The Energon Pub

sorry i'm not new to the comics, but why does ultra magnus appear to have the same exact body but different paint jobs. he's white and grey, and prime's red and blue. btw do you prefer prime over ultra magnus for the masterpiece toy line?

The short answer is that the Diaclone line had 2 trucks. One was a regular truck and one was a car hauler.

So, when they made them into characters, they used one model for Prime and made the other in Magnus.

OP = Battle Convoy, UM = Powered Convoy, wherein the version we know of him was the super mode.

There brothers are't they, would make some sence that they look alike but not like twins.
any way they have diffrent dads that makes more sence
And for me MP Prime is best more colorful and being the main bot in the story

Clusterprime

No, not brothers. >.<

Its called... a repaint...
It's a quick & easy way for Hasbro/Takara to make more money. You see it ALOT! Ever wondered why Cliffjumper & Bumblebee almost always look exactly the same? You notice that Movie Evac is the same mold as Movie Blackout? Have you yet understood that toy companies to this for the money, not to bring us the wonderful gift of transforming robots?
Lesson for today is now concluded.

Justicity wrote:Its called... a repaint...
It's a quick & easy way for Hasbro/Takara to make more money. You see it ALOT! Ever wondered why Cliffjumper & Bumblebee almost always look exactly the same? You notice that Movie Evac is the same mold as Movie Blackout? Have you yet understood that toy companies to this for the money, not to bring us the wonderful gift of transforming robots?
Lesson for today is now concluded.

You speak the truth.

Only time we had a different U.M was in the Robots in Disguise line. But thats it. Can't say which U.M i like over Prime since they both have the same mold and both colors go together so meh. Just don't like RiD Magnus, and thats it.

Personally, i prefer magnus...but i only have the dvd-prime to compare him to.

is this where we start the countless mp prime questions again alter...binaltron?

This is where magnus becomes primes b****. Its the same with bumblebee and cliffjumper, UM and CJ are just reapints man. LOL isn't it obvious? thats how toy makers make more money.

I always subsribed to theory that ultra magnus is dion orion pax best friend it just seems to make sense since in one episode during season three they said that all the information about him was launched into space before the first great war. But I guess his history is open to interpratation.

Justicity wrote:Its called... a repaint...

You notice that Movie Evac is the same mold as Movie Blackout?

uh, looking at the pics, i think Evac has a different head, thus making it more than a just a repaint.

:MAX:

Kanyon wrote:

Justicity wrote:Its called... a repaint...
It's a quick & easy way for Hasbro/Takara to make more money. You see it ALOT! Ever wondered why Cliffjumper & Bumblebee almost always look exactly the same? You notice that Movie Evac is the same mold as Movie Blackout? Have you yet understood that toy companies to this for the money, not to bring us the wonderful gift of transforming robots?
Lesson for today is now concluded.

You speak the truth.

Only time we had a different U.M was in the Robots in Disguise line. But thats it. Can't say which U.M i like over Prime since they both have the same mold and both colors go together so meh. Just don't like RiD Magnus, and thats it.

Also note that the Titanium line gave us both an Ultra Magnus who was a white Prime repaint (War Within) and a different Ultra Magnus who was not a Prime repaint (G1).

Laziness.


And to cut down on production costs.

Auto Bot wrote:Laziness.

And to cut down on production costs.

Maybe in later lines, but for G1 it wasn't laziness at all.

Like Bonger explained, in the Diaclone line there was a second trailer made, Convoy could combine with it to give him a super mode.

Once Hasbro picked up Diaclone and turned it into Transformers, they chose to turn him into a whole new character. That's not exactly lazy.

For pretty much all of TF history Ultra Magnus was never seen as a white Prime, not until the Dreamwave comics where they decided his trailer turned into armour.

After that is when the laziness kicked in and Hasbro opted to simply make Magnus a white Prime repaint, much to the hatred of Ultra Magnus fans who have always wanted to see him as anything but a poor man's Optimus Prime.

As a child, I used the G1 white cab as Ultra Magnus quite a lot. I never saw them as brothers but just as robots who had the same design, a la the Seekers. In other words, he was always a 'Prime repaint' to me. Was this the same for anyone else?

Burn wrote:

Auto Bot wrote:Laziness.

And to cut down on production costs.

Maybe in later lines, but for G1 it wasn't laziness at all.

Like Bonger explained, in the Diaclone line there was a second trailer made, Convoy could combine with it to give him a super mode.

Once Hasbro picked up Diaclone and turned it into Transformers, they chose to turn him into a whole new character. That's not exactly lazy.

For pretty much all of TF history Ultra Magnus was never seen as a white Prime, not until the Dreamwave comics where they decided his trailer turned into armour.

After that is when the laziness kicked in and Hasbro opted to simply make Magnus a white Prime repaint, much to the hatred of Ultra Magnus fans who have always wanted to see him as anything but a poor man's Optimus Prime.

It was still laziness for Hasbro just to pick up all of the Diaclone cars. They could have pick up selectively. Or redesign, or slightly modify some. They're not blind to see that the Prime cab and Magnus cab are exactly the same molds.

And what about Ironhide and Ratchet? These Microchange vans were supposed to have riders in them. That explains a chair, in place of a robot head. Hasbro didn't even do sh*t about this glaring blooper.

In the original G1 toy, Prime was the cab and his trailer was a base/extra while Ultra Magnus actually used his trailer to form his body and the cab, which was the exact same as prime, made up the insides. Later on, a story was written so that Ultra Magnus' trailer body was actually just armor and the cab body inside which looks just like prime was the real body.

From wikipedia:
"Ultra Magnus' toy consists of a smaller robot, identical to Optimus Prime but with a mostly white colouration, which acts as the cab of the car carrier and combines with the trailer to form the familiar Ultra Magnus as depicted in the cartoon and comics. The white "inner robot" would not appear in official fiction until the publication of the Dreamwave comics."

Due to the original similarity, it is easy for Hasbro to sell repaints. Another example is that in the original cartoon sideswipe and sunstreaker were twins and had the same alt mode but different transformation (ignore the other cars). Since then, they've had the same transformation because it is cheaper to repaint.

That sucks.

Yeah, as someone mentioned, G1 ironhide and ratchet too. Ugly is right. It's nice to see them get the treatment they got in the movie with different transformations. Of course since, hasbro can't repaint one into the other they now have to repaint ironhide as nemesis-allspark-nightwatch-ivegottheblues ironhide. ROFL.

Leonardo wrote:As a child, I used the G1 white cab as Ultra Magnus quite a lot. I never saw them as brothers but just as robots who had the same design, a la the Seekers. In other words, he was always a 'Prime repaint' to me. Was this the same for anyone else?

Bingo. While I'd usually combine him with the trailer, it was the cab that formed the robot, and the trailer was an exosuit of sorts.
You don't (or at least rarely) get all this bitching about Skywarp and Thundercracker being the exact same mould as Starscream, so why the kerfuffle when Magnus does it?

Answer: It's all that stupid 'toon's fault; if they'd shown Magnus' robot mode once in a while they wouldn't complain about it, I'd bet.

Kanyon wrote:Only time we had a different U.M was in the Robots in Disguise line. But thats it.

And Energon, which was an Armada Overload redeco.

Because 'Warp and TC were always portrayed as looking like Screamer. Magnus was always portrayed in his combined form.

Auto Bot wrote:

Burn wrote:

Auto Bot wrote:Laziness.

And to cut down on production costs.

Maybe in later lines, but for G1 it wasn't laziness at all.

Like Bonger explained, in the Diaclone line there was a second trailer made, Convoy could combine with it to give him a super mode.

Once Hasbro picked up Diaclone and turned it into Transformers, they chose to turn him into a whole new character. That's not exactly lazy.

For pretty much all of TF history Ultra Magnus was never seen as a white Prime, not until the Dreamwave comics where they decided his trailer turned into armour.

After that is when the laziness kicked in and Hasbro opted to simply make Magnus a white Prime repaint, much to the hatred of Ultra Magnus fans who have always wanted to see him as anything but a poor man's Optimus Prime.

It was still laziness for Hasbro just to pick up all of the Diaclone cars. They could have pick up selectively. Or redesign, or slightly modify some. They're not blind to see that the Prime cab and Magnus cab are exactly the same molds.

And what about Ironhide and Ratchet? These Microchange vans were supposed to have riders in them. That explains a chair, in place of a robot head. Hasbro didn't even do sh*t about this glaring blooper.

Not really. I thin kyou are looking at it backwards. The toys were not designed to be representatins of the cartoon. Originally, the cartoon was made as a commercial to sell the Diaclone toy line. Hence, Hasbro's job was to get the right people involved to make the existing toys into characters and plonk them into a toon and comic. Thats about it. No laziness back then. The toon was just a marketing tool.

After the movie is when the toys started being made just for the cartoon. Any repaints after that point I would attribute to laziness. Before then, it made little sense to design all new toys, as noone knew how well or badly TFs were gonna do.

Bonger wrote:

Auto Bot wrote:

Burn wrote:

Auto Bot wrote:Laziness.

And to cut down on production costs.

Maybe in later lines, but for G1 it wasn't laziness at all.

Like Bonger explained, in the Diaclone line there was a second trailer made, Convoy could combine with it to give him a super mode.

Once Hasbro picked up Diaclone and turned it into Transformers, they chose to turn him into a whole new character. That's not exactly lazy.

For pretty much all of TF history Ultra Magnus was never seen as a white Prime, not until the Dreamwave comics where they decided his trailer turned into armour.

After that is when the laziness kicked in and Hasbro opted to simply make Magnus a white Prime repaint, much to the hatred of Ultra Magnus fans who have always wanted to see him as anything but a poor man's Optimus Prime.

It was still laziness for Hasbro just to pick up all of the Diaclone cars. They could have pick up selectively. Or redesign, or slightly modify some. They're not blind to see that the Prime cab and Magnus cab are exactly the same molds.

And what about Ironhide and Ratchet? These Microchange vans were supposed to have riders in them. That explains a chair, in place of a robot head. Hasbro didn't even do sh*t about this glaring blooper.

Not really. I thin kyou are looking at it backwards. The toys were not designed to be representatins of the cartoon. Originally, the cartoon was made as a commercial to sell the Diaclone toy line. Hence, Hasbro's job was to get the right people involved to make the existing toys into characters and plonk them into a toon and comic. Thats about it. No laziness back then. The toon was just a marketing tool.

After the movie is when the toys started being made just for the cartoon. Any repaints after that point I would attribute to laziness. Before then, it made little sense to design all new toys, as noone knew how well or badly TFs were gonna do.

At least, they could have been selective in choosing the toys to market.

Auto Bot wrote:At least, they could have been selective in choosing the toys to market.

How would that work? If I hire someone to make a cartoon advertising my toy line, I'm not going to be happy when they say "Ok, we'll market most of these toys, but we dont' agree with the concept of repaints. Therefore, Starscream's in, but Skywarp and Thundercracker are out. Red Alert is dropped, along with most of what you're planning to release in your second year of business. Ok?"

Sledge wrote:Because 'Warp and TC were always portrayed as looking like Screamer. Magnus was always portrayed in his combined form.

Some of us, though, didn't watch the cartoon or read the comics as a child. We just played with the toys and went by the tech specs.

Hey, I'm just answering the question. I never said you'd like the answer.