It's very likely that the fact that I didn't post all this immediately after the half-hour event yesterday tells you all you really need to know about what I thought of the newly revealed merchandise. I know it wasn't intended to be the big, sprawling presentation that the Fan Fest back in April was, but a quick glance at the chat during the show proved that I wasn't alone in expecting a little more from it.
This event opened with a countdown in front of a TransFormers The (animated) Movie poster highlighting this as the 35th Anniversary of the animated movie. Funny thing - and I've thought this occasionally while watching Chris McFeely's 'Basics' videos on YouTube - is that they referred to it as The TransFormers The Movie throughout... I've always subconsciously dropped the 'The' at the start, even though it was part of the G1 branding: the toyline was called 'The TransFormers' not 'TransFormers'... But I digress...
Hosted by Ben from Marketing, Evan from Product Design, it was noted that the actual date of the Anniversary is in August, and they mentioned that 80sTees.com doing special movie design t-shirts, with a 30% discount code. They they passed over to Kelly from Franchise Marketing for...
35th Anniversary Blu Ray Artwork Feature
This was basically just a quick chat with Matt Ferguson, the artist who created new artwork for the anniversary steelbook and 4K Blu Ray sleeves. He discussed his process for putting the artwork together, including the interesting observation that the hand-painted backgrounds in the movie were inconsistent from scene to scene, making it more difficult to accurately reflect it in his artwork. He also noted that certain elements on the Blu Ray sleeve 'snowballed' - giving the example that he initially wanted to show Devastator holding Sludge aloft, then added Grimlock (his favourite character), then decided that it only made sense to feature all the Dinobots in that section of the artwork. He spoke briefly about the process of starting from line art sketches and moving toward a 'painterly'-look for the finished elements - ending up with a semi-real, semi-cartoon style, rather than just pure animation-style cel-shading. I have to admit, the new artwork does look good...
This was basically just a quick chat with Matt Ferguson, the artist who created new artwork for the anniversary steelbook and 4K Blu Ray sleeves. He discussed his process for putting the artwork together, including the interesting observation that the hand-painted backgrounds in the movie were inconsistent from scene to scene, making it more difficult to accurately reflect it in his artwork. He also noted that certain elements on the Blu Ray sleeve 'snowballed' - giving the example that he initially wanted to show Devastator holding Sludge aloft, then added Grimlock (his favourite character), then decided that it only made sense to feature all the Dinobots in that section of the artwork. He spoke briefly about the process of starting from line art sketches and moving toward a 'painterly'-look for the finished elements - ending up with a semi-real, semi-cartoon style, rather than just pure animation-style cel-shading. I have to admit, the new artwork does look good...
The segment closed with a notification that preorders are opening this coming Monday at ShoutFactory.com - I'm very tempted to pick up one or the other, as the DVD version I have is poorly put together, and seems to automatically launch into the documentary before going to the main menu... Plus, this new version is fully remastered from the original film print... It'll be interesting to see how it compares, in terms of colour and sharpness, to what I currently have.
Then it was back to Ben and Evan for...
Studio Series 86 Reveals
Slag - Leader class, like Grimlock. This one leaked about a month ago, and they are calling him 'Slug' still, rather than reverting to his proper name... I get that they're reluctant to use a name that's considered to be a disparaging term for women in the UK, but given the other meaning (stony waste matter separated from metals during the smelting or refining of ore), it's far more appropriate to the Dinobot Flamethrower than 'Slug' is. The accompanying Daniel figure is another piece of junk like the rendition of Wheelie packaged with Grimlock - a mixture of fixed pose limbs and ball joints, and basically full of gaps in the mold - so it's very ugly and has very little paintwork. They've not even bothered giving him a proper head, with the dome of his exosuit being part of the same chunk of opaque white plastic as his torso, and without any paintwork of its own. According to Evan, the release of Slag means that we are "only 1 away from completing the original trio of Dinobots"... But... weren't there five in the US? Just who are 'the original trio', if they're ignoring two of them? Like Grimlock, he has an animation-style colour scheme - red head, white horns - with no translucent parts or chrome like the original toy, or even the more recent Combiner Wars version. Now, granted, I'm not a big Dinobot fan generally, but this one looks very boxy and ugly in dino mode, though it's not too bad in robot mode, for what it is. He possibly looks a little bit too tall versus Grimlock, but the cartoon was inconsistent about their size, so one can hardly blame them for that...
Slag - Leader class, like Grimlock. This one leaked about a month ago, and they are calling him 'Slug' still, rather than reverting to his proper name... I get that they're reluctant to use a name that's considered to be a disparaging term for women in the UK, but given the other meaning (stony waste matter separated from metals during the smelting or refining of ore), it's far more appropriate to the Dinobot Flamethrower than 'Slug' is. The accompanying Daniel figure is another piece of junk like the rendition of Wheelie packaged with Grimlock - a mixture of fixed pose limbs and ball joints, and basically full of gaps in the mold - so it's very ugly and has very little paintwork. They've not even bothered giving him a proper head, with the dome of his exosuit being part of the same chunk of opaque white plastic as his torso, and without any paintwork of its own. According to Evan, the release of Slag means that we are "only 1 away from completing the original trio of Dinobots"... But... weren't there five in the US? Just who are 'the original trio', if they're ignoring two of them? Like Grimlock, he has an animation-style colour scheme - red head, white horns - with no translucent parts or chrome like the original toy, or even the more recent Combiner Wars version. Now, granted, I'm not a big Dinobot fan generally, but this one looks very boxy and ugly in dino mode, though it's not too bad in robot mode, for what it is. He possibly looks a little bit too tall versus Grimlock, but the cartoon was inconsistent about their size, so one can hardly blame them for that...
Sharkticon - They made a big deal about this this has been bumped up to Deluxe class, but it honestly didn't look that much bigger (in beast mode, at least) when compared to the Titans Return version. They were quite pleased this one hadn't leaked prior to the show, and described him straight away as an "army builder", which strikes me as horribly cynical, even if it is surprisingly honest of them to announce they expect people to buy multiple copies of it. Sharkticon mode looks awful - the shoulders are too high up behind head, the hips are too low and too far back. Robot mode admittedly looks great, and seems less wasteful of beast mode mass than the TR version... However, it's still not something I'm particularly interested in, least of all as an army builder.
Wreck-Gar - Voyager class. Bike mode looks appropriately goofy, robot mode does look pretty good, and potentially a bit more sturdy than the ten year old Generations/Classics version. Apparently they had Wreck-Gar "on the calendar" for an official reveal, but then it leaked in the last week or so. They demonstrated that he's able to ride himself (with the aid of a 2nd SS86 Wreck-Gar, then the Deluxe class PotP version) and suggested that they'd designed him with the intention of being rideable by other figures... Which probably means at least one extra Junkion will appear in the line later. Both wheels appear to be removeable for use as shields, and he comes with his "armour axe" (which, for some reason, they've made spinny - not the best plan). This one is a definite 'maybe' for me... It would go with in my Classics collection as I'm not remotely invested in the SS86 line... But I'm not even sure I'm invested enough in this figure, given its £35 price tag... I'm not currently planning to preorder, certainly.
This section the ended with vague hints of more to come - as the chat filled up with requests for 'original' Studio Series (eg. Bayverse) reveals - before moving on to...
Shattered Glass Capsule Programme
Starscream - using the awful Siege tetrajet mold, and yet again ripping off the BotCon version with a Jetfire-inspired colourscheme. This version comes with additional weapons - translucent blue Energon Sabres which can combine into a larger (wider) sword. The red and black paint applications aren't extensive enough, leaving far too much bare white plastic... but the translucent blue used for the cockpit canopy and swords look OK. So far, the inaugural Hasbro Pulse Capsule Programme is 3 for 3 in being utter disappointments. If one of the remaining two is Soundwave (ideally using the Earthrise mold, even though I'm not especially keen on that) I might pick it up... but ideally they should try something a bit more original...
Having confirmed between them that there was nothing more to show this time, the two presenters closed by announcing that there would be some UK-specific special editions in September. I'm not holding out much hope for these, to be honest, but I'd be happy enough if they included a reissue of Pulse exclusives from before the UK branch launched, such as the Siege Centurion Drone set. Fingers crossed!
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