Siege Alpha Strike and Phantom Strike sets getting re-released?

[Sabrblade]

I feel like “plane to robot” is both more straightforward and more open to creativity than “ramming-tank, starfighter, jet-propelled laser pistol, armored carrier, wolf-creature, and wing-wolf to robot”

That’s A LOT of engineering work to have to re-do when it has already been laid out. If/when we get another RiD Gigatron I’m expecting “G1 with knees” for exactly the same reason.

To be fair, when it comes to multi-changers with four modes and up, all of their alt modes kind of have to be abstract, sci-fi, "space whatevers" in order to have that many modes in the first place, as it's really hard to otherwise make a figure with that many altmodes all looking realistically Earth-based.

Like, trying to turn a robot into sports car into a helicopter into a tank into a jet into a giraffe while trying to keep all of those altmodes all looking as realistic as possible is much easier said than done.

 

[Princess Viola]

Like, trying to turn a robot into sports car into a helicopter into a tank into a jet into a giraffe while trying to keep all of those altmodes all looking as realistic as possible is much easier said than done.

hastak could do it if they stopped being lazy and just decided to spend tons of money on development costs of figure that'd probably have like hundreds of steps and be the most finicky piece of jive imaginable and would probably cost a good few hundred dollars at least because of how complex it'd have to be and would probably only sell like 10 copies before showing up at ollies for like $50 months later because no one fuckin bought it.

 

[Fullstrength Motleypuss]

hastak could do it if they stopped being lazy and just decided to spend tons of money on development costs of figure that'd probably have like hundreds of steps and be the most finicky piece of jive imaginable and would probably cost a good few hundred dollars at least because of how complex it'd have to be and would probably only sell like 10 copies before showing up at ollies for like $50 months later because no one fuckin bought it.

Somewhere there's a third party designer saying "hold my beer".

 

[Undead Scottsman]

The thing with Sixshot is his alt-modes are SO abstract that if you want them to resemble the original toy/character in any fashion, you kind of have to stick pretty close to his classic transformation, otherwise they'll just look like a different compromised altmode and you wouldn't even have nostalgia to protect you at that point.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

I thought "G1 with Knees" originated with the first iteration of Classics?

Anyway, I can't say I mind too much. Feels like they overcomplicate some things these days. Like, how many different ways do there need to be for a G1 Optimus Prime-styled robot to turn into a G1 Optimus Prime-styled truck? Especially when the first one did it so damn well?

 

[Sabrblade]

I thought "G1 with Knees" originated with the first iteration of Classics?

...How? Those designs were radically different. Megatron was a green and purple Nerf gun.

 

[lastmaximal]

I think "G1 with Knees" has typically been a more specific label, used for remakes that try to stay true to the original toy (or in some cases the animation model), just with articulation. (Prior to this I remember seeing "slavish" used a lot.) Not as much innovation or reinvention or divergence from what we originally had (allowing for line gimmicks). Compare TR Kup or SS86 Kup with Generations Earth pickup truck Kup. Or WFC Netflix/Legacy United Soundwave vs. any non-tape deck Soundwave (including the OTHER WFC Soundwave).

And I suppose Legacy G1 Optimus and Missing Link stuff, but that's a specific gimmick of specifically articulation-boostiNg the G1 toys.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

...How? Those designs were radically different. Megatron was a green and purple Nerf gun.

Precisely.

People complaining about people who didn't like them would call them out for just wanting "G1 with knees," if memory serves.

 

[LordGigaIce]

Precisely.

People complaining about people who didn't like them would call them out for just wanting "G1 with knees," if memory serves.

The 2000s were the high point for aesthetic bickering. The Gen Xers who grew up with the original show were very loud in their rejection of Beast Wars and then the UT, and finally the Bay films. It even manifested in Classics like you said, where if people pushed back against the reinventions on hand someone was bound to reply in a snarky manner.

Younger fans, or even Gen Xers who weren't as tied to one vision for the franchise, pushed back.

Memes in the fandom like "Trukk not Monkey," "Pokeformers," "ruined my childhood," "Ruined FOREVER," and even "Geewun" are the product of that.

It's why I couldn't even post a picture of ER Barricade and SS '86 Frenzy as a wink to '07 without someone chiming in to go "you know back in the day SOME PEOPLE wanted to shove everything that wasn't G1 into G1."

Yeah and that was dumb. And the reaction to that was dumb. It was all dumb.

Now I'm not gonna bash anyone for standing up for new takes. The franchise lives and breaths on new takes and the people who wanted everything to be G1 forever were very, very wrong.

but when people start going "oh man those G1y designs in the Bumblebee movie are pretty cool but I hate that the wrong people are gonna like them" or "wow Siege was a pretty good toyline engineering wise and I would have enjoyed it but they made most of the characters G1 guys so I can't" then mayhaps the aesthetic bickering has gone too far

I think the fandom in general is in a much better place today, with SS committed to a healthy mix of live action and '86 designs, and Generations pulling from all past iterations of the franchise, not just G1. Everyone has something out or on the horizon that they can get excited for, and the vibe's been much more pleasant.

But man. The fights between the "GEEWUN FOREVER" crowd and those who pushed back did a number on fandom discourse for a long while.

 

[Sabrblade]

The 2000s were the high point for aesthetic bickering. The Gen Xers who grew up with the original show were very loud in their rejection of Beast Wars and then the UT, and finally the Bay films. It even manifested in Classics like you said, where if people pushed back against the reinventions on hand someone was bound to reply in a snarky manner.

Younger fans, or even Gen Xers who weren't as tied to one vision for the franchise, pushed back.

Memes in the fandom like "Trukk not Monkey," "Pokeformers," "ruined my childhood," "Ruined FOREVER," and even "Geewun" are the product of that.

It's why I couldn't even post a picture of ER Barricade and SS '86 Frenzy as a wink to '07 without someone chiming in to go "you know back in the day SOME PEOPLE wanted to shove everything that wasn't G1 into G1."

Yeah and that was dumb. And the reaction to that was dumb. It was all dumb.

Now I'm not gonna bash anyone for standing up for new takes. The franchise lives and breaths on new takes and the people who wanted everything to be G1 forever were very, very wrong.

but when people start going "oh man those G1y designs in the Bumblebee movie are pretty cool but I hate that the wrong people are gonna like them" or "wow Siege was a pretty good toyline engineering wise and I would have enjoyed it but they made most of the characters G1 guys so I can't" then mayhaps the aesthetic bickering has gone too far

I think the fandom in general is in a much better place today, with SS committed to a healthy mix of live action and '86 designs, and Generations pulling from all past iterations of the franchise, not just G1. Everyone has something out or on the horizon that they can get excited for, and the vibe's been much more pleasant.

But man. The fights between the "GEEWUN FOREVER" crowd and those who pushed back did a number on fandom discourse for a long while.

True story: Back when Beast Wars was still new and the episode where Rhinox revives Optimus Primal as a Transmetal was first aired, there were people online whining and moaning about why Rhinox revived Optimus Primal instead of reviving some G1 Autobot character like Optimus Prime or Ironhide, completely failing to understand that there was a new Transmetal Optimus Primal toy on the market that the show had to promote at the time, and just wanted Beast Wars to bring back the G1 characters who weren't even beasts. I am not kidding. They were seriously whining like "Why did Rhinox bother to bring back Primal when he could have brought back G1 Ironhide instead?!!" To which I say, why wouldn't Rhinox revive one of his best friends? Why would he revive some ancient dude he's never met before and has nothing to do with?

 

[LordGigaIce]

True story: Back when Beast Wars was still new and the episode where Rhinox revives Optimus Primal as a Transmetal was first aired, there were people online whining and moaning about why Rhinox revived Optimus Primal instead of reviving some G1 Autobot character like Optimus Prime or Ironhide, completely failing to understand that there was a new Transmetal Optimus Primal toy on the market that the show had to promote at the time, and just wanted Beast Wars to bring back the G1 characters who weren't even beasts. I am not kidding. They were seriously whining like "Why did Rhinox bother to bring back Primal when he could have brought back G1 Ironhide instead?!!" To which I say, why wouldn't Rhinox revive one of his best friends? Why would he revive some ancient dude he's never met before and has nothing to do with?

That's hilarious.
I mean never mind the in-universe issue of mucking with the timeline... Ironhide and Optimus Prime don't have new toys! Primal does!

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

Prime had his Machine Wars toy around that time! That totally counts!

 

[Sabrblade]

Yeah, and you could totally get a giant Autobot truck-and-trailer body out of a single Maximal protoform (which is all Rhinox had to work with). I mean, come on, it's not like the afterlife isn't like a shopping mall where you can just grab any soul you want from it.

 

[LordGigaIce]

I don't know how they would have done it, but if BW had just brought back the G1 characters from MW in the MW bodies then I'd finally get on side and call BW the greatest Transformers show of all time.

 

[Sabrblade]

I don't know how they would have done it, but if BW had just brought back the G1 characters from MW in the MW bodies then I'd finally get on side and call BW the greatest Transformers show of all time.

A Machine Wars cartoon was also something that fans wouldn't stop pestering Bob and Larry about at the time, when they both had no idea about it and nothing to do with such a series.

Like, reading through that ATT archive I made for Bob and Larry's posts on there, and the rest of the posts in the threads they all came from, it really is very sad just how much the early fandom resented Beast Wars in and of itself simply for how different it was from G1, no matter how good the toys were on their own and how good the cartoon was on its own.

I mean, G1 had a whopping 98 episodes of its cartoon, 80+ issues of its American comic, 332 issues of its British comic, and a good seven years of toys. That's something that most 1980s kids toylines and tie-in media wish they could have gotten. It was rare for such series to last that long (1980s TMNT would last longer, but that too was an exception). G1 even got a sequel with G2, giving another three years' worth of toys and a short-lived but still existent comic series. G1 fans were practically spoiled by everything they got at the time, and still weren't satisfied with over a decade's worth toys, comics, cartoons, and even a big-screen movie. I'd say that was a pretty good run in the long run, all things considered.

But then along comes Beast Wars to literally save the brand from extinction, and everyone and their mother was ready to crucify it just because it was "Not-G1".

 

[LordGigaIce]

A Machine Wars cartoon was also something that fans wouldn't stop pestering Bob and Larry about at the time, when they both had no idea about it and nothing to do with such a series.

To be fair...
G1 got a cartoon.
G2 got a cartoon, even if it was a repackaging of the G1 show.
Beast Wars got a cartoon.
Machine Wars was a first, a Transformers toyline with no media whatsoever. In retrospect we see it was, at most, a trial run to see if vehicle-based Transformers could be viable again and not meant to be supported, but at the time? Well I was ten, I didn't know anything about anything. But I can see teenage and 20-something fans at the time expecting a MW cartoon or at the very least a comic run. The fact that it didn't have either made it very much an outlier compared to past lines.

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

Ah yes, the ancient origins of RUINED FOREVER.

 

[Shadewing]

A Machine Wars cartoon was also something that fans wouldn't stop pestering Bob and Larry about at the time, when they both had no idea about it and nothing to do with such a series.

Like, reading through that ATT archive I made for Bob and Larry's posts on there, and the rest of the posts in the threads they all came from, it really is very sad just how much the early fandom resented Beast Wars in and of itself simply for how different it was from G1, no matter how good the toys were on their own and how good the cartoon was on its own.

I mean, G1 had a whopping 98 episodes of its cartoon, 80+ issues of its American comic, 332 issues of its British comic, and a good seven years of toys. That's something that most 1980s kids toylines and tie-in media wish they could have gotten. It was rare for such series to last that long (1980s TMNT would last longer, but that too was an exception). G1 even got a sequel with G2, giving another three years' worth of toys and a short-lived but still existent comic series. G1 fans were practically spoiled by everything they got at the time, and still weren't satisfied with over a decade's worth toys, comics, cartoons, and even a big-screen movie. I'd say that was a pretty good run in the long run, all things considered.

But then along comes Beast Wars to literally save the brand from extinction, and everyone and their mother was ready to crucify it just because it was "Not-G1".

This really isn't just a TF thing. Pretty much any time something new comes to replace something; the new thing is met with rejection and people wanting more of the old thing. One notable example outside of TFs, is The Batman (Cartoon). It pretty much got crucified by fans online for simply not being BTAS. With BTAS and NA having a similarly long life span like G1.

 

[LordGigaIce]

Ah yes, the ancient origins of RUINED FOREVER.

I think that, in retrospect, the Beast Wars haters were proven to be quite foolish. And that's a huge testament to Beast Wars. History is judged by the end result, and Beast Machines bombed hard. Had it killed the brand then the narrative would be "the Beast Era killed things after a brief uptick."
But despite Beast Machines' utter failure- and yes it was one, I know the show is underappreciated, but in terms of ratings and sales it just faceplanted- Beast Wars escaped untouched to live on as a serious contender for the GOAT of Transformers fiction long after its run ended. That's how strong BW was- that even its' sequel's dismal failure didn't hurt it.

At the same time, I can kind of see where the haters were coming from. I was nine when Beast Wars (well "Beasties" where I lived) launched and and despite liking it well enough... well... I had gotten into Transformers with G2. G2 Optimus and Starscream were my first figures, and I adored the reruns and VHS tapes and G2 re-broadcasts of the old G1 show. Beast Wars was different, and though I was young enough to just enjoy it and go with the flow I won't lie- I got excited seeing G1 Starscream and Ravage- and the Ark Crew- show up. I was perhaps the youngest GEEWUNNER out there

So I can see someone older, someone with more of a connection to G1 seeing Beast Wars and going "nah not for me." It was a reinvention. A massive one. A necessary one at the time, but still. It was a huge change. A lot of skeptical G1 fans got won over by the series and toyline's quality (as an aside, there's far more connective tissue between late G2 and early BW then we assume), but some just stayed away. And again, I get it. When you set out on a massive reinvention you have to accept that not every long time fan will buy in.
I'm a huge nu-BSG fan, and while I like the original BSG for what it is, I think the new one laps it in every way. Still, there are old fans who just cannot get on board with nu-BSG, and I get it. It's different, it takes some getting used to if you're used to the old thing, and sometimes it doesn't take.

So the people who just couldn't get on board with BW despite an earnest effort? I get it. No hate. But if anyone seriously thought the whole thing needed to pivot to G1? Yeah those people are delusional.

The crazy thing for me was the UT...

...cause remember how I said I was someone who liked the G1/2 designs even as a young kid? Well as a young teen the UT was right up my alley. Optimus and Starscream as new vehicles that reflected the old with a cool early 2000s update? HELL YEAH!
And a lot of that was that it took something I liked- classic TF design- and merged it with some anime flare that I was also into thanks to stuff like Pokemon, Dragon Ball, Gundam, Ghost in the Shell, etc...

Then those people who hated on BW kept calling it "Pokeformers" and that baffles me to this day. 'cause if you spent the entire Beast Era hating the animal stuff and you finally get a line relaunch going back to vehicles... that is keeping a lot that G1 aesthetic... surely you'd take that as a win right? Like it's not G1 exactly, but it has to be close enough after years of the Beast stuff.

But no. Some people just can't be happy.

 

[Platypus Prime]

Yeah, RUINED FOREVER ruined so much for me...FOREVER...

Also, Optimus Primal is totally Optimus Prime and Cheetor is Hot Rod and-(this brought to you by 'The Guy Who Spent Way Too Much Time On Ben Yee's Discussion Board Reading Conspiracy Theories. We now return to the post currently in progress) -and they say Silverbolt is appearing in Season 2 of Beast Wars! They're bringing back the Airialbots!!!

...Everything I posted above actually happened on that board...