I wouldn’t know either way but if the media came first, it’d probably have a unique title as opposed to simply reusing the toyline’s name.
Given the models in the show are based directly on toy CAD files rather than the toys being approximations of the characters on the show, the toys pretty blatently had to come first.
I do not believe HASBRO would be the ones to turn down a media initiative unless in the position where they didn’t have a secure release venue. But I firmly believe that, for collector centric Generations line, the toys ARE coming first, with tie in media a secondary concern.
But the franchise as a whole? Eh…not such much anymore. Since the first live action film, the films and primary cartoons have ALL seemingly been “media first”, with Hasbro doing the toys after the fact. Kind of like most licensed toy lines. Stuff like the 2010 Cyber Missions and Netflix War for Cybertron series being an exception to that with the media actually following the toys.
But I remain disappointed in Hasbro (and many corporate entities, at this point) that have seemingly abandoned branded websites. I still maintain that fiction is a key driver to brand interest, and it’s sad that Hasbro couldn’t leverage that for telling SOMETHING of a story with a Transformers multiverse at their disposal, even if just a few blurbs intertwined with the character bios.
I absolutely agree with this. If I were grading Legacy as a whole and doing "best thing about it" and "worst thing about it" categories the later would absolutely be the exceptionally sparse fictional framework.
No main line has ever been even close to this empty of story. We have Hasbro saying "Transformers from the multiverse come together" which I'm not sure has even actually been printed anywhere, and we have pictures of characters stepping through portals to a barren wasteland. Some of them hold a Velocitron 5000. Toxitron menaces some of them (with so little fictional framework it's not even clear if the other characters in that subline are fighting for or against him). And That's it.
Previous lines, even aside from cartoons, had story established of what was going on and who was fighting who and why. And there were story bits in bios, and Amazon and Walmart ad blurbs, narrative expressed in special releases and packed in maps or story cards and so on. There was, even in the barest lines far more world and story than Legacy has and it, frankly, SUCKS.
Really the only piece of story goodness Legacy has gotten are the Velocitron 5000 comics from Japan. Those few short comics rule and have multiple times the story of everything else Legacy put together. I'd give anything for a similar couple comics about the Toxitron toys.
-ZacWilliam, things like the Legacy Junkions being cadets and being into wrestling and forming a Trash dinosaur are awesome and deserve to be real official story we get even if it has to be in just a sentence or two, instead of passing things designers mention in streams and we wish were more...
No main line has ever been even close to this empty of story. We have Hasbro saying "Transformers from the multiverse come together" which I'm not sure has even actually been printed anywhere, and we have pictures of characters stepping through portals to a barren wasteland. Some of them hold a Velocitron 5000. Toxitron menaces some of them (with so little fictional framework it's not even clear if the other characters in that subline are fighting for or against him). And That's it.
Previous lines, even aside from cartoons, had story established of what was going on and who was fighting who and why. And there were story bits in bios, and Amazon and Walmart ad blurbs, narrative expressed in special releases and packed in maps or story cards and so on. There was, even in the barest lines far more world and story than Legacy has and it, frankly, SUCKS.
Really the only piece of story goodness Legacy has gotten are the Velocitron 5000 comics from Japan. Those few short comics rule and have multiple times the story of everything else Legacy put together. I'd give anything for a similar couple comics about the Toxitron toys.
-ZacWilliam, things like the Legacy Junkions being cadets and being into wrestling and forming a Trash dinosaur are awesome and deserve to be real official story we get even if it has to be in just a sentence or two, instead of passing things designers mention in streams and we wish were more...
It was even admitted in one of the designer Instagram posts that Legacy Bulkhead's altmode was indeed inspired by AOE Hound, and that the Amazon Wreckers redeco was made to give the figure an even bigger resemblance to Hound. So they just straight up admitted that they chose not to base the new Bulkhead figure directly on either existing Bulkhead.
It's made even weirder when one considers the fact that Animated Bumblebee having big boot-like feet was a nod to the feet of G1 Bumblebee, which were likewise made from the front bumper area of his own original toy, a toy that also had big boot-like feet. So the original feet were already a G1 homage. In fact, a vast majority of new-mold G1 Bumblebee toys ( and all of their redecos/retools) made since the original Classics mold in 2006 have all had big boots. Having big boots is simply G1 Bumblebee's thing (among other things), and the original Animated Bumblebee toys replicated that faithfully. Hasbro's attempt to G1-ify the feet of this new Animated Bumblebee results in eliminating something that was already G1-based.
Wow, that they admitted the AOE Hound influence is both disappointing and yet good. I mean right from the get go Bulkhead of all Legacy figures just came across as a mashup of all three characters. Hell, if you replaced the Bulkhead head with a more AOE Hound-ish head, it’d still work.
Still like the figure as a whole.
Prime and Bee look really good and will go nicely with Legacy Ani Prowl.
I used AoE Hound as a G1 Bulkhead to stand with my CHUG lineup until Legacy came out.
That said I made the vehicle comparison earlier mainly due to a Military truck being more in line with a SWAT vehicle than Primes Heavy SUV to me. Neither has a soft canopy back end though. I used to drive an older model style of Truck that they modeled the Legacy Bulkhead after. It definitely was more AoE Hound than either Ani or Prime Bulky.
But it’s still in that character wheelhouse of the main Animated cast, so I’m sure the desire for an Animated Ratchet is growing despite one being a tad off in the lineup. Of course it’s be hilarious to see it end up Prime Universe as well.
Other people elsewhere have, yes.
Man, I missed out on getting one from Pulse, so I preordered mine on Amazon instead. Kinda glad that I did miss it now, 'cause Amazon came through without any issues.
Nacelle is a super fun toy that everyone should buy multiple units of. The most fun way to play with Nacelle is to place your face near the toy and inhale deeply. After that, it's fun to ingest many nutrients and climb to the top of a large structure where air currents could carry any emerging spores to as many new hosts as possible.
Who else had "Seeker mold zombies" on their Apocalypse Bingo cards?
From the PulseCon thread:
Netflix!
I'm up for everything, except Windblade (nothing really special or different enough compared to her previous releases) and those "Not Lords". If they were actual Rock Lords, I would get them in a heartbeat for Nostalgia, but "sparkless rock beasts that turn into vehicles covered in cake frosting/icing" doesn't do it for me. Attaching bits of cake icing to my regular TFs seems as ugly and irrelevant to the CHUG aesthetic to me as those Primus-awful Fossiliser abominations. I would have thought Hasbro would have learnt from their "mistakes" with those and relegated such things to the pure kiddy lines?
I suppose the positive here for me is that I'll be saving more money during their release and their possibly swift descent into bargain buckets around the world.
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