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Welcome to the latest Seibertron.com Twincast / Podcast episode, with this installment featuring our annual look back at the year that was. While 2017 still has about a week left to yield to the inevitable entropy that will consume us all, Scotty P, Seibertron, and Mr. Starscream chat about the past twelve months in the mean time.

Episode #191 "Champagne Wishes and Energon Dreams" is available directly and in our RSS Feed, and should appear on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher Radio within 24 to 48 hours of when you see this news post.

The latest Power of the Primes figures are appearing more frequently by the day, and the Voyagers in particular are now in the hands of some of the Twincast crew. A long and winding discussion about Starscream and Grimlock goes through the strengths and weaknesses of the figures in detail. Additionally, we ask the important question about accessories and the lack thereof. Would Grimlock have been almost perfect with a sword, gun, and no combination gimmick to worry about?



While we keep dodging our year end retrospective, we take a look at the just released Till All Are One Annual. This one-shot series wrap up takes the tale of Windblade, Starscream, Elita One, Rattrap, Ironhide, the Combaticons, and many more into an unexpected future. A look awaits at what kinds of consequences the events from the issue could have on the IDW Transformers universe. One conclusion gained from all the discussion is clear, and that's how TAAO's Annual delivers one of the best Starscream stories you'll ever read.



Our 2017 "Best Of" categories and topics kick off with a look at our favorites in the ever popular Transformers Generations lineup, comprised this year of Titans Return and a little bit of Power of the Primes. While there's certainly no consensus, some of the stand outs are also pretty clear, at least to us! Don't forget to let us know if you agree or if we left a piece out due to our diode blowin' dim wittery by replying to this news post.



What was your favorite part of The Last Knight? Maybe you love violence against fish, maybe there's a certain action scene you found especially exciting, maybe shirtless Wahlburgers are your thing. Whatever it is, this is the judgment free zone unlike that one gym, so the Twincast talks about what they actually liked out of a generally maligned piece of cinema. After that, we consider how Movie based Transformers toy lines just feel a little different, and this premise leads to our "Most Movie-y Movie Figure" category. Learn what figures embodied the spirit of explosions, sweat, and Miami Beach, FL more than any others for us this year.



Every year, there's That One Thing You Didn't Get Around To But Would Like To in the vast world of Transformers. The cast talks about the missed opportunities of the year, ranging from toys not yet bought to shows not yet watched. Try as we might sometimes, there's no way to experience every part of the huge world of Transformers, so see if you caught up on some of the experiences that we might not have yet!



Going in a different direction, we think about who the "Character Stock Market Winner" of 2017 could be. What long-standing Transformers character, or at least medium-term-standing character, had the best year? Maybe it was due to extra attention in various media or a new toy. Maybe for some of the crew, it was for other reasons entirely. One thing is for certain, and that's that Star Wars is forbidden.



Given the serial nature of IDW's Transformers works, sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This category is not for those cases. Instead, we talk about our favorite single issue of the entire year and why it was so effective with just 20 pages. With time going long, we don't get into the arcs and series that we encountered in too much detail, but listen in to find out what issues might be worth sampling to get a taste of the stories encountered in this year's Transformers comics.



We at least reach our picks for the best Transformers thing ever for 2017 - the hands down, best, most memorable, absolute favorite Transformers thing from this year for the cast members. Toys end up taking over due to a pair of choice Masterpiece figures that we still can't manage to agree on. Anything goes, except third party stuff, as we find out if ladder magic can manage to overcome the forces that waited an eternity for this.



Despite all the cool stuff that gets discussed, there are always the less-than-favorite parts of the hobby that are encountered. We take some time out to think about the bad stuff, whether that was a disappointing toy, terrible movie, or something else entirely. Yours truly also hands out the completely unexpected Second Annual Brian Ravage Memorial Trophy Prize Lucky Draw Award, and you'll never guess who wins! Actually, you will. It's... only human.



Our last topic, or at least part of one, is for predictions. Each attending cast participant makes one layup, softball of a prediction for something realistic that we think will happen in 2018 for the Transformers. After those very super obvious jokes of predictions, we get into the realm of Wishful Thinking, a Seibertron.com speciality. Things there get outlandish but fun, and you never know what just might come true.



Moreso than any other Twincast episode, we hope this one is a conversation starter - especially with that trainwreck of an ending! Join us on the Energon Pub Forums to discuss this episode, and be sure to look out for the written look back from the entire staff in the near future.

From the Twincast Podcast team to all of our listeners out there, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and get ready for The Road to 200!

I wish I could have been on this episode, but my boy spent the day throwing up. Luckily he was feeling better in time for Christmas.

I will listen to thiiiis - been catching up on work, and I can't podcast and translate at same time, but it's ready to go on my laptop AND my phone.

Shew! I felt so bad about not listening to this sooner, turns out I am not the only one who has sluffed off.

*Sees the Google Play timestamp...*

2 hours, 50 minutes, and 33 seconds

shhhhhhiiiiiiii-ooootttt you guys were wordy this time.

I dunno, I still like the PotP Dinobots. I could go for Bigger, but I like them. Maybe I am the only one though...

On Storage I have the whole totes and ziplock baggy thing going, but I have not yet been smart enough to organize by toylines.

As of the 29th, the Transformers episode is not on Netflix yet. Star Wars, barbie, he-man, and GI Joe, but no Transformers. Are they releasing on a weekly basis?

Scotty: I think you hit the nail on the head on the gimmick pf PoTP; there's enough different gimmick that they almost have been better served by not trying to force a unifying gimmick and just done a Generations take of "Okay these guys are combiners; these guys are more Headmasters; some of them do this, some of them do that, etc."

Seibs: yes and yes. We're getting these Dinobots so that Hasbro can get the mileage out of the molds again with the Terrorcons. Grimlock may be a one-off, since HunGrr is a clone/rebuild/retool of the original Silverbolt mold.

There was a Til all are one annual?

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Love Overlord. Simple toy to play with and transform but very satifying. I do wish the Prmime MAster matrixes could fit in the chest compartment but oh well.

its funny, I think a lot of these "Second Use first" figures ended up winning me over more than the intended use. I almost like Sentinel Prime and Megatron as much or more than Astrotrain and Blitzwing, even though those are the characters I wanted the molds for.

Wish I had Trypticon, but thats far more figure than I can display and justify

Grotusque WAS fun. It was nice to be surprised and yes, they did a great job with making him different from Doublecross.

*Finished reading the TAAO Annual* Ooh! I liked that. Kinda tired of still using Windblade, but that was a good story. I feel bad for the Combaticons, after all they went through, being mnemnosurgeon'd, Brawl's little sparkfelt moment. I guess its the only natural place to send them though.
Anyway.

Seibs, we got Repugnus. But yes, I want a bigger toy than the titan dude.

You know what, we hear from the nostalgia guys most often, but I hope the Bumblebee Movie doesn't pander to the nostalgia. It needs to blaze its own trail and do its own thing. homages are great, lets use whats come before as a guide, but it needs to be new, or at least fresh, or it doesn't win in a sustainable new audience.

I like the puzzle of trying to figure it out on my own, but I don't end up needing them for most figures anyway unless I am concerned about stressing a joint.

I liked Squeeks' figure, but yes, that character was useless. To me, the toy does some neat stuff to transform and I like the incorporated battle trailer rocketpack. But the robot mode of the figure itself gets a little bit of a pass because it has to be faithful to a piece of scrap. Were there a better source material to comapare it to that figure might not rank as high. You know what I wanted out of Squeeks though? Something closer to the Human Alliance scale.

I have 0 interest in buying human figures for Transformers. With a couple of cross-fandom exceptions.

You know, I think I can agree with you, Scotty on Windblade. I am kinda tired of her being in everything, buty I did like her RID character. And the Titans Return figure is awesome. z

In regards to the whole KO thing: I bet there is an unwritten rule or something in a contract where Hasbro can't actually dictate what Amazon sells, and Amazon isn't going to meddle in its seller-clientele base. If the figures were trying to pretend that they were 100% official product, then thats cause for alarm, but if the listing says "KO Product", then its not trying to hide anything and its on the buyer now. The Seller has technically diclosed that what they are selling is not the original, so its the buyer's fault. And Amazon doesn't care about property copyrights; they are not a court. For that matter, neither is Hasbro. If Hasbro wants to file an, I don't know if this is the right word, but an injunction, it needs to be directed first towards the company producing, and THEN at Amazon. But Amazon is not the original source for the product, so if Hasbro cuts them off, its still being sold someplace else anyway.

Walmart markes stuff up before a sale all the time...

Scotty: So if I do the GLobal Shipping on Ebay as a seller, and package somethign the right way in cardboard and wth packing, is Ebay opening MY box, taking the item out, and REpackaging it?

^ I'm not entirely sure how the GSP works, but I can't imagine someone willingly packing up toys the way some of them have gotten to me that went through that. It's also insanely expensive and uses Worldnet, who then passes stuff to USPS as the last mile carrier. This makes the tracking super uninformative along the way!

Funny you mention human figures again, I always thought it'd be fun to have a figure of Stella from Linkage (with clothes on, thanks!) Haven't really been able to find an anime figure to repurpose for it like I thought might be possible.

ScottyP wrote:^ I'm not entirely sure how the GSP works, but I can't imagine someone willingly packing up toys the way some of them have gotten to me that went through that. It's also insanely expensive and uses Worldnet, who then passes stuff to USPS as the last mile carrier. This makes the tracking super uninformative along the way!

Funny you mention human figures again, I always thought it'd be fun to have a figure of Stella from Linkage (with clothes on, thanks!) Haven't really been able to find an anime figure to repurpose for it like I thought might be possible.

I ordered a Japan RID Grimlock through Amazon and it got lost in the mail. The replacement I got was shipped, From Japan, in a single thickness sheet of bubblewrap. And not even the big bubbles. That scares me about the items I've shipped by GSP.

The only human figures in my collection, aside from the Human Alliance stuff, are some of the 2.75" figures that came out with the second Avengers Movie. The human figures are a tad big, but the Iron man, War Machine, Ultron, Hulk, and Hulkbuster scale pretty nicely with Deluxe and Voyager figures. And I have some British-brand Lego Daleks running around too because reasons. But I can see how fans of series might want decent action figures of beloved characters. The Armada kids and Stella could be interesting to put on a Minicon display

I am, as promised, listening to this (currently on 1:46:11), and I really like the format of the three on the recording I have to say! I do miss the whole cast, but you three really bounced off each other well, and the derailments are not unwelcome at all.

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The TAAO series and annual are excellent, everyone should go read them.
Listening to Scotty talk about OP#9 was beautiful, I'm looking forward to reading that again in the YIR article.

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Scotty's answer to the character coming into their own was going to be mine just as he gave it, so I'm glad we agree on this despite him being entirely wrong about Lost Light 10-11-12.

Till All Are One, for the record: till and 'til are both entirely correct, the latter being the truncation of until, the former being its own word-spelling. Source.

EDIT additions: Box art is indeed done by artists Marcelo Matere, Emiliano Santalucia, and others - but Volta, which is headed by Sara Pitre Durocher, does the colouring on pretty much all of them! Not the art, "just" the colours! http://www.volta.ca/

Va'al wrote:Till All Are One, for the record: till and 'til are both entirely correct, the latter being the truncation of until, the former being its own word-spelling. Source.

Good stuff, I've now learned something today I knew till was an actual word, just thought it was a noun referring to a cash drawer in a store and nothing else. I'll probably remember this well now, usually facts that overwrite previously incorrect facts in my head stick around!