2023 Retrospective

It's that time of year again... and, like last time, I'm going to keep the preamble short. Suffice it to say, 2023 was a difficult year and a disappointing year, in equal measure.

Not least, this has been one of the leanest years this blog has seen since it began, party due to a five month gap in postings. I've barely bought anything that wasn't discounted to half price (or less), and the Legacy line has utterly failed to engage me, while Studio Series has made a mess of the toys from the first live action TransFormers movie since Christmas 2018, and Hasbro's streams have consistently 'revealed' toys that have been common knowledge for months. As far as official TransFormers go, I think we can safely say I'm no longer an active collector... At least until they produce something a bit more innovative, that isn't deeply rooted in G1.

Though there's some cool Third Party stuff to look forward to in future...

So, let's get on with this year's retrospective:

Human Alliance Skids & Arcee

OK, by this point, I am reasonably certain that this is actually the last - the very last - Revenge of the Fallen figure in my collection, at least until Studio Series adds something worthwhile from that film. As with Mudflap, this toy had been languishing, largely forgotten, in a box for years. The photos I had taken have been awaiting upload from my computer for more than ten years.

Skids and Mudflap were referred to in RotF as 'the twins', but their Deluxe Class toys were surprisingly different, given the limitations of the size class. They had broadly similar Mech Alive gimmicks, but the specifics of their operation were quite different. Their transformations had similar aspects, but their weapon features were wholly unique. The craziest thing about the Human Alliance versions is that they're even more similar in terms of their underlying engineering, despite the (marginally) larger size versus the Deluxe class toys.

So, let's take a look at this much-maligned character, and see how he fares in this underutilised format.

TransFormers: Waste of the Beasts... AKA Equivocation of the Franchise

I said I was going to see it... So I went to see it.

There were signs that the completed movie wasn't quite so bad as I had expected and/or predicted... Though, even in that, there are caveats. At this point, this whole thing is very much overdue - I saw the movie at the end of June, after all - and I'd started to wonder if I should even bother now. 

I had, of course, read the effusive fan praise that appeared throughout the internet immediately after the movie opened and had taken it with a pinch of salt. I had read spoilers and comparisons between the movie shown in test screenings, months ago, and the final theatrical cut. I had read stories of extensive reshoots and disagreements between teams of Editors over what could be salvaged and made watchable from a movie rumoured to be potentially about four hours long. None of what I saw or read gave me any reason to doubt that Rise of the Beasts was an absolute disaster, for Paramount, for Hasbro, and potentially for Steven Caple Jr.'s future career. Given that it's now been almost five years since the Bumblebee solo movie hit the cinemas, I get the impression that some fans must have been suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

Potential spoilers ahead...

Beast Wars (Reissue) Scorponok

As a Collector who didn't become a Beast Wars 'fan' until long after the toyline had ended, the myriad reissues have been a great benefit to me. Much of my BW collection was obtained via the secondary market, but Takara Tomy's Telemocha reissues back in 2007 allowed me to pick up new versions of key characters featuring more TV show-accurate paintwork, and the Beast Wars Reborn set from the previous year even included retooled parts for greater accuracy.

Hasbro's more recent reissue strategy has been haphazard at best, trickling out random figures, with a strong bias toward recycling the same old G1 molds we've seen in previous reissue lines, but the decision to reissue Beast Wars toys - in recreations of their original packaging, no less - allowed for some more direct comparisons with their contemporary output in the War For Cybertron: Kingdom toyline... and, surprisingly, some of the new toys came off worse for that comparison.

One such example, in my opinion, is Scorponok. I've covered a version of the Kingdom figure in another post, so let's take a look at the original figure... or as close as one can get outside of the secondary market.

Ocular Max (MMC) Infinite Finity IF-01A Eris: Kultur Subjugation Alternative

 (Femme-Bot Friday #83)

I'd be the first to admit that my knowledge of IDW's TransFormers comics is sorely limited. I used to get the Marvel comics back in the 1980s but, as an adult, comics just don't appeal to me quite so much. First and foremost, they take up space that I'd prefer to use for other things. Secondly, the individual paper comics require much more careful handling and storage than graphic novels (what Marvel UK used to refer to as 'Collected Comics' back in the day) so, on the rare occasion I buy anything comics-related, it will be in that form. But, more than that, my interest has always been mainly in the toys, not any of the associated fiction, so the comics never seemed especially important... Especially after they started following the US version in messing up all the characters in both appearance and portrayal.

I acknowledge that this has probably led to me missing out on some excellent stories, as well as the introduction of new characters who had not been part of G1 or G2 in the Marvel comics... but media-only characters always feel like a waste of time to me, considering any and all TransFormers media is, fundamentally, advertising for toys. I may have encountered analogues to some of them via the TransFormers Collectors' Club, but they carried no special significance to me because I hadn't been following the comics.

However, there's always one sure-fire way to grab my attention with a tertiary character, and that's to make them a Femme-Bot. And here, Ocular Max - aka Mastermind Creations - have done just that. Some years back, they turned the character of Tarn - erudite leader of the so-called 'Decepticon Justice Division' - into a figure in their Reformatted line - Kultur. It looked interesting enough but, lacking any connection to the character or even the concept of the Decepticon Justice Division, it wasn't as interesting to me as the myriad repaints of Reformatted Azalea. While the majority of Ocular Max's output seems to have been G1 Animation-style figures, the Infinite Finity line seems to been created with the intention of branching out, possibly with an IDW focus, while maintaining a degree of continuity with Reformatted.

Eris: Kultur was the first figure from this line, revealed in 2020 and first released - available exclusively via web store Planet Steel Express - in 2021, with its original colourscheme being a very limited run specifically for that web store. I wasn't really in a position to order it at the time, but MMC/Ocular Max hinted at a recolour to be released later, so I hedged my bets and waited.

And so, here is the result of my... patience..? Or, at the very least, the response and solution to my Fear Of Missing Out.

Fun With Chrome

A few years ago, I discovered the YouTube channel Toy Polloi, which offers both reviews of vintage toys and documents repair work to those that are damaged. Through this channel, I learned that there are pens available which can (re)apply chrome to toys where it has worn away. These pens are made by Molotow, and come in a variety of nib sizes. This information I squirrelled away until, after my birthday this year, I found myself with some Amazon vouchers left over, and decided to treat myself.

Now, it's been years since I did any proper customisation on any of my TransFormers toys, most of which was to underpainted movie toys (no surprise there) and was not exactly extensive or detailed. The idea of being able to add chrome via what is essentially a felt-tipped pen, rather than brushes, was instantly appealing, and I started combing through my collection to pick out toys that would benefit the most from some added shine.

It turned out to be quite a fussy process: the 'ink' takes absolutely ages to dry properly (I found that best results were achieved by leaving it for 24 hours, just in case) and, in the meantime, is uncommonly easy to smudge, smear, or ruin with fingerprints. Nevertheless, the results so far have been more than satisfactory.

Fifteenth Anniversary

This post is, to be perfectly honest, a bit of a rush-job. I'm writing it just three days before the date, and I just want it out of the way.

I've not bought anything new for most of this year, largely because of a lack of funds... But I honestly think that if money had been no object, I still wouldn't have bought much. Legacy continues to limp on, presenting horrifically bastardised versions of fan-favourite characters, Studio Series continues to degenerate in terms of engineering/build quality and fidelity to the movies.

The cinematic release of Rise of the Beasts - at least one year later than originally planned due to reshoots and the rumoured editing issues - should have been a ray of hope, but the movie pretty much ignored all the lessons that should have been learned from the Bumblebee solo movie and spiralled back into Bayverse Lite: marginally better character development (in that... it was there... I guess?), but the same tired Quest for the Next World-Ending McGuffin formula. I've been meaning to give it a proper write-up since I saw it back in June, but get fed up just thinking about it, and the assertion by the Director that "the Studio don't care about continuity" is an insult to the fandom.

TransFormers deserves better than Paramount. 

Frankly, these days, TransFormers deserves better than Hasbro... but that's a whole different rant.

The RotB toys have been mediocre, with several Studio Series toys revealed as minor retoolings of the mainline figures, inaccurate and lacking paint, while the mainline figures fail to adequately reflect the movie CGI, but often present a better in-hand toy experience.

So, here we have an anniversary post where there's precious little good to talk about.

Studio Series #93 Hot Rod

I still haven't watched The Last Knight (and still don't intend to), but I have watched enough clips to know two things: that Hasbro's first attempt at a Hot Rod figure back in 2017 was hopelessly inaccurate, and that the writers couldn't decide whether he was supposed to be French, or just somehow 'stuck' with the accent, considering he frequently uses French idioms in his dialogue (consistently addressing Vivian Wembly as "mademoiselle", introducing himself with "Je m'apelle Hot Rod", etc.).

His design was pretty good, though, carrying just enough of the Diaclone DNA exhibited by the likes of Bumblebee and Jazz in the first film - even more surprising considering how quickly Bay's movies distanced themselves from that aesthetic - while fitting in with the sleeker, increasingly humanoid styling of the later films.

Given that I bought DX9's excellent La Hire more than three years ago, one could be forgiven for wondering why I'd bother with Hasbro's Studio Series update of their figure from The Last Knight's toyline... And, granted, it does seem strange to spend £26 on a Deluxe class figure that I know isn't going to hold a candle to a larger, more intricate, elaborate and accurate Third Party Masterpiece-analogue, that I already own, and for which I paid just £77. SS Hot Rod may be just one third the price, but can a Deluxe class toy, as produced by Hasbro in the 2020s, possibly be even one third as good as La Hire?

Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there?

Rise of the Beasts: Trailers, Fan Chatter & Toy Musings

I've already made a couple of passing references to my concerns about the upcoming live action movie, TransFormers: Rise of the Beasts, not least due to its long production delays and reshoots, as well as my ambivalence toward the toys thusfar revealed. As we get closer to the movie's intended release date in June, the hype is naturally building. There have been more toy reveals - including confirmation that the two very different styles of toys that have emerged are due to the expected, individual Studio Series releases and a pair of three-packs that will appear in a separate, dedicated Rise of the Beasts toyline - along with the expected early reviews from the usual suspects on YouTube.

The teaser trailer appeared a few months ago, with the message that "For millions of years, our world has transformed... but something else has awakened" and "Power is primal" - both equal parts ominous and utter nonsense - along with piss-poor CGI that fans have been picking apart and rushing to defend, in almost equal measure, ever since. It was followed more recently by a Superbowl teaser that added little of any substance, and which seemed to be pushing the Porsche brand as much as the movie, but the overall impression I've been getting - for quite some time - is that Rise of the Beasts is not Knightverse part 2, but Bayverse version 2.

Real Gear Robots Zoom Out 25X

If you were under the impression that the Real Gear Robots toyline couldn't possibly get any worse than Speed Dial 800... You'd be about right. However, it's a very close-run thing when it comes to the last few I bought. The funniest thing about the line is that, just 15 or so years later, so many of the alternate modes are so out of date, and Zoom Out 25x is saddled with one such example, along with another of the line's terrible names.

Given that there are already digital (photo) cameras and (ancient-style) cellular telephones available in the line, a camcorder feels like another logical addition. It has as much play value in its alternate mode as in its robot mode, and it's certainly the same kind of consumer technology... But is it a worthwhile addition to this strange and short-lived, movie-adjacent toyline?

War for Cybertron: Kingdom/Golden Disk Collection Mutant Tigatron

Looking back on the War For Cybertron Trilogy, now that we're entering the second year of Legacy, it is quite easily apparent that it was a troubled toyline from the very start. How much it was affected by COVID-19 is anyone's guess but the line, as a whole, was an occasionally glorious trainwreck, with little in the way of consistent direction, particularly when the Netflix series is included in its context.

Siege was a toyline that didn't live up to its promise and which ended before it really got started. Its accompanying show didn't feature half the molds or characters available, yet introduced some who weren't represented on the toy shelves. Earthrise was yet another in Hasbro's seemingly interminable series of 'true' G1 reboots, yet half the expected characters wound up in the Studio Series '86 line, while the animated series was a continuation of Siege that had zero connection to the toyline beyond certain specific figures. Kingdom, meanwhile, was seemingly cobbled together from the end of Earthrise and a Beast Wars anniversary toyline which has continued into Legacy without ever properly acknowledging Beast Wars, or its anniversary, and the Netflix show kept the same old Siege CGI for the Autobots and, while it introduced some of the Maximals, most of the Predacons were absent.

So it seems strange that Hasbro chose to further muddy the waters by creating several unrelated boxed sets, all of which featuring either repaints or minimal retools. The Golden Disk Collection would have been an easy pass for me, in its entirety, were it not for Hasbro's decision to make Terrorsaur part of the set rather than a mainstream Kingdom toy. This one was only of mild interest to me, because the original Tigatron figure was unexpectedly good... but, at £32, Mutant Tigatron was a figure I decided I could live without. However, as part of Hasbro's Advent sale in the run-up to Christmas 2022, they dropped his price to just £16... and I found I could no longer resist.

Studio Series #91 The Fallen

Ostensibly released toward the end of 2022, this figure was rumoured to not be getting a widespread release in the UK, and was almost instantly listed on Hasbro Pulse as 'Sold Out'. Having seemingly missed out there, I bookmarked the figure on Amazon, despite it being priced significantly higher initially, and ended up ordering after Christmas, at a slight discount, using some of the Amazon vouchers I'd received as a gift. Unfortunately, the copy I received was not only headless, but missing the mask accessory, so I had to send it straight back and claim a refund.

By this point, Hasbro Pulse miraculously had stocks again and, given that their standard price was just 90p more than the discounted price I'd just paid on Amazon, I figured I may as well order there... Free delivery as well, thanks to the current Leader class pricepoint, which is always a bonus.

Now, I'm not a fan of The Fallen, per se. Back when I wrote about the original, Voyager class figure from 2009, I described it as "what would happen if you let H.R. Giger design a TransFormer" and as exemplifying "everything that was wrong with the TransFormers movie robots". In retrospect, I have decided that I like the design, in and of itself, but I just don't think it works even as an ancient Cybertronian quasi-deity. The bizarre, monstrous appearance, coupled with the fact that he never transformed in the movie, was a huge missed opportunity within the franchise... but then, introducing a villain like The Fallen in just the second live action movie, only to kill him off so easily at the end, was the quintessential missed opportunity, as well as being, just generally, a terrible mistake on the part of the 'writers'. Perhaps if the writers' strike had been resolved sooner, the movie could have been more coherent, and The Fallen a better-developed and more 'normal'-looking character, with a more significant impact on the franchise rather than just another Scooby-Doo villain of the week...

...But let's not dwell on what might have been... Because here we have Hasbro's latest attempt at creating a toy based on the bonkers CGI, and all we need to know is whether or not it's better than the original.

APC Toys Night Countess

(Femme-Bot Friday #82)

Way back in 2016, a 3D printed figure based on the TransFormers Prime character Airachnid turned up on my Facebook feed, courtesy of (seemingly former) YouTuber Daimchoc. Given that Hasbro's own Deluxe class toy was an absolute travesty, any new figure based on that character didn't exactly have a high bar to clear, but this looked to be phenomenal, even in its grey/white prototype form. A painted sample appeared not long afterward, looking incredible and, from the moment I first clapped eyes on it, it has been on my Want List, even though obtaining it seemed unlikely given its provenance. Then again, stranger things have happened...

Imagine my surprise, then, when APC Toys revealed images of their latest TransFormers Prime figure earlier in the year and, rather than being just another minor upgrade to an official TF Prime toy, it was that very 3D printed custom figure, fully painted and very much on the way to a full production run. The moment it became available, I put in my order... And, precisely 30 days later, it arrived, straight from China.

Is this new, Third Party take on the other alluring Femme-Bot Fatale actually any better than Hasbro's? Let's take a look...

Human Alliance Barricade & Frenzy

Here's another fine example of me forgetting about a perfectly good toy for far too long... So long, in fact, that I acquired and wrote about the Masterpiece version of the figure more than three years ago, and that was ten years after this toy was released! Worse still, this blog was already in full swing when this toy came out, so I really have no excuses... I wish I knew why I neglected the last three Human Alliance figures in my collection... But, other than the blog getting off to a very slow start, I can't imagine what stopped me.

But let's not dwell on old mistakes and, instead, enjoy the process of revisiting a toy that had been stuck in storage for far too long. I was a massive fan of the Human Alliance concept... still am, in fact, and it's something I hope Hasbro will eventually revisit at some point in the future. Barricade was, in my opinion, one of the most interesting aspects of the first live action movie, being a Decepticon who transformed into a vehicle which, in an ideal world, is intended to reassure people, make them feel safe and protected. Barricade is, of course, the antithesis of that idea... but I don't think they really played into it as much as they could have, and then he disappeared until the third film, then again until his refit in the fifth.

The original Deluxe class toy was very much a product of its time, with all the shortcomings that implies. Let's see how this version of Barricade fares, being not only a product of a different time, but a different and much more advanced toyline.

Buzzworthy Bumblebee: Creatures Collide 4-pack

By and large, the Buzzworthy Bumblebee line has been filled with products I have been perfectly content to live without: regardless of which line the toys are derived from, they have been mostly superfluous repaints. When it comes to the boxed sets, there have been far more misses than hits. When the Worlds Collide set came along, I ended up buying the Blackarachnia figure purely because she's a Femme-Bot and it was a decent reference to the original Beast Wars toy's box art, while the other figures were reportedly a mess of loose joints.

This second 'Collides' set was, at first, marginally more interesting. I wasn't overly fussed by the scarcity of the Netflix-branded Earthrise Bumblebee toy because, having already bought Cliffjumper, I knew it wouldn't be a patch on the Classics toy from 2006... But Goldbug was another matter, because I'm quite fond of the G1 Throttlebot, and he's sufficiently distinct from Bumblebee. Similarly, I'd passed on the TV show-inspired Kingdom Scorponok figure because I was disappointed by the look of it but, now I own a reissue of the original toy in show-accurate colours, a toy-coloured repaint of the Kingdom figure was potentially a fun comparison. Skywasp was a stupid/amazing pun, and so instantly interesting, in spite of the new mold's obvious inferiority to Generations Waspinator... Which left Ransack: a repaint of the Legacy Kickback figure that's barely an improvement on the G1 original, representing one of the 'Deluxe Insecticons' which, back in the day, had a wholly unique mold that was never made available in the UK.

So, when presented with this set at a RRP of £93, I turned my nose up and avoided it, even though that breaks down as four figures for slightly less than the price of four individual Deluxes. However, seeing it cut down to £45 at GAME, it seemed like a sweeter deal... But let's see how I feel about it with the figures in-hand...

The Other Half 4: On Femme-Bots!

Not long after I posted my write-up of Nicee, and followed it up with my post about Femme-Bots generally and the fandom's reactions to Nicee in particular, I asked my girlfriend if she'd be willing to write an opinion piece of her own. Not that I felt my overtly positive impressions of the figure needed any kind of legitimising, but because I was genuinely interested in what she might have to say.

After all, this is someone who sees my collection - on display in closed, glass-doored cabinets in our lounge - as part of the scenery in our home, to the point where she barely notices it at all. I know she's aware of my appreciation for Femme-Bots, and I get the impression she's neither offended nor threatened by it... but, equally, it's not something that we really talk about in any great depth. I tend to show her any and all new purchases - including Big Firebird's most recent transforming Femme-Bot, Mooka - but I don't exactly expect a detailed and discerning assessment, because I know she's just not really that interested.

However, I did say that I was going to get her to offer her thoughts on the matter and, while they've taken a couple of years to coalesce, they arrived just in time for Valentine's Day, so here we go...

Hasbro, Collecting, and Me...

Long-time readers will surely have noticed that 2022 was a bit of a sparse year as far as the TransForm-A-Blog is concerned. Twenty-nine posts in total, of which just 17 were proper toy write-ups - the lowest number since 2009 - which was the first full year I was posting this blog, when I was still figuring out how I wanted to use the blog, and still only a few years back into the idea of collecting as a genuine hobby.

During this two or three years, with the launch of Hasbro Pulse, Hasbro has really upped its game in terms of its Social Media engagement, hosting semi-regular livestreams catering to fans across their portfolio of brands. Hasbro has launched new toylines, new TV shows, and even started the promotional juggernaut for the first live action TransFormers movie in five years. In theory, there's an awful lot of material to blog about. One could be forgiven for thinking that now is an exciting time for TransFormers fans... But it's really not.

Not for me, at any rate, and I can be fairly sure that I'm not completely alone in all my concerns... Some of them, maybe, but not all of them.

I've written, in other opinion pieces here, about my increasing sense of ennui regarding Hasbro's TransFormers output, the downsizing, the increased costs, etc... but the War For Cybertron Trilogy, Studio Series '86 and now Legacy/Legacy Evolution seem to me to represent the absolute stagnation of the brand shifting swiftly and assuredly into active decay, along with an increasing sense that everything Hasbro does now is about maximising shareholder profits, heedless of any and all fallout, rather than creating worthwhile products... And it's not only evident in TransFormers.

Big Firebird Build EX Series EX-01 Plus Mooka (AKA Mocha)

(Femme-Bot Friday #81)

I know.

I originally said I wasn't going to write about this figure here, but on my oft-neglected, more general toy blog... However, sometime between Mocha/Mooka's announcement and actually receiving the toy in the post last year, I realised that was the wrong decision. While it still doesn't fit here in the sense that it's not a Third Party take on a TransFormers character, it doesn't fit there in that it's clearly an adult collectable rather than a toy. In many ways, posting about the Cyclion there was somewhat mistaken.

However, I've covered Go-Bots and myriad other Third Party figures, so the TransForm-A-Blog is clearly not wholly about TransFormers. Plus, Mooka is derived from a figure that was originally conceived as a stylised take on Arcee, so I've decided to post this here, and henceforth try to keep Toys, HEXcetera... focussed on things that are more general action figure material.

So, prepare yourselves for another controversial and divisive Third Party Femme-Bot, this one seemingly deliberately reworked to play into some of the complaints made about Nicee when she first emerged.

War for Cybertron Trilogy Covert Agent Ravage/Decepticons Forever Ravage

Every so often, even now, a set of TransFormers toys comes along that has the potential to get me excited. Whether it's something new and unique, or simply a repaint into a favourite character, Hasbro sometimes manages transcend the current mediocrity of their products... and this was once such set.

It excited me because I was interested in the Beast Wars Metals Jaguar - the 1999 Japan-only retooling of Transmetals Cheetor into the Tripredacus Agent seen in the three-part Season 2 finale of Mainframe's seminal Beast Wars television series - but the toy, frankly, looks a bit crappy and, these days, tends to be very expensive on the secondary market, with some sellers asking over £350 for the boxed figure.

Hasbro's new version, released in 2021, didn't quite hit all the right notes for me and, at its full asking price of £49, was an easy pass. However, during their Advent Calendar sale, they dropped the price by 50%, and I felt almost obliged to order, just to have a version of such a fantastic reimagining of G1 Ravage, even though the accompanying part of the set would be possibly the fourth copy of the actual G1 Ravage toy that I've owned.

But was it a worthwhile investment, even at half price? Read on, and find out!