The Hasbro Factor -- FawnDoo's Cavalcade of Whimsy

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 22:49:38 02/07/04 Sat
Author: Goktimus Prime
Subject: The Hasbro Factor
In reply to: Defiant 's message, "re: Armada & Energon" on 03:25:27 02/07/04 Sat

"Transformers IMO never needed gimmicks cause the gimmick is that they transform in the first place. Yet Hasbro keeps trying to add gimmicks to the toys. With the exception of combining transformers (which is the major gimmick for Energon) gimmicks usually hurt Transformers far more than help them IMO. You disagree and think the gimmicks were cool, fine, to each their own."

Well, it depends on what the gimmick is really. I agree that gimmicks can certainly interfere with the playability of the toy. Supreme Cheetor is an example that springs to mind, ditto TM2 Blackarachnia's spin kick gimmick. At the end of the day, I too would rather high articulation over gimmicks. I recently got Masterpiece Convoy, and that thing has an insane amount of articulation - which in this toy is itself a gimmick (i.e.: the way each joint has working pistons, ankle suspension etc).

I'd say that the rather disappointing thing about Armada's articulation is that it didn't really need to be that limited. Take Starscream for example. I see no reason why he shouldn't be able to do the splits.

"Transformers are for children can be used to debate many of the faults with Armada, including the playschool colors and most of all the show."

Oh, I agree that some of the colours that Hasbro's been using on these toys have been really terrible. That's why I've been collecting some of my figures from Japan - e.g.: Hot Rod (Hot Shot) and Shockwave (Tidalwave), both of which have far more appealing colours in their Micron Legend forms.

Hasbro seems to simply believe that bright rainbow colours will appeal to children, which simply isn't the case. G1 Transformers didn't need Playskool colours to appeal to us when we were kids. I can understand using such colours for the Go-Bots line or something, but not for the Armada line.

"There is some good sculpt detail on some of the toys. However paint jobs can make or break a toy no matter how detailed the sculpt is, and IMO, the horrible paint detail broke it on most of the toys. The toys are also hurt from many of them not having the transparent lights and windows that RID had, as well as loosing the rubber tires."

The reason why Hot Shot doesn't have transparent windows is because it was designed to have an electronic LED light up gimmick. This gimmick wasn't implemented in the Armada version, but it was retained in the Micron Legend version. When you stick the Star Sabre in his hand and press the wing mirror, a small red light bulb in the palm of his hand lights up and makes the Star Sabre glow red. It's effectively the same as the G2 Laser Rod gimmick. So having transparent windows would mean that you'd be able to see all the electronics, wires etc.

As for the use of plastic tyres - considering the poor quality of rubber that Hasbro used for RiD, it might be a blessing in disguise. Plastic tyres will never split. It really pissed me off how Hasbro went so cheap with the RiD tyres. I purchased my RiD Optimus Prime some two years after I got Super Fire Convoy. That means that my SFC is 2 years older than my RiD OP. Yet the tyres on my RiD OP split within less than a year after I purchased it, whilst the tyres on my now four year old Super Fire Convoy are still fine.

I can only hope that Hasbro's using a better grade of rubber for Alternators (I've been collecting Binaltech myself).

"I am well aware that futuristic vehicles as well as alt modes other than vehicles are nothing new to transformers. My complaint about realism had to do with the detail of the toys, not the concept of the toys.

As far as the post movie line, yes that was similar to Armada. For the most part we lost rubber tires and transparent lights and windows, while the vehicles sported bright playschool like colors. However this is when I myself began to loose interest in Transformers, as well as many of my friends."

The realistic vs fantasy alt mode issue is something that can never be satisfactorily solved, because different fans like either concept. For others, it's in the execution. I've talked to fans who are absolutely dead set lovers of realistic alt modes like yourself - these are the fans who are currently loving Binaltech/Alternators (you can't ask for much more realism than that). At the same time, I've also talked to fans who don't find lines like Binaltech very appealing, and would much prefer the more interesting scifi-fantasy modes of Armada. The Transmetals were really popular in Western nations, yet it totally flopped in Japan, because the fans there wanted more realistic beast modes (hence the reversion to such modes in BW Neo).

I personally like both, but as I mentioned before, execution is crucial too. You raised this point with the transparent window and rubber tyre comparison between AR and EN Hot Shot. In a way, I think that we should be glad that the EN figures are turning out to be better than AR, because it shows that the toys are improving as they progress.

"Armada was the most succesful TF line since early G1 and that concerns me as I was afraid that Hasbro seeing how much of a profit they could make with poorly written cheaply animated TV shows, with poorly painted toys with low articulation would make Hasbro put no effort into making a good show, artuiculation, and paint detail into the next line. My fears thankfully have not happened."

Yes, I agree that Armada is a line that has succeeded very well in spite of the minimal effort that Hasbro has put into it. Ditto RiD (virtually all the effort from that line was already done by Takara).

"I have read reviews from people who speak Japanese that have also said that the show is "painful to watch. The animation itself however was crap, and not on par with many anime 5 years old, much less anime now."

Guh, Armada's animation is very ordinary by current anime standards. While the original Japanese script is by no means brilliant (Cyclonus and Carlos are equally annoying), it does, IMHO, make it significantly less painful than watching the dub.

"As far as the G1 comparison, I agree with much of what you said, but another thing that puts G1 way ahead for me is that I found the characters likable, and was indifferet to or didn't like most of Armada's cast. Likable characters can make a lame story enjoyable. Lame characters make a lame story worse."

Wheelie! But yeah, you're right. For the most part, the Armada characters aren't terribly interesting. Still, there were really weird character moments in G1. Like Microbots, when for apparently no logical reason at all, Brawn decided to hate Perceptor and pick on him for being a thinker instead of a fighter. He's never done this to any other Autobot before or since then. Then there was when Cliffjumper decided to deeply distrust Mirage for one episode - despite the fact that Mirage proved his loyalty to Cliffjumper when he saved his hide from Starscream in More Than Meets The Eye. Guh... I always hated how G1 (cartoon) would utterly warp canon just for the sake of a plot device.

But the writing in Armada isn't much better. *sigh* How I miss the days of Beast Wars where the stories appealed to both kids and adults alike.

"I only read the first 6 of each (though I do plan on catching up through paperback collections). G1 pretty, but story was OK at best. Armada, pretty damn good and WAY above the show. I did not read the end yet so I am not familer with the anti climactic ending you are reffering to."

Oh god, don't even talk to me about Dreamwave's G1 series... bad story and bad art make Goki something something.

The Armada series on the other hand, is far superior. Although the ending was sourly disappointing and a lot of characters like Wheeljack, Sideways and Skywarp never got developed properly. Guh. Simon Furman's writing just... isn't amazing me the way it used to.

But yeah, to me, the Dreamwave comic is my preferred source of Armada canon. The comics have always been my preferred source of canon ever since G1, actually.

"What I meant by CGI cartoon, is by fully CGI like that Beast Wars and Machines were. It is an expensive route to go, and now that Armada was such a hit with such a low budget show, I don't see Hasbro pouring that much money into a show again."

One problem with the massive expense of CG animation - and this was a problem that Beast Wars and Beast Machines experienced, is that it's cost prohibitive to show every character in the show. This is why only a select handful of Beast Wars and Beast Machines toys ever appeared on the show. Characters such as (takes a deep breath) K-9, Wolfang, Manterror, Grimlock, Claw Jaw, Bonecrusher, Cybershark, Retrax, Buzzsaw, Razorclaw, Iguanus, Spittor, Powerpinch, Transquito, B'Boom, Polar Claw, Scourge, Scarem, Sonar, all the Fuzors bar two, the Deployers, Spystreak, Mirage, BM Quickstrike (he would've been so much cooler than Nightscream) and all the gestalts bar Tripredacus, ever saw the light of day in the cartoon.

Furthermore, whenever new characters (and thus new CG models) were introduced, other characters would be killed off just before or after the introduction of said characters - done to keep the cost of maintaining the CG models down. Consequently, we only had a limited number of CG models in the show at any one time. But to Mainframe's credit, they were producing really top quality animation and special effects right up to the very end, even though Hasbro was slicing their budget.

The advantage of cel animation is that there is no real limit on the number of characters you can put into the show. You want to introduce a new character? Just draw the damn thing in, it's as simple as that. And with a decent enough budget, there's no reason why cel animation shouldn't look good. And here's the real problem here - neither Hasbro nor Takara are putting enough money to these Japanese animation studios to produce quality anime. Look at Car Robot. Now look at Rurouni Kenshin (TV series). Both series were animated by the same animators, yet the animation in the latter is superior to the former, even though Kenshin actually came out four years before Car Robot. And Car Robot is probably one of the best (in terms of animation) cel animated TF shows to have come out since G1. So the problem here isn't the choice of animation staff, but the amount of money that these companies are throwing at them.

And it wouldn't hurt to ask the writers to write something that can appeal to both kids and adults alike - that's be nothing new to Japanese anime writers. Look at Gundam SEED or Macross Zero for example.

But yes, overall, I'm equally miffed about Hasbro's overall policy of maximum profit with minimum effort/expense. You might be interested in reading the "Takara Factor" discussion on Planet Sabretron.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]