WfC2019 Is Definitely Not For Me... (w/ addendum 30/5/19)

As more images and information about the War for Cybertron series toys become available, it's becoming increasingly clear that it's a toyline I can happily skip. I know I felt the same about Armada/Micron Legend, only to change my mind after spending a bit more time with Energon/Superlink and Cybertron/Galaxy Force but, while that was mainly based on the childish look of the toys, simplistic transformations and taking the stance of a conscientious objector to the blatant Pokemon rip-off that was Mini-Cons, my objection to WfC2019 is rather more broad... and possibly puts me at odds with the majority of collectors, even those who, like me, lived through the actual Generation 1 and, by and large, quite liked Classics/Generations and even the Prime Wars trilogy.

I've said before that this new line - ostensibly set before G1 in the TransFormers timeline - is just too G1 for me... But, more than that, it's G1 with an ill-considered, poorly executed pseudo-'Cybertronian' aesthetic. Nowhere is this more apparent than with some of the latest reveals: Deluxes Impactor and Mirage, and Commander class Jetfire.

Mirage is clearly a terrestrial racing car with a few minor alterations to the details. These alterations are designed to make him look less terrestrial, while still ensuring his overall silhouette - in both vehicle mode and robot mode - looks like Mirage, more from the G1 cartoon than the toyline. Thing is, the attempt to marry the two ideas is precisely what causes it to fail, and that's been true across all the toys I've seen so far. By the looks of it, there's a fake car nose for the robot's chest toward the back of the car, and the real nose folds up into the robot's legs... which is utter insanity when you consider the elegant simplicity of the Diaclone-derived G1 toy, or the Classics version which is still among the best updates of a G1 toy I've ever seen. Classics Mirage wasn't designed to look like the G1 toy or the animation model because it didn't need to be. The characters in the G1 cartoon looked the way they did simply because it was a cheap, 80s cartoon and, ultimately, a hurriedly-made advertisement for a toyline. The robots had to be instantly recognisable, even for the brief sequence set on Cybertron, and clearly no-one thought it was worth bothering to design a separate, unique robot mode appearance for the first few minutes of the pilot episode so, for that part of the story, their robot modes were stuck showing off parts of terrestrial vehicles they'd never even seen, while their vehicle modes were made as bland and simple as possible.

Impactor is yet another sci-fi tank in a toy brand already saturated with them, clearly taking design cues from Mastermind Creations bulldozer/tank hybrid, Spartan, even down to the side-mounted double-barrelled cannons... only, as has been all too common with the War for Cybertron designs so far, it's a hollow, ugly, boxy mess of a design with excessive and hideous 'tech' detailing. It's another fine example of "let's do this, only cheaper". Hell, his iconic shoulder cannon isn't even the tank's main gun.

Then you have Jetfire, the perfect example of everything I feel is wrong with the thinking behind War For Cybertron. He's based 100% on the clunky animation model from the G1 cartoon, with the excessive tech detailing common to the line. Granted, they can't exactly recreate the G1 toy in any way, since Bandai still own everything Macross, and the G1 toy was simply a rebranded Valkyrie fighter... but the animation model for Jetfire was terrible. Why a certain chunk of the fandom is so obsessed with it, I cannot fathom, but it's been enough to encourage several Third Parties (not to mention enterprising kitbashers) to attempt their own versions over the last few years so, naturally, Hasbro now follows suit. The best I can say about this new, official, G1 cartoon-style Jetfire is that he doesn't look any worse than the Third Party versions, but is likely to be vastly cheaper than most... And, actually, his fully tooled-up form looks reasonable because it conceals some of the uglier elements of the vehicle mode which would otherwise still be visible on the robot.

Considering how long I've been a fan of TransFormers toys, it feels particularly sad that I seem to be spending so much time and effort just bashing the latest chapter in the toy franchise... But it's equally sad to look back over the years I've been writing this blog and seeing the number of times it's felt as if Hasbro were producing exactly what I'd hoped they would, only for things to devolve into reboot after reboot of Generation 1, each more lacklustre than the last.

I'm actually reasonably impressed by the new Omega Supreme toy, but even that looks like they've picked up all the Third Party versions produced over the last few years and said "let's do this, only cheaper"... Robot mode looks great, but the base mode has been simplified too far, resulting in a track for the tank that's way too small relative to the rocket base it surrounds, and which is raised up on stilts all the way round, as well as a rocket that's about three times longer than it needed to be... We've gone from Titans Return Trypticon - which almost had me regretting my purchase, just over three years ago, of the Platinum Edition of the G1 toy - to an update to Omega Supreme that only makes me want the original even more, even though it's a dumpy, poorly articulated partsformer appropriated from a completely different toyline.

The bottom line, I guess, is that the closer the toys get to the look of a crappy, inconsistent 80s cartoon, the further they get from what I want from a TransFormers toyline. There may be fans out there that want the cartoon look - not to mention the number who'd happily sacrifice transformation in their TransFormers if it meant the toys looked just like their animation models - but that's a point of view I'll never understand. I like the toys - little puzzles that they are - and I like the artwork from the early UK comics that was based on the toys. To me, it's bad enough that Hasbro are rebooting G1 all over again... to do so in a way that brings us shoddy-looking toys that are based more closely on the G1 animation models than anything we've seen before feels like a brand-ruining misstep to me, and I almost wish they'd just re-release the whole of Generation 1 rather than rebooting it over and over again alongside the odd overpriced 'highlight', such as Hot Rod or the $50 trailerless Optimus Prime. Dated as they may be, the original toys, I think, would be far more rewarding for kids, and would mean the adult collectors could save their money until superior products turn up. War for Cybetron's adherence to the look of a 30 year old cartoon makes no sense for attracting the younger demographic, and does a great disservice to the adult collector market.

I'm just glad Studio Series is looking so good... If I want a new G1 Optimus Prime, I can buy the Studio Series Bumblebee movie Optimus Prime.

Addendum 30/5/19:
Photos have appeared online in the last day or two of a Siege multipack, titled 'Firestormer', featuring a repaint of Siege Flywheels (with Battletrap's head) as Slamdance (a G1 toy formed of two cassettes that transformed into a jet and a tank respectively, so it's fairly appropriate), a single Battlemaster figure (with blast effect included)... and a repaint of Sideswipe. Aside from the frankly insulting price of about £65/$82, the Sideswipe repaint makes a mockery of the core concept behind War for Cybertron. Why? Because it's G2 Sideswipe.

Hasbro can't even keep to their own Generation 1 concept for a single year, and have already introduced a Generation 2 version of one of the first wave of Siege toys as a cynical cash-grab (gone are the days of 'value added' sets, when a multipack cost marginally less than the sum of its parts), despite the fact that the very idea of Generation 2 requires that it comes after Generation 1, not as part of it.

With my recent purchase of Siege Sixshot, I thought I was starting to warm to the ideas behind the toyline... But this multipack truly leaves me cold.