Transformers general thread - Toy Robot men based on giant robots based on previously mentioned toys about said robots

[Hope Eradicated]

Completely unrelated to the combiners but kind of tied to legacy in general Going off the tidal wave situation they aren't even doing running changes for shit that came out defective anymore which is really shitty if it's true.

They have been for issues with tolerances, like with the G1 toy Optimus, where they fixed issues with the guns not fitting into the hands. The issue with Tidal Wave is a combination of overly tight ratchets and the joint itself being very poorly designed.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

Bad ratchets in the titans is always a thing, it's why it's the first things that get replacements from customizers. The knees are a different issue as the plastic is too thin, that's just a bs cost cutting measure. 3d printers today are a godsend when it comes to customs.

 

[crowabunga]

Whoever thought making Galvatron and Arcee brothers (pre-forced sex changed Arcee by Jiaxhus) was fucking mentally retarded.

Incredible.

Never had an issue with brittle plastic in that line and I custom paint all my figures. That's one thing that will speed up the process if the plastic isn't the sort to accept paint.

How do you paint figures where transformations have poor clearance? I'd like to customize figures but I'm worried about paint chipping and wear.

 

[The Lawgiver]

How do you paint figures where transformations have poor clearance? I'd like to customize figures but I'm worried about paint chipping and wear.

I have a custom siege megatron i got off a guy on ebay a few years ago for like around $40-$50 right before the netflix one came out that surprisingly hasn't had much if any paint wear. IIRC the way people get around clearance issues is they usually lightly sand joints and then apply really thin paints to where joints are. Some figures though certain parts are unavoidable scraping wise so they usually get left unpainted in those cases.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

How do you paint figures where transformations have poor clearance? I'd like to customize figures but I'm worried about paint chipping and wear.

Airbrush them, don't use a normal brush unless you're doing detail. After than clear coat it, similar to when you're doing miniature painting. If you use a brush the paint will be too thick and it'll lead to chipping after you clear coat it. I also don't transform my figures that often, if I do I try and remember the worst areas are for clearance and be extra careful. If I'm not it's not hard to do some touch ups unless you mixed your own special colours. If you did, just keep track of how many drops of paint you used.

You'll also want to give your figures a good cleaning before you start painting them. You'll have your hand oils all over them plus other things that may still be on them like mold release. Some new figures have that issue still.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Just put in the pre-order on BBTS for The Fallen. At least I don't have to worry about tracking down that ancient Titanium guy anymore.

Everything about IDW 1 continuity sounds like intentionally bad writing intended to be satire of early 2000's fanfiction tropes. I'm baffled how the majority of IDW 1's major arcs made it to print.

Guess who is secretly related? Guess who is actually gay? Guess who is the prophetic chosen one from an ancient prophecy? Guess who is the time-traveler who wrote said ancient prophecy? Guess which bad guy actually is super sweet and really loves animals?

This might be a hot take, but Windblade is a good example of the fanfic-yness of IDW 1. Random smart headstrong beautiful (weirdly geisha-themed?) Mary Sue emissary from a colony planet of Cybertronian seekers that inexplicably escaped getting pulled into the Cybertronian Civil War. Beauitful smart emissary girl with special powers conveniently shows up to Cybertron to tell Starscream he is a no good bad selfish jerk, and make him be a good leader. Skip to a few years, she's the new ruler of Cybertron 'cause she's so smart & good or whatever.

Again, not to sh!t on Windblade. She's a decent character, when done right (I actually liked her Cyberverse version a lot).

Windblade is such a weird character. Like, she was hyped to all hell as the 'fan built bot' with those stupid online choices, which is why most of her is such fanfic trash (Female seeker! Autobot! Red/Black colors!), but the actual design with the Giesha motif was not something the fans chose and something I feel kind of invalidated the whole point, since apparently there were also Knight and Gladiator styles that never saw the light of day, and THOSE should have been part of the fan vote.

And then for a time she just kept appearing...everywhere. Like Hasbro was so desperate to try and make her a thing.

 

[Humble Architect]

I bit on the Godzilla Optimus, it reminds me of protoform Optimus, which I had as a kid and I like the idea of Optimus Prime’s iconic red and blue being from Earth

So in a way he’s wearing his adopted homeworld

 

[Starscream's Loyalty]

Just put in the pre-order on BBTS for The Fallen. At least I don't have to worry about tracking down that ancient Titanium guy anymore.

Windblade is such a weird character. Like, she was hyped to all hell as the 'fan built bot' with those stupid online choices, which is why most of her is such fanfic trash (Female seeker! Autobot! Red/Black colors!), but the actual design with the Giesha motif was not something the fans chose and something I feel kind of invalidated the whole point, since apparently there were also Knight and Gladiator styles that never saw the light of day, and THOSE should have been part of the fan vote.

And then for a time she just kept appearing...everywhere. Like Hasbro was so desperate to try and make her a thing.

I thought she was just some femme that looked pretty enough to advertise, didn't know she was supposed to be TF's version of Rey. These bozos really can't create a likable and flawed female character, can they?

 

[crowabunga]

IDW was getting incoherent at Dark Cybertron and now it's getting stupid, too. Autobot Megatron and hippie Soundwave? Really? This might be where I tap out.

In my fantasyland, Dark Cybertron's sequel would involve more Decepticons going the Scorponok route and collaboratively infiltrating / getting operation paperclip'd into alien societies, necessitating Autobot counter-infiltration. Maybe flex the Decepticon / Commie angle in a more nefarious way, with Autobot Cybertron rejoining the galactic community at the same time Decepticon infiltrators begin spreading their "equality through tyranny" philosophy across the cosmos, creating a bloc of worlds that goes into a cold war with the rest of the galaxy. Go from Cybertron being shunned to necessarily interventionist, and play up the conflict between alien distrust of Cybertron with their need for Autobot expertise in dealing with 'Con subversion tactics.

Oh, Thundercracker collaborating with humans is cool, though. He's the only classic 'Con so far to feel like he was set up to have a proper redemption arc.

 

[Hammerstein]

Keep Last Stand of the Wreckers, burn the rest.

 

[Humble Architect]

IDW was getting incoherent at Dark Cybertron and now it's getting stupid, too. Autobot Megatron and hippie Soundwave? Really? This might be where I tap out.

In my fantasyland, Dark Cybertron's sequel would involve more Decepticons going the Scorponok route and collaboratively infiltrating / getting operation paperclip'd into alien societies, necessitating Autobot counter-infiltration. Maybe flex the Decepticon / Commie angle in a more nefarious way, with Autobot Cybertron rejoining the galactic community at the same time Decepticon infiltrators begin spreading their "equality through tyranny" philosophy across the cosmos, creating a bloc of worlds that goes into a cold war with the rest of the galaxy. Go from Cybertron being shunned to necessarily interventionist, and play up the conflict between alien distrust of Cybertron with their need for Autobot expertise in dealing with 'Con subversion tactics.

Oh, Thundercracker collaborating with humans is cool, though. He's the only classic 'Con so far to feel like he was set up to have a proper redemption arc.

IDW had a problem where they tried to do “Nice Decepticons” but the universe was designed with Ultimate Marvel in mind and as such had the most evil version of the Cons who standardized infiltrating and scorching alien worlds.

IDW Decepticons were pretty much the robot Imperium of Man, irredeemable. These guys turned organics into fuel FFS.

 

[AFAB]

Whoever thought making Galvatron and Arcee brothers (pre-forced sex changed Arcee by Jiaxhus) was fucking mentally retarded.

What else can you expect when the writers for the whole comic continuty kept changing how the characters act and behave from arc to arc (with contradictory ideas for good measure) and then later writers had to jerry-rig everything to make it fit?

IDW was getting incoherent at Dark Cybertron and now it's getting stupid, too. Autobot Megatron and hippie Soundwave? Really? This might be where I tap out.

IDW really liked to flip everyone's morality to the point where you could swear you were reading a half finished Shattered Glass version of the story. Like here's Chromia who blew up a bunch of innocent civilians and Star Saber who is a religious fanatic, etc.

 

[crowabunga]

Legacy Skyquake looks really cool. Shame that's all he does.

I found him on discount, and was wooed by the chunky jet mode and impressive robot silhouette. Unfortunately he has a host of issues: the designers "traded" (as if the trade was necessary) forward-back ankle tilt for side-to-side ankle tilt, but the side-to-side rotation is minimal, and forward-back tilt would have been much more valuable for a figure burdened with a notable backpack and tiny heels. All his plastic tabs are ornery, too, with the panels on his forearms being the worst offenders, popping out immediately after pressure is removed.

Finally, my copy has a design flaw: his jet cockpit assembly contains a hinge, and this hinge has a negative space clearance for landing gear to travel through during transformation into robot mode, but only when the hinge is at a certain angle; and the position of the negative space is incorrect, such that the hinge cannot reach the correct angle for transformation simultaneous with the landing gear being collapsed. Thankfully, a partial disassembly and a few minutes with an x-acto extended the negative space to allow for full clearance, and Skyquake tabs together properly now, but I'll need to go back in with some superglue or plastic cement, as the assembly was glued as well as screwed and I snapped some small glued tabs when prying it apart.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

What else can you expect when the writers for the whole comic continuty kept changing how the characters act and behave from arc to arc (with contradictory ideas for good measure) and then later writers had to jerry-rig everything to make it fit?

IDW really liked to flip everyone's morality to the point where you could swear you were reading a half finished Shattered Glass version of the story. Like here's Chromia who blew up a bunch of innocent civilians and Star Saber who is a religious fanatic, etc.

iirc the Star Saber thing goes back to a UK fanfic

 

[Optimus Prime]

I thought she was just some femme that looked pretty enough to advertise, didn't know she was supposed to be TF's version of Rey. These bozos really can't create a likable and flawed female character, can they?

Oh, it gets worse.

Fucking Victorion. The fan vote for Windblade was a joke but at the end of the day, it at least clearly respected the choices people made. Not the fucking fan built combiner. Same deal as before, with popular vote choices...except this time the game's truly rigged. Oh, you want the combiner's origin to be the Rust Sea, a location that last got any kind of attention with the War for Cybertron game? Well, fuck you, the Rust Sea is where this combiner first appears...but all of its members are from the female robot planet so IT DIDN'T MATTER ANYWAY, no Rust Sea lore for you!

And then choosing the actual limbs is a joke, too. If you actually look at Victorion, it's glaringly obvious corners were cut with the doubled up limbs. This was not by fan choice. Sure, one of the helicopters was, but the second arm vote was super misleading as there was no direct choice for another chopper - you got a hybrid option for helicopter/jet, but Hasbro made the final call on that one. And the colors...the final result is very much a reverse of what the main and trim colors were supposed to be.

The characters were also completely forgetable, couldn't tell you a damn thing about any of them.

And meanwhile, in the Space Knight crossover comic, you have Stardrive who is a new character that gets to be a Space Knight Transformer out of the gate...and she's not a half bad character, either!

IDW had a problem where they tried to do “Nice Decepticons” but the universe was designed with Ultimate Marvel in mind and as such had the most evil version of the Cons who standardized infiltrating and scorching alien worlds.

IDW Decepticons were pretty much the robot Imperium of Man, irredeemable. These guys turned organics into fuel FFS.

And then there's the DJD.

I love the concept of the DJD as Megatron's personal secret police. I love all their designs - sure, Kaon/Amp is edgy as fuck because haha ELECTRIC CHAIR, and Tarn literally being a Decepticon symbol with limbs because he makes Lugnut look like a fair weather Megatron loyalist in comparison, but I still got all the MMC versions of the crew (including even Nickel, since she came with The Pet).

In comic execution...they're just edgelords on the clock, and off the clock they're a rather generic semi-dysfunctional family unit. To say nothing of what a massive clusterfuck it was when Tarn's identity was finally revealed and it wasn't the obvious choice.

 

[The Lawgiver]

The characters were also completely forgetable, couldn't tell you a damn thing about any of them.

Takara fixed this technically by releasing them as fully repainted decepticons with backstories linking them loosely to other pre-existing characters via actual insane shit or just reference stuff. They also gave cyclonus his own combiner team of other characters. Still upsetI never got either of those sets of figures. It still sucks to me how almost every actually NEW combiner wars thing like that was either expensive takara box set or sub service/botcon exclusive. When transformers gets bit by the "exclusive" bug the last 8 years or so (almost 9 now yeesh!) it just goes to utter shit and locks anything anyone wants behind expensive time gated exclusives. Before that the exclusives were either odd colorations or homages and weirdly easier to come by somehow as bullshit as they could be at times (classics seekers's initial release being split between conventions and store exclusive sets fuck YOUUU)

EDIT: Uploading images is bugged to fuck right now apperently and freezes the whole page at like 100% so I'll just jam names here as lame as that is

Wreckage
Toxitron
Grand Galvatron
Predacus
Megatronia
Thunder Mayhem

These were the Non-victorion "new teams" and they were all fucking expensive single pack in or subscription model exclusives. They will all rot forever in ebay scalper listings because of their "value". This isn't even including shit like liokaiser or baldigus/ruination that are in the same boat.

 

[Raiken]

it's funny that victorion was supposed to be the big progress in that the entire team is female but the japanese went full gooner and made mega empress and all the rest secretaries.

 

[The Lawgiver]

it's funny that victorion was supposed to be the big progress in that the entire team is female but the japanese went full gooner and made mega empress and all the rest secretaries.

Wasn't mega empress like some frankenstein-esque creation of shockwave from spare leftover parts from various repair jobs to megatron over the years and some other dead decepticons? I could have sworn only ONE of that combiner team was a secretary with the others having jobs like hitman/assasin or some other shit like that. I think it's cool how they had a naming theme tied to playing cards even if I can't remember all of the names right now lmao.

I CAN remember the names, shit like trick diamond/flowspade but the other 2 I forgot the names of. I can't remember ANY of the victorion bot names though lmao.

 

[Travoltron]

Then Hasbro eventually made a female combiner composed of the G1 Female Autobots. I don't know why they didn't just do that in the first place. People actually like those characters.

 

[Frogget-me-not]

Anybody see Galvatron’s Revenge? It’s some fan made feature length film on YouTube that raised 13k USD on GoFundMe and was trying to be a sequel to Transformers Prime. Except the visuals are worse than the 90s CGI of Beast Wars and the writing worse than The Last Knight. Good on Carlos Barrantes (below) for not running off with the money and actually being autistic enough to release a full project.



I just happened to have a G1 watch party the day it released and my friends saw it in the YouTube recommended sidebar. No one had ever heard of this. Someone suggested we watch it, and I was not prepared for the longest 2 hours of my life. It wasn’t even bad enough to make fun of. It was just exposition plus one long boring fight scene and then Ratchet walks into a hole connected to robot heaven and pulls Optimus out of the Allspark to save the day again.

Grievances online can be sorted out as follows:

- looks like dogshit despite being developed over 8 to 10 years
- writing undermines the ending of TFP: Predacons Rising by having both Optimus and Megatron come back
- IDW Hot Rod is here for some reason and he’s called Rodimus
- Voice acting is bad: no attempt was made to match TFP, Knockout is no longer juicy, Arcee’s lines are recorded on a potato
- Onslaught checks out Arcee’s ass, Springer white knights her and Rodimus makes passes throughout the film in an incredibly forced love triangle
- The VA for Optimus Prime is a Nazi and has been known as one for years

I thought people were exaggerating when they said Orbital Bacon was a nazi, but ngl I had a good laugh when opening his CHRIST IS KANG twitter and it actually had some of retweeted Jew memes and posts making fun of niggers. He also posts his waifu; anime tits outnumber the white power posts 2 to 1. Here’s a rare twofer:



Once I’m done with the Kiwi Secret Santa I’ll look into doing a proper review and collecting all the information around the production of this movie. Carlos has been quite open with his production logs from what I gleaned from his channel, and he is blessed with the lolcow trait of not shutting up when he really should.