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Bumblebee might not have been "terribly cool," but no one exactly hated him, either. He might not have been top of the list for most people, but everyone I know counted him among their top ten or so. (Which sounds unimpressive, but there were, what, about a hundred Transformers by the time the original movie came out, right?)
For me, FE BB was almost as middling as RID Cliffjumper. I've not seen any of them with the FE deluxe re-release wave so it looks like he's not in the assortment. However, just wait until Beast Hunters hit stores, you'll see more BB pegwarmers.
BB was never meant to be cool, only relatable, he hung out with Spike and was people-sized and not a great fighter or an important guy, just friendly and brave in a scout sort of way. AND A ROBOT. But now kids are jaded and just being a transforming robot somehow isn't GOOD ENOUGH according to the powers that be. And now he's unbearable.
RID Cliffjumper is pretty middling, but I also think FE Cliffjumper is pretty middling and just more fiddly. I've seen Zombie Cliff in the FE re-releases once, it made me shake my head. FE BB was not on Hasbro's slide at SDCC when these were announced, it was Vehicon, Arcee, Zombie Cliff, and Starscream for deluxe, Bulk and OP for Voyager.
Though I own the current trilogy on DVD, I have not had time to indulge.
But ROTF comes on FX when I'm checking my Sons of Anarchy recording, and I had to watch. It was a great movie!
I like Bumblebee and am glad I have several different action figures of him. I can understand why he's such a popular character. The real-life Camaro was fun to drive as well, and I did so for over a month when I had (the cyber-gray one) for a rental (a yellow car might be Sam, but not me).
I think the toy market is saturated with Bumblebee though.
But alas, he is like BATMAN in that you cannot have a BATMAN line without a Batman figure on the shelf for newbies to start with.
Such was the case for Darth Vader in Star Wars, but Maul, Grievous, Jango Fett, Clones, Droids etc. made this a whole richer line, plus while we really have enough Obi-Wans out there, Anakin has sold for the most part and any LUKE they put out there now would probably do OK if there were more tie-ins to that character. (Luke Skywalker is a character from the old 70's-80's Star Wars movies for those who don't know - sarcasm.)
The Transformers (Michael Bay) movies now need to promote other AUTOBOT characters in addition to the ever present (and necessary) Optimus Prime. They did great with some of the enemy bots such as Megatron and Starscream (of course) though Mercedes Soundwave should have seen a larger variety of sizes and the matching quantities released in the U.S. But Sentinal Prime (with Leonard Nimoy's backing) turned out to be a great character. They could still market the firetruck some more or go that direction with TFs Prime or whatever incarnation they are on now. (I don't like constant reboots so I have chosen G1 cartoons from my childhood and Michael Bay as my alternate universes for this franchise though I might one day pop-off and buy the Prime DVD sets and War For Cybertron / Fall of Cybertron sound interesting though I have little idea of what they are about - mostly on purpose from my part.)
Having killed off Ironhide (shocking as that was), I think either Michael Bay should develop SideSwipe so he can reference his experiences since coming to earth and give a new perspective on that from his unique movie-verse background as some kind of gladiator 'bot (possibly a decorated slave in a "oil-leaking" fight circuit) or go to Hot Rod, Kup, Springer, Arcee (as a car) and Blurr with Ultra Magnus and maybe Blaster and Wreck-Gar.
In the movie-verse, Megatron should now be left DEAD. And Optimus didn't even leave a CPU that could be salvaged for Galvatron, much less anything but the most infintisemal scraps. He made sure Megatron was dead this time. I think Starscream and Sentinal had the same fate. There might have been something BumbleBee left of Soundwave that slinked away as BumbleBee's main concern was saving Sam and seemed to think he'd killed Soundwave but good, though he didn't have time to stop and shred him as Prime did to Megatron (I mean very little pieces for any of you who did not go see the 3rd Transformers movie who's story took place in Chicago).
Galvatron could be a whole new character and there are other "Prime characters" that could have a dispute with Optimus. (And if Galvatron, I want Cyclonus and Scourge!)
But meanwhile, the Autobots? Well what about Hound? Mirage - could even be Dino's military callsign to fix that. And should "Que" live, they could call him Wheeljack and have him correct himself to match G1 colors. But I think Soundwave killed Que but for good.
Meanwhile, Sunstreaker, Tracks, Smokescreen, Streetwise, Groove, and HotSpot are available. With Jetfire making the turn to Autobot, the goodguys might have a way to pick up Springer, as well as Blades or Powerglide - who might be retconned to originally have been military, alligned with the Decepticons.
Lot's of possibilities.
I really liked him. And I really hated the RID version. I dunno - I guess I shouldn't be surprised if I was in the minority, but the NYCC version (along with Arcee) was the first Prime figure I owned and I was really impressed with the engineering. But the RID version is regurgitated monkey feces, so it has unsurprisingly rotted on pegs.Quote:
Originally Posted by JediTricks
Here's an idea: since they reboot TF every three years or so, how about only keeping Megatron and Optimus Prime as constant major characters, and rotating the supporting cast. It's kind of a given that Starscream, Ratchet, Soundwave, and Bumblebee will always be around; as cool as those characters are, maybe it's time to give them a break.
I agree with that. Could help flesh out some other characteristics, help to tell different types of stories. Mirage - the guy who can slip into any room unnoticed... but what about when he WANTS to be seen? Ironhide - touch exterior, but gooey inside he hides from only the closest to him. Sideswipe - a staunch, well-trained soldier with a personal arsenal a marine would be jealous of, but does he love the fight a little too much? Sunstreaker - Sideswipes vain, but skilled brother (in explosives?), captured by the enemy - though he's eventually rescued, how does he respond to having been left physically maimed and scarred by the experience?
Whoa - I just geeked out really fast on that. Sorry.
Or how about putting Huffer, Brawn, and Gears in the main character slots for a bit? Those three get no love at all.
Or one of the many "blank slate" characters? Many of the best characters in the comic book versions had very little to go on from the tech specs, and didn't appear in the show at all: Thunderwing, Bludgeon, Nightbeat, Swerve, Tailgate, etc....
Come to think of it, a show that sort of takes something similar to the RG1 or IDW-verse approach, with the war being technically over but some really bad 'Cons not knowing or accepting this, could be incredibly interesting. How about a new show where the continuity's Megatron dies in the first episode of the five-part intro, and the big baddies are some versions of Thunderwing, Bludgeon, Banzai-Tron, and other "mystical" Decepticons, perhaps trying to revive The Fallen or Unicron or something?
The version of that which could work is if you have a couple of the standards and some new blood. It's how Bulkhead got to be such a popular character.
JT- thanks for the help. Between Burbank USPS misquoting the price to me and the fact that I overlooked "other than rolls", now this is much more reasonable- but of course the guy on RS isn't responding to PMs, so this may have been in vain.
Are you sure the Indy show won't hit LA some day? THe SW show hit OC last fall, so maybe in 3-5 years we'll have Indy... If I had gone to the show without my daughter, I would have gotten through it much faster- but I enjoyed spending extra time solving the puzzles with her and explaining all the movie stuff, plus I was an Anthropology/Archaeology major in college, so I had addition interest in the non-Indy aspects of the exhibit. I still say though that the crappy gift shop offerings were extremely disappointing since the SW show had such a phenomenal offering, but this isn't a movie year and Indy toys have no draw to kids anymore, so I guess mugs and t-shirts are ok.
P.S. I was at Subway on Victory/Olive tonight and guess who shuffled in carrying a target bag, wearing a member's only jacket and a hilarious set of headphones atop a greasy mop of curly hair? Ding Ding Ding- it was the infamous "Headphones" guy. Sometimes I miss the hunt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JediTricks