Possibly stupid ROTF Soundwave question

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 8:52 pm

Scale-wise, how does the Deluxe measure up to other figures? Is it stupidly small? I know we don't really get any size comparisons in the film (discounting firing Ravage), but does he at least look alright with the rest, or is he Blackout-small?

Post by **Clay** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:03 pm

You're getting the pangs again, aren't you?

Have only seen it in the store, but he's a little shorter than Bumblebee, but much wider because of the wing things. The mass is there, but it's just distributed differently.

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:22 pm

Dunno, the vibe I got from the film was that Soundwave was pretty large. Maybe G1 Scorponok size, in old money? I'd say he is rather undersize... unless you plan to display him with Legends.

Haven't seen the film for months though. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong...

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:28 pm

How big's a comms satellite?

Knightdramon · Post by **Knightdramon** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 10:00 pm

He's ridiculously tiny for what you're expecting, sadly. Ravage is bigger than him.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 10:48 pm

Clay wrote:You're getting the pangs again, aren't you?

I haven't bought a Movie figure for, like, a week... I'm getting twitchy waiting for FAB Arcee and Legends Wheelie to hit, and there's a chance I'll do something stupid otherwise, like buy Jetfire

Have only seen it in the store, but he's a little shorter than Bumblebee, but much wider because of the wing things. The mass is there, but it's just distributed differently.

Knightdramon wrote:He's ridiculously tiny for what you're expecting, sadly. Ravage is bigger than him.

That pretty much nixes him for me... I have no idea how big a satellite is (so that's not a problem), but my perception of the robot mode is that he'd be at least "average" height, i.e. preferably a bit bigger than the Deluxe cars - I can sort of deal with Bonecrusher if I keep him near the right guys, though him being a dynamite figure helps things along a lot; Blackout, however, is starting to bug me to the sort of extent where I might move him along.

I guess wishing for a TF3 Voyager Soundwave starts here - after all, the RotF line has at least got around to sorting out Starscream.

I nearly impulse-bought Ravage the other day, but I think he'd just annoy me at that sort of size. Holding out for a Legends, or maybe down the line a Scorponok/Frenzy-style sidekick for the aforementioned hoped-for TF3 Voyager Soundwave. Wouldn't even be fussed if it didn't really transform...

Ice Cream truck it is for the next buy, I think - the scale won't really bug me because I'm not entirely sure how it actually works in the film itself, as the truck's not much bigger than the individual cars... Quite how a pair of Autobots who can't really work together ended up sharing an alt mode in the first place I don't know... Even if they landed in some random place where the only thing they could scan was a single ice cream van, why on Earth didn't they scan it twice?

Notabot · Post by **Notabot** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:33 am

The bio explains it clearly... it's an experimental technology. Sort of like when the Germans experimented with taping two missiles together in opposite directions to see if they'd work better.

They didn't.

In either situation.

Post by **Blackjack** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 9:52 am

Nah, Michael Bay saw those Micromaster Combiners from G1 and thought they could do something about it in the movie.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 11:50 am

Cliffjumper wrote:Even if they landed in some random place where the only thing they could scan was a single ice cream van, why on Earth didn't they scan it twice?

Don't worry, the next exciting IDW 8 part mini Reign of Icecream* will devote 950 pages to explaining this. Not to spoil anything but it's all to do with a covert black ops unit so secret even they don't know they exsist and a shock Cornetto revelation that will change Transformers forever. Plus, the long awaited return of the guy Megatron threw a javalin through in the first one (YES! Javalin guy!!!!!).

*What, only one of our posters gets to do crap laboured puns? Be thankful I didn't give it its own thread.

Treadshot A1 · Post by **Treadshot A1** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 12:04 pm

Blackjack wrote:Nah, Michael Bay saw those Micromaster Combiners from G1 and thought they could do something about it in the movie.

Makes the G1 Micromasters look ingenious.

Paul053 · Post by **Paul053** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 1:43 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:I haven't bought a Movie figure for, like, a week... I'm getting twitchy waiting for FAB Arcee and Legends Wheelie to hit, and there's a chance I'll do something stupid otherwise, like buy Jetfire

Do it only if you have Optimus Prime to combine to Jetpower OP, then it's a smart move. The combined one is awesome. But see if you can find a sale one, I got mine for $25 USD.

Post by **Clay** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:32 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:I haven't bought a Movie figure for, like, a week... I'm getting twitchy waiting for FAB Arcee and Legends Wheelie to hit, and there's a chance I'll do something stupid otherwise, like buy Jetfire

I actually like the Deluxe Arcee fine. For as oddball as it is, it's more symmetrical than the blue bike while still being able to stand. Can take some pictures if you'd like.

I also like the Arcee figure from the first movie, which is far more 'normal' (and a great bike robot as well). I don't think liking them both is that much of a conundrum, really.

As for Jetfire, see here. He's alright, but don't go paying full price

numbat · Post by **numbat** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 4:11 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:Blackout, however, is starting to bug me to the sort of extent where I might move him along.

That's a shame. I actually still like my Blackout. He is small in height terms, but in mass terms he's pretty big. It's just a pity they didn't do something better with the half a copter hanging off his back... Other than the Automorph nonsense, he's a pretty snappy figure though. I do wish they made a Leader Class figure though...

(Which reminds me of the Hasbro comment about not making a Voyager or Leader Bonecrusher for the ROTF line. Wasn't it something along the line of the screentime not warranting a larger figure for the ROTF line (we can all agree it did in the first film, but Hasbro were dealing with a new entity and didn't know how the Movie figures would sell)? And yet, Long Haul who appear in robot mode for about as long does warrant Voyager Class, let alone Stratosphere or Blugeon...)

Cliffjumper wrote:Ice Cream truck it is for the next buy, I think - the scale won't really bug me because I'm not entirely sure how it actually works in the film itself, as the truck's not much bigger than the individual cars... Quite how a pair of Autobots who can't really work together ended up sharing an alt mode in the first place I don't know... Even if they landed in some random place where the only thing they could scan was a single ice cream van, why on Earth didn't they scan it twice?

I actually really liked the Micromaster homage there, and if twins wouldn't do it, who would? They're just bickering brothers, not enemies. And that made it quite funny! And I think Bay decided to totally forget about mass-shifting and scale issues in ROTF. Jetfire anyone?

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 4:40 pm

He was certainly taking advantage wherever possible - the Blackbird mode is never seen anywhere near anyone larger than a human, for example.

Long Haul is actually in the desert sequence a fair bit, TBH - he might not do much, but he's there holding the line for a lot of it, and also helps look for Sam. The glaring one by comparison is Mixmaster, who (aside from the underwater scene) is only very briefly seen in the battle in robot mode - he rolls into artillery mode after a split second, fires off a couple of rounds, and then switches back to robot mode only to be killed by Jetfire within seconds... Both those and Scrapper, however, were weirdly underused considering the screentime given to the protoforms - it's not like the Constructicons were being saved for anything special, and to be honest a shot of four or five Long Hauls all at once would have made the clone thing even more obvious for Joe Casual...

With Bonecrusher, I doubt Hasbro knew anything about him until they sat down and watched the film... Still surprised the Deluxe hasn't been reissued, though.

Blackout... is a big missed opportunity.

numbat · Post by **numbat** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 5:02 pm

Mixmaster also nocks the flag down on the bridge doesn't he?

But, yes, they don't get much time. I suspect the protoforms are far easier on computation time to animate, and they did get bogged down with Devastator (for whatever that's worth - he was awesome to look at at least!). Bonecrusher holds the line with Long Haul, if I recall. Unfortunately, my copy of the ROTF DVD is lost in Royal Mail strike limbo just now, so can't check.

Hasbro don't always do the easy and predictable thing, like re-issuing a mould of a character that appears in the film (rather than one that didn't, e.g. Barricade or Brawl), or issuing an easy repaint that would sell due to its inclusion in the film (e.g. red Rampage) as opposed to random repaints and moulds with zero bearing on the movie, thus benefiting less from intrinsic marketing through the film (e.g. Swerve, Dead End, Alliance (NEST) Bumblebee, Tuner Mudflap, Strike Mission Sideswipe... and that's just ROTF deluxe character redecos, we're not even in to other size classes or mould redecos that have been issued that don't appear in any film!).

I doubt there's a lot of real sense behind some of this...

Rattrap's tail · Post by **Rattrap's tail** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 7:18 pm

Halfshell wrote:How big's a comms satellite?

Aprox. 7 meters high and let's say, 3m wide. This would make him about a bit shorter then Starscream in the movie.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 3:38 pm

Clay wrote:I actually like the Deluxe Arcee fine. For as oddball as it is, it's more symmetrical than the blue bike while still being able to stand. Can take some pictures if you'd like.

The spine really puts me off - it seems less pronounced on the FAB

Clay wrote:As for Jetfire, see here. He's alright, but don't go paying full price

Mmmm, plus "full price" over here is "150% of full price" for you guys... the Leader toys have been a bit mixed from my experience - Prime and Brawl are excellent, but I'd have been a bit miffed if I'd spent £50 on Megatron (he's a great stabbing-bag for Prime and looks good, but that's, like, half a Soul of Chogokin

). Add into that how much compromise would have to be made to Jetfire's CG model...

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 4:09 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:I'd have been a bit miffed if I'd spent £50 on Megatron (he's a great stabbing-bag for Prime and looks good, but that's, like, half a Soul of Chogokin ).

I prefer to think in steaks. I like steak. It's about 12-14 decent sized Tesco ribeyes. Thinking in steak means you're essentially viewing it in terms of actual lifeforce.

If more people viewed £50 on a toy as two weeks worth of worthwhile dinners, the aftermarket would be a much more sensible place.

Mmmm. Steak.

Post by **Clay** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 6:09 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:The spine really puts me off - it seems less pronounced on the FAB

It can be straightened... no back brace required!

Leader figures are on markdown to $35 here. If you fancy one, I can send it over, but it may not be any less than domestic retail in the UK with the postage added on.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 6:19 pm

Yeh, cheers for the offer but I'll probably pass on him - I'm not entirely sure I want the guy full-stop, I've got a decent transforming Blackbird. Plus on about the 50th viewing he starts really getting on my nerves, mainly because he's this weird sort of plot intermission where not much is happening beyond Jetfire.