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Thinkin' about the whole Windblade/Arcee kerfuffle: So James Roberts portrayed two male-appearing robots (on the d-list, admittedly) as a loving couple. Both Hasbro and IDW were supportive of the storyline and the dialogue. The words "I love you" were used. I thought it was really cool to see that. I wonder, if Furman had not written female transformers out of IDW, would Roberts have received the same level of support? I mean, if there were more female transformers running around, the cynic in me suggests that some chap in charge or other might have insisted on a male robot-female robot relationship in the place of Rewind/Chromedome, but since none were available, we got what we saw. Not that Spotlight: Arcee would be defensible for its weirdness even if that were true, since there's no evidence that Furman was trying to make that possible.
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Jan 8, 2014 22:03
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Gammatron 64 posted:I've really kind of felt that I'm the only one who doesn't go crazy over Predaking. Glad to see that's not true. I agree with all this. The Predacons were never released in the UK so when a friend told me he had Razorclaw I was really excited to see one of these in the flesh (so to speak). But... it's just so garish, and didn't feel like a proper Transformer. It's really weird because he had the whole "unobtainable" thing going for him, and most of my exposure to the Predacons was from the UK comics, where they got to hunt both Megatron and Optimus Prime (and sort of kill one or both of them). That and Call of the Primitives from the third series, where they are animated so wonderfully and have a great role in the episode, fighting a battle they cannot possibly win. "I would rather die fighting!" "He is right- Predacons, UNITE!" Yet, the toy, even if it's technically very good... I just wouldn't want it.
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Jan 8, 2014 22:40
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My Hasbro Swerve and Cosmos turned up! Goddam it if Swerve isn't 75% of the way to perfect! Cosmos is 100%, no doubt about that goofy looking bastard!
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Jan 8, 2014 22:45
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Squalitude posted:I agree with all this. The Predacons were never released in the UK so when a friend told me he had Razorclaw I was really excited to see one of these in the flesh (so to speak). But... it's just so garish, and didn't feel like a proper Transformer. It's really weird because he had the whole "unobtainable" thing going for him, and most of my exposure to the Predacons was from the UK comics, where they got to hunt both Megatron and Optimus Prime (and sort of kill one or both of them). That and Call of the Primitives from the third series, where they are animated so wonderfully and have a great role in the episode, fighting a battle they cannot possibly win. "I would rather die fighting!" "He is right- Predacons, UNITE!" I have a 2010 reissue Predaking (the one with the gold paint). I paid about $210 for him when he came out, I like him a lot, and I'm glad I have him. That said, I don't want to pay $500+ for a third party Predaking. The mastermind one is really, really nice, and I've seen a few the guys who make him up in person and they are super cool, but I just can't spend the money on them. I don't have anywhere to put them, either, and they are all ultra sized. Yes, I got a Fort Max and a Metroplex within the last year, but they are so huge and drat near impossible to break that I have them on the floor as they are practically furnishings. A sharp, pointy, fragile, $500 Predaking is not going on the floor. Phy posted:Thinkin' about the whole Windblade/Arcee kerfuffle: So James Roberts portrayed two male-appearing robots (on the d-list, admittedly) as a loving couple. Both Hasbro and IDW were supportive of the storyline and the dialogue. The words "I love you" were used. I thought it was really cool to see that. It's pretty awesome that Transformers has a pair of gay robots that love each other. TFW exploded with controversy and nerds flipped their loving poo poo, but you know what, it's the year 2013, get over it, folks. Besides, we've had gay robots since the 70's, it's just that R2-D2 and C-3PO were in the closet. But we all knew. Just like Bert and Ernie.
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Jan 8, 2014 23:05
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I really want the Computron, even if only so MP Grimlock has someone to use that dang brain helmet on. He hasn't been put up anywhere yet, right?
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Jan 8, 2014 23:32
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Phy posted:Thinkin' about the whole Windblade/Arcee kerfuffle: So James Roberts portrayed two male-appearing robots (on the d-list, admittedly) as a loving couple. Both Hasbro and IDW were supportive of the storyline and the dialogue. The words "I love you" were used. I thought it was really cool to see that. Huh, I never thought of Chromedome and Rewind that way, I just thought of them as superbros. I have 2-3 buddies close enough we've said "I love you" and it wasn't awkward. Establishing a romantic relationship is weird in a continuity where transformers are quasi-non-gendered and clearly non-sexual (IDW) is trickier than in a continuity where they are very gendered and somewhat sexualized (BW). On the other hand, if it made homophobes annoyed or twitchy, that rules.
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Jan 8, 2014 23:43
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There's also the rumor about Drift and Hotrod being more than just comrades.
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Jan 9, 2014 00:05
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I wasn't actually sure about where Rewind and Chromedome were supposed to be on the bros/husbands scale until I read Rewind's message. And then to reinforce it someone in this thread posted that "conjunx" is literally a latin word for "spouse".
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Jan 9, 2014 00:11
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Phy posted:I wasn't actually sure about where Rewind and Chromedome were supposed to be on the bros/husbands scale until I read Rewind's message. And then to reinforce it someone in this thread posted that "conjunx" is literally a latin word for "spouse". That makes Rewind's knowledge of Chromedome's past spouses even sadder, ugh.
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Jan 9, 2014 00:16
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They're absolutely supposed to be married - the innermost energon gift is obviously an engagement ring kind of thing - and I love the idea. It's fascinating to see deep emotional commitment stuff without any sexual aspect to it. One wonders if there is such a thing as "cheating" then if there's no "mating" nor reproduction, and I have to imagine that a highly-detailed worldbuilder like Roberts was eager for the chance to define the nuts and bolts of these sorts of interpersonal issues. Thus, I can't wait to find out what his workaround is (they never called it a retcon, right?) of the Furman issue. And I'm very sad to find out Simon Furman is a douche. Also, I hadn't paid any attention to TransFan response, and I'm also sad to hear that apparently there are a lot of asswipes who got all worked up about a powerfully emotional and deeply personal story, the lack of which was always something that held TF fiction back. Steve Vader fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 00:22
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Steve Vader posted:They're absolutely supposed to be married - the innermost energon gift is obviously an engagement ring kind of thing - and I love the idea. It's fascinating to see deep emotional commitment stuff without any sexual aspect to it. One wonders if there is such a thing as "cheating" then if there's no "mating" nor reproduction, and I have to imagine that a highly-detailed worldbuilder like Roberts was eager for the chance to define the nuts and bolts of these sorts of interpersonal issues. Thus, I can't wait to find out what his workaround is (they never called it a retcon, right?) of the Furman issue. Only Furman called it a retcon, and he was wrong. They're not changing Arcee's origin or any of the pre-existing IDW fiction regarding TF gender, they're just introducing a new wrinkle that presumably comes about due to Cybertron's rejuvenated status and the events of Dark Cybertron.
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Jan 9, 2014 00:33
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Steve Vader posted:And I'm very said to find out Simon Furman is a douche. I still think this is overstating it. My 90-year-old grandma is a little bit racist, and a 50+ year old guy is gonna be LGBT-dumb. I'm breathless with anticipation to see what major human rights societal shift I will not be able to keep up with.
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Jan 9, 2014 00:58
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Why cookie Rocket posted:I still think this is overstating it. My 90-year-old grandma is a little bit racist, and a 50+ year old guy is gonna be LGBT-dumb. I'm breathless with anticipation to see what major human rights societal shift I will not be able to keep up with. Personally I can't wait to oppress sentient androids.
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Jan 9, 2014 01:33
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BooDooBoo posted:My Hasbro Swerve and Cosmos turned up! Goddam it if Swerve isn't 75% of the way to perfect!
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Jan 9, 2014 01:36
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Keldroc posted:Personally I can't wait to oppress sentient androids. In the fullness of time our offspring can be appalled at how crass we are about Furries, Otakukin and people in committed relationships with AI's
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Jan 9, 2014 01:59
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Keldroc posted:Personally I can't wait to oppress sentient androids.  Half-seriously expecting to be this guy when I'm old.
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Jan 9, 2014 02:06
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HidaO-Win posted:In the fullness of time our offspring can be appalled at how crass we are about Furries, Otakukin and people in committed relationships with AI's I joke about this sometimes, although I seriously do wonder sometimes if we're going to wind up as grumpy old men who are all like "Jesus, those loving robosexuals marrying robots just ain't right. They can't compute love!" ...probably not, as I doubt we're going to develop sentient AI in our lifetimes. I haven't seen the movie Her, but as an IT guy I immediately think of what the pathetic mustache man is going to do when his girlfriend inevitably breaks. "Hello, help desk... hi, uh... I need some help. My girlfriend won't turn on." Any relationship that runs on Windows is loving doomed. ...that might have been the gooniest post I've made in my life. 
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Jan 9, 2014 02:07
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Phy posted:Thinkin' about the whole Windblade/Arcee kerfuffle: So James Roberts portrayed two male-appearing robots (on the d-list, admittedly) as a loving couple. Both Hasbro and IDW were supportive of the storyline and the dialogue. The words "I love you" were used. I thought it was really cool to see that. I read TF UK as a kid, so in my head primary canon is the comics universe, on a par with the IDW series. Love MTME, almost certainly the best Transformers comic series ever. I'm happiest when the Transformers are about a race of mechanical aliens, quite different from us, the mildest of whom has forgotten more about combat than any human civilisation will ever know. I'm fully behind Transformers having emotional or romantic relationships, they're sapients with emotions, that makes perfect sense, Chromedome and Rewind was an excellent story arc. That said, I've never seen the idea of female Transformers handled well (Best was honestly Spotlight Arcee as it at least attempted to put a unique spin on it as unfortunate as some of the aspects are when a human lens is applied), we have great explanations for Transformer reproduction between the Matrix, Hot Spots and Cold construction so introducing sexes seems superfluous. Introducing gender is nearly as daft but I'm willing to give Windblade a shot. Speaking of which, secondary female characteristics being applied to a robot are fairly obvious, what do secondary male characteristics look like on a robot? I can think of one or two beards but I'm drawing a blank on prominent Adams apples.
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Jan 9, 2014 02:19
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Gammatron 64 posted:I joke about this sometimes, although I seriously do wonder sometimes if we're going to wind up as grumpy old men who are all like "Jesus, those loving robosexuals marrying robots just ain't right. They can't compute love!" The bit that'll break you is when your teenage granddaughter announces she's marrying her AImulation of Edward Cullen and the rest of the family are appalled at your cyber-shaming her, their love is real even if he is not.
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Jan 9, 2014 02:22
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HidaO-Win posted:The bit that'll break you is when your teenage granddaughter announces she's marrying her AImulation of Edward Cullen and the rest of the family are appalled at your cyber-shaming her, their love is real even if he is not. She can marry an AImulation of a black man before she can marry Edward Cullen by god!
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Jan 9, 2014 04:24
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I think the way I would handle female Cybertronians would be simple: They don't exist. Of course, neither would males. There would be no genders. Do they APPEAR female? Possibly, but there would be no actual distinction in the race. The only usage of gender terms would be pretty much just a cosmetic thing, for the benefit of dual-gendered races they meet. Optimus Prime isn't a male or female, but doesn't object to being called male by another race just for expediency. The only reason we would see Cybertronians saying "he" and "she" in TF-only scenes is for our benefit; assumedly, the Cybertronian language simply sidesteps that, and the terms are added during "translation" to Earth languages as needed. Things like being a fembot or "male" bot would simply be a preference for a body type, or styling. Like people who favor one color over another. Where did the concept of fembots come from? Possibly it was always there, possibly it was introduced into styling options after meeting a gendered race. It wouldn't matter from a male/female perspective, because it just wouldn't be something the population would even understand. "Those aliens have these weird 'gender' things? They put their parts together to make new versions of them? Weird! Still, hey, I liked the horns/curves/wing style/etc on them, maybe we could incorporate that into a body type." I just figure that would be the best way to handle gender and such in Transformers: It doesn't exist. No bot's male, no bot's female, any specification of such is an artificial conceit for our benefit. I've probably missed some important aspects to this, though.
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Jan 9, 2014 04:38
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No poo poo, if the movie Her actually has a scene where Scarlett Johassen gets a fatal error and needs to be reimaged or her hard drive dies or something like that and Joachim Phoenix is in tears because his girlfriend broke I might actually go see it. Because we all know that's how it would end in real life. "Aw Jesus Moss, get a load of this, another rear end in a top hat here fell in love with his computer again... oh hold on, yes sir, have you tried turning her off and on? Oh you have? *sigh* Well try doing it again." If the movie doesn't end this way, then it's a load of loving bullshit and not true to life. Anyways, yeah, it makes no sense for alien robots to have gender, but it also makes no sense for them to be humanoid, speak english and disguise themselves as dinosaurs which have been extinct for millions of years and never loving had metal skin in the first place, but no one ever brings that up, nope, they're just focused on robo-boobs. When asked where Optimus Prime's trailer goes, I generally respond "who loving cares?" But if you want to make sense of it all, I just like to think they were made in their creators' image. Primus was a god before he became a planet \ robot, and I guess gods have gender. And if you believe they were made by the Quintessons, I don't really think the Quintessons are robots, I kind of see them as being like the Daleks in that they're gross blobs riding around in machines. And the Daleks used to be humanoid once before they got all mutated and stuff.
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Jan 9, 2014 04:50
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There are the broad-shouldered transformers, and then there are the transformers with not so broad shoulders and maybe wider hips.
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Jan 9, 2014 05:03
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What about ones like Strika, huh?
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Jan 9, 2014 05:09
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Sky Lynx's robot mode is a monster bird AND a cat and no one tried to explain that ever, why is "some transformers look like women" not a instantly understandable corollary to "most look like men and some are animals and some are just sorta robots (ex: what gender/species would you assign mtmte whirl)". Of course the robot dna genie can't be put back in the bottle (and that's even loving stupider, if they have dna then why DIDN'T they have gender, way to gently caress up Furman) so here's hoping an interesting story comes of this. Don't really see how. Has the Fur Man reacted to the "I love you" scene at all?
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Jan 9, 2014 05:13
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Rita Repulsa posted:(ex: what gender/species would you assign mtmte whirl)". A little girl, about half-way between Miko and Hitgirl.
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Jan 9, 2014 05:26
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Rita Repulsa posted:Sky Lynx's robot mode is a monster bird AND a cat and no one tried to explain that ever, why is "some transformers look like women" not a instantly understandable corollary to "most look like men and some are animals and some are just sorta robots (ex: what gender/species would you assign mtmte whirl)". This. I love James Roberts, but there's one thing I don't like, and I think I'm the only person on earth who doesn't like it - empurata. I really don't feel that there is a need to explain why Shockwave and Whirl have mono-eyes instead of faces. I always assumed that they were just designed that way when they were created. Like they were a different product line. Things like "Whirl and Shockwave were normal once but had their heads replaced" and "Oh, Prime and Wheeljack and so on actually have mouths under their faceplates" or "Reflector was created this way" or "the Duocons were created from Shockwave's experiments" and so on sort of diminishes the diversity of transformers. Some transformers are just cats that turn into tapes and poo poo, we don't need to explain why Ravage is a cat. "Ratbat wasn't always a bat, he was a dude who was made into a bat to punish him." Awww, get out. I really liked Wheeljack's glowing ears, Shockwave's mono-eye, and Soundwave having a weird voice for some reason and being full of tape guys because it made them unique. Now they're not unique anymore. I know it's a silly thing to nitpick over, but eh, I just don't like it.
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Jan 9, 2014 05:32
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Kurui Reiten posted:I just figure that would be the best way to handle gender and such in Transformers: It doesn't exist. No bot's male, no bot's female, any specification of such is an artificial conceit for our benefit. You have. Since Transformers are fictional characters created by human beings, who are by definition gendered beings, their behavior and personality is inevitably going to be filtered through our experiences as such. Further, most Transformers fiction, certainly the best Transformers fiction, and indeed most fiction in general, is really an exploration of very human themes and issues, such as the struggle with faith versus pragmatism, finding one's place in life, understanding one's responsibilities versus one's desires, and even coping with the loss of a dearly loved friend or partner. Trying to pull the "they're robots so they shouldn't have gender anyway" angle does nothing but rob the concept of a very important humanizing trait, and a very fertile ground overdue for exploration, as Scott and apparently Hasbro both agree. The Transformers have always been imbued with human traits that really, if you want to get sperglord nerdmeister about it, shouldn't be part of an alien robot race. Why would they adopt conveniently unique Earth accents (Ironhide, Thundercracker, Inferno, Sky Lynx, etc.) or celebrity impersonations (Beachcomber, Cosmos, Jazz, etc.)? Why would a programmable machine race have sarcastic bastards like Swerve or complete fuckups like Waspinator? Why would a race so obsessed with and dependent on energy for survival not have moved in the direction of Dyson Sphere construction or full planetary solar panel farms rather than the incredibly inefficient method of interplanetary invasion and conquest? Well, that's simple. Because they're us. That's why kids identify with them, it's why they're memorable to us, it's why there are still so many stories to be told and ways to surprise us with the brand even 30 years later. I think anything that removes that humanity is a mistake, and gender definitely falls into that category. Many female fans speak fondly of the episodes that introduced the female Autobots or seeing Arcee show up in the movie, because no matter how many "no really they're just robots, no genders" text boxes you put around those characters, Optimus Prime is a male father figure. And that's okay, that's what he should be; it's the role he plays in the story. Today, with gender issues becoming a much more visible topic on and off the internet, and people needing to be familiarized and educated on transgender matters and even just the idea that there is more than the binary he/she gender identities, having that aspect of the human condition in Transformers' toolkit is more important than ever. There's a lot to be explored there, and ways to say it that are possibly easier or less controversial than using human characters, even though it all comes back to human experience in the end. Just look at how James Roberts was able to portray a believable, touching and inspiring male-male relationship in MTMTE just using robots who are unquestionably coded male. Without the gender aspect that has been part of Transformers almost since the beginning, that wouldn't have been possible, and I'm not willing to say that's something the fiction should be without just to avoid controversy. Good fiction should cause controversy, and I for one am glad (and not a little surprised) that Hasbro is willing to tackle such things in any aspect of their quest To Sell Toys. Keldroc fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 05:57
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Gammatron 64 posted:This. I love James Roberts, but there's one thing I don't like, and I think I'm the only person on earth who doesn't like it - empurata. I really don't feel that there is a need to explain why Shockwave and Whirl have mono-eyes instead of faces. I always assumed that they were just designed that way when they were created. Like they were a different product line.
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Jan 9, 2014 06:23
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Knormal posted:I agree with you. I think the empurata thing is stupid, it always makes me thing of "empanada". Also I assume there's ~*plot reasons*~, but why can't they just reinstall new heads and hands the next time they get the opportunity? I liked the random hodge podge G1 diversity too. But fortunately for me I don't follow the comics so I can just ignore all that stuff. gently caress what they say, Ratbat, just like Laserbeak and Ravage, can't even talk. I don't think there is anything preventing them from doing that. Shockwave doesn't seem like he has any desire to do so, and Whirl stated his reasons in MTMTE. Keldroc posted:Many female fans speak fondly of the episodes that introduced the female Autobots or seeing Arcee show up in the movie, because no matter how many "no really they're just robots, no genders" text boxes you put around those characters, Optimus Prime is a male father figure. Seconded. It's silly when people claim they're "genderless." catch22 fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 06:41
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Transformers is about robot people. Girls are people, so there are girl robot people in Transformers. I don't understand how this was ever a thing anyone ever got hung up on at any point. How did this become a thing that needed to be explained with words and pictures in anyone's mind?
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Jan 9, 2014 06:48
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I think the primary reason there aren't that many girl transformers is that every continuity has to be composed mainly of references to previous continuities, so most of the characters have to be male because most of the past characters have been male. Someone must have thought it was so drat clever to come up with a crazy mad scientist origin story as an excuse for why there's just one token female in the entire species.
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Jan 9, 2014 07:08
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Xenomrph posted:Where did you order them from? http://www.kapowtoys.co.uk/
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Jan 9, 2014 08:28
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Knormal posted:But fortunately for me I don't follow the comics so I can just ignore all that stuff. You should probably follow the comics, you're missing out on a lot of great fiction. I was gonna try for a big ol' effortpost, but Keldroc covered most of what I was gonna say pretty nicely. Humans need something to empathize with because it's very hard to make totally alien beings/objects compelling without a human element. Even experimental sci-fi about totally inscrutable things from beyond our imagination are still rooted in how people engage them; if 2001 was just a technical document about the monoliths and how they worked, it would be dull as gently caress. Science fiction (actually all fiction) works because it uses fantastical situations and concepts as a mirror toward more familiar ones. That's why the recent comics have worked so well, because they use a fundamentally ludicrous concept (robits that turn into other things) as a method for examining some pretty human conceits like social darwinism and apartheid. But, as is so often the case, obsessive nerds don't really like mirrors for some reason! It's not uncommon for nerds to catastrophically miss the actual point of the fiction they profess to love while endlessly schematizing every single background detail and minutiae that pops up within canon; they're not looking for a compelling story, they just want a technical manual. Take Wookieepedia for example: no one in their right mind would ever tell you that the point of the Star Wars films was to demonstrate that the weird triangle-shaped spaceship in Luke's garage quote:was equipped with an ion drive[1] and a fully pressurized cockpit, allowing it to operate at trans-orbital altitudes but nerds eat this poo poo up. There are literal volumes of totally inconsequential bullshit on that wiki about things that even the people who actually made the films probably didn't think about. But science fiction (and all other fiction) isn't a technical manual for inconsequential nonsense about stuff like how big stompy robots have different faces from one another, it's a vehicle for examining ourselves. The process of empurata isn't what's important, it's the fact that "holy poo poo, here's a society that literally mutilates you if you don't adhere to the status quo, that's totally hosed up!" Sci-fi only works if you give the audience something to actually empathize with, ergo it's really dumb to say that Transformers are fundamentally genderless because no one can relate to that on a character level.
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Jan 9, 2014 08:51
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£30 (~$50) for 2 Legends? Naw, dog.
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Jan 9, 2014 09:13
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The hairs on the back of my neck stand up a bit when I hear people asking, "Why does it need gender at all? Let's do away with gender altogether." Notwithstanding the good points already stated about science fiction being a lens through which to examine humanity, that kind of thinking is often problematic because what's really being suggested by "let's take away all the gender" is, "let's normalize everything and everyone," which means "let's make everything and everyone inherently male," because that is what is "normal" in Western society. So, this quickly becomes problematic because the male perspective is seen as more valid when addressing ideas of gender, which is even more problematic in sci-fi, which is a realm where we should ideally be looking toward possible worlds. If all the possible worlds we envision are male-gender dominated without that being a question, well...that starts to suggest some gross things about our current and future cultures. I don't think it's a bad idea to have a story about a race of (almost entirely) male-looking characters (like three-quarters of whom transform into either phallic symbols or over-compensatory vehicles), but it's nicer when that story has some sense of self-awareness about it. The eyes of the authors seem to have been more focused on class than race or gender as of late, imo, which has fit nicely, but that discussion can only go on for so long without really reeling in the other two big fish.
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Jan 9, 2014 10:54
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Transformers, believe it or not, were not always just people who were metal and turned into cars. In the very original G1 comics by Bob Budiansky, which was he first TF fiction ever, they were odd, alien robots and they acted like alien robots. Those comics sucked. This didn't work at all as they were impossible to relate to so almost all subsequent fiction (well, except for the anime) wrote the Transformers like they were people and not robots. And it owes a great deal of its long lasting success to that. If you want women to relate to your fiction, it makes sense to have female robots. This isn't the 80s anymore, and I don't think we need firm divisions between "boys' toys" and "girls' toys". Why can't we make Transformers for girls, too?
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Jan 9, 2014 12:39
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Even Nerf have stuff for girls now. Of course, they are still pink and purple with flower and unicorn decals.
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Jan 9, 2014 13:28
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Stepping around the minefield that is gender issues and how it relates to children's toy lines, I'm thinking of expanding my plastic habit from giant Japanese piloted robots to giant Japanese sentient robots. I currently don't, and never have, had any real attachments to the Transformers line or paid any attention to the comics/cartoons/whatever, but cool designs are why I'm on this boat. So, of course, in classic idiot fashion, I'm thinking of making my first purchase a big old third party of questionable quality: The MakeToys HyperNovae. The video is a pretty decent look at it, but I'm wondering if there might be any goon opinions on the line before I pay top whack for expensive plastic. Some suggestions in the realm of similar products in that range would be cool too, since I'm kind of coming in blind. Much appreciated.
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Jan 9, 2014 14:03
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The MSJ posted:Even Nerf have stuff for girls now. Of course, they are still pink and purple with flower and unicorn decals. Yeah, I think we should avoid bright pink Transformers that turn into Barbie cars, but well, that's kind of what Arcee is so it's too late. S-Alpha posted:Stepping around the minefield that is gender issues and how it relates to children's toy lines, I'm thinking of expanding my plastic habit from giant Japanese piloted robots to giant Japanese sentient robots. I currently don't, and never have, had any real attachments to the Transformers line or paid any attention to the comics/cartoons/whatever, but cool designs are why I'm on this boat. Look at some more video reviews on youtube, first. I think he looks really neat too, but... I dunno if he's cool enough for that price. I will spend stupid amounts of money on third party transformers, but even that one makes me think twice. I think that's there for people who really, really like Nova Prime and need to have a toy of the character. And honestly, third party toys are kind of like that - unless you say, really love X character and wish Hasbro \ Takara made a toy of him\her, save your money. There are hundreds and hundreds of fun Transformers that won't break your bank. If you have no attachment to the fiction and want a toy that's similar to that and costs a small fraction of it, check out Galaxy Force Convoy \ Cybertron Optimus Prime. Car Robots Black Convoy \ RiD Scourge \ G2 Laser Rod Prime is also very similar to that guy - even though Laser Prime\Scourge is a 90s toy, he's a fun one. The Masterpiece line is also extremely good and I'd recommend checking those out. The Masterpiece cars (which are Lamborghinis and Datsun Fairlady Zs so far) are loving phenomenal and some of my favorite robots, period. If you want realistic 80s vehicles, the Masterpiece line is the way to go - just avoid Megatron and Rodimus. If you want more modern realistic cars, check out Alternity \ Binaltech \ Alternators, however be warned that Binaltech \ Alternators are older and from the early\mid 2000s. If you don't care about realism and just want cheap, fun, affordable figures, look at the mainline Transformers. Be warned that the quality of mainline Transformers peaked a couple years ago and has actually been going down due to cost cutting measures. The best mainline Transformers were probably made from around 2006 to 2012. Takara versions generally have much better paint applications and look nicer, but cost twice as much. If you want classic Japanese super robots, check out Generations \ Reveal the Shield. If you like the broken shards of glass movie look, check out toys from the first movie and ROTF. If you like cartoony robots, check out Animated.
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Jan 9, 2014 14:24
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