So before I get into anything I just want to say this isn't meant to be a call out post or a way to shame people for buying mainline figures, or even some superiority complex about g1 toys, this is just something thats been on my mind for a while now and getting Liftticket this morning finally made me want to write about it.
So I've been collecting Transformers for around 10 years straight now, I grew up on Energon & Movie figures and some G1 knock offs. I've collected all sorts of lines, anything from G1 to UT to Beast Wars and Generations, I ended up settling for G1 collecting mostly just because I find them the most fun, and because WFC really burnt me out on CHUG. I don't have much nostalgia for G1 besides the 86 movie, so I look at most of the toys from the line at face value, judging them just based off how well they do what they set out to do, how fun the engineering is, how functional the alt modes are, how interesting the robots are etc.
in the same vein I look at Generations updates for those designs not as "how accurate they are" but more "how do they hold up compared to the original toy" and more often than not, I find them pretty disappointing. Now the complaints I have for Liftticket are specific to that mold, but I feel like the general design philosophy applies to most of WFC, not all of it obviously, but alot of it.
so whats the issue exactly? on the surface, the new Hoist mold seems to basically just be the original toy but with better proportions, more articulation, more paint, more cartoon accuracy, more playabilty thanks to the modulator compatible ramp & 5mm pegs on him, and no partsforming! with all of that in mind, how can it be worse?
now the most common complaint I see on this subject is quality related, and while sure, the plastic on the g1 toy is better, it has diecast metal, rubber tires, and chrome, but thats just setdressing at the end of the day, its nice to have but its not the meat and potatoes of what makes a Transformer a Transformer, the engineering.
So. Lets get into it.
First of all, the vehicle mode:
again, on the surface there doesn't seem to be anything wrong, they're both boxy little cars with a weird contraption on their backs. lets ignore the vehicle they're based on because like I said, this isn't about accuracy to anything, just pure functionality.
it all starts becoming more clear when you look at it from a side angle
you see how clean and elegant the bottom of the g1 toy is? you can hardly tell its even a Transformer, a tiny bit of orange and some chrome is all you get. but on Liftticket, yeeeeeeesh.
Now is kibble really that much of a problem? well, no, not really. that's not really what bothers me, what bothers me is why its even there, and the design philosophy behind this.
Look at that completely hollowed out hood. again, the hollowness isn't what bothers me, its why its there. this serves no purpose, and it just feels like wasted space, had it been designed a tiny bit differently, they could have fit the arms in there a' la g1 Jazz or Prowl, but its just empty, and the arms end up sitting at the bottom, completely visible from the side, and it only looks worse from the front.
it looks unnaturally high and empty, and the wheels are so thin, and all for what? this isn't a quality issue, its something that should have been figured out in the design phase but just wasn't.
again in Liftticket's defense, it does have clear Headlights and signal lights vs the g1's completely chromed out ones, and they do pop out better.
but ok, it has a major design flaw, but at least it does everything the original toy did functionally right?
well, kind of yeah. it rolls, not as well since its plastic wheels vs rubber ones, but it rolls fine. the problems start with the towing mechanism.
Oof.
Credit where credit is due, it does have an actual wheel(singular) on it compared to the g1's sculpted on wheels, but that isn't really changing the fact its completely non-functional.
the railing needed to be longer to allow for it to sit low enough , but the shape of the ramp itself isn't even right, its far too thin, and it doesn't even have anything for for a car to hang onto like the tabs on the original.
I know this was meant to be sized for Micromasters, but even they don't co operate with this. the tiny little triangles that are meant to hold their wheels in place simply do not work, making this feature a complete failure.
and let me just say, the original is far from perfect, but it does work with a good bit of g1 Car bots, and because of how its attached it even allows it to turn which is pretty neat.
another thing I will say in all fairness is, the rest of the mcguffin on Liftticket's back does look better than the g1, and it doesn't have the back of his head visible on it either.
so with all of that in mind, 35 years of engineering advancements got us: a cleaner back section, and better head/turn lights. what we lost is a clean bottom, section, a vehicle mode that makes use of every segment, and an actual towing function.
not sounding great.
so, Transformation, oh boy.
naturally its more complex, but is it better or worse? I'm gonna go with worse for some very major reasons. it starts out reasonable enough, with the back section and hood coming up rather than starting with the sides.
you stand them both up.
this is where I find it annoying, the arms always seem to get latched onto something on Liftticket, and the way the whole belly and chest mashes down just doesn't feel good.
getting the head out on both is a bit of a process, on the g1 because of all of the junk attached to and around it and the double hinge its on, but on Liftticket its a simple head flip, and they still found a way to make it way too tight and annoying to pull out.
so we end up with the robot modes:
The g1 needs his fists/arm attachments partsformed onto his arms, so we can count that as another point in Liftticket's favor as far as advancements.
You could argue the proportions are better too, but I think they both look good for what they are. the heads are both sharp and on point, the belly is much flatter on Liftticket, and he now has an actual crotch section instead of his legs just starting from his belly, which I actually don't know how I feel about since the way the legs work on the g1 is one of my favorite things about it.
the way the thigh slots perfectly around the tire is oh so satisfying. but the way Liftticket does it isn't terrible, just a little generic.
another would be his little flip out, shield generator...? I always saw this is as more of Trailbreaker's thing, and never really used it on Hoist, but its there, albeit tiny and kind of out of proportion.
his gun is kind of bulbous and ugly in my opinion. but its fine, I think a swap out hand would have done better.
One thing that really bothers me is the way they handled the arm kibble.
on the g1 toy I never even really looked at it as kibble, its just a part of the arm, it moves with it, and it has sticker detailing on the inside making it feel like a real part of the design.
the way Liftticket does it is just a bit weird, it doesn't commit to making it a part of the arm, with the outwards shoulder joint being independent from it(though this is partly for transformation) but the backwards and forwards joint being hardlocked to it.
this just makes posing kind of... odd. because if you want to put his arms outward you're leaving the doors behind, if you want to take them forward you take them forward with you like the g1 toy, put those 2 aspects together and it just ends up being really bizarre looking in most poses.
so these are the small little problems, just little quirks that don't really amount to much.
the real issues I have with this toy and the ones that shine a light on why I find Mainline toys so much less interesting than most g1 toys is this.
No, it isn't the hollowness itself, again, its the reason its there. I'm fine with the legs being hollow, it lets them compress and make the toy bigger than most deluxes at the small cost of looking kind of ugly from the back. what matters is they serve a purpose. my problem is with the torso.
like I talked about in the vehicle mode section, its empty, and its empty here too. it doesn't change or server a purpose, it is simply a waste of space. compare this to the g1 toy which leaves practically 0 empty space in either modes, everything is utilized, the legs move out to allow the torso to fold in and fill up the body, its just a very satisfying process and it feels like a fully fledged design.
Liftticket just feels.... wasteful. its like they already had the design mostly figured out but just couldn't be bothered to give it the finishing touches it needed to really shine and feel like a satisfying experience. its big and bloated without any real substance.
it also does this and I don't know why.
so at the end of the day, is Liftticket a bad toy? are all Mainline toys bad?
no, but I do think most of them are extremely undercooked and not as satisfying as their g1 counterparts.
on an objective level, there's obvious improvements this mold has over the g1 toy, some of which I've mentioned, but at the end do they actually make it better? I don't feel like they do. the toy feels less finished and lacks the functionality of the original. its more articulated, which is a good thing, I guess, but thats kind of a given when it comes to new toys isn't it? its not really impressive for it to have ankle tilts and universal hips and shoulders, its kind of just the standard. it has double jointed knees and a fairly deep elbow bend, I guess, that's relatively stand out compared to other WFC toys, but is that really special? I wouldn't say so.
what I'm trying to say here, is its lacking. comparing these toys for when they came out and what they do for their respective time period, I just find Liftticket falls short in basically every aspect, and I've felt like this with pretty much every new toy of a g1 design we've gotten since WFC started(with some exceptions) they feel shallow and uninspired, they rarely do the things the original toys did that made them feel unique, and they pretty much never replace it with anything new or special that makes them stand out.
when its all said and done, when I want to play with a funny fat robot hilux, I'd pick the g1 toy every single time over the Earthrise mold, but thats just me.
So I've been collecting Transformers for around 10 years straight now, I grew up on Energon & Movie figures and some G1 knock offs. I've collected all sorts of lines, anything from G1 to UT to Beast Wars and Generations, I ended up settling for G1 collecting mostly just because I find them the most fun, and because WFC really burnt me out on CHUG. I don't have much nostalgia for G1 besides the 86 movie, so I look at most of the toys from the line at face value, judging them just based off how well they do what they set out to do, how fun the engineering is, how functional the alt modes are, how interesting the robots are etc.
in the same vein I look at Generations updates for those designs not as "how accurate they are" but more "how do they hold up compared to the original toy" and more often than not, I find them pretty disappointing. Now the complaints I have for Liftticket are specific to that mold, but I feel like the general design philosophy applies to most of WFC, not all of it obviously, but alot of it.
so whats the issue exactly? on the surface, the new Hoist mold seems to basically just be the original toy but with better proportions, more articulation, more paint, more cartoon accuracy, more playabilty thanks to the modulator compatible ramp & 5mm pegs on him, and no partsforming! with all of that in mind, how can it be worse?
now the most common complaint I see on this subject is quality related, and while sure, the plastic on the g1 toy is better, it has diecast metal, rubber tires, and chrome, but thats just setdressing at the end of the day, its nice to have but its not the meat and potatoes of what makes a Transformer a Transformer, the engineering.
So. Lets get into it.
First of all, the vehicle mode:
again, on the surface there doesn't seem to be anything wrong, they're both boxy little cars with a weird contraption on their backs. lets ignore the vehicle they're based on because like I said, this isn't about accuracy to anything, just pure functionality.
it all starts becoming more clear when you look at it from a side angle
you see how clean and elegant the bottom of the g1 toy is? you can hardly tell its even a Transformer, a tiny bit of orange and some chrome is all you get. but on Liftticket, yeeeeeeesh.
Now is kibble really that much of a problem? well, no, not really. that's not really what bothers me, what bothers me is why its even there, and the design philosophy behind this.
Look at that completely hollowed out hood. again, the hollowness isn't what bothers me, its why its there. this serves no purpose, and it just feels like wasted space, had it been designed a tiny bit differently, they could have fit the arms in there a' la g1 Jazz or Prowl, but its just empty, and the arms end up sitting at the bottom, completely visible from the side, and it only looks worse from the front.
it looks unnaturally high and empty, and the wheels are so thin, and all for what? this isn't a quality issue, its something that should have been figured out in the design phase but just wasn't.
again in Liftticket's defense, it does have clear Headlights and signal lights vs the g1's completely chromed out ones, and they do pop out better.
but ok, it has a major design flaw, but at least it does everything the original toy did functionally right?
well, kind of yeah. it rolls, not as well since its plastic wheels vs rubber ones, but it rolls fine. the problems start with the towing mechanism.
Oof.
Credit where credit is due, it does have an actual wheel(singular) on it compared to the g1's sculpted on wheels, but that isn't really changing the fact its completely non-functional.
the railing needed to be longer to allow for it to sit low enough , but the shape of the ramp itself isn't even right, its far too thin, and it doesn't even have anything for for a car to hang onto like the tabs on the original.
I know this was meant to be sized for Micromasters, but even they don't co operate with this. the tiny little triangles that are meant to hold their wheels in place simply do not work, making this feature a complete failure.
and let me just say, the original is far from perfect, but it does work with a good bit of g1 Car bots, and because of how its attached it even allows it to turn which is pretty neat.
another thing I will say in all fairness is, the rest of the mcguffin on Liftticket's back does look better than the g1, and it doesn't have the back of his head visible on it either.
so with all of that in mind, 35 years of engineering advancements got us: a cleaner back section, and better head/turn lights. what we lost is a clean bottom, section, a vehicle mode that makes use of every segment, and an actual towing function.
not sounding great.
so, Transformation, oh boy.
naturally its more complex, but is it better or worse? I'm gonna go with worse for some very major reasons. it starts out reasonable enough, with the back section and hood coming up rather than starting with the sides.
you stand them both up.
this is where I find it annoying, the arms always seem to get latched onto something on Liftticket, and the way the whole belly and chest mashes down just doesn't feel good.
getting the head out on both is a bit of a process, on the g1 because of all of the junk attached to and around it and the double hinge its on, but on Liftticket its a simple head flip, and they still found a way to make it way too tight and annoying to pull out.
so we end up with the robot modes:
The g1 needs his fists/arm attachments partsformed onto his arms, so we can count that as another point in Liftticket's favor as far as advancements.
You could argue the proportions are better too, but I think they both look good for what they are. the heads are both sharp and on point, the belly is much flatter on Liftticket, and he now has an actual crotch section instead of his legs just starting from his belly, which I actually don't know how I feel about since the way the legs work on the g1 is one of my favorite things about it.
the way the thigh slots perfectly around the tire is oh so satisfying. but the way Liftticket does it isn't terrible, just a little generic.
another would be his little flip out, shield generator...? I always saw this is as more of Trailbreaker's thing, and never really used it on Hoist, but its there, albeit tiny and kind of out of proportion.
his gun is kind of bulbous and ugly in my opinion. but its fine, I think a swap out hand would have done better.
One thing that really bothers me is the way they handled the arm kibble.
on the g1 toy I never even really looked at it as kibble, its just a part of the arm, it moves with it, and it has sticker detailing on the inside making it feel like a real part of the design.
the way Liftticket does it is just a bit weird, it doesn't commit to making it a part of the arm, with the outwards shoulder joint being independent from it(though this is partly for transformation) but the backwards and forwards joint being hardlocked to it.
this just makes posing kind of... odd. because if you want to put his arms outward you're leaving the doors behind, if you want to take them forward you take them forward with you like the g1 toy, put those 2 aspects together and it just ends up being really bizarre looking in most poses.
so these are the small little problems, just little quirks that don't really amount to much.
the real issues I have with this toy and the ones that shine a light on why I find Mainline toys so much less interesting than most g1 toys is this.
No, it isn't the hollowness itself, again, its the reason its there. I'm fine with the legs being hollow, it lets them compress and make the toy bigger than most deluxes at the small cost of looking kind of ugly from the back. what matters is they serve a purpose. my problem is with the torso.
like I talked about in the vehicle mode section, its empty, and its empty here too. it doesn't change or server a purpose, it is simply a waste of space. compare this to the g1 toy which leaves practically 0 empty space in either modes, everything is utilized, the legs move out to allow the torso to fold in and fill up the body, its just a very satisfying process and it feels like a fully fledged design.
Liftticket just feels.... wasteful. its like they already had the design mostly figured out but just couldn't be bothered to give it the finishing touches it needed to really shine and feel like a satisfying experience. its big and bloated without any real substance.
it also does this and I don't know why.
so at the end of the day, is Liftticket a bad toy? are all Mainline toys bad?
no, but I do think most of them are extremely undercooked and not as satisfying as their g1 counterparts.
on an objective level, there's obvious improvements this mold has over the g1 toy, some of which I've mentioned, but at the end do they actually make it better? I don't feel like they do. the toy feels less finished and lacks the functionality of the original. its more articulated, which is a good thing, I guess, but thats kind of a given when it comes to new toys isn't it? its not really impressive for it to have ankle tilts and universal hips and shoulders, its kind of just the standard. it has double jointed knees and a fairly deep elbow bend, I guess, that's relatively stand out compared to other WFC toys, but is that really special? I wouldn't say so.
what I'm trying to say here, is its lacking. comparing these toys for when they came out and what they do for their respective time period, I just find Liftticket falls short in basically every aspect, and I've felt like this with pretty much every new toy of a g1 design we've gotten since WFC started(with some exceptions) they feel shallow and uninspired, they rarely do the things the original toys did that made them feel unique, and they pretty much never replace it with anything new or special that makes them stand out.
when its all said and done, when I want to play with a funny fat robot hilux, I'd pick the g1 toy every single time over the Earthrise mold, but thats just me.
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