Garbage lines!

Ikijigoku · Post by **Ikijigoku** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:33 pm

Which Transformer toyline do you believe should have not even been created? Which toyline do you believe was an insult to both collectors and children? The toyline that is a waist or plastic and space.

I feel that Universe should have never been created. Universe went ahead and picked some of the worst figures from each toyline and recolored it. If the figure was decent, then Universe recolored in an aweful color scheme, that turned it into trash (Optimus Primal) How many times can Hasbro recolor Mach Alert (RID Prowl) and Speed Breaker? Then they continue to reissue figures that just recently can out from Armada. Or they went to the most unsucessful Transformer toyline ever, Beast Machines, and they reissue almost every figure. A couple of good one came out of the mess. Big Convoy and Razorclaw are the only two good figure that came out of this line, but two figures can't carry a whole toyline. How can the crappiest toyline living through Armada, Alternators, Energon, and Cybertron? Only the genius at Hasbro can tell. RIP Universe, PLEASE!

Neo Challenger · Post by **Neo Challenger** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:41 am

Hey Iki, nice to see you back around!! I think Universe has a couple more releases but that it's pretty much done; at least, that's the impression I've gotten from various stuff on the net. I agree with you about the paint schemes and choice of figs tho, it's like they were painted by colorblind monkeys or something.

Backscatter · Post by **Backscatter** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:42 am

Actually, I enjoyed Universe. Beasts were released with Autobot and Decepticon faction symbols.

As for the colors, since some of these characters were "brought back from the dead" then Zombie colors were okay. After all, what's rotting Trans-Organic flesh supposed to look like anyway?

I also liked the RID designs so that wasn't an issue either. Even the story line was cool, if you think about it, Transformers will be fighting until the end of time. Finally, Universe proved once and for all that no Transformer can never really die. All Unicron has to do is blink, wiggle his nose or do whatever he does. I'm sure Primus has the same power.

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 7:05 pm

I don't like G2. The bigger figs are better, but all the blocky, repainted, misnamed crap underneath them sucked. Sucked bad.

Hey, let's make a dinosaur blue. Genius!

Backscatter · Post by **Backscatter** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 12:12 am

Shanti418 wrote:I don't like G2. The bigger figs are better, but all the blocky, repainted, misnamed crap underneath them sucked. Sucked bad.

Hey, let's make a dinosaur blue. Genius!

Well G2 Optimus has that cool black trailer, plus the nicely chromed Mini-Bots, Bumblebee, Hubcap, Sea Spray & Beachcomber. Also Sideswipe had a good re-deco too. The Gestault Team's colors were okay if not great. Three sets of the same three Dinobots was pushing it though. BTW, who was misnamed? Oh and G2 had Megs as a Tank for the first time. GUN NOT TANK! ;-) The seekers G2 Starscream and Ramjet are okay too. The TFs also had those voice/sound boxes and mine still work. ;-) Devastaror came out in not one but 2 good colors. However the wimpy UK Constucticons didn't come with the parts to "Merge for the KILL!"

I didn't like the G2 comic from Marvel though. I still can't forgive Furman for killing Fortress Maximus and Spike. Plus the G2 comic was badly written(e.g. Red Alert couldn't detect hundreds of Decepticons outside the ship and Mirage went on the attack without first becomming invisible. Later Inferno "dies" when a building collaspes on him. Since when would that be enough to kill a Transformer?) and only lasted 12 issues, killing more Transformers than the Movie. At least FM is alive and well in the Japanese continuity.

shaxper · Post by **shaxper** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 4:26 am

Regarding G2, you've got to keep in mind that, back in 1992, G2 was the only way to reacquire the old G1 TFs from a decade earlier. Of course, back then, simply reissuing a toy line was unheard of, so Hasbro justified it by doing repaints. Of all of them, I think only Starscream and Sideswipe came out looking as good as the originals, but the repaints still served their purpose. In the age of ebay and reissues, it's easy to forget why G2 was important, but I was thankful for it back in 1992. All my childhood TFs had been thrown out by my mother and this was my only way to get them back. Plus, let's not forget the memorable original molds from this series: Laser Prime, Huge frickin' tank Megatron, and Dreadwing & Smokescreen.

As for my garbage toy lines:

G1 Pretenders: Putting crappy transformers in a large plastic shell does not make them more appealing...at least not to me.

Action Masters and Heroes of Cybertron: There's nothing really wrong with them. I just don't see the point of buying non-transforming transformers.

Beast Machines: With the possible exception of Jetstorm and airrazor, every single one of these looked like a plastic turd with a pathetic transformation. By attempting to combine beasts and machines, Hasbro managed to disappoint fans of both. Lame vehicle modes coupled with unimpressive robot modes. This is what happens when Hasbro attempts to design their own series without the help of Takara.

RID: This series had major potential, but Takara's financial fiasco ended up producing a line of mostly spy-changer repaints. Prime and Magnus had their pluses and I really liked X-Brawn, but there was nothing else impressive about this series IMHO.

Energon: There were a few cool pieces from this series, but it was generally unimpressive. I really liked Megatron, but the rest of the stronger molds were just sort of "okay" in my opinion. Nothing about Starscream, Jetfire, Omega Supreme or any of the others really dazzled me. They were just acceptable, and therefore not worthwhile to a long time collector with limited shelf space. Fat Megazord Optimus was the worst of them all and, in regard to Energon weapons, cheap, tacky-looking transparent hunks of plastic do not a gimmick make.

Universe: It's not a bad idea to reissue/retool some non-G1 classics, but the selection seemed random and unfocused. Optimus Primal and King Atlas did not belong in a series together, and it was way too soon to bring back the RID cars.

Backscatter · Post by **Backscatter** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:36 pm

shaxper wrote:
As for my garbage toy lines:

G1 Pretenders: Putting crappy transformers in a large plastic shell does not make them more appealing...at least not to me.

At least some of the stories about Pretenders where okay, but I think Pretenders where handled better in Masterforce. Pretenders weren't Hasbro/Takara's best idea by a long shot.

Action Masters and Heroes of Cybertron: There's nothing really wrong with them. I just don't see the point of buying non-transforming transformers.

Well sometimes with Action Masters and Custom Masters by Prowl Pants you can get characters that haven't appeared anywhere else. As for HOC, sometimes it's just cool having another version of a classic Transformer.

Beast Machines: With the possible exception of Jetstorm and airrazor, every single one of these looked like a plastic turd with a pathetic transformation. By attempting to combine beasts and machines, Hasbro managed to disappoint fans of both. Lame vehicle modes coupled with unimpressive robot modes. This is what happens when Hasbro attempts to design their own series without the help of Takara.

I agree about BM, what I've collected from the line was mostly for fun. These Transformers still make me laugh.

RID: This series had major potential, but Takara's financial fiasco ended up producing a line of mostly spy-changer repaints. Prime and Magnus had their pluses and I really liked X-Brawn, but there was nothing else impressive about this series IMHO.

I really liked RID/Car Robots. I love the clear Car Robot versions. It was also fun trying to track down all the Spy-Changers especially when Takara recalled some of them. RID/CR had some of the most difficult transformations I had ever seen. They were a good challenge without instructions.

Energon: There were a few cool pieces from this series, but it was generally unimpressive. I really liked Megatron, but the rest of the stronger molds were just sort of "okay" in my opinion. Nothing about Starscream, Jetfire, Omega Supreme or any of the others really dazzled me. They were just acceptable, and therefore not worthwhile to a long time collector with limited shelf space. Fat Megazord Optimus was the worst of them all and, in regard to Energon weapons, cheap, tacky-looking transparent hunks of plastic do not a gimmick make.

About the only thing I can say for Energon is that it's better than Armada. At least Prime/Convoy looks good combined with Wing Saber. I wasn't dazzled either but I liked Energon (and some of Superlink) enough to collect it. I am dazzled with Galaxy Force though.

shaxper · Post by **shaxper** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 11:24 pm

Backscatter wrote:About the only thing I can say for Energon is that it's better than Armada.

Some of the Armada designs were pretty weak, but the mini-con gimmick really sold me on the series. I only ended up buying larger TFs that specifically worked with the mini-cons in cool ways (not just having powerlinx pegs on their asses). I also think that Tidal Wave, Demolisher, Hoist, and the seekers were particularly cool designs.

At least Prime/Convoy looks good combined with Wing Saber.

I agree that Prime was a bit weak, but he looked much better in his Powerlinx and Gold K-Mart versions. I appreciate him mostly for the fact that his trailer makes a half-decent mini-con base.

I am dazzled with Galaxy Force though.

Here here!

Backscatter · Post by **Backscatter** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 1:10 am

Okay, enough on the defense of most Transformers. Here's a real junk line:

ANIMORPHS!

It has nothing to do with the Transformers Universe yet bore the trademark "Transformers" because it had the same "play style" as Beast Wars. In fact Beast Wars was more responsible for giving the Animorphs the Transformers trademark than anything else.

Read about it here:
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~ssto ... #animorphs

Then things got really sick.

It got so bad that some even confused Animorphs with SATANISM!
Read about it here:
http://www.exposingsatanism.org/animorphs.htm

But that's not all folks! Some bright star combined Animorphs with Pokemon to produce POKEMORPHS!

http://animeallstars.tripod.com/id208.htm

http://chelfolds5.tripod.com/poketa/

Some fans even got somewhat "mature" with the Pokemorph idea.
Just do a Gooogle image search for Pokemorph with the filters turned off.

Please don't do this you you're under-age or easily offended!

Finally, a little Backscatter-ConspiracyTheroy: Takara/Hasbro liked the Pokemon idea so much that the Micron/Minicon was created!

"Gotta catch 'em all!"

P.S. I like Microns & Minicons. However, I don't feel the need to "catch them all" especially those exclusive 'Galaxy Force Microns' some that are going upwards of $50 US (without shipping) on ebay.

How do I know so much about Animorphs? Just curious. I have two in my collection, Rachel the Lioness and Jake the Grizzlybear. Besides, it helps if you have good reasons when you don't like something. :-)
I also like the Yeerks (The Animorph's version of a Decepticon) and these two gave me one of each color:

http://www.tfu.info/1999/Yeerks/Yeerks/yeerk.htm

These two "Transformers" really make me laugh! But not in a good way. ;-)

divebomb · Post by **divebomb** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 9:51 am

I really hated the action masters. For a good while when I was little I could only get transformers, that couldn't transform. I think a few of the figures were great but it just felt like a kick in the nads when seemingly overnight toys r us swept through and removed proper tf lines and stocked the shelves with these.

shaxper · Post by **shaxper** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 5:03 pm

Backscatter wrote:Okay, enough on the defense of most Transformers. Here's a real junk line:

ANIMORPHS!

It has nothing to do with the Transformers Universe yet bore the trademark "Transformers" because it had the same "play style" as Beast Wars. In fact Beast Wars was more responsible for giving the Animorphs the Transformers trademark than anything else.

Read about it here:
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~ssto ... #animorphs

Then things got really sick.

It got so bad that some even confused Animorphs with SATANISM!
Read about it here:
http://www.exposingsatanism.org/animorphs.htm

But that's not all folks! Some bright star combined Animorphs with Pokemon to produce POKEMORPHS!

http://animeallstars.tripod.com/id208.htm

http://chelfolds5.tripod.com/poketa/

Some fans even got somewhat "mature" with the Pokemorph idea.
Just do a Gooogle image search for Pokemorph with the filters turned off.

Please don't do this you you're under-age or easily offended!

Finally, a little Backscatter-ConspiracyTheroy: Takara/Hasbro liked the Pokemon idea so much that the Micron/Minicon was created!

"Gotta catch 'em all!"

P.S. I like Microns & Minicons. However, I don't feel the need to "catch them all" especially those exclusive 'Galaxy Force Microns' some that are going upwards of $50 US (without shipping) on ebay.

How do I know so much about Animorphs? Just curious. I have two in my collection, Rachel the Lioness and Jake the Grizzlybear. Besides, it helps if you have good reasons when you don't like something. :-)
I also like the Yeerks (The Animorph's version of a Decepticon) and these two gave me one of each color:

http://www.tfu.info/1999/Yeerks/Yeerks/yeerk.htm

These two "Transformers" really make me laugh! But not in a good way. ;-)

It's worth mentioning that Hasbro produced Animorphs back during a time when they had already nearly destroyed the franchise. Animorphs came out around the same time as Beast Machines, and both were designed without Takara's help. Of course, this was immediately before Hasbro caught on to the fact that a loyal fan-base was out there (on ebay and fan sites) waiting for them to put out some decent frickin' toys. Action figure toys, in general, were at an all time low as kids seemed to be getting into video consoles more, and no one seemed to realize that the older, loyal fans were still out there. Only Kenner's Star Wars: Power of the Force series was capitalizing on this at all.

But yeah, Animorphs. I think we've all tried to forget. Thanks for the reminder