Transformers: Energon & Beyond

[darthvyn]

Here's a question I've been meaning to ask for a while, and keep forgetting. But now I remember, so I'm asking.

Does anyone know the reason Alternator Camshaft is so incredibly rare?

I actually saw him once, several weeks (maybe months) back. I passed, as I've had no trouble finding any Alternators before, and didn't have the cash on me. He was gone the next day, and I've never seen him again--even though the store has, since then, restocked a few dozen Alternators.

What gives?

at this point i've not found ANY new alternators in quite a while... not that i've been looking... i've kinda stopped my alternator buying in lieu of my spidey comics buying. i've also started up with TF classics, as they're almost as cool as alternators, but for a fraction of the price in most cases.

and camshaft was not renamed anything. it's a repaint of the prowl RSX. swerve was a repaint of tracks, and windcharger was a honda s2000.

[seanmcfripp]

Does anyone know the reason Alternator Camshaft is so incredibly rare?

I don't remember exactly which wave he's from(I think it was 12), but I seem to remember when Entertainment Earth had the case breakdowns listed, he was only part of the the one wave, but none of the revisions that followed. Never seen him in the wild myself, and I'm a bona fide stalker when it comes to finding this stuff. I'm starting to think he'll be the next Swerve.

[Dominic Guglieme]

My mistake on Camshaft. I guess the correct answer is "blame Hasbro for being lax in distributing toys", which was a consisten problem this past year.

[Chaddymac]

Saw a bunch of Classics Mirage at Fry's last night, along with a bunch of Alternators Rollbar and Optimus Prime. Also a good number of Classics Grimlock and Mirage at TRU, and a couple sets of minicons.

[figrin bran]

TRU has a buy 2 get 1 free offer on TF's. presumably to clear out the Cybertron line.

of course, wouldn't you know it, there's barely anything worth buying. for $9 i picked up 3 of those Legends of Cybertron figures - Soundwave, Thundercracker and Vector Prime

[JediTricks]

More photos of the movie Brawl figure:
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=118544

I had no idea he was so small and simplistic.

The design factor looks like it's slipped from Cybertron and Classics, Cybertron was a coup, movie is poo.

[Tycho]

I knew these movie toys would be POS and on top of it, the movie designs that "inspire" them seem to be as well.

I still think the plot is good, but the production might ache. The trailer had only brief glimpses of those they showed. That made it a major curiousity, but not necessarily something to be pleased with.

I'm so glad I buy Alternators and MPEs. I don't even think the Classic line compares to those.

I'll probably buy MPE Megatron.

Definitely Alternator Ravage and Rumble.

And I'll buy repaints of MPE Starscream as Thundercracker and Skywarp if the paint schemes aren't too ridiculous (G1 was slightly ridiculous for realistic military aircraft, but change Thundercracker slighltly to a Blue Angels' F18 and keep purple trim off Skywarp's black, and they'll be OK. With MPE Starscream, he came with stickers which is the best way I can think of to suit everyone's different tastes. So you can put the purple on Skywarp, and I can leave it off). Oh, but at least make slightly different headsculpts for the new characters!

Anyway, Barricade, Ironhide, and BumbleBee could be done as Alternators as well. (Jazz if they want to revisit "Meister," and seeing his movie look, they might as well). A movie Ratchet of any quality might be a challenge. But they can blend his G1 look a little with the movie look as they'll never get an accurate toy out of his onscreen appearance anyway. (Which looks like hell so they might as well return to the G1 head).

Honestly, we ought to be able to collect Transformer proofs-of-purchase for a mail-in offer to get labotomies for Hasbro's Transformer team employees (or Takara's or wherever it needs to start).

I'm more concerned about the toys right now than the movie. I plan to go and see it as soon as possible, but I don't have to buy the DVD later if I don't like it - and if I don't, I won't be going to see the other later 2 in the series more than likely.

[plasticfetish]

I knew these movie toys would be POS and on top of it, the movie designs that "inspire" them seem to be as well.

I still think the plot is good, but the production might ache. The trailer had only brief glimpses of those they showed. That made it a major curiousity, but not necessarily something to be pleased with.

You know, we saw a movie Christmas eve (Night at the Museum... very good BTW), and they played the trailer for the TF movie. I've got to admit, it looked pretty awesome. The bot designs are going to p*** all of the "hard core" G1 fans off, but in this day and age, when they can render extremely complex mechanical figures with CG, I really can't see them going any other way.

In short, it looks great on the big screen, and everyone should hold off on passing judgement until they've had a chance to see it that way.

Now... with that said, I'm even less interested in the toy line at this point. Knowing Hasbro, they'll fail miserably when it comes to emulating the style and complexity of the mecha from this movie.

[Chaddymac]

Well, if it's any consolation, I'm fairly certain the movie figures will be released in multiple size classes, so the smaller ones may just represent the deluxe size class and there are more complex, larger figures coming later. That's what I remember from BotCon last year, so, if that hasn't changed, I'm still holding out hope.

Of course, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if they all sucked (and so far, they do). I could use the savings!

[plasticfetish]

...so the smaller ones may just represent the deluxe size class and there are more complex, larger figures coming later. That's what I remember from BotCon last year, so, if that hasn't changed, I'm still holding out hope.

If that's true, and if they take a more... I dunno... "Japanese" approach to building cool robot toys, then it might turn out cool enough.

The robots in this film are very slick, and large and elaborate... hyper realistic. It'd be fun to see some toy options that reflect that. (I'd like to see a little diecast mixed in there for once.)