I think the First Edition toys nailed the balance between complexity, accuracy and articulation. PRID is a worthy contender though the insistence on weird gimmicks kinda hampered the line.
Mayhem Transformers Discussion: United We Shelfwarm
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PRID Vehicon is still peak.
I wonder how PRID toys would have been received without the dumb gimmicks. There was a version of PRID Optimus Prime without the clear forearms, but it was Takara only and I never heard another thing about it after it was revealed.
I think it was a Hasbro Asia Chinese New Year thing. It came as a two-pack with the rocky Unicron with preassembled minicons and unlike Takara's Prime stuff, everything was painted up to the gills. Saw a lot of them here and in Hong Kong but never bit since I'm not paying full price for the shitty Unicron mold and never got around to hunting one down.
The Deluxes got off pretty well IMO. The head reveal gimmick wasn't as obtrusive on most of the molds but the Voyagers were absolutely destroyed by the dumb clear plastic arms and useless ugly weapon box things. Optimus was pretty cool though. He doesn't fake his windows and all he really needed was paint on the forearms and a couple more joints to fold up the truck lights on his shoulders and the backpack. Though, he does still have the PRID Voyager floating shoulderpads.
The Deluxes got off pretty well IMO. The head reveal gimmick wasn't as obtrusive on most of the molds but the Voyagers were absolutely destroyed by the dumb clear plastic arms and useless ugly weapon box things. Optimus was pretty cool though. He doesn't fake his windows and all he really needed was paint on the forearms and a couple more joints to fold up the truck lights on his shoulders and the backpack. Though, he does still have the PRID Voyager floating shoulderpads.
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The clear forearms were so dumb. I get what they were hoping for, but toy lights don't work that way, and they knew toy lights don't work that way, because they previously made the Armada Prime whose hand lights up the Star Saber's hilt and nothing else.
i was not aware the exact same people who worked on armada prime worked on prid prime
Aaron Archer was still in the building, wasn't he? They could have asked him how well the light up weapon idea worked last time.
i think u really gotta understand that no one at hasbro was thinking about (or even remembered) the time they tried to do the same gimmick like 10 years prior considering the hundreds of figures they'd released between armada and prime
I just don't know how anyone saw those gimmicked weapons that couldn't lock into place and said "yes this is fine"
But kids love shiny lights! Right?
company execs are dumbasses and probably thought 'kids will love this because it's a play feature!!!'
They’d just gotten it right in the DOTM line, and even the non-locking weapons from that line looked like something when not activated at least. Worst part is that Ultra Magnus shows that they knew that people would want to lock the weapons in activated mode but they only did that on him.
With how the block of parts looks like their arms in the case of Bulkhead and Optimus, it reads as an abandoned arm-swapping gimmick or something.
With how the block of parts looks like their arms in the case of Bulkhead and Optimus, it reads as an abandoned arm-swapping gimmick or something.
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tbf I begged my mom for sneakers with lights in the heels when I was a kid, so there may be something to that.
I hadn't paid much attention to the arm detailing, but... huh.
Maybe those things were originally going to be the toys' actual arms. But then someone decided to add the light, and then there wasn't enough room anymore, so these things became separate pieces. Or maybe there was always going to be a separate piece that would act as the trigger for the built in arm weapons. But somewhere along the way the weapons ended up getting integrated into the chunks instead of the arms.
Or those things were originally going to be the toys' actual arms and the plan was never deliberately changed, but someone at Takara wildly misinterpreted the drawings they were sent.
Maybe those things were originally going to be the toys' actual arms. But then someone decided to add the light, and then there wasn't enough room anymore, so these things became separate pieces. Or maybe there was always going to be a separate piece that would act as the trigger for the built in arm weapons. But somewhere along the way the weapons ended up getting integrated into the chunks instead of the arms.
Or those things were originally going to be the toys' actual arms and the plan was never deliberately changed, but someone at Takara wildly misinterpreted the drawings they were sent.
My theory is that the various brand teams have, since '07, been trying to replicate the "arm turns into a gun" look of the live action films, an idea that the WFC game and Prime both ran with.
Prime's attempt to take DotM's mechtech weapons and make them "match" the characters' arms was one of many failed attempts to try and make the idea work in toy form.
Still doesn't explain why they couldn't be locked in weapon mode though.
Prime's attempt to take DotM's mechtech weapons and make them "match" the characters' arms was one of many failed attempts to try and make the idea work in toy form.
Still doesn't explain why they couldn't be locked in weapon mode though.
everyone knows they make you run faster
I get the vibe that they wanted to do something like the Studio Series game toys but this is roughly the same design team that didn’t want to make Headmasters because kids might lose the heads so they did what we got.
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That might have been kinda cool. Cooler than what we got at least.
I don't really need a robot's chest to light up - unless they're doing a guyver