off have kinda loose joints, and one of the antenna broke off the head). Honestly I'd be OK with a vanilla Energon Superion- I don't think combiners really need "normal" hands and feet (they're literally made for war, so surely weapon limbs would make more sense?) and I know a neat trick to give him decent elbow articulation and 4 pronged "clamp" hands.

Combiner Wars Menasor on the other hand looks great, and I may very well get him.

Rated X wrote:

Off topic, but as soon as I saw Skyhammer was getting the AoE Drift treatment, I began hoping (vainly, it seems) that this guy would be repainted as Movie-verse Octane. After the massive amount of customs to that effect, I'm really surprised Hasbro didn't take that hint. Looking at you, TFCC!

Seriously... that guy as Octane wouldn't have looked so terrible besides Generations Blitzwing. Bam! All the Decepticon triple changers done as voyagers (I'm including TFCC Astrotrain in that... and excusing the fact he and Octane would only have 2 modes).



Back on topic, I don't mind jet kibble so much... I really love the 2008 Ultra Silverbolt, Darkwing, Skyfall, etc. (especially with the new Renderform heads to class the latter two up). It's not that kibble is great or anything, it's just that, who is displaying these jets upside down? Does it really matter that much that the underside is a tad revealing?

The thing with TFs is that they're two toys in one. And to achieve that, especially for elongated alt modes like jets, you're going to have some yoga poses.

I personally thought MP03 was a croc. Instead of a kibbly vehicle mode, you got an overly kibbly robot mode. Samurai are cool and all, but the "sheaths" didn't hold anything. They were just nice long panels that hung off his hips. Yuck. But that's just me.

Well, hip-pods are a very Kawamori thing. Look at his work on Armoured Core, for example. I do think they'd have been much cooler if they had swords in them though. Besides the hip-pods, I can't really think of any other major kibble on him- certainly none the original design didn't have.

Also, kibble on vehicles modes and kibble on robot modes are quite different. A robot can look like pretty much anything- it doesn't even have to be fully humanoid (as the movies demonstrated). Vehicles, however, have a very specific look to them. They are robots in disguise after all.

With the jets in particular, if it was just "robot torso visible from underside" like on the limb bots it wouldn't be so bad. It's the fact that the folded up robot is so plainly obvious and highly visible in vehicle mode, unless you look at it from straight down. 2007 Movie Starscream was similar, except at least you could easily replace his arms and leave him looking a lot better (even if the fuselage was still too big).

Jets just in general are tough transformers.

Most cars have a full "robot doing yoga" when you flip them, it is just that it is hidden by doors, quarter panels, etc. and the fact that you don't generally flip a car over.

A jet is typically much sleeker, with really only a thin body and a thinner wings, not a ton of room to hide the robot, and planes are routinely seen from the underside during flight.

That's not to say there aren't great plane transformers that hide the bot well. Heck, many have been reference in this thread. I'm just saying it can be tougher to do well. Make it a triple changer and that problem is compounded.

Silverbolt has the worst of all of those. He is a very thin plane, with a very distinctive boxy look in bot mode that has to be a triple changer into a combiner torso.

Could it be done? Maybe, but I suspect people would then be crying shell-former.