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.
