Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

william-james88 wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:I'm not expecting another one. But an update to Armada Jetfire is a reasonable expectation, right? So why couldn't Hasbro wait and made Galaxy Shuttle out of that, instead of a mold that's already compromised and barely pulls of a shuttle mode as it is?

0 development cost, including thousands saved on mold development. I spoke to Hasbro personally about this and this galaxy shuttle was designed back in 2017, under John Warden, so way before the idea of going big on Armada like we are seeing now. The alt head for Astrotrain was Galaxy Shuttle and thus part of that original molding.
In the end, the answer to most questions is cynically "money". And making it an exclusive meant Hasbro got a guarantee order fill from walmart for a new product of the highest exclusive size class which the current team didn't spend a dime on designing. This was basically free money for them.

All that could have been also applied to a potential new Armada Jetfire, with the exception of it being designed by John Warden.

It can't because doing anything except using what already exists would mean spending money on a new mold. Releasing Galaxy shuttle was a decision done now. So they preffer spending nothing. Plus, they'll use every asset they have, this never used molding was one of them. You are asking them to spend money doing à design they already have.

I think Rodimus just really, really doesn't like siege Astrotrain (I however do like it, so the Galaxy train reuse was a good idea.)

This galaxy shuttle turned out looking great. And supposedly, it has been underoriduces with 0 stock allocations to asia. So this toy has the potential of rising in value and going nuts on the aftermarket.

william-james88 wrote:This galaxy shuttle turned out looking great. And supposedly, it has been underoriduces with 0 stock allocations to asia. So this toy has the potential of rising in value and going nuts on the aftermarket.

I was lucky to have found mine in store.

But I'm not buying another at walmart.ca. 80$ is too high for a bet.

william-james88 wrote:This galaxy shuttle turned out looking great. And supposedly, it has been underoriduces with 0 stock allocations to asia. So this toy has the potential of rising in value and going nuts on the aftermarket.

I hope there's some more made and that it doesn't get too expensive too quickly. I preordered mine and have it now but I might want another one to two more.

I would've loved if they put Astrotrain's head in the box as well. Then maybe have had a decal sheet for sigils and a few other things. This way you could've made it either Galaxy Shuttle or the black and white Takara Astrotrain deco. So that's a second one I would need as well as an Astrotrain head.

The third one would require a new head mold entirely. That of Gobots Spay-C. Or rather, of her Super Gobots toy in particular. I found one on Shapeways but it's for PotP Blast Off and it's based on her normal toy/character model head.

It's not perfectly colored for either character but then again, it's not perfect for Galaxy Shuttle as it is. I would've gotten at least two when they were up for preorder but I was hurting for money at the time from the hurricane in my area and what not but I can afford another one or two now.

Grahf_ wrote:I would've loved if they put Astrotrain's head in the box as well. Then maybe have had a decal sheet for sigils and a few other things. This way you could've made it either Galaxy Shuttle or the black and white Takara Astrotrain deco.

I too, would have loved that. Maybe an upgrade kit that include an Astrotrain head and some Reprolabels?

Here's my quick impressions on my recent 3 Legacy acquisitions.

Armada Starscream did impress me. The bot is perfect all over and his transformations took some clever turns. Especially for the calves panels that not only fill in the gaps, but also fill in the space between the legs in spaceship mode. They didn't had to do that, but they did. Chapeau.

Inferno is truly a mini MP like most current Generations beasts. He's perfect and his face is very expressive. But trying to transform him without instructions completely stumped me. What I anticipated was completely wrong and I had to rely on the instructions. In the end, this make a very nice ant.

Prime Arcee. The thing I hated since I saw the first stock pictures. I bought her because it was just 20$CAN so meh, let's see how horrible she is. Of course she can't hold a candle to the OG 1st Ed Prime and RID Prime. But by itself, that version is way better than anticipated. In person, her feminine features are present despite her squarish torso. He major flaw by design is the front section of the bike is made to pop off at the slightest touch for some reasons. The bot is acceptable. But why her weapons are a DJ table and a pizza? As for the transformation, I made it halfway before having to rely on the instructions. The resulting bike is pretty damn good and compact. I may never have paid the full price for her, but at 20$CAN instead of 35/40$, I have no regrets.

william-james88 wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:I'm not expecting another one. But an update to Armada Jetfire is a reasonable expectation, right? So why couldn't Hasbro wait and made Galaxy Shuttle out of that, instead of a mold that's already compromised and barely pulls of a shuttle mode as it is?

0 development cost, including thousands saved on mold development. I spoke to Hasbro personally about this and this galaxy shuttle was designed back in 2017, under John Warden, so way before the idea of going big on Armada like we are seeing now. The alt head for Astrotrain was Galaxy Shuttle and thus part of that original molding.
In the end, the answer to most questions is cynically "money". And making it an exclusive meant Hasbro got a guarantee order fill from walmart for a new product of the highest exclusive size class which the current team didn't spend a dime on designing. This was basically free money for them.

All that could have been also applied to a potential new Armada Jetfire, with the exception of it being designed by John Warden.

It can't because doing anything except using what already exists would mean spending money on a new mold. Releasing Galaxy shuttle was a decision done now. So they preffer spending nothing. Plus, they'll use every asset they have, this never used molding was one of them. You are asking them to spend money doing à design they already have.

You might be misunderstanding me. I'm speaking in terms of hypotheticals. If that wasn't clear, my mistake. My entire argument is based on the "what if" of an updated Armada Jetfire having been done. Thus, if we had both a new Jetfire and Siege Astrotrain, I would have preferred Galaxy Shuttle to come from the latter (assuming it's a good mold). The situation would have been the same. Galaxy Shuttle would have been made out of an already existing mold, as was with Astrotrain, except we would have gotten it from a mold whose sole dedication was being a space shuttle in alt mode (and maybe being pants for Optimus, but that wouldn't have affected the shuttle mode much).

ZeroWolf wrote:I think Rodimus just really really doesn't like siege Astrotrain.

Also true, but it wasn't really the main reason I brought this up, it was more trying to find the best possible/potential option for Galaxy Shuttle.

Rodimus Prime wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:I'm not expecting another one. But an update to Armada Jetfire is a reasonable expectation, right? So why couldn't Hasbro wait and made Galaxy Shuttle out of that, instead of a mold that's already compromised and barely pulls of a shuttle mode as it is?

0 development cost, including thousands saved on mold development. I spoke to Hasbro personally about this and this galaxy shuttle was designed back in 2017, under John Warden, so way before the idea of going big on Armada like we are seeing now. The alt head for Astrotrain was Galaxy Shuttle and thus part of that original molding.
In the end, the answer to most questions is cynically "money". And making it an exclusive meant Hasbro got a guarantee order fill from walmart for a new product of the highest exclusive size class which the current team didn't spend a dime on designing. This was basically free money for them.

All that could have been also applied to a potential new Armada Jetfire, with the exception of it being designed by John Warden.

It can't because doing anything except using what already exists would mean spending money on a new mold. Releasing Galaxy shuttle was a decision done now. So they preffer spending nothing. Plus, they'll use every asset they have, this never used molding was one of them. You are asking them to spend money doing à design they already have.

You might be misunderstanding me. I'm speaking in terms of hypotheticals. If that wasn't clear, my mistake. My entire argument is based on the "what if" of an updated Armada Jetfire having been done. Thus, if we had both a new Jetfire and Siege Astrotrain, I would have preferred Galaxy Shuttle to come from the latter (assuming it's a good mold). The situation would have been the same. Galaxy Shuttle would have been made out of an already existing mold, as was with Astrotrain, except we would have gotten it from a mold whose sole dedication was being a space shuttle in alt mode (and maybe being pants for Optimus, but that wouldn't have affected the shuttle mode much).

ZeroWolf wrote:I think Rodimus just really really doesn't like siege Astrotrain.

Also true, but it wasn't really the main reason I brought this up, it was more trying to find the best possible/potential option for Galaxy Shuttle.

Ah yes, I had not understood the hypothetical aspect. Sadly (or happily if people liked the toy) the reason we ended up with this galaxy shuttle as it is has less to do with them wanting the character out and more to do with filling up a slot for Walmart.

Back to your hypothetical, I preffer the option we got over a redeco of Armada Jetfire. I like him being isolated rather than giving him a combining element.

There have been several reports of Walmart now liquidating their Legacy exclusives from the beginning of the year (Nightprowler, Sandstorm and Buzzsaw), now that Christmas has come and gone. It is not a country wide change in price but the $17 price has come up at several Walmarts in different states through stickers. These are the 3 Beast Wars redecos. If you held off getting these, maybe now would be a good time to get them. Who would have thought that the near mythical Nightprowler toy finally existing would have garnered such little interest.
The specific image below is from Traachon who posted it here.

We thank Bot Bender Orinj for what we are about to show you. They got their hands on the upcoming Scraphook and wasted no time discovering that toy's potential. Below is a video tutorial of how to turn him into a sidecar for Wreckgar along with images of either multiple Scraphooks together, or combinations with the fossilizers and even how well it works as a combiner component using a general shapeways piece that lets a combiner peg combine to a 5 mm peg. Enjoy!

Damn those Walmart beast repaints! They were the biggest waste. They’ve clogged shelves for a year now.
Never saw anything in Legacy after that wave.

cruizerdave wrote:Damn those Walmart beast repaints! They were the biggest waste. They’ve clogged shelves for a year now.
Never saw anything in Legacy after that wave.

I never, ever saw those at my local Walmart.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

cruizerdave wrote:Damn those Walmart beast repaints! They were the biggest waste. They’ve clogged shelves for a year now.
Never saw anything in Legacy after that wave.

I never, ever saw those at my local Walmart.

I see nothing BUT those at my locL WalMarts. Dozens of them.

Holy crap! That Junkion is amazing! I may have to pick up a couple...

First-Aid wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

cruizerdave wrote:Damn those Walmart beast repaints! They were the biggest waste. They’ve clogged shelves for a year now.
Never saw anything in Legacy after that wave.

I never, ever saw those at my local Walmart.

I see nothing BUT those at my locL WalMarts. Dozens of them.

This is just poor distribution at play.

william-james88 wrote:Who would have thought that the near mythical Nightprowler toy finally existing would have garnered such little interest.

Same thing happened with the reissue Stepper/Ricochet at TRU years ago, no? Highly sought after G1 toy, but little to no interest on a reissue.

Something that came to me while meditating this morning, what happened to the clear "Energon" weapons that were supposed to be the gimmick of Legacy?

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Something that came to me while meditating this morning, what happened to the clear "Energon" weapons that were supposed to be the gimmick of Legacy?

Many of them ended up being opaque Energon weapons instead.

Tarantulas's saw weapon, for instance, is his Energon weapon.

MeGrimlock78 wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Who would have thought that the near mythical Nightprowler toy finally existing would have garnered such little interest.

Same thing happened with the reissue Stepper/Ricochet at TRU years ago, no? Highly sought after G1 toy, but little to no interest on a reissue.

Kind of, but that was a little different. Takara did a book-reissue of Stepper first, which I believe just about every western fan who actually knew the character bought the import of, myself included, never even considering the possibility of a Hasbro release. That left Ricochet on TRU shelves in front of fans who'd never heard of this random repaint of Jazz. I worked at TRU then, and old-school fans were too pissed about who wasn't getting a Hasbro reissue (mostly Megatron), to bother with some "new" guy. On top of that, he was bastardized in both tooling (though I guess anyone could've just cut the "safety" stem off the back of the launcher) and name: Quickmix was my first Targetmaster, so little yellow Ricochet made an impression on me that chafed at Hasbro seemingly slapping that name on every exclusive toy they couldn't get a better trademark for, similar to what was done with Overrun a few years later. I doubt many more fans double-dipped Rick-whatever than bought the cropped-for-safety Optimus Prime reissue after getting New Year's Convoy.

Nightprowler, on the other hand, NEVER existed until now, and so FINALLY we get...probably the least-interesting-looking Halloween Horrorcon. I mean, next to the other repaints of deluxe Kingdom molds, he strikes me as what Fox KIDS! Cheetor should've looked like: light grey, like Rhinox, Waspinator, Dinobot, and undead Transmetal Tarantulas. Camouflage bland enough to fade back into obscurity, so his target will never see him coming...or care.

It is kind of interesting that modern versions of a toy-that-shoulda'-been, a BotCon exclusive character, and a mass-release repaint character all shelfwarmed about equally badly. One or all of those guys should've been Pulse or Amazon exclusives while show-deco Terrorsaur should've been on store pegs. Guess we live and learn.

Oh, as for the Junkitizer gimmick, seeing Scraphooks with leg-adapters makes me think we need a proper Junkion Voyager torso now, even more than during PotP. Maybe Hot Spot retooled into Animated Wreck-Gar so CW Wreck-Gar could tack on too. Anyone know of any 3P/3D-printed wheels that could attach to PotP Elita-1 and double as convincing turbines? I've been meaning to repaint her into Nancy for years.

Also, could this drive the price of Fossilizers up on the secondary market? Those pics just made fossils the new death-metal!

Meanwhile I’ve still yet to see any of these in-store.

I don't like partsformers, but I have to admit those pictures are impressive.

Just try to imagine what someone could create with only half a dozen of those figure: kind of Hero Mashers figures from Hasbro

Upcoming?

Doesn't matter how they repaint or lower price of that cheetor mold eeeewww.