Musings on revamp vs reboot.

[Nigel]

Okay, so we now have some details about the Beast Hunters line. What I find most interesting about it is that Hasbro has changed its strategy with Transformers. Rather than, as they have for years, completely change the series after a year or two and start from scratch, they've instead extended the existing line by revamping it. Ben 10 is a modern brand that comes to mind that has successfully exploited this strategy.

This is much more like the strategy that Hasbro used in the 1980s. (Then, of course - in a different marketplace - the name didn't change and the brand was refreshed largely through a different gimmick each year.) I wonder how long the brand can be sustained through refreshing Prime this way. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Prime suffix dropped at some point but the line continuing in this universe.

Personally, Prime isn't my favourite toy or story line and there are other versions I'd have preferred to see treated in this way, but it'll be interesting to see how the Transformers brand fares today in a more cohesive, ongoing form.

[Shockprowl]

Yes Prime isn't high on my list of favorite Transformers Lines, but I would welcome a revamp over starting from scratch every time. I suppose I prefer everything to be in the same 'Universe', and all the chopping and changing every couple of years makes me care alittle less about the characters and the story, happy as I am in my own little Transformers world. A continuing story would be my preference over constantly restarting the whole Transfromers universe again and again.

[The Doctor]

I am bored to my back-teeth of reboots in Transformers. That is all.

-Ralph

[Marc Graham]

Reboots are fairly inevitable given that its a toy focused franchise, but Hasbro really seem to be getting behind Prime and there seems to be plenty of mileage still in it, I'm enjoying it.

[kayevcee]

I've got enough red trucks, yellow sports cars and off-white jets to last me several lifetimes already. Any change is for the better in my opinion.

Looking at the NYCC gallery- of all the late-80s characters I expected to get an updated homage, Sinnertwin was pretty far down the list! Wow. I welcome the departure to be honest.

-Nick

[Toph]

It's unfortunate that is this current continuity that was dull and stale from the start, is where they choose to dig their feet in and drudge it out, instead of something that was actually fresh and exciting, that seemed to carry the best of everything that had come before and recycled it in ways we hadn't really seen yet... you know... like Animated.

Beast Hunters' story dissapoints me. I'm sick to death of "Cybertron's mysterious past." First the 13 Primes. Then the artifacts. Now these beasts being the earliest cybertronians, or some such.

Why couldn't they be TFs from the future coming back to screw with the timeline, forcing autobots and decepticons to deal with them?

Toy wise, three dragons dissapoints me, but it's the first time I've been interested in the vehicular Prime tfs. The show is as stale and boring as Prime ever was, but this is a new play pattern that TF has never done before. So that's refreshing.

To the opening post, I dissagree. TF has been extremely stable, and fairly reboot free over the years. We went from 1984 to 2001 in one solid universe. It was full of a few different continuities, but when you work in multiple mediums, that's unavoidable (Would rather a comic and a cartoon be separate continuities, than try to work together badly.)

2001-2003 we switched to the *real* RiD, which was a filler series anyway.

From 2003-2007... until virtually the movie, we got another solid universe that lasted several years. Energon and Cybertron were not reboots/new continuities... they were just true revamps.

The movie gave us a solid continuity that lasted until this year where it (thankfully) finally died. It included Movie 1, Allspark Battles, RotF, HftD, RtS (Yes, that was officially a continuation of the movie line, and not official Classics), and DotM.

Animated, when it launched, Hasbro promised us it would be the continuity to carry us for the next five years, until they stabbed it in the back as soon as movie 2 began.

Then Prime is now the new thing that more or less continues movie themes, and promises to be the thing for the next five years.which includes the two games, and Generations 2.
Beast Hunters isn't a revamp, it's just a rebranding and subline. The same way Transmetals, Fuzors, and Transmetals 2 were to Beast Wars, Battle for the Spark was to Beast Machines, Unicron Battles to Armada, and so on.

Classics, Universe 2, Generations 1 (Not "G1," just the first Generations toyline), and PCC really can't count as any particular continuity.

So, that's six separate continuities. That's not a lot for a nearly 30 year old toyline/franchise.

Personally, I think the franchise is desparate for something to turn it on it's head, the way Beast Wars did. I can't wait until we're finally finished with this movie crap. Movie, Prime, and Cybertron games can't go away fast enough.
At this point, I'll take one of the worst things I can think of... a reboot of the sunbow cartoon.
Even still, long lived franchises like TF need to be restarted from scratch every few years. It keeps them young, vibrant, and healthy. It keeps it easy to bring in new fans, and usually keeps old fans interested. And for long term fans, if you hate the current series, then all you have to do is wait a few years and maybe the next one will be more to your taste.
Ben 10 isn't a great example in this case, as it involves only what... four central characters? It's easier to keep following that for years. Also, it refreshes exactly the same way Transformers usual does (G1 to G2 to Beast Wars to Beast Machines, Armada to Energon to Cybertron). It may still be in it's first continuity, but it's on it's fifth or sixth series, or revamp as you called it.

[Shockprowl]

Oct 12, 2012 22:18:45 GMT kayevcee said:

I've got enough red trucks, yellow sports cars and off-white jets to last me several lifetimes already.

-Nick

HA HA! Genius! Yes, this sums it up!

[Bogatan]

I like the look of Prime and enjoy the toys, the show I enjoy, the characters I really do like, but it could do with the plots being perked up a little at times.

So yeah revamp is good. I do think Hasbro had said they planned to stay with Prime for some time, I suppose owing the toys, the cartoon and channel allows them more control than previous series.

[Nigel]

Jetty, I don't think you entirely understood my point, perhaps my fault for using the word "reboot" which might suggest "rewriting the rules" within one particular story line.

To clarify, over the last ten years or more, Hasbro has completely relaunched the brand every couple of years. The movie toys went on for longer than most, but these were also interspersed with other series, such as Animated, effectively creating the same chop-and-change effect. As far as Armada/Energon/Cybertron was concerned, they were effectively a new toy line each time; there was little or no connection between the toy lines themselves, with each effectively an independent range. If you didn't know the cartoons, you could easily view the toys as separate entities; as I recall, the Cybertron cartoon, in its original Japanese form, actually was a separate entity and was incorporated into the saga for the West by editing certain episodes.

Yes, the Beast Era had an annual revamp in the same way, as I said, that the original range did and even when Wars changed to Machines, it was clearly the same range, but since then, it has been relaunch after relaunch and so little cohesion over time. RiD is probably the prime example; it was a complete change to what we'd had the previous years and then with no attempts to prolong that line (notwithstanding some repaints to flesh out theline), the Transformers line was relaunched as something entirely different.

Classics, Universe 2, Generations 1 (Not "G1," just the first Generations toyline), and PCC really can't count as any particular continuity.

I don't really like to use one isolated, non-contextual sentence, but this does rather illustrate the point; a single continuity isn't really the issue, but rather the stop-start strategy that Hasbro has been using, with an entirely new, largely unrelated range coming along fairly frequently.

Now, with Prime, they are maintaining the existing line, using the Beast Hunters theme to inject some new blood. The Beast Hunters premise could easily have been an entirely new Transformers series, eg Predacons are invading the Earth and the Autobots save the day, rather than being within the existing framework. This is where the Ben 10 comparison comes in. That series has been refreshed pretty much every year by tweaking the format: Ben 10 became Ben 10 Alien Force, then Ultimate Alien, now Omniverse. This is what Hasbro are now doing with Prime and, yes, they have done in the past with some Transformers ranges. But, taking the Transformers range as a whole, it has not been Hasbro's strategy since Beast Wars. Instead, on various occasions, they have thrown out the existing framework and started from scratch.

Of course, I'm not saying that one brand strategy or another is right or wrong, but it's interesting that Hasbro are changing their approach.

[Toph]

I saw your point, and I understood exactly what you were saying. I just fundamentally disagree on every single level.
And I as I said, this is not unique even to the TF brand. Beast Hunters is the exact same kind of "refreshing" as "Battle for the Spark" was to Beast Machines, and"Unicron Battles" was to Armada.

Also, you're may be correct about Cybertron from the anime standpoint, but the line was designed and intended by hasbro and takara to be a continuiation of Energon. It was GONZO who screwed up and decided to to throw the groundwork out the door. The difference is, Takara just ran with it. Hasbro worked it back into their original plans.
So yes, Cybertron is absolutely and always was in the same framework as Armada and Energon.

And Classics doesn't illustrate your point. At least, not to me. It's not a continuity. It's not intended to be a single continuity. As it's intended to be every continuity, with G1, Beast, UT. Just updated characetrs for established continuities.

Personally, I think you're trying to make two separate points, and confusing them with one. The toyline issue is completely different from the continuity issue.
Every toyline goes through this. Whether it's one focused continuity like Ben 10, or "Final Fantasy" style that completely reinvents itself every few years. This is because this is a completely different world than it was back in the 80s.
In the eighties, most characters, most toys sat on the shelves and were in continual production for two to three years.
Now, retailers want those off the shelves in a few months, and a completely new set of figures in their place. And more over, they also want lines to reinvent themselves, either minorly with packaging changes and new subline names (Ala "Unicron Battles"), or with a completely new product.
So, it seems to me that the multiple toyline deal is a completely different issue that of multiple continuities.
Ben 10 is absolutely in the exact same boat as transformers. The only difference is how it hasn't started a new continuity (Although it's probably about time. Omniverse seems like it would have been smarter to make it a new continuity, especially since they're now treading over established childhood continuity by inserting aliens he shouldn't have access to, given the rules he was under for most of the original series).
Like I said, every modern toyline goes through this. Being forced to rebrand or reinvent itself at least once a year.
And virtually every major franchise reboots it's core concepts every few years. TMNT does this. MLP does this. TF does this. GI Joe does this. Marvel and DC do this (To be clear, I'm referring to toys and multimedia fiction, not the comics. But even the comics do it, too). Trek has even now done this, and it wouldn't hurt Star Wars, either.
One could argue Doctor Who, in an odd sort of way, too.

Those that don't, tend to wither and die, or are gasping for air and dying slow, painful deaths, like Heman.

By the time G2 ended, the franchise was dead in the water, and got turned yupside down into beast wars, which is the only reason it's around today.
And as much as I love the beast era, by the end of Beast Machines I was ready to see autobots and decepticons again.
By the start of Prime, I'm sick of G1 rehashes. And given how badly TF seems to be struggling at retail, the franchise needs to be turned on it's head again.

So, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree oon this one. ^_^

[Nigel]

Oct 13, 2012 22:02:24 GMT Toph said:

I saw your point, and I understood exactly what you were saying. I just fundamentally disagree on every single level.

Fair enough.

Personally, I think you're trying to make two separate points, and confusing them with one. The toyline issue is completely different from the continuity issue.

I'm making no point whatsoever about continuties. I'm only commenting that Hasbro are changing their strategy for the toy line as a whole. Instead of starting from scratch, they're tweaking it.

[The Doctor]

I wonder how Prime toys are selling and how this factored into the decision to keep it going with the 'Beast Hunters' theme refresh.

-Ralph

[Toph]

Oct 14, 2012 10:32:06 GMT Nigel said:

I'm making no point whatsoever about continuties. I'm only commenting that Hasbro are changing their strategy for the toy line as a whole. Instead of starting from scratch, they're tweaking it.

Then you really didn't make that very clear at all with the Ben 10 example. Because Ben 10's toyline reboots from scratch at the start of each series, and is treated as an all new toyline by the toy company, and the toy stores, each time. It actually works against your example, once you remove fictional continuity altogether.

Even still, the instances of "starting over" for the TF toylines are rare. If you insist on breaking apart the UT, that does increase it by three, but each one of those individual lines got a "refresh." Unicron Battles for Armada. Energon Battles for Energon. And I've forgotten what Cybertron's was called.
But I don't think it's entirely fare to break the UT apart, if you're not breaking Ben 10 apart as separate toylines. All three lines follow simular themes, they involve the same characters, and follow the same general direction.

First movie got Allspark Battles. RotF got two: Hunt for the Decepticons and Reveal the Shield, both of which wrongly get treated as separate lines, but they're just continuing RotF as a toyline.
The only lines I can think of that *didn't* get a reresh subline, were RiD and Animated. RiD because it was just a filler until they could get Armada in gear. Animated because it got shut down too soon because of RotF.

The subline refresh is way more common in this franchise than starting from scratch. Not touching G1 or japanese series, as that's an entirely wholey confusing ball of worms once you start in with Victory and BW Neo and such
G2- Didn't get any. It was a dead line.
BW- 3 sublines: Fuzors, Transmetals, and Transmetal IIs.
MW- None. It was a leftover line.
BM- 1: Battle of the Sparks
RiD- None. Though it lasted long enough to, it was just filler.
Armada- 1: The Unicron Battles
Universe- None. It was a repaint line, that linked into preexisting toylines.
Energon- 1: The Energon Battles
Cybertron- 1, but as I said, I forget what it was called.
Classics- An unnamed filler line to keep product on the shelves until the movie toys. Linked into existing toylines, though.
Movie- 1: The Allspark Battles
Animated- None, the line was killed.
Universe 2- None, but linked into prexisting toylines.
Revenge of the Fallen- 2: Hunt for the Decepticons, and Reveal the Shield.
Generations- 1. Though the line itself is just a new name for the Universe Line, Generations now has the Fall of Cybertron subline.
Dark of the Moon- None. Line lasted long enough, but was a retail flop from the start.
Prime- 1: Beast Hunters.
Most lines get one. Rare are those that don't get any. Some lines, if they go on long enough, get multiples (Like Beast Wars and the UT)

So... the refreshes outnumber the restarts. Beast Hunters is to Prime, as countless other sublines have been to their toylines.

Oct 14, 2012 18:09:44 GMT The Doctor said:

I wonder how Prime toys are selling and how this factored into the decision to keep it going with the 'Beast Hunters' theme refresh.

-Ralph

Well, I can't speak for everywhere with certainty, but I think most of the panic over "rare toys" is fan generated. There's not a single figure I haven't found with a little patience in the Dallas area. Prime is almost as bad a shelfwarmer here as DotM was.
I think the Vehicon jet is the only one I haven't seen, and I'm not entirely certain it hasn't been released yet.
And I'm not even actively hunting. Haven't seen Vehicon Jet yet, seen Airrachnid only once, and I've found everything else multiple times (Counting the newly released Depth Charge... er, I mean "Dreadwing.")
But locally, as I said, Prime is almost as bad as DotM was. Terrible value for the price they want doesn't help, either.
So yeah, I think sales are pretty slow all around, prompting this sudden gear change to Beast Hunters.
The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say Hasbro is trying to save face and not admit their new "singlar continuity" or whatever they want to call it isn't the smash success they thought it would be, and given the compklete and total uncoordination behind it, which regurgitates tired themes and designs we've been stuck with 5, going on 6 years now, it's not surprising it's floundering.
But, even though that's how I feel, I admit there's no conspiracy.
But I do think Price, weak engineering, and movie designs being the base, are all the main reasons the toys are falling flat.
Weak fiction isn't helping either (I can barily stand it now. If I were 8, Prime would be the most boring thing I've ever watched)

[Nigel]

None of the refreshes you mention are the same as Prime/Beast Hunters. Battle of the Sparks, Unicron Battles, Allspark Power, Powerlinx Battles, Primus Unleashed: there was no change to the premise, the toys continued pretty much the same as they had before, just with revised packaging (and often consisting primarily of repaints). With Beast Hunters, the premise is actually being changed; the Autobots and Decepticons have to contend with a third faction. The closest to this strategy is the Beast era, and I've already referred to a change in strategy post-beast and am not including that period.

[Toph]

Oct 15, 2012 8:02:27 GMT Nigel said:

None of the refreshes you mention are the same as Prime/Beast Hunters. Battle of the Sparks, Unicron Battles, Allspark Power, Powerlinx Battles, Primus Unleashed: there was no change to the premise, the toys continued pretty much the same as they had before, just with revised packaging (and often consisting primarily of repaints). With Beast Hunters, the premise is actually being changed; the Autobots and Decepticons have to contend with a third faction. The closest to this strategy is the Beast era, and I've already referred to a change in strategy post-beast and am not including that period.

So are we now talking about fiction/universe, or are we talking about toys only?

The last time you said toys only. You started out sopeaking of fiction.
Now we're back to fiction?
I'm seriously growing confused here.

We can't talk about Beast Hunters as fiction yet, because we don't yet know *what* the story behind it is, aside from tiny bits and pieces. And they haven't been terribly reliable as of late with early information.
Going by fiction and what we'd been told early on, in their earliest appearences, we would have thought that the insecticons were going to be their own faction lead by Airachnid. But it settled down and they joined Megatron really quickly, and were just another Decepticon.
The "Beasts" may be the same way. We just don't know.

Going by toys, the toyline as of yet consists mostly of modified repaints of normal prime toys.
So again, I really don't see much, if any difference to the standard refresh.
Hasbro has taken Prime into the left field, in an interesting direction... and it's the first time since Prime was announced I've been interested in collecting the vehicular TFs... the refresh itself is a unique direction TF has never gone in... but it doesn't stand out because it's a refresh. It stands out for the subject of the refresh.
It may seem like it does, though, because we haven't had a gimmickless line suddenly introduce a gimmick concept since Beast Wars introduced Fuzors and Transmetals. But then, since Beast Wars, we've seldom had a line that didn't start and end with a solid line wide gimmick.

And if we're back to including fictional continuity again, as you are now, then the UT absolutely 100% counts. The change over from Armada to Energon, and then to Cybertron is every bit as relevent as a refresh, and not a reboot, and then is definately a solid example of a change in gimmicks and introducing new factions not once, but twice in it's run.

Either way, again Hasbro is not doing anything remotely remarkable with Prime, toywise.
And fictionally (plot twist aside), I don't see anything more remarkable than the change overs during the UT.

[Nigel]

We do know the basic premise of Beast Hunters (both toys and ficton), which Hasbro has unveiled at New York Comic-Con: the Predacons are a third, beast-based faction, led by Predaking. (There are conflicting reports at the moment as to whether the Predacons are allied to the Decepticons against the Autobots or whether they're all fighting each other.) Most of the new toys revealed so far have been within Kre-O rather than the main Prime line, where I think we've only seen Predaking and Twinstrike (aka Sinnertwin), but Hasbro say that Beast Hunters will be the driving force behind the Transformers brand. Yes, there are repaints and remoulds, but these are alongside what looks set to be a slew of new toys based on the new concept.


If I may phrase things differently. In recent years, Hasbro's strategy has been to drop the current Transformers universe fairly frequently, bringing in a different concept and starting from scratch with different aesthetics, gimmicks, story premise and characters; some of these series have been extended by using revised packaging and, in the main, repainted toys. With Prime, they are neither throwing out the concept, nor prolonging its life by repackaging it, they are extending it by revising and expanding on the concept.

[Toph]

Then we'll have to agree to disagree, because once again, in doing this is absolutely nothing new. It's not a new strategy, and it all seems to henge on the cancellation of Animated, being replaced with prime. Because that is the *only* case of "frequently" dropping universes.

We had the Movie universe last with basically a five year run. UT had a five year run.
Just changing to a new title to the packaging in no way counts as rebooting anything.
Movie wasn't rebooted when it became Revenge of the Fallen. ROTF wasn't rebooted when it became Dark of the Moon.
Armada wasn't a reboot when it became Energon, and Energon wasn't a reboot when it became Cybertron.
You're listing Prime RiD to Prime Beast Hunters as significant because it has a sharp change in the play pattern gimmick. Yet, you discount Energon and Cybertron for the exact same reason.
And you discount RotF from movie for even less, because it's a new package and a new title, even though there's not any significant difference in the toys.
And also at the same time you argue fiction does, and does not matter to this debate.

We've been doing this for a few days now, and I'm still extremely puzzed what exactly you're trying to say, because you're defeating and making your case all in the same post. Sometimes your arguments are more for my case.
And I still have no concept of you're trying to say with Ben 10.

So, let's just agree to disaggree.
It has been fun though!

[The Doctor]

Seems simple enough to me. Nigel is talking about how the toylines have repackaged and revamped themselves over the years with Beast Hunters being a revamp of Prime rather than Prime being dropped as a toyline and being replaced with something completely new called 'Beast Hunters'.

-Ralph

[Toph]

On the surface, yeah.
But he keeps going back and forth on a few points, and talks about how rare refreshes are, when they're in fact more common than complete reboots. Even recently.
Does fiction count? Does it not? If not, why doesn't it? What is the bases for frequent reboots in this debate? What counts and what doesn't, and why does it seem to change from post to post? That's the confusing aspect.

[The Doctor]

Fiction is just something used to sell toys. That's all it is.

-Ralph

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Oct 17, 2012 21:42:22 GMT The Doctor said:

Fiction is just something used to sell toys. That's all it is.

-Ralph

I became a fan of the toys before I read any fiction, then discovered the fiction, thought "This is better" and lost interest in the toys.

And that's as a child, not as an adult.

Martin

[The Doctor]

I was referring to how the toy company sells toys rather than commenting on the quality of the fiction used to do so.

-Ralph

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Oct 18, 2012 7:31:45 GMT The Doctor said:

I was referring to how the toy company sells toys rather than commenting on the quality of the fiction used to do so.

-Ralph

Fair enough - that's why the toy company grants the licence for the fiction. But I think Michael Bay / Paramount create Transformers films in order to make money from the movies themselves, and IDW are in it to make money from selling comics. And as far as I'm aware, the Marvel comic made a profit for them (God knows how, at those prices) and wasn't a loss-making product subsidised by Hasbro.

But you're right, if the toys weren't there to begin with, or if Hasbro refused to grant licences to make the fiction, they'd have had to do movies and comics about something else.

Martin

[Toph]

In today's climate, Toys can no longer exist without fiction. But fiction can easily survive without a toyline to push.

It seems any toyline that tries to launch without a supporting fiction flounders and dies.

Now what's really stupid, is when they tie the continuation of a brilliant program into the success of a toyline, such as Thundercats. One of the best shows out there, and the only reason they cancelled it, is because the toyline failed.

Hey, I have an idea to use that logic to our favor! DotM floundered and failed... lets not have any more Michael Bay TF movies! No more violent face stealing Optimus Primes! No more silent Bumblebees! No more transfarts!
Ah... I can dream, can't I?

[Hero]

After seeing TMNT commercially return and benefit from a 3 year hiatus, I reckon Transformers could do with the same approach.

However, a respite for the Transformers brand will never happen at this point and it looks like we're in for crazy reboots for a long time to come.

[Jim]

I wouldn't mind seeing a hiatus, padded out with something like the first Universe - interesting repaints of good moulds. Can't see it happening with TF4 on the way and the "Aligned" continuity being pushed in various media though.

More than anything, I hope IDW holds on to the license for some time to come and people like Barber and Roberts can continue constructing a rich G1-style universe with no reboots.

-Jim

[Toph]

....the hell??? lmao!

[Philip Ayres]

Checks swear filter for other traps and giggles.

[Benn]

Um... The Sausages of Mankind? Relaunch?

<edit> ah, right, theres one, at least...

[Andy Turnbull]

The Sausages of Mankind will be CON-TINUITY.

Andy