Choose - 30th Anniversary Transformers toy 2014

[primenova]

You've just been employed by Hasbro to come up with the toy release for August 2014 world wide release for 30 years of Transformers. You have price points of £99.99 for UK - US $129.99 [or about that]

Now who do you pick for the toy? new toy or reissue? What extras in the box?

[Hero]

The obligatory Optimus Prime (non-Bayformer of course) with all the trimmings. I cant think of what extras hasn't been done already in other commemorative toys.

===KEN

[primenova]

We had that 25th ann box set where it was the original Optimus Prime. But they would need to include a newer one in there [RM toy]. We can't have a collection of Optimus Prime best comic stories because IDW have done that. Maybe have Guido to draw up adaptions in a book of the cartoon - in same style as the Movie books he did - but have it only available in the toy pack. We can all pick up sealed G1 Prime reissue for £40 or the 25th set I expect around £70 - but need something in to make it upto buying at £100.

I was thinking may Primus toy redone [the feet] & repainted to match the comic & collectiong of Primus comic stories in a speical collection. they can't redo Unicron with him just coming out again in the repaint.



Have RM Optimus Prime toy repainted metallic red with the cab just altered so can open for matrix chamber & include with Primus toy.

[blueshift]

£99.99?

At the current rate we're going, it'll be a legends figure in a crudely stapled together plastic bag.

[primenova]

That isn't too bad an idea.

But if it was Legends sized figures for all the character from the cartoon series 1 in a box set. So Hasbro would need to make some new toys but have the toys painted to match the cartoon.

Would need to be Legends & not Hasbro cheaping out giving us an Action master set - uness they reduced the price to £39.99.

But how many toys would that be in total? Going from Optimus Prime, Megatron - to Insecticons.

The Constructicons would not combine - but we would have [in the same size as Universe Hound Ravage] the other tapes in the set, all new toys. The Legends toys that where release in the last year would be in the set - Optimus,Megatron GUN, Trailbreaker, Starscream, Prowl. but with new paint jobs.

[blueshift]

For 99.99 you'd only be able to get 20 legends figures though Maybe a handful more if you take economies of scale with the packaging in mind.

Nice idea!

[primenova]

That would be 10 from each side. But expect some people like the idea of new cassette toys to go with Ravage - Soundwave would need to beable to carry them.

[The Doctor]

Moon on a stick.

-Ralph

[Kingoji]

Nov 7, 2011 19:01:50 GMT The Doctor said:

Moon on a stick.

-Ralph

Poor bunny!

They should pull out the stops to get Volkswagon to allow a Masterpiece-style G1 Bumblebee with a ton of related stuff. Perhaps a removable face-mask or transforming face to switch between toy and fiction accurate looks. Or perhaps a complete body mod or alternate transformation to allow him to become Goldbug.
And he should have some sound feature, perhaps in a stand, with new lines recorded by Dan Gilvezan.

[primenova]

You mean something more advanced than the head turn round of MS Starscream. I like that idea for Bumblebee Goldbug. Goldbug car windows should be black & Bumblebee clear.

[Deleted]

Perhaps they can reissue or remake a combiner set that's been neglected in recent years

[Hero]

I like Edd's idea/

===KEN

[primenova]

We might come up with a good set - as long as Botcon don't go & ruin it with a set along the same lines because that'll end up meaing Hasbro would go with that same set to save them money on producing the set.

[primenova]

I've just got an idea - Cybertron modes for the orignial cartoon.

So that Jazz, Wheel jack, Bumblebee, Starcsream & the jets [apart from looking slightly like Cybertron Starscream]

But having them transform so they look like the Earth mode when in robot mode like in the cartoon [mainly because they didn't bother with giving them new robot forms for the start of the cartoon]

[Stomski]

Except of course we'd have lamp post Soundwave which would kinda suck.

[primenova]

I know - but he'd still have to hold Laserbeak.

Starscream would look good - the jets would have room for legs to fold up inside the triangle jet mode, which then fold open to form the wings & have the F15 cockpit inside.

[Shockprowl]

A SUPREAM SIZED CLASSICS ABOMINUS!!!!


OR A LIFE SIZED PPPRRRROOOOWWWWLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I love the complete year 1 G1 Legends collection idea.

[The Doctor]

Personally, I think the best way to celebrate 30 years is to do something completely new and different that isn't based on any pre-existing thingy. Hey, I like homages as much as anything else but I do feel the TF line/concept is starting to eat itself.

-Ralph

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Nov 10, 2011 18:03:14 GMT The Doctor said:

Personally, I think the best way to celebrate 30 years is to do something completely new and different that isn't based on any pre-existing thingy. Hey, I like homages as much as anything else but I do feel the TF line/concept is starting to eat itself.

Starting???

Martin

[Deleted]

Mount St. Hilary/Mount St. Helens With Ark Playset, plus a Voyager sized Classics Shockwave and Legends sized original cast figures,
I know the scale in bot mode will be out but in flying gun mode it should mimic the scene in the comic about right I think.

[legios]

A thirtieth anniversay celebration thing... I'd agree with Ralph, something that refines, evolves and improves on what has gone before. Special anniversary packaging for the first toy in a new line which marks the start of something distinctly new in terms of the fictional background. Honor the ancestors but move forward into the future.

By the time a 30th anniversay rolls around we will have had some many "updated and improved" versions of things that already exist, and so much Transformers fiction that is simply rearranging tired elements that just doing another wouldn't feel that special to me.

Karl

[primenova]

Nov 10, 2011 18:21:05 GMT @psyclonus said:

Mount St. Hilary/Mount St. Helens With Ark Playset, plus a Voyager sized Classics Shockwave and Legends sized original cast figures,
I know the scale in bot mode will be out but in flying gun mode it should mimic the scene in the comic about right I think.

Or maybe non transforming Cybertron that has pull out sections - but be in a large box & £100+ with small 1cm figures?

[The Doctor]

I don't think any 30th Anniversary thing should be anywhere near £100. Why price it out of reach of the target audience, ie children?

-Ralph

[primenova]

I am expecting that Hasbro would aim at collectors first.

[The Doctor]

They shouldn't. It's a range of toys for children. Adults can enjoy them too (and I know I do!) but they should always be aimed at and marketed towards children, lest they fall into the fate of Masters of the Universe, which has a very good line right now but it's aimed only at adult collectors on a website.

Transformers in any incarnation (toys, films, comics, cartoons, towels) has always been least interesting/fun when it has taken the focus away from kids and aimed it at teens/adults/collectors. For one thing, the comics had more words in them!

-Ralph

[Deleted]

How about a KRE-O Ark vs Nemesis set with some of the season one Autobots and Decepticons to interact with them

[Deleted]

Nov 11, 2011 7:56:26 GMT primenova said:

Nov 10, 2011 18:21:05 GMT @psyclonus said:

Mount St. Hilary/Mount St. Helens With Ark Playset, plus a Voyager sized Classics Shockwave and Legends sized original cast figures,
I know the scale in bot mode will be out but in flying gun mode it should mimic the scene in the comic about right I think.

Or maybe non transforming Cybertron that has pull out sections - but be in a large box & £100+ with small 1cm figures?

That would be good to, but we've had a Cybertron figure, and the Ark in the side of the mountain is an abiding memory of Transformers to me ;D

[Deleted]

Nov 11, 2011 19:43:55 GMT The Doctor said:

I don't think any 30th Anniversary thing should be anywhere near £100. Why price it out of reach of the target audience, ie children?

Why would the tagline "30th anniversary" be considered as targeting children though?

The kids can have their contemporary stuff. "30th anniversary" as a label targets people like me who would never dream of touching modern toys but who would be sucked in by the nostalgia factor of purchasing something that pays a modern homage to our childhood.

Had there been, let's say, "25th anniversary Thunderbirds" toys released in 1988 I wouldn't have touched them or, at least, expected to touch them if they were released as super-duper things that were generating an interest in reminiscent adults, who broke character from the super-severe grown-ups that I knew and instead were drawn to them like moths to a flame.

"30th anniversary" appeals to us thirty-somethings, with our salaries and likelihood to make one-off, expensive purchases as a treat. Hasbro would be foolish not to try taking advantage of that by producing something that we'd feel compelled to buy, and that means that it should be based on what we remember but built so much better. If the Masterpiece range didn't exist, then Optimus Prime and Megatron should be the items.

[primenova]

Hasbro wound be doing this aimed at collectors & also trying to give themselves cheap production run for Botcon [you know Hasbro would try their best to have it the same toys so they only have to do one run of toys]. But if we had the 25th Anniversary Optimus Prime toy in TRU - kids would go for Movie Optimus & ignore the original.

[The Doctor]

Transformers are for children.

-Ralph