Re: Transformers Power of the Primes Leaks, Rumours, Reveals, and More
Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 7:51 pmSeibertron wrote:Carnivius_Prime wrote:I find these more worthless personally. At least with previous TM's I could ignore them cos they weren't based on characters I cared about but these? They is spitting on my Pretender dreams.
FYI ... I accidentally clicked "edit" on your post instead of quote, hopefully I restored your post as best as I could!
I feel the same way. I keep telling the brand team that I want Pretenders. They probably think I'm crazy. But I really want to see the Pretenders done with modern toy technology, whether it's the traditional concept for with a modern action figure type "shell" with inner robot, or with an "inner" robot that can transform into a vehicle AND becomes armor to upgrade the action figure "shell" character (in lieu of fitting in an actual shell). I really don't care about the robot actually being able to go inside a "shell" as long as the robot somehow can "hide" away by either integrating inside of the shell or by becoming an upgrade set for the "shell". I quoted the word "shell" because I'm referencing the humanoid shell character/figure versus the inner robot character/figure.
I think someone will come up with an exciting way to redo these characters at some point that will honor their heritage properly. The Pretenders really struck a chord with me on many levels from their introduction in the comics, to being the first mainline concept to be excluded from the Hasbro cartoons (excluding Mini-Spies and Decoys), to just really inspiring me as a kid. I loved playing with them and I loved having 2 toys in one. I even used to count them as 2 separate Transformers in my figure count when I was a kid. My mom wouldn't let me spend my Christmas and birthday money on Fortress Maximus, but she let me buy all 6 of the wave 1 Autobot and Decepticon Pretenders. While I was disappointed with not getting Fort Max, I loved playing with my Pretenders as a kid. Imagine my joy 7 years later in 1995 when I discovered Masterforce thanks to a bootleg VHS dealer at a comic convention!
To be perfectly fair, matryushka doll-like figures like our Pretenders can be hard to deal with on a marketing level, as with everything said and done, you'd effectively be buying two figures for the price of one as you stated. However, Engineering is a different thing, and one that should not be taken lightly as depending on how the "storing" is done, the "Shell" can be either sturdy, or very fragile.
The G1 Pretenders had the inner robots fold up, and stored in a central cavity with arms. That can be extended to arms + legs with modern technology. That works beautifully with full joints from the get go.
Now, having the "shell" limbs integrated with the robot limbs, that's asking for trouble. Bandai's Gordian used that principle and as a result, in addition to using metallic blue plastic that suffers from "Popy Disease" (precursor to our GPS), is fragile, due in part to having hollow limbs with (thin) joints on the outside. I haven't heard of any problems with it's successor Soul of Chogokin GX-39 Baikanfu, with a similar system however, but that's a high end collectible with better materials.
In short, Pretenders can be redone, all it takes is something to make the idea appealing, and the right designs to make them last.
