TransFormers Collectors' Club 2007 Exclusive (Timelines) Astrotrain

One of Fun Publications' stated aims when they took on the license as Official TransFormers Collectors' Club was to release two Club exclusives per year, and to pick up some unreleased store-exclusive repaints from the much-maligned Universe subline. Their first choice was 'Spacewarp', originally a straight repaint of Armada Jetfire packaged with three space-themed Mini-Cons. For several reasons, changes were made along the lines toward getting it made, including a whole new head sculpt to go some way toward explaining the name change. Astrotrain was eventually released about a year late... and met with a rather tepid reaction.

TransFormers (Movie) Payload

While the live action TransFormers movie had a limited cast of robot characters (and far too many humans, but that's another post altogether), the videogame based on the movie allowed for an extended line of new toys based on characters developed specifically for the game. Problem was, all the new robot designs were basically drones... Hasbro had to turn them into something else.

Payload is one just one such example but, while some of the other characters created from videogame artwork had their monocular drone heads replaced, Payload was one of those who did not. So, how does a videogame TransFormer translate into plastic?

DotM Mechtech Megatron

There were few characters in Michael Bay's TransFormers movies more contentious than Megatron. The fans had a very strong idea of what he should be, and Bay's production team singularly failed to deliver on all counts. In the first movie, he was a spindly Cybertronian attack jet that transformed into a ridiculously large, bulky and Shrike-like robot. In the second, rebuilt using parts from his minions, he became a spiny tank which transformed into a robot no less Shrike-like, but for the addition of what's known widely as the Murder Arm. Both had toys in Leader, Voyager and Legends classes and all were pretty terrible. Considering that, in many ways, Megatron played second fiddle in all three movies, would it be reasonable to expect his third incarnation would be any better?

A Public Service Announcement

A few weeks back, I happened to be in a branch of Toys'R'Us (you'd be surprised how easily I find myself in toyshops... it's quite uncanny) and picked up TransFormers: Prime Robots In Disguise Voyager Skyquake. I'll do a review eventually, so I won't go into too much detail about the model here... Suffice it to say there was something a little odd about the feet - they didn't sit flush with the 'ankles', and so he looked a little less stable than he should. Believing initially that the feet had been transposed when the model was first put together, I opened up his lower legs and switched them around... yet they still looked wrong.

Looking more closely, I realised that only one foot was wrong... regardless of which way round they were.

Skyquake had been assembled with two right feet.

It doesn't actually affect his stability (not as much as having a completely fixed footprint, pretty dramatically limiting the posing options outside of 'standing up straight'), but it's one of those things that preys on my mind (no, really, I'm that anal about toy assembly faults sometimes).

This weekend, while out browsing the shops before a movie, I happened to be in a branch of The Entertainer (see, it really is easy!) which was stocking TF:Prime Voyagers at the knockdown (or should that be Knock Out?) price of £15 and saw that the selection included the second colouring of that mold, Dreadwing. I hadn't really intended to buy Dreadwing, despite the fact that he's the version who appears in the show in a non-Zombie state - and voiced by Tony Todd, no less - but an eight pound saving swung the balance... and surely I wouldn't pick up another misassembled version of this mold?

Well... Yes and no. Pretty much the first thing I did, having liberating Dreadwing from his packaging, was check the feet.

He had two left feet.

I couldn't believe how lucky I was, as this meant I could disassemble one leg of each, swap the feet, and have two perfect models.

The it hit me - maybe it wasn't luck, maybe it was a larger factory error: had Skyquake got all the right feet, and Dreadwing all the left? Stranger things have happened (remember e-Hobby's Cobalt Sentry Howlback, with two of the same missile launcher?).

So, here's the Public Service Announcement:

"Skyquake and Dreadwing... On their own, they'll never be dancers...
...but together, they're unstoppable!"

No, hang on, that's not it...
"If you pick up either Skyquake or Dreadwing, and one of their feet doesn't sit flush with the bottom of the lower leg, it would be worth checking out the other to see if it has two of the opposite foot, allowing you to make a trade."

Doing Things Differently...

...Maybe.

So here's the thing: when I started this blog, I was using Photobucket to host my images, and grabbing sets of thumbnail links from its built-in option to do so. Things became even easier when I started using Flock as a browser because, for a while, it featured its own blog editor and Photobucket uploader which, to a certain extent, bypassed The Bucket's automatic downsizing of images. Then Photobucket (and Blogspot) made changes that meant I couldn't log in, upload or post from Flock anymore. Flock fixed things, then they got changed all over again. Flock upgraded, losing most of its cool features and becoming just another browser. Flock got cancelled, but Photobucket still did what I wanted/needed by way of keeping track of my images and linking them - thumbnail-style - into this blog.

TransFormers Prime Ultra Magnus

Hasbro and Takara have been bucking quite a few trends with the TF Prime toyline, which makes it a real shame that the excellent TV series doesn't have a great deal of exposure, and that the distribution has been diabolical for the few toys they release with each wave. For the most part, the toys are well-designed and interestingly complex, utilising some very new techniques to fold fairly large, detailed robots out of vehicles that are roughly equivalent to G1 toys in size.

Then you get Ultra Magnus... One of those rare cases where he's not a repaint of Optimus Prime - which can only be a good thing - yet one of the least complicated toys for his size. Indeed, there's very little difference in transformation between this Voyager and the Cyberverse version... But let's not get ahead of ourselves.