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05-27-2018, 06:34 PM
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#11
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Re: The Toys That Made Us TF episode
Quote:
Originally Posted by zuffyprime
Man gotta catch this sounds awesome
Which episode number and what season is it guys?
Thx!
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Season 2 episode 2 (I think). But if you have Netflix, you can just look up all the episodes and pick the Transformers one.
Congrats Bryce on having your collection showcased, it is a beauty!
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05-27-2018, 10:06 PM
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#12
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Location: Stratford Ontario
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Re: The Toys That Made Us TF episode
Thanks, one part of it anyways. lol
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05-28-2018, 11:30 AM
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#13
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Re: The Toys That Made Us TF episode
I know this thread has retreated into the background a bit now but I only watched this episode last night and there are some things I really feel I want to say about it.
In general, I thought it was good and told the history of transformers fairly well without getting bogged down in the details.
A few things I really liked:
- How they explained how Gi-Joe begat Japanese robot action figures at Takara, then morphed into Microman and Diaclone and then back into Transformers. I’m sure it more complicated than how they explained it, but close enough.
- That they allowed Peter Cullen to tell the story of how his brother Larry inspired Optimus Prime.
- How they handled the fans reaction to the Bay movies. They acknowledged the essential issues, too much Human emotional storytelling and very different design athletics of the transformers. They also acknowledged that while many fans didn’t really like the way the transformers were portrayed in the movies, some did and everyone agrees the money and higher profile for the brand that the movies created was a good thing overall. They also did all this quickly and didn’t dwell on it, which was probably the right move.
- The way they gave at least equal weight to the contribution of Takara as they did to Hasbro. To a transformers fan this is obvious but I don’t think it was a given for an English language show designed for a western audience.
- The contribution of Bob Budiansky! I’ve always held transformers fans don’t thank this guy enough.
- They acknowledged the competition between Transformers and Gobots.
There was nothing I really didn’t like but a few things made me scratch my head.
- Gobots again! O.K. the Super scale go-bots were simpler but not the smaller ones. Many of them are way more intricate and involved than a similar sized Transformers mini-bot. They also weren’t made of cheaper plastic although they did retail for less. Then again, what were the producers supposed to do? I don’t think to this day anyone really knows why Transformers succeeded and Gobots didn’t, it’s probably a combination of things and that makes for a complex story that would have bogged down the episode.
- Frank Welker, mentioned once by Peter Cullen but otherwise completely missing from the episode.
- The fact that 86 flopped at the box office. Aaron Archer said it was important to the brand overall and that is absolutely true, but if you watched the episode you could easily have assumed it made a huge profit and it totally didn’t.
- The lines ability to continually re-invent itself: Beast wars, Car Robots, Unicron trilogy, Animated, Prime, RID 2015, Rescue bots, etc. I think this plays a huge role in why Transformers are still relevant.
Anyway, that’s it, sorry for the essay and thanks for reading, assuming you got this far!
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05-28-2018, 11:59 AM
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#14
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Re: The Toys That Made Us TF episode
Quote:
Originally Posted by Omegatron
- Gobots again! O.K. the Super scale go-bots were simpler but not the smaller ones.
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That's not true! Most Super Gobots had fairly intricate (and self-contained - unlike tons of Transformers at the time) transformations for the time. Spay-C is a good example.
http://www.toyarchive.com/Gobots/Sup...perGobots.html
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05-28-2018, 01:58 PM
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#15
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Re: The Toys That Made Us TF episode
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pascal
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Sort of. Spay-C and Defendor were at least as intricate as the Transformers of the day. Some of the series 3 Super Gobots: Throttle, Raizor, Clutch, etc. were arguably more complex.
However the original series of Super Gobots, the ones which would have been out when Transformers launched were: Baron Von Joy, Zeemon, Herr Fiend, Bug Bite, Destroyer and Psyco and they all transformed essentially the same way, did not have heads and were fairly simple. I think the later more complex ones were an attempt to complete with Transformers and took design cues from them.
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05-28-2018, 02:56 PM
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#16
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Re: The Toys That Made Us TF episode
But what are you comparing them to? Bug Byte was already more complex than Optimus Prime. I think the only truly complex G1 toy from the first wave was Megatron.
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05-28-2018, 03:15 PM
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#17
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Re: The Toys That Made Us TF episode
I had mixed feelings on the episode.
I just felt a lot of things were left out, but I guess that's a result of the time constraint. Think about all the iterations of Transformers they didn't include. I think Transformers re-inventing itself so often is part of what keeps it alive.
I never felt GO Bots didn't succeed because of a quality issue. In my opinion it was the cartoon that killed Go Bots. I remember at the time they had it on opposite Transformers and it just wasn't anywhere near as interesting. Apparently they were going for a younger audience so that's part of it.
When I was watching it I was thinking how it would be funny if Go Bots had come out on top. Instead of people saying "The voice of Megatron, Frank Welker", they'd be saying "the voice of Scooter, Frank Welker".
The other thing is they were pointing the failure of the Transformers line after a few years at Hasbro's later toys. It's possible, but at the time most toy lines died off after a few years. It was perfectly normal for a toy line to run it's course after a year or two. A lot of people grew up a bit and moved on to Nintendo/Sega.
Transformers was one of the brands that allowed itself to get reboot into Beast Wars and later lines that allowed it to survive. I also think Armada was important and should have gotten a mention as a lot of people were really excited at the move back to vehicles after beasts.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Overall I find the show to be pretty interesting. It makes me wonder how much is left out of other toy lines they covered that I know a lot less about.
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05-28-2018, 04:15 PM
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#18
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Re: The Toys That Made Us TF episode
It was definitley the tie in fiction from Shooter and Budiansky, plus the cartoon that was the reason Transformers throttled Gobots.
Designs were honestly not a big issue for Gobots and as has been pointed out they weren’t really lesser quality(I’d even argue many were higher quality).
For instance to me, being the same scale, Super Gobot Leader 1 is a much better quality toy than the Seekers are(sacrilidge I know ).
Each line had a mixure of stronger and weaker molds.
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05-28-2018, 09:40 PM
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#19
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Re: The Toys That Made Us TF episode
It was very awesome!
They acknowledged the emotional traumatic reaction to the first 30 minutes of The Transformers 1986 film; Decepticons developed excellent aim and suddenly their lasers caused not only battle damage, but death. Funny now, but for 8 and 4 year olds, life got incredibly real.
You guys have really great memories! All I recall from Go Bots was that their cartoon show was garbage compared to Transformers, no offense to the Go Bots fans. That was my feeling at that age watching both.
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05-28-2018, 11:30 PM
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#20
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Location: Niagara, Ontario
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Re: The Toys That Made Us TF episode
Now looking for 3P Masterpiece-style Go-Bots...
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