TFSource / TF-1 Articles

[Denyer]

It's a sweet mould in general. Although much as I love the original deco, if the G2 version had been announced earlier I'd probably have waited for that.

[Maz]

To be blunt, the only reason Tigertrack deserves an MP release is because he's a very, very easy repaint of Sideswipe, nothing more, nothing less.

That's a very one dimensional view, in my opinion and quite hastily dismisses everything I tried to make a point of over the 2 articles. It sounds like you'd already made your mind up before reading any of what's written. If indeed you read it at all?

You'd know he wasn't executed in such a soulless "easy repaint" way. Granted Takara Tomy have not gone to the levels or pains I have to highlight the significance of the release in the grander scheme of things over the 2 articles, but it doesn't mean the significance isn't there, that's the whole reason I wrote the articles - to highlight the fact that it isn't just a straight repaint. Your comments are basically telling me that I failed miserably, in a tremendously cold and matter of fact kind of way.

If anything, he's the "easy" choice for people who wanted a semi official character and mould without paying 100+ USD for a 50 USD figure.

Phrased in much fewer words, but essentially the meat of his release

That's ultimately your own loss as you don't seem to be able to open your mind up to the fact that a Sideswipe in yellow could be more than just the yellow repaint you've labelled it.

I don't know what it is about your tone or reply, but this is one of the most disheartening article responses I've gotten in over a decade of writing them. And because it comes from you, someone who had previously to my mind always had a very insightful opinion on anything I'd written that you'd commented on, I'm just so disappointed.

I can see why it's easy to believe Takara Tomy gave this release the green light - because it's just new colours and slight re-jigging of parts used etc - but to actually say that's the only reason it deserves a release - because it would be so little work - that completely goes against everything I've tried to express.

All the best
Maz

[Knightdramon]

Heh, this is what text-based replies nearly always fail to convey; tone. Not disheartening or snobby in my instance, yet it probably came to as such.

I did read both articles [read the first one when you first released it, waited for the second one to comment as it was an ongoing effort].

I do get the history behind Tigertrack and as a basis of origin, like it more than the rest of the MP exclusive repaints. Barring perhaps Black MP Rodimus, who is essentially G2 colours in MP form.

I just tend to view things and releases in a bit more pragmatic way. At this point, with 3 releases and a fourth pending, the MP Lambor mould is as much milked as a seeker mould, which can be a good, bad or neutral matter depending on your view.

Without a doubt Takara plans and releases most of their figures with repaint-ability options in mind, either as mostly generic black repaints, sometimes comic repaints, comic only characters or various other obscure or historical references in the franchise. In this case, Tigertrack fits the last bill.

So again, apologies if my tone seemed offensive, but I have described my train of thought as accurately as I could above. Hope it helps ease the snide tone of my previous comment

[Maz]

Heh, this is what text-based replies nearly always fail to convey; tone. Not disheartening or snobby in my instance, yet it probably came to as such.

I did read both articles [read the first one when you first released it, waited for the second one to comment as it was an ongoing effort].

I do get the history behind Tigertrack and as a basis of origin, like it more than the rest of the MP exclusive repaints. Barring perhaps Black MP Rodimus, who is essentially G2 colours in MP form.

I just tend to view things and releases in a bit more pragmatic way. At this point, with 3 releases and a fourth pending, the MP Lambor mould is as much milked as a seeker mould, which can be a good, bad or neutral matter depending on your view.

Without a doubt Takara plans and releases most of their figures with repaint-ability options in mind, either as mostly generic black repaints, sometimes comic repaints, comic only characters or various other obscure or historical references in the franchise. In this case, Tigertrack fits the last bill.

So again, apologies if my tone seemed offensive, but I have described my train of thought as accurately as I could above. Hope it helps ease the snide tone of my previous comment

Hi there,

I really appreciate you taking the time to clarify and it does make it much clearer to me what you were trying to say

I should apologise also for what looks like quite an overreaction on my behalf, I've always valued your input here and on TFW so I do hope I haven't discouraged you from weighing in as you have in the past!

All the best
Maz

[Blackjack]

Damn, your little part 2 review really makes me want a version of this mold. That is one gorgeous car.

[Warcry]

Damn, your little part 2 review really makes me want a version of this mold. That is one gorgeous car.

The Countach is just about the prettiest car in the world, isn't it? I've never been a fan of the simplified cartoon model that the MP uses for it's robot mode, but I have to admit it looks really good in Tigertrack's colours.

That said, I definitely agree with Knightdramon -- as interesting as the design's Diaclone history and near-inclusion in the 1984 line is, from Takara's perspective it's nothing but a cheap cash-in. And though it's got a lot of meaning to folks like Maz who take an interest in the pre-TF days, most of the fandom seems to care about him even less than MP Acid Storm. Which is a shame, because after looking at those comparison shots I think he's the prettiest of the three Lambos.

[inflatable dalek]

Yeah, whilst the character does have an interesting history (well, at least if you find all those Diaclone variants for the cars interesting like wot I do) I doubt Takara put any more thought into their selection than "Easy repaint". Though whoever wrote whatever character bio stuff that's on the box/ in with the toy would have put the effort it, Japan love their slightly bonkers ways of including Diaclone repaints in the cartoon continuity.

But equally of course, Takare would have put exactly the same level of thought into Ultra Magnus, Thundercracker, Soundblaster and Skywarp despite the history of those characters, so it's not a badge of shame really.

[Maz]

That’s right, 100 articles since September 2011 when I started writing for the Source Blog, excluding Collector Interviews. It’s customary to see in milestones such as this by taking stock of what has gone before, but we will be doing that in 4 weeks as we hit the 2 year anniversary of the Source Blog anyway. Instead of just looking at what we’ve featured on the Blog, why don’t we take stock of where we are in the Transformers collecting hobby more generally and holistically?

The Collector Interviews we have carried out over the last year and more have demonstrated, through the wisdom of our interviewees, just how much the Transformers collecting scene and community have changed over the last 10 to 15 years. Every year that goes by brings us more fascinating Transformers product to collect or helps establish a deeper appreciation for what has gone before, depending on people’s preferences, perspective or circumstances. So is this now the best time to be a collector?


Intermission ~ Article 100 | Source Blog <- CLICK TO READ







All the best
Maz

[Denyer]

Any thoughts on where the franchise goes from here?

(Other than more MP and Generations designs... convention reveals this year are showing a lot of love for MTMTE, which is unexpected and awesome.)

[Knightdramon]

I think it's not that much MTMTE love, rather Hasbro FINALLY realizing that the comics can be used to sell tie-in toys, and integrating designs back and forth.

Kind of what happened by accident in AHM.

I think the franchise made the eventual schism between collectors and general public. You've got those borderline garbage BH upscaled legions for children and starters, and the comic tie-ins for the actual collector, while both can cater to either audience.

[Maz]

What's scorching hot today in vintage Transformers collecting and often labelled "rare", causing a frenzy on auction and realising astronomical end prices? Japanese exclusives like Liokaiser, Black Shadow, Blue Bacchus, Big Powered, Guard City and Battle Gaia? Peruvian minibots? US Defensor giftsets and high-grade sealed Megatrons and Soundwaves? Well it wasn't always that way, over a decade ago it was a different series of variant toys that grabbed the headlines, were considered "rare" and were hyped. Even though they aren't that hard to get today, it's worth paying tribute to yesterday's heroes.

Yesterday’s Heroes | Source Blog <- CLICK TO READ

(Recommended soundtrack: "Outro" by M83)




All the best
Maz

[Clay]

Yeah, it's kind of strange to remember that any of those would have been a small fortune ten years ago. Reissues helped drive the price down of the originals as well as providing an alternative for anyone that just wanted a black Soundwave that could hold two tapes.

What I find most different about collecting now versus a decade ago is just how much product is being produced... when I started back in 2003, the options were the extant product up to that point and Armada, with Energon and Alternators on the horizon. Now... we are well and truly spoiled for choice.

[Denyer]

How much of that do you think there was any intention / plan behind on the part of Hasbro? Energon was generally better than Armada for moulds, and at the time there a fair bit of excitement about Cybertron versus its predecessors.

At the time IIRC adult collectors were considered to make up about 10% of the potential market (anyone have a more recent estimate and/or am I just misremembering? It may have risen a bit with the increased number of homage figures being released now) -- so there was some value to always having a "next big thing".

Although quality control has suffered on retail lines, things do seem to have continued to improve from my perspective -- Alternators threw up a handful of decent moulds, and the Classics/Generations/etc and Masterpiece lines are producing quite consistently exciting stuff and I'm more interested in the plastic side of the franchise now than ever.

[Clay]

How much of that do you think there was any intention / plan behind on the part of Hasbro?

Three things come to mind when recalling the franchise over the past decade: the movie, the movie, and the movie. The brand is simply a part of general pop culture now in a way that I'd argue it wasn't before. Before 2007, Transformers were still just a robust toy line with little snare on people that didn't grow up with it in their formative years. The movie didn't just draw people back that had grown up with toys and cartoons, it created a new... entity in the public mind. Now the brand's more on par with other fictional universes like Star Trek (Paramount's words), Star Wars, Marvel comic movies, etc.

The amount of product being produced now is, I think, a response to that boom rather than catalyst for it. I think the size and success of TRANSFORMERS right now is beyond anything Hasbro could have planned or predicted in 2005 or 2006.

... I should really start writing a 30th anniversary article about this... my mind is percolating.

[Denyer]

Yeah, movies taken as a given -- but before that there did seem to be an emphasis on upping the ante; bigger and more detailed figures, mixing in more homages, etc.

[Knightdramon]

Before the movies fans were happy with small homages; a green helicopter in Energon called Springer, the energon gestalts which were centrally based on 3 G1 combiners, Galaxy Convoy having lots of details from various Primes of the past, and so on.

It wasn't until after the movies that a more vocal minority became seemingly the majority and now we have 3rd party stuff because "hasbro doesn't care about us".

And funnily enough, releases like the elusive Soundblaster were treated as gospel, untouched japanese vintage goodness and all that, and now you can find him on clearance if you search enough.

Rare and exclusive items are no longer judged by their geographical coverage but by their unit numbers. HA Jazz, Barricade and Mudflap are today's Soundblaster but not because they were released in just one continent and didn't have media coverage until decades later, but because they were widely released alongside HA Bumblebee time and again.

The collector oriented lines are still in their infancy though, perhaps a step back from what they were in 2004-2007.

[Cliffjumper]

Yeah, movies taken as a given -- but before that there did seem to be an emphasis on upping the ante; bigger and more detailed figures, mixing in more homages, etc.

I dunno, the homages didn't really go apeshit until Classics just before the first film. Before that there were probably a handful a line at most, and then often they'd be the second use of a figure (like the Armada G1 Thrust repaint); up against that Armergtron seemed to go out of its' way to not homage things, with old names slapped on figures at all but random (Ironhide the child association character, Red Alert the medic, Mirage the Decepticon boat, Nightbeat the shit bike, Smokescreen the cocking crane; I mean, seriously, how the **** does Smokescreen come close to working for a bright orange crane? I hope some ****er got fired for that).

After Classics, and the first round of movie peripherals that did similar things (the WalMart Deluxes and some of the G1 redeco'd movie figures like Jazz that would pass in the right light) was the point where fans especially went aggressively looking for and demanding homages to whoever. Before that it was like a nice little Easter Egg if your Universe Ironhide Spychanger was coloured like Trailbreaker; now all the matchstick-armed rabble-rousers want to storm Hasbro HQ to demand a Generations Whichever Random Guy James Roberts Has Made En Vogue This Week.

[inflatable dalek]

I don't know, I don't think fans were especially expecting or demanding IDW based toys six months ago, bar the Drift debacle it's not as if there was much form for recent comic based toys (what there was mainly seemed to be confined to the War Within stuff in the Titanium line).

The whole cross pollination with IDW thing seems to be something Hasbro have done off their own back. How much impact it has on sales I've no idea (at AA you could tell which of the Spotlights had really hit with the fans: No Megatron's, very few Trailbreakers a decent amount of Orion Pax's and you couldn't move for 100's of unwanted Bumblebee's. The real question though is how they sell on the retail shelf to kids) but if nothing else having a pre-existing design to work from probably saves them some development time.

[Clay]

I dunno, the homages didn't really go apeshit until Classics just before the first film. Before that there were probably a handful a line at most, and then often they'd be the second use of a figure (like the Armada G1 Thrust repaint); up against that Armergtron seemed to go out of its' way to not homage things, with old names slapped on figures at all but random (Ironhide the child association character, Red Alert the medic, Mirage the Decepticon boat, Nightbeat the shit bike, Smokescreen the cocking crane; I mean, seriously, how the **** does Smokescreen come close to working for a bright orange crane? I hope some ****er got fired for that).

Yeah, they've certainly settled into a pattern now, haven't they? Cybertron was the last line, for better or worse, than introduced a glut of characters that weren't homages. Since the movies, we've had Animated and Prime which both have fairly 'familiar' casts. Cybertron debuted Ransack and Crumplezone, Evac, Vector Prime, etc... which are basically non-entities now, but at least they weren't derivative non-entities. The expectation and practice of reusing characters is such that, if Armada were started now, they wouldn't have bothered with creating Hot Shot... he'd just be Bumblebee from the get-go.

[inflatable dalek]

Though wasn't the only reason he wasn't Bumblebee was because of names rights issues at the time? [/Pathetically pedantic]