TFC Toys Uranus/Superion

Post by **Clay** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 7:35 pm

I don't think we have a thread for this, but it's worth noting.

Color pictures of F15 Eagle

Color pictures of F4 Phantom

Prototype pictures of SR71 Blackbird

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 7:37 pm

Those're ridiculously generic.

Post by **Clay** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 7:38 pm

So were the originals!

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 7:51 pm

Clay wrote:So were the originals!

Yeh, but surely the point is that they have should have some basic resemblance to those originals? At what point are TFC/FP/Whoever just making random transforming figures and taking advantage of the narrow tastes of Transformers fans by colouring them a bit like Transformers figures?

borg72 · Post by **borg72** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 7:52 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:Those're ridiculously generic.

Each of those jets has a fairly distinctive design, and the toys seem to get fairly close to that (under-jet kibble issues aside). how are they 'generic'?

Edit: Check that, I suppose I was never taking these as anything more than a (very) broad homage to combining jets. If you're more of the 'this is Superion in all but name' then I can sort-of see your point.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 7:56 pm

borg72 wrote:Each of those jets has a fairly distinctive design, and the toys seem to get fairly close to that (under-jet kibble issues aside). how are they 'generic'?

They just don't look much like the Aerialbots beyond the colours and don't even particularly scream 'Transformers' to me. By 'generic' I mean they could be from any line. The basic designs are sound, don't get me wrong, but 3rd Party companies need to either do Transformers or let the tenuous connections go, remove the safety net and come up with their own ideas. These designs to me fall between the two stools.

another tf fan · Post by **another tf fan** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 7:34 am

Heh heh, Uranus

@ Cliffy : have you seen the Hercules figs? They're no more generic than these and feature a 2005 level of sophistication. They're not horrible but TFC has established itself as a great Q.C. Engineer but a middling toy engineer.

Summerhayes · Post by **Summerhayes** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 1:16 pm

If these were just being plonked on the shelves for £15 quid, they'd be alright. But since they're likely to try and charge us through the nose to take advantage of nostalgia, they should at least look better than the Superion I already have . . .

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 5:53 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:They just don't look much like the Aerialbots beyond the colours and don't even particularly scream 'Transformers' to me. By 'generic' I mean they could be from any line. The basic designs are sound, don't get me wrong, but 3rd Party companies need to either do Transformers or let the tenuous connections go, remove the safety net and come up with their own ideas. These designs to me fall between the two stools.

Sorry, "do Transformers" should have read "do G1 Transformers".

I have pretty ambivalent feelings about this stuff... On the one hand it's good that the updates aren't slavish but on the other they surely need some connection other than colour schemes and rough subgroup make-up (five jets make big jet robot in this case). It's the sort of thing Hasbro regularly get a bollocking for, after all.

It just strikes me that many 3rd party companies want to have their cake and eat it too - they want to push the boundaries a bit but they like having the secured X hundred sales (and pre-release attention) the figures being based - however loosely - on Transformers gives them.

Of course, the bottom line is "if you don't like it, don't buy it", which is what I'll do.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 7:30 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:At what point are TFC/FP/Whoever just making random transforming figures and taking advantage of the narrow tastes of Transformers fans by colouring them a bit like Transformers figures?

The starting point?

Post by **Warcry** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 1:11 am

Cliffjumper wrote:I have pretty ambivalent feelings about this stuff... On the one hand it's good that the updates aren't slavish but on the other they surely need some connection other than colour schemes and rough subgroup make-up (five jets make big jet robot in this case). It's the sort of thing Hasbro regularly get a bollocking for, after all.

I'm honestly struggling to think of too many third-party toys that have more than a vague resemblance to the characters they're supposed to be. Fansproject Swindle is the only one that really comes close, at least out of the really popular ones, not that anyone can tell since every single one in existence is perpetually combined with a bunch of Energon toys.

Never really seen the point, personally. If I wanted a Springer toy that doesn't really look like Springer, I'd pull that stupid Evac redeco out of whatever box he's been shoved into.

Summerhayes wrote:If these were just being plonked on the shelves for £15 quid, they'd be alright.

This is another thing that makes me shake my head. There are a few of third-party toys that I'd be interested in if they sold at the same price point as Hasbro's toys, because (as much as third-party-fanboys like to crow otherwise) they're more or less on par, quality-wise, with Hasbro's recent output. But if I'm paying Masterpiece-level prices for something I'd damn well expect it to have Masterpiece-level quality, and nothing's even come close to that.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:40 pm

The Masterpiece figures don't have masterpiece quality...

Was quite glad of the less balloon-y Seaspray and Powerglide third-party ones. Worked out at about twenty quid each, which is steep but rounded out the classics legends quite nicely.

Post by **Clay** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:51 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:They just don't look much like the Aerialbots beyond the colours and don't even particularly scream 'Transformers' to me. By 'generic' I mean they could be from any line.

Are you defining 'generic' as a pejorative though? Animated had a style, the movie lines had a style, but these 3rd party figures seem to fight right in with most transformers not of those two lines since about 2006 or so. If you mean they could be from any classics/generations line in the past few years, that'd be a point in their favor, no?

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 9:34 am

Well, I'd say it's more of a point against whatever Classics is called this week. They could be from any line but they could, like a lot of Classics figures, be basically any character depending on what headcast and paint scheme you slap on. Those three have about as much in common with the Air Strike Patrol as they do with the Aerialbots.

Post by **Warcry** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 4:18 pm

Denyer wrote:The Masterpiece figures don't have masterpiece quality...

Hence why I own a grand total of one of them. I may buy the new Optimus too, if I ever see it with a reduced price, but jacking up the MSRP by $30 so they could include a trailer that I don't want hasn't exactly helped them make the sale. (Especially when they couldn't be bothered to include Rodimus's trailer when he's the one that actually needed it...but that's a different rant altogether.)

When I'm paying that much for a toy, I'm not going to give it as much leeway as I would the toy I impulse-bought in Walmart while I was grocery shopping. If a $15 Classics toy has flawed engineering or isn't especially accurate to the original design, it's not a big deal as long as I have some fun with it. But if I pay $80 or $100 for something, my expectations are a lot higher. If the best that someone can say about a third-party toy is "it fits in with Classics", and I can buy four or five Classics toys for the same price, it's just not happening.

Thunderwave · Post by **Thunderwave** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 11:24 pm

I only own, as of right now, 2 3rd party transformers. I picked up the Crossfire sets for Bruticus and I think that kind of skewed my look at 3rd party figures. For about $50 a pop I got a Basic sized figure that blew my socks off, plus all the bits to make Bruticus all the more awesome. It set a bar that other figures have to beat before I'll consider buying them. These, so far, have fallen short of that bar.

numbat · Post by **numbat** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 11:42 pm

At least the Blackbird is better than ROTF Leader Jetfire.

But I don't think either are worth the money...

Post by **Clay** » Fri Nov 09, 2012 1:08 am

Warcry wrote:
When I'm paying that much for a toy, I'm not going to give it as much leeway as I would the toy I impulse-bought in Walmart while I was grocery shopping. If a $15 Classics toy has flawed engineering or isn't especially accurate to the original design, it's not a big deal as long as I have some fun with it. But if I pay $80 or $100 for something, my expectations are a lot higher. If the best that someone can say about a third-party toy is "it fits in with Classics", and I can buy four or five Classics toys for the same price, it's just not happening.

To be fair, the Hercules figures, and by extension probably these too, were voyager size, not deluxe. I haven't bought many third party figures, but have been satisfied with the ones that I have. It just comes down to whether figure X is something you had wanted anyway, along with the likelihood that Hasbro will attempt the same thing.

Post by **Warcry** » Fri Nov 09, 2012 3:34 am

If they're that big, they're pretty sloppy Voyagers. But I think it's more likely the jets are Deluxe-sized -- the small jets come up to about mid-torso on Silverbolt in the comparison pics, and I don't think they've gone and made him the size of Metroplex. I could be wrong, though. And like I said, I suspect I'd like them better if I couldn't buy, like, 45 old Beast Wars toys for the money they'd cost.

But all my third-party scoffing aside, if that Masterpiece-sized articulated Sixshot ever sees the light of day I'll be very, very tempted...

Knightdramon · Post by **Knightdramon** » Fri Nov 09, 2012 3:27 pm

These are delicious looking jet modes. I LOVE jet transformers and these fit the bill perfectly.

Definitely agree about their generic-ness, if not for the colours Air Raid and Fireflight could pass as micromaster homages or whatever and nobody would have noticed.

Curious about Silverbolt's production colours, has there been a Blackbird that wasn't, well, black?

Do want to get them for the jet modes alone, but I'll sit this one out for about a year. Considering that most of the first run constructicons had problems that were fixed with later releases, a re-issue AND a SG moniker, and you can get a full Hercules for as low as 400 USD instead of the near 600 he demanded, I'm sitting and waiting for the aerialbots.