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Re: Zeta ZV-02 Core Star (Unicron)
Zeta's Unicron was, and still is, a huge embarassment for Hasbro -- it's a better-designed figure that hides all of its kibble in bot mode, and more importantly, isn't being produced by a massive multinational corporation that somehow still needs to crowdsource its development.
Hasbro was well within its rights to slap Zeta down over IP infringement, mind you. But it does expose how little imagination went into WFC Unicron's design outside of the chomping maw gimmick. You could even say it's that one gimmick, primarily, that compromised the overall engineering of the figure. To make the chomping mouth possible, it had to be built on one large panel that doesn't collapse, split, or otherwise transform. In bot mode it could only sit on his back as a giant kibbly plate with the planet horns hanging off it, and to cover it up they used more nesting panels. And as long as they've made that choice, the rest of the kibble could just collapse around the legs. The end result is ultimately kind of lazy, although still with impressive presence owing to its size.
Zeta showed them up in a big way, and right in the middle of Hasbro's crowdfunding campaign. Imagine if HasLab saw Core Star and immediately went back to the drawing board to look for improvements in their own design? They could easily do it, since the story we've been sold is that production of Unicron will only go ahead if they meet their goal of 8000 backers by October. Plenty of time to modify the CAD files and 3D print another prototype.
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