Age of Extinction/Generations High Octane Bumblebee

For a good long while, and new TransFormers line would feature only two certainties: a new Optimus Prime and a new Megatron/Galvatron. Then the movies happened, and suddenly Bumblebee - a character virtually forgotten since the mid-eighties - seemed to become Hasbro's primary focus. Each toyline, they seemed to feel, required at least two variations on the theme of Bumblebee, in every size class, to the point where you could troop-build with Bumblebees...

Whether there was truly ever a market for this suffusion of yellow (Douglas Adams references FTW!) remains open to debate. Certainly, I have a friend who, in the wake of the original TransFormers live action movie, decided to start collecting nothing but Bumblebees, but I'd guess people like that are a happy minority. I ended up buying a total of five Deluxe class Bumblebees over the course of the movie toylines, but only one - Battle Blade Bumblebee - has stood the test of time.

Now, of course, a new movie means a new Bumblebee (or twelve). I'm sure you're all just aching to know how this one stands up against his forebears...

Cybertron Smokescreen

If there's one thing Hasbro does well (by and large, with some glaring exceptions), it's repaints. All too frequently, the first run of a mold ends up quite plain, lacking paintwork, particularly as the engineering became ever more complicated. Repaints, when they happen, have a tendency to be G1 references or out-and-out homages. Since Galaxy Force seemed from the start to be a great big G1 fan-gasm, it's no surprise that some of its repaints take the idea to the next level.

I noted in my write-up of Autovolt that his mold was the closest thing to the G1/Diaclone standard the toyline had seen in many years - the hood becomes his chest, the legs fold down at the back (yet from the front)... He even has shoulder launchers as his key-activated gimmick. All things considered, it should have been a no-brainer to make a couple of new heads and turn him into Bluestreak/Silverstreak/Streak, Prowl, maybe even Jazz...

But, no. For the Cybertron line, Hasbro never remolded and only repainted the Autovolt once... As Smokescreen.

Armada Megatron

One of my biggest problems, as a collector, is that I often end up buying things I had originally intended to ignore. So it goes with all my TransFormers: Armada (and Micron Legend) purchases, which basically happened because the first one (Laserbeak, if I remember correctly) was kinda fun. That was the only one I really intended to buy, in part because it was broadly 'to scale', making it the distant ancestor of things like the Real Gear subline of the 2007 live action movie toyline.

Some years ago, when Woolworths still existed as a real world shop and before it became impossible to see a movie in Harrow without it being interrupted by people talking all the way through, I often ended up buying old TransFormers toys that were on clearance in Woolies, and much of my small Armada collection - in particular, Optimus Prime (for about a tenner) and Unicron (for not much more) - is from there.

Some, though, I chose to buy because I ended up wanting them... After all, when one has Optimus Prime, one must surely have Megatron as well...

Age of Extinction Blurb

After three fairly forgettable live action movies and their associated toylines - the best of which somehow conspired to be the toyline for the worst of the three movies - I honestly wasn't expecting much from any continuation of the TransFormers movie franchise. Hell, I wasn't necessarily expecting further continuation at all.

I had some vague hope that another director might be enticed to take Michael Bay's place but, honestly, Bay isn't such a bad director. The problem always seems to be the material (and screenwriters) he's working with and I, for one, am glad to see the back of Kurtzman and Orci in the TransFormers franchise. They are capable of writing good stuff (I recently saw and loved The Amazing Spider-Man 2, for example), but just didn't seem to bother with TransFormers. They were utterly dismissive of the giant alien robots - theoretically the main characters in the concept - in favour of a gobby teenager, his girl troubles and his embarrassing parents.

Revenge of the Fallen Jolt

I have a lot of complaints about the first two TransFormers movies. I mean, the third is far from perfect, but at least it has something approaching a plot. The first movie is a poorly conceived introduction to the transforming robotic lifeforms from Cybertron tacked onto a 'heartwarming' story about a boy's first car, and the second is a ridiculous jumble that jumps around the world without ever really going anywhere. Worse still, it's far too obvious that some of the characters are there only to advertise Chevrolet's latest products.

Jolt is probably the most glaring example of this. Whereas the Twins had plenty of screen time and far too much questionable dialogue (must confess, I don't see them as racist stereotypes because I saw them as hillbillies talking 'street'... nothing about them made me think they were supposed to sound 'black'... but maybe that's just me), Jolt had maybe fifteen seconds of screen time, there was maybe one line of dialogue attributed to him that's equally likely to have come from Sideswipe, and his most significant role in the film was using his electro-whips/sparky arm phalli to magically graft bits of the deceased Jetfire onto the recently resurrected Optimus Prime.

In many ways, it was surprising that Hasbro even bothered to make a toy out of him (licensing deals notwithstanding), so how does he shape up?

OMG - New Aquisitions!

It just so happens that I'm working again - that is to say, "I've accepted a permanent placement" rather than just "I have a new temporary job". This leaves me with some proper disposable income, the likes of which I haven't really known for a while.

To celebrate this turn of events, I figured I'd treat myself... and what better way than this:

These two items were ordered from TFSource, in the States, because the UK-based web store I usually order from these days (a) didn't have Diesel in stock or on pre-order and (b) didn't respond to an emailed enquiry about it. Dunno what it is about UK specialist toy shops, but they always seem to end up annoying me somehow.

But hey, at least they weren't rude to me... unlike another one.

Interestingly, while I've had recently some issues with my bank blocking perfectly normal low-value transactions in the name of 'Fraud Prevention' (another nail in their coffin, as far as I'm concerned, so I'm looking into a new bank as soon as I can get organised), they allowed me to spend almost £150 with a US-based internet toyshop. TFSource, however, being wary of fraudulent transactions themselves, notified me almost immediately that they had cancelled my transaction and required me to pay by PayPal instead. Good for them. And good for me, that I already had an account that is actually up-to-date. The order was sorted out and despatched within about 24 hours and arrived during last week... without being held to ransom by ParcelFarce.

So... I now have the final component of FansProjects' Causality update of Generation 1 Menasor and, since I complained about the lack of decent wrist blasters on FE Bulkhead, the Dream Works 'Blaster Cannon Weapon Upgrading Kit'.

Not pictured here is a neat little (well, A3-ish) poster that seems to accompany the Dream Works set, though it was packaged separately. The card pictured in front of the box was actually inside it...

I was aiming to do some serious blogging this weekend but, in spite of an excellent start to the day, I'm not really feeling in the mood right now (partly because of a slight headache, I guess). We'll see how tomorrow goes...

The new background probably won't turn up in many new postings, mainly because 'new' is relative and most of my draft posts have ancient photos hosted on Photobucket, but also because it's my girlfriend's desk, and I was only using it because she's visiting family during her Easter break.