MASTERDOMINUS: Fossilizers need really good connecting pegs and holes, otherwise they are just kind of a floppy mess quickly devolving into a pile of parts. It's something that Hasbro struggles with, and I wish that they would switch to hex-holes which seem to give a better fit (are they slightly smaller, but flex more? that would be my guess). It wasn't as much of a problem with the Weaponizers and the Micromasterbaseizers, so I'm not sure what happened.

This toy holds together for display, but not for play. I think it might be the weakest toy in the entire series.

LEADFOOT: The Earthrise Mirage mold, and the Siege mold it was based on, is held together in vehicle mode with a lot of tabs that have stress pulling directly against them. It means that it never wants to lock firmly into place, and some transformation lines are more visible, and there is a little bit of instability. It's better than Masterdominus, in that it holds up to play better, with the occasional readjustment, but it makes me wish the upcoming Crasher was based off of Dragstrip.

I really like that metallic paint is making a comeback here, and he looks great. And the robot mode is excellent (the slight instability makes the vehicle mode merely good).

He really needed a rotor. The remolds and new parts for a rotor would have been a better use of budget than everything done to make Masterdominus.

TWINTWIST: This is molded in softer plastics that originally used, and my copy suffers slightly from that, with an arm door that wants to pop off, and a waist that is... a little finicky.

The colors are good, and the original toy was great, and this is a pretty ok version of it. The lack of a topspin is unfortunate.

SPRINGER: He's fine. A little dull looking, but not nearly as dull looking as you would expect, due to all the paint apps of darker gray on gray, and darker green on green. He reminds me of what a good toy that Springer mold is, and there has been no degradation anywhere.

Utterly inessential toy if you have the other version.

IMPACTOR: This is the third or fourth iteration of Impactor that we have gotten from this mold, and they all look basically the same. It really is impressive how much is changed and for how little effect -- new head sculpt (the third head sculpt?) and new chest, and changes to the shoulder weapon so it can now break apart.

Nothing has gone wrong with this reuse.

The colors are slightly more garish, with the purple being more magenta, and the yellowish being more gold, but he looks like he stepped out of the comic book.

What makes this version interesting is his pack-in fossilizer partner, who matches his colors exactly.

SPINDLE: The pack-in partner of Impactor. He suffers from every problem fossilizers have, with some joints being a bit too loose. Remolded into a spinosaur, so he's a little different.

Attaching him to Impactor completely changes the perceived shape of Impactor, because there aren't sudden color changes that make it clear where one toy begins and the other ends. It's really fun, and makes this set worthwhile.

BULKHEAD: A camouflage redeco of Legacy Prime Universe Bulkhead, with dark translucent black-ish windows, and some brown and black blobs painted everywhere else. And the gray/silver bits of the robot are now black.

I think this helps establish this Bulkhead as his own thing, and not just a poor iteration of TF:Prime Bulkhead. Still very much Bulkhead, just a separate version of Bulkhead.

I wish the windows were just black plastic, and they had given up on the clear, as this mold has a lot of translucent plastic on the front, and flexes it during transformation.

He comes with a small plastic hammer that has a slightly comically short handle. It's a new addition for the Wreckers version of the toy, and doesn't store inside the vehicle mode the way the wrecking ball and the gun do. There are spots where it can attach, but then he is a truck with a hammer.

It also attaches nicely to the wrecking ball, which gives it the little bit of length it needs, and makes the wrecking ball just a hand guard. It looks good.

The black plastic is noticeably softer than the gray that it replaces, but it doesn't affect the transformation in any way. Also, the heel spurs are a little bit looser, but this is definitely a good thing -- they are firm, but can now be opened without wedging something else in as a lever.

There is basically no reason to buy this toy if you already have the plain Legacy version, however. It's a pretty subtle change. I would say that unlike Springer, the changes here are for the better.

OVERALL: For me, Bulkhead is the star of this subline, and then the Impactor/Spindle set. Both of them exceeded my expectations in little ways that make them the definitive version of their respective molds. (Impactor/Spindle would move up if Spindle held together better, but fossilizers are going to fossilizer)

I found myself a little underwhelmed with the rest. They're totally fine, just not special.

Someone who is more of a fossilizer fan would doubtless be very excited by the remolded fossilizers. (I would say that I don't judge this person, but I do... however, my judgment is pretty much immaterial)

On Saturday, August 6, 2022 at 2:38:00 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> MASTERDOMINUS: Fossilizers need really good connecting pegs and holes, otherwise they are just kind of a floppy mess quickly devolving into a pile of parts. It's something that Hasbro struggles with, and I wish that they would switch to hex-holes which seem to give a better fit (are they slightly smaller, but flex more? that would be my guess). It wasn't as much of a problem with the Weaponizers and the Micromasterbaseizers, so I'm not sure what happened.

I really haven't closely looked, but they're using hexagonal holes at least some of the time, aren't they? G2 Road Rocket has them. I feel like Studio Series Scourge/Sweep has them. But, with regards to the Fossilizers, specifically, it could just be mold degradation. After being sold as Ractonite and Tricranius, maybe the parts just don't fit as well as they used to.
> He really needed a rotor. The remolds and new parts for a rotor would have been a better use of budget than everything done to make Masterdominus.

> The lack of a Topspin is unfortunate.

Hasbro has said in the past that they do try to complete teams and sets of characters, so I'm sure he's on the road map at some point.

> He reminds me of what a good toy that Springer mold is, and there has been no degradation anywhere.

He's still tough as hell to transform. What a learning curve on that toy. He's approaching Masterpiece territory, easily.

> IMPACTOR: This is the third or fourth iteration of Impactor that we have gotten from this mold, and they all look basically the same.

This must have been the designers' plan from the start, demonstrating to the Hasbro execs that he's not just a one-and-done mold. "No, we could reuse Impactor in plenty of ways. We could resell him as Impactor, and again as Impactor, and maybe do an exclusive version of Impactor, and..."
> SPINDLE: The pack-in partner of Impactor. He suffers from every problem fossilizers have, with some joints being a bit too loose. Remolded into a spinosaur, so he's a little different.

I think they described Spindle as female during one of the Hasbro livestreams. But, they're assigning female genders willy-nilly, even to established male characters, so maybe this is meaningless. Anyway, the multiple colors make the toy look less like a fossil skeleton (which I think was the original idea) and more like... I'm not sure what. A normal Transformer whose armor has been stripped away, so all that's left is a multi-colored endoskeleton.
> Someone who is more of a fossilizer fan would doubtless be very excited by the remolded fossilizers. (I would say that I don't judge this person, but I do... however, my judgment is pretty much immaterial)

I wanted to like them, and I think I actually own most of them (didn't buy the Core-class ones), but I just haven't had a strong desire to take Huffer or Tracks and plug in a bunch of bone armor. It's different than the technology-based Weaponizers, which I liked better, but they ran out of auxiliary city-base partner characters to do, so that wasn't sustainable. So, bone dinosaurs it is.

There have definitely been action figure toy lines in the past that went through a prehistoric phase. Ninja Turtles did it twice—once in the 1990's when every Turtle came with his own large dinosaur to ride (and all the dinos wore Turtle masks, because why not), and again during the 2003 reboot with its "Paleo Patrol" series (and the only action figure they've done of Savanti Romero, that awesome half-goat guy from the old Mirage comics).. It just doesn't seem to work as organically with Transformers. Like, I could totally imagine a scenario when the Turtles are flung into prehistoric times and are forced to wear bone armor and fight with bone weapons to survive. That's a normal thing that we've all done in life. But for Transformers it's harder to swallow. They're made of metal. Their bodies are tougher than any bones they choose to equip. They might as well uproot some trees and fight with tree weapons. God, I just invented the gimmick for 2024, didn't I?

Zob (and let it be called... BIRCH WARS!)

On Friday, August 12, 2022 at 8:07:13 AM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:

> I wanted to like them, and I think I actually own most of them (didn't buy the Core-class ones), but I just haven't had a strong desire to take Huffer or Tracks and plug in a bunch of bone armor. It's different than the technology-based Weaponizers, which I liked better, but they ran out of auxiliary city-base partner characters to do, so that wasn't sustainable. So, bone dinosaurs it is.

There was only one mold in the core class that was sort of a Fossilizer, but he didn't disassemble, and there's still a bit of meat on his/her bones (looked up genders, and Vertebreak is a fembot and Dracodon is a boybot). Vertebreak is a great little toy, who happens to transform into the dissicated remains of a dinosaur, that has had most of the meat torn off but still has bits of flesh on the skull. She has not been picked clean. She's disgusting and I love her.

(And Dracodon is bright green).

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, August 6, 2022 at 2:38:00 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the
> Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
>> MASTERDOMINUS: Fossilizers need really good connecting pegs and holes,
>> otherwise they are just kind of a floppy mess quickly devolving into a
>> pile of parts. It's something that Hasbro struggles with, and I wish
>> that they would switch to hex-holes which seem to give a better fit (are
>> they slightly smaller, but flex more? that would be my guess). It wasn't
>> as much of a problem with the Weaponizers and the Micromasterbaseizers,
>> so I'm not sure what happened.
>
> I really haven't closely looked, but they're using hexagonal holes at
> least some of the time, aren't they? G2 Road Rocket has them. I feel
> like Studio Series Scourge/Sweep has them. But, with regards to the
> Fossilizers, specifically, it could just be mold degradation. After
> being sold as Ractonite and Tricranius, maybe the parts just don't fit as
> well as they used to.
>

If the toys are not designed well enough to have the molds reused many
times then…. maybe don’t sell them many times?

There’s something very disposable about a lot of the past few years of
toys. They’re being reused too many times, and they are aging poorly,
yellowing and joints getting stiff or loose.

I’ve been going through bins, slowly, and I find toys like Energon Landmine
who is almost 20 years old and looks great. He’s a great toy, still in his
prime. BW Manterror, same deal. A few scratches, but feels like a new toy.
RID X-Brawn is the same.

(Sure, there’s also our crumbly friend Torca, and our flakey Transmetal
fiends… and some BM toys with clear plastic ball joints… but by and large
the older toys were built to last)

I don’t see the current toys holding up as well. Hasbro is recognizing
collectors, but the product is less collectible.

On Saturday, August 13, 2022 at 3:24:23 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> If the toys are not designed well enough to have the molds reused many
> times then…. maybe don’t sell them many times?

I imagine it's hard to strike a good balance. On the one hand, their budget doesn't really allow for one-and-done molds, most of the time. On occasion we'll get a toy that doesn't get reused, like Siege Apeface, but that's a rare exception, and it's probably worked into the budget. They produce these toys with the understanding that they'll sell the same toys two or three more times, at a minimum, in different colors. What we're really doing when we buy a Starscream, and then proceed to buy a Thundercracker or a Skywarp, is choosing to purchase the same product over and over in a new style.. During G1, they would just keep the same toys, the same characters, in production for a year or two or sometimes three. Retailers won't tolerate that now, so we get endless redeco versions instead.

But, different colors of plastic have slightly different tolerances, and of course the more a mold is pressed into service, the more potential there is for degradation and parts no longer fitting together correctly. Transformers is a very unforgiving toy line when it comes to engineering. If a regular action figure is slightly misshapen, then maybe it means his arm or his leg is in a slightly different pose than normal. But, do that with a Transformers toy and suddenly you can't get the damn thing into vehicle mode at all.

We collectors are an odd sort. When you buy your kid a bicycle, you don't keep buying him the same bike over and over, every time it comes out in a new color scheme. And yet we do that with our toys. You're not experiencing a different play pattern with a Thundercracker or a Skywarp than you are with a Starscream, but we imbue these toys with life and personality and they become somehow necessary.
> There’s something very disposable about a lot of the past few years of
> toys. They’re being reused too many times, and they are aging poorly,
> yellowing and joints getting stiff or loose.

The yellowing is an atrocious problem that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later (and it sounds like Hasbro is at least aware of it and is trying to mitigate it). I don't quite know if they were forced to use substandard materials at one point due to pandemic-related supply issues, or whether they've just been cutting corners and didn't realize the plastic was going to be a huge problem. I've read somewhere that the plastics have fire-retardant chemicals inside them (insert Teletraan I joke here) and that they sometimes yellow when they react to the plastic. So, maybe they need to go back to highly flammable plastics. Like, if my house burns down, my yellow toys are going to melt into a puddle of glop along with everything else.. Being yellow isn't going to save them somehow.

It used to be that my G1 toys aged poorly if I handled them frequently. The ink on stickers rubbed off, joints got loose from repeated transformations, die-cast paint chipped off after rummaging around for them in my toy box, and exposure to direct sunlight turned them yellow and brittle and crumbly. I try to treat toys carefully now so that they'll remain in like-new condition, and yet they're still deteriorating before my eyes through no fault of my own. A toy that sits in a box in a dark, temperature-controlled closet should not turn yellow.
> I don’t see the current toys holding up as well. Hasbro is recognizing
> collectors, but the product is less collectible.

I mean, in some ways they're better than ever. Lots of metal pins and bolts holding joints together, instead of relying upon the strength of plastic knobs. We've moved far beyond the Great Cheapening, certainly. But, at the same time, the toys aren't lasting as long.

The toys are also more expensive than ever before! There's no excuse for a $100 Motormaster being yellow right out of the package, but it's happened to countless people. Some have even ordered multiple Motormasters, and every one of them has had an issue. It's completely unacceptable.

Zob (is a large child)

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, August 13, 2022 at 3:24:23 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the
> Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
>> If the toys are not designed well enough to have the molds reused many
>> times then…. maybe don’t sell them many times?
>
> But, different colors of plastic have slightly different tolerances, and
> of course the more a mold is pressed into service, the more potential
> there is for degradation and parts no longer fitting together correctly.
> Transformers is a very unforgiving toy line when it comes to engineering.
> If a regular action figure is slightly misshapen, then maybe it means
> his arm or his leg is in a slightly different pose than normal. But, do
> that with a Transformers toy and suddenly you can't get the damn thing
> into vehicle mode at all.

But they could also design things to be more forgiving of the variations in
materials. It might mean that they have to use a different shape for the
peg hole — the hexes they’ve been experimenting with — or use use something
more akin to ball joints.

We’ve had weaponizers and the micromaster bases before this, and they were
better at holding together. Maybe they just cheapened the plastic a bit?
Slammer has problems too, but he’s a late one.

Every toy is going to end up being someone’s first Transformer, or an early
Transformer. If it sucks right out of the box, that means less future sales
when it turns them off.

Not all toys can be good toys, and there are going to be some that the
designers worked on, thought was great and just wasn’t because they made
all the wrong trade offs (Generations Cheetor, for instance). But endemic
poor quality is an unforced error.

>> There’s something very disposable about a lot of the past few years of
>> toys. They’re being reused too many times, and they are aging poorly,
>> yellowing and joints getting stiff or loose.
>
> The yellowing is an atrocious problem that needs to be addressed sooner
> rather than later (and it sounds like Hasbro is at least aware of it and
> is trying to mitigate it). I don't quite know if they were forced to use
> substandard materials at one point due to pandemic-related supply issues,
> or whether they've just been cutting corners and didn't realize the
> plastic was going to be a huge problem.

I recall something about them being unaware that contractors skipped a step
that makes the plastic less likely to yellow.

> It used to be that my G1 toys aged poorly if I handled them frequently.
> The ink on stickers rubbed off, joints got loose from repeated
> transformations, die-cast paint chipped off after rummaging around for
> them in my toy box, and exposure to direct sunlight turned them yellow
> and brittle and crumbly. I try to treat toys carefully now so that
> they'll remain in like-new condition, and yet they're still deteriorating
> before my eyes through no fault of my own. A toy that sits in a box in a
> dark, temperature-controlled closet should not turn yellow.

The regular wear and tear of play is different. That’s basically battle
damage.

>> I don’t see the current toys holding up as well. Hasbro is recognizing
>> collectors, but the product is less collectible.
>
> I mean, in some ways they're better than ever. Lots of metal pins and
> bolts holding joints together, instead of relying upon the strength of
> plastic knobs. We've moved far beyond the Great Cheapening, certainly.
> But, at the same time, the toys aren't lasting as long.

We’re definitely in a new Cheapening. If you look at toys from Siege and
compare to now, the toys are now a lot more hollow, and there are fewer
paint apps and fewer pins. Plastics are often softer. Toys are getting
smaller.

And we are seeing way more quality control issues. Sludge frequently has
knee problems (not yours or mine, but lots of other peoples). All the
Dinobots have parts the pop off too easily in modest play. Tigatron usually
looks concussed because his beast eyes don’t point in the same direction.
Someone plucked a Dinobot. Terrorsaur was Wing-fall-off-bot. Jackpot’s
head. Drench and Earth mode Mirage don’t peg together tightly. Studio
Series Jazz’s fragile windshield.

Some of this could have been addressed by different design choices that
aren’t as dependent on tolerances that the materials can’t promise.

(Meanwhile, Cybertron Downshift pegs together as perfectly as he always
did)

> The toys are also more expensive than ever before! There's no excuse for
> a $100 Motormaster being yellow right out of the package, but it's
> happened to countless people. Some have even ordered multiple
> Motormasters, and every one of them has had an issue. It's completely unacceptable.

$100 is real money. You shouldn’t feel like you got a defective product.

On Saturday, August 13, 2022 at 7:08:03 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> We’ve had weaponizers and the micromaster bases before this, and they were
> better at holding together. Maybe they just cheapened the plastic a bit?
> Slammer has problems too, but he’s a late one.

There's got to be some difference between the tolerances of the parts according to the theoretical CAD models and the final production line toys. Every single Slammer had problems, as far as I've been able to ascertain, and that might have been the result of the type of plastic used. It shrank too much or something after production. I don't know.
> Every toy is going to end up being someone’s first Transformer, or an early
> Transformer. If it sucks right out of the box, that means less future sales
> when it turns them off.

That's actually true. Every single toy has the potential to be the brand ambassador.
> Not all toys can be good toys, and there are going to be some that the
> designers worked on, thought was great and just wasn’t because they made
> all the wrong trade offs (Generations Cheetor, for instance). But endemic
> poor quality is an unforced error.

I wonder if what we're seeing is the result of the coronavirus. Factories have, in the last couple of years, suffered from shutdowns and understaffing and supply shortages. I remember reading somewhere recently that most domestic companies don't have eyes on what's happening overseas, so they are being caught blindsided when factories don't have product ready on time, or shipping companies can't deliver on time. There might be a lot less back-and-forth communication between Hasbro and the manufacturing factories than there was in the past.

> I recall something about them being unaware that contractors skipped a step
> that makes the plastic less likely to yellow.

Didn't see that, but it would certainly explain it. Unfortunately, even if they fixed the problem already, how many toys are already in mid-production? How long until all the toys using the yellowing plastic make it out of the factory, get packaged, and shipped to stores? Is this going to be a problem with Elita One? Tarantulas? Wildrider? Skullgrin? When does it end?

> We’re definitely in a new Cheapening. If you look at toys from Siege and
> compare to now, the toys are now a lot more hollow, and there are fewer
> paint apps and fewer pins. Plastics are often softer. Toys are getting
> smaller.

Okay, but is this the result of cost-cutting, or adherence to the animation models? Like, a lot of people complained that Legacy Drag Strip was yellow from top to bottom, but that's how he looked on the show. During Combiner Wars, they tarted him up with a lot more purple as a secondary color, but people cried foul. Motormaster doesn't have a lot of paint, but he also doesn't need it. Again, that's how he looked in the cartoon.

And are toys getting smaller, or are they just assigning toys to price points based on complexity rather than size? I mean, Legacy Blitzwing is the size of a Voyager, but they sold him as a Leader because he's got an additional transformation and many more needed moving parts. He's objectively more complex than, say, Studio Series Wreck-Gar. Sure, toys like Cosmos or Goldbug are short, but they represent a smaller characters. Unless I'm wrong, other Deluxe toys (Drag Strip, Kickback, etc.) are still the same size as Deluxes from years ago.
> And we are seeing way more quality control issues. Sludge frequently has
> knee problems (not yours or mine, but lots of other peoples). All the
> Dinobots have parts the pop off too easily in modest play. Tigatron usually
> looks concussed because his beast eyes don’t point in the same direction.
> Someone plucked a Dinobot. Terrorsaur was Wing-fall-off-bot. Jackpot’s
> head. Drench and Earth mode Mirage don’t peg together tightly. Studio
> Series Jazz’s fragile windshield.

Those are a bunch of problems that have cropped up in a really short space of time. Jackpot's head is one of the worst. I don't understand how that didn't get fixed. (I'd actually forgotten about that one because I bought a 1990 Action Master and cut his head off and put it on the Golden Disk toy..)

> $100 is real money. You shouldn’t feel like you got a defective product.

I've got another Motormaster on the way (from Amazon this time), but I'm fully anticipating it having problems of some sort. As long as they're not the *same* problems, I can play mix-and-match and then return the defective one. Honestly, it's just sad that this is even necessary to begin with.

Zob (but, these are the times in which we live, I suppose)

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, August 13, 2022 at 7:08:03 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the
> Seattle Wombats wrote:
>
>> We’ve had weaponizers and the micromaster bases before this, and they were
>> better at holding together. Maybe they just cheapened the plastic a bit?
>> Slammer has problems too, but he’s a late one.
>
> There's got to be some difference between the tolerances of the parts
> according to the theoretical CAD models and the final production line
> toys. Every single Slammer had problems, as far as I've been able to
> ascertain, and that might have been the result of the type of plastic
> used. It shrank too much or something after production. I don't know.

Engineering is about choosing the right techniques with the available
materials. I don’t let them off with a “well, the plastic shrank too much”
because they should know how much the plastic may shrink and design the toy
to use techniques that can withstand that gap in tolerances.

And test runs.

And every fossilizer, plus Slammer, has these problems to one extent or
another. If it was just Slammer, then sure, sometimes things don’t work out
well — see the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

>> Every toy is going to end up being someone’s first Transformer, or an early
>> Transformer. If it sucks right out of the box, that means less future sales
>> when it turns them off.
>
> That's actually true. Every single toy has the potential to be the brand ambassador.
>
>> Not all toys can be good toys, and there are going to be some that the
>> designers worked on, thought was great and just wasn’t because they made
>> all the wrong trade offs (Generations Cheetor, for instance). But endemic
>> poor quality is an unforced error.
>
> I wonder if what we're seeing is the result of the coronavirus.
> Factories have, in the last couple of years, suffered from shutdowns and
> understaffing and supply shortages. I remember reading somewhere
> recently that most domestic companies don't have eyes on what's happening
> overseas, so they are being caught blindsided when factories don't have
> product ready on time, or shipping companies can't deliver on time.
> There might be a lot less back-and-forth communication between Hasbro and
> the manufacturing factories than there was in the past.

Except we aren’t seeing a decline in quality across industries. There’s no
rash of complaints about wobbly tables, or lasagna noodles without ruffled
edges or whatever. We see tings not show up, or be late.

I think Hasbro/Takara cut some corners. They probably did it with other
brands too and it was fine because the tolerances didn’t need to be as
tight.

>> I recall something about them being unaware that contractors skipped a step
>> that makes the plastic less likely to yellow.
>
> Didn't see that, but it would certainly explain it. Unfortunately, even
> if they fixed the problem already, how many toys are already in
> mid-production? How long until all the toys using the yellowing plastic
> make it out of the factory, get packaged, and shipped to stores? Is this
> going to be a problem with Elita One? Tarantulas? Wildrider?
> Skullgrin? When does it end?
>
>> We’re definitely in a new Cheapening. If you look at toys from Siege and
>> compare to now, the toys are now a lot more hollow, and there are fewer
>> paint apps and fewer pins. Plastics are often softer. Toys are getting
>> smaller.
>
> Okay, but is this the result of cost-cutting, or adherence to the
> animation models? Like, a lot of people complained that Legacy Drag
> Strip was yellow from top to bottom, but that's how he looked on the
> show. During Combiner Wars, they tarted him up with a lot more purple as
> a secondary color, but people cried foul. Motormaster doesn't have a lot
> of paint, but he also doesn't need it. Again, that's how he looked in the cartoon.

Motormaster’s cab is a thin shell that goes around the crumpled robot, but
it misses some spots and goes out of place with significant play.

Not making the panels a little thicker and having them peg more firmly is a
choice. It’s less plastic, and possibly a cut out step in playing with
prototypes and doing more rework to make it more stable.

> And are toys getting smaller, or are they just assigning toys to price
> points based on complexity rather than size?

I think it’s a bit of each. Legacy Arcee is tiny AND not very good (I’m
convinced quality is money, a few extra steps of design work)

Cosmos is small, and has massive gaps in the inside of his arms (if photos
are accurate) that in previous lines would have been covered.

Jhiaxus was an experiment in finding the thinnest plastics that would hold
up to transformation, at least for a little while. And he has no bottom to
the cockpit.

>> $100 is real money. You shouldn’t feel like you got a defective product.
>
> I've got another Motormaster on the way (from Amazon this time), but I'm
> fully anticipating it having problems of some sort. As long as they're
> not the *same* problems, I can play mix-and-match and then return the
> defective one. Honestly, it's just sad that this is even necessary to begin with.
>
>
> Zob (but, these are the times in which we live, I suppose)

I kind of wish the toys were a little less appealing so I would just be
done. But each wave has one or two that I really love, and an equal number
that are very disappointing, and a bunch that seem fine but not quite worth
the price. Just good enough to keep me buying. (Really growing to love
Scorponok, despite being initially underwhelmed)

A premium cost product — and at $25 a Deluxe or whatever they are up to,
this is a premium priced product — needs to have good quality control and
to feel solid.

On Sunday, August 14, 2022 at 2:03:18 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:

> I don’t let them off with a “well, the plastic shrank too much”
> because they should know how much the plastic may shrink and design the toy
> to use techniques that can withstand that gap in tolerances.

To be clear, I'm not letting them off the hook. I was trying to understand the reasoning for the Slammer problem, specifically, but I'm not making excuses for them. They've been doing Transformers with five-millimeter pegs for almost 40 years now. That's more than enough time to get it figured out.

> I think Hasbro/Takara cut some corners. They probably did it with other
> brands too and it was fine because the tolerances didn’t need to be as
> tight.

I will admit that I don't buy too many other Hasbro toy lines nowadays. My kids have more or less outgrown it. I buy a lot of NECA and Super7 Ninja Turtles stuff, and NECA has its own quality control problems (everything is made of rigid plastic, even the weapons and tiny accessories, and I've broken things just trying to get them out of the plastic trays). So, it's hard to say. You could very well be right.

> I think it’s a bit of each. Legacy Arcee is tiny AND not very good (I’m
> convinced quality is money, a few extra steps of design work)

I don't own Arcee, but I own Road Rocket. That's a pathetic vehicle mode. When you take off the front windshield, it instantly stops looking like a vehicle and just looks like a bunch of folded-up robot parts. The front shell is the only thing that redeems it.

> Cosmos is small, and has massive gaps in the inside of his arms (if photos
> are accurate) that in previous lines would have been covered.

I really think Cosmos was a special case. He was going to be a partial Origin Bumblebee retool, but Takara said, "don't worry, we gotchu, boo" and managed to squeeze an entirely new Deluxe toy into two new toolings. They weren't budgeting an all-new design, but Takara managed to make it happen anyway. So, I am very forgiving of Cosmos because he wasn't even supposed to exist.

Also, I don't think his open cavities are any more or less egregious than other toys. I think people are just always looking for something to complain about. I mean, his fists have to go somewhere when he transforms. In some ways we've gotten spoiled by all the third-party gap-fillers that plug up every last possible nook and cranny inside a toy's inner thighs and armpits and such. I've tried a few of them myself, and it doesn't always significantly improve the toy.

I'm not trying to be a Hasbro apologist here, but I will defend Cosmos to the death.
> Jhiaxus was an experiment in finding the thinnest plastics that would hold
> up to transformation, at least for a little while. And he has no bottom to
> the cockpit.

Yeah, Jhiaxus could be better. But, he's a character like Alpha Trion, where his transformed mode is almost incidental. It was more important that his robot mode look and feel accurate, so that's where the design emphasis went. In this case, I think they made the right decision. But, then this comes back to what you said about brand ambassadors. Jhiaxus will be somebody's first toy, and they'll take one look at it and go, "THIS is what Transformers is now?!"

> I kind of wish the toys were a little less appealing so I would just be
> done.

It seems like a lot of people are getting out of the game, though my perception is that it's more due to increasing prices than anything else ($25 a Deluxe, like you said, which seem to translate across the board as the magic price point for Marvel Legends, Star Wars Black Series, and similar toys).

In some ways the toys are better than ever before. What we're getting right now is basically "Transformers G1 the Animated Series: the Toy Line" and I feel like all the other Cosmoses and Drag Strips and Hoists I've bought in the past have been completely supplanted. The willingness to finally go full turbo monkey on the cartoon designs, it thrills me to no end. It's what I've always wanted since the beginning. (And NECA is doing it too with Ninja Turtles, which is why I've got a shelf with like 70 of their figures on it now with more pre-orders on the way.) But, the niggling little quality control issues are still a problem. I don't deny that.

I think that, since we're getting the definitive versions of many characters now, I may stop buying every G1 update that comes out. I mean, as it stands right now, I have no idea how they would top the Dinobots, for example. I don't see myself ever needing another Sludge. (I'll get the Masterpiece version when they do one. But that's a whole separate thing.)

I guess if they cover all the G1 characters with this level of accuracy and authenticity, and do definitive neo-G1 versions of them, then I'd be fine if they want to move on to doing tributes to Armada or Cybertron or whatever the young people are demanding nowadays. It's probably not the sales model Hasbro would prefer (up to this point, I've just been gobbling up inadequate updates of the same characters every time they offer a new one) but that's about where I'm at.

Zob (at this point, wouldn't Masterpiece Dinobots have to be something like fifteen inches tall in order to be properly in scale?)

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
> On Sunday, August 14, 2022 at 2:03:18 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the
> Seattle Wombats wrote:

>> Cosmos is small, and has massive gaps in the inside of his arms (if photos
>> are accurate) that in previous lines would have been covered.
>
> I really think Cosmos was a special case. He was going to be a partial
> Origin Bumblebee retool, but Takara said, "don't worry, we gotchu, boo"
> and managed to squeeze an entirely new Deluxe toy into two new toolings.
> They weren't budgeting an all-new design, but Takara managed to make it
> happen anyway. So, I am very forgiving of Cosmos because he wasn't even
> supposed to exist.
>
> Also, I don't think his open cavities are any more or less egregious than
> other toys. I think people are just always looking for something to
> complain about. I mean, his fists have to go somewhere when he
> transforms. In some ways we've gotten spoiled by all the third-party
> gap-fillers that plug up every last possible nook and cranny inside a
> toy's inner thighs and armpits and such. I've tried a few of them
> myself, and it doesn't always significantly improve the toy.
>
> I'm not trying to be a Hasbro apologist here, but I will defend Cosmos to the death.

Many, many toys have a door on the arm that flips open to let the hand
out. Earthrise Optimus, to name literally the last toy I was playing with.
(Well, his corpse… I love the corpse)

It’s a common technique, and would have made the toy look a lot better.

I don’t have Cosmos, and the eBay prices are a small fortune, so I may
never get him, but those arms look bad and cheap.

>> Jhiaxus was an experiment in finding the thinnest plastics that would hold
>> up to transformation, at least for a little while. And he has no bottom to
>> the cockpit.
>
> Yeah, Jhiaxus could be better. But, he's a character like Alpha Trion,
> where his transformed mode is almost incidental. It was more important
> that his robot mode look and feel accurate, so that's where the design
> emphasis went. In this case, I think they made the right decision. But,
> then this comes back to what you said about brand ambassadors. Jhiaxus
> will be somebody's first toy, and they'll take one look at it and go,
> "THIS is what Transformers is now?!"

He’s a transformer, he should transform into something.

You might not care about the alt-mode, but I love a weird bat-winged plane.
But it needs to be slightly plausible, with some kind of bottom.