Twincast / Podcast Episode #99 "Penultimate"

Va'al wrote:I think I keep repeating myself about collecting habits, but thought I'd chip in here again. As a non-Asian non-US collector, it's actually quite hard to get my hands on the majority of the regular releases, never mind the exclusives. For a while, I bought a lot more on impulse than I do now, and like Jon, my choosiness took hold a fair while ago. I bought four Dinobots and Evasion OP from the movie line, two Animated figures (and sold another four), and Generations Rhinox. That's about it since.. hum.. a while back.

However, I have moved to looking more into older figures (such as the Animated ones), scouting around for one-offs, or even considering non-TF figures - and may pick up MP Star Saber, unless my money goes into more comics artwork, TF and non.

MGrotusque wrote:I would buy the heck out of a G1 Unicron!! It is glorious.

Va'al wrote:Something about this episode felt a lot smoother, maybe something about the editing?

Sabrblade wrote:Hey Tigertrack, you mentioned wanting all the Marvel G1 character bios to be compiled into one big volume, right? Well, according to one of the earlier Transformers Classics volumes, all the bios are coming in Volume 8.

ScottyP wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Hey Tigertrack, you mentioned wanting all the Marvel G1 character bios to be compiled into one big volume, right? Well, according to one of the earlier Transformers Classics volumes, all the bios are coming in Volume 8.

That would get me to pick up that volume.

I still want a Marvel G1 Omnibus covering 1-80 US, Regen, and all of the UK stuff. I don't care if it'd be the size of four encyclopedias.

Bumblevivisector wrote:I've said it before, but the reveal of Cloud Roadhider is going to make me repeat it again and again: his original Energon toy is PERFECT! Has no one else played with it enough to see how easily his head pops on and off, meaning every other toy in your collection can take turns decapitating him? What more could you ask for in a toy of a character that irritating?

Though I will agree with A.t.o. that he did get the best character development in the Energon cartoon, by default, so that could be seen as a consequence of the show's flaws more than a plus for Ironhide. His stupid voice probably overshadows who he was in a lot of fans' minds as well, denying him a fair shake. I mean, I liked that they tried something original by making the young Autobot f@#k-up with a little leadership potential and a lot of self-doubt something other than a speedster, and he may have sorta' paved the way for Animated Bulkhead in that respect, but he'll always be the punching-bag of my toy collection.

Not that I'll probably ever buy any Cloud toys anyway, because like you discussed, none of them are quite awesome enough to justify those prices.

Clerihan wrote:Nice episode,

hope the title is not a shade of things to come

Clerihan wrote:Nice episode,

hope the title is not a shade of things to come

Convotron wrote:Late to join the discussion(I only listened to the episode today).

I think a large reason why HasTak hasn't done much as far as legal action against the unlicensed 3rd party product industry comes down to a matter of practicality.

Most of the U3P companies are based out of China where the legal system cares little about things like unlicensed products. Also, the U3P industry isn't a single entity. Not only are we looking at multiple entities, those entities often have a revolving door of development teams. There are some known U3P toy designers who work for more than one U3P company on a project to project basis. In a way, U3P companies are somewhat amorphous and not that easy to pin down.

So imagine HasTak taking on multiple companies, taking them to court, and trying to construct decisive cases against each company. After all that effort and time required just to take these companies to court, what is the chance that HasTak would win a single case?

Look at how rampant the KO industry is in China. If it was worthwhile to hunt down every company that produces unlicensed products, we wouldn't see such a booming unlicensed product industry in China because legitimate companies would take all these unlicensed operations to court and win.

ScottyP wrote:This makes a lot of sense. On the flip side, there's a pretty big Canadian presence as well, and that may have driven my thought a little bit.

Convotron wrote:

ScottyP wrote:This makes a lot of sense. On the flip side, there's a pretty big Canadian presence as well, and that may have driven my thought a little bit.

Would you clarify "Canadian presence"?

I understand that stores like Ages 3 and Up have close ties/dealings with certain 3rd party producers and I recall them having a C&D sent to them by Hasbro a few years ago over the sale of some 3rd party items.

TFCon does seem to have quite a welcome-with-open-arms attitude towards 3rd party items.

Aside from that, I'm very much in the dark about Canadian involvement in 3rd party product development.

ScottyP wrote:My understanding of it, which could be wrong (shouldn't have been so matter-of-fact in my previous post!), is that the cases you've mentioned are a "Where's there's smoke, there's fire" kind of thing. Orders from Fansproject Core come from A3U - same address. I've also heard that MMC is almost entirely a Canadian operation, except for the manufacturing.

Again, I should walk back any perception I may have given in my previous post that this is all factual. The only fact I have is the FPC/A3U connection, but I don't know the exact details, could just be a fulfillment arrangement. Everything else is hearsay and I should've mentioned this earlier