Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

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DDog
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Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by DDog »

To be honest... I really really... really want that Starscream (or Bumblebee)!
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Denyer
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Post by Denyer »

If I was after more original era stuff I think I'd be looking at higher end KOs, which for some designs are more likely to actually use the original moulds -- eg even though it's for understandable safety reasons, was never a fan of the modified weapons on the modern Starscream.

Is it $75 or $35? Both listed on https://www.walmart.com/ip/Transformers ... thena=true

edit: This suggests they've gone for the modified face Bumblebee too...

https://uk.ign.com/articles/2018/08/18/ ... lease-date
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Post by DDog »

Denyer wrote:If I was after more original era stuff I think I'd be looking at higher end KOs, which for some designs are more likely to actually use the original moulds -- eg even though it's for understandable safety reasons, was never a fan of the modified weapons on the modern Starscream.
Your gonna shot your eye out kid.:lol:
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another tf fan
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Post by another tf fan »

Starscream $36

I bought it and a rodimus

Both are fine

No internal box art kinda bummed me out

Just plain cardboard behind the plastic trays
Come on and wind me up.
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inflatable dalek
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by inflatable dalek »

Would actually like the Devastator, hopefully some will pop up again at the next TFN.
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Warcry
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Post by Warcry »

I was kind of hoping to track down a Devastator myself, but I never wound up seeing one in stores. I would have bought the recent Optimus to put it with the trailer that I still have kicking around from my long-gone G2 Prime, but at $70 I just laughed at it instead. I'm pretty sure I can buy a bootleg of comparable quality with the trailer for less than that.

In general though I find myself a lot less excited by them than I was by the last few reissue pushes. I've seen the Minibots in stores a ton but never could bring myself to buy one, even though I've never owned a Swerve or Outback before. I've actually had them in the cart a few times when I'd been doing grocery shopping, only to shrug my shoulders and put them back before I checked out.
Denyer wrote: Sat Dec 22, 2018 1:20 am edit: This suggests they've gone for the modified face Bumblebee too...
That definitely put me off of Bee the one or two times I've seen him. He was the one Minibot I was kinda excited for, since I wanted one to go with the shiny G2 Bee I had as a kid, but giving a vintage figure a new face almost feels like vandalism. Is that silly? I think it might be silly.

I don't mind the "safety law compliance" missiles nearly as much, but they definitely don't look as good as the originals.
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by Clay »

I'm disappointed that the reissue campaigns usually fizzle out after hitting the same high points. Seeing Starscream and the minibots in the store was fun, but they've already be reissued bunches of times. I'd be far more inclined to buy stuff from the back half of G1 that's never been reissued, or hey, even some Beast Wars stuff OR EVEN stuff from ten or fifteen years ago that's top shelf design. It's a bit of a conundrum that as the toys got manifestly better in quality and durability, those aren't the ones reused. Hasbro has a great back-catalog of molds, and it'd be nice to see them revisit stuff from after 1985. Also, my Terradive needs a new trident, so they should reissue him.
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by Warcry »

Clay wrote: Wed Feb 20, 2019 5:55 pm even some Beast Wars stuff
Ravage!

I think the main reason they stick to reissuing the oldest figures is availability. G1 stuff came out before the Star Wars-driven 90s toy collecting boom, so the vast majority of the originals are rotting away in landfills somewhere. But MISB Beast Wars or Cybertron or Universe figures are pretty common because a lot of people bought them with the express intent of keeping them sealed for resale, and there's even a ton of opened ones in near-mint condition because they were bought by adult collectors purely for display. The fact that the toys themselves are a lot more durable than the glass bricks of early G1 helps too, I'm sure. Some more modern figures do fetch a high price on the aftermarket, but probably more of them can still be had for not much more than the original retail price. I know I've bought (and subsequently opened) several sealed Beast-era figures over the last few years and I think $14 US was the most I paid for any of them.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that reissuing early G1 stuff is just safer. Hasbro can re-release basically anything from 1986 and earlier and be reasonably sure that it'll sell. They'd have to be a lot more careful with newer figures, and do a lot more research. Maybe it's just not worth the effort on Hasbro's part.
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by Clay »

Well, when I say reissue, I suppose I don't necessarily mean reissue, original packaging and deco and all. I guess I mean more of, "yeah, that mold is pretty good. stick a repaint of it as filler in the back end of siege or whatever."

As for the G1 stuff, I just mean that it'd be nice to throw in some things that haven't been reissued here and there along with the usual crop that always appears. I think the first or second round of Takara reissues had a good example of what I imagine: mostly the 1984 diaclone stuff, and then Sixshot and God Ginrai just because.
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by Warcry »

I think Hasbro has said at times that old molds don't necessarily fit into the budget for current lines, and that's why they don't go as far back for molds to repaint as they used to. I have trouble wrapping my head around that though. Even if the production cost of an old mold was 25% more than a current one, you'd think that would be more than cancelled out by the fact that you don't have to devote any of the budget to designing and engineering the figure and creating the master molds since that was all done years ago. Doesn't make any sense to me though. Personally, I adored the old Universe line at the time, so I'd definitely be interested if they started to reuse older molds like that again.

For G1 stuff, I'd love to see something off the beaten path like Cyclonus or Scourge or Springer, or even stuff that Takara did that Hasbro hasn't, like Sky Lynx or Sixshot. Unfortunately it seems like they're pretty wary of big-ticket items with the current line, what with Prime not even having his trailer, so those last two would probably be a non-starter. Did Devastator not sell well in the end?
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by Clay »

Yeah, that strikes me as a bit of piffle (is that a word? I want that to be a word). They could just bump them up a size class and include a minicon or one of those dark of the moon guns or a scout figure or something. If anything, I'd say the meandering, bloated nature of the Universe line left a bad taste in their mouth to this day. But what did they expect? They had a line of figures that were exclusively repainted from other lines taking up as much space as their current new-stuff assortment. Reuse of older stuff is great, but they have to sprinkle it, not use full force.

RE: Devastator, I actually saw them at the walmart here, and they clearly sold a few at retail price, if not all? The only reissues I saw on clearance after the holidays were a few copies of Hot Rod.
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by Skyquake87 »

Piffle is indeed a word! Universe ended up baffling me - the 2003 - 4 line where it was a modest amount of figures, using a variety of molds was great. The line got silly when it was just straight up repacks of Energon and Cybertron figures, most of which shelf-warmed badly next to the then current (and relevant) Movie and Animated lines.

A look around online retailers here shows that all those recent G1 reissues have sold like gangbusters. I suspect that might be due to the line being a Walmart exclusive that didn't make it to our shores. I was kind of hoping that Asda (part of Walmart) might have had a punt on them in the run up to Christmas, but then I thought that would be a long shot, given that UK toy aisles are pretty much Lego, anything that's a £2 - £3 bling bag/box or Funko Pops and very little else.

I'm curious if this Devastator was better than the Encore, which whilst adding some neat touches to make the gestalt more sturdy, suffered from melted faces on the individual Constructicons, as well as poorly applied rubsigns.
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by Nick Dickens »

I’m all for them. I don’t collect too much these days beyond Doctor Who, some MOTU, the odd Star Wars or Neca Predator Figure. I get a few Transformers – mostly G1 inspired stuff and I love the new Jetfire.

Myself I think these are a great idea like the Retro Star Wars range—as long as the pricing doesn’t get too astronomical.
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by Skyquake87 »

I'd be more for them if they weren't a store exclusive and a little out of reach outside of the US. The main specialist retailers in the UK have been out of stock of these for months online ...unless you catch them at a convention, then they have piles of the things.

I'm stupid for G1 reissues. I have all the Soundwave reissues (I think) put out this century, but I can't stop buying them! I especially like the new Hasbro ones in repro packaging (they look so cool) and I think it would have been smarter for them to stick to this when they did the old Commemorative Series line, rather than ape the book-box style of the Takara reissues, as it distinguishes them and gives them a (wait for it) unique selling point.

I'd like them to put out more randoms like the Seacons (I know the set is flawed, but I liked how it was packaged and the collector cards and that).

I dunno, I think it's that genuine excitement of seeing stuff as I remember from being small. Tell you what would be fun, is some G2 reissues XD
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by Cyberstrike nTo »

Some like Soundwave and the cassettes are good because they haven't been re-issued in the USA before. The price point for the cassette 2-packs are just too high IMO especially since I can get the Siege versions of Lazerbeak and Ravage for $10 off Amazon.
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by Heinrad »

As much as I like the concept of them reissuing stuff through Wal-Mart, releasing old versions of figures that are available now seems a bit odd. I got the new(well, not so new now) re-release of Hot Rod out of nostalgia and remembering a present my mom got me for my birthday. I got the newer trailerless re-release Optimus Prime because it seemed to be the cheapest way to get a MIB Optimus. But $50 for Soundwave seemed a bit much. And $50 for Astrotrain is insane.
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Re: Vintage G1 (Walmart reuses). Your thoughts?

Post by Nick Dickens »

For me and many folk outside the US they’re a real lifesaver. A really good G1 Astrotrain for example would set you back maybe $80 or so.
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