Transformers: Energon & Beyond

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10-31-2010
figrin bran

I also picked up Terradive today.

Tomahawk was okay in alt mode and mediocre in bot mode. Hopefully Terradive will be better.
11-01-2010
Lord Malakite

Don't know any of you guys care about restaurant toys when it comes to Transformers, but just a heads up in case you do. The next McDonalds Happy Meal promo is Hello Kitty (for girls) and Transformers (for boys). They just started a Mega Mind Happy Meal promo on Friday (October 29th) and there are 8 of those toys, so you probably got about 4 weeks till the Transformers promo starts.
11-04-2010
JediTricks

Man, Hasbro's release schedule with TF right now is killing momentum for my interest! Anybody else in that boat?

Quote:

Originally Posted by El Chuxter

I learned something rather interesting, and by accident, today.

First, The Hub appears to be skipping episodes and possibly airing them out of order (tough to tell, as my guide doesn't show any info beyond next Wednesday at the moment). I noticed Skyfire just sort of shows up in today's ep ("The Ultimate Doom," Pt. 2), and everyone's sort of, "Yo, hey, Skyfire, what's up, bro?" :D Only Skyfire was "dead" in "Fire in the Sky," which aired last Wednesday, IIRC. I vaguely remembered Sideswipe digging him out of the ice from another episode when I was a kid. Sure enough, a quick search revealed there were a few episodes missing from Hub's lineup.

Second, I discovered that the Kid Rhino DVDs were shoddy. Really shoddy. The masters were in poor shape, and Rhino attempted to reconstruct them using unreleased test animation and hasty fixes. As a result, there are an insane amount of errors, which weren't in the originals: missing blast effects, missing facial features, reversed or flipped scenes, wrong sound effects, and more miscolorations than the original. Shout Factory apparently compared the Kid Rhino "restorations" to tapes of the originals and fixed most of these errors. (Hmm, maybe I should buy those after all, and I'm guessing the same applies to GIJoe.)

I checked on two errors that stood out in "SOS Dinobots" from Thursday. (I don't know why errors from one of last week's eps stood out more than those from today, but it probably relates to the debut of Grimlock.) First, I'd noticed that the blasts from the Dinobot's mouths were gone when they destroyed the rubble; I'd figured last week that I just mis-remembered the scene. Also, the Autobots drive up to the dam as cars, and are seen individually transforming to robot mode... only Bluestreak was reversed, so he drove up as a car, transformed from a robot to a car, and was immediately seen as a robot in a crowd shot.

Both of these errors only appear in the Kid Rhino releases. And on the Hub episodes. Which means that The Hub is airing the inferior Kid Rhino versions.

Which begs the question: If Hasbro owns the Transformers, and shares ownership of The Hub, why would they air a flawed version of the show in an incorrect (or partial) order that makes it appear there are continuity errors that don't actually exist?

I can only guess the Kid Rhino ones are flawed because that's the materials they were given, and the original show probably had those flaws when they set it up to sell to reruns - it was done hastily and sloppily, I'd guess.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darth Metalmute

What company made the complete box set edition?

Shout Factory.

Quote:

Originally Posted by El Chuxter

The Rhini DVDs were made several years ago and have been OOP for a while. They might've had a complete box, but the only one I'm sure of is the Shout Factory version.

Tycho, you won't see the Rhino ones in the stores anymore. They're long gone.

Rhino never finished the series, I believe, so they couldn't have done a full series boxed set.
11-04-2010
El Chuxter

Rhino did finish Transformers. I've got the entire show on their DVD. It was GIJoe they didn't finish (and Shout Factory did the episode breakdown per set differently, meaning one who got everything that was released on Rhino can't just buy the missing seasons and partial season).
11-05-2010
JediTricks

My mistake.

So, it appears Rhino had to remaster G1 because the originals had degraded to unusability, and they were pretty bad about it, and that's why the original originals aren't on The Hub. As for why the Shout Factory ones aren't, my guess is only that SF put a lot of money into re-remastering it to not suck, and has exclusivity for a window.

TFW2k5 has put up photos of the PCC Dinobots combiner...
http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-...images-170858/

Honestly, I was expecting better, this looks pretty weak. There are dinos with molded limbs right to the body, like some sort of happy meal toy.
11-05-2010
Tycho

I found a Scout Class military vehicle at Wal-Mart named something like HeavyFire or something like that.

It is some kind of Humvee with a mine-sweeper guard on the front end (not that new Missile Carrier guy).

I swear, Hasbro's Deluxe and Scout Class Military vehicles are getting better and better!!!

Unfortunately, I didn't buy this one, but I think I will go back and rectify that situation in the near future.

All my military vehicles are used as just that in my display of the United States' ground and air forces (and Navy actually w. SeaSpray) fighting the Ultimate Class Devastator.

It's my favorite Transformers past-time to spend surrounding Devastator with assualt craft - kind of like how the Army takes on Godzilla!

You know - I could substitute Masterpiece Grimlock in for Devastator and ponder the question "What if instead of an iguana, Godzilla was a Transformer?"

Nevermind. But this was the first time I'd seen this new guy (and I think he's an Autobot). But he was very, very cool.

While Scout Class rules for its original designs and creative transformations, it still needs the Autobot cars (BumbleBee, SideSwipe, Hot Rod (Ferrari from DOTM), Wheeljack (Mercedes from DOTM), Mudflap, Skids, Jolt, and the Wreckers (from DOTM). Jazz is also on the available list, as are Decepticons Barricade and Sideways.

But look at other Scout greats like Insecticon, Sunspot, Depthcharge, that bi-plane that came out in the early ROTF wave, Hubcap, Breacher...I could go on!
11-05-2010
JediTricks

Sounds like you saw wave 4's Firetrap, a repaint of Scattorshot (who wasn't all that great). That case has more repaints, and 1 new figure: Windcharger, a red Mustang.

One thing that makes the Scout class work is that the designers aren't limited by expectations of existing designs - except in the case of Scalpel (and perhaps Insecticon). So they can make a better toy by not having it be a character designed to be in the movie, but something they made up to work at that scale.
11-07-2010
Tycho

1 Attachment(s)

This is the new Mercedes (parked outside my Denny's one night).

It's rumored to being cast as Wheeljack in DOTM.

I think it's a sweet car.

Wheeljack was a white Lotus with red and green racing decales in G1.

However, I'm not at all opposed to this car being used for him in DOTM.

There is a white Wrecker with red and green racing decales however. Can someone ask Michael Bay what is up with that?
11-07-2010
JediTricks

Picked up Tomahawk last night at Target W.LA for $9. I like this figure, it's not without faults but it has a decent transformation, it makes a decent gerwalk mode, it has classic styling for the upper body. The missile launchers actually drag it down a little IMO, they're a bit too big, fire a super boring missile, go off easily, and just don't look good anywhere. But you can straighten out the chicken legs to look more normal. There's just the right balance of detail and function to make it keen, for example the sensor pod under the nose turns, that's a nice little detail. I kinda like the lanky design of the figure, the arms don't go well with it - and oddly, they didn't need to be this thick, that was a design choice - but overall it's a decent-looking bot and vehicle. Not great, but not bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tycho

This is the new Mercedes (parked outside my Denny's one night).

It's rumored to being cast as Wheeljack in DOTM.

I think it's a sweet car.

Wheeljack was a white Lotus with red and green racing decales in G1.

However, I'm not at all opposed to this car being used for him in DOTM.

There is a white Wrecker with red and green racing decales however. Can someone ask Michael Bay what is up with that?

Wheeljack was not a Lotus, it was a Lancia Stratos Turbo. It even says "Lancia" right on the toy. And it's a specific one, no less:
Toy - http://www.seibertron.com/toys/galle...size=0&start=0
Real - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:La...atos_Turbo.jpg

In any case, Wheeljack should certainly not be a Mercedes SLK, it's not exotic in the right way and it's not a racer, it's pretty heavy for its size and overly expensive for its engine. Wheeljack should be a slick-looking Rally car, something raked back and sporty, or maybe even a Rally truck, some of those are raked and sporty AND they're bigger so they'll fit in (the Lancia that Wheeljack was is actually fairly small, the toy seemed like a bigger car in respect to its other Autobots).
11-11-2010
Bosskman

I got Masterpiece Grimlock at TRU last week. Best. Grimlock. Ever.