Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

william-james88 wrote:We are all working on the list right now together as we speak Nothing is set in stone. But Generations/Classics wouldnt work in this list since the amount of toys which purpusefully are not show accurate outweigh the ones that are, so if we are talking about a line as a whole, it wouldnt make as much sense to include it over another line.

Sounds good. Also, thanks for the clarification, makes sense for what I wrote, turns out we are on the same page, I double posted because I thought I hit edit, and I thought that I wrote that Gen reinvented characters so much so that line wouldn't work. I think I was thinking that if there was some sub line that did a good job, that I wouldn't want to leave them out, and used Cyclonus as an example.

This list is looking pretty strong

Top 5 Most Screen Accurate Transformers Toy Lines

5. Transformers Prime
4. Transformers Beast Wars Transmetals
3. Transformers Masterpiece
2. Transformers Animated
1. Transformers Cybertron (I would call these different lines.)

william-james88 wrote:Excellent idea. But that means I will end up using Beast machines tankor again for the 100th time Razorclaw/Tigerhawk comes to mind too. That would also finally be the place to put that first movie Leader Optimus. Thats 3 down, who else would I include

- G1 Jetfire, if not the winner.
- Prime Magnus (the first version)
- Beast hunters as a whole/

ExciKaiser wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Excellent idea. But that means I will end up using Beast machines tankor again for the 100th time Razorclaw/Tigerhawk comes to mind too. That would also finally be the place to put that first movie Leader Optimus. Thats 3 down, who else would I include

- G1 Jetfire, if not the winner.
- Prime Magnus (the first version)
- Beast hunters as a whole/

jetfire again, wow, he too is in a ton of lists I have so far.

But I think this is really indicative of great designs we have had over the years. If a toy is good, regardless of whether or not it is show accurate, it will be rememberd and loved. hence why so many of these toys already made my lists.

Prime Magnus wouldnt make it though, I have never seen love for that toy. I saw it for the Cyberverse version only, since they share the same engineering and its far more impressive at the cyberverse scale while the voyager feels like they just oversized the smaller one . I know I personally really dislike that toy and it sold very poorly in Japan.

But you are definitely onto something with the Beast Hunters line though I dont know where to fit it. Those toys are not necessarily innacurate, they are just versions of characters we never saw. Like Transmetal Rhinox. At that point its not that different than listing toys of characters that were never seen on the show.

william-james88 wrote:jetfire again, wow, he too is in a ton of lists I have so far.

But I think this is really indicative of great designs we have had over the years. If a toy is good, regardless of whether or not it is show accurate, it will be rememberd and loved.

Too bad it's not a Hasbro/Takara one

But I still think if you do this list, it should wins, because where all the others are inaccurate because of artistic adaptations etc, this one was inuccurate in the show on purpose. Nothing can beat that.

william-james88 wrote:

ExciKaiser wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Excellent idea. But that means I will end up using Beast machines tankor again for the 100th time Razorclaw/Tigerhawk comes to mind too. That would also finally be the place to put that first movie Leader Optimus. Thats 3 down, who else would I include

- G1 Jetfire, if not the winner.
- Prime Magnus (the first version)
- Beast hunters as a whole/

jetfire again, wow, he too is in a ton of lists I have so far.

But I think this is really indicative of great designs we have had over the years. If a toy is good, regardless of whether or not it is show accurate, it will be rememberd and loved. hence why so many of these toys already made my lists.

Prime Magnus wouldnt make it though, I have never seen love for that toy. I saw it for the Cyberverse version only, since they share the same engineering and its far more impressive at the cyberverse scale while the voyager feels like they just oversized the smaller one . I know I personally really dislike that toy and it sold very poorly in Japan.

But you are definitely onto something with the Beast Hunters line though I dont know where to fit it. Those toys are not necessarily innacurate, they are just versions of characters we never saw. Like Transmetal Rhinox. At that point its not that different than listing toys of characters that were never seen on the show.

Hey guys,
WJ, If you find a few toys are on too many lists then maybe count them as a number where you think they rank, like #3 on the list, write a brief reason, and then make it a top 6 list to show some other toys. I remember you putting in links on a list before, like Tankor to the other lists where Tankor showed up. Just brainstorming here, might not be a good idea, but it is a way to respect and appreciate a toy but if they show up too much then we keep it brief and give the spotlight to some others.

Or in the contrary, made a top5 of most mentionned TF in other top5

ExciKaiser wrote:Or in the contrary, made a top5 of most mentionned TF in other top5

I think I would seem a bit too full of myself. Maybe when we are past the 100 mark but not yet.

And I wouldnt want to deny the rightful place of a toy on a list just because he has already been mentioned. Good toys will get mentionned more, its how it goes. But for now instead of just going for the obvious, I need to think of some toys that were not show accurate but rocked none the less. I am sure there are a ton more we are not thinking of. Beast Machines Nightslash Cheetor for instance.

A few I can think of...

MP-03 Starscream (the original releases). Not at all accurate, especially in the greenish-grey, but the jet mode is gorgeous and it's the most stable of all the MP Seekers.

BW Megatron (the original). Wrong colour and lots of design differences from the show model, but still an amazing figure.

BM Obsidian. It deviates fairly heavily from the actual show model, but the toy is still pretty cool. I'd argue the rotor-fans are much cooler than the show's diddy little propellers.

Oh, and top 5/10 off screen BW toys is a great idea. I can vouch for Transmetal Waspinator as an amazing figure, I'd certainly recommend him. His robot mode, kibbly though it is, has a Seeker vibe about it, the wasp mode is delightful and his jet mode is actually cool!

While it's subjective, I think we need to make allowances for what's "screen-accurate" or not since there's differences between how a figure and their show counterpart look all the time aside from the likes of Cybertron and Energon. The original BW Megatron is still very, very accurate to how he looked in the show -- I think we should be looking for figures with extremely different visual cues and characteristics to the show/character models to the point of not really looking alike. G1 Jetfire and BM Obsidian are excellent examples of this.

It of course gets a bit harder when it comes to borderline cases like 2007 Movie Optimus -- a lot of the similar cues are still there, and it's obvious it's still meant to be a representation of that character even if it fails in certain areas. That's the sort of thing that I'd put in honourable mentions and/or should be up to the discretion of the list maker imo.

Black Hat wrote:A few I can think of...

MP-03 Starscream (the original releases). Not at all accurate, especially in the greenish-grey, but the jet mode is gorgeous and it's the most stable of all the MP Seekers.

BW Megatron (the original). Wrong colour and lots of design differences from the show model, but still an amazing figure.

BM Obsidian. It deviates fairly heavily from the actual show model, but the toy is still pretty cool. I'd argue the rotor-fans are much cooler than the show's diddy little propellers.

OOuuuu that MP 03 Starscream is an excellent idea. Definitely gonna be there.
And MW Megatron is the wrong colour? He might be but I never really felt that. I remember getting him for christmas and thinking he was prety spot on aside from the weird mask and lack of a left hand.

I will look into Obsidian, thanks for the tip!

Black Hat wrote:Oh, and top 5/10 off screen BW toys is a great idea. I can vouch for Transmetal Waspinator as an amazing figure, I'd certainly recommend him. His robot mode, kibbly though it is, has a Seeker vibe about it, the wasp mode is delightful and his jet mode is actually cool!

That list is trickier than I thought since quite a few that I would have mentioned did get included in the Japanese cartoons.

TR Nautica might also be a decent pick for the list. She doesn't look like her comic counterpart at all aside from the arm kibble and the face - and even then it's missing a lot of important things like the flip-down visor - but it's made from the excellent Blurr mold and it still looks cool.

I'm also gonna go ahead and nominate the TR Astrotrain/Sentinel Prime mold! A lot of people complained that his alt-modes didn't look like his alt-modes, but they're still bloody cool and it's still a bloody cool toy.

Then again would this list be going by the "made during the time the show/comic was still ongoing" thing that the most-accurate list would be going by?

Yeah, that's a good point actually. Still, most of the Transmetals and Transmetal 2s didn't get used in Japan (at least as far as I know) so there is that. Also, if we want to get technical, most of the offscreen characters that got used in BWII/Neo were either redecoed for the show or later got redecos that weren't used in any fiction (at least, at the time).

Whilst I can't really speak for them as I don't own them, some I'd recommend would be:
Injector (because LIONFISH HORNET)
Scavenger (because his ant mode rocks, his robot mode is pure evil and his vehicle mode...well, his vehicle mode is a washout but it's not really necessary)
Buzzclaw (also available in a variety of really cool colours- collect them all!)
Sea Clamp (I have handled a junker Sea Clamp and he's a pretty cool toy. plus he looks absolutely nothing like his show model so I think we can excuse him. Alternatively go for Tripredacus himself as I hear that for his age he's a solid combiner and never appeared in the cartoon)
Most of the "offscreen" Transmetal versions of onscreen characters, if that counts? Waspinator as mentioned before is a fun little figure.
Transquito (for being the single most absolutely terrifying Transformer toy ever made)

Kurona wrote:TR Nautica might also be a decent pick for the list. She doesn't look like her comic counterpart at all aside from the arm kibble and the face - and even then it's missing a lot of important things like the flip-down visor - but it's made from the excellent Blurr mold and it still looks cool.

I'm also gonna go ahead and nominate the TR Astrotrain/Sentinel Prime mold! A lot of people complained that his alt-modes didn't look like his alt-modes, but they're still bloody cool and it's still a bloody cool toy.

Then again would this list be going by the "made during the time the show/comic was still ongoing" thing that the most-accurate list would be going by?

We kinda nixed that and chose to not make it only about toys released during the show. Because in the end I realized it didnt matter. Especially when show accuracy is a reverse engineered concept since all toys before 2007 were made before the character models. So since the causality of what contributes to the toy switches around, its not fair either way. And thus an MP which is based on a now existing show model would be on equal footing as a First Edition Optimus Prime toy or an Animated Ultra Magnus which is also based on an existng model.

Not sure about nautica since she's a retool. its not like they had her in mind principally when making that mold as opposed to others, like Astrotrain for instance, which is an excellent example. This list is haping up well.

Ummm... TR Astrotrain, Universe tankor, G1 Jetfire, MP 03 Starscream, BW Tigerhawk and Movie 1 leader Prime. I think we got a top 5 and an honourable mention right here. Now time for me to rank em and write it up!

Black Hat wrote:Alternatively go for Tripredacus himself as I hear that for his age he's a solid combiner and never appeared in the cartoon)

Oh ****! Thats my number 1 right there for the other non show accurate list. Kurona might get her wish of seeing Movie 1 Prime in the honourable mentions.

So glad we can have these discussions, it really helps me not forget characters that might be obvious to others.

I will have to go back on my word for Astrotrain. The toys dont have to come out at the same time as the show they are based on but they have to be based on a character (or vice versa with character model based on toy). And Astrotrain thus doesnt work because if we can include a classics toy, then the list becomes no different than "top 5 CHUG toys" since all of them are meant to be updates in designs and thus different from the character models. And thats not what this is about really, at least not to me. It has to be a show based toy, and Astrotrain aint that.

Fair, fair. I think at some point though we should do a CHUG version of the list since a lot of the designs before Thrilling 30 deviated so far from the source material but were so cool and unique in their own way. Sunstreaker, Tankor, Megatron, Grimlock... not to mention some figures after that point; like the aforementioned TR triple changers.

Kurona wrote:Fair, fair. I think at some point though we should do a CHUG version of the list since a lot of the designs before Thrilling 30 deviated so far from the source material but were so cool and unique in their own way. Sunstreaker, Tankor, Megatron, Grimlock... not to mention some figures after that point; like the aforementioned TR triple changers.

But I dont see them that different to post thrilling 30. That CW Megatron looks nothing like any version we had before either. its just as much a new take as Clasics Megatron. Same thing with CW Prime, motormaster, dragstrip, trailbreaker, prowl, Blackjack, warpath, Starscream and so many others. Starscream looks more like a style before thrilling 30 than the actual classics toy we got before thrilling 30 which was closer to g1.

All in all, I do not believe the aesthetic or idea about updating concepts has changed from when the line first began. They are all updates, but some are closer to their G1 selves than others and those few have been found all throughout the varying lines encompassing CHUG (also, CHUG includes Generations, which is still ongoing).

I am better off doing a list of top 5 for each line, which I am already doing for Combiner Wars. Top 5 thrilling 30 toys would be pretty good, same for top 5 FOR/WFC toys. Oh, I just realized I wouldnt want to write that last list, aside from like 2 toys I really dont like the rest.

Just got a new list idea : most terrible/ridiculous weapons.

Was playing with some of my collection and I think there's good material for this. Example like Armada Jetfire's Megaphone, Energon Bullkhead gigantic fan, TR Seaspray's barcode scanner, the whole mechtech weapons line...

edit double post, sorry.

ExciKaiser wrote:TR Seaspray's barcode scanner

It's a pizza box!

Someday I'd love to do a top 5 rescue vehicles one. That would be so cool. I'd definitely want to collaborate with others on it though as I have not worked on one of these yet. Gotta think on it though, because the robot mode and vehicle mode have to look good for this list (well for every list but if the focus is on rescue vehicles then I think that should place importance on the vehicle mode more than usual.) Either way I'm just playing with ideas about my most favorites.

WreckerJack wrote:Someday I'd love to do a top 5 rescue vehicles one. That would be so cool. I'd definitely want to collaborate with others on it though as I have not worked on one of these yet. Gotta think on it though, because the robot mode and vehicle mode have to look good for this list (well for every list but if the focus is on rescue vehicles then I think that should place importance on the vehicle mode more than usual.) Either way I'm just playing with ideas about my most favorites.

I have a top 5 Firetruck TF list coming up and as a member of the staff you have access to the draft

viewtopic.php?f=172&t=102857&p=1791543&hilit=inferno#p1791543

As you can see, several entries do not have written blurbs yet so if there is a toy listed that you really like and want to write about, then feel free to write a short paragraph for it

If you also want to make a new and different list, we could work on that too. As you can see, we already covered Firetrucks, and Rescue vehicles might be a tad redundant, but we could make it about top 5 ambulances or top 5 Ratchet toys (I know you are a Ratchet fan). Its all on the table, and you can do a bit of all of it

william-james88 wrote:
I have a top 5 Firetruck TF list coming up and as a member of the staff you have access to the draft

viewtopic.php?f=172&t=102857&p=1791543&hilit=inferno#p1791543

As you can see, several entries do not have written blurbs yet so if there is a toy listed that you really like and want to write about, then feel free to write a short paragraph for it

If you also want to make a new and different list, we could work on that too. As you can see, we already covered Firetrucks, and Rescue vehicles might be a tad redundant, but we could make it about top 5 ambulances or top 5 Ratchet toys (I know you are a Ratchet fan). Its all on the table, and you can do a bit of all of it

Oh heck yes! I will have to think on this for sure, to research both figures and their real life vehicles. Everyone loves firetrucks so it's a real treat to include facts and fun stuff for people to learn.

Top 5 ambulances would be better I think. While Ratchet is one of my most favs I think it would be best to include other medics. (at least the ones that have toys - I am looking at Pharma and Ambulon here) As much as I enjoy Ratchet I often would like to see some of the other medics get the spotlight too. Though most ambo's are Ratchet, First Aid has had some nice releases too. There may even be some figures I have yet to see even. Feel free to point anything out that makes sense.

WreckerJack wrote:
Oh heck yes! I will have to think on this for sure, to research both figures and their real life vehicles. Everyone loves firetrucks so it's a real treat to include facts and fun stuff for people to learn.

Top 5 ambulances would be better I think. While Ratchet is one of my most favs I think it would be best to include other medics. (at least the ones that have toys - I am looking at Pharma and Ambulon here) As much as I enjoy Ratchet I often would like to see some of the other medics get the spotlight too. Though most ambo's are Ratchet, First Aid has had some nice releases too. There may even be some figures I have yet to see even. Feel free to point anything out that makes sense.

Good good, so send me a PM or e-mail telling me which of those firetruck TFs you want to write about. I will need a short paragraph saying why you think they are the best. I plan on publishing the list in about 2 months so I will need your paragraphs before that.

Also, feel free to look into the ambulances to see what TFs are available but you may find that in the end, a list of top 5 ratchets makes most sense. I had looked into it once and it turned out that the only ambulance toys that were never made into ratchet werent that good. Like G1 first aid for instance. That isnt a toy worthy of a top 5 ambulance list. His Combiner Wars toys is pretty good, but that was turned into a Ratchet as well so it could still be included in a Ratchet list. And plus you can then talk about the MP, the RID toy, the Prime toy the Movie toys and so on.