First look at Legacy United Sideburn

First-Aid wrote:Meh, not bad. but remember, this is not a direct interpretation of the character. This is a geewunned version of the character. WHile there isn't much of a difference, there are some subtleties the RiD1 series had that G1 didn't.

Maybe we will get lucky and this isn't a final product?

Wouldn't "Geewunifying" it mean a more realistic alt mode like we've seen in other reinterpretations of character, not whatever this is supposed to be?

At least two people have it in hand and we're about 3 months from release, this is the final figure.

I do like the head, it's a bit mature, but more importantly I like the effort with the four paint hits and clear yellow. He definitely stands out in bot mode. Though it's a little strange that he's going to be in the same wave as another blue sports car with clear yellow parts.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:

First-Aid wrote:Meh, not bad. but remember, this is not a direct interpretation of the character. This is a geewunned version of the character. WHile there isn't much of a difference, there are some subtleties the RiD1 series had that G1 didn't.

Maybe we will get lucky and this isn't a final product?

Wouldn't "Geewunifying" it mean a more realistic alt mode like we've seen in other reinterpretations of character, not whatever this is supposed to be?

At least two people have it in hand and we're about 3 months from release, this is the final figure.

I do like the head, it's a bit mature, but more importantly I like the effort with the four paint hits and clear yellow. He definitely stands out in bot mode. Though it's a little strange that he's going to be in the same wave as another blue sports car with clear yellow parts.

Emerje

Geewunning is creating more of a blocky and wide/sturdy look vs the smooth lines of the Dodge Viper he was to start. Examples: Prime Arcee, Bulkhead, Knockout, Animated Prowl. All of them lost a lot of the smooth,sleek lines and definition that defined them in favor of very generic bot/alt modes. The blocky front here is definitely more G1 than anything...or Hasbro may simply be lazy.

Looks good, I am glad I waited for him. I hope they do all three Autobot Brothers. I don't think we have had any molds that would make a great basis of either X-Brawn or Prowl though.

Emerje wrote:One of the worst kept secrets in the Legacy line has finally been revealed thanks to users ZetcaReturns and ZipperMan29x over on TFW2005. Even without leaked listings showing this figure was coming in wave 3 it was obvious to anyone that took a quick glance at Legacy Evolution Shadow Striker that she was a pre-tool of Robots in Disguise Universe Sideburn. Unfortunately, unlike the recent trend of making shared tools of two different characters within the same line stand out by changing things up a bit, the only tooling difference between Sideburn and Shadow Striker is the heads. If you were hoping for at least a more realistic looking front end to the car that's unfortunately not happening.

Sideburn will be coming in the summer alongside Cybertron Hot Shot, Infernac Nucleus, a refresh of Strongarm, Cybertron Vector Prime and Armada Galvatron.

He looks pretty good in robot mode. Much more solid than the OG.

His car mode still odd, but somehow works better in blue than in Shadow Striker purple.
Loving the head sculpt though.

Kind of sad they strayed so much from the Dodge Viper alt mode. That was one of the defining characteristics of Side Burn. His real life alt mode. But I guess licensing costs might have prevented this.

We get a single gun to stand in for his gun blade and his crossbow bumper gun. Odd choice but would have been o.k, if they included the exhaust missile.

I hope they do release him in his "Super" color scheme, just because red and flames are never wrong.

Should we assume the other 2 car bots are coming in the future?

Definitely pre-ordering this guy and Cybertron Hot Shot.

First-Aid wrote:

Emerje wrote:

First-Aid wrote:Meh, not bad. but remember, this is not a direct interpretation of the character. This is a geewunned version of the character. WHile there isn't much of a difference, there are some subtleties the RiD1 series had that G1 didn't.

Maybe we will get lucky and this isn't a final product?

Wouldn't "Geewunifying" it mean a more realistic alt mode like we've seen in other reinterpretations of character, not whatever this is supposed to be?

At least two people have it in hand and we're about 3 months from release, this is the final figure.

I do like the head, it's a bit mature, but more importantly I like the effort with the four paint hits and clear yellow. He definitely stands out in bot mode. Though it's a little strange that he's going to be in the same wave as another blue sports car with clear yellow parts.

Emerje

Geewunning is creating more of a blocky and wide/sturdy look vs the smooth lines of the Dodge Viper he was to start. Examples: Prime Arcee, Bulkhead, Knockout, Animated Prowl. All of them lost a lot of the smooth,sleek lines and definition that defined them in favor of very generic bot/alt modes. The blocky front here is definitely more G1 than anything...or Hasbro may simply be lazy.

The thing about this particular mold is that there was one thing more besides the head that was actually faithful to Cyberverse Shadow Striker: the altmode. This mold's altmode is pretty faithful to the shape and silhouette of Cyberverse Shadow Striker's pre-Frankensteined altmode, but with the addition of Side Burn's exposed engine and most of its angles smoothed out (but still visibly molded).




The Cyberverse designs were already pretty blocky and Geewun in aesthetic to begin with. And Side Burn (or rather, Speedbreaker) was originally conceived by Takara as a G1-universe character who already had a blocky robotic design with a very Diaclone Car Robot-styled vehicle mode.

So in this mold's case, it was less of an instance of "G1-ifying" like with the Prime and Animated designs, and more a case of Hasbro taking two different characters (Shadow Striker and Side Burn) from two different series (Cyberverse and RiD 2001) with two completely different designs, and forcibly trying to mash those two designs together, all because of Shadow Striker's original namesake (Universe Shadow Striker) having been made from the RiD 2001 Side Burn mold, despite the fact that Cyberverse Shadow Striker was a completely new design that looked absolutely nothing like Universe Shadow Striker.

This is like if the Legacy Bulkhead toy had instead tried to have a helicopter mode as a second altmode, and had been given a mustache on top of his very Prime-styled robot mode head, in order to cram in elements from Energon Bulkhead just because he was the first Bulkhead, despite Prime Bulkhead being nothing like him in design or character.

It's basically a return of the "Aligned" mentality that gave all us those mashed G1/Movieverse concept designs from a decade ago.

Ironhidensh wrote:I wonder if the Dodge Viper license is prohibitively expensive, or they just didn't feel it was worth it?

They never use vehicle licenses for Legacy figures. I guess its not part of the line's budget.

First-Aid wrote:Geewunning is creating more of a blocky and wide/sturdy look vs the smooth lines of the Dodge Viper he was to start. Examples: Prime Arcee, Bulkhead, Knockout, Animated Prowl. All of them lost a lot of the smooth,sleek lines and definition that defined them in favor of very generic bot/alt modes. The blocky front here is definitely more G1 than anything...or Hasbro may simply be lazy.

That really only applies to bot mode. Back in the day the goal was to have the most realistic car modes of the time, but the engineering wasn't all that great so we got our minimally articulated brick bots and the aesthetic stuck (thankfully not the articulation). That's GeeWuning, realistic alt modes and blocky bot modes. All of the examples you gave have pretty realistic alt modes compared to Side Burn who now has a plinth sticking off the front of the car. Hasbro is really good at making cars that look really close to what they're supposed to look like without actually being what they're supposed to be. Look at the cars we got during the War for Cybertron trilogy like the Earth Sideswipe mold or Sunstreaker or the Earth Bluestreak mold, they're familiar and recognizable because they hit the right notes when it comes to design cues, but Side Burn doesn't do that. His car mode is now Cybertronian being based on Shadow Striker and is pretty far detached from his original. This is like GeeWunning by way of Siege, no other figure in Legacy has been handled that way.

Emerje

Sideburn looks good in robot mode, but that Viper alt mode was pretty slick and this new version just falls short. It worked for Shadow Striker, but not for Sideburn. He should be a Viper, or as close to it as possible. Luckily the original is still readily available and reasonably priced.

Times have definitely changed…
There’s almost nothing in this mainline that’s appealing to me.

I think x brawn will be a retool of the Crankcase mold. With a removable car front that could reposition on the arm, they’re basically there. I’m still trying to sort out the third car brother tho