So we finally have pics of all 5 Stunticons together

https://news.tfw2005.com/2022/09/28/transformers-legacy-deluxe-breakdown-in-hand-images-466344

and I have to say both robot and vehicle for Breakdown share quite a lot of similarities to Wildrider. They both seem to be more Ferrari than Lamborghini and that is greatly dissapointing.

On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 8:44:19 AM UTC-6, Ob1k...@att.net wrote:

> and I have to say both robot and vehicle for Breakdown share quite a lot of similarities to Wildrider. They both seem to be more Ferrari than Lamborghini and that is greatly dissapointing.

So, I think the fandom can generally be separated into two contingents. There are fans who don't really know their cars, and are looking at the new Breakdown and going, "So what? I don't see the problem." And then there's your Transformers fan who also known their sports cars pretty well and a) know that Breakdown's supposed to be a Lamborghini Countach and that b) the new version clearly isn't one.

There's a lot of disagreement on the message boards over whether the new Breakdown is good or bad, and whether you know your cars seems to be a deciding factor. There's also a lot of "shut up, stop complaining and just enjoy the toys" which I guess is always there to some degree, but it seems unusually bad this go-around for some reason.

Obviously we get some parts-sharing for the Transformers toy lines. It's always been the rule rather than the exception, especially in recent years. You could get away with Flamefeather or Ruckus or somebody being a one-and-done mold back during G1, but the toys also had far less complexity back in the day. The toys now are objectively more complex with many more parts, which means they cost more to make now.

But, it feels like a tease to get Drag Strip right, and then get Motormaster right, and then get Wildrider right, and then get Dead End right, only for them to fumble the ball in the ninth inning (or something, I don't do sports metaphors) and go, "Well, here's Breakdown, sort of." It's like they saved him for last because they knew fans would nope out if they saw an incorrect Breakdown first. But, they've already spent $175 on four-fifths of Menasor so they're already all in.

The only redeeming quality here is that Breakdown didn't always look great in the cartoon. There are some cartoon episodes where the Autobots in car mode are absolutely gorgeous (Tracks in "Auto Bop," Sideswipe in "The Revenge of Bruticus," most of the transformation sequences from the pilot episode) but the Stunticons got short shrift most of the time. Breakdown looks awful in most episodes. He arguably isn't even a Lamborghini Countach in some scenes. So, a bad Breakdown is at least reasonably screen accurate.

But, I'm sure this wasn't what Hasbro was setting out to do. They wanted to save some money, and they thought Wildrider and Breakdown were close enough in appearance that they could do some cost-cutting. Breakdown's robot mode honestly doesn't look bad. He was pretty much the ONLY Stunticon they got right during Combiner Wars, and this time they played it close to the vest and nearly duplicated the look of the toy in robot mode. But, yes, the car mode is a little disappointing.

Zob (and the Lamborghini Countach is my all-time favorite car, so I'm particularly sensitive to this issue)

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 8:44:19 AM UTC-6, Ob1k...@att.net wrote:
>
>> and I have to say both robot and vehicle for Breakdown share quite a lot
>> of similarities to Wildrider. They both seem to be more Ferrari than
>> Lamborghini and that is greatly dissapointing.
>
> So, I think the fandom can generally be separated into two contingents.
> There are fans who don't really know their cars, and are looking at the
> new Breakdown and going, "So what? I don't see the problem." And then
> there's your Transformers fan who also known their sports cars pretty
> well and a) know that Breakdown's supposed to be a Lamborghini Countach
> and that b) the new version clearly isn't one.
>
> There's a lot of disagreement on the message boards over whether the new
> Breakdown is good or bad, and whether you know your cars seems to be a
> deciding factor. There's also a lot of "shut up, stop complaining and
> just enjoy the toys" which I guess is always there to some degree, but it
> seems unusually bad this go-around for some reason.

I don’t know my cars, but I know that Breakdown is supposed to look a lot
like Sideswipe. And this doesn’t. And for what the Legacy Stunticons are
meant to be, that’s bad.

I don’t know why they couldn’t reshell the car a bit better — whether they
had to design it as Breakdown or Wildrider first, as the Lamborghini has
less space in the front end, so it would be harder to shove that onto a
basic folded robot that wasn’t planned for it.

I know Sideswipe doesn’t quite look like his original car mode, but he gets
the basic shape. They needed to get that close with this.

> But, it feels like a tease to get Drag Strip right, and then get
> Motormaster right, and then get Wildrider right, and then get Dead End
> right, only for them to fumble the ball in the ninth inning (or
> something, I don't do sports metaphors) and go, "Well, here's Breakdown,
> sort of." It's like they saved him for last because they knew fans would
> nope out if they saw an incorrect Breakdown first. But, they've already
> spent $175 on four-fifths of Menasor so they're already all in.

Given how many people hate it, and how this was meant to be the perfect G1
Stunticons, it wouldn’t shock me if there was a more cartoon accurate
remold at some point to make him a bit more accurate.

> The only redeeming quality here is that Breakdown didn't always look
> great in the cartoon. There are some cartoon episodes where the Autobots
> in car mode are absolutely gorgeous (Tracks in "Auto Bop," Sideswipe in
> "The Revenge of Bruticus," most of the transformation sequences from the
> pilot episode) but the Stunticons got short shrift most of the time.
> Breakdown looks awful in most episodes. He arguably isn't even a
> Lamborghini Countach in some scenes. So, a bad Breakdown is at least
> reasonably screen accurate.

I was surprised when I realized that the toy was the same car as Sideswipe.
(Or close to the same… I don’t know my cars that well) The animation really
was that bad.

(I would still prefer that they stopped asking “how can we get this just
like the old cartoon?” and started thinking about how these beings would
look if they came online now, or in the medium future (utopian or dystopian
designs?), but that’s not this set, so they have a lot less freedom.

On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 6:39:53 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 8:44:19 AM UTC-6, Ob1k...@att.net wrote:
>
> > and I have to say both robot and vehicle for Breakdown share quite a lot of similarities to Wildrider. They both seem to be more Ferrari than Lamborghini and that is greatly dissapointing.
> So, I think the fandom can generally be separated into two contingents. There are fans who don't really know their cars, and are looking at the new Breakdown and going, "So what? I don't see the problem." And then there's your Transformers fan who also known their sports cars pretty well and a) know that Breakdown's supposed to be a Lamborghini Countach and that b) the new version clearly isn't one.
>
> There's a lot of disagreement on the message boards over whether the new Breakdown is good or bad, and whether you know your cars seems to be a deciding factor. There's also a lot of "shut up, stop complaining and just enjoy the toys" which I guess is always there to some degree, but it seems unusually bad this go-around for some reason.
>
> Obviously we get some parts-sharing for the Transformers toy lines. It's always been the rule rather than the exception, especially in recent years. You could get away with Flamefeather or Ruckus or somebody being a one-and-done mold back during G1, but the toys also had far less complexity back in the day. The toys now are objectively more complex with many more parts, which means they cost more to make now.
>
> But, it feels like a tease to get Drag Strip right, and then get Motormaster right, and then get Wildrider right, and then get Dead End right, only for them to fumble the ball in the ninth inning (or something, I don't do sports metaphors) and go, "Well, here's Breakdown, sort of." It's like they saved him for last because they knew fans would nope out if they saw an incorrect Breakdown first. But, they've already spent $175 on four-fifths of Menasor so they're already all in.
>
> The only redeeming quality here is that Breakdown didn't always look great in the cartoon. There are some cartoon episodes where the Autobots in car mode are absolutely gorgeous (Tracks in "Auto Bop," Sideswipe in "The Revenge of Bruticus," most of the transformation sequences from the pilot episode) but the Stunticons got short shrift most of the time. Breakdown looks awful in most episodes. He arguably isn't even a Lamborghini Countach in some scenes. So, a bad Breakdown is at least reasonably screen accurate.
>

I'm tired of shitty low budget aspects of the animation inspiring wrong toys. I know I'm apparently in the minority here. Everyone else seems to want super animation toys where I want more details than the toys allow. All the people clamoring for toys to fit the animation hated Animated, despite super accurate toys super faithful to their onscreen counterparts.

> But, I'm sure this wasn't what Hasbro was setting out to do. They wanted to save some money, and they thought Wildrider and Breakdown were close enough in appearance that they could do some cost-cutting. Breakdown's robot mode honestly doesn't look bad. He was pretty much the ONLY Stunticon they got right during Combiner Wars, and this time they played it close to the vest and nearly duplicated the look of the toy in robot mode. But, yes, the car mode is a little disappointing.
>
>
> Zob (and the Lamborghini Countach is my all-time favorite car, so I'm particularly sensitive to this issue)

I am most assuredly not a car guy, but the Lamborghini Countach, well that's one car you have to get right (The other 4 important ones are the Corvette, Porsche Carerra, VW Bug and the DeLorean.) The rest of the can be generic boxes and I won't care. If they made up Wildrider's car mode I wouldn't know it until someone told me.

On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 7:44:19 AM UTC-7, Ob1k...@att.net wrote:
> and I have to say both robot and vehicle for Breakdown share quite a lot of similarities to Wildrider. They both seem to be more Ferrari than Lamborghini and that is greatly dissapointing.

I think one simple horizontal stripe along both door windows would go a long way towards making it look more like a Lambo.

On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 1:33:06 PM UTC-6, evil.king.m...@gmail.com wrote:

> I think one simple horizontal stripe along both door windows would go a long way towards making it look more like a Lambo.

For those who don't own Wildrider yet, the entire hood section splits apart into three pieces. There's no real reason to do it, since it isn't required for robot mode or Menasor mode. It baffles me that they created mold parts to accomplish this, when instead they could have made a solid Ferrari hood for Wildrider and a solid Lamborghini hood for Breakdown.

I assumed they made the hood split apart into pieces because they were worried that fans would complain the solid chunk of hood didn't do anything except hang off the robot's back. But I would have taken a solid chunk in a heartbeat if we had gotten the right vehicle styling for both characters.

Zob (got MotU Whiplash and the Burger King... uh, I mean King Randor from BBTS today)