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Post by grahamthomson on Feb 3, 2009 21:07:45 GMT
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Feb 3, 2009 21:12:54 GMT
Wonderfully light-hearted. I do like hearing about how we embrace or turn away from our love of Transformers. Coming in at the start it's amazing how many people all felt a little bit disenfranchised with the overall direction of the toyline from 87 onwards.
Andy
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Post by grahamthomson on Feb 3, 2009 21:17:21 GMT
Thanks, Andy!
I think post-86, I had Chromedome, Landmine, Powermaster Prime, the Battle Patrol, Motorvator Lightspeed and Overlord. And that was about it!
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Feb 3, 2009 21:19:37 GMT
Post 86 I had three Micromaster patrols, Nightbeat, Quickswitch and then nothing till Classic Ironhide.
Andy
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Feb 4, 2009 7:58:19 GMT
Nice to hear about what reignited your enthusiasm for TF toys, Graham. But mine was reignited a year or two earlier by a TF range you just mentioned in passing at the start - Classics. It seems to me that unless you had already acquired all the Classics from 1984-6, it was that range, not the Turbomasters and Predators, that took the TFs back to basics. And can the Turbomaster cars really compare with the Classics for quality, realism, and, ahem, taste in colour schemes? Still, each to his own! Have some karma. Martin PS Were the Turbomasters and Predators really based on actual models of car and jet? I never realised that!  |
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Post by grahamthomson on Feb 4, 2009 8:56:17 GMT
And can the Turbomaster cars really compare with the Classics for quality, realism, and, ahem, taste in colour schemes? If it was Classics Vs Turbomasters then Classics would win all of the above categories for sure! I glossed over the Classics in my article since they were reissued toys and my revelation was that new Transformers were finally coming out that harked back to the old days. I should have made that bit clearer! Were the Turbomasters and Predators really based on actual models of car and jet? I never realised that! Flash, the red one, is based on a Ferrari Diablo I think. Talon (the green jet) is based on the F-15. Falcon (the grey one) is a F-117, Snare (red) an X-29 (a couple of working experimental jets were built/flown but I don't think it ever went into active service) and Skydive (purple) was an XF-23 (another experimental craft which never made it into active service). Karl can clarify all of the above if I've mistaken anything! |
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Hero
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
King of RULES!
Everything Rules
Posts: 7,476
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Post by Hero on Feb 4, 2009 8:58:48 GMT
That's a great article man. I visit the Queensgate mall once a year as one of those people wearing a coloured Faith Camp badge  . Makes me wonder with the new appreciation in older lines (which did'nt have much love back then) if they would sell better as re-issues. I know I'd be up for some Action Masters now that I'm a convert. |
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Post by legios on Feb 4, 2009 22:12:06 GMT
Flash, the red one, is based on a Ferrari Diablo I think. Talon (the green jet) is based on the F-15. Falcon (the grey one) is a F-117, Snare (red) an X-29 (a couple of working experimental jets were built/flown but I don't think it ever went into active service) and Skydive (purple) was an XF-23 (another experimental craft which never made it into active service). Karl can clarify all of the above if I've mistaken anything! You are pretty much spot on actually , Snare is indeed an X-29 (never actually intended for active service though - X codes are for development test-beds, prototypes etc). Skydive is a YF, rather than an X-plane - sometimes referred to as "Black Widow", it lost a competitive evaluation to the YF-22 - which has now entered service as the F-22 "Raptor". You are also spot on as regards Talon and Falcon. My car-fu isn't so good I'm afraid, so I will have to take your word for it on Flash. Also, I have been meaning to say that I thought the Broadside was great reading. It was a very entertaining look through the eyes of a returning fan. I missed out on the Predators and Turbomasters at the time, having drifted away after the Classics range not to return until Beast Machines Jetstorm dragged me back, so I have only dim memories of them being on shelves at the time. But they have rather grown on me over the years and I have developed a bit of an affection for them since. Karl |
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Post by grahamthomson on Feb 5, 2009 10:57:29 GMT
Glad you enjoyed reading the article, Karl!
Never knew about the competition between the 22 and 23. Incidentally, what's the difference between the "X" designation and the "Y" designation?
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Post by legios on Feb 5, 2009 13:10:42 GMT
Sadly the YF-22 won the competition through being the better (and supposedly cheaper) aircraft. On the looks front the YF-23 was head and shoulders out in front.
The X - designation is given to US aircraft that are designed to test new technologies, they are meant to prove concepts rather than to go into large-scale production. Things like the X-1, or the X-29 -which was intended to prove that a Forward Swept Wing was aerodynamically viable, but never intended for mass production. Y - designated aircraft are protoypes and evaluation versions of designs that are potentially intended for mass production. The YF-16's were the protoype F-16's, and won out a competition with the YF-17, the later which eventually formed the basis of the F/A-18.
(This isn't an entirely exact science sometime the bureacracy just likes to mess with our heads. Witness the Joint Strike Fighter competition, where the two competing designs were assigned X-numbers as the X-35 and and X-32, rather than Y-numbers as one would have expected.)
Karl
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Post by grahamthomson on Feb 5, 2009 16:52:46 GMT
Ah. And now I know!
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Post by legios on Feb 5, 2009 21:07:08 GMT
And knowing is half the.....something..... or other......
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Feb 22, 2009 16:11:43 GMT
Just got caught up on this one.
It's interesting to think of how 'the kids' viewed gimmicks back in the day. I thought Micromasters were ok but didn't feel compelled to pick many up. I had Erector and the Battle Patrol and that was it. They seemed a bit more, er, 'kiddy'. I thought Pretenders were crap (I had Catilla and Waverider) and Headmasters and Targetmasters were ok but not amazing (I had Hardhead and Crosshairs). I had given up by the time AM's came out. I never even knew they existed until New Year Convoy 2002 came with a repaint of the Prime robot, and was hooked.
All of the above I love now for the sheer variety and madness they added to the line. But that's from an adult collector perspective.
-Ralph
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Rich
Protoform
Posts: 829
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Post by Rich on May 27, 2009 11:54:39 GMT
Like Ralph, I think the article raises interesting points about a child's response to 'gimmicks'. I know that I never thought of them as gimmicks at the time, and, indeed, remember indulging in fevered speculation about the 'features' or, perhaps, 'powers' that Powermaster Prime would have; as I recall, the general opinion was that he'd "have 'em all" - rather like the Pokemon (of 1984). That said, I do remember becoming bored by Micromasters.
My first encounter with G2 was seeing it in a very small toyshop in this kind of indoor market place (Inshops - was that a chain - do they still exist? The toyshop was a kind of repository for all that was crap and couldn't force its way into Woolworths - and look what happened to them!). I'd stopped buying TF, had thought they'd died completely a couple of years before, and, as I said in response to Karl's Broadside, had been enjoying a brief flirtation with the Turtles. I may be rewriting history, but I think I may have thought G2 was a stupid gimmick: I certainly remember thinking that the colours were ridiculous. Although, my dislike of G2 was nothing compared to my fury when (nostalgia starting to set in) I caught BW ep 1 by accident a few years (although it felt like many years, at the time) later and went apoplectic at the rape of my childhood!
Oh, how little I understood! And still do!
Graham, by way of, I hope, constructive feedback, I did briefly lose the thread of the article around the second paragraph where it felt you were working too hard to force the jokes in before the direction of the argument had been firmly bedded in.
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Post by legios on May 27, 2009 19:30:39 GMT
My first encounter with G2 was seeing it in a very small toyshop in this kind of indoor market place (Inshops - was that a chain - do they still exist? Just barely. I believe that there are some still around, but the one here in Falkirk closed its doors long ago, priced out by the increased cost of retail square-footage. Karl |
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