40th Anniversary photoshoot: Alternators/Binaltech and early Masterpiece
Along with BW Neo, this group was some of the most annoying to transform. Alternators sometimes seem needlessly convoluted.
I remember the reveal of Masterpiece OP and Alternators Smokescreen. I wish I could backtrack and reread the threads here and elsewhere (or that I had the energy to go through the steps that entails), because the pure amazement and gushing that fans had at the time was magic and should be bottled for consumption.
It was just unheard of. In the middle of Armada, here was a pure infusion of G1, an unabashed updating of the original concept of real-world vehicles turning into familiar characters, with articulation and engineering on a totally different level than the chunky for-younger-audiences stuff we'd been getting.
And then there was Masterpiece Convoy -- if you'd told me that was only ever going to be a one-off thing to celebrate the anniversary, I'd have totally understood and accepted that. (Indeed, I think that's what everyone just assumed, and it might have been the true intent from the company for all we knew.) It just seemed so distant from the usual practice to have a purely original design from the ground up that was its own thing for adult collectors. Of course both lines would grow and expand into some interesting territory with some neat novelties and some unmet expectations, and some straight-up weirdness. But this first taste of what was possible was mind-blowing.
This era has gotten eclipsed a bit by later lines that progressively refined the formula, and it would be nice to see some of its unique design cues and ideas be revisited. I still want a redeco of Cybertron Downshift in these Wheeljack colors, a new Seeker based on the original MP Starscream colors, Earthrise Sunstreaker in Alternators Dead End colors, and maybe a new Shockblast car homage. I've long toyed with the idea of turning Buzzworthy Silverstreak into an Alternators Smokescreen homage, but need the Subaru rally decals. And I'm sure they'll make a new Windcharger and a Tailgate from that or vice versa, but I'd really like a new Decepticharge to follow.
The Movie lines brought the licensed altmodes and complex transformations into the main lines, and of course since then we've only gotten more and more G1ing. But at the time this was a neat little oasis that was the only way to get that sort of thing.
