Transformers: Energon & Beyond

[Chaddymac]

For anyone searching for Mudflap now:
http://www.amazon.com/Transformers-R...7784909&sr=8-1

[JediTricks]

Sorry to change topiics on you guys, but could anyone tell me if the Transformer's Human Alliance series is discontinued? I've been seeing these marked down at retail and was wondering if they are just trying to get rid of the Revenge of the Fallen packaging or if the whole line was discontinued. I haven't been buying these because of the initial price, but now that they are affordable, I might start. Grabbed Mudflap w/agent simmons to start because I've never seen him before. Don't know if he is super rare or not, but didn't want to miss out in case I get the whole series. The others I've seen multiple times so I'm not too worried. Any recommendations on which to buy and which (if any, to avoid)? I've seen Bumblebee, Sidewipe, Skids, Mudflap, Barricade. Are there any others I don't know about? Mudflap was a surprise to me and just wondering if there are any others.

The line is not canceled, though it is currently looking like they are going to put it on hiatus, since there are only repaints on the horizon at this stage. The packaging changeover is the reason you're seeing those liquidated.

Mudflap is pretty rare, it looks like 100% of the brick-n-mortar orders on him went straight to liquidators.

I like the line enough that I have these 4, and in order of recommendation they'd go Jazz, Barricade, Bumblebee, Sideswipe - Sideswipe is really great as a car, but only so-so as a bot. Mudflap and Skids I can't speak to, but I hear they're ok if you can get past their looks.

[Tycho]

Understand:

1) I'm an Autobot fan. I've loved Optimus Prime since I was a kid. I dig the Autobots and liked Wheeljack and Ironhide, Kup, Hot Rod (unless he's the leader - can't stand Rodimus Prime), Ultra Magnus, Springer, and Hound.

2) I like it in a COLLECTION like Human Alliance, best, when Autobots wage their battle against the evil forces of the DECEPTICONS.

3) Barricade alone will not cut it for the enemy force in this line.

4) Rampage and Sideways are the right size to add more Decepticons to this scale range without a price and packaging size increase. They can be the HUMAN NEMESIS line, and include Legends Ravage, Deluxe Scorpinok, human figure of Alice (Isabel Lucas, TF:ROTF), as well as robot figure of Alice (like HA Frenzy pack-in)

5) I would pay a price increase and welcome a packaging size increase for larger HUMAN NEMESIS figures (perhaps with human holograms) like Bonecrusher, Long Haul, Mixmaster, or Demolisher. If they up the price and package size, they can eventually do Prime and Ironhide HA figures as well.
But I doubt this will happen, so I return to my point about Sideways and Rampage in the normal size range for this line.

6) With the line possibly continuing - it will be TF: DSOFTM Autobots that we get, most likely - the Ferrari (cool though - and maybe with Carly) and the wreckers (I think that's an auto-racing term, not a TF character classification, but I'm not sure). I don't know if the wreckers are Autobots or Decepticons, but one is done to the extreme in Smoekscreen's exact colors, so I'm leaning to that being this particular Autobot, but don't know that for sure yet.

[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?" 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?

[Tycho]

So one moral of Chux's story is that if I want to buy these episodes in the store, I should get the Shout Factory ones - whcih seem to be what Target and Wal-Mart are currently carrying, right?

[Darth Metalmute]

What company made the complete box set edition?

[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.

[figrin bran]

I found and bought Tomahawk from the Movie Deluxe line today.

I've not transformed him yet but will offer further comments when I do.

[Tycho]

I'm watching the DVD box sets.

I like "Skyfire" aka - Jetfire.

You know, I didn't pay attention but did they start calling him Jetfire in his 2nd cartoon appearance or was he still Skyfire?

BTW: How rude were the Autobots? They dig him out of the ice and don't even say "Welcome back," but instead say "Brawn and Swerve need a ride to Peru. You're flying them there. Get moving!"

I saw the Dinobots introduction, too. If we had Wheeljack in the live-action movies, they could pull this off. Meanwhile, besides Ratchet, who would need some help (like from Wheeljack) - what movie character is capable of making the Dinobots? We don't know enough about Jolt - except that he's not Wheeljack and Wheeljack is rumored to be appearing in TF3: TDOTM. If he is the Mercedes sports car I just saw the other day - I took a picture of it too - then he'll be awesome. It's a sweet car for his alt-mode and I don't know if Lotus is still even producing cars. If they are, I think that Michael Bay found Mercedes to be cheaper, and possibly more of a consumer car that might sponsort TF3 for some advertising by an appearance.

Anyway, no Dinobots in TF3, but if the make TF4, once Wheeljack has been introduced (if he's true to his G1 character) then they are a possibility.

[Chaddymac]

He was always "Skyfire" in the cartoon. The toy was named "Jetfire" for trademark issues, like why they've recently been giving Jazz a title, like "Autobot".