Black Hat, you can blame model car collectors for that; 1:24 is the dominant scale there.
The Alternators/BT toys
are in scale with certain MPs: MP-01/04, MP-02, and MP-05. And I'm pretty sure their existence is what delayed getting
actual MPs of the Autobot Cars. They also colored the development of CHUG for a while, most notably the
Universe Sideswipe and Prowl molds, and probably Tracks too.
-Kanrabat- wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Honestly, looking back... I think Alternators/BT may have been one of the biggest wastes of fans' time and money in all TF.
STOP RIGHT THERE YOU CRIMINAL SCUM!Some molds are trash, (Optimus, Windcharger, Tracks, Sunstreaker) but other were the default Masterpieces for a long time.
Well see, that's what I was getting at. Takara didn't bother making
actual Masterpieces of the Autobot cars up until MP-10 rebooted the Masterpiece line, because prior to that the Alternators/BT toys were expected to fill that role and treated as "good enough".
-Kanrabat- wrote:Among those "Masterpieces" were Hound and Prowl. The Jazz mold was also pretty solid and with the Reprolabel set, he was almost perfect. There's also Skids who is stellar and pretty much a "MP".
There were other completely original ones that too were awesome. Like Jaguar Ravage and Rodimus. Plus the fact that you got a COMPLETE car interior and many cars were clean even on the underside! This make Alternators/Binaltech a pretty damn solid line overall.
Oh, the good figures are quite good, don't get me wrong. Although, Roddy is a retool of the line's Mirage.
-Kanrabat- wrote:When Alternator failed, it failed hard. But when it succeeded, it knocked it out of the park. Ultimately the true fault of the line was that it could only be in scale with itself or MP-01.
Also MP-05, because that was in scale with MP-01. But see, that's kind of a big fault. That and the fact that it influenced CHUG unduly and became Takara's excuse to not do actual MPs for the longest time...
That's why part of me feels like it was a big waste in hindsight, even with as good as several figures were.
Oh, another fault with it, now that I remember what else tied into Alternator/BT: The higher-ups at Takara didn't bean Yuki Oshima on the head with one of the toys.