Sixteenth Anniversary

As we mark another year of this blog's continued existence, the sense of ennui is strong. Hasbro have singularly failed to produce anything I was willing to pay full price for, even in those very few cases where I actually bought official merchandise. Meanwhile the Third Parties continue to pack in far more bang for your buck. Broadly speaking, what you get from Third Parties is a smaller range of better-engineered products at almost any scale... But the Masterpiece analogues is where they're really starting to shine. While Hasbro only recently finished off its 2007 Masterpiece Movie series with the last Decepticon, Brawl, several different companies have now released their interpretations of Dark of the Moon Megatron and Age of Extinction/The Last Knight Optimus Prime, Unique Toys released their take on DotM Mirage/Dino and revealed Revenge of the Fallen Skids and Mudflap, while amazing-looking figures of RotF Sideways and AoE Stinger magically appeared earlier this year.

As paid work (and my birthday) permitted, I made only a handful of purchases, fewer even than last year. My two Hasbro purchases both left me feeling a little ripped off, even having acquired both at a discount (a Legacy 2-pack for less than the cost of a single Deluxe, and a Core class figure for about £2-3 less than RRP). The new comic book series has been gaining a lot of praise in the fandom but, to me, it looks like an even worse version of the 1980s Marvel comics, and much of the narrative that some are describing as 'peak fiction' just seems like over-the-top nonsense to me. There have been no further rumblings about a live-action follow-up to Rise of the Beasts, but the first trailer for the CGI animated movie TransFormers One seemed to pitch it as a comedy road movie (which, I gather, is more a fault of the trailer than the movie it's advertising). There really doesn't seem to be much to get excited about... But I can't say I'm unhappy about not finding myself in accordance with the vast majority of blinkered, hardcore GeeWunners and those who think 'Bayhem' applied to a comic book story is a good thing...

So, again, we're celebrating an anniversary with a pretty negative vibe and, as always, we'll begin with the Dishonourable Mentions:

Legacy: Evolution Deadeye Duel Ascenticon Kaskade
One of the worst molds from Power of the Primes got updated and remixed for the War for Cybertron
line, becoming even less impressive in the process. Then it got resurrected for this Legacy 2-pack, in a
colourscheme eerily reminiscent of the Timelines Sharkticon three-pack, with an utterly nondescript
new head sculpt and intriguing yet poorly-executed new modular weapon accessories. The clear duffer
of the pack, Kascade is one of the most forgettable TransFormers toys I now own.

Studio Series Core Class Concept Art Rumble
I genuinely wouldn't have bothered with this figure if it hadn't been discounted. It's 'Core class' in name
only, working out more like a Battle Master from War for Cybertron. Engineering is basic, articulation
is lacklustre, and the colourscheme is closer to the G1 Frenzy toy than any existing version of Rumble.

As with last year, I can only put together a Top 5 this year, since that's the sum total of everything else I've bought since last year. On the upside, that does mean I've saved myself a lot of money on mediocre products.

It's worth noting that, once again, three out of the five are Third Party, and one of the two official figures is a licensed, non-transforming model kit... Also, this year presents a rather more focussed set of purchases, as four out of the five are Femme-Bots. Although, one of those is from the same 2-pack as my first Dishonourable Mention. Clearly Femme-Bots are not an automatic winner, even in my books.

But let's get into it:

5. Legacy: Evolution Deadeye Duel Senate Guard Javelin
Strange name, certainly, but an excellent re-use of a great mold from the Bumblebee movie portion of
Studio Series. This one received significantly more in the way of retooled parts, both for her robot and
vehicle modes and, while the colour scheme is a little wishy-washy, the overall effect is good, and it
works surprisingly well as a Legacy figure.

4. BingoToys BT-04 Spider Girl
BingoToys, by and large, haven't impressed me with their output. Their Bumblebee movie Shockwave
has a nonsense 'gun' alternate mode, their Windblade analogue doesn't look quite 'right' in either
mode, the Bumblebee movie Ironhide they announced seems not to have progressed since its first
reveal two years ago... But then their take on Blackarachnia appeared and, weird as it was, I actually
quite liked the look of it. It's very much in the 'heightened' vein as Big Firebird's Nicee and Mocha,
but certainly a unique and interesting version of the original Femme-Bot Fatale.

3. Flame Toys FuRaiModel Kit Arcee
Arcee being another figure whose transforming toys have always been somewhat lacking (or, rather,
overburdened with vehicle parts in her backpack, given that most toys literally folded the entire car
shell onto her back), she was a logical choice for this line of model kits. In some respects, this one was
more complicated than Windblade - alterations were made to the way the legs were built, for example -
but the end result is rather more streamlined in the main. Some parts absolutely required glue but,
where Windblade did it for structural reasons, Arcee has parts that just don't peg together securely,
notably the pink armour panels on her shoulders and, perhaps most critically, the backpack only
loosely connects to the hinged arm on her back.

2. Unique Toys R-06 Red Dasher
Much as I liked the Alien Attack figure, I can't deny it's not exactly 'fun' to play with. Unique Toys
brought their special brand of clever engineering to Dark of the Moon Mirage/Dino and, as with
Peru Kill, created a good-looking, poseable figure that's also fun and reasonably simple to transform.
Yes, it uses faux parts, but it's hard to argue against that sort of trickery when the results are this good. 

1. MetaGate G-05 Red Fantasy
Only their second movie figure and their third unique figure, but MetaGate have taken the top spot for a
second year running with their take on Shatter from the Bumblebee movie. It's hopelessly out of scale
with both Haiku and almost any other Masterpiece analogue, but it's a fantastic figure, combining the
masterful engineering one would expect from Unique Toys with a knockout live action movie design.
To me, this figure is what TransFormers is all about.

And, as with last year, I find I have just one Honourable Mention, which I'm kind of cheating on, because I neglected to do anything with it when it first arrived, a couple of years back:

Flame Toys FuRaiModel Kit Windblade
While, broadly speaking, I loathe the very concept of non-transforming TransFormers, I enjoy model
kits and find building them quite therapeutic. Windblade, being a character whose transforming toys
have all been deeply flawed in one way or another, got her best chance at having a great figure by
taking away the necessity for transformation. The kit isn't perfect, and the stickers were an exercise
in frustration, but the end result is a stylish and well-executed figure.

The main problem with TransFormers Legacy - which has failed to gain my interest in any significant way though both Evolution and United - is that it never seemed to decide what it was. Its treatment of characters and universes was hopelessly inconsistent, with the majority of toys being hideous, G1-ified, boxy junk, with some of the worst molds getting multiple uses with minor retooling far beyond anything G1 managed. But then toys from the Armada and Cybertron 'universes' (bar the abysmal 'Galaxy Upgrade Optimus Prime') kept most of their identity, insted sacrificing their core gimmicks.

With the news of John Warden - fresh from rebooting Power Rangers to death - is returning to oversee the TransFormers brand suggests that whatever follows Legacy: United will be... yet another G1 reboot... Which means the brand has been stagnating for the last 10-15 years. Granted, the decline has been far slower than that of the original TransFormers line: G1 didn't last even ten years before it reached the point of Action Masters - non-transforming TransFormers. If one were to take nouveau-G1 as starting with Classics, back in 2006, we've had about eighteen years of G1, running alongside the live-action movies, Animated and Prime. In theory, that's great... but from Combiner Wars onwards, it's been three year reboots of different sections of the core G1 cast, never managing the full set before starting again in a new continuity that treads the same path with a different gimmick.

My concern for the brand is twofold:

• I've said before that I expect Hasbro to restructure its size classes such that everything gets smaller again. It's a strategy they've used before, and they'll use it again and again as long as there are people willing to put up with it. We already have Voyager class toys that are barely larger than some Deluxes, and certainly not significantly more complex in their engineering. Leader class and Commander class have been so varied in their content as to make both labels effectively meaningless. People keep trying to justify this by pointing to increased production costs, but Hasbro's price hikes have outstripped most if not all of their competition, all of whom would be experiencing the same increased costs. Hasbro's profiteering has been highlighted elsewhere, with their handling of Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. This level of behaviour is wholly unique to Hasbro, and it hasn't been doing them or their products any favours... But then other people brush that aside, saying "that's business"... short-term profit-making, since the shareholders don't really care about long-term performance. They make their money by selling their shares for a profit, not by holding on to them... While this may be true, it's sad that people who call themselves "TransFormers fans" are willing to simply accept it, and shrug off its impact on the products the company produces, or even make the demonstrably false claim that it's not harming the quality of the products.
• More recently, Hasbro's focus has been on simplifying transformations while increasing articulation... but we've gone from the highs of 'transforming action figures' that we had during the Classics-to-Thrilling 30 years, to a load of action figures that barely transform, as well as an increase in partsforming as standard. The logical end to this trajectory is a new era of Action Masters. That may be essentially what the - thankfully now defunct - TransFormers R.E.D. line was, but when the toyline makes so many toys that just turn into nondescript slabs with engines, treads, and cannons as kibble, it looks like the intention is to switch over to developing robot action figures... but, if they keep to the current aesthetic, they'll be far uglier than the original Action Masters ever were. 

From my point of view, much like the claims that Rise of the Beasts was "the best live action movie so far", a lot of the positive talk about the current toylines and the Skybound comics reads like desperate self-delusion, or proof of the massive dumbing-down of an audience that has slowly been trained to accept lower-quality products.

While I've been slightly better at TransForm-A-Blogging this year than last, it's felt like a huge slog simply because Hasbro have eroded any sense of goodwill, and almost all the excitement I felt about TransFormers, both as a young collector back in the 1980s, and as an adult collector since 2003.

I still have incomplete draft posts I started years ago and, in some cases, ended up taking new photos of those toys because the originals were either lost or of such poor quality, they would have been completely incongruous. There's only three of those ancient drafts remaining now, and I've added new drafts in an attempt to round off various portions of my collection (such as Timelines), but I was lacking the impetus to really get moving on that for absolutely ages. Even some of my newer purchases, particularly the more exciting Third Party stuff, have proven difficult to write about because my sense of ennui toward Hasbro is eating into my enjoyment of those products as well: if Hasbro don't care about TransFormers, why should I?