New Images of Transformers Masterpiece MP-22 Ultra Magnus

Still not pleased that the cab is attached to the trailer; as amazing as it looks transformed. It doesn't feel accurate because it's not a separate transformer and armor set.

The Grim King wrote:Still not pleased that the cab is attached to the trailer; as amazing as it looks transformed. It doesn't feel accurate because it's not a separate transformer and armor set.

That's because they went for cartoon-accuracy. Ultra Magnus never appeared in his white Prime-looking robot mode despite the toy having one. (considering Prime was killed off, a good decision). The cab does separate, but that's it.

And I do hope the red bumper isn't final. At least cover it in chrome if they can't change the plastic color layout.

I love the overall look of the figure and the way it transforms. I just cannot get over the way he looks from behind though. He is too much of a rectangle/chunky when viewed from the back.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

The Grim King wrote:Still not pleased that the cab is attached to the trailer; as amazing as it looks transformed. It doesn't feel accurate because it's not a separate transformer and armor set.

That's because they went for cartoon-accuracy. Ultra Magnus never appeared in his white Prime-looking robot mode despite the toy having one. (considering Prime was killed off, a good decision). The cab does separate, but that's it.

And I do hope the red bumper isn't final. At least cover it in chrome if they can't change the plastic color layout.

The red bumper is final because, as you said, they went for cartoon-accuracy. I don't much care for it either, but it is what it is.

I can't stand the colors that they used for the lower legs. Personally, I would have preferred a solid blue. But any solid color would have satisfied me. The alt mode trailer bed looks like a hodge-podge of colors right now.

100.01% satisfied with the end result. I'm in love with everything about this, got to remember with what they had to work with to make this as animation accurate as possible. And yes, that means the red bumper, I have no problem with that. Cannot wait for this, Wheeljack, and Bumblebee!

I am really confused now.

First they showed him with blue lower inner legs.

Then they showed them being red.

Now they are showing him in these pictures with both and one version that seems to have blue paint covering red plastic.

So what will it be Takara? I really hope it will be blue plastic, the red looks terrible.

DMSL wrote:I am really confused now.

First they showed him with blue lower inner legs.

When did they do that? All of the earliest colored pics of MP Ultra Magnus showed him with red lower inner legs. It's only now that we see him with blue ones.

DMSL wrote:I am really confused now.

First they showed him with blue lower inner legs.

Then they showed them being red.

Now they are showing him in these pictures with both and one version that seems to have blue paint covering red plastic.

So what will it be Takara? I really hope it will be blue plastic, the red looks terrible.

I'm guessing, and this is only a guess, that we'll see red plastic lower legs with blue paint in order to give us blue lower legs in bot mode and a red surface to the lower car carrier section of the trailer. This would most closely match the animation in each mode, if I remember correctly...

FracturedKoi wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

The Grim King wrote:Still not pleased that the cab is attached to the trailer; as amazing as it looks transformed. It doesn't feel accurate because it's not a separate transformer and armor set.

That's because they went for cartoon-accuracy. Ultra Magnus never appeared in his white Prime-looking robot mode despite the toy having one. (considering Prime was killed off, a good decision). The cab does separate, but that's it.

And I do hope the red bumper isn't final. At least cover it in chrome if they can't change the plastic color layout.

The red bumper is final because, as you said, they went for cartoon-accuracy. I don't much care for it either, but it is what it is.

I think after all these years of seeing the toy bumpers, i can understand the moments when the cartoon accurate red is presented.

He looks awesome, and I'm impressed they managed to make it so cartoon-accurate (with no partsforming to boot!) but I'm worried he's gonna be a bit of a brick. I don't think those shoulders have any outward motion.

EDIT: Disregard that, just seen the other photos. Derp.

Delta Magnus wrote:He looks awesome, and I'm impressed they managed to make it so cartoon-accurate (with no partsforming to boot!) but I'm worried he's gonna be a bit of a brick. I don't think those shoulders have any outward motion.

I'm not sure I can really blame them though, considering the totally impractical source material (which if they had diverged from in any way, even for practicality's sake, would have gotten them ripped apart by GEEWUNNERS).

I'm not what you would call a GEEWUNNER, but you seem to have a lot of derision for them.

I would ask you to stop using the term, which, when you use it, seems more of a derogatory slur than anything else. It's getting old.

Man, f**k this toy.

Cartoon accuracy blending with toy accuracy has always been the MO for the MP line, but usually it's handled better than this. Show accuracy be damned, a so-called Masterpiece should definitely have worked in a transforming cab, because it's something very integral to Ultra Magnus. They never show it in the cartoon, but we all know it's there. Instead they give it a nod with a face underneath his face that looks like a robot abortion, and is the wrong colours to boot. As a toy, I think it's very well done, the robot mode looks fantastic, the vehicle mode looks appropriate, but as a Masterpiece, I feel it falls short of the mark.

Samsonator wrote:robot abortion

yeah the red on the cab took me back a bit cos usually it's parts that are chrome. Took me a while to realise it was cos that's how he appeared on the show, however his bumper was a bit shorter so it was less obvious i guess.

really like him, but after sideswipe and smokescreen being so great, and with wheeljack also looking awesome, this one has some niggles. I can live with the cab not separating, tho it would've been awesome... think the butt flap is what bothers me the most, maybe if they could've separated it into 2 or have it fold in

anyways after generations metroplex, guess he'll be the most expensive piece in my collection. Bastard.

Samsonator wrote:Show accuracy be damned, a so-called Masterpiece should definitely have worked in a transforming cab, because it's something very integral to Ultra Magnus. They never show it in the cartoon, but we all know it's there.

OBJECTION!

I was not a child of the 80's, so I did not grow up watching G1 in the era that its toyline was out. Therefore, the way I watched the cartoon was through VHS tapes and DVDs that I bought from stores. And when I watched the cartoon and saw Ultra Magnus, I never, NEVER, imagined him having a smaller white Optimus Prime inside of him because, back then, I had never owned nor even seen pictures of a G1 Ultra Magnus toy. The guy on the show went from car carrier to red/white/blue robot and that's all I ever took him for. It wouldn't be until 2003 when Hasbro decided to reissue G1 Optimus, G1 Ultra Magnus, and G1 Hot Rod (renamed "Rodimus Major") at Toys "R" Us stores that I got to experience a G1 Ultra Magnus toy and learned about his white Optimus Prime inner robot.

And when I did, I was GLAD the cartoon omitted it and went for his Super Robot mode as his standard robot mode, because back then I was of the mindset that no one who isn't Optimus Prime should ever look just like Optimus Prime (except for evil clones like RiD Scourge and Nemesis Prime), as I believed Optimus Prime ought to be so special a character that his look must be one of a kind. Lesser characters can have ordinary separate-character redecos, but not Optimus, as I believed back then.

I wasn't a comic book reader back then either, so I didn't know about that one issue of Dreamwave's G1 comic that had Magnus get naked, but even still, that was just one comic issue out of many more.

These days, I know better from when I was younger, but my point still stands that not "everyone" believed (or even still believes) in Ultra Magnus having an Optimus Prime inner robot inside his body in the cartoon when going by just the cartoon alone.

Sabrblade wrote:

Samsonator wrote:Show accuracy be damned, a so-called Masterpiece should definitely have worked in a transforming cab, because it's something very integral to Ultra Magnus. They never show it in the cartoon, but we all know it's there.

OBJECTION!

I was not a child of the 80's, so I did not grow up watching G1 in the era that its toyline was out. Therefore, the way I watched the cartoon was through VHS tapes and DVDs that I bought from stores. And when I watched the cartoon and saw Ultra Magnus, I never, NEVER, imagined him having a smaller white Optimus Prime inside of him because, back then, I had never owned nor even seen pictures of a G1 Ultra Magnus toy. The guy on the show went from car carrier to red/white/blue robot and that's all I ever took him for. It wouldn't be until 2003 when Hasbro decided to reissue G1 Optimus, G1 Ultra Magnus, and G1 Hot Rod (renamed "Rodimus Major") at Toys "R" Us stores that I got to experience a G1 Ultra Magnus toy and learned about his white Optimus Prime inner robot.

And when I did, I was GLAD the cartoon omitted it and went for his Super Robot mode as his standard robot mode, because back then I was of the mindset that no one who isn't Optimus Prime should ever look just like Optimus Prime (except for evil clones like RiD Scourge and Nemesis Prime), as I believed Optimus Prime ought to be so special a character that his look must be one of a kind. Lesser characters can have ordinary separate-character redecos, but not Optimus, as I believed back then.

I wasn't a comic book reader back then either, so I didn't know about that one issue of Dreamwave's G1 comic that had Magnus get naked, but even still, that was just one comic issue out of many more.

These days, I know better from when I was younger, but my point still stands that not "everyone" believed (or even still believes) in Ultra Magnus having an Optimus Prime inner robot inside his body in the cartoon when going by just the cartoon alone.

OK... your personal feelings and path of discovery are valid, but that doesn't mitigate the fact that the G1 toy was what it was, nor that the MP line is looking to balance cartoon accuracy & G1 toy/vehicular accuracy.

An inner bot would have been appreciated. It is a legacy of Magnus that would not have made it into the official fiction if it were not inspired by G1 in some fashion, and it would have been nice to see the MP reflect this beyond the half-face under the real face.

This is not to say that MP-22 isn't looking great. What I'm trying to say, in short, is that your ignorance of the toy source material and personal passion for a unique Prime mold are not compelling reasons for the official MP team to neglect the inner robot.

Forgot to mention that I also grew out of the "Optimus should be unique" mindset I had back then.

But still, my point was in response to the claim of everyone believing Magnus to have an inner robot inside his body in the cartoon, when that may be true for the toy and non-cartoon fiction, but since the cartoon never presented it as such, we can't say for 100% certainty that Cartoon Ultra Magnus does really have a white Optimus inside himself.

Sabrblade wrote:Forgot to mention that I also grew out of the "Optimus should be unique" mindset I had back then.

But still, my point was in response to the claim of everyone believing Magnus to have an inner robot inside his body in the cartoon, when that may be true for the toy and non-cartoon fiction, but since the cartoon never presented it as such, we can't say for 100% certainty that Cartoon Ultra Magnus does really have a white Optimus inside himself.

Granted... but the flip side is there's no way to no cartoon Magnus didn't have an inner robot. It's 50/50, and that's fine. But we do know with 100% certainty that the toy did.

Expected Value for G1 Magnus having an inner robot = 1.5/2

megatronus wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Forgot to mention that I also grew out of the "Optimus should be unique" mindset I had back then.

But still, my point was in response to the claim of everyone believing Magnus to have an inner robot inside his body in the cartoon, when that may be true for the toy and non-cartoon fiction, but since the cartoon never presented it as such, we can't say for 100% certainty that Cartoon Ultra Magnus does really have a white Optimus inside himself.

Granted... but the flip side is there's no way to no cartoon Magnus didn't have an inner robot. It's 50/50, and that's fine. But we do know with 100% certainty that the toy did.

Expected Value for G1 Magnus having an inner robot = 1.5/2

I think you both have valid points. One more thing I would add was that the G1 cartoons were, in essence, 30-minute toy commercials. They were meant to get us kids (I was one of those children of the 80s) to beg our parents to buy us these really cool looking transforming toys. (Also of note, I did have Ultra Magnus as a kid in the 80s. So that colors my opinion greatly.) I certainly always assumed that Magnus had the inner white robot. Even kids who didn't have the toy would have seen the commercials. I seem to remember the inner robot being a part of those commercials...



That said, I would also take issue with Samsonator's wording and tone. Indeed, not everybody thought that way, perhaps even in the 80s. I do think it would have been a popular opinion for those who grew up in the 80s. Hence why some are disappointed in the end results here.

Personally, I think I like it fine the way it turned out. I would also have been okay with a white inner prime, though...