The Energon Pub

[william-james88]

More and more images are popping up of what appears to be a prototype of an upcoming Masterpiece Cliffjumper. It seems very similar to the latest Masterpiece Bumblebee with the hodge podge of a back pack and lots of kibble behind the legs. Which means it would transform similarly, as he did back in the G1 era, while also being a new mold. As with the latest Bumblebee, he becomes a chibby version of his car model, which in this case is a Porsche.

If this is indeed coming, as opposed to a scrapped project, he seems quite far along since we get these kinds of prototypes right before they set up the plastic colours for production.

That would mean the G1 MP line is on a roll with us getting 3 seekers, followed by Skids (and his redecos) and Nightshadow.

The images are from Robotic Planet.

[transformers_va]

I love seeing more G1 masterpiece characters! Just wish they had learned their lesson from Bumblebee v2.0, and fixed those horrible flat feet

[BumbleDouche]

I think that "BS" mark on him sums him up nicely - a load of bullsh!t. Takara continue their fall from grace, it seems. What happened to the ingenuity that gave us things like ladder magic?

[Rodimus Knight]

I'm disappointed. I'd like to have a real life car accurate version like the first MP Bumbleebee did and not the SD cartoon car.

[sparticus1701]

Of course we're all wondering where he was storing that giant bazooka in the cartoon... Will the toy let you try to shove that up his tailpipe?

[Hellscream9999]

Of course we're all wondering where he was storing that giant bazooka in the cartoon... Will the toy let you try to shove that up his tailpipe?

His backpack's big enough, you could probably unfold it a little and store it there, along with all his other accessories

[Big Grim]

Ugly as sin, same as V.2 Bumblebee. I REALLY wish they'd get out of this "Anime accurate" (itself an oxymoron. The cartoon was rife with errors) lack of detail, while over engineering things. The first MP Bumblebee was perfect and has a beautiful transformation. His alt mode looks like a bug without being super deformed.

Personally, I sorta hope that the more toy accurately detailed Skids is a sign they are moving BACK in that direction. Y'know, how MPs started and were for a huge amount of time.

~ Grim

[ThunderThruster]

I think many of us who already have either XTB's Toro or OX's Hellion will be hard pressed to replace them with this.
This carries over many of the thing's I didn't like about v2 Bee.

[Sherlock Zero]

When it comes to this, I am literally 50/50 on how I feel.

On one hand, he is currently my #1 favorite when it comes to anything tied to Hasbro. Excluding color and Mini-spay variants, they have released him four times (1x series 1, 2x series 2, 1x Listen 'n Fun) in 1984 and 1985. His only re-releases were in 2001 when it comes to Fun-4-All, and again in 2007 when it comes to Basic Fun's share of the 'Heroes of Cybertron' line.

(Internationally, I have zero knowledge if there are Hasbro Canada and Hasbro Europe versions of the 'Mini-spy' releases. Nor do I know if there is a bilingual version of the Listen 'n Fun book in those regions. All I do know is that in 2002, Wal-Mart Canada did an exclusive reissue of the Fun-4-All "Key Chains". My only guess is that they did both series, even though I have only found one on a bilingual 'series 1' card.)

On the other hand, TakaraTomy has made my interest in this line slowly fade away. If this was to be based on "MP-21" Bumble's tooling, I would be anticipating the day I could preorder it. But since it is appearing to be based on "MP-45" Bumble's tooling... I am feeling conflicted. Either way, I will try to find a way to get the original figure in some form and call it a day.

Either way, it's Cliffjumper. So I will not make a final decision until I see an official announcement.

[DeathReviews]

Not seeing anything in this Cliffjumper prototype to tempt me. And the reviews I've seen for the Seeker 3.0 mold have been discouraging.

[AllNewSuperRobot]

If only this being a prototype meant those feet were not finalised...

[Tuned Agent]

Hey, look on the bright side, this doesn't have MP45's headsculpt. So at least Cliff is better by default.

[Sherlock Zero]

Hey, look on the bright side, this doesn't have MP45's headsculpt. So at least Cliff is better by default.

100% agreed! Because, after all, I also felt that they had... Bumble'd... it.

[william-james88]

We had seen images of a still to be revealed MP Cliffjumper in green plastic as a test figure and now we see a coloured sample. This is painted as is the case with many samples. We are still unaware of whether or not it will be entirely painted plastic or red plastic in the end, or even if this toy will be made for any of us to buy. But still, we wanted to share the images of the process. We rarely get to follow a toy's journey like this so let's savour it. While the alt mode looks full of gaps, this is still the test phase, so it's the time to iron out issues.

The images are courtesy of jkhan7.

[chuckdawg1999]

Even in this stage of the game, it looks better than Bumblebee 2.0

[frogbat]

think I'd have preferred a companion piece for bumblebee v1, and I do like the anime aesthetic etc

[TFIta369]

It is not uncommon for mainline figures to be "leaked" like this before being officially announced, even something akin happened to the MPM line with MPM-07 VW Bumblebee too, if I recall correctly, but I find it kind of odd that Takara Tomy hasn't teased or revealed this Cliffjumper already like they usually do through social media posts or in those japanese action figure magazines.

[DeathReviews]

It's crap-tacular!

[AllNewSuperRobot]

I dunno, adding colour seems to make it look worse, somehow?

[Emerje]

It is not uncommon for mainline figures to be "leaked" like this before being officially announced, even something akin happened to the MPM line with MPM-07 VW Bumblebee too, if I recall correctly, but I find it kind of odd that Takara Tomy hasn't teased or revealed this Cliffjumper already like they usually do through social media posts or in those japanese action figure magazines.

I'm thinking Cliffjumper was meant to be revealed at Wonder Festival 2021 [Autumn] next month and then show up in the magazines shortly after which we've seen in the past, but that got canceled again so now the magazines are needlessly behind.

And you're right about the MPM-07 VW Bee. Pretty sure it was posted by a maker of KOs so it really threw people off.

Emerje

[TFIta369]

It is not uncommon for mainline figures to be "leaked" like this before being officially announced, even something akin happened to the MPM line with MPM-07 VW Bumblebee too, if I recall correctly, but I find it kind of odd that Takara Tomy hasn't teased or revealed this Cliffjumper already like they usually do through social media posts or in those japanese action figure magazines.

I'm thinking Cliffjumper was meant to be revealed at Wonder Festival 2021 [Autumn] next month and then show up in the magazines shortly after which we've seen in the past, but that got canceled again so now the magazines are needlessly behind.

And you're right about the MPM-07 VW Bee. Pretty sure it was posted by a maker of KOs so it really threw people off.

Emerje

That sounds reasonable. Hopefully Takara Tomy won't wait too much longer to show Cliffjumper off "the right way" instead of these not-so-appealing pictures.

[Rodimus Knight]

think I'd have preferred a companion piece for bumblebee v1, and I do like the anime aesthetic etc

Agreed. I think it would have been better too. I'm not really a fan of the cartoon accurate MPs anyway.

[william-james88]

We had seen images of a still to be revealed MP Cliffjumper in green plastic as a test figure and properly coloured for vehicle mode. Well now we see a coloured sample of his robot mode. This is painted as is the case with many samples and we are still unaware of whether or not it will be entirely painted plastic or red plastic in the end, or even if this toy will be made for any of us to buy. But still, we wanted to share the images of the process. We rarely get to follow a toy's journey like this so let's savour it. While the alt mode looks full of gaps, this is still the test phase, so it's the time to iron out issues. What we notice here is that it is a different face from the one we saw before (also below) so it could be that this is one of the other faces this figure comes with. the chest does appear to be mistransformed, you can also compare that to the unpainted sample.

[AllNewSuperRobot]

I like the head sculpt. I can't seem to find two pictures that look enough alike for a consensus. But is the spoiler supposed to sit on his chest like that? As it seems to be missing from the prototype.

[Stormshot_Prime]

It’s that Bumblebee 2.0 all over again. I’d much rather prefer a more realistic alt mode, I think they could still pull off the deformation/“chibi-fication” and deliver a solid robot mode like the original MP Bee. This shift in aesthetic to viciously G1-screen-accurate only works for some of the characters.