As have I. I take it was a positive sign of the times that the first Optimus to get a Commander slot was NOT G1.
It's more necessity than anything. While yes, there are movie designs that SS hasn't touched, those are few and far between. At least when it comes to marketable characters. The marketable movie characters have all had SS releases. Sometimes multiple times.
So faced with the prospect of winding down a successful retailer line due to a decreasing roster of potential releases or keeping it going by shifting gears, it's no surprise they did what they did.
Especially if they can sell it to retailers as a compliment to a successfully selling Generations WFC/Legacy line.
The brand was in a very different place when the UT was conceived.
You phrased this to make it sound like the person who dares not like it is Obviously Just Stupid, but "screen accuracy" and "G1 cartoon accuracy" are not, in fact, synonyms.
Also while I know this is specifically the Studio Series 86 thread, I was talking about the way the Generations toyline as a whole has been for quite some years now.
People are guessing it might be God Grini or RID2001 Omega Prime, bend the rules sort of thing, to get around that statement!
Same, a bit.
I've always wanted something along the lines of Cybertron, with a something-for-everyone angle that has a little of everything and homages everywhere. And to an extent the Legacy trilogy (as well as Selects) is bringing that, with mixed results. But it all falls kind of flat without the kind of fiction/media fun Cybertron had (the show, the fan club comic, etc). Give me that, with a dash of the fun the Speedia race manga and early Titans Return fiction bits had, and I'd be enjoying this a lot more. It'd certainly be a lot less of a cynical "who do I need from this wave" exercise.
Well, if the Netflix WFCT cartoon hadn't been so miserable, we might have gotten a sequel Netflix Legacy cartoon to accompany the toyline.
I mean, if it had been of similar quality and tone, it probably wouldn't have hit the spot anyway. It certainly didn't feel like a loss at the time it was revealed that Netflix passed on it, after what preceded it.
That is very true. I would love to get SOME kind of accompanying fiction. I would even take 3-4 sentence blurbs on packaging that give a quick glimpse into who this character is and what they are doing. If done well, you would be able to piece together the rough shape of the story by reading enough boxes.
I was just reminded of the interweaving story they put in the Beast Hunters instruction booklets, which ended up being pretty cool in a way totally distinct from the show. That's good stuff.
The marketing department can only work so many days a year.
Wasn't the problem basically that Hasbro has utterly cheaped out on packaging, so they make one generic package that can be used in lots and lots of markets, but that means they have to translate everything, so the more text they add, the more they have to pay for translation and, again, they've utterly cheaped out on packaging.
IIrc, many countries legally require any printed words to be translated in print as well. So it's either NO words, or words in all the languages.
I get the issue with a lack of fiction to a degree but at the same time... Kingdom was a test run for what I wanted them to do, and Legacy fulfilled the promise- a toyline that mixes Earth-based vehicles, scifi concepts, and beastformers into one line. It's Cybertron if Cybertron leaned a bit more into the homage side of things and that checks all the boxes I like.
So I rather have the toyline even if it means no fiction then not have the toyline because there's no fiction.
Universe 2.0 had a really cool backstory told exclusively through package bios. The Decepticons were scattered and Galvatron appeared out of nowhere to lead them. It was sort of a re-imagining of the s3 G1 Decepticon status quo with the mysteriousness around Galvy turned up to eleven.
But given comments made by the brand team.... maybe the lack of bios on Legacy is a good thing?
Take Minerva. Someone (Mark, I think) said that Minerva "lost the ability to be a headmaster" when she went through the multiversal portal.
Thing is... Minerva wasn't a traditional G1 Japanese headmaster. She was a human in an exosuit that became the head of the robot. So... is Minerva now just a robot? Is her corpse supposed to be decaying in that head like the Emperor of Mankind?
Thing is that Mark's(?) statement is just unnecessary. The lifeless transtector Minerva piloted became a sentient robot at the end of Masterforce so if you weren't going to make Minerva a Titanmaster you could just say "oh that's the Minerva transtector after it gained a spark."
So given that example... maybe it's best that the brand team isn't getting too invested in the fiction
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Is there a law that says the translation has to be good?
I don’t mean on the packaging itself. Just written on the app or an online site or something.
kinda like the old Cyberkey codes.
They do! That's what the QR codes on the Legacy toys' packaging are for. Scanning those leads to a character page on Hasbro's website with short bio information on each Legacy toy character.