Firstly, you win. Ewwww. I wasn't even aware of the existence of Animorphs, and now I see--literally--the meaning behind the phrase "ignorance is bliss." Rachel? That was just evil. Evil. I'm talking Good Friends and A Bottle of Pills evil.

 

I loved the Throttlebots as depicted in the G1 comics. I thought they were extremely cool...the toys just did not translate. I owned one Sparkabot-ONE-(Guzzle) and swore "never again." There was just a total package of bad with them that just irked me: everything from their names to their mottos to their actual toys. I have just never liked the exectution on those type of TFs, which is why they and the Battlechargers, Throttlebot (toys) and the Firecons just bug me.

 

Of course, I'd have liked the Battlechargers if they looked even remotely like their G1 designs in the cartoon, comics and the original TFU...because those designs actually were sweet. Maybe they'll be updated soon?

I want a show accurate toy based on BM Jetstorm because of his character on the show, not because any redeeming qualities of his non-show accurate toys.

Maybe Hasbro should remake some Beast Machines figures for Generations or a future Classics-style line

I loved the Throttlebots as depicted in the G1 comics. I thought they were extremely cool...the toys just did not translate.

The toys came first though. It's not really the toys' fault that the comic and cartoon artists weren't toy-accurate. I still say they're really fun toys to play with. Did anyone seriously not have fun playing with them in '87??

 

I owned one Sparkabot-ONE-(Guzzle) and swore "never again." There was just a total package of bad with them that just irked me: everything from their names to their mottos to their actual toys. I have just never liked the exectution on those type of TFs, which is why they and the Battlechargers, Throttlebot (toys) and the Firecons just bug me.

The Sparkabots are much better engineered than Battlechargers, Throttlebots and definitely better than the Firecons. Compared to the Firecons the Sparkabots have defined and recognisable alt modes. Guzzle is a tank, Fizzle is a race car and Sizzle is a sports car. The Firecons transform into some kind of strange cybernetic monster... things. The Sparkabots' transformations aren't completely inspiring - but remember that these toys are engineered around the spark gimmick - but the Sparkabots have more interesting transformations than the Firecons - and unlike the Firecons, Battlechargers and Throttlebots, they each have individual transformation schemes - they're similar but still distinct from each other. All the Firecons just turn around, open the arms, pull down the beast heads and that's it. Another thing that makes the Sparkabots better is that they have more articulation than the Firecons, Throttlebots and Battlechargers. Battlechargers and Throttlebots came before the Sparkabots/Firecons, so let's give HasTak the benefit of the doubt and assume that they'd attempted to improve on the Battlechargers and Throttlebots in giving these toys some more decent articulation in robot mode. All of the Sparkabots can swing their arms up and down, which by G1 standards is reasonably decent articulation (it's about as much articulation as G1 Huffer). The Firecons - toys made in the same year and meant to be the Decepticon equivalent of Sparkabots, can't even do that. Okay, they can move their legs, but I'd rather have arm articulation.

 

IMO the Throttlebots and Sparkabots may not be the best toys ever made, but I reckon they're a lot better than some people give them credit for. The Battlechargers and Firecons are just inexcusably bad though (considering that the Battlechargers came _after_ the Jumpstarters they're a great leap backward in engineering, and as I mentioned before, the Firecons came out the same year as the Sparkabots and are yet far inferior in design/engineering).

 

Of course, I'd have liked the Battlechargers if they looked even remotely like their G1 designs in the cartoon, comics and the original TFU...because those designs actually were sweet. Maybe they'll be updated soon?

This is again an unfair expectation considering that the toys came first. You can't possibly expect HasTak to build a time machine, travel forward in time to see how Sunbow/Marvel would design their models based on the toys, then travel back in time to configure their toys to look like the character models. And I personally don't like it when Transformers are engineered around animation models at all, because animators can cheat laws of physics reality and also don't have budget concerns. Look at the movie toys... it's jolly hard for HasTak to get their toys to look like the movie models because they're just so complex. Optimus Prime has over 10,000 different parts in his CGI model which is really hard to translate even to a Leader Class toy (and IMO they did a pretty good job with both the TF1 and ROTF Leader Class OPs). Animated's another example, although with Animated both the show models and toys were designed in tandem with each other - but we still see a lot compromises in the Animated toys because they were designed around animation models, such as the ample amount of false kibble, like Bumblebee's chest. Then there's Shockwave whose design is just so underwhelmingly ordinary (Punch/Counterpunch and especially Doubledealer were far better designed by the standards of their day).

 

I much prefer HasTak to make the toys first then let animators design their models based on the toys - which in Transformers, happens most of the time. So complaining about the toys not looking like the animation models that came _after_ makes no sense.

 

Maybe Hasbro should remake some Beast Machines figures for Generations or a future Classics-style line

They kinda did with Universe Cheetor... which was an epic fail of a toy. (I don't own it, but I've seen and handled it IRL)

I want a show accurate toy based on BM Jetstorm because of his character on the show, not because any redeeming qualities of his non-show accurate toys.

 

I want Jetstorm's on-screen appearance re-rendered with a model that resembles his awesome toys. :tfgrin :tflaugh