Quote:
Originally Posted by malteselegacy
I understand the trademark issue. What I meant was that due to the fact the figure cannot go through the full Rodimus Prime transformation and that Prime didn't have a targetmaster why call him Rodimus Prime? Call him MP Rodimus Major or just Rodimus or even Hot Rodimus.
I know it's a small silly thing to gripe about but just my opinion.
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Oh where do I begin.........
Alright.
So Hasbro lost the rights to Hot Rod in 1989 to Mattel in which they now hold HARDCORE for their Hot Wheels line.
When Hasbro had to do something about the name in turn of the century in 1999-2000, they turned to all kinds of options. Variations (Rodimus Major), new takes (Side Burn), and even repurposing (Hot Shot)...
But in 2003, they went with straight up Rodimus for the Rodimus Convoy character of Superlink and it stuck. Over time, the idea of Rodimus for Hot Rod and Rodimus Prime for his leader form would slowly become accepted. Hasbro would license and keep both of these to this day.
In 2006-07 we had Classics Rodimus and the 3 inch Titanium (which had his Targetmaster Firebolt) both named Rodimus, and later the 6 inch Titanium of Rodimus Prime.
For Animated while both show creation and show "bible" the Allspark Almanac call him Rodimus Prime, the toy calls him Rodimus Minor (Hasbro would go on the record to say this move was to reduce the amount of "PRIMES", in the line)
When we now come to this and your questioning of the name of the USA released Masterpiece you have to keep in mind that Hasbro took the Rodimus Convoy mold and thus no doubt wanted to stay true to his Japanese name convention and keep it Rodimus Prime despite his lacking of a trailer. But he still turns into the Rodimus Prime robot mode, has the Matrix (and what's Rodimus Prime without the Matrix). Sadly it's the MP-01 ported larger Matrix rather then the too-scale fit in J-TF Takara MP-09 Matrix.
Anyhow I ranted enough...