Topic: A Transformers rant not related (directly) to the movies

As a lot of people are aware, there are a few Transformers fanboys on this site. I consider myself one to the point that if it was between video games or Transformers and one of them had to end, I'd quickly tell Mario, Sonic and all the other gaming icons that it's been fun but they need to leave. I prefaced with those statements because:

A: The topic will bore you if your not a fan of Tranformers
and
B: Some of what I'm going to say will sound like I don't like Transformers

So with that said, here is my rant. (I can see my buddy Irken reading this saying, "He better not talk smack about Soundwave" lol)

I grew up with Transformers toys, I was eight when they first started shipping to America and from the moment I laid eyes on Optimus Prime, Megatron, Soundwave, Bumblebee, Starscream and Hound I was hooked. I loved the idea that you were pretty much getting two toys in one and the feeling you got when you pulled the wheels up, then opened a few panels then had a robot. Not just a generic early 80's robot, but one with a personality that shone through through a simple face sculpt. To those who "get it" those sculpts told you everything you needed to know about the character, whether it was the determination in the face of Optimus Prime or the cold, menacing glare of Megatron you knew what each character was about.

Now why am I talking so much about head sculpts on toys? Well, that's the first topic of this rant. Head sculpts and how they are hurting the line now. I promise, I'm not going to just go on about the Michael Bay movies, but this started with them. For some reason the artists working on the movie decided to give the robots (save a few) what I like to call insect heads. Gone were the days that the characters had mouths or face plates, noses (well most of them), eyes or a visor and were replaced with what looked like exo skulls with lots of holes in them. Now, that's fine for the movies since it's a different pocket universe, but the problem is that Hasbro has started integrating that into the main line. There are a few that have the recognizable Transformer head sculpts, but it seems more and more they are trying to make the movie designs the standard and not the exception. When you have a line that uses repaints and retools as much as Transfomers does, the one thing that makes the characters unique is the head sculpts and when they become generic insect looking heads you take away the uniqueness of each character and you can't care about them.

The second, and biggest complaint I have is the actual transformations of the line. Yes, we want good articulation, but at what price are we getting it? I remember a big gripe back in the day were the "Shellformers", which were basically the robot mode pretty much just folded up inside a plastic vehicle that snapped in half. It seems that today we have not only what are updated "shellfomers" but what I have started calling "Puzzleformers" which are the figures such as Classics Ironhide and Ratchet, and the new War For Cybertron line where they have the alt (i.e. not the robot mode) made in such a way that there are breaks all over the design where they snap apart to get more arm, leg or waist articulation. Not only does it break the aesthitics of the alt mode by having cracks all over it where they snap together, the actual parts that snap together never go together completely, so you have actual breaks in the design where the panels don't connect right. Also, it makes what used to take 20 seconds to do, take minutes to do now if you can even remember how every little piece is supposed to fold up without getting the balljoints to come off.

Ok, now that I've done my rant I want to say that there are some really cool new Transformer toys out there. I love the new Power Core Combiners ( the new Combaticon set is just made of win). Hasbro has really started stepping it up with some of the new scout class figures such as Hubcap, and even though I don't like the overly complex transformations, I really like the WFC line.

I'm done now. Add your gripes or tell me I need to be tried in front of the Quintessons or made to spend a few cycles as Wheelies roomate.

here is the Transformers Fan Club thread. Please continue the discussion in there. :3