I used to hate Ultra Magnus and not care about Cyclonus, but honestly UM's "I'm just a soldier" additude grew on me and Cartoon Cyclonus struggling to keep the decepticons together despite Galvatron's ape shottedness was admirable. Probably the 2 most honorable characters in the whole G1 story.

Same here. I sell them all, and only retain the Voyager Metallic Megatron.

Movie Ironhide is a definite one for me. Loved him at first, but his general floppyness and a lot of poor design choices make me not even bother taking him out now.

Dammit, I missed a chance to get Alt. Jaguar Ravage. Sad. So sad.

Classics Grimlock is incredibly GEEWAN. He's a carbon copy of Pretender Grimlock. And I still hate the figure. So very much.

Not really.

What they have in common is:

1. A tail weapon (which, let's be honest, the majority of Transformer dinosaurs have).
2. Dinosaur legs for arms (which, let's be honest, the majority of Transformer dinosaurs have).
3. Dinosaur arms hanging off their robot legs.

The two figures have incredibly different deco, transformation schemes, play features, and - I would argue - design aesthetics.






Edit: spelling bad.

Sorry to be off topic for a moment, but I just opened my Classics Grimlock this morning (I'm letting go of my MISB mindset) and I like him for the most part, except for not being able to see his legs for the dino-hide. They should have hinged that so it would flair away from the legs in a Star Wars Snow Trooper (don't know the name of the actual figure) cape kind of thing. It could have been really cool. So, veering back on topic mostly, I never liked him enough to open him until this morning, and now I mostly like him.

hmmmmm....this is interesting especially since I am currently setting up my display room at my place (finally, pix will be up soon).

Armada/Energon Tidal Wave has put a new niche in my heart and would love them to keep up that kind of character. That being said, pretty much any and all of the energon line save shockblast and the terrorcons...I mean why did they bother having Altmodes? But still Megs rocked, and I still like the combiners...

I still love my minicons. Best gimick EVER. lil robots that make the bigger robots even cooler.

oh and non show figures seem to be getting cooler and cooler with every line.

pretender grimlock is a chunk of shyt, as were all the g1 pretender classics or whatever. usually how I feel about one doesn't change from my initial reaction out of the box. unless I appreciate them more.

I'm slowly starting to realize that TF:TM and everything to do with it is like, the death of Transformers.

And that any characters introduced post-season 1 and pre-TF:TM are my favorites.

Though I am also a big fan of the Autobot Headmasters.

That is unless you like Happy Meal toyz.

Personally, I never liked them even as a Kid. The death began with the death of Prime.

what is takara tomy gonna do with all this grimlock hate? aren't they working on a masterpiece grimlock?

i always thought it was a stupid idea but everyone seemed to be all for it... how the tides change...

Yeah I dunno... he's one of the core characters, and I guess the whole "giant robot meathead" thing has a certain appeal.

I'm humored by the idea that the entire fandom secretly has great disdain for Grimlock, but no one has wanted to say anything about it until now.

I still like Grimlock, can't really put a reason as to the why, but I still do, and still can't wait to finally find and grab an Grimlock. As for an MP incarnation, I don't think it's really necessary, but I've been saying that since the initial speculation began.

I've hated nearly every character ever introduced in TFTM 86' until classics/universe came about. Hot Rod is one of my favorite toys nows. I still hate his G1 toys and the same goes for Galvatron. While his new toy isn't on the top of the heap or anything it is a good toy and sure beats the pants off of the G1 incarnation. Blurr: animated toy looks great and I can't wait to get a hold of it.

crying to I.S.T.

They live in fear of him.

I for one welcome our new insect robot dinosaur overlords king.

(Seriously, "Me Grimlock go with you, but me Grimlock go with you ALONE" was comedy gold!)

~Matt Booker

third picture down

http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Grimloc...toon_continuity

I love all the TF Wiki picture captions

That's why I love transformers.wikia.com over wikipedia.com for tf information. They have a great sense of humor.

~Matt Booker

core or overrated?

oh, Armada and Energon totally killed any love I had for Unicron...

well, personally I like Grimlock in g1 - i absolutely love the Dinobots. I have 2 of each of the original G1's. I can't speak much for him behind that, except for having him in the BT line - which he was a Ford Mustang - AWESOME car - and a good choice for the character. I personally have absolutely "NO" qualms with Grimlock. But then again, I don't have any associations of him other than G1 and BT line.

Almost all true grimlock toys(i.e. ones that aren't repaints of BW Dinobot, which was a decent figure) own your mom.





Edit: I wonder how many other topics i don't read in TF:GD reference me.... </egomaniac>

G1 Grimlock is a great toy. His Alt figure is also real nice that is if you haven't thrown it out the window half way through.

His other figures though just have to make you wonder? I don't have the Pretender toy but it looks far from decent, which is why I don't have it. Energon Grim is just horrible, can't believe I was happy to buy that. Classics Grim has a nice alt, the robot though, from the waste up YEAH, from the waste down WTF? He'd still be OK though but his legs fall off easy. Aninated Grimlock, again, technicly correct, but crappy limbs and an exposed underbelly with minimal details(why isn't that robot jaw hinged?) just makes him not work as well as he should.

Grimlock is like the Syble Shepard(was watching Taxi Driver last night) of Transformers. He started at the top and slowly started climbing down the ladder. You still can't help but love him though, and hope one day he's done right again.

He was in the show a LOT during the first half of season 2... I think when you have someone who's just around all the time, people start thinking that they're cool characters. RATCHET'D

Hey, when you have a nickname like "Greasefinger" or "Cool Hand Lube", bots just want to be around you.

Don't hate the playa, hate the game.

I should start a "characters who were on the cartoon a lot despite totally sucking and having no reason to exist" thread. But I suppose we already have a G1 season 3 discussion thread somewhere.

That would be nothing more than a giant wheelie batch fest.

Finally found and grabbed my Grimlock yesterday, and it has caused my Grimlock love to increase very much so. I love this thing.

Crap in a hat. My brother found me a Grimlock four weeks ago in Tennessee and he's been sitting on it since then (I still haven't seen one in the wild. Well, except for one in a massively damaged box). I get it (and Slag and Soundwave) this Saturday and I'm chewing my fingernails in anticipation.

Soundwave is a

Wants Snarl, pissed I passed on one one day, in favor of Soundwave, then went back and it was gone.

Not much has changed for me.

I still hate the BWs/BM/RID toy asthetic.

Alts were fun while they lasted but the line isn't exactly fun in the way most other lines were. Most are stored while a select few line the top of my desk.

Movie line was a nice change. The realistic alt modes, and transformations made them interesting enough to keep around. They're all in storage but I don't mind. I'll dig em up again when I have a shelf to pose/display em all in properly.

Classics- Nice for nostalga buffs but a good as the toys are I just don't care about any of them. I was considering continuing with Universe but now I'm just empathetic to care either way about em.

Armada- Not so big on them as I was but I can still appreciate the toys for what they were. That and the Universally hated Armada is the first TF series since G1 to draw me back into liking Transformers. Still love deluxe Hotshot, and Scavenger. Jetfire was pretty kick ass too.

Energon/Cybertron- Most fun toy lines to date and best series arcs outside of Beastwars. I have Superlink and Galaxy Force to thank for nearly collecting every toy in both lines. Energon had its ups and downs but Cybertron was pretty solid in the toys Hasbro/Takara produced. Quality control for the most part was also pretty good. Optimus Prime, and the Cybertron Defense team still remain as some of my all time favorites.

Animated-Love the cartoon but the toys aren't grabbing me as much as previous lines. That and quality issues are having me reconsider buying many more. So far I only have Bumblebee, Lockdown, and Black Arachnia and though I like them all the quality of plastic is a serious down grade from the Energon/Cybertron lines. I felt the same way about most of the first classics.

One thing that's changed is my dismisal of non show characters. I collected nearly everything including most repaints and now I'm wondering why. The Galvatron repaint was win as was the Dark Crumplezone retool but everything else to me is now pretty meh. Still need an LC Starscream to finish up with.

Not much has changed in regards to my opinions of the actual characters. Except maybe Prowl, I used to love the guy as kid but now I only sort of like him. Jazz I never really cared for, but now I'm just loving him(except you Movie Jazz I still don't like you).

Toy wise my opinion keep fluctuating. About half of my collection consists of BW and Armada. Out of those two series I pretty much really dislike the figs I have. Only exceptions really from BW are Depth Charge, Tiger Hawk and a few basics I have. Everything else is just a "why the heck did I want this again". Armada I have similar feelings for. The minicons I still love, same with bendy prime and thundercracker. Everything else though I really don't like (I'm looking at you sideways )

My G2/Reissue's I still love to death. Although I'm kinda wondering now why I bothered getting Red Alert. I was never a fan of his character and the toy is just Sideswipe in different colors.

BM I pretty much can't stand anymore. Only got Spystreak and Mirage from the toy line. Looking back at the show I wonder why the heck I even watched it.

Rid is mostly misses for me. Still loving my Scourge and am ever grateful that I have such an awesome mom who got him for me along with UM.

Energon/Cybertron broke what armada started. It was these three series that actually thrust me into a huge dark age. Didn't actually come out of the dark ages until I heard about SDCC Nemesis and the other Universe 2.0. I just utterly despise everything to do with these two series. Only figs I have from either are Scattorshot and Armorhide which I got in a buy one get one free type deal and that plane omnicon. I really wanted scattorshot back that, but now I don't really like him. Armorhide I really hated, but now I love the little bugger. That plane guy I actually like alot, I just wish those missile things would stay on better.

Alternators I liked alot as a series. I do wish I had found more other then just Grimlock and Tracks. I'm still kicking myself for not getting Wheeljack when I saw him. Design wise I like them alot. They took a whole new spin to the transformers line. Toy wise not liking them so much. Better to display not to play. I keep getting paranoid whenever I touch Grimlock that he's going to break.

Classics I wish I had come out of my dark ages earlier to get some of these guys. I'm glad TakaTomy came out with the Henkei line, but they don't have cliffjumper though.

The movie line I just never liked. Then again I didn't like the movie either. Yeah I said it. Aside from Scorpy and that crazy rabid little cellphone robot I didn't like anything about the movie. Toy wise I think I only like Stockade because he sort of resembles a monkey and I really like monkey's.

G1 Springer's toy I loved, then cooled on slightly when I found out that a lot of people thought it was semi-sucky because of the similar altmodes (and because his character didn't appeal), but now I love it again.

Movie toys took me nearly a full year to warm up to and start buying.

RiD Galvatron diminished a little in my eyes when I discovered that the Hasbro version of RiD Megatron used the Devil Gigatron mold and I could have had all ten modes in my preferred purple color scheme.

Most of the non-Transmetal BW toys completely failed to get my attention. However, I recently paid actual money for a second-hand Silverbolt, and I'm still happy with the toy.

A couple of the Titaniums have seemed like slices of pure fried gold until I came back later and gave them a much harder look.

It took me a long while to get over the mold reuse in the Energon combiners, but I eventually picked up all the Bruticus limbs and I'm still happy with them.

I thought Universe Whirl would be cool but I wasn't a fan of Minicons. After getting him, I now think he could REALLY use some more articulation, and I think his Minicons are brilliant.

Before getting a RiD Landfill, I thought it was going to be pretty cool. After I got it, I was significantly put off by the design mediocrities.

I put off getting Energon Scorponok for a long time because I thought the jet mode was too kibbly. It wasn't until I thought "space-jet/mining-machine? That's AWESOME!" that I picked it up - practically an overnight reversal.

Cybertron Prime was really interesting until I looked more closely at his cab transformation. Likewise most of the Cybertron Defense Team.

Wait even WWI Grimlock? I mean he talked dumb but thoroughly out smarted Starscream and the his brothers leading them right into his trap. I think it wasn't that he was dumb I just think he had vocal processor problems. Kind of like what he wanted to say didn't make it to his mouth properly.

Yea, on G1 Grimlock's Telatraan page, its saw it had alot of origins for the dinospeak....


And BTW now that I said that, the way grimlock talks reminds me of Tree/chutespeak for no reason. I still think Treespeak is better. (obscure Bionicle reference)

WW Grimlock sucks because they forced in his tard-speak to a story where it didn't fit with a ghey explanation. IDW Grimlock solved that problem by having him speak normally, but then had to go ruin the whole thing by making him a vein, superficial whiner in Shockwave's Spotlight.

Really, there's no way to do Grimlock "right." Any attempt seems forced.

Totally agree.


I disagree. I think the character has story value as the antithesis of Prime in the Autobot forces. I see their relationship as being a weird kind of noble reflection of the Megatron/Starscream dynamic. You just have to be willing to let go of the Dinosaur alt. mode (and even the classification of "Dinobot" - spelled with a "y" or not) and the stupid caveman speak to do it right, and thus far no one seems willing to do that.

I don't think he was trying to be vein or superficial he just thought that all of the available alt modes were too weak for battle, and too small (all except for the Mammoths were small mammalians that wouldn't support the size of the Dynobots). I mean he specifically said he wanted something with more bite. As for his speech problems in WWI if I remember correctly it was explained that his vocal processors were damaged during his time in the Gladiatorial arenas. I think it was during the conversation between Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp as they were walking into Grimlock's trap in WWI #0.

They've already done that, he's called Ultra Magnus.

(just bein' snarky)

We can't deal with that right now!



~Matt Booker

Oh, now that I think about it, Ultra Magnus needs to be in the movie. So, he lands in protoform stage, right, and scans a truck that is painted white and blue but otherwise looks EXACTLY like Movie Prime's alt-mode. Then he transforms and checks himself out and he's all, "Nah, f*ck this!" and finds a gigantic-ass heavy-duty military missile carrier/APC thing and scans that instead.

That would be

EDIT: But if they decide to do this they should keep it a secret so that when it happens the fanboys can be all "GOD D*MMIT F*CKING MICHAEL BAY! ULTRA MAGNUS =/= WHITE PRI...oh. Nevermind, then."

It would be the ultimate

Best idea ever.

Well see, that's how I would do Grimlock. He wouldn't have the caveman speak, and he wouldn't have the dinosaur alt mode. He would have some heavily armoured military vehicle as his alt mode, and he would have the standard Grimlock colour scheme and look like Grimlock in pretty much every other way.
He would be at odds with the way Prime and the other Autobots do business, essentially having the same relationship with Prime that you described.

That's all good, except that as you mentioned no one seems willing to leave the dino alt mode and the caveman talk behind. And I would say the reason for that is that the majority of fanboys wouldn't accept Grimlock without either the caveman speak or the dino alt mode, even if the character is true to what Grimlock is suppose to be. So in that regard it is near impossible to do Grimlock right. As soon as you do him right the fanbase will reject him.

Again, I disagree. There would be some initial resistance, sure. But Michael Bay proved beyond all reasonable doubt that Transformers Fanboys* eat what they're fed. And once they've got a taste of it done right, they'll ask for more.

I hold out hope that someone, someday, will give me the Grimlock I long for. Or maybe I'll just do it myself.






*Except for Glue. Will of steel, that man.

The thing is though that he rejected the available alt modes of ice age Earth because he didn't like the way they looked. Which was completely out of his supposed character of a warrior who will do whatever it takes to get the job done.
His speech pattern in WW was totally forced. He couldn't be a dino, because he was on Cybertron, so the writers felt they had to force his caveman speak on us. Of course he only had his caveman speak because he was a dinosaur/had a simple brain in the G1 show. So they gave us some ghey backstory of a damaged voice processor to force a lame holdover from the 80's in.

All of the above ended up coming across very, very forced in an attempt to make it more like 1985 (even if it was at the expense of the story, and what the character of Grimlock could have been).

I would like to think you're right, because a Grimlock done right would be welcome. We'll have to wait and see I guess


I'm actually in the middle of writing my own fanfic, with Grimlock done as was discussed a few posts back. I just have to get around to finishing it
[/shamelessselfplug]

But then we wouldn't have phrases like, "Me Grimlock, BADASS!"



~Matt Booker

I have this recurring dream where the Dinobots are like the cows in this Far Side strip.


Alone, they sit around talking about particle acceleration and playing chess and stuff. Then the other Autobots come around and they're all "We Dinobots. We dummies." Then the Autobots leave and they go back to talking about Cybertronian economic theory.