This afternoon, Hasbro's Transformers Brand Team held an exclusive Google Hangout video chat for various representatives from Transformers fan sites throughout the internet. Yours truly was in attendance for Seibertron.com, and got to listen in to some extra details, news, notes, and information about many of the various toys from Transformers: The Last Knight that were revealed today. You can find our stories related to those new product reveals
at this link with the first news story, and over on
this second news story as well.
Read on below for the information I was able to gather in the short time we had to chat with Hasbro. It's possible I might have missed a few details because these calls go quick, but Seibertron.com will be sure to update this with notes from any of the other fan sites around the 'net that our community here will want to know about!
The Hasbro Team
The participants from the Hasbro Transformers Brand Team are Ben Montano, Brand Marketing Director, Transformers; John Warden, Design Manager, Transformers; John Frazier, Senior Brand Development and Marketing Manager, Transformers; and Aristides “Arrow” Membreno, Design Manager, Transformers.
The Last Knight Toys
Starting out with Deluxe Class Hot Rod, they were really excited that the alt mode is an officially licensed Lamborghini design. This looks like a mostly new mold to me, and was very clean out of the package with sharp color contrast in the plastic. They pivoted over to Deluxe Class Skullitron, and pointed out that the deco and design of the figure is meant to evoke the look of a "broken down knight". The face is particularly fun on this one, and definitely hits the intended mark. The toy is a retool/redeco of the Steelbane mold.
Infernocus came next, and they showed off the torso bot and how the Combiner head may be made visible while that individual piece of Infernocus is in robot mode by separating his rib cage. It was noted that they enjoyed this touch because it adds "extra creepiness" to the figure. The team strongly implied (but did not
directly state) that the limbs on this hold together on the torso better than on Prime Abominus. Seeing them pass it back and forth and take it on and off of a table several times during the video call, I believe them as nothing was falling off or looked unstable. As known, it comes with a small clear Quintessa figure. The team suggested you could put it on Infernocus' shoulder, but I don't think it actually attaches to it in any way. They were mum on any other details surrounding the character of Quintessa, encouraging fans to check out the movie to learn more about her.
Deluxe Cogman was next up and yes, though it was a quick note in the press release earlier, the head does detach and is a Titan Master, with other Titan Master heads being compatible with Cogman's "Transtector". John Warden probably used the phrase Transtector because he's a Transformers geek like us, but it was awesome regardless to hear a senior member of the Hasbro team using correct terminology!
Voyager Nitro came next. It was noted that for Nitro, they got the design files from Paramount so they could try to make the figure as accurate to the movie as possible. Nitro's head can come off so that you can put Cogman's onto it (or any other Titan Master), however it's worth noting that while Nitro's head is not a Titan Master itself - it merely has the same port to connect it to the Transtector. Later on in the call, someone asked what real life airplane Nitro is based on. Mr. Warden pointed out that it is not based on any real life plane, and is instead his interpretation of a G.I. Joe-like military plane as he himself is a big G.I. Joe fan. (As an aside, does this make Nitro the new The Crown Jewel of The Hasbro Universe? Yes.)
They finished off with showing The Last Knight Premier Edition product with Leader Dragonstorm. Dragonstorm is a Duocon, and really properly so as the dragon splits to form two individual robots that don't have non-combined alt-modes of their own. When separated, Dragonicus is the robot with the wings, Stormrain being the other that carries the mace. They gave us a glimpse of the instructions and the toy looks quite complicated, though my quick opinion from the few seconds glance made it look pretty bulky and intuitive. The individual robots are roughly Voyager-sized but it was noted they do not completely fit in any particular scale.
Retailer Exclusive Programs
Some of the retailer exclusive programs had toys shown off next. It was noted here for clarity that Deluxe Class Hot Rod is a Walmart exclusive, while Skullitron and Infernocus are Toys R Us exclusives. For Walmart, the exclusive program is called "Autobots Unite" while Toys R Us has "Mission to Cybertron". It was asked during the later Q&A portion of the call whether or not these would be available in other countries. While the specifics were unknown to the team (or unable to be revealed), it was noted that Hasbro did at least
offer both the Autobots Unite and Mission to Cybertron exclusive programs globally. In other words, if an Autobots Unite toy shows up somewhere like Argos or Toys R Us in the UK, it's a safe bet that Argos or Toys R Us or wherever picked up that entire exclusive program's line-up of toys - but do note this is my commentary based on what was said, so don't come at me with your pitchforks if that doesn't end up being the case!
Some of the Mission to Cybertron toys got more attention at this point. The team revealed that each of these releases will include a collector card that forms a piece of a larger puzzle that can be completed if you collect all the toys from this exclusive sub-line. On the back of the cards is a code you can type in to reveal what the "glyph" tampos on each of the toys says, though this is just cipher text for which a decoder exists already.
"Planet Cybertron", the redeco of Cybertron's Primus, was shown next in the box. This will have window box packaging. The color scheme was specifically said to
not be based on any other existing toy, with the planet mode being the initial genesis of the idea for the color scheme. While in planet mode, they want the toy to look like Cybertron does in the Generation One cartoon - a blue-ish planet in outer space with hints of a bright core. As the toy transforms, that core becomes more visible, thus the orange that is present on the robot mode's torso. The figure does of course include the Omega Lock (it needs this to transform so if you weren't around in 2006, kids, don't lose that part!) and the sound effects, while present, are identical to those found on the Cybertron version of the mold. The final take away on this toy was that they wanted to both celebrate the Primus toy while also evoking the feeling that Cybertron itself is truly alive. Accidental movie spoiler? I guess we'll see!
Questions and Answers
The team took some pre-submitted questions from various participants to end the call. I did not have any prepared myself (sorry, Seibertronians! It was last minute for me.) but below are a collection of some of the other questions asked. These are not in any particular order/the order in which they were asked.
Q: When are the toys that have been shown off today scheduled to release?A: "August" but some will "trickle out" earlier as retailers receive stock, as there will be no street date (at least from Hasbro's end) for any of the still-to-come toys for The Last Knight. Mr. Montano joked that if you know anyone that stocks shelves, please have them make sure to not let things get stuck in the stock room away from the sales floor. They know they have fans that want every toy (guilty as charged!) as soon as they can get it (can I claim double jeopardy?)
My own commentary on their answer about product availability follows and nothing more: I have the feeling that they have some general release windows that they are aware of but don't have visibility into the supply chain specifics well enough to answer these kinds of questions more accurately. Hasbro is a huge company and has hundreds of global retail partners to manage, so this makes sense, but I did feel a little bad for them having to answer something generally where I know they wish they could answer it more specifically.
Q: Is there any other product for The Last Knight yet to be revealed?A: What's been seen today is it for Premier Edition The Last Knight toys. Once these are done in the fall, their collector focused product will pivot back around to Generations, which we haven't seen any reveals for in quite some time. It was also noted that there is another movie coming next year, which we know, but this was said in a way that I took to mean that they might be looking for some time to give these lines room to breathe. Looking around it seems some others on the call may have gotten a different message from this, so speculate away on the Energon Pub by replying to this news post!
Other toys for The Last Knight like the One-Steps, Allspark Tech toys, etc ("Quick to Buy, Quick to Play" kinds of products) were not mentioned, but I think this was due to the assumption that these products aren't really a focus for most fans browsing fan sites like Seibertron.
Q: What's the deal with Valvotron, and will the character be used elsewhere in the wider Transformers mythos?A: Just having fun as a promotional play, no other plans to use Valvotron elsewhere in the universe right now. They looked at is as a fun opportunity to introduce some new fans to the property in cooperation with their corporate partner for the promotion, Valvoline.
Q: Any movie characters they want to bring into other lines? (The gentleman asking the question used "G1 Movie Barricade" as an example of what they were asking about. IDW did it! Well, they killed him right away but still.)A: Nothing really specific was provided here. The team mentioned that the "sky's the limit with the character roster."
Q: How many waves for Tiny Turbo Changers? Plans to expand them to other Transformers lines beyond the movies?A: Two waves for The Last Knight, with no current plans to expand these to other product lines but they are very happy with and have noticed the popularity of these toys with the fans.
Some more details were gone into on these in general. Mr. Warden mentioned that these took over a year to develop, as sometimes the small toys are harder to design than the big ones because they wanted to get the right kind of "Transformers feeling" from these. To assist with this, legendary Transformers designer Kōjin Ōno had a hand in the design of the Tiny Turbo Changers. They mentioned that through the Tiny Turbo Changers, you can really feel the soul of Transformers. I agree.
Q: What's the deal with this new character named Chopter from Tiny Turbo Changers Wave 2?A: Yep. It's Chopter.
Q: How does design process vary now as compared to when the first movie came out?A: Mr. Warden was brought in right around when Age of Extinction launched and very gracefully mentioned that, then segued in to doing his best to answer this. He mentioned that they've learned several lessons and now do things like using designs directly from Paramount. Additionally, they keep trying to come up with new ways to add articulation as well as other design elements to enhance the collector product. Mr. Montano commented on the purposeful delineation of the Transformers line to cater to the quick to play/buy vs high articulation/high deco markets more distinctly, hoping it helps make the overall brand cater to a wider range of fans.
Q: Deluxe Drift stands out for keeping many robot mode elements but fitting new car body around it. How difficult was that to do and was that planned during AOE?A: They did not specifically plan to do this back in 2014, but the new Drift does use robot mode parts from that toy. They worked with Takara to re-work the character in a way that would satisfy fans while being true to the Mercedes that Drift turns into as much as possible.
Q: The Premier Edition products have toys in window boxes as opposed to blister packs/bubbles. What led to this change and what do you see in that packaging that wasn't there before with card and bubble blister packs? A: This goes along with the previously mentioned demarcation between collector products and other toys, and other un-named brand teams at Hasbro had suggested this as a good practice for these types of products.
Q: Of what was revealed today, and maybe for The Last Knight in general, what are the teams' favorites?A: Out of TLK, Mr. Warden says Cogman. Thinks it's exciting to bring something classic like Headmasters and continued in TR to the summer blockbuster line. Mr. Membreno chose Hot Rod since he always wanted to work on Lamborghinis and he thinks this is as close as he'll ever get. Besides the nostalgia of Hot Rod, is "one of the hottest cars in the film." Mr. Frazier said his favorite from today is Dragonstorm, due to the fact that it has so much detail to bring a unique three-headed dragon to life, plus the Duocon combiner play which gives you lots of options on how to play. Favorite of the entire line is Leader Megaton. He remembers when he first saw the gray model, and how he was taken back by the level of detail and the jet mode particularly.
While not his favorite, Mr. Montano shared a very fun anecdote. His daughter said to him that Transformers are really cool because they have a Lamborghini and boys think those are awesome, so now Transformers are awesome too, so he now really likes Hot Rod (I'll admit, I was almost expecting this to be a surprise reveal of a Hasbro MP Sideswipe back from the grave, but as movie-focused as this chat was that was silly of me.) His favorites though are the Movie Masterpiece figures that have been revealed in MPM-3 Bumblebee and MPM-4 Optimus Prime. Worked very closely with Takara Tomy for a very long time on these toys. Team has been fantastic and to have an opportunity to create the next universe of Masterpiece toys, and to collaborate on MP, was really fun. He spent time in Japan working on it. All kinds of lessons learned in getting them to market, and he strongly hinted that strong sales of these would be a good thing for future possible Masterpiece releases.
The call wrapped up with Mr. Montano mentioning that the brand team will be present at both San Diego Comic Con and Hascon this year. The team was very enthusiastic about Hascon as they seem to have played a hand in planning it "for the past 9 months", and they hope everyone will come to this family event.
The staff of Seibertron.com would like to sincerely thank Hasbro and their partners at Rogers & Cowan for organizing this exciting look at these upcoming Transformers products!
make retool on this unique guy
I got added at the last minute without the full briefing, sarge!)
