We might be coming full circle. Redoing essentially the original figures with some modern articulation has worked quite well for Mattel with Masters of the Universe Origins. Reissues are often a nicer idea than the reality, and new designs don't have quite the same visceral connection for grognards in long-running fandoms.
I'm sure Hasbro/Takara could milk the idea for about as long as reissues, anyway.
This might also be a good opportunity to break the taboo of re-engineering figures such as the Dinobots where the only original moulds seem to be in the hands of bootleggers.
I think you could keep most of the design elements of Soundwave, some Autobot cars (although they're a bit small for modern tastes) and the Dinos. Seekers would be trickier but definitely worth doing for mould reuse and recognition factor. Possibly oversized Autobot cars, minibots, Constructicons, etc. It's an opportunity to have a more consistent scale as well as add joints and poseability. Since they're not reissues but just aping original designs, the sky's the limit.
Of course, it depends how they intend to pitch this. If it's the same size as original Prime and a retail oriented line like RobotMasters they'll get lots of takers. If it's MP size/price, it'll probably start and end with Prime and maybe one or two others.
I would absolutely be interested in an Optimus, if it was priced like a regular Generations toy and not a "high end collectible". I'm not sure if the idea has much mileage beyond that, though. Soundwave would work, maybe the Dinobots...Megatron would be illegal in most places, Seekers would be awful, and then as you say, size becomes a serious issue for most of the other usual suspects.
But I think the biggest hangup could be materials. If these are retail toys, they're going to be all-plastic and I think the people who'd be most excited with G1 toy homages are also the most likely to be put off by a lack of die-cast parts and rubber tires.
I think seekers could be pretty interesting and would definitely prefer something modelled that closely on the original Starscream to any of the 40+ years of subsequent figures. They could do enough with it to pull off the iconic box art pose and have slightly smaller fists. Plus they'd have at least six shots at selling the mould, so it seems like a bit of a no-brainer.
Japanese retail + Western Selects (allowing for some markup but not MP crazy level) seems the more obvious route for a relatively mass release, or evolving the movie-colours reissue SKU. Hopefully if that's the case Amazon and BBTS etc get a look in rather than the Seacons **** up.
Warcry wrote: ↑Thu Aug 03, 2023 1:31 am
I would absolutely be interested in an Optimus, if it was priced like a regular Generations toy and not a "high end collectible". I'm not sure if the idea has much mileage beyond that, though. Soundwave would work, maybe the Dinobots...Megatron would be illegal in most places, Seekers would be awful, and then as you say, size becomes a serious issue for most of the other usual suspects.
But I think the biggest hangup could be materials. If these are retail toys, they're going to be all-plastic and I think the people who'd be most excited with G1 toy homages are also the most likely to be put off by a lack of die-cast parts and rubber tires.
I'm half in agreement with you, and flexible about which half. If it's all plastic, then yeah, it should be priced like a similarly sized Generations toy. If it has die-cast and rubber tires, I'd be willing to pay more. It looks like chrome smokestacks, bumper, and rims in the photo, so maybe it going for higher-end materials.
Seems like a reasonable chance of that. Just seen a post from Maz on FB that the robot version is 10780 Yen and the one with trailer included is 17380. So not MP pricing but somewhere between Leader and Commander class. It'll be interesting to see if Hasbro plan on any releases.
![[The Transformers Archive - an international fan site]](/common/skin/cardbackwide/tfarchive.png)
