by Sabrblade » Mon Aug 08, 2022 12:01 am
- Motto: "Can't do a job halfway. What's worth doing is worth doing well, I say."
- Weapon: Saber Blade
LATER-MADE EDIT: Several flaws in the following theory have been pointed out to me, making it due for a rewrite.
I've been thinking lately about the "What could have been" for Kingdom had Hasbro decided to go with their original plans for it, before they decided to add Beast Wars characters to the line and move some of the G1 characters over to Studio Series.
Looking at the wave breakdowns for the Deluxe, Voyager, and Leader classes, I've noticed that some things begin to add up. As for the Core class, I'm not taking it into consideration since I feel like it only came about so that Rattrap could be made in an appropriate size. In this scenario, we're pretending it didn't come into being.
The Deluxe class had five waves. Since the fifth wave was a late decision (as in, Pipes and Slammer got pushed back a wave), let's assume that there were originally only going be four waves. And, assuming that there was originally going to be another kind of "Weaponizer/Modulator"-style gimmick figure, it is likely that they would have been something other than "Fossilizers" since those feel like they were only created after the decision to include Beast Wars was made. Both Siege and Earthrise had one of these figures in each of their first three waves, so we can probably assume that there would have been three released in Kingdom's main line.
Wave 1 was Cheetor, Blackarachnia, Paleotrex, and Warpath. Three beasts, one G1 guy. The contemporary wave of Studio Series had three G1 guys: Jazz, Blurr, and Kup. Presumably, the original Deluxe Wave 1 for Kingdom would have been Warpath, Jazz, Kup, and Blurr. However, with the inclusion of a new gimmick figure in mind, I do feel like Jazz, Blurr, and Kup would have still been included, so Warpath might have been pushed back to make room for the gimmick figure.
Wave 2 was Airazor, Ractonite, Huffer, and the repack of Earthrise Arcee. Two beasts, two G1 guys. Over in Studio Series, it took another wave for Gnaw to get released, but with Warpath and a second gimmick figure included, they could have been the two that Airazor and Ractonite took the place of.
Wave 3 was Scorponok, Tracks, Wingfinger, and the repack of Earthrise Wheeljack. Two beasts, two G1 guys. At this point, Gnaw was released in Studio Series, but no other G1 guy. In this case, one more new gimmick figure would round things out, and could have very well been Slammer since he was built like a Weaponizer.
Wave 4 was Shadow Panther, Waspinator, and repacks of earlier-wave figures. The only new releases in this wave were two beasts, one of which was replacement for the originally-planned Tigatron retool of Cheetor (before it was decided to give Tigatron his own mold as a Voyager). Both Slammer and Pipes were originally supposed to be in this wave, but since we've already put Slammer one wave earlier (and two waves earlier than his actual release), Pipes would be the last new mold in this wave, with the rest being repacks.
OR, supposing that the Sideswipe and Mirage from the two Battle Across Time 2-packs were always planned to exist even before the Beast Wars decision was made, then they could have been wavemates for Pipes along with one more repack of an earlier Deluxe figure.
(SS86 Perceptor didn't come out until this year, so he probably wasn't in the original pre-BW plans for Kingdom)
Thus, in this new scenario, we have the Deluxe waves like so:
Wave 1: Kup, Jazz, Blurr, gimmick figure
Wave 2: Huffer, Arcee, Warpath, gimmick figure
Wave 3: Tracks, Wheeljack, Slammer (gimmick figure), repack
Wave 4: Pipes, Sideswipe, Mirage, repack
Like Deluxe, Voyager class had five waves. But also like Deluxe, Wave 5 was a change in plans made after the decision to cancel the repack of Earthrise Starscream, so Blaster probably first came about when Hasbro started planning for Legacy. So we'll just assume that there were originally only four waves.
Wave 1 was Optimus Primal and Cyclonus, Wave 2 was Dinobot and Inferno, Wave 3 was Rhinox and a Cyclonus repack (IIRC), and Wave 4 was Tigatron and a Rhinox repack (IIRC). Four beasts, two G1 guys. Though, Tigatron was a replacement for the canceled repack of Earthrise Starscream after it was decided to make Tigatron a Voyager instead of a Deluxe, so there would have been three beasts and three G1 guys at one point. And of the Studio Series Voyagers released in 2021, only three of them have been molds of G1 guys: Hot Rod, Scourge, and Wreck-Gar (Sweep was a redeco and slight retool, not a new mold).
So with that in mind, the Voyager Waves may have originally looked like this:
Wave 1: Hot Rod, Cyclonus
Wave 2: Scourge, Inferno
Wave 3: Starscream, repack
Wave 4: Wreck-Gar, repack
Even though Tigatron was made as a replacement for Starscream, I put Starscream a wave earlier than Tigatron's release because Starscream already existed while Wreck-Gar took a bit longer to see release in 2021, so he would have come after Starscream.
Leader class is simultaneously both simpler and trickier to figure out in this scenario. It's simpler in that there's only three waves: Wave 1 was Predacon Megatron and a repack of Earthrise Optimus Prime, Wave 2 was Ultra Magnus and a repack of one of the first two (I don't remember which), and Wave 3 was Galvatron and a repack of Megatron. One beast, three G1 guys. But it's trickier because Studio Series had two G1 Leader molds in 2021: Grimlock and Slug. The obvious choice for who Megatron took the place of is Grimlock, but that's assuming that Slug wasn't also originally in the cards at the time. And, well, that may have indeed been the case.
Slug's wave came very late in 2021, during the late Fall and in the Christmas season. His wavemate was ROTF Grindor, a reuse of the Blackout mold. Slug may have only come about after Grimlock was not only first made but also after Studio Series 86 had proved successful enough. It's very possible that, once again, Grimlock was going to have been the only Dinobot released, and that the decision to make all five Dinobots in the Leader class came after Grimlock was made.
And Grindor being Slug's wavemate could be a sign that Slug's wave was a late decision, with Grindor being easy filler as a mere retool of an existing mold, the first Leader class Studio Series toy to not be either a new mold or an extensive retool of another mold (AOE Grimlock, Blackout, DOTM Megatron, Jetfire, the extensively-retooled DOTM Optimus Prime w/ his all-new trailer mold, Scavenger, Shockwave, Overload, and G1 Grimlock).
So with all that in mind, the original Leader class waves could have been:
Wave 1: Optimus Prime, Grimlock
Wave 2: Ultra Magnus, repack
Wave 3: Galvatron, repack
To sum up, this is what the entirety of Kingdom (or whatever it might have been called) could have looked like before it was decided to bring in Beast Wars and create Studio Series 86:
Deluxe class
Wave 1: Kup, Jazz, Blurr, gimmick figure
Wave 2: Huffer, Arcee, Warpath, gimmick figure
Wave 3: Tracks, Wheeljack, Slammer (gimmick figure), repack
Wave 4: Pipes, Sideswipe, Mirage, repack
Voyager class
Wave 1: Hot Rod, Cyclonus
Wave 2: Scourge, Inferno
Wave 3: Starscream, repack
Wave 4: Wreck-Gar, repack
Leader class
Wave 1: Optimus Prime, Grimlock
Wave 2: Ultra Magnus, repack
Wave 3: Galvatron, repack
Last edited by
Sabrblade on Mon Aug 08, 2022 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"Shadowman wrote:This is Sabrblade we're talking about. His ability to store trivial information about TV shows is downright superhuman.
Caelus wrote:My wife pointed out something interesting about the prehistoric Predacons. I said that everyone was complaining because transforming for them mostly consisted of them just standing up-right. She essentially said, 'So? That's what our ancestors did.'
