OK, perhaps that's a little dramatic, but the dearth of activity on this blog over most of a couple of months basically comes down to a fundamental loss of impetus due to a number of factors.
First and foremost, the War for Cybertron Trilogy has been a massive disappointment in my opinion. Not just in and of itself, considering how few of the toys I've bothered to purchase, but in what it represents. Not only had Hasbro already devoted the preceding decade to remaking G1 over and over again, literally re-treading the same ground, just with a different gimmick each time, but they then chose to take yet another crack at it with War for Cybertron and then failed to keep to their original plan for the line. Dunno about anyone else, but it gave me the impression they never really had a plan other than "Quick! We need more G1! But different! Only not too different!"
Furthermore, to my mind, it has proven what little regard they have for Beast Wars - one of their most beloved TransFormers franchises after G1. They believe that tacking Beast Wars onto the end of one of their interminable G1 reboots - rather than giving it its own, dedicated toyline - is paying it adequate homage in its 25th Anniversary year. It reminds me a lot of an interview I read about TransFormers Prime, and how Beast Hunters came to make up its final chapter both as a toyline and in the TV show: they'd had a meeting, the idea of beasts was suggested, and everyone agreed that beasts were "cool". Little consideration for how it could possibly fit the aesthetic or the story, it happened because they sat around a table and agreed it would be "cool". More and more, it feels as though they're forcing things into three-year cycles, but barely have enough ideas to support two years, so the final chapter either gets cut short without adding anything significant (Power of the Primes), or devolves into a jumbled mess (Kingdom).
Perhaps worse still, they've signed off on Beastformers being subsumed into the cinematic universe in what looks, at first glance, to be a potentially disastrous way. Photos from the set of Rise of the Beasts have me wondering if it's all an elaborate work of misdirection, and that it's actually a crossover with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, since the Maximals apparently live in the sewers. Sadly, this is probably not the case since Hasbro are not the holders of the TMNT IP, though Paramount are the studio behind the recent reboot movies, for which Michael Bay served as one of the Producers.
But, speaking of polluting their own waters, the extension of Studio Series into G1 cartoon territory purely because the animated movie from 1986 still counts as a movie, was a pretty shameless way to shoehorn figures that could/should have been War for Cybertron toys into a second toyline. There was no reason for it. If they had the slots available, the toys should have been added to the War for Cybertron release schedule. Why have Scourge in Studio Series '86 if Cyclonus and Galvatron are in War for Cybertron? Why have Hot Rod, Kup and Blurr in Studio Series '86 if Rodimus Prime is in War for Cybertron. It makes no sense at all when even the packaging for Earthrise implied a narrative path leading the WfC Trilogy into the events of the animated movie and beyond.
When the idea of a Netflix TV series accompanying War for Cybertron was announced, I was cautiously optimistic. Hasbro's collaboration with Machinima - monstrous in their own right, for myriad reasons - for the Prime Wars Trilogy had failed to provide any kind of plausible narrative structure to the toyline, since the show omitted a good chunk of it entirely in favour of inserting non-toy characters in plot-central roles. It quickly degenerated into a vehicle for promoting YouTubers, before trying to claw back some credibility by casting Ron Perlman as Optimus Primal in the final chapter, only to fail to offer him any meaningful voice direction. For WfC, they were collaborating with a different studio, and early static images looked quite promising, if a little dark and grungy.
All of Netflix's own-brand content has been variable, to say the least, with the majority being less-than-stellar, but partner studios Rooster Teeth Animation and Polygon Pictures at least came with something approaching a pedigree, the former having worked on numerous anime-style cartoons, while the latter had been involved in TransFormers Prime. On the flipside, there were early signs that they would be using non-union voice actors. This, in and of itself, isn't necessarily a bad thing, though it always upsets the union actors who have worked on TransFormers properties in the past and raises the heckles of the die-hard fans who insist that Peter Cullen and Frank Welker must reprise their iconic roles. The real problems arise when the studio's voice directors either don't do their job, or do it badly... and that's precisely what happened on the War for Cybertron Trilogy.
But that's only half the story, because everything about the show was awful. The animation might have had a higher frame rate than Prime Wars, but it was still low enough to be jarring. The content of the dialogue would have been stilted and awkward even if the voice direction had been better, and the weird, narcoleptic delivery made if feel as if they were trying desperately to pad out each episode's run time. The plot was hopelessly underdeveloped, and for a simple war story, that's saying something. When I watched Siege with my girlfriend, she actually fell asleep about halfway through the series' three hour runtime.
From a technical standpoint, they reused CGI models more than the toyline reused its molds. I don't recall a single on-screen transformation, which should be a staple of any TransFormers TV show, particularly one based around CGI derived from the toys. On-screen transformations have been a central feature of TransFormers TV shows since the awful G1 cartoon and, granted, they were fudged back then, and in Beast Wars/Beast Machines, and even in TransFormers Prime... But shows like Energon/Superlink and Cybertron/Galaxy Force made a special feature of all their detailed, toy-accurate transformation sequences specifically because they presented the toys so well, and because they wanted to be able to re-use these sequences to cut production costs in later episodes.
Leaving aside the crummy, simplistic, lazy engineering of the toyline, the absolute brazen thoughtlessness of creating a TransFormers TV show which consciously obscures transformations with smoke/explosions, or simply has them occur off-screen so that characters could fly, drive or walk on in the required form is staggering. Characters would regularly walk/run into or away from a situations rather than transforming into their faster vehicle modes. And the sheer number of characters who never transformed - Wheeljack having not received a Siege mold, and Bumblebee, whose eventual Siege-adjacent mold was released almost two years later in the Buzzworthy line as just two examples - clearly shows how little the show had in common with the toyline it was - supposedly - created to promote.
I haven't bothered watching either Earthrise - which is a continuation of Siege with no tangible connection to the toyline other than the appearance of a couple of specific characters - or Kingdom because, once you filter out the glowing praise from the kinds of rabid fans who cannot bring themselves to objectively criticise anything with the TransFormers branding attached, the reviews were lukewarm at best. Even some of the positive reviews struggled to convincingly express where those positive impressions came from. The simple fact that Earthrise is merely Siege: Part 2 leads to Kingdom featuring all the same Autobots and Decepticons from the first chapter - still in their Cybertronian forms - fighting alongside the Maximals and Predacons introduced in the Kingdom toyline, rendering the entire Earthrise toyline absolutely irrelevant and obsolete.
At times like these, you really have to wonder what is going on within Hasbro's marketing department. It's like they just don't care which toys are on the shelves when the licensed TV show makes its debut.
Next up has been the truly shocking level of quality control in recent years. By this I mean both the fragility of the toys - some collectors having found their toys pre-broken in their packaging - and the half-arsed work that passes for Masterpiece these days. While I've bought very few of the mainline toys and (so far) none of the Generations Selects sets or store exclusives, including the Hasbro Pulse exclusive figures, I have seem forum posts highlighting both the obvious (the crumbling of fragile translucent plastic inadvisably used for metal-pinned joints) and the surprising (sheared-off waist joints on GS and/or WfC Trilogy Deep Cover). Loads of people have reported problems with Kingdom Blackarachnia, like the chest tab or the tips of her claws breaking, as well as stress marks appearing on pegs and tabs of many figures after just a handful of transformations. Then you have the opposite end of the tolerance spectrum, where the car panels on the lower legs of Studio Series Cliffjumper and Kingdom Tracks fail to tab in at all.
I have to admit, though, that a good part of my dissatisfaction has been growing since Hasbro cancelled the official Collectors' Club as of the end of 2016. The announcement of HasCon and Hasbro Pulse initially seemed to be good reasons to remain optimistic, but the former has - so far - been a one-and-done event that failed to truly satisfy fans of any of the brands represented therein, while the latter is little more than a rebranding of their own online toy shop. Even so, I was briefly elated by the announcement of Hasbro Pulse UK, and quickly signed up to Pulse Premium in the expectation of ordering some sweet, sweet exclusive toys and having more certain access to their regular, mass-release inventory. The reality - for the UK, at least - is still not great. New items seem to make their way into the preorder stage weeks after they're first announced... Though, admittedly, the increased frequency of early reveals from YouTubers who acquire their toys through dubious channels may be distorting my perception of these delays.
I'd be the first to admit that the Collectors' Club and BotCon often missed the mark with their exclusives and boxed sets, but they were far more imaginative than Hasbro Pulse has been so far. Hasbro's inaugural so-called 'capsule programme' is literally re-treading BotCon 2008's Shattered Glass with largely inferior molds. My one hope for it going forward is that it'll be easier to acquire Studio Series toys when they're released, and that the GI Joe Classified: Cobra Island Baroness/Cobra COIL set will be re-released.
While many people, even today, will think of Generation 1 when someone mentions TransFormers - well, that or the Michael Bay films - the brand went through a terrific 'experimental' phase after G1 and G2 finally came to a close. The first new direction was Beast Wars which, as mentioned earlier, is one of the most highly-regarded continuities after G1 thanks to one of the all-time-great TransFormers TV shows. Takara carried the line on beyond Hasbro's figures with Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo. All this, from a toyline Hasbro basically palmed off on Kenner, saying "here, do something with this..."
Following that, we got Robots in Disguise/Car Robots, with its blending of heavily restyled - and very Anime-influenced - Autobots and monstrous Predacons. That eventually made way for Armada, which blatantly cashed in on the Pokemon phenomenon with its Mini-Cons, which unlocked geared and spring-loaded features in the larger toys. Armada led to Energon, in which Autobots could combine in pairs, while Decepticons developed more heavily-armed Hyper Modes via geared or spring-loaded features. Energon led to Cybertron, in which the geared and spring-loaded features were activated by keys rather than Mini-Cons or simple switches. Each line had a unique aesthetic, yet the three work well as a continuous narrative thanks to little details, such as Armada Megatron's tank form becoming Energon Megatron's primary weapon, as well as consistent character names applied to broadly similar-looking toys and characters.
I know I've stated that I don't think TransFormers toys need gimmicks beyond the essential, central gimmick of, y'know, transforming, and it may seem to some as though I'm being hypocritical in praising these three gimmick-laden lines in particular... But the fact is, I don't even necessarily like the gimmick, or the aesthetic direction of the toyline - Armada, in particular, took a while to warm to - but I respect the inherent risk with such a massive change in aesthetic direction. I appreciate the breath of fresh air that such changes brought the toyline. I was delighted when Classics came along, delivering quality reimaginings of G1, just before the live action movie series forced a quantum leap in engineering... Since then, though, we've had almost nothing but non-stop G1, with the exception of the Beast Wars and Movie Masterpiece lines, as well as Studio Series and the ultra-simplified kiddie lines like Rescue Bots and Cyberverse. Toys have been getting smaller and more simplistic as prices rise and quality control declines.
It's exhausting... and not in a good way.
Many folks out on Social Media defend Hasbro by saying that TransFormers is a kids' toyline, so the engineering has to remain somewhat simplistic in the main toylines... But can one realistically and sincerely think of it as kids toyline when Hasbro keeps recycling characters and designs from a toyline and TV show that was around over thirty years ago?
G1 was a kids toyline, Beast Wars was a kids toyline... as were RID, Armada, Energon, Cybertron. They were something new and different each time. The brand itself used to transform every few years. I'm half tempted to think WFC and SS86 are Hasbro's way of trying to finally get rid of the older, G1 Collector market entirely, so they can go back to making new and exciting toys for kids...
...Only half tempted, though, as I also think that's too charitable an interpretation of their current 'strategy'.
When I got back into TransFormers in 2003/2004, I started out with the original Masterpiece Optimus Prime (in my opinion, still the best of them) and the Binaltech line, but quickly got into Energon and Galaxy Force, with toys from the Armada and Robots in Disguise and even Beast Wars/Beast Machines lines entering my collection later, thanks to old stock in shops, official re-releases and some strategic eBay purchases.
The War for Cybertron Trilogy is the first toyline that has had me deciding not to buy a lot of toys that I thought I would have wanted because the finished products looked unfinished, and there were far too many reports of breakages for stupid, easily avoidable reasons. The fact that remakes of toys I've already bought from the ongoing Classics/Generations lines just aren't as good as their forebears mean that there was no point 'replacing' them, especially when the aesthetic direction of the line is just so boring.
I recently showed my niece a selection of toys from my collection: G1 Soundwave and Laserbeak, Music Label Soundwave, and Siege Soundwave and Laserbeak. For starters, she couldn't understand why the same character was remade, looking much the same, over the course of 30+ years... But the most telling thing was that she was genuinely impressed by G1 Soundwave and Laserbeak (even though she has little idea what a microcassette recorder is), somewhat impressed by Music Label Soundwave, (only because it's a working MP3 player) and deeply unimpressed with the Siege toys because, in spite of improved articulation on Soundwave, he transforms into a nonsense brick rather than an identifiable, everyday object. I couldn't be bothered to get the Earthrise version because it screwed up the transformation, leaving robot parts exposed in his alternate mode, and omitting his weapons' transformation into his batteries, which strikes me as an important play feature of the original.
G1 toys like Prowl and Jazz had less intrusive backpacks than their contemporary equivalents, and it seems that no effort is being made to engineer less wasteful transformations. Quite the opposite, in some cases.
And yet some people insist that War for Cybertron is "the best G1 we've had in years"?
I would humbly submit that their expectations have been stealthily and systematically lowered to the point that they're able to excuse crap because it's not intended for adult consumption, and that nostalgia is acting as blinkers. They're seeing G1-ish toys with contemporary articulation and considering that a resounding success... But, before the Pretenders, how many ShellFormers were there in G1? Children are, if anything, more discerning, because they're not weighed down by any experience of prior toylines.
And precisely how is a toyline that seeks to capture the essence of a 35 year old cartoon intended for the kids of today?
And yet, there's a portion of the fandom - largely in my age range, I would imagine - who insist that, as with every other prominent 80s toyline (and its associated fiction, for that matter), any reboot must be identical to the original, just with better articulation and, ideally, aesthetically even more like the shitty cartoon made to sell those original toys.
By pandering to these obsessives, I feel that Hasbro is allowing the brand to stagnate, when it could - and should - be reinventing itself every few years.
I've said it before but, to my mind, TransFormers is a brand centred on the concept of change. It's right there in the name: things which transform. TransFormers is not like GI Joe, where all you'll ever get is a new aesthetic, new uniforms and some new vehicles and/or weapon accessories. TransFormers is not like Masters of the Universe, with its firmly-established canon, where the recent Netflix reboot proves that deviating too far from the original just riles up the fanbase, and even deviating too far from the original aesthetic - the way She-Ra and the Princesses of Power did - can cause a lot of backlash. Nor is TransFormers anything like Star Wars, where a pantheon of existing characters must appear or at least be referenced or acknowledged in every new addition to its canon.
TransFormers is bigger than Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, Megatron and Starscream. The strength of series like Beast Wars, Robots in Disguise, the Unicron Trilogy, TransFormers Animated and TransFormers Prime is that they're not showing the same characters as G1. Optimus Prime is considered to be a rank more than a name in many of them. The existence of a Marvel-style Multiverse of TransFormers has been accepted... and the kids buying toys today have absolutely zero connection to the Sunbow cartoon. Hasbro couldn't ask for a bigger or better opportunity to create something new and exciting with the brand, yet they have consistently fumbled it for most of a decade now.
Ultimately, it feels as though it has come down to a question of whether and why I (should) continue to support a company that has so little regard for its intellectual properties that it is content to release crap - both in the sense of its associated media (IDW not included) and its primary product, toys.
I'm thoroughly bored of seeing the same characters, with much the same vehicle mode and remarkably similar robot modes. I'm not inclined to replace an existing figure with "this year's model" just because it's there - if it's not appreciably better, or different at least, then I'm content to stick with the one I have.
Studio Series gave Hasbro the opportunity to re-engineer some of their older movie toys, with reference to figures produced by Third Party companies, yet one of the most recently revealed toys - the new version of Jolt from Revenge of the Fallen - has a more egregious car shell backpack than either of the previous Deluxe class iterations.
I'm frustrated by the reduced quality and complexity. I'm not inclined to buy a new figure if it's not going to last as long as the toys I bought 35+ years ago, or if the engineering (articulation aside) is less impressive than the toys I bought 35+ years ago.
I'm thoroughly angered by the fact that Hasbro's 'Unification of World Brands' forced Takara Tomy to lower their standards, rather than making Hasbro up their game in terms of paintwork, accessories and packaging. I'm generally happy to pay the premium for a better-looking toy, but the price hikes on Hasbro's poorly-presented offerings are hard to justify.
Addendum 28/9/21:
Case in point, the new Generations War for Cybertron Golden Disk Collection, from which Chapter 2 - Jackpot with Sights - has been revealed today. Jackpot is a repaint of the Studio Series '86 Jazz mold with a new head sculpt based on the G1 Action Master, and it couldn't have looked more like a knockoff if they were trying. Dull black plastic has been coupled with a weirdly soapy-looking yellow plastic and mismatched yellow paintwork, as well as some orange (largely in robot mode) in homage to the G1 figure. The head sculpt is a bit of a mess, as if designed by someone who's only ever seen low-res photos of the original, so not really something I'd be interested in even if I didn't have a superior version of the character produced by the Collectors' Club eight years ago.
His partner, Sights, is the pteranodon/axe Battle Master from Siege, taking the place of the original toy's robotic bird who combined with Jackpot's handgun to form a rifle. Trading a ranged weapon for a mêlée weapon doesn't strike me as a sensible move, but this is Hasbro reusing the closest approximate mold in its robo-beast mode, without any retooling to make it work properly.
The first set - Road Ranger and Puffer, revealed last week - is just as disappointing/aggravating, but for different reasons. Firstly, Road Ranger has the G1 toy-accurate head for the Kingdom Huffer mold, so it almost certainly could have been included as an accessory with Kingdom Huffer. Secondly, aside from Puffer being a ridiculous name (albeit not even close to 'Decepticharge'), it's a bland colour swap/repaint of the Kingdom Pipes figure that hasn't even been made available yet.
Probably the saddest thing about Hasbro right now is their manifest desperation to create a Marvel-style cinematic universe. Given their selection of IPs, it should be easy: G.I. Joe vs. COBRA could lead into MASK vs. VENOM, which could then lead to the revelation of the secret war being waged between the Autobots and Decepticons on Earth. You could even have a parallel series in which Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering leads into Visionaries, with Rom the Space Knight and Micronauts leading their crossover battle to Earth for an epic Multiversal crossover, in which My Little Pony turns live-action to save the day with the magic of Friendship.
Instead, we've had the escalating insanity of the five Michael Bay TransFormers movies, two underperforming G.I. Joe movies, reboots of both in the form of Bumblebee and Snake Eyes, far too many low-budget, low concept D&D movies, and no overarching vision. There's clearly no real plan - much like in the TransFormers toyline - and the scattershot approach - particularly resorting to an unnecessary origin story that completely redefines the long-established yet largely mysterious character of Snake Eyes - makes it all the more difficult to tie things together in future.
They want to be Marvel, but they lack even the patience and persistence of DC, who have less of a plan, and a similarly scattershot approach.
If only Hasbro could make a plan and have the balls to see it through without blinking and saying "Hey, beasts are cool! Let's add beasts!".
If only their 'Unification of World Brands' was more than just an example of corporate doublespeak designed to get their shareholders nodding in dull, uncomprehending agreement.
At this point, pretty much the only way I'd accept yet another round of G1 from Hasbro is if the artistic direction is fresh: keep the contemporary, unlicensed vehicle analogues, but make the robots look unique again, the way the first live action movie did. Take a few more cues from Third Party engineering, particularly the likes of Unique Toys' Peru Kill, which basically just turns its vehicle mode inside out. If it has to be G1 again, then give us G1 filtered through the lens of Human Alliance.
If it has to be a reboot, take a proper stab at Beast Wars, Robots in Disguise or Armada. Give us TransFormers Animated season 4. Give us a proper follow-up to TransFormers Prime.
...But, preferably, give us a new TransFormers universe, and let us be wowed once more by these alien robots in disguise.
Or don't, and give me a reason to save money.
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