New G-1 figures(an idea I had)

[AndrewWGroch]

I had an idea. I thought it would be a great idea if Hasbro made the old figures again using the new technology and the die cast parts. I thought it'd be a great idea instead of them making more and lesser quality of the older toys. I guess that it wouldn't be that different cause they were animated the way they were made. The alternator Swindle and Hound are great, from what I've seen. The mustang ain't bad either, and neither is Tracks, unless I'm mistaken. What's with the lack of exotic sports cars? It would have been a hundred times better if they were able to get contracts signed from Lamborghini and Porsche.

Man, it'd be great though. All the original Transformers remade with joints, how they did with the masterpeice Optimus Prime.

I guess I've started to ramble. What was with the city transformers? Those things would have been great if they'd have only made them big enough for the original cars size. It'd be great if they made a Skyfire toy, cause for some reason I am disatisfied with playing with a Jetfire; I have to admit that the Skyfire design was more appropriate for Transformers.

I'm not one for the newer Transformers, meaning the pretenders and micromasters. I was one of those people that lost interest after seeing Powermaster Optimus Prime and then the next time I was at the toy store I saw pretenders and I thought "what the hell is this?" and then the next time I went I saw micromasters and I thought "what the Hell?" I guess if I think about it as a 4-year old, the pretenders and micromasters were as complex in design as the original Transformers and only lacked the metal parts that industry had replaced with less expensive and more durable plastic. I don't know, they just weren't the same. Not that it hasn't been said before.

Maybe this is appropriate for Creative:Visions of Cybertron. My messages context of my creative thoughts.

Ya, the only Transformers I had were Scrapper, and then I lost it, I think it was my brothers, and then I got the dump truck, it's the only one I can't remember the name of, and then later I got Shockwave because my brother convinced my mom to get it for me. Man, was it the greatest toy in the world or what? There were plenty of trades and other things and Transformers that would mysteriously appear out of nowhere, given by some gutless friend to a tough kid my brother knew, but those were the only ones that I think were my own.
My mom didn't want to buy them for us! I'm half Korean and I guess that she didn't think it would have been good for us because it weren't "condusive" to mental health and they weren't creative toys(such as Legos, or playing in the sand box). She knew a lot more about those wily Japanese and the estrange things they try to do. Ya, but I always wanted them. The other kids'd tell you, I loved playing with their Transformers. The other kids would have a washtub full of them and I only had one.
Later on a maturing overweight Mexican kid, a real nice kid, thoughtless but thoughtful, how the overweight kids were, gave me any of his old toys that I wanted. He gave me four dinobots, it would have been all five if his Swoop didn't have the wings broken off, every jet except for Thundercracker except none of them had the complete sets of wings and guns, and another kid had given me his Thundercracker and Inferno, Devestator, Bumblebee, Perceptor, Ravage, and I keep trying to think of more but other then maybe Soundwave I think thats it. Thats a lot of great Transformers!
Now for some reason the box got lost or stolen, I kept them all in bubble wrap stored in a neat small cardboard box, including my old Shockwave and my broken dump truck. I'm gonna have to buy a gun and a Transformers detector, not to mention some powerful acid that won't peel off stickers. Not only for me but also for those two kids, who I know want their Transformers back.
But even if I use the acid will I be able to stand them up on display and think that their the same as they would have been, symbols of a to end lost past, they having been touched and tainted by strange hands? No, I think not.
My brother's Runabout was in that box. Yeah, one time he drew a picture and a kid that made a rascist joke thought it was so great he traded all five aerialbots for it, and the tank triplechanger. He wanted that one back though. I think it's funny now though, that we got his Aerialbots. That black one keeps vanishing though. Not that I have it anymore.
The only Transformers I have now are my complete monsterbot and my brother's complete Bruticus with a snapped in two chestplate. I think I have some other crap such as some other kid's incomplete Ultra Magnus and the Jeep throttlebot and the cement truck double targetmaster, oh yeah, and the black race car that I thought wasn't bad cause I could play with it in the tub. I think I have the yellow racing car Stunticon.
The only old transformer I have is a mint condition Ravage that wasn't in the cardboard box that decorates my bookshelves, with tight joints, as though I'm supposed to hand it to the kid and say "Here ya go", and give him that one cause it was supposed to be enough.
Man that Shockwave toy was cool. I didn't even know it's legs push all the way out until it was five years after I got it. The thing was never even complete other then when I opened it. One of the peices was always mixed up with our Legos. Man I want to strangle someone. Now I have one less thing that not only reminds me of, but is proof that my past is what it is. My dad was in the Army and we moved around a lot, and as we moved I was forced to take upon new lives. I have nothing to remind me of my past.
I had thought that the yellow castle would have been enough, you know, the Lego original castle, the yellow castle. We have it, and I could build it peice for peice into the original, but it isn't only mine, and three of the five baseplates are lost. Even if I built it it wouldn't be enough. The Shockwave toy would have been enough, hell, the broken dump truck would have been enough; but now that they've been infested with post-pubescent microbes of some form of another(excluding my own of course), I will never "feel" what I will if I gazed upon them, it is not enough. I have no games, no books, no things, no old clothes, nothing, to remind me of my past, and even if I were to be given them all back, they would all be tainted beyond my need for them, I have no past. I don't want to be some jackass that thinks, "well, it happens to everybody" admitting that one bad thing that happens to somebody must happen to everybody else in what would quickly become an extremely unfair life. Nothing though, it's truly amazing, not one thing. Not one friend, not one personality of an immediate family member, not one place I could go back to and see some sign that I had been there before, nothing. The old toys I lost, gone. The things I used to do, unrecognizable or changed beyond repair. A trail of a puzzle solved to guide me back to what I seek, too much trouble, wouldn't work(such as: something when I was 11, and something when I was 9...), even Pikes peak is either taller or shorter beyond visible recognition. Not one thing. I already thought about it.
You know those things that you wish you had good advice for? Well, I'll give you one. Don't ever let it happen to you. Those things you have that you love, or maybe you don't know how much you love them, don't ever let anything happen to them. If you don't listen, one day your going to give something away and your never going to get it back, and then it'll never be the same.
Ending the Transformers story though. Yeah, that's it. Didn't have many, got some, all gone. Gotta go buy a rope or something. And if your one of those Internet patroller do-gooders who alerts authorities if you find material indicating homocidal behavior or suicidal tendancies don't try it. I, supernooser could get to a tree faster then you could pick up the phone. It doesn't matter anyway, it's too late.
I saw some great things on Ebay. I saw a never been opened Jetfire, Reflector, Megatron. I ain't gonna pay a thousand dollars for toys that'll never belong to me as much as a top shelf though.
Man, I think I'm gonna fascinate about playing pinata or something. Naw, I'll go check and see if there were any answers to my less then extraordinarily interesting poll about the leader of the Autobots.

[Scout]

Moved this here because it's got to do with the discussion of toys you have (and would like to see)- as is written on the forum description- but in a way it could also fit under G1. Still- it fits with a recent thread here in Toy discussion.
Visions is for fanfic, kitbashes, or pictures.

There are some reissues- and Ender asked about them a few threads down: http://tfarchive.com/community/showthre ... adid=34747

These are done by Takara and are vaguely affordable (and I like them)- but they're not done in the same way as Optimus. From what was written in News, *if I understood correctly*, there will be a Starscream done in the same style coming up in the near future. http://tfarchive.com/community/showthre ... adid=34959

[Almighty Galvatron]

What's with the lack of exotic sports cars? It would have been a hundred times better if they were able to get contracts signed from Lamborghini and Porsche.

Man, it'd be great though. All the original Transformers remade with joints, how they did with the masterpeice Optimus Prime.

I guess I've started to ramble. What was with the city transformers? Those things would have been great if they'd have only made them big enough for the original cars size. It'd be great if they made a Skyfire toy, cause for some reason I am disatisfied with playing with a Jetfire; I have to admit that the Skyfire design was more appropriate for Transformers.

The lack of Porsches etc disappoints me too, but that's largely due to the companies that make them not wanting to grant a licence to a line of 'war toys', usually because of their germanic origins and something about not mentioning the war...

Alt Jazz was originally planned to be the first alternator, in the form of a Porsche Boxter, but for reasons explained by Nevermore, this was not to be.
Binalternators rumors page

HasTak are probably yet to solicit licencing from Lamborghini, or due to the likely cost of said licence, can't make the toy affordable. My guess is that supercar marques demand higher prices than everyday brands to keep that air of exclusivness and superiority. Ultimately, if this is the case, the cost would be passed on to the consumer.

As for city sized transformers, can you imagine how big Metroplex would have to be to fit someone even as big as Grapple or Prime? You'd have to dedicate the better part of an entire room to that one transformer and the cost would be prohibitive for everyone except lottery winners.

[Brave Maximus]

You haven't heard of NeoG1 yet, have you?

[Cliffjumper]

Originally posted by Almighty Galvatron


HasTak are probably yet to solicit licencing from Lamborghini, or due to the likely cost of said licence, can't make the toy affordable. My guess is that supercar marques demand higher prices than everyday brands to keep that air of exclusivness and superiority. Ultimately, if this is the case, the cost would be passed on to the consumer.

That'd be pretty much it... an additional problem is that most exotic car producers are owned by blander names... Lamborghini I think are still owned by Chrysler, Ferrari by Fiat, Jaguar by Ford Lotus by Proton (I think... I can't remember whether Proton own Lotus Cars, or just Team Lotus) and so on... The problem with that is that exotic sports cars don't need any promotion, so if you go to Chrysler and ask about, say, a Diablo, they're going to try and push you in the direction of doing some bog-standard Chrysler, to make one of their cars that needs a bit more of a makeover more desirable. They have companies quequing up for licenses to make toy Diablos...

The other problem will be that Alternators are probably a little bit more in competition with high-quality model cars than, say, Cybertron would be, and if a company like (warning: Random company name) Tamiya have paid through the nose to license a 1:24 XJ220, they might have some leverage in making sure that HasTakTomyFleetwayGrahamCrackersHallit can't get their mits on a license themselves.

[AndrewWGroch]

Sorry about that Scout, I get started writing and I figure "Well, it's it enough" and I don't move it to somewhere else.


About the exotic sports car licensing, sure it'd cost more, but that's how it was back in the old days, the bigger Transformers would cost more dollars, Red Alert would cost more then Hound(note: I don't know this for certain, I am assuming, though if you woud find a store that prices only by appearance of the toy then it would be true) and the same thing would happen now, the only problem is changes in mass marketing; people don't listen to the same people anymore, or they don't listen to the people they should - and I blame the internet, it allows people out there to let their opinions be known and other peopel whos opinions should be known are not given a chance. Honestly I can't think of one reason why the, I must say great, toy industry of Japan would not be given time by the Italian exotic sports car industry. That was also a problem of the newer plastic Transformers, now the Japanese could think and make decisions that people in America are not willing to pay for the higher prices. There's no reason for that, we're all older now and we would buy the toys. Sure we should be paying for our wives or spouses(sorry) and children but everybody is allowed to enjoy themselves! It's because of the middle east and oil refining and technology; they think that if a person buys plastic one time they have to keep buying it, because the new plastic was undeniably better then the metal that had been being used before it. Personally, metal toys are more fun, and they were much more realistic, how they used the metal parts, and plastic is unreliably compared to it, the cheaper price is proof of that, honestly I've started to think that plastic bends and moves when kids don't look right at it, in some strange attempt to study it's environment.

About a scale city Transformer, we'd play with it. I am more then a little disappointed about their designs for them. I have to admit that they did a great design job and when you sit back and look at it they resemble cities at a distance, such as Trypticon's superhighway and Metroplexes chest urban area, but they could have sat back at a distance and thought of what a city really needs, and they could have included it and found a truly innovative way to transform it into a man. I think I'm going to attempt to do this. What I mean is, when they make a car or jet transform into a man it is innovative, they make the front the chest, and the consol the head, and the car transforms into a man(I guess a car), and not that it isn't, but they should do the same for a city...ya, I guess they did, but I think they could do more. Sure, it'd cost two hundred dollars, but we'd buy it. And you know what? Our parents would have bought it for us. Parents love that stuff! They love when a toy's better. They want one too. I think they buy it to have it in the house or to have one.

[AndrewWGroch]

Sorry about that Scout, I get started writing and I figure "Well, it's it enough" and I don't move it to somewhere else.


About the exotic sports car licensing, sure it'd cost more, but that's how it was back in the old days, the bigger Transformers would cost more dollars, Red Alert would cost more then Hound(note: I don't know this for certain, I am assuming, though if you woud find a store that prices only by appearance of the toy then it would be true) and the same thing would happen now, the only problem is changes in mass marketing; people don't listen to the same people anymore, or they don't listen to the people they should - and I blame the internet, it allows people out there to let their opinions be known and other peopel whos opinions should be known are not given a chance. Honestly I can't think of one reason why the, I must say great, toy industry of Japan would not be given time by the Italian exotic sports car industry. That was also a problem of the newer plastic Transformers, now the Japanese could think and make decisions that people in America are not willing to pay for the higher prices. There's no reason for that, we're all older now and we would buy the toys. Sure we should be paying for our wives or spouses(sorry) and children but everybody is allowed to enjoy themselves! It's because of the middle east and oil refining and technology; they think that if a person buys plastic one time they have to keep buying it, because the new plastic was undeniably better then the metal that had been being used before it. Personally, metal toys are more fun, and they were much more realistic, how they used the metal parts, and plastic is unreliably compared to it, the cheaper price is proof of that, honestly I've started to think that plastic bends and moves when kids don't look right at it, in some strange attempt to study it's environment.

About a scale city Transformer, we'd play with it. I am more then a little disappointed about their designs for them. I have to admit that they did a great design job and when you sit back and look at it they resemble cities at a distance, such as Trypticon's superhighway and Metroplexes chest urban area, but they could have sat back at a distance and thought of what a city really needs, and they could have included it and found a truly innovative way to transform it into a man. I think I'm going to attempt to do this. What I mean is, when they make a car or jet transform into a man it is innovative, they make the front the chest, and the consol the head, and the car transforms into a man(I guess a car), and not that it isn't, but they should do the same for a city...ya, I guess they did, but I think they could do more. Sure, it'd cost two hundred dollars, but we'd buy it. And you know what? Our parents would have bought it for us. Parents love that stuff! They love when a toy's better. They want one too. I think they buy it to have it in the house or to have one.

[Scout]

Was watching Beast Wars season 2 last night, and Optimus Primal made a great comment that I had forgotten about - "Die Cast construction, it's a lost art."

More metal usually made the toys better, but not always. Now it's really expensive to die cast anything. My father has been working as shop manager in a die casting plant for about 40 years now. They started out as using all zinc alloys to die cast, but that's changed to mostly plastic shipped in off-site from China. Their main business was trophy figures and car parts. But in the last 10 years, the market has gone to wanting plastic. People don't want to pay for long-term quality so much anymore. If it looks good and works, it's good enough. Dad got very upset after we bought a VHS vcr and it died in two years. Our Beta still works almost 18 years later. The difference- metal parts.

BinalTech vs Alt- my fav characters or really slick looking figures- I'm willing to save up for and hunt for the more expensive toy at the best price possible. Otherwise, plastic off Walmart shelves is fine. Looks good, and it works. I think we'd also play with a city-sized tf, but it'd be too expensive and who'd have room? You'd need a room the size of Legoland for it.


>S'ok Andrew. You can't move your threads after they're started- you just need to make sure you start them in the right forum http://tfarchive.com/community/index.php?s=. If it does get accidentally started in a different place, any of the staffers will move it where it belongs- but try to match the ideas to the forums right from the start. You'll get more responses that way too.

[Cliffjumper]

Originally posted by AndrewWGroch
Red Alert would cost more then Hound(note: I don't know this for certain, I am assuming, though if you woud find a store that prices only by appearance of the toy then it would be true) and the same thing would happen now,

They were issued at the same price bracket - the only way there'd have been an RRP price difference is if the RRP of the range changed from 1984 to 1985. Sunstreaker/Sidswipe/Jazz would have all been the same RRP as Hound, for example. It was different at the time - licensing wasn't particularly big business, and at least one of the original Autobot cars wasn't licensed. Any icensing fees would have been tiny in comparison - actually, the rise of licensing probaly coincides with the drop-off of realistic cars in the line.

Honestly I can't think of one reason why the, I must say great, toy industry of Japan would not be given time by the Italian exotic sports car industry.

I'm not really sure what to make of that... the problem is that, as AG said, exotic sportscars have an aura of exclusivity to maintain, and that stretches to expensive licenses. A lot of it is probably that Hasbro/Takara don't want to pay, and there's no reason marques should lower their price when other companies are willing to pay what they're asking.

Having toys of the same size at different price brackets simply to pay for licences would probably be commercial suicide for HasTak... generally, people aren't buying the range for model cars.

I'm sorry, my eyes are caning from the block text, and there seems to be a massive amount of rhetoric stuffed in there...

[AndrewWGroch]

Thanks Scout. I heard that, and read about, and saw with my own eyes now that I think about it, Illinois was famous for, sorry, was a leader, uh, sorry, the leader in the steel industry in the United States. I mention it because I thought it was strange that you know of so much that is pertinent to the things I have to explain. I thought to myself, "what the? Oh, well, thats possible."

Thanks for the "back up" about the G1 figure prices. I guess I was more right then I knew. I do think that only because I think it doesn't mean it has to be that way though; as a unobjectivist scientist. It seems reasonable that that would be a factor in the prices though. That and the cost of making the parts, after all, if making Lamborghinis was the same as making Jeeps, Jeep would have been making Lamborghinis. I meant to say the cost of keeping the cars used as models for toys of the "structural integrity" of the plastic, not to ramble but as we know one of the most important parts of the plastic parts is that they don't snap.
Sorry, I had a mental block and I was 12 semester credits short of an Economics degree.

[Scout]

at the risk of sidelining the thread...
jeep > Lamborghini


Yeah, the steel mills are still a big part of Chicago, but even that's gone down. And they're smelly too - off of S 94.

[Maraudermus Prime 2]

It may just work, AndrewWGroch. Although all that toy componies are interested in are seperating you from your money.

[AndrewWGroch]

I had another idea last night, it was an idea I remembered.

Scale devestator. Yeah, that'd be cool. All the guys as big as they should be, and they combine without it being unstable. There's not much argument, average, that Devestator and Predeking were the best combined transformers.

I'll try to think of another idea so I don't think I wasted a reply...um...hmmm...hmmph...uh...oh well. Oh I know, howabout, no... they made everything and they made them all combine already. I was trying to think of big foot trucks, clams or somethin, a stealth bomber, and monorails. Oh, I think I know what it was; they shouldn't have made the combiners as thoughtlessly as they did. They could have made them all the same size of a remarkable quality and used the combining to make the peices.

Does anybody remember a cartoon back in the 80's, where there was a combining robot, there was a red middle, and it was a big guy, and there was a black arm and a blue arm, and it wasn't voltron, and the legs were both gold, one was brass and the other bronze, and in the cartoon there was a reoccuring scene where the copilots of the big middle red guy would go up an extraordinarily long elevator to get to, what I assume, to be his head? I've thought about it before, and once I had a dream that I found a toy of one at a K&B Toy store at Stratford Square Mall in Bloomingdale, IL, cause my mom was cutting hair across the mall avenue and I had gone there more often then any other store that sold things I was interested in seeing, and I thought that it was a dream, and that the show wasn't real. I remember one scene where they were sitting in their base, strangely resembling a living room, with the two female gold colored legs in man form lounging on Lazy-boy recliners and the rest relaxing similarly. Maybe my young mind constructed the setting subconciously as I were associating what united combining transformers think with how a family does things. If you saw it then you better let me know.

Yeah, and if you noticed me fighting those evil terrorists back in junior high day after day then you'd better let me know about that.


Thanks. It means a lot to me. You obviously respond to threads often, and your compliement is what has been termed "general", and after I, latently understood the meaning, it meant a lot to me.

I've only seen one steel plant when I was driving up from Calumet one day. The place is great! I know it's not Transformers context but the place was a fortress! It was on a big rock in the middle of a quarry, I thought that it'd be a great place to buy cause I think it's shut down, and I think there's a bridge accessing it. Some new windows and it has it's own power plant and I could be Cobra commander.