Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Figures, collectables, customs and collecting.
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Warcry
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Warcry »

Talking about Scourge in another thread reminded me that I haven't actually had his trailer out since probably the day after I got it. He's been hanging out on a shelf non-stop in robot mode, but damn.

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I love the look of the thing. The chrome is what catches your eye right away, but it's the teal piping on the cab that really seals the deal for me. In base mode, it's kinda incoherent but also the exact sort of thing that a little kid is going to have hours of fun with. Unfortunately, the air-driven missile launcher no longer works. I can't remember if it was like that when I got it or if the hoses rotted away during the years it was tucked away in my basement, which is an obvious sign that I should break the trailer out more often! The disc launcher and the quintuple missile launcher are winners, though.

I also managed to forget at some point that this is actually Black Convoy, not the Hasbro Scourge. :lol:

While I was digging for the trailer I found my CW and POTP sets, which were filthy for some reason. So I wound up spending much of the afternoon taking the combiners apart, carefully washing the components and putting them into robot and vehicle mode. It's been ages since I've done that!

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This is about a quarter of the figures I've got, but a pretty good sample. Air Raid and Streetwise and their mold-mates are far and away the best of the bunch. Swindle (not pictured) is also a really solid figure, but such a bizarre take on the character that I hesitate to call it a good Swindle. From the Power of the Primes sets, Rippersnapper and Blot were fantastic takes on two of the brickiest toys from the original line. But everyone else was...kind of terrible, honestly. It didn't help that there was about three distinct transformation schemes among the lot of them, so the ones that aren't great just wind up feeling derivative. And I don't think there was a single good Voyager across the two lines. Every one that I've handled has been hollow, flimsy and felt fundamentally compromised by the decision to have them turn into torsos without the help of any add-on bits.

The most frustrating decision of the line is embodied by my two Blast-Offs there, though. Hasbro was obsessed with retooling and repainting everyone into everyone else, which left us with some very unsatisfactory options in the retail line: a white Vortex instead of Slingshot, an APC based on Swindle instead of Groove, a truck instead of Wildrider so they could reuse tooling they needed for First Aid...and most bafflingly, a brown Slingshot as Blast-Off. And then issuing the Takara versions of those characters as exclusives anyway when they realized that their customers were confused and dismayed by their nonsense.

I think Energon might have actually done the "combiner" thing better.

The Dinobots deserve special attention, because...because how disappointing was this?

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I was excited as all heck when Hasbro first revealed these, because we hadn't seen these characters in decades and because they'd kept the distinctive clear-plastic gimmick from the originals instead of going full Sunbow. I remember really looking forward to getting them, and I wasn't nearly as hard on them five years ago as I am now. As time goes on, though, they just feel so cheap. Flat grey and gold plastic instead of chrome. Missing accessories. Wonky proportions. Limbs on Slag and Sludge that you can see right through thanks to all the waffling. Snarl's terribly hollow arms and badly engineered legs add to the disappointments. Swoop is the best by default but I can't honestly say I like him very much either, with his hollow legs and wispy proportions.

Somehow, they still manage to be more appealing to me than the modern Studio Series offerings.
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Clay
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Clay »

Yeah, I found the new G2 Laser Op a few days ago and it made me want to dig out my Scourge as well (also, technically, Korean Black Convoy). The biggest contrast is between the trailers. The original G2 is kind of an obvious send up / revision of the G1 Prime trailer, which is just a box on wheels. The G2 trailer is... fun? It's got missiles! It's got bigger missiles and a bellows! It's got discs! It's fun in its own right!

The new Legacy G2 Op's trailer is back to the G1 style of "box on wheels." It's a bit of a letdown considering what the 1994 (?) G2 trailer accomplished.
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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Denyer »

Is it too soon to include Siege figures in this? I was prompted to pick this one off a shelf by the toy deco homages of Cyclonus and Dragstrip, if that makes sense.

Siege Starscream is two homages in one, the cartoon tetrajets and the comic underbase-possessed robot mode greebling. He's also fairly faithful in look to the toy, if not the transformation.

The (shit) gimmick of battle damage paintwork means I don't feel guilty about having just spread acetone over the outer hull to remove most of it, and the plastic modern TFs seem to be made from (unlike the plastics MOTU Origins are) having a slightly melted and glazed effect afterwards. Also did the edges of the nosecone that otherwise have distracting blue bars down the side of the red shoulder pieces.

You can tell this thing is from a period where Hasbro were designing primarily with CAD packages and not really caring about tactility and over-reliance on tabbing, and some of the pieces are too tight in a way that'd make short work of fingernails if you weren't getting enough gelatin. The very light grey plastic looks cheaper than it is and would have benefited from a darker shade or a wash instead of the battle damage. If I can be bothered to do that I might grab a photo.

But it's surprisingly fun to pick up and has some heft to it. Despite a middling face sculpt it, well, screams Starscream. It's swooshable and the robot is chunky and retro in the right places. The choice to not do oversized launchers means the weapons look better than various previous modern figures. On an alien vehicle it's easier to excuse the under slung robot parts than on the Earthrise update.

My main complaint would be how non-intuitive the collapsing arms are. They don't really look much better for working the way they do, and slow down the process of transforming him, whereas in the old days they'd just have had the hands fold in and the arms collapse by sliding rather than this folding panel nonsense.

Being more than slightly crap also promotes handling without caring much about wear. It's not one for the ages, and strangely enough that makes it one that is.
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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Denyer »

Selects Cyclonus was an excuse to get out some targetmasters who had the misfortune to not be done as targetmasters in TR... (the Misfire is the Takara one, the Scourge has a KO FP Protector "Firebolt" with a sawn off grip standing in for Fracas plus the back of leg panels removed).

The experience of getting a sticker sheet with Cyclonus was itself a welcome bit of retro.

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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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Not my original Springer -- the stickers were knackered (without them it's closer to my original, I rarely applied things) and a tail fin missing, but given some guns (KO blue 3P iGear Delicate Warrior bits) and rotors (drone size fitted to LEGO pin) and tires (wide LEGO ones roughly stretched around the rims) this scratches an itch much better than the Legacy toy colours one. From slightly more of a side angle he's got bulk as well as that chunky aesthetic.

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Tantrum
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Tantrum »

I gave Black Zarak Siege Shockwave to use as a laser pistol. Then I dug out CHUG Megatron to be his other hand gun.
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Shockwave is too dark a shade of purple to show up well, and BZ's arm joints can only support Megatron for a couple hours before the arm droops and drops him. So, I finally put that old CHUG Deluxe Optimus with the terrible alt mode to good use.
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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Denyer »

CW Scattershot still has a certain charm even as a low effort Silverbolt rehash...

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Warcry
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

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"Remembering" in a somewhat more literal sense than usual this time...I lost this guy in a random junk drawer in the basement for ten years and found him while I was rooting around trying to find some old hard drives.

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I'm not a big Animated fan. The general aesthetic isn't for me, and I think it makes the robots look flat-out weird. But there's a certain point where even if I'm not a fan of the concept, I still have to give the designers a tip of my hat for executing it so well. And that's exactly what happens with Jazz here. This is a great Transformer. It's a lot of fun to play with in robot mode, and the accessories it comes with are pretty unique. The transformation is really slick and the alt-mode is amazing.

But the really shocking thing is how...uncompromised this toy feels. It's from Animated, which makes it the rough "kid appeal" equivalent of Cyberverse or Earthspark. And yet it is fully articulated. Every alt-mode feature is painted (including hubcaps, grille, taillights and bumpers). The wheels are pinned. The clear plastic bits are pop-in inserts, rather than the entire car shell being trans-blue painted over. There's minimal hollowness except for where it's required for the transformation, and even then, the back of the robot legs have a lot of molded detail added so that they don't look like the hollow roof of a car. It's shocking to compare this to modern stuff and see just how far the line has fallen in a decade and a half.

(It's even more shocking to realize Animated was that long ago!)

But, yeah, the toy itself...great stuff. I didn't buy many Animated figures and I kept even fewer of them, but I'm glad this guy is still kicking around. Even with the awkward Animated aesthetics I think it's safe to say this is my favourite figure Jazz has ever gotten.

(I never did find those hard drives...Jazz was too distracting!)
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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Denyer »

Old toy rather than specifically my old toy... Quake came with an almost complete sticker sheet so I figured I'd tart him up a little apart from finding a tank cannon after I'd nicked the targetmasters. The actual black tank cannon seems to be quite hard to come by on eBay. He also got Rotorstorm's cannons (since RS got some 3P 3D printed turbomaster cannons) for a battery of projectile and energy weapons to go with what I'm guessing would be more of a mortar. It feels appropriate for the character.

The stickers add much needed highlights to a uniformly dark colour scheme, and whilst the turret can't rotate it does work to minimise kibble. A few more modern joints would be welcome, I suppose, but it's quite an original bit of engineering and this is an ideal level of complexity for a toy you can actually switch between modes in a few seconds. New stuff just isn't as spontaneous.

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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Denyer »

Just got POTP Grimlock down off the shelf (more accurately, I've just replaced POTP Grimlock on the shelf with Earthspark Grimlock in the deluxe class Dinobot alt-mode row, who doesn't really fit but the Cyberverse robot mode Dinobots -- apart from blue POTP Swoop -- behind them are a mish-mash of sub-line gimmicks and plastic colours anyway).

https://bwtf.com/toyreviews/generations/potp/grimlock

Still a nicely retro, fun and poseable robot mode and upper half of a robotic t-rex, with an alt-mode that's irredeemably too wide, too short-legged and generally compromised by combiner nonsense, that's only barely tolerable from side angles. And you can flip the t-rex head up and make him look sort of like a seal or other marine mammal. Or you can put the combiner feet on him like big slippers.

The best a third party seemed able to do is replace the robot thighs and forearms for longer dino legs, which makes the robot mode look decidedly odd and doesn't improve the alt-mode that much.

https://tfsource.com/perfect-effect/pc- ... ct-effect/

It's definitely not the worst Grimlock figure released (the terrible supposedly evergreen Authentics releases, for example) and I don't think the things we carp against would necessarily be held against it by the main target audience, but Ben is being very charitable in concluding that the massively thick tail section and forward leaning posture is due to trying to represent a modern understanding of therapod anatomy.
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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Denyer »

Anyone else find that in recent heat rubsigns have been constantly active?

I think this was 28 degrees Celsius the other week, which is about 82 Fahrenheit.

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Warcry
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Warcry »

I remember seeing this when I was growing up...no air conditioning, high humidity and temps in the high 20s or low 30s would have the rubsigns going off on their own at least a few days every summer.
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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Denyer »

Bit less of a response on repro rub signs, incidentally, they don't seem as reactive.
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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Denyer »

eBay example of whatever it was went wrong with the BT Bluestreak paint...

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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Denyer »

Got a couple of Battle Across Time two pack Sideswipes with a view to doing one in Action Master colours, and dug Siege Sideswipe out of the Dinobot Hunt group he was in on the back of a shelf.

And it's a lot better than I remember after watching BAT 2pk auctions for a few months, the more futuristic sports car kibble looks really crisp and sharp in comparison, and the matte finish and slightly muted colours do look classy. Not really fussed about the Siege battle damage deco on the legs one way or another. The only slight niggle is the 5mm pegs on the two halves of the launcher, which might get filed off, plus I haven't dug around for the correct gun. He's staying out as a deskbot for a while.

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Whilst the paint apps were overdone on some figures, people obviously prefer slavish 80s homages, Hasbro did the dirty on older fans with some releases like holding back toy colour versions and bundling crap to make Leader releases up to a price point, this was definitely when value started to nosedive, etc, Siege had some nice designs and was in that respect a decent start to new releases.
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Clay
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Clay »

Denyer wrote: Sun Oct 01, 2023 6:47 pm eBay example of whatever it was went wrong with the BT Bluestreak paint...
I haven't looked at mine in years (and truthfully, never even opened it). Funny how that one has basically redeco'd itself into a variation of the diaclone blue Bluestreak scheme.

RE: Siege and on onward, yeah there was a decided shift to an ouroboros model there. I'm not sure where the lines falls between a necessary update and a bait and switch, but the cybertronian designs ahead the earth modes in Earthrise were getting there. Now we've had the Ironhide and Ratchet totally surpassed by the studio series figures within... 24 months? (bumping them up to retail for a higher size class aside, they're the same dimensions as the 2020 figures).

But on the other hand, we've gotten completely wacky choices like Jiaxus and Lio Convoy, so it balances out in some ways.

Probably unrelated: hasbro are laying off lots of folks.

Can't imagine that pricing bread-and-butter figures out of impulse range had anything to do with that, no...
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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Denyer »

Oh yeah, Earthrise directly after Siege will have been when people who were less on the fence already really started avoided buying stuff when it first came out, and on top of that inflation and inability to find the sweet spot between "yet another version of a pre-movie character" and "random redeco as new character" often enough are a tolling bell. Can't throw Medix, Crosscut, and all the rest at a wall and see what sticks at those SKU price points. It's a strategy from several years ago being played out heedless of cost.

As you say, most of the blame sits at the executive, accountant and investor level. By demanding certain margins / not reigning in gluts of product you get the situations with D&D, MTG, Joes and TFs.
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Warcry
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Warcry »

I love that Sideswipe! It's probably my favourite rendition of the character design, all in all. More fun to handle than the MP or the old Universe toy. I own a few different decos of it, though I've never gotten one of the Earth-mode versions. Always thought that the rounder lines of the Siege one made for better aesthetics though.

But if I recall correctly he doesn't HAVE the correct gun, which was the big strike against him at the time. Sideswipe only came with the rocket and Red Alert only came with the gun. I remember giving them both to my Sideswipe and Red Alert seems to have Crosshairs' big rocket hammer thing.
Clay wrote:Can't imagine that pricing bread-and-butter figures out of impulse range had anything to do with that, no...
Honestly? Nah. Firing staff for kicks is all the rage on Wall Street this year. They'd do it to bump the stock price and think of a reason later.

Which isn't to say that they're doing a great job of managing their brands, if their shrinking retail footprint is any indication. Even in Toys'R'Us, Hasbro's lines get less and less space. Price is definitely contributing. Their inability to keep the shelves stocked for three years straight probably did too.
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Denyer
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Denyer »

I think you're right, unfortunately, Hasbro have gotten more scummy in their business practices as global inflation bites.

RE: SS -- mmm, apparently not. https://www.reddit.com/r/transformers/c ... sideswipe/

That would've been a paper cut issue at the time and since the BAT one has the gun in dark colour but painted I assumed it was part of the original mould. Don't really want to paint strip one of the two I've got so will have to have a rummage for a better launcher and gun at some point. And the bright white launcher doesn't go with the Siege off-white.

Despite being a nice mould it doesn't really suit the reuses as well. G2 is more distinctively the old Lambo, for instance, and it wouldn't work as the AM. The stripe on Red Alert distracts from the different shape. Will be nice for Armada Wheeljack though.
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Warcry
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Re: Remembering that our old toys actually exist!

Post by Warcry »

Yeah, I'm surprised that we've never gotten Wheeljack from the mold, even after they did SG Sideswipe. With the rounder lines, it was the first redeco that came to mind for me. But honestly, there are so many Transformers using the basic transformation scheme that you could make a new Sideswipe every year and never run out of things to redeco them into. Armada Wheeljack, Spychangers, random G2 nobodies like Rage or Drench or Deluge...and the zillions of obscure Lambo decos they've run out the last few years, as well.

Selects Deep Cover came with the full complement of accessories despite using the "Cybertronian" version of the mold, so it's not like they couldn't have done it for the first-run Sideswipe and Red Alert too. But the cynic in me figures they knew they'd lose X% of sales on their Earth-mode retools if the Cybertronian ones weren't missing something.
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