Dinobots!

[Deleted]

I was looking at the Tech Specs (you know, those little cut out and keep biographies and power ratings sections on the back of the toy packaging) of the Technobots and it struck me how similar the characters are to the Dinobots.

Afterburner is described as "quick to anger... nasty tempered... hates authority" just like Slag.

Lightspeed "feels he's a prisoner in his present form", a bit like Snarl.

Nosecone is "slow" and carries out demolitions, like Sludge.

Strafe is the group's gunner, an "expert marksman", kind of like Swoop.

Scattershot, the leader, is a braggart and "rude, gruff and direct" insulting those who disapprove his methods, like Grimlock.

I wonder if this was in any way intention as, in the cartoon at least, it was Grimlock himself who created the Technobots.

Any thoughts?

-- Graham

[primenova]

The best person to ask would be Bob if he comes back over here for another event.

[Pinwig]

If there's that much similarity between them it doesn't sound like a coincidence. So I'd say either writer's block led him to think he could get inspiration from an older set of bios, or there really could have been some specific intention that went unfulfilled.

[The Doctor]

Another reason why I always have Time for Technobots.

-Ralph

[Fortmax2020]

Agreed. How could anyone not??

[legios]

It is an interesting parallel. It makes me wish someone would do a proper "team-up" story so we could see how both groups got on when they had to deal with 'bots which made their own flaws alarmingly obvious.

Karl

[Shockprowl]

It could also mean that the Terrorcons are a natural enemy of the Dinobots. Which would be a great conflict.

Good spot, Tomo.

[Andy Turnbull]

It's an interesting idea.

I know in the comic you could explain it away as the Matrix (then a computer program) only having certain personality types stored. Especially as it's likely the Technobots and Dinobots were contemporaries on Cybertron before the Ark mission.

In the cartoon - you could see Grimlock wanting to make Transformers in his own image, and as he really only liked the Dinobots it makes sense he'd want people like him. Though it would mean he and Scattershot would likely hate each other, but he's be okay with the other Technobots.

Andy

[Deleted]

Jun 14, 2015 16:43:58 GMT Shockprowl said:

It could also mean that the Terrorcons are a natural enemy of the Dinobots. Which would be a great conflict.

Good spot, Tomo.

Ah, a Terrorcons vs Dinobots battle would have slotted nicely in "Time Wars".

-- Graham

[Toph]

Discuss Dinobots!

[Toph]

Dec 11, 2017 22:17:55 GMT The Doctor said:

No fan in 1986 wanted a Dinobot combiner!

-Ralph

Dec 11, 2017 22:21:00 GMT The Doctor said:

I deny this reality.

TF's were insanely popular round my way. No one wanted the Dinobots to combine!

I don't even recall it being a thing until THE BEAST.

-Ralph

Dec 17, 2017 18:21:16 GMT Shockprowl said:

I stand with thee, Doctor. I too think combining Dinobots are silly. Now, this might end up being a fun toy, but we need voyager and leader class Dinobots in the Generations/Classics line. AND the delux Dinobots and Vulvatronicus will look naff next to the voyager Predacons and Predaking.

i say we need a Titan Class Dinobots set.
Non-combining, but it's really the only way to get everyone to the correct sizes. Sludge as a robot needs to be leader class, but the neck and tail would probably put him well above what they can do in the price-point.
Grimlock would do well to be bigger than a standard voyager, but he's not a big enough guy to be a leader. A titan class set free of class restrictions could tailor him a bit better, without compromising his beast.

Deluxes are fine for Slag and Snarl, but again, standard size class restricts the beasts. PotP Slag doesn't suffer badly, but Snarl sure does as the most pathetic looking stegosaur ever.
I'm strangely fine with swoop. Nice wing span. Though perhaps this hypothetical set would allow for a better wing transformation.

As we're still a bit short, then we could also throw in Scorn as another bigger than voyager player.

[Shockprowl]

Awwww great thread CJ! Why haven't we had a dedicated Dinobot thread before?!



In terms of Dinobot toy sizes, I'm all about The Character Interaction. Dinobots are BIG characters (in more ways than one), and it feels right that they have toys that are on the larger side. So I'm thinking your leader/ultra size for Grimlock and Sludge, Ultra/voyager for Slag and Snarl, and voyager/delux for Swoop. Nostalgically, the traditional enemy of the Dinobots are the Predacons. I see no character interaction (which is a fancy way of saying fighting-with) possible between the current PofP Dinobots and up-coming Predacons. And that makes me sad and angry.

As for Dinobots combining, I remember in Grimgrams Grimlock saying something like how distgusted he would find it comgining with his fellow Dinobots. In relation to their traditional enemy, it is a nice constrast and perhaps plot tool, that the Predacons can combine, where the larger and stronger Dinobots cannot.

In short, I would like to see proper Dinobot toys that magically fit my Mind's Eye in terms of size for the purposes of character interaction (fighting).

I am also confused over if Brontosauruses are back or not. There were a thing, then they weren't, but now they are again...?

[Pinwig]

I can't imagine a titan class Dinobot. That would be one big Sludge.

I can't see us ever getting Voyagers of them all. The aesthetic isn't right, but this is why I love my Planet-X chaps. They're all chunky dudes in robot mode. I think I'd have to pull the mass shifting card with them. My Sunbow endeavours have brought me to thinking that the Fans Toys MP scale compared to mp10 is the optimal sizing. I'm far more concerned about robot heights than dinosaurs.

[legios]

Dec 17, 2017 20:28:51 GMT Shockprowl said:

Nostalgically, the traditional enemy of the Dinobots are the Predacons. I see no character interaction (which is a fancy way of saying fighting-with) possible between the current PofP Dinobots and up-coming Predacons.

I don't see why not. If one is applying ones imagination to add laserbeams, gyrorockets, flamethrowers and whatnot to the battle I can't see any reason one can't use that same imagination to scale-shift both sets of toys to a different scale in ones head. After all, one would have to do that to have a dogfight between CW Air Raid and CW Blastoff or CW Blades harrassing CW Brawl from the air - so surely it isn't any harder to do between one kind of animal and another? After all, Transformers has literally never had a consistent scale across a years toys. This isn't a thing which somehow starts with the dinobots - it is inherent in the toyline.

It has never bothered me that the Dinobot toys turned into animals that were actually different sizes to each other. After all, the Decepticon Jets should have been significantly larger than the Autobot cars, but weren't. The fact that they'd decided they wanted the humanoid modes to be the same size makes that physically impossible. For me, unless you are looking at a toy for big children like the Masterpiece line, I prefer the emphasis to be on getting the best play value out of the toys that can wrung. On that front I think the original Dinobots are absolutely fantastic toys. Some of the best in the original line for my money (and the fact that they did very little to the fundamental engineering design of Grimlock when they made the MP version - one of the best of the Masterpiece line imo - is a testament to that I think).

As to Combining Dinobots... yeah, no thanks. Partly because combiners always have the problem of being a bit of a problem if you can't afford to buy all of a set. You end up with a toy which has some of its play-features that you just can't access. That seems to have been one of the things that hurt the CW sales where I used to live. Having dropped a fair amount of money on one team leader, parents were loath to drop another fair chunk on another - so often could be seen steering their kids towards something else to head off the inevitable argument when they then want to buy another load of relatively expensive toys to make the combined robot. (This was not an uncommon...discussion...that I overheard in Smyths. It usually involved the parent trying to steer the kid in the general direction of something else, like an RiD toy, Power Ranger or just telling them they weren't getting anything if they behaved like that).

The other reason I'm not a huge fan of combining Dinobots is that to me they never seemed to be that kind of close-knit team. They were very much a group forged by circumstances, and the fact that no-one else would have them, than by choice or duty. I mean, in the comic their initial introduction comes in a story where it reads very much like "Aunty woke up five random autobots, gave them dinosaur modes and sent them off to scrap Shockwave", it is only much later that there is any suggestion that they formed some kind of subgroup back on Cybertron. The rest of their interactions don't necessarily smack of a group that are fast friends. Grimlock seems to regard Sludge as an idiot he is stuck with, for example. Sure, they stick together, protect their own and cover up for Slag's murderous temper ocassionally, but that always came across as a "we don't have to like each other, but we'd better stick together because no-one else is going to tolerate us". They've never seemed to have the cohesion that you'd expect to see in a combiner team - they stick together, but they aren't that kind of smoothly functioning machine to me.

Karl

[Toph]

There is a "new" genus now dubbed brontosaurus. They dug some apatosaur bones out of storage, decided they were slightly different, and declared "Brontosaurus is back!"
I think it's for the same reason people whine and bitch about pluto not being a planet, because "ITS WUT WE LERNED IN SCHOOL FIFTY YERS AGOOOOO!!!!" bullshit, though.
I don't care. Going backwards gets us nowhere.

As for size, trikes were on average the size of SUVs. If SUVs were standardized as voyagers, then Slag should be a voyager. But they're almost always deluxes, so that's really the best class for him. To do any different and you end up with something that looks as outright ridiculous as CW Powerglide sitting with CW Aerialbots, or PotP Windcharger sitting with PotP Jazz.
Or PotP Sludge with... well... anything.
A torosaur Slag would be a good candidate for a voyager.
I couldn't care less about Sunbow sizing. We've had thirty years of bullshit 1950s retrosaur "dinosaurs" for the G1 dinobots. And PotP is giving ever sunbow exactly what they want. More retrosaurs, looking just like the cartoon.
Now I want dinosaurs.

[Pinwig]

Shockers, the whole GrimGrams 'sod off if you think we're combining' bit was going on thirty years ago this month. Several letters have come up in the last few weeks of the thirty years of TFUK thread.

[Pinwig]

Slag is the main man. Best Dinobot by far.

FLAME ON!

[Toph]

I want a full line of dinobots.

Either dinobots vs dragons (blegh), dinobots vs prehistoric mammals (better), or just mixed prehistoric animals on both sides.

Legion and Legends:
• Dromeosaurids
• Smilodon
• Pachycephalosaur
• Protoceratops
• Troodon
• Dimetrodon
• Gorgonopsid
• Ichthyosaur
• Xenocanthus
• Tapejara

Deluxe:
• Triceratops
• Stegosaur
• Kentrosaur
• Parasaurolophus
• Albertasaurus
• Allosaurus
• Baryonyx
• Ankylosaur
• Therizenosaur
• Megatherium
• Dunkleosteus
• Plesiosaur
• Heliocoprion
• Pteranodon
• Megacerops
• Patybelodon

Voyagers:
• Tyrannosaurus
• Spinosaurus
• Alamosaurus
• Quetzalcoatlus
• Mammoth
• Deinotherium
• Kronosaur
• Megalodon

Leader:
• Apatosaur
• Brachiosaur
• Basilosaur

Titan:
• Patagotitan

That's all just off the top of my head.

[The Huff]

I'm sorry, but when was it cannon that Sludge had to be bigger than the others? They were all the same size in the comics, toys & cartoons and in my mind they are only robot approximations of dinosaurs - not in disguise as the real things.
(Granted that Swoop was a bit smaller as a toy)
I guess I like them all being equal sized robots.

[Toph]

An 80 foot animal should be a bigger toy than a 20 foot animal.

[Pinwig]

Toph's talking about the accurate relative sizes of the dinosaurs, Matt. Which would make Sludge huge compared to the others. It's not so much canon, more what should they look like to be real.

[The Huff]

Dec 17, 2017 22:12:27 GMT Toph said:

An 80 foot animal should be a bigger toy than a 20 foot animal.

So should Weirdwolf and Skullcruncher be bigger than Mindwipe? And should all three be able to have Scorponok sit on their shoulder?

Of course I get that a brontosaurus was bigger and it would make a better toy. It's just that the Dinobots were always the same size in the comics etc - an equal team. Just wondering when it was that the original Sludge suddenly had to be huge.

[Pinwig]

You know, I never seen the Headmaster animals as actually being animals. More representations of them. I've always been fine with Weirdwolf being a giant mechanical looking wolf.

[The Huff]

Dec 17, 2017 22:23:41 GMT Pinwig said:

You know, I never seen the Headmaster animals as actually being animals. More representations of them. I've always been fine with Weirdwolf being a giant mechanical looking wolf.

Exactly. That's how I see the Dinobots I suppose - as machines that are based on different Dinosaurs. The same with Predacons, Seacons and Spy Cassettes (can you imagine what Squawkbox would look like if we took into account the size difference between a bird and a gorilla?)

[Toph]

Dec 17, 2017 22:21:35 GMT The Huff said:

Dec 17, 2017 22:12:27 GMT Toph said:

An 80 foot animal should be a bigger toy than a 20 foot animal.

So should Weirdwolf and Skullcruncher be bigger than Mindwipe? And should all three be able to have Scorponok sit on their shoulder?

Of course I get that a brontosaurus was bigger and it would make a better toy. It's just that the Dinobots were always the same size in the comics etc - an equal team. Just wondering when it was that the original Sludge suddenly had to be huge.

Ideally yes. Just like I think it's stupid to have Hardhead be the same size as the other three headmasters.
Mindwipe- Legend
Weirdwolf- Deluxe
Skullcruncher- Voyager

Chromedome and Brainstorm- Deluxe
Hardhead and Highbrow- Voyager

Ideally it is the STUPIDEST THING IN THE WORLD to have a deluxe sized Groove.

You're complaining to me about me wanting vaguely scale accurate dinosaurs by citing things I have scale issues with as proof that I shouldn't want scale accurate dinosaurs is baffling.

[Toph]

But moreover, this fandom has a habit of shitting all over dinosaurs and dinosaur fans for not wanting the same regurgitated retrosaurs over and over again ("uuugh, it's not *supposed* to be an actual dinosaur"), while in the next thread over demanding and/or praising model accuracy from cars.

I'm allowed to daydream about a line of dinobots that fit size classes that represent their size best.

[Toph]

And yes I'm salty. I get this EVERYWHERE, everytime I express my love for dinosaurs and desire for accurate dinobots.
You can want what you want. You can be fine with your generic retrosaurs.
You can not imply that I should be too.

[The Huff]

Whoops - sorry - didn't mean to offend or upset anyone. Just discussing.

Vehicles I completely agree with (The Protectobots are a great example of this) as the as they are supposed to be a disguise. The robotic animals of the original line were more of a battle mode so it doesn't matter what size they were - if they were scale accurate they still wouldn't fool anyone (unlike some Beast Wars characters).

Just what I think of course - each to their own.

[Toph]

Dec 17, 2017 22:45:10 GMT The Huff said:

Whoops - sorry - didn't mean to offend or upset anyone. Just discussing.

Okies. I just get it everywhere, almost every time I ever bring up dinosaurs. Especially surrounding the dinobots, people love to use other transformers scale issues as proof of why i should be fine with giant dinosaurs being tiny, and small pterosaurs being giant.
So I'm a bit touchy after a few years. Sorry.

[The Huff]

That's okay - I guess I'm just stuck in the 80's as far as Dinobots go.

Can we have a Beast Wars Predacons thread now...? (Smiley face)