While I'd received some sort of notification about the 'Fan First Tuesday' event this month, I'd honestly forgotten all about it till I saw a reminder (possibly on Reddit) on the 12th. After quickly calculating what the BST equivalent of 11 AM ET would be, I dutifully tuned in with low expectations...
...And was not especially impressed. So unimpressed, in fact, that I've put off writing about it at all for a little over two weeks. I considered not bothering... but only after I'd started writing something, and then wasn't inclined to simply delete the work in progress.
Didn't stop me finding all kinds of ways to distract myself as I finally completed this post today, though.
So... Here we go...
Split between TransFormers (for a touch under an hour) and Power Rangers (for just 20 minutes, which I didn't watch), the focus on the first segment was very much the new Legacy toyline, introducing several Deluxes, a couple of Voyagers, a Leader and a Commander class figure from the Wave 2 assortment due later this year.
Like the previous show, it was a video conference call, largely between Rachel from Marketing and Mark from the Design team, with Isabella from the Franchise Marketing team offering a brief presentation on the new Robosen trailer for their Optimus Prime and the Forged To Fight mobile game. Neither were of interest to me, though I have to confess that the Robosen accessory, while insanely expensive (over $700!), looks excellent. Even leaving aside the motorised features, its presentation is leaps and bounds ahead of even the Masterpiece versions of the trailer, but the combined price of a 'complete' set means it's likely to be well outside the budget of many TransFormers fans.
Following on from these two trailers was a little bit about IDW's upcoming output, starting with the Beast Wars Annual, featuring artwork that wouldn't look too out of place in the Lumberjanes comics my niece reads. That was followed by a look at the cover options of the first issue of Last Autobot Standing, which looks to be part of IDW's swan song with the TransFormers license, as well as the final issues of both their ongoing TransFormers saga and the War's End storyline.
The final part of Isabella's segment introduced a new book, The Art and Making Of TransFormers: War for Cybertron Trilogy. It is, rather disappointingly, about the Netflix TV show more than the toyline, but does apparently include interviews with some of the toy design crew.
After this brief overview, Rachel introduced the toy-focussed segment of the show with what sounded, to me, like a bit of mental gymnastics to justify Legacy's G1 aesthetic:
"We actually started ideating Legacy several years ago, while John Warden was actually still on the team. And the team wanted to continue the Generations design introduced in War for Cybertron, so we thought 'How can we expand past G1 and apply the same design aesthetic to characters from across all animated universes that you see here on screen, and that we know all you guys, our fans, have been asking for?"
"So the premise is that we have this portal that opens a whole new universe, bringing together every generation of TransFormers in a new, modern look. So whether you're a fan from the 80s, the 90s, 2000s, or maybe even today, you can all collect and combine these characters, as seen on screen here, all coming together in Legacy, so you can create your ultimate Legacy line-up, and they can all live together, on-shelf, in one universe."
Mark then started waxing lyrical about articulation, the 'new' stuff like Energon weaponry and "a whole slew of cool design aesthetic", reiterating that the idea was to make characters from the 40 year history of TransFormers look "similar, but different, and then blending in with the rest of your WfC collection" - the rationale being that the WfC aesthetic had "gone over like gangbusters" and "everyone loved" it... which is stretching the truth a little. Every new continuity has been controversial in its own way, but the War for Cybertron series was very polarising, even before Beast Wars got shoehorned into the final chapter, with an entirely different and largely incompatible aesthetic.
In fact, the word 'aesthetic' came up surprisingly often, sometimes out of context, to the point where that line from The Princess Bride popped into my head:
"You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means."
But, hey, it's was still not as bad as listening to PrimeVsPrime.
So, on to my thoughts...
Legacy Wave 2:
Deluxe class
Wildrider - The opening salvo in this presentation was, in my opinion, something of a disaster. Bad enough that they're still going with a 'new' aesthetic informed largely by a 40 year old cartoon, but they're not even doing it well. I'm absolutely not a G1 purist, but if your aim is to produce ever more 'toon-accurate incarnations of characters, there's really no excuse for the obvious and avoidable errors or the insane backpack wastage on Wildrider. His vehicle mode's front wheels could easily have been kept on his shoulders, but they've been shunted to the backpack.
While showing the sequence of photos, Mark went off on one about the rather basic-looking pistols, and how the purple colouring (I assume they're going to be translucent purple on the finished product - they appear black in the photos) suggests "Energon flowing through the barrels of the blasters". He also described the legally-distinct-from-a-Ferrari-308-GTB vehicle mode as "wicked dope" - language which never fails to make me cringe - before opining that it "shines". This is absurd because, while there's a decent amount of sculpted detail (for a car), it's molded in flat, dark grey plastic and has very few paint applications that I can see: a desaturated red stripe down each side, a Decepticon insignia on the bonnet and silver paint on the wheels. Similarly, in robot mode, he has red paint applications down his arms along with silver and blue blocks on his chest detailing... but the vast majority of the sculpted detail has gone unpainted. The best thing I can say about it is that it's providing plenty of real estate for Reprolabels to fill with their inevitable upgrade sticker set.
While I like the way the car's bonnet collapses over the windscreen and roof for a neater, lower-profile backpack, the fact that the front wings pull away from the bonnet to hang out behind his arms - getting in the way of articulation - is a baffling piece of seemingly redundant engineering. I initially assumed it was something to do with the eventual combined form of Menasor, though Mark stated at one point that a decision was made to "try to break up his car and give him almost, like, a 'cape and cowl' type of aesthetic" (there's that word again - it probably shouldn't form the basis of a drinking game...). He bemoaned the fact that the animation model had no backpack to speak of, but suggested the changes made are actually an improvement. Mark also went on at some length about the decision made, across the entire Legacy line, to include additional sculpted 'tab' details to indicate where panels could be opened up so a medic could gain access for repairs after a battle. Just to clarify, that's not actual opening access panels on the toy... it's fixed, sculpted detail intended to suggest those panels or, as he puts it, "an extra step that we tried to go into ... a lot of added sculptural detail that has, like, a story background"... which, to my mind, seems entirely redundant, not to say completely nonsensical.
Knockout - the second reveal of this show was what seems to me to be a zero-effort retool of Studio Series '86 Jazz as a boring, badly G1-ified interpretation of TF Prime Knockout. Now, I'd be the first to admit that the TF Prime toy was not great, but this thing ain't any better. Knockout was slender and svelte apart from his massive shoulder pads and spikes, and had a very distinctive look to his 'helmet' and face. This thing is far too boxy and bulky everywhere and has the Diaclone-style protruding bonnet chest. The face is bland and generic, while the helmet has only a superficial resemblance to the stylish original.
Vehicle mode looks... OK, with a simplified, more angular take on the CGI's decals on the sides, which were basically absent from the TF Prime toy... But to say "that vehicle mode is just singing with those mustard gold rims" is overegging the pudding somewhat, and on a relatively minor point. Supposedly the vehicle mode has an 80s/90s aesthetic, but it seems more The Fast & The Furious to me (most specifically the more extreme paint jobs of Tokyo Drift, which came out in 2006).
He comes with "his crazy cattle prod weapon" which "we ended up having, like, it almost turns into, like a spear...", though the weapon being referred to might have been better off including the claw accessory from Core class Skywarp or the circular saw included with the next figure. Much was made of the modular approach to the weapons, though Mark doesn't seem to know what a trident is (the tip on its own is more of an elaborate sai, since a trident - much like a spear - would require a shaft), and the use of the shaft as a 'blaster' is pretty lame in my books. I certainly wouldn't describe it as "a very cool, like, rifle type of looking blaster", as the sculpted detail is so basic and vague.
Rachel cut in at this point, to mention that the "interchangeable Energon weapons and armour" are "one of the big main features for Legacy in 2022", seemingly because Mark just hadn't put enough emphasis on that aspect. A few extra words on that subject led to an extremely clumsy segue into the packaging art - which is, admittedly, pretty amazing... just a shame it's being applied to such mediocre toys. This then led to mention of the QR codes which can be scanned (no purchase necessary!) to view the character bios, as a nod to the G1 Tech Specs that Mark said he was such a big fan of, back in the day.
Tarantulas - I've gone back and forth on whether or not I actually like this toy, but I'm reasonably confident that I'll buy one at some point. The publicity photos show in the presentation really don't seem to do it justice, but I can't get over how cheap the plastic colours make it look. If the colours are the same as the Buzzworthy Bumblebee/Worlds Collide version of Blackarachnia, it may not be as bad as the photos suggest, but I tend to think of Tarantulas as being fairly dark, rather than day-glo.
The way robot mode's claws stick out at the front initially struck me as ridiculous - arachnids notably having eight legs, not ten - but it was pointed out to me in the aftermath of the show that they're intended to represent the male tarantula's pedipalps, a feature common among Chelicerata. While it might have been better if the claws had a joint that allowed the smaller part to fold back so as to be less obtrusive, they're part of the 5mm grip on the robot's claws. Plus, it turns out that simply angling these pedipalps slightly outward improves the look of them no end. His legs are articulated in much the same way as Blackarachnia - fused together where they join the body, with ball-joined knees about halfway down the legs - but his beast mode proportions are not quite so exaggerated as hers. I'm hoping that the sculpted detail comes out better than the photos suggest... but, if so, I would have to steer clear of any more realistically coloured repaints due to arachnophobia. Some of it - the fur texture and the design of the legs in particular - seems to lack definition, but there's a slim chance that will be improved for the final release.
That said, apparently the lack of fur texture on the legs was a conscious decision, intended "to give it that almost, like, robotic, smooth feel", which doesn't make a lot of sense. Much more likely, it was a decision made based on the quality of that plastic and the likelihood that such sculpted detail just wouldn't hold. For comparison Kingdom Waspinator's legs are vastly inferior to those of the older Generations toy, very likely due to a similar reduction in plastic quality over the intervening years. I think my main complaint about his beast mode is that his thighs don't sit flush against is abdomen the way they do on Blackarachnia.
Tarantulas will come with a duplicate of Blackarachnia's anchor-like handgun, as well as what Mark describes as "a new, Energon-infused buzzsaw weapon", suggesting that either the black plastic or silver-painted blade will be translucent plastic on the final release. The buzzsaw is a reference to TransMetals Tarantulas and, as mentioned above, would make a great attachment for Knockout... though it'd have to be added to his spear as there's no way to mount weapons on that mold's wrists.
They also - perhaps foolishly - compare Legacy Tarantulas to Kingdom Blackarachnia, which only proves that the latter was comparatively overpriced as a solo release.
On the upside, robot mode looks decent enough, and the head sculpt is excellent... But I have a weird feeling this toy is going to be pretty disappointing in-hand. If nothing else, I'm a little dubious about Mark's assertion regarding the "metallic purple hit" on Tarantulas' chest, and the brief rant about this being "the Golden Age of collecting" came across as ridiculous hyperbole, especially as a lead in to...
Elita-1 - It was at this point in the presentation that I started to believe that many TransFormers fans are actually delusional... When I posted a comparison on Reddit, showing Elita-1's new vehicle mode next to the disastrous vehicle designed by Homer Simpson, from the long-running animated TV comedy, someone responded by posting a link to her animation model... and suggested that the upcoming toy is a good approximation of it.
I'll just leave this here...
|
|
Main: Legacy Elita-1. Above right: G1 animation model Below right: The Homer. |
...and add only that I maintain this toy has more in common with The Homer than it does with Floro Dery's awful, blobby 'space car' design.
Another response indicated that this toy is actually based on the design proposed for Minerva in the IDW comics, though the evidence provided was a single panel that showed only her front end. This toy looks awful in vehicle mode, regardless of what it's trying to emulate, and the excuse that it's Cybertronian just doesn't justify it. The colour breakdown appears mismatched and ugly, with the rear end appearing to be completely devoid of paint.
Plus, the original animation model for Elita-1 looks close enough to Hot Rod that a partial retooling of the Studio Series '86 toy would likely have been a better choice: replace the spoiler with the top of Elita-1's head, replace the trio of exhaust pipes on either side with the chunkier, single exhausts of the animation model, then leave off the outer corners of the bonnet and resculpt the bonnet and front wheel wells.
That would have left Minerva - and the inevitable Nightbeat repaint - free to have their own dedicated mold... though, personally, I still think a retooling of the Punch/Counterpunch mold would work for both of them, at least as far as their terrestrial forms go... And surely they would be preferable?
Mark's introduction mentioned that there had been other Elita-1 figures in the past, but that this would be the first that "focuses in on some of the G1 design traits". For reasons detailed above, this figure still does not do that. I'd grant that she does have what he describes as "almost a perfect G1 aesthetic head", but the existing War for Cybertron toy is far closer to the Netflix vibe because one was designed to replicate the other. He additionally spoke on the challenges of designing this toy:
"...because we didn't want to go full-on Cybertronian vehicle, but we... y'know, my Design Manager at the time (would that have been John Warden?) wanted to go more of a dune buggy route"
before opining that...
"...it almost fits her G1 aesthetic almost better than the Cybertronian vehicle that we know and love, that she appeared in the animated episode."
...stressing that this is the Legacy version of Elita-1, making a contradictory nonsense of pretty much everything he'd just said.
The suggestion that the antennaed faux-'crown' shown in vehicle mode is detachable, and so can be attached to weapons struck me as bizarre because (a) it looks crap in vehicle mode and (b) it would look ridiculous as a weapon attachment... not to mention (c) it's clearly covering the 5mm port that will be used to attach Minerva's lightbar. However, it was the final section, showing off the 'options' for arranging her backpack that confirmed to the viewers that Elita-1 was, after all, an afterthought 'pretool' for a Legacy Minerva figure since, by raising the front wing sections on her back, the design almost perfectly matches her appearance in IDW's Wreckers: Tread & Circuits series, drawn by Jack Lawrence.
Listening to Mark try to describe the colours - "off-colour pink", "more of an orangy-pink", "a lot of pink tones", "that dark red and this almost, like, magenta-purple, here" - was almost painful, and then the very brief look at the head led straight into a look at her two translucent blue Energon weapons, one of which resembles the gun packaged with G1 Nightbeat, while the another is supposedly the pistol from the G1 animation model, upgraded to a rifle "just because she has the rifle in the Netflix series".
Voyager class
Jhiaxus - One look was all I needed to confirm that I have no interest in this toy, based on one of Simon Furman's creations from the old Marvel G2 comics - the name being a play on Furman's "Gee, axe us" response to the cancellation of those comics. Its robot mode looks like a non-transforming robot toy because it's so ugly and blocky and, while there seems to be a decent amount of sculpted detail around the toy, the colourscheme - soapy white plastic coupled with mustard yellow, and a weirdly Christmassy combination of red and green touches - looks awful. The bat wings on his ankles look particularly daft, and highlighting the cabling details in the shins with stark silver paint completes the image of this as a pound shop KO toy.
His jet/spacecraft mode looks like a bad knockoff of the craft from the old Battle of the Planets cartoon, but blockier and with that vile colourscheme... and the robot's arms are hanging off the undercarriage like an afterthought.
Mark went off on another tangent about the different colours of Energon weapons (which, frankly, makes zero sense and is clearly a symptom of whatever colour of translucent plastic was required for the main toy), then seemingly zoned out while talking about the jet mode's bat wings, leading to a complete change in direction. Articulation looks good, but nothing out of the ordinary over the last few years, particularly on a Voyager class toy.
Bottom line: this toy suffers from being based on a truly crappy comic book design, from the days where the artists stopped caring about adding any sign of vehicle mode detail to the robots, for a character who was never expected to become a toy... and it really shows. About the only thing I like about this toy is the way the tail fin transforms into the inner faces of his lower legs, and actually fits very well.
Soundwave - On the upside, they admitted immediately that this was not a new toy but a "packaging refresh" of War for Cybertron: Siege Soundwave. On the downside, it's literally just that, minus the battle damage paint applications, when all anyone is interested in is a wider release of the hard-to-obtain Netflix/Target exclusive Earthrise version.
Personally, I think both toys are pretty crappy (I've already sold off my Siege Soundwave and all his cassettes), but the reason for this one being reissued is baffling, and highlights a grievous error in Hasbro's current marketing strategy. The Earthrise mold - not just the specific colourscheme and paint applications - was part of the licensing partnership with Netflix and Target, so they literally cannot reissue the microcassette recorder version of the toy until that agreement expires. Time was, Hasbro would partner with shops for a limited edition recolouring of a widely-used mold (witness things like the K-Mart exclusive Battle for the Matrix (Armada) Optimus Prime, or CostCo exclusive Armada Optimus Prime and Overload set, or the Sam's Club exclusive repaints of Robots in Disguise Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus), but now they've chosen to include the mold itself in the deal, which smacks of abject desperation at Hasbro. Surely they'd have made more money on a wider release of a highly-anticipated figure?
Leader class
Blitzwing - This thing looks like an absolute disaster, frankly. Robot mode looks OK - almost like a low-budget knockoff of some of the Third Party offerings - but in either of its vehicle modes, it's a total mess. Supposedly as a reference to the G1 animation model, they've barely disguised the jet's nose for tank mode and, in fact, have sculpted an additional cockpit canopy on its underside, specifically for tank mode... And this is because the animation model was erroneously based on the G1 toy with the turret facing toward the intended rear of the vehicle. Jet mode, meanwhile, has massive chunks of the tank's sides just hanging off the undercarriage. Certain aspects of its engineering actually impressed me when its transformation was demonstrated in a YouTube review, but the whole is very much less than the sum of its parts as far as I'm concerned, and the Energon 'hands' are a complete waste of plastic.
There has been much discussion online about whether or not this version constitutes an improvement over the Thrilling 30 version, let alone the Titans Return version... Frankly, I've seen nothing short of Olympic standard mental gymnastics attempting to justify this unsightly travesty of a toy. There's a tendency for some fans to focus on one or two details that are supposedly 'cartoon accurate', to the exclusion of dozens of other details that are not. Suffice it to say, I won't be buying it.
Commander class
Motormaster - I came away from this one absolutely certain that I won't be buying the Legacy Stunticons... and yet somewhat impressed by what Hasbro and Takara Tomy have done in service of another shitty animation model. Introduced by Ejima from Takara Tomy, Motormaster himself is basically a Voyager class truck that turns into a robot approximately the same size as the War for Cybertron Optimus Prime figure, with a trailer that transforms into the basic structure of Menasor - arms and hands, legs and feet - with Motormaster just filling out the hollow torso. The fact that the trailer also turns into a battle platform is interesting, but not remotely exciting.
What did impress me was the transformation of the trailer into Menasor's skeleton, and the small additional steps with the arms to split up and more fully incorporate the Drag Strip toy into the upper and lower arms once the complete car mode is pegged on, as well as the spring-loaded closing of the shin when attaching Wildrider to the back of the leg. Somewhat less impressive was the meagre paint job on Menasor's skeleton, particularly on the shin detailing, which faithfully recreates the underside of Wildrider's vehicle mode. It seems insane to me that they'd put in that level of detail without even a hint of paint to highlight it.
Shattered Glass continues:
Voyager class
Ultra Magnus - I have to admit I was surprised by this. When Hasbro announced their Shattered Glass 'capsule programme', then said it would contain just five figures, so the very fact that it's continuing into 2022 is interesting...
Sadly, their first choice of figure is not. It's basically Earthrise Ultra Magnus in a Diaclone-homage colourscheme, with the choice of the original helmet in Diaclone colours (aka the Delta Magnus head) or a skull helmet head sculpt, based upon the Deluxe class toy from the 2012 BotCon set, Invasion. One curious detail of Mark's commentary was that he said
"...when John Warden worked on the Earthrise Ultra Magnus, he actually planted this alt head in there, which was really different - usually we do the G2 Laser Prime as the Shattered Glass version of Ultra Magnus but, like, this is, like, straight-up Ultra Magnus' Shattered Glass version with the skull-head."
Given that there's only been one other SG Ultra Magnus - the one from BotCon - it seems strange for Mark to say they 'usually' do anything... Similarly, I've not got the impression that the so-called Delta Magnus was in particularly high demand, yet Mark confidently stated that it was "on everybody's want list", having previously been released as a Masterpiece toy in 2016, and as a limited-run (1,500 copies) homage to miscoloured promotional footage for TransFormers: The Movie, back in 2001.
It looks pretty good... and comes with weapons from the original War for Cybertron toy as well as sword and axe from the Legacy Laser Prime toy... but I already know how bad that particular toy is, so the new colourscheme, accessories, head sculpts and Pulse Premium exclusive cover on the accompanying comic are not sufficiently compelling to me. I'll be keeping an eye on Hasbro's ongoing Shattered Glass line, but it's been very much a miss for me so far, and I honestly don't expect that to change.
So, to sum up:
- One should avoid basing a drinking game on Hasbro's use of the word 'aesthetic' in this particular event. It would not end well.
- Rachel seemed bored throughout and relieved at the end, which made Mark's enthusiasm seem all the more like he was either drunk or hopped up on stimulants... he did seem to lose his train of thought and slur his speech some of the time.
- "Fan First Tuesday" is a stupid name. "Fan First" only works for a Friday event because of the alliteration... yet they've now had these on every day of the week, still named "Fan First [weekday]". Given that there's zero interaction with the chat, they may as well pre-record these 'live' events and keep them as regular Friday broadcasts.
Throughout the show, the chat was pretty much evenly split between those who were impressed by what was revealed, those that were disappointed or angry about them (particularly the Siege Soundwave repackage), and those who were disappointed by how little was actually shown. There were also plenty of comments about how bored Rachel looked and Mark's hyperbolic, hyperactive delivery... so it'll be interesting to see the next show - perhaps with different presenters, or just a complete change in tone from both of these, and a return to the office, since both appeared to be dialling in from home.
Addendum 29/4/22: I went back and watched the presentation again, intending to get a full tally of the usages of 'aesthetic', and it turned out to be not as bad as I'd expected: Rachel used the word only once, while Mark used it seven times, but only in the first half of the show. Additionally, Rachel referred to the show as a "TransFormers Tuesday" rather than a "Fan First Tuesday", which makes a lot more sense. Also, I don't know whether this was a symptom of my skipping back and forth through the video, but certain sections of the chat appeared to stall, or simply be missing, on my second viewing.
No comments:
Post a Comment