Maybe fans are getting too entitled. Maybe they should tell us no, whether it works or not. The line needs to be drawn somewhere!Menasor is compatible for the legs, but the arms would fall out easily they said. They also said that you could try whatever and they weren't going to tell you no. So who knows how it will fit. I will let you know in a few months when I get him.
They know our fan mode powers are beyond their imagination. Someone will figure something out.
Or I'll buy one and all the connections will mysteriously be perfectly tight.
Or I'll buy one and all the connections will mysteriously be perfectly tight.
Also makes sense for them to avoid outright denying the idea while not explicitly telling people "you don't have to buy our upcoming stuff".
Idk. Based on what I've seen of Drag Strip and Wildrider and certainly Motormaster, I'm likely to get this whole team anew anyway. Especially if the individual combiner limb bots are as good as the first two. CW Menasor was okay, but every single mold had flaws that make me totally fine with all-new replacements. And I never really did the scramble exchanging anyway.
Idk. Based on what I've seen of Drag Strip and Wildrider and certainly Motormaster, I'm likely to get this whole team anew anyway. Especially if the individual combiner limb bots are as good as the first two. CW Menasor was okay, but every single mold had flaws that make me totally fine with all-new replacements. And I never really did the scramble exchanging anyway.
This sort of thing is why I've spent the last several years only actually engaging in discussion here.
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It wouldn't surprise me if the average Netflix show was translated into the same or more languages.
Doesn't that always happen when new stuff comes out and it doesn't look like G1?
Fixed.
My two big worries outside QC messes are the clear plastic on Wildrider, and the idea of what Menasor's ankle joint might do to the hood of the car on his leg. I hope they worked that out.
The "bios are shorter because translation is expensive and per-word" seemed a bit bogus to me at first too, but got me curious.
A quick googling makes it sound like translation usually costs somewhere between 10 cents to 40 cents per word, depending on language. I could see the sci-fi nature of Transformers also maybe making things a bit more expensive (trying to come up with a translation for some of the weapon names and such).
As an example, let's take Drag Strip's Legacy bio, 27 words, compared to his G1 bio, at 65 words:
Legacy
Gravito-blaster
Enhances gravity field to disorient enemies
To Dragstrip, winning is everything. He would rather be scrapped than lose. Combines with other Stunticons to form Menasor.
G1
"The first to cross the finish line lives!"
Nasty, underhanded, loves to gloat over his victories. Would rather be scrapped than lose. Prone to overheating. Megatron would sooner melt him than talk to him, but knows he's even worse company for the Autobots. In car mode, has plasma-energy blaster. Carries a gravity-enhancing gravito-gun. Combines with fellow Stunticons to form "Menasor".
Gravito-blaster
Enhances gravity field to disorient enemies
To Dragstrip, winning is everything. He would rather be scrapped than lose. Combines with other Stunticons to form Menasor.
G1
"The first to cross the finish line lives!"
Nasty, underhanded, loves to gloat over his victories. Would rather be scrapped than lose. Prone to overheating. Megatron would sooner melt him than talk to him, but knows he's even worse company for the Autobots. In car mode, has plasma-energy blaster. Carries a gravity-enhancing gravito-gun. Combines with fellow Stunticons to form "Menasor".
Another example, comparing Skids (30 to 84):
Legacy
Energon axe blades
Infused with Energon for sharper hacks and strikes
Skids may be a bit of a daydreamer, but he’s a fast learner and can think on his feet.
G1
"Deep down, we are more like than unlike humans."
A daydreamer... often bumps into things at 60 mph while pondering Earth life instead of a Decepticon attack. Considers Earth one vast lab for his research. His findings are often invaluable to fellow Autobots. Enormous memory storage capacity. Carries a liquid nitrogen rifle with 600 foot range. Twin electron blaster of 20,000 volts can short-circuit almost anything. At 50 mph can stop within 25 feet. Not very fast... often in danger due to daydreaming.
Energon axe blades
Infused with Energon for sharper hacks and strikes
Skids may be a bit of a daydreamer, but he’s a fast learner and can think on his feet.
G1
"Deep down, we are more like than unlike humans."
A daydreamer... often bumps into things at 60 mph while pondering Earth life instead of a Decepticon attack. Considers Earth one vast lab for his research. His findings are often invaluable to fellow Autobots. Enormous memory storage capacity. Carries a liquid nitrogen rifle with 600 foot range. Twin electron blaster of 20,000 volts can short-circuit almost anything. At 50 mph can stop within 25 feet. Not very fast... often in danger due to daydreaming.
So let's say the old-style bios are roughly 2-3x as long as the current ones, and let's say 25 cents/word for the translation. A Legacy bio is about 30 words, so it costs about 7.50 for a translation, so at 27 languages, 202.50. So Hasbro is saving about $200-400 per character by going with the shorter bios.
I don't know how much it costs to "design" an individual Transformer toy - I suspect in the long run a few hundred bucks is kinda negligible - but at the same time I also wouldn't be surprised it the budget guy said "ya know, we can save a few hundo per character in translation costs by writing shorter bios" and that was enough. (I also suspect that shorter bios don't really affect the bottom line sales numbers.)
Don’t forget to multiply that across some 38 MAINLINE releases and just under a dozen exclusives (including numbered retail items and Selects), so let’s say 50 per product year.
Using above math, I figure (at the high end) 7.50 (legacy bio) times 2 (the low end difference in content) multiplied by 27 languages is about $405. Multiply THAT by 50 release items per year (not counting Studio Series or the kids line) is about $20,250
That’s at LEAST about twenty grand per year being saved JUST in the Generations segment. You could probably add another 10-20 grand for the other segments as well.
So all that DOes start adding up after a while.
Using above math, I figure (at the high end) 7.50 (legacy bio) times 2 (the low end difference in content) multiplied by 27 languages is about $405. Multiply THAT by 50 release items per year (not counting Studio Series or the kids line) is about $20,250
That’s at LEAST about twenty grand per year being saved JUST in the Generations segment. You could probably add another 10-20 grand for the other segments as well.
So all that DOes start adding up after a while.
Something that I figured I would post here due to a lack of anywhere else to put it...
It seems in the collective mind of the fandom we've decided G2 Megs- the neon green and purple camo'd tank- should go up against G2 Laser Optimus. Only... that's not how it was. The original G2 green and purple Megatron was sold alongside the original G2 Optimus. Who was just G1 Optimus with a black trailer, a voice box, and some spring loaded guns.
Purple and black camo'd G2 Hero Megs was paired with G2 Hero Optimus, in all of his Houston Astros Tequila Sunrise glory.
G2 Laser Optimus actually never had a corresponding Megatron release. In fact he was released near the end of G2 as a line. Yet he's the go-to Oprimus to pose alongside neon green and purple G2 Megs because that Megatron toy was paired with a nearly unchanged base Optimus Prime figure.
Ultimately we have this idea in our heads, as a fandom, that G2 guys should be different. Should be unique, even if the vanilla G2 Optimus was very safe as far as a redeco/re-release went. So we've retroactively decided that G2 Laser Prime is the "default" G2 Optimus to go against G2 Megatron.
Just sort of funny how we kind of all eventually went in that direction despite that not being how the toyline lined up.
It seems in the collective mind of the fandom we've decided G2 Megs- the neon green and purple camo'd tank- should go up against G2 Laser Optimus. Only... that's not how it was. The original G2 green and purple Megatron was sold alongside the original G2 Optimus. Who was just G1 Optimus with a black trailer, a voice box, and some spring loaded guns.
Purple and black camo'd G2 Hero Megs was paired with G2 Hero Optimus, in all of his Houston Astros Tequila Sunrise glory.
G2 Laser Optimus actually never had a corresponding Megatron release. In fact he was released near the end of G2 as a line. Yet he's the go-to Oprimus to pose alongside neon green and purple G2 Megs because that Megatron toy was paired with a nearly unchanged base Optimus Prime figure.
Ultimately we have this idea in our heads, as a fandom, that G2 guys should be different. Should be unique, even if the vanilla G2 Optimus was very safe as far as a redeco/re-release went. So we've retroactively decided that G2 Laser Prime is the "default" G2 Optimus to go against G2 Megatron.
Just sort of funny how we kind of all eventually went in that direction despite that not being how the toyline lined up.
I think its fairly natural. The first G2 Optimus is basically identical to G1, nothing that really makes him stand out; unlike Jazz who have different decals, or Sideswipe whose colors are inversed. So we pit original mold G2 Megatron against Original mold* G2 Optimus.
Yes, there is Hero Optimus, but he's just not that interesting design wise, more so when compared to the delight of colors that is Hero Megatron; as once more it just feels like they were really playing it safe. Plus maybe size has something to do with it and could also be a factor with the original G1 mold reuse as well. G2 Megatron is just a massive brick of a toy. Both previous optimus are tiny compared to him. Laser Prime however is also a fairly big figure; So rather then pit original G2 Megatron vs Hero Prime or G1 Prime, we pit big release vs big release becuase they look cooler facing off against each other.
Yes, there is Hero Optimus, but he's just not that interesting design wise, more so when compared to the delight of colors that is Hero Megatron; as once more it just feels like they were really playing it safe. Plus maybe size has something to do with it and could also be a factor with the original G1 mold reuse as well. G2 Megatron is just a massive brick of a toy. Both previous optimus are tiny compared to him. Laser Prime however is also a fairly big figure; So rather then pit original G2 Megatron vs Hero Prime or G1 Prime, we pit big release vs big release becuase they look cooler facing off against each other.
Oddly Enough I never knew of the other Optimus Primes in G2 until years later. I was in High school near the end of Beast Wars when I first saw a friends Hero Optimus Prime. And Laser Optimus wasn't a thing to me until the Unicron Trilogy era, looking up stuff on TF Wiki. With RiD Scourge being ToysRUs exclusive I never had the idea that the toy existed. So for me it was always the old redeco with the sound box vs my younger brother's big Green and Purple Tank.
I mean, green G2 Megatron is kind of the face of G2, so it stands to reason that version is the one fans would remember. Personally, I don't remember Laser Prime from G2; my first experience with the mold was RiD Scourge. During the G2 years, I bought 3 of the 4 G2 minibots, and I distinctly remember the Dinobot recolors even though I never had any until much later. The later waves of G2 either never made it to my area, or were sold in stores my family didn't frequent at the time. So green G2 Megs is the one I remember because it stood out from the redecoed G1 and smaller G2 figures, and figured big on several comic covers. If I were looking for a Megatron to pit Laser Prime against, it would be the green tank one. Conversely, I'm not sure Laser Prime would be my default Prime to pit against G2 Megatron.
I guess if we were going for period authenticity, we as a fandom ought to be clamoring for an updated ATB Stealth Bomber Megatron with Starscream as a proper counterpart to Laser Prime?
I guess if we were going for period authenticity, we as a fandom ought to be clamoring for an updated ATB Stealth Bomber Megatron with Starscream as a proper counterpart to Laser Prime?
Kind of like the widespread idea that it's "wrong" for G2 homage toys to have G1 symbols on them in the same places where the actual G2 toys did.
The choice between G1 and G2 symbols in my G2 figures is a never-ending battle in my mind's eye.
I can go either way on it, honestly. I think the G2 symbols themselves are pretty cool and wish they'd get more play, but at the same time G1 symbols on G2 decos is pretty faithful to actual G2.
It's complicated because I think that, on their own, the G2 symbols work as their own faction emblems independent of the Autobots and Decepticons. Like...part of me wouldn't mind if the G2 Autobot logo (upside-down of course) was just used exclusively for RiD Scourge and pals, and the G2 Decepticon logo just used for the Cybertronian Empire.
But then another part of me is like "ah, but they're cool and give G2 'bots and 'cons their own flare" and around we go.
That does seem to be the Megatron that would have been released alongside Laser Prime, yeah.
Everyone here has raised great points about why we collectively just decided that Laser Prime and G2 Megs should be paired together. I get it. It's not a criticism. I just think it's kinda curious how we all just sort of came to that conclusion on our own. Weird social dynamic stuff like that interests me.
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Well, thinking back, the line launched with Optimus, and Megatron was nowhere in sight -- mentioned in bios and such, but not seen, aside from the cartoon.
Then the following year, we get this ad where a new, bigger Megatron comes out of nowhere and basically stomps the jive out of Optimus in his regular G2-but-G1-tho body:
At which point, it seems like it only makes sense to fight fire with fire. Megatron got an upgrade, now it's time for Optimus to get one as well. Boom, Laser Prime time!
A little lopsided with how they were spaced out, but kind of presents a compelling narrative in its own right.
I just want to say I appreciate this discussion a lot, because this side expense is precisely the sort of thing entitled fanboys will readily dismiss because "Hasbro's just being too cheap and lazy to give me the extra paint and huge figures and 3P level fiddlefuckery and like-it-was-in-the-80s packaging and bios that I deserve for being a longtime Transformers fan, like seriously what a lame excuse, it costs money lol they're just words." (And that's before the light racism that goes into "why are we even producing stuff for non-English markets anyway".)
You can always tell who's never had to create or make anything or consider what goes into that process, costs and all.
I imagine the alternative of producing entirely different packaging with different language coverage for different markets (which iirc used to be more of a thing) isn't much more feasible.
I mean, around the time the multilingual packaging was first becoming a norm I too was saddened to lose the bios, which were always a big part of the toy experience from G1 on. And I do wish kids still got that part of the toy experience. But the game has changed, and these are costs that would be unwise to ignore at this point.
I honestly cannot complain about multilingual packaging for Transformers so long as Hasbro never goes to the extent that Mattel does for Thomas & Friends toys where literally everything except for the front of the packaging is just nothing but warnings and cautions and legal disclaimers in a million languages.
Like yeah I get that Hasbro does have the warnings in a bunch of languages too, that's just the reality of having a single uniform packaging for the toys worldwide, but it's at least not all that's on the boxes.
Like yeah I get that Hasbro does have the warnings in a bunch of languages too, that's just the reality of having a single uniform packaging for the toys worldwide, but it's at least not all that's on the boxes.