New Galleries: Masterpiece MP-21 Bumblebee with Exo-Suit Daniel Witwicky

Mindmaster wrote:

Hasui said that the Witwicky in the exosuit is Spike (スパイク.)

Seibertron wrote:

Hasui said that the Witwicky in the exosuit is Spike (スパイク.)

I think they dropped the ball on this. I'm assuming the intention was to have this be Spike. That would make the most sense since Bumblebee and Spike were always together in g1 and the animated movie. But the face and hair sculpt sure looks like Daniel plus the image used in the instructions is 100% Daniel. Someone can say Spike all they want but it certainly looks like daniel. If hasui is the designer someone should tell me if he wanted that to be spike they should've done a better job with the head sculpt, called the product "Spike Witwicky Exo-Suit Ver." And used an image of Spike in Exo suit from Headmasters (I'm assuming they don't have rights to usage of imagery from animated film for some reason).

If the instructions or box specifically call the product Spike in Japanese, I'll change it but if it's something from Twitter it stays how it is.

Diem wrote:Also officially the figure that comes with Bee is Spike.

Seibertron wrote:(I'm assuming they don't have rights to usage of imagery from animated film for some reason)

Sabrblade wrote:Though, one thing puzzles me:

Seibertron wrote:(I'm assuming they don't have rights to usage of imagery from animated film for some reason)

Why would they not?

Sabrblade wrote:

エクセルスートのスパイクも変形。 = "Ekuseru Suuto no Supaiku mo henkei." = "Spike's Excel Suit also transforms."

procyon wrote:Could someone please identify the larger bright yellow "bee" in the comparison pics that is neither the MP or the G1? Is it third-party? Thanks.

Seibertron wrote:It seems like imagery from the Animated film is rarely used in the past few years, specifically since Paramount obtained rights to it. In the US, that's because Paramount owns the rights to it currently so they could block it from being released because they apparently felt that it would confuse the marketplace with the live action movies (doesn't make any sense to me). I think the Australian Madman Blu-Ray release was the last time that it was available so I wonder if it has now been somehow restricted worldwide. My speculation could be running wild here ... just something I've noticed.

Seibertron wrote:I changed the gallery to Spike but I still stand by my opinion of it. The sideburns and facial proportions are that of Daniel and not Spike. Daniel has the smaller triangle sideburns like this toy has whereas Spike has the longer rectangle sideburns that go the length of his ears. Also, the face is round like the boy Daniel instead of a more "chisled"/longer adult face like adult Spike has. They can call it Spike all they want, but that's Daniel's face/head (and the instructions seem to back this up as well with the picture of Daniel in it and a picture of Spike nowhere to be seen).

Autobot032 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

エクセルスートのスパイクも変形。 = "Ekuseru Suuto no Supaiku mo henkei." = "Spike's Excel Suit also transforms."

Ah. Good catch. That, plus the fact that shots of Magnus's packaging state that he's coming with a figure of Daniel. This Exo-Suit is Spike, Daniel comes with Magnus and younger Spike came with MP-10, so all we're missing is a Carly and a Chip Chase.

EDIT: Here we go.

Agent-539 wrote:The should be a 3rd party that should be able to make a line of MP human figures that scale up with the robot modes. Whom to send proposals to.

539

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:I changed the gallery to Spike but I still stand by my opinion of it. The sideburns and facial proportions are that of Daniel and not Spike. Daniel has the smaller triangle sideburns like this toy has whereas Spike has the longer rectangle sideburns that go the length of his ears. Also, the face is round like the boy Daniel instead of a more "chisled"/longer adult face like adult Spike has. They can call it Spike all they want, but that's Daniel's face/head (and the instructions seem to back this up as well with the picture of Daniel in it and a picture of Spike nowhere to be seen).

Maybe someone goofed up and based it on the wrong visual reference. They might have used that The Headmasters screengrab of Daniel in the transformed Exo-Suit that we see in the instructions and mistook it for Spike. Who knows. *shrug*

Seibertron wrote:

Seibertron wrote:I'm switching it back to Daniel. The toy's head is clearly Daniel. The line-art in the Masterpiece book that came out a few months back is Daniel as well. The prototype in that book appears to have the head of Spike oddly. I'll post scans in a few minutes so you guys can see the difference in Spike and Daniel's heads in the exo-suit.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Is changing it Daniel really a good idea though? The fact that the instructions clearly state it's Spike

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Keeping the name Spike, but at the same time acknowledging the sculpt to be based on Daniel would be the way to go IMHO. Keep both sides of the argument ("It's Spike, the instructions say so" vs. "It's Daniel, look at the sculpt!") appeased.

Sabrblade wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Is changing it Daniel really a good idea though? The fact that the instructions clearly state it's Spike

Do they, though? Looks more like they just call the toy "Exo-Suit"/"Excel Suit":

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:My bad, it's the box-back:

Seibertron wrote:Also, are we sure that it doesn't say something like "Daniel is wearing Spike's Exo-Suit" or "Spike built the Exo-Suit". Is Daniel's name in the text anywhere on the box?

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Seibertron wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:My bad, it's the box-back:

I would consider that a typo since that's the only reference of it as "Spike" whereas we have line-art from Takara showing it as Daniel, the instructions show Daniel, and the shape of the head is Daniel.

Also, are we sure that it doesn't say something like "Daniel is wearing Spike's Exo-Suit" or "Spike built the Exo-Suit". Is Daniel's name in the text anywhere on the box?

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:Also, are we sure that it doesn't say something like "Daniel is wearing Spike's Exo-Suit" or "Spike built the Exo-Suit". Is Daniel's name in the text anywhere on the box?

I wondered something like that, myself. The text エクセルスートのスパイクも変形。 basically translates to saying "Spike's Excel Suit also transforms." But the parsing of it as "Spike's Excel Suit" (as in "Ekuseru Suuto no Supaiku") could be a reference to how the suit worn by Daniel in the movie belonged to his father. So even though it's "Spike's Exo-Suit", it's still Daniel who's wearing it.

As for whether or not Daniel's name is mentioned anywhere on the box, the entirety of the text on the whole box is a bit small for me to tell (even in the biggest images), but if Daniel's name is mentioned anywhere, it would look like this:

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JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:I've been looking at various Japanese blogs and even they seem to be confused on who's piloting it (and that's saying something). One acknowledges both (by using MP-10's Spike and using Wheelie and MP Rodimus), another says it's Daniel, yet another sticks with Spike... I did spot that the more observant ones seem to favor Daniel however.

Seibertron wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:I've been looking at various Japanese blogs and even they seem to be confused on who's piloting it (and that's saying something). One acknowledges both (by using MP-10's Spike and using Wheelie and MP Rodimus), another says it's Daniel, yet another sticks with Spike... I did spot that the more observant ones seem to favor Daniel however.

This all leads me back to my original theory that I think it's odd that Takara hasn't used imagery from the Animated movie in a while (at least not that I've noticed, someone please correct me if I'm wrong). It'll be interesting to see what cartoon images they use for Ultra Magnus since the "mouth opened" face should be the Matrix holding pose from the Animated Movie. If they refrain from using imagery from the Animated movie, I'm going to stick with my theory that for some reason they can't use imagery from that source currently (which I'm assuming ties back to Paramount absurdly preventing its release here in the US).

fenrir72 wrote:The 1986 Movie can't released anymore in the US? Aside from the 2007 release, there won't be further releases anymore?

Seibertron wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:The 1986 Movie can't released anymore in the US? Aside from the 2007 release, there won't be further releases anymore?

I can't give a specific quote from anyone official, but apparently (or so I've been told) Paramount bought the rights to the Animated movie shortly after the 2006 Sony DVD release. Maybe someone can find some documents from all of these Sony hacks that sheds some light on this supposed transaction between Paramount and Sony for the rights to the 1986 Animated Transformers film. The story goes that Paramount felt that having the animated movie available at retail would cause confusion in the marketplace with their live-action Transformers films. That sounds absurd to me, but maybe big wigs at Paramount just see the title of the movies on paper and think that a cartoon and a live action movie could somehow be confusing. I dunno. Like I said, sounds absurd, but since we haven't seen the animated movie released on DVD in the US in 8 years it seems more and more plausible to me.

Does anyone know of a website where you can look up who owns the rights to a movie? Hasbro seemed to be able to air the animated movie (albeit the British or Canadian version) on television via the Hub Network so it seems that Paramount is not able to block that for some reason.

Shout! Factory's rights extend to non-feature length Transformers titles only (which means this would exclude the Animated movie).

It could be possible that the version of the story above that I was told about Paramount could be confused with whatever agreement Hasbro and Paramount made. Maybe Hasbro has the rights to it but their agreement with Paramount states that the animated movie can't be released on home media to avoid confusion (instead of Paramount buying the rights to it to block it).

fenrir72 wrote: That's crazy alright! No wonder I haven't heard a peep on any BD versions of it.

Seibertron wrote:

fenrir72 wrote: That's crazy alright! No wonder I haven't heard a peep on any BD versions of it.

Madman (Australia) released it on Blu-Ray a while back. I have a copy of it. The movie plays fine on my regular Sony Blu-Ray player but the special bonus features won't play, but they will play on my hacked Philips Blu-Ray player.

Cyberpath wrote:Q: did Spike ever transform in the Headmasters series?

shajaki wrote:has the great spike/daniel debacle of 2014 come to an end?

shajaki wrote:has the great spike/daniel debacle of 2014 come to an end?

shajaki wrote:has the great spike/daniel debacle of 2014 come to an end?