Twincast / Podcast Episode #125 "Wrinkles"
Wednesday, September 16th, 2015 12:52PM CDT
Categories: Site News, Digital Media News, PodcastPosted by: megatronus Views: 52,277
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Episode #125 "Wrinkles" is available directly and in our RSS Feed, and should appear on iTunes and Stitcher Radio within 24 to 48 hours of when you see this news post.
We start with a brief note on the location for Botcon 2016. Is the crew going? As we debate travel plans, drives, flights, and general availability, let us know: what should the theme and toys for this year's official Transformers Convention be?
Bourbon country!
The Club's Subscription Service 4.0 sign up period has come and gone, and Thunder Mayhem is upon us. That's right, the Mayhem Attack Squad's combined mode has been revealed. Is this what we wanted, or does a twinge of 'what could have been' haunt us? Listen and find out.
All hail the Thunderking!
Speaking of the Subscription Service, 3.0 Tarantulus has arrived, to the delight of the Twincast crew - check out our very own Seibertron.com galleries. This is a fun little figure, but is he a good fit? Where does he go? As always, we've got some opinions on that.
It's gonna be clamp this, clamp that. Bada-climp, bada-clamp!
Comic time: More Than Meets the Eye #44 is out about town, and we really, really liked it... which you may have suspected from ScottyP's Seibertron.com Review. This one's symbolic, folks, so tune in as we debate the merits of Megatron, guilt, and intentions. Don't miss it.
Everyone knows Anakin Skywalker is the Chose One. Pshhhh.
Starting in February 2016, it's the Year of the Monkey according to the Chinese Zodiac, and that means another year of 'Year Of' exclusives. This time, it's Air Attack Optimus Primal done up in G1 Optimus Prime colors. We have some strong thoughts on this one. Rants, ho!
Trukk not Munky
Toy-talk-minor: Starscream-Super-Mode is the latest reveal in Takara's Legends line. Plus, prototypes of Combiners Wars Brawl and Onslaught have been leaked... someone's been naughty. These are pretty cool developments, but we're more excited for the final products.
Thundercracker, is that you?
We finish up the Twincast with some bragging rights. What did everyone get since the last recording? ScottyP gets excited. Really excited.
This episode, there is a clear winner.
Don't forget, the show only gets better if you tell us how. Drop us a review on iTunes and be sure to tell us what you love, what you hate, and what you want to hear!
Not on the show to give your take? Probably not, so don't forget to keep the discussion going on the Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums by simply replying to this post!
Got a question for the Twincast? We take all of them, we just don't take them all seriously! Leave a question in the Ask the Twincast thread and, if it makes the cut, it may get read and answered on the show.
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Posted by megatronus on September 16th, 2015 @ 10:19pm CDT
Posted by ScottyP on September 17th, 2015 @ 1:30pm CDT
I'm still surprised it went down the way it did. I'll just take it as my consolation prize for the tens of thousands of dollars I've spent on Transformers in the past decade.megatronus wrote:Congrats on the big win, Scotty!
Posted by lonrac on September 17th, 2015 @ 1:33pm CDT
oh, and anybody see Jon, in the nostalgia critic 'smurfs'.
....I thought he was just joking about the jon.......
another great podcast
Posted by RodimusConvoy13 on September 17th, 2015 @ 1:54pm CDT
I was a bit confused on your issue with CW Ultra Magnus. What part was incorrect?
man, I miss being on the show. I hope to get on the next one.
Posted by alexison on September 17th, 2015 @ 3:16pm CDT
Posted by megatronus on September 17th, 2015 @ 6:58pm CDT
RodimusConvoy13 wrote:Scotty,
I was a bit confused on your issue with CW Ultra Magnus. What part was incorrect?
man, I miss being on the show. I hope to get on the next one.
If you come on next time, I'll make you a Rodimus Badge!
Doctor McGrath wrote:Scotty, to answer your question about the combined mode of the sub service, no it didn't do anything for me. I was curious to see what they did with the combined head but I bought the service before the reveal. Mine probably won't ever be combined.
Same here. Combining is a nice to have, not a must have feature. Besides, keeping him in combined mode defeats the purpose of having Triggercons!
Posted by william-james88 on September 17th, 2015 @ 9:13pm CDT
Also, question for you guys. When you talked about Takara's upcoming deco for the armada starscream mold, I realized that the club had to get an ok for the use of characters or decos. I guess it is just mold specific right, rather than character specific? Because Hasbro already had a combining Impactor and the Club is still releasing theirs under a different mold.
Posted by ScottyP on September 17th, 2015 @ 9:41pm CDT
If you replace "red" with "blue" in what I said, does that help? Because I'm pretty sure I said "red" and that was not correct.RodimusConvoy13 wrote:Scotty,
I was a bit confused on your issue with CW Ultra Magnus. What part was incorrect?
man, I miss being on the show. I hope to get on the next one.
Entire concept requires approval, but it usually comes down to character best I can tell. Hasbro seems to not care if it was done in the past, but will block something if they're planning on releasing it. In this case the club may have passed on Super Mode Starscream and gone with Skywarp/Ramjet knowing that Takara was going to put it out, so as to increase the value message of next year's membership. New release Takara import deluxes these days are, at most on a bad day, the same cost as a TFCC membership.william-james88 wrote:Also, question for you guys. When you talked about Takara's upcoming deco for the armada starscream mold, I realized that the club had to get an ok for the use of characters or decos. I guess it is just mold specific right, rather than character specific? Because Hasbro already had a combining Impactor and the Club is still releasing theirs under a different mold.
This is all my layman's knowledge based on stuff said over the years through official outlets, but really I'd just go start a thread in the club forums and see what insight JW can provide
Posted by Flux Convoy on September 18th, 2015 @ 3:31pm CDT
Posted by megatronus on September 19th, 2015 @ 12:21am CDT
Flux Convoy wrote:I have Redwing already. He looks like this. http://www.seibertron.com/transformers- ... am/3250/1/
Weird coincidence - I just decided I wanted TG33 a couple days ago. I'm on the hunt for a good price, I guess.
Posted by Convoy on September 20th, 2015 @ 12:52am CDT
YOTM needed to be a hair covered Prime truck. Right?
Jon and his coin remind me of my MP-BB. I didn't expect, pay for, or want the battle mask. But it's there. (my box was damaged in shipping so it feels even. I'd still rather have a pristine box over the third mask.)
"Battle scars" are what make my Transformers mine! "No matter the cost!"
Nice score, Scotty. I'm still willing to pay, even extra with shipping over domestic, (and wait) for a few joints and a visor gimmick the TakTom Devy sports. But how can you beat $0.00 on a titan class TF? How, I ask you! How?
Posted by ScottyP on September 20th, 2015 @ 9:37am CDT
The thought of a Hairy Bus Transformer is kind of simultaneously terrifying and awesome.Convoy wrote:YOTM needed to be a hair covered Prime truck. Right?
Posted by Flashwave on September 23rd, 2015 @ 9:35am CDT
Personally, while I liked the idea of Bludheon's pretender head for completion'ssake, it felt like a cheat for Bludgeon's combined mode to be Bludgeon. We know DW Bludgeon to be a bit of a worshipper, and Thunderwing combined in IDW (Yes, I am mixing my continuities...deal with it. The club does. ) with his own shell, and if I remember right, IDW Bludgeon was a bit more passionate about Ressurecting his boss than might be healthy.
Plus, in my own headcanon, I'm using Optimus Maximus as a Manifestation of the Matrix the way it did Thunderwing. Maybe less sinister, if I ever put pen to paper, but with less regard for casualties than Prime would like because of bleed-through from the past Matrixbearers. So for me, having the Matrix manifestation fighting off a Thunderwing manifestation is too awesome. But thts me.
Its too bad the retool did away with the Groove capability, cause now I would love a Groove repaint as Iguanus to go with Bludgeon.
Posted by Flashwave on September 23rd, 2015 @ 1:21pm CDT
The Chinese prices are coming up because Quality of Living rates are coming up from atrocious across the board. We knew this was going to happen ten years ago. It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.
Posted by william-james88 on September 23rd, 2015 @ 1:35pm CDT
Flashwave wrote:It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.
Yeah, back when I was in school, we were taught that the economy leaders were the States, UK and japan. That has definitely changed. Is it now US, China and Germany?
Posted by Flashwave on September 23rd, 2015 @ 11:25pm CDT
william-james88 wrote:Flashwave wrote:It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.
Yeah, back when I was in school, we were taught that the economy leaders were the States, UK and japan. That has definitely changed. Is it now US, China and Germany?
Not sure, Iremember it as you do. Has Germany become that much of a dominant force again?
Posted by Flashwave on September 23rd, 2015 @ 11:27pm CDT
william-james88 wrote:Flashwave wrote:It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.
Yeah, back when I was in school, we were taught that the economy leaders were the States, UK and japan. That has definitely changed. Is it now US, China and Germany?
Not sure, Iremember it as you do. Has Germany become that much of a dominant force again?
Posted by william-james88 on September 23rd, 2015 @ 11:30pm CDT
Flashwave wrote:william-james88 wrote:Flashwave wrote:It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.
Yeah, back when I was in school, we were taught that the economy leaders were the States, UK and japan. That has definitely changed. Is it now US, China and Germany?
Not sure, Iremember it as you do. Has Germany become that much of a dominant force again?
Kinda, UK took a slight dip, here are the latest figures in Millions US:
1 United States 17,418,925
2 China 10,380,380
3 Japan 4,616,335
4 Germany 3,859,547
5 United Kingdom 2,945,146
Posted by ScottyP on September 24th, 2015 @ 8:36am CDT
Funny you mention this, I literally just read a really interesting blog post touching on this topic ten minutes ago. It's on a Macross blog but much of it certainly applies to Tranformers as well. Worth a read, you can find it here: http://www.macrossworld.com/why-are-arc ... e-by-mr-k/Flashwave wrote:Commentary on the Factories:
The Chinese prices are coming up because Quality of Living rates are coming up from atrocious across the board. We knew this was going to happen ten years ago. It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.
Posted by william-james88 on September 24th, 2015 @ 8:57am CDT
ScottyP wrote:Funny you mention this, I literally just read a really interesting blog post touching on this topic ten minutes ago. It's on a Macross blog but much of it certainly applies to Tranformers as well. Worth a read, you can find it here: http://www.macrossworld.com/why-are-arc ... e-by-mr-k/Flashwave wrote:Commentary on the Factories:
The Chinese prices are coming up because Quality of Living rates are coming up from atrocious across the board. We knew this was going to happen ten years ago. It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.
Thats an amazing article! Now I udnerstand why TFs are so much cheaper than the macross figures, less work is done on each and less material is wasted. The sprue marks / mold flash on my MP 10 is the reason it cost me 200 and not 300, for instance. That also explains why Hasbro's starscream is so much cheper than Takara's, which had no mold flash.
Posted by ScottyP on September 24th, 2015 @ 9:24am CDT
The content in there on sprue marks was pretty telling I thought. It's work on a lot of Gunpla to get them out smoothly, but much worse on Transformers. The Arms Micron kits, and the one custom class Botcon figure I didn't get preassembled, were all a total pain to get the sprue mark off. Probably because Bandai's gates are made with the intention that someone is going to take serious time with it, whereas the ones on the TF molds I've mentioned are just about right up on the part so they can be popped off and assembled quickly.william-james88 wrote:Thats an amazing article! Now I udnerstand why TFs are so much cheaper than the macross figures, less work is done on each and less material is wasted. The sprue marks / mold flash on my MP 10 is the reason it cost me 200 and not 300, for instance. That also explains why Hasbro's starscream is so much cheper than Takara's, which had no mold flash.
Maybe the factories should just invest in a bunch of God Hands Though those are already a pain in the butt enough to catch in stock! One of these days...
Posted by william-james88 on September 24th, 2015 @ 10:09am CDT
Posted by chuckdawg1999 on September 29th, 2015 @ 12:22am CDT