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Sabrblade wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:I think it will depend heavily on who fills Warden's shoes now he's gone to oversee Power Rangers/Ghostbusters. If that person is G1 focused, things will continue as is more or less.

It's Lenny Panzica.

Thanks for the info!

Roadbuster wrote:

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Hey guys, anyone have their Jazz break?

Mine is still standing proud and unbroken with his comrades. What's up?

I've heard from lots of different sources that the backpack/roof/doors have broken off due to being made out of all clear plastic. Hasbro for their part said that using clear plastic is a budget issue, great way to sell more toys.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:

Roadbuster wrote:

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Hey guys, anyone have their Jazz break?

Mine is still standing proud and unbroken with his comrades. What's up?

I've heard from lots of different sources that the backpack/roof/doors have broken off due to being made out of all clear plastic. Hasbro for their part said that using clear plastic is a budget issue, great way to sell more toys.

Just pointing out that on most carformers, the roof part and the doors are ALWAYS made out of clear plastics with paint aps. It's been a thing since ever. But eh, if you wish to pay 60$ or 80$ for a deluxe because the roof part is made out of 6 or 8 parts and the door out of 6 parts instead of one each, go nut.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:

Roadbuster wrote:

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Hey guys, anyone have their Jazz break?

Mine is still standing proud and unbroken with his comrades. What's up?

I've heard from lots of different sources that the backpack/roof/doors have broken off due to being made out of all clear plastic. Hasbro for their part said that using clear plastic is a budget issue, great way to sell more toys.

I can see why clear plastic could be "cheaper" as it's "unprocessed", meaning having no fillers to make it opaque and flexible, but there's more going on here. Specifically, mold layout limits. Any mold ideally has to make more than one single part, that also goes for clear plastic ones. Making just the roof and windows clear wasn't feasible apparently, so other parts had to be made clear just to make that mold financially worth it.

You'd think they'd have learned from PotP Jazz...

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:

chuckdawg1999 wrote:

Roadbuster wrote:

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Hey guys, anyone have their Jazz break?

Mine is still standing proud and unbroken with his comrades. What's up?

I've heard from lots of different sources that the backpack/roof/doors have broken off due to being made out of all clear plastic. Hasbro for their part said that using clear plastic is a budget issue, great way to sell more toys.

I can see why clear plastic could be "cheaper" as it's "unprocessed", meaning having no fillers to make it opaque and flexible, but there's more going on here. Specifically, mold layout limits. Any mold ideally has to make more than one single part, that also goes for clear plastic ones. Making just the roof and windows clear wasn't feasible apparently, so other parts had to be made clear just to make that mold financially worth it.

You'd think they'd have learned from PotP Jazz...

You'd think but no, now I'm afraid to handle the figure. These are the type of issues that should be brought up at "Fan First" events instead of fluffing Hasbro's collective ego.

Commander class Sludge please! Any one agree?

Bmcbeth wrote:Commander class Sludge please! Any one agree?

First, welcome!
And second, I don't. Most dinos in G1 were around the same size in both beast and bot mode except for swoop who is a wee bit smaller. So they should all be leaders, maybe jumping around Generations and Studio Series. Sludge could have a bit more mass by skipping the silly "pet".

Welcome, BmcBeth!

I wouldn't be opposed to a Commander class Sludge... But I do want all 5 Dinobots to scale well together.
Here's what I'm hoping for--
Hastak figures out how to make Sludge's dino mode really big; substantially bigger than Slag's triceratops mode, but then manage how to make the bot mode no taller than Grimlock...
Some may hate this, but the panels that form the dino torso don't need to be chunky, solid pieces of plastic... If they're panels that create a "shell", so be it.
A couple panel parts could fold into the legs, a couple could fold into the bot "wings"...
And I think this could happen and still look pretty tight, clean, and plenty G1.
After getting Grimlock and seeing Slag, Hastak has a lot of my confidence with these guys.
Fingers crossed before the end of this year we get word about at least one more.

Sowndwave76 wrote:Hastak figures out how to make Sludge's dino mode really big; substantially bigger than Slag's triceratops mode, but then manage how to make the bot mode no taller than Grimlock...

This really doesn't make any sense to me since Slag, Sludge and Snarl were shown to all have about the same size dino body overall with just the head and tails (and Snarl's spine plates) making the main difference between the 3. They all had about the same size base 4 legged body.

I would expect pretty much the same here. There is really no need to overly complicate the transformation for Sludge because they can just leave out a mini figure and use that extra plastic towards the dino neck and tail.

I also wouldn't be surprised if they pull a page out of PotP with Sludge and Snarl and do come creative re-using of parts between the 2 molds. That could be another way for them to justify going a little bigger on Sludge and get the savings from re-using some parts on Snarl.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

Sowndwave76 wrote:Hastak figures out how to make Sludge's dino mode really big; substantially bigger than Slag's triceratops mode, but then manage how to make the bot mode no taller than Grimlock...

This really doesn't make any sense to me since Slag, Sludge and Snarl were shown to all have about the same size dino body overall with just the head and tails (and Snarl's spine plates) making the main difference between the 3. They all had about the same size base 4 legged body.

I would expect pretty much the same here. There is really no need to overly complicate the transformation for Sludge because they can just leave out a mini figure and use that extra plastic towards the dino neck and tail.

I also wouldn't be surprised if they pull a page out of PotP with Sludge and Snarl and do come creative re-using of parts between the 2 molds. That could be another way for them to justify going a little bigger on Sludge and get the savings from re-using some parts on Snarl.

I definitely don't think Sludge needs to be Commander Class, that's overkill.

Bmcbeth wrote:Commander class Sludge please! Any one agree?

No, but how about a commander class Pretender shell to put Grimlock inside XD

blackeyedprime wrote:

Bmcbeth wrote:Commander class Sludge please! Any one agree?

No, but how about a commander class Pretender shell to put Grimlock inside XD

It would rather be a TITAN.
And for some strange reason, I want that!

TF-fan kev777 wrote:This really doesn't make any sense to me since Slag, Sludge and Snarl were shown to all have about the same size dino body overall with just the head and tails (and Snarl's spine plates) making the main difference between the 3. They all had about the same size base 4 legged body.

I would expect pretty much the same here. There is really no need to overly complicate the transformation for Sludge because they can just leave out a mini figure and use that extra plastic towards the dino neck and tail.

I also wouldn't be surprised if they pull a page out of PotP with Sludge and Snarl and do come creative re-using of parts between the 2 molds. That could be another way for them to justify going a little bigger on Sludge and get the savings from re-using some parts on Snarl.

Yeah, animation was not consistent. However between the differences in species, it's not absurd that Sludge would have a bigger dino mode than Slag and Snarl:

This image exaggerates how close Snarl is, but Sludge is clearly bigger than Slag, and not just in terms of height.


The image quality of this one is bad, but even a bit further away Sludge is bigger.


Here's another where Snarl looks a bit oversized imo, but Sludge's torso is still bigger than Slag's.



Of course Hastak could make them all have similar-sized dino torsos.
But it definitely makes sense that Sludge could be slightly bigger than Slag and Snarl in dino mode.

*edit: My opinion that Sludge's dino mode should be bigger than Slag's is not me also saying I think Sludge should be Commander Class.

I don't see them wasting a Commander class on Sludge to be fair, he can be done easily in Leader. Thinking on it, i still don't think we'll see a commander class for any Studio Series at the moment, even with the two a year we will be getting from now on.

I'd actually be willing to pass on The Ark Titan, if Hasbro had in fact decided to make Kingdom Rodimus instead the first CC for SS, and then instead give Kingdom a better suited CC Toy.

o.supreme wrote:I'd actually be willing to pass on The Ark Titan, if Hasbro had in fact decided to make Kingdom Rodimus instead the first CC for SS, and then instead give Kingdom a better suited CC Toy.

Galvatron is in Kingdom though what's better then having his rival in the same line?

Besides I think there is some internal resilience at hasbro with giving SS a Commander Class. I'd wager that Commander Class is going to stay main line Generations for the foreseeable future.

ZeroWolf wrote:

o.supreme wrote:I'd actually be willing to pass on The Ark Titan, if Hasbro had in fact decided to make Kingdom Rodimus instead the first CC for SS, and then instead give Kingdom a better suited CC Toy.

Galvatron is in Kingdom though what's better then having his rival in the same line?

Besides I think there is some internal resilience at hasbro with giving SS a Commander Class. I'd wager that Commander Class is going to stay main line Generations for the foreseeable future.

Not necessarily, as they were considering commander class for Scavenger with Overload being a voyager before they went with Leader for both. I don't think they are reluctant to use Commander for SS, I think it is more of a lack of proper bots to fit the size. Infernocus is the only one I think think of easily that would fit. SS Grimlock would have been another fit, but they already did him at Leader Class before Commander class existed.

ZeroWolf wrote:Galvatron is in Kingdom though what's better then having his rival in the same line?

But Scourge and Hot Rod are not .... All the characters featured in TF:TM should have been in SS86 if Hasbro really wanted to go that route. Grimlock, and Jazz could have been in Kingdom, since they were not exclusive to the movie. The "split" in the first place is a sore spot obviously. Hasbro in their *wisdom* of trying to fit so much in one year, and spilling over into other sublines just created a whole new set of problems.

ZeroWolf wrote:Besides I think there is some internal resilience at hasbro with giving SS a Commander Class. I'd wager that Commander Class is going to stay main line Generations for the foreseeable future.

I'm sure there is some reservation on Hasbro's end. But aside from Rodimus in TF:TM, I'm sure there are hardcore fans of the Live Action movies that know several characters that would probably qualify to be given a CC size toy.

o.supreme wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:Galvatron is in Kingdom though what's better then having his rival in the same line?

But Scourge and Hot Rod are not .... All the characters featured in TF:TM should have been in SS86 if Hasbro really wanted to go that route. Grimlock, and Jazz could have been in Kingdom, since they were not exclusive to the movie. The "split" in the first place is a sore spot obviously. Hasbro in their *wisdom* of trying to fit so much in one year, and spilling over into other sublines just created a whole new set of problems.

Hot Rod doesn't have a 'rival', so Scourge being in SS86 with him is meaningless on that score. Obviously, they didn't want it to be exclusively characters that showed up in the movie because of Jazz, Grimlock and the upcoming Dinobots - more like 'heavily featured' characters. I could just as easily see Blaster and Perceptor getting thrown into SS86 as I could into whatver main line they do next year (or one in one and one in the other, even) for flexibility purposes because they do share a somewhat significant scene in the movie.

If anything, I would lament (as you have) the need to squeeze out so much product in one year that you needed to create a space for them, rather than quibble over who ended up where - but it's not like this is the first time ever that something like this has happened. Either way, I'm enjoying the figures with the same very minor complaints I have about anything.

I also don't know who would qualify from TFtM as a Commander Class figure...
I don't see that happening in SS86. Possibly ever.

I do think the objective/spirit/aesthetic of SS86 will continue.
Although I've said it before, just using "SS86" on packaging wouldn't be that crazy.
Who cares that the anniversary year of the movie is over.
It's simply marketing; helping to distinguish one style of movie figure from another.


While I don't care either way, I could see it working out either way--

The next live action movie may in fact have plenty of characters and figures to fill up a full years worth of waves... But IF it doesn't, SS86 could easily fill slots.

IF Hastak decides to expand the Generations line into older series and is at all worried about sales, they could take figures that could've fit in the SS86 line (ditch the SS86 packaging), and release the G1 characters in Generations.

And honestly, they could probably manage doing both. Just like we're seeing with SS86 and Kingdom.
Which seems like a good possibility.
Some are sick of G1, but plenty aren't. And it still sells well. Especially with Hastak upping their game in recent lines.

Sabrblade wrote:The only TFTM character I can think of who would work as a Commander class figure is Devastator, sold specifically in Combiner form as a single unit rather than as six individual Deluxe components packaged separately in one box.

I could go for that, too. I like the idea.

sol magnus wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:The only TFTM character I can think of who would work as a Commander class figure is Devastator, sold specifically in Combiner form as a single unit rather than as six individual Deluxe components packaged separately in one box.

I could go for that, too. I like the idea.

I HATE the idea... as a Commander figure.
However, I would love to see this made by a very good action figure maker, with the Hasbro license. Usually, they are obligated to make their licensed figures non-transformable. So something like a "R.E.D Series" Devastator that would be the same size or a wee bit bigger than your standard CW combiner would work perfectly.

Have we considered that maybe Studio Series and WFC have their own individual figure budgets? Due to the complexity of the usual Studio Series crowd, SS may have a slightly bigger budget for each figure. That could explain why characters such as Grimlock and Slug come with tub-bound accessories nearly-static minifigures and still manage to be large.

If there's different budgets, then maybe there's reasons why certain characters were put in WFC or SS86.