The Energon Pub

Magnimus wrote:
We collect toy robots that turn into things from video game controllers to spaceships.

How is that a more adult pursuit than what children enjoy?

Sorry, but I don't buy the whole presupposition that adult collectors are into Transformers because it appeals to some kind of more mature aesthetic. Transformers will always be rooted in a child-like desire.

True to an extent. It is rooted in a childlike desire. However, that desire is driven by nostalgia. Hence, when things are too different from the way we loved them as kids, we get turned off, which is essentially what is happening with animated.

As a kids show, it looked like they did a pretty good job. However, for those looking for the nostalgic element, it is lacking.

I guess it's easy for me to say, but my collecting has nothing to do with nostalgia. I'm 19, so I never had G1, but I had Beast Wars and Armada, and loved them both, but then I got to be a teenager, and then an adult, and I still love TF's, not because I remember loving them as a kid, but because I still find them as exciting and fun as I did when I was younger. Maybe I just have the mental age of a child, I don't know, but it seems to me that pure nostalgia and nothing but is kind of a shallow reason for collecting- there must still be some genuine fresh excitement to it; or am I misunderstanding completely? I hope I don't tread on too many poeple's toes with that comment, if I do I apologise in advance...

I dunno about all of you, but, I'm an "older collector", in my early 30's, and I want to collect the animated line because I have been watching it WITH my two sons, and they want the toys.

Face it, a larger majority of the "original" fans of TF, ie those of us who were kids when G1 came out, are the parents now of Animated's target demographic. Hasbro know's this too.

If one of my boys see's a couple of different toys in a store that he wants, and one of them happens to be a TF, then that's the one I will most likely buy for him.

If someone of my age group is out hunting for a toy for a friends kid's birthday or holiday present, they are going to see TF's and get them, because they liked it 20 years ago.

bran10 wrote:As a big bumblebee fan.... bumblebee in animated is annoying as hell.. at first I thought he was gonna be sarcastic, kinda like rattrap, but not really, and then he just got annoying.

i dunno, the we're all gonna die part was pretty good. i actually liked him better than i thought i would.
ratchet was kup, prowl was mirage, and op was hot rod.

My god.

This show is awesome. Episode 2 was pure refined win, even better than number 1!

When's number 3 up (in the order they're showing)?

i'm 26 and animated is the best thing since bw (in terms of tv series) in my eyes.

I don't base a show purely on it's animation. This show has everything else going for it. But I guess we are talking about toys. Yes, they look a bit more kiddie, but, they represent their tv counter parts, they look solid, easy and fun to transform. ALl comes down to personal taste.

Hasbro targettd 5-11 year olds, cool. Any adults they catch in their net is a bonus to them.

Take my money Hasbro, you didn't get it when Armada/Ride/Energon came out, now is your chance with ANimated!

Briggs wrote:i'm 26 and animated is the best thing since bw (in terms of tv series) in my eyes.

I don't base a show purely on it's animation. This show has everything else going for it. But I guess we are talking about toys. Yes, they look a bit more kiddie, but, they represent their tv counter parts, they look solid, easy and fun to transform. ALl comes down to personal taste.

Hasbro targettd 5-11 year olds, cool. Any adults they catch in their net is a bonus to them.

Take my money Hasbro, you didn't get it when Armada/Ride/Energon came out, now is your chance with ANimated!

^This.

And I would like to add that they need to either change the time slot or put it in heavier rotatation. Why cant they show this in the evening or at night? Do they really need to do 2 hour long chunks of Ed, EDD, & Eddie?

Starscreams bad comedy wrote:And I would like to add that they need to either change the time slot or put it in heavier rotatation. Why cant they show this in the evening or at night? Do they really need to do 2 hour long chunks of Ed, EDD, & Eddie?

I doubt they have enough completed episodes for that yet. It would be a sure way to wear out the welcome, playing the same 5 or 6 episodes over and over.

I'm also an older collector at 31 and I know without question I wont be buying any of the toys. Let me explain how my brain works in regards to transformers. If a transformer is made as a camera, airplane, video game controller, cell phone, etc. I'd like for it to be realistic enough that someone could pick it up, fiddle with it a bit and say "wait, this thing transforms?" when they find a stray fist or head partially hidden. Even at red lights when a car pulls next to me I have a habit of thinking how it would look transformed. These toys, or the photos of them just don't approach this kind of realism at all.

With that said, I do recognize that it is a good quality show for kids and were I 20 years younger, i'd more than likely be all over it. So yea, not a bad show plus show accurate toys are awesome but it's not providing me realistic figures so thanks, but no thanks.

Bumblethumper wrote:

zemper wrote:

The Cactus wrote:I know this is a discussion about the toys and not the cartoon, but I think it's worth mentioning that besides Beat Wars, Animated is the first American-made transformers cartoon;

nope. Beast Wars was technically made by Canucks.

last time I checked, Canada was on the continent of North America. No one said Beast Wars was made in the U.S.

Besides, TF:Animated isn't the first Transformers cartoon to be made in America.

That would be G1.

*Slaps head and makes 'DUH' noise*
What I should have said was that Animated is the first show to be made in America SINCE Beast Wars, not apart from it.

Boy is my face red...

I shouldn't have come to this thread it's just going to make me burst out in anger........oh well These toys are not appealing to kids just because their cartoon acurate you think it looks bad. The toys don't have those gay as hell gimmicks, have amazing poseability, and are stlyish. Classics don't have a lot of detail but I prefer them over the look of the movie toys because they look cartoony and stlyish. Hey who cares what I think. But I just ask why do people still hate these toys after all the good things we've heard about them, Is it how they look? Then paint them seez it's not like classics are any better than them

OptitronPrime wrote:But I just ask why do people still hate these toys after all the good things we've heard about them, Is it how they look? Then paint them seez it's not like classics are any better than them

I don’t care if I heard they were the best toys on earth, I still hate them.

The toys don't have those gay as hell gimmicks, have amazing poseability, and are stlyish.

Do you own one? If not, then how do you know they will be poseable, if you do own one then how come you haven’t taken pics to show to us?

I'm an old man (33) and I like the Animated series so far. The figs are hit and miss with me (mainly Decepticons being the hit, Autobots being the miss). I got into Transformers right in the beginning, '84 or whatever it was. Cartoon and toys. I collected up until the around '88 or so (right after the cartoon stopped airing). Then started back again with the Classics line after doing a double take in the toy aisle one day, then collected the Movie line, then a few of the Masterpiece's. I plan to pick up a few of these Animated figs also.

I gotta say, I'm 25 years young and I really enjoy the show.

Ok, I'm an older and here's my opinion: The Armada line was what drew me back in. While the models were chunky, they were what I recalled as a kid: vehicles that turned into robots, and there were two sizes...and NOW I could get three robots (minicons) at once! Then Energon came out. Did I get new 'bots? Nope, for the most part, it was new versions of the same characters. And then came Cybertron-same crap. How many Optimus Primes, Hot Rods, Megs, etc. do I need? I look at the animated series to be just another excuse for me to open my wallet. And on an asthetic level, I don't dig the way the plastic looks on the figures-I prefer the shiny plastic/paint of the previous lines. As a consumer, the cartoon and plot are secondary to how good the toy looks.

I made the choice to stop being a completist with Cybertron and the movie line. Now, I just get figures that are genuinely appealing. And at this point, it looks like I'm holding the wallet 'til Classics 2.0.

I have to say after seeing most of the dinobot episode I really can't wait to see these figures they are going on my must buy list no question asked.

I don't get Tf figures much anymore, they just seem to be a waste of money better spent on things that can be useful.

But if I do get any of the animated line. They're going right next to my JLU figures.

I'm 28. From what we've seen, Animated looks like a terrific reimagination of what Transformers toys are all about. The title of the original post is silly, since plenty of older collectors like the toys. The initial argument claims that Animated won't appeal to adults because they're targeted at kids. This is also silly, since extremely few Hasbro-released lines aren't; Alternators, Classics, and Titaniums targeted adults, and that's about it. Transformers have been toys mainly for kids since the beginning.

There are plenty of reasons people might not like Animated. I believe the people who've responded that the toys are just plain too different from the tastes they've developed on previous lines have given the reason that most protests boil down to, since the photos we've seen have shown inventive engineering, a great deal of articulation, and impressive cartoon accuracy. So, some adults will not like the different aesthetic. Others will, and the franchise continues--with renewed vigor, from the look of things.

The only thing that I do not like about the new series is the Animation. As a G1 fan, that really bothers me. Otherwise, I like the rest, and really enjoyed the Dinobots ep today. Didn't care for Grimlock's giant lower jaw, but the rest was cool.

It's the cartoon graphics that's really bad. The toys looks ok to me.

Auto Bot wrote:It's the cartoon graphics that's really bad.

Looks like an improvement on any recent transformers show to me. It could certainly stand look better, and I'd like that, but there's limits to what you can do on a tv budget.

How about CGI?

The cg looked really stiff on the Unicron trilogy... it doesn't seem to really lend itself much to character based stuff - on something like transformers they'd just get all caught up in the machinery.

Drawings tend to be simple and straight to the point. In the end I think it works out better for telling the story.

Nekoman wrote:

OptitronPrime wrote:But I just ask why do people still hate these toys after all the good things we've heard about them, Is it how they look? Then paint them seez it's not like classics are any better than them

I don’t care if I heard they were the best toys on earth, I still hate them.

The toys don't have those gay as hell gimmicks, have amazing poseability, and are stlyish.

Do you own one? If not, then how do you know they will be poseable, if you do own one then how come you haven’t taken pics to show to us?

No I don't but after hearing reviews of most the toys havinf amazing poseability I just took a wild guess. You can go ahead and hate what might be one of the best TF toylines and just keep playing with your all and mighty G1 toys but some of us are going to move on.

OptitronPrime wrote:You can go ahead and hate what might be one of the best TF toylines and just keep playing with your all and mighty G1 toys but some of us are going to move on.

Well mister assumptions, I’ll have you know that I only own one G1 toy that is a reissue.

shortround wrote:This line is designed to appeal to five year olds there are going to be some figures that will appeal to adult collectors. But hasbro knew that they were getting there asses handed to them by disney and bandai with the whole power rangers franchise which was aimed at a younger demographic then transformers have been. So they went back to the drawing board with the new animated series and designed it to appeal to the power rangers age range. But the good news is hasbro has thought of the older collector with new universe/classics 2.0 line of toys this oct 08. So save those pennies and if you need something to tied you over consider takara encore series of toys.

This is one of the dumbest things I've read in a while! Hasbro is getting their asses handed to them by Power Rangers and Disney!?!

Jeez, I can't recall EVER seeing a shortage of Zords, Buzz LightYear and Princess crap.

Yet Transformers can't even stay on the shelves, and this is not a new trend in no way shape or form!

As an older collector I can tell you why I (and I can only speak for myself) don't like Animated, so get ready...

First off, the art work is increadably and insultingly weak, this is the 12oz Mouse of the Transformers franchise thus far.

I can understand them wanting to take advantage of the Justuse League, Teen Titans, Ben 10 style, but this doesn't have a fraction of the effort in ways of quality that those shows did.

The poor quality of the imagry hurts this show tremendiously!

Second, it's yet another "New Begining". Transformers have begun, restarted, and began again umpteen million times over. We have all these starts that are a new take on whats already happened, so fine, we know the deal, what next already!?!

Hell, even the kids are wondering that!

And I'm gonna wrap up with this, Hasbro and the rest of the creative staff wish to rehash the origional Transformers with updated stories, and this is good.

However they are doing so with a blatent middle finger waving in our direction.

This isn't new, the movie did it too. We are constantly faced with "This is our NEW Transformers, and **** the fans who have been supporting this for 20+ years, cause they'll just have to deal with it... "

No other franchise treats their fanbase with such disrespect, Star Wars, Star Trek, Terminator, Macross, DragonBall, Evangelion, Naruto, StarGate, and on and on and on always make it a point of nodding to and respecting both continum, and both the old and new fanbase.

Transformers on the other hand is consistant in saying "hey, you've suported this since 1984, THANKS, and oh, UP YOURS!"

That right there is why this old fan is pretty turned off by animated. It's well written, but it's also intently scrapping the bottom of a barrel and smacking us with the sludgy splinters that are dug up.

power rangers, idiot.