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KFGatri

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That for me is the biggest issue right there. For some reason it seems like it's damn near impossible to get a complete set of seekers released in a timely fashion. I didn't start collecting again until 2007 after long absence. As such, I have all the U.S. released Deluxe molds of Classics Starscream out since then, but missed out on Skywarp and Ramjet. I have Movie 1 Starscream, never even saw Thundercracker, and picked up Walmart exclusive Skywarp.

You want to see fandom flip its $#/+ on both sides of the issue Hasbro? Release a box set of that Classics mold as Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker, Thrust, Dirge, Ramjet, Acid Storm, and (really drive sales) that Sunstorm Deluxe people have been clamoring for since forever. Slap a $100 price tag on it and call it a day.

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Classics Skywarp and Ramjet came out in 2006/7...

 

As I've often said, repaints aren't always bad. But I prefer good meaningful repaints. Cyberfire Bumblebee? WTF? It's just Malibu Stacey with a new hat... pass. The Seekers on the other hand - in the eyes of fans - are entirely different and unique characters. They're not all variants of Starscream (physically they are, but in terms of characters, they're not).

 

Also, there's a long history of these characters which is deeply ingrained in Transformers lore and psyche. Each Seeker is an individual and unique character that fans have known to grow and love. We've grown up with:

* The treacherous Starscream whose null rays can shut down mechanisms

* The loyal but not very innovative Skywarp who can teleport and has heat-seeking missiles

* Thundercracker who deafens opponents with sonic booms and doesn't fully believe in the Decepticon cause (which has only been RECENTLY explored in TF canon, can you believe that?!?)

* Dirge... the scary Goth who uses fear as a weapon. The dude's a Sith!

* Ramjet, the crazy mofo who's like a supersonic flying charging bull!

* The arrogant Thrust who's really a coward, and his loud and showy tricks are all a facade that hides his lack of decent fighting ability.

 

So when we miss out on any of these Seekers, we're not just missing out on "another jet" or yet another repaint of Starscream, we're missing an entire individual who is well established in TF Lore. Characters like Sunstorm and Acidstorm and Jetblade etc., I don't really care about because they're not really widely established characters. They're just really obscure characters that got made into toys -- Sunstorm originally appeared for like a second in "More Than Meets The Eye, Part 1", and Acid Storm only appeared in one scene with the other two Rainmakers in "Transport to Oblivion." Yeah I know Sunstorm had a more prominent appearance in DW comics, but that was after the eHobby toy came out. For the most part, these are fairly insignificant characters that I really don't care about. I'd get Classics Sunstorm if they released it as a regular store release, but if it were a limited exclusive I wouldn't go out of my way to get it -- and I certainly won't lose any sleep if they never make this toy; their priority should be with the main six G1 Seeker characters, preferably the first year Seekers first (Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker), then the second year Seekers next if the first three sell well enough.

 

But as DecepticonSpike pointed out, DotM isn't much better - Hasbro only giving us Starscream and Thundercracker as Deluxes with no Skywarp. Yes, TakaraTOMY produced Skywarp - but that was for their market. It's something that Hasbro should do for our markets (and hopefully with a tech specs profile that's written in coherent English! (although the Engrish of Skywarp's bio amuses me) :P)

 

I wish Hasbro would realise this... it made little sense to me for Hasbro to give us just Starscream, Skywarp and Ramjet in Classics. We had to wait half a decade before getting Thundercracker in retail, let alone Dirge and Thrust... *sigh*

 

They were inconsistent with the movie Sky Raiders too... we got Starscream straight off of course, then they made Thundercracker and that was it! Where's Skywarp?? Two years later we get Skywarp and the rest of the Sky Raiders - and of course, Thrust and Dirge are Deluxes while the others are Voyagers. Right (although Dirge is a very nice Deluxe :)).

 

Btw, remember that Hasbro and Takara are contractually forbidden from "cross contaminating" each other's market. So it's not quite accurate to say that Hasbro decided to release DotM Skywarp as a Japanese exclusive isn't entirely accurate -- it's fairer to say that Hasbro decided NOT to make/release DotM Skywarp at all, but Takara decided to go ahead with it for their market. That would explain the craphouse English (obviously badly translated from Japanese) on the card -- Takara are obviously trying to make it look like it was done by Hasbro, probably to make the packaging look consistent with Starscream and Thundercracker. It's the same with United Frumble... WHY haven't Hasbro given us these moulds for RtS/Generations??? The moulds already exist -- there's no need to spend any money on further R&D... just take the moulds, package them and distribute! They would sell like hotcakes!! I'm a fan of RIRFIB, but considering how _impossible_ United Frumble were to get (unless I were willing to pay some stupid inflated price, which I'm not) I'm honestly not fussed... they could release them as FIRRIB and I'd still buy them!

 

I wonder how long it'll take them to realise that random and pointless repaints like all those Bumblebees and Optimus Primes just don't work! Oh look, another shelfwarming Bumblebee repaint.

Come on Hasbro... you want to make money, we want to give you our money -- provided you give us what we want! You make more Bumblebee variants? Most fans won't buy them. The only kids who'd buy them would be ones who somehow missed out on getting a Bumblebee before (how is that possible??) - otherwise they're not gonna be interested either, and even if for the younger ones, they are, parents will be like "But you already have a Bumblebee. It's the same guy." The majority of fans and children aren't interested in buying more variants of the same old characters again. You give us say DotM Skywarp and say repaint ROTF Dirge as DotM Thrust and Ramjet... fans will buy them and kids would be inclined to get them too (as their parents can't use the "it's the same guy" excuse with them). Sure, some parents might still point out that it's the same mould -- you're never going to win those parents over with repaints... selling repaints is like running an election campaign -- the trick isn't about convincing people who are steadfast for or against, the trick is to convince the "swinging" voters (or in this case, swinging customers) who may or may not buy a repaint but rely on the repaint to appeal to them and persuade them to buy that toy.

 

And that's the real crux of it... repaints like Seekers have a far greater persuasion factor than variants of the same character. You repaint Starscream as "Deep Space Starscream", I'm not going to buy that. You repaint DotM Starscream as Thundercracker and Skywarp - you can bet your afterburners I'll get them (and indeed I have!).

 

It ain't rocket science... (>_>)

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Classics Skywarp and Ramjet came out in 2006/7...

 

As I've often said, repaints aren't always bad. But I prefer good meaningful repaints. Cyberfire Bumblebee? WTF? It's just Malibu Stacey with a new hat... pass. The Seekers on the other hand - in the eyes of fans - are entirely different and unique characters. They're not all variants of Starscream (physically they are, but in terms of characters, they're not).

 

Also, there's a long history of these characters which is deeply ingrained in Transformers lore and psyche. Each Seeker is an individual and unique character that fans have known to grow and love. We've grown up with:

* The treacherous Starscream whose null rays can shut down mechanisms

* The loyal but not very innovative Skywarp who can teleport and has heat-seeking missiles

* Thundercracker who deafens opponents with sonic booms and doesn't fully believe in the Decepticon cause (which has only been RECENTLY explored in TF canon, can you believe that?!?)

* Dirge... the scary Goth who uses fear as a weapon. The dude's a Sith!

* Ramjet, the crazy mofo who's like a supersonic flying charging bull!

* The arrogant Thrust who's really a coward, and his loud and showy tricks are all a facade that hides his lack of decent fighting ability.

 

 

So when we miss out on any of these Seekers, we're not just missing out on "another jet" or yet another repaint of Starscream, we're missing an entire individual who is well established in TF Lore. Characters like Sunstorm and Acidstorm and Jetblade etc., I don't really care about because they're not really widely established characters. They're just really obscure characters that got made into toys -- Sunstorm originally appeared for like a second in "More Than Meets The Eye, Part 1", and Acid Storm only appeared in one scene with the other two Rainmakers in "Transport to Oblivion." Yeah I know Sunstorm had a more prominent appearance in DW comics, but that was after the eHobby toy came out. For the most part, these are fairly insignificant characters that I really don't care about. I'd get Classics Sunstorm if they released it as a regular store release, but if it were a limited exclusive I wouldn't go out of my way to get it -- and I certainly won't lose any sleep if they never make this toy; their priority should be with the main six G1 Seeker characters, preferably the first year Seekers first (Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker), then the second year Seekers next if the first three sell well enough.

 

But as DecepticonSpike pointed out, DotM isn't much better - Hasbro only giving us Starscream and Thundercracker as Deluxes with no Skywarp. Yes, TakaraTOMY produced Skywarp - but that was for their market. It's something that Hasbro should do for our markets (and hopefully with a tech specs profile that's written in coherent English! (although the Engrish of Skywarp's bio amuses me) :P)

 

I wish Hasbro would realise this... it made little sense to me for Hasbro to give us just Starscream, Skywarp and Ramjet in Classics. We had to wait half a decade before getting Thundercracker in retail, let alone Dirge and Thrust... *sigh*

 

They were inconsistent with the movie Sky Raiders too... we got Starscream straight off of course, then they made Thundercracker and that was it! Where's Skywarp?? Two years later we get Skywarp and the rest of the Sky Raiders - and of course, Thrust and Dirge are Deluxes while the others are Voyagers. Right (although Dirge is a very nice Deluxe :)).

 

Btw, remember that Hasbro and Takara are contractually forbidden from "cross contaminating" each other's market. So it's not quite accurate to say that Hasbro decided to release DotM Skywarp as a Japanese exclusive isn't entirely accurate -- it's fairer to say that Hasbro decided NOT to make/release DotM Skywarp at all, but Takara decided to go ahead with it for their market. That would explain the craphouse English (obviously badly translated from Japanese) on the card -- Takara are obviously trying to make it look like it was done by Hasbro, probably to make the packaging look consistent with Starscream and Thundercracker. It's the same with United Frumble... WHY haven't Hasbro given us these moulds for RtS/Generations??? The moulds already exist -- there's no need to spend any money on further R&D... just take the moulds, package them and distribute! They would sell like hotcakes!! I'm a fan of RIRFIB, but considering how _impossible_ United Frumble were to get (unless I were willing to pay some stupid inflated price, which I'm not) I'm honestly not fussed... they could release them as FIRRIB and I'd still buy them!

 

I wonder how long it'll take them to realise that random and pointless repaints like all those Bumblebees and Optimus Primes just don't work! Oh look, another shelfwarming Bumblebee repaint.

Come on Hasbro... you want to make money, we want to give you our money -- provided you give us what we want! You make more Bumblebee variants? Most fans won't buy them. The only kids who'd buy them would be ones who somehow missed out on getting a Bumblebee before (how is that possible??) - otherwise they're not gonna be interested either, and even if for the younger ones, they are, parents will be like "But you already have a Bumblebee. It's the same guy." The majority of fans and children aren't interested in buying more variants of the same old characters again. You give us say DotM Skywarp and say repaint ROTF Dirge as DotM Thrust and Ramjet... fans will buy them and kids would be inclined to get them too (as their parents can't use the "it's the same guy" excuse with them). Sure, some parents might still point out that it's the same mould -- you're never going to win those parents over with repaints... selling repaints is like running an election campaign -- the trick isn't about convincing people who are steadfast for or against, the trick is to convince the "swinging" voters (or in this case, swinging customers) who may or may not buy a repaint but rely on the repaint to appeal to them and persuade them to buy that toy.

 

And that's the real crux of it... repaints like Seekers have a far greater persuasion factor than variants of the same character. You repaint Starscream as "Deep Space Starscream", I'm not going to buy that. You repaint DotM Starscream as Thundercracker and Skywarp - you can bet your afterburners I'll get them (and indeed I have!).

 

It ain't rocket science... (>_>)

 

 

That's true of the G1 originals, but not so much the others. An even in G1, the Seekers came across to me as "Starscream, Ramjet and 4 interchangeable thugs. Especially when Sunbow couldn't keep the colors straight. :tfgrin It's the demand for Seeker repaints in every other TF franchise that comes along that leaves me scratching my head. To me, they're just repaints that have colors and maybe personalities similar to their namesakes, they're not the same character.

 

I actually like the way Hasbro did the Seekers in the Bayverse lines a bit better than the standard "rainbow of Starscreams" pattern. Using different molds for Thrust and Dirge gave them more personality (even if one was an Autobot repaint) and made them far more interesting and individual than simply being a physical Starscream clone. The only Screamer repaint I got was DOTM TC, because the mold looked great in those colors. Ok, I got some of the Legends ones, too, but they were generally in multipacks. :tflaugh And as for DOTM Skywarp, I really don't see the need. There are enough Deceptifliers already, I don't need another repaint that exists solely to be a callback to one of Hasbro's original cost-cutting, mold-extending measures.

 

It's not the name reuse or character homage that bothers me. I love that ROTF Dirge is a homage to G1 Dirge in character and a new take on the coneheads in design. It's the fans' insistance that these guys should always be the "Rainbow Starscream Squadron", and have to be done all the time. Movie Dirge and Thrust were must-buys for me because they weren't Starscream repaints.

 

Basically, I'm not denying that it makes sense for Hasbro to do this repaint sceme, I'm trying to figure out why the fans insist on it in every franchise. Yes, it makes perfect sense for us to want Classic Starscream redone as the rest of the Seekers, even to me. It makes less sense to me for people to demand repaints of the movie Starscream molds as Seekers who never showed up anywhere in the trilogy. If the characters show up onscreen (like the Animated Rainbow Starscream Squadron) then yeah we ought to get the toys. But gratuitous repaints 6 times over just because that's what G1 had? that's the same reasoning that gave us a whole line of toys with ugly black birthmarks instead of proper faction symbols. Pass. If we always have to get what G1 did then why did we get so many red Bumblebees labelled "Cliffjumper"? I may buy multiples of all the Prime CJs just to make a point to Hasbro. :tflaugh

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That's true of the G1 originals, but not so much the others. An even in G1, the Seekers came across to me as "Starscream, Ramjet and 4 interchangeable thugs. Especially when Sunbow couldn't keep the colors straight. :tfgrin

Just because the cartoon writers didn't exploit some of the characters properly doesn't mean they weren't cool. Look at Thundercracker - he has what I consider the most interesting personality of all the Seekers, yet until recently this has NEVER been exploited by TF writers!! Freakin' ticked me off for years... but I still always loved the fact that Thundercracker wasn't fully convinced of the Decepticon cause of galactic conquest, but only fought for the Decepticons because he disagreed with the Autobot cause even more. Kinda like when you vote for one party not because you agree with them, but because you disagree with the rival party more. :P

 

It's the demand for Seeker repaints in every other TF franchise that comes along that leaves me scratching my head. To me, they're just repaints that have colors and maybe personalities similar to their namesakes, they're not the same character.

 

Classicsverse is seen as the "new" G1 now, so it's understandable that people wanted all the Seekers from the beginning. Another thing is, as repaints, they're relatively cheap and easy to do because you just recycle the same core mould. One thing that frustrated me was how they gave us an obscure character like Acid Storm (who pegwarmed BADLY) years before giving us Thrust, Dirge and Thundercracker in retail. :( :( That's just stupid. If they're gonna give us another Starscream repaint, they should've given us Thundercracker before Acid Storm... surely. At the time Thundercracker was only available as limited exclusive BotCon and Gentei figures - which are inaccessible to a lot of people (and even Gentei Thundercracker was expensive at the time of purchase), and yet I kept walking around store to store seeing Acid Storm sitting there gathering dust.

 

I did feel that way about the Movieverse though, which is why I never bothered getting any of the other movie Seekers as Voyagers - and only later when they came out as Deluxes (cos they're cheaper, heh) :)

 

I actually like the way Hasbro did the Seekers in the Bayverse lines a bit better than the standard "rainbow of Starscreams" pattern. Using different molds for Thrust and Dirge gave them more personality (even if one was an Autobot repaint) and made them far more interesting and individual than simply being a physical Starscream clone. The only Screamer repaint I got was DOTM TC, because the mold looked great in those colors. Ok, I got some of the Legends ones, too, but they were generally in multipacks. :tflaugh And as for DOTM Skywarp, I really don't see the need. There are enough Deceptifliers already, I don't need another repaint that exists solely to be a callback to one of Hasbro's original cost-cutting, mold-extending measures.

Oh, I do agree about the use of different moulds -- my comment was more about the scale difference between Deluxes and Voyagers. I think Ramjet is the only movieverse Sky Raider (I call them that because in the Movieverse the Seekers are a completely different subgroup who aren't the Decepticon jets like Starscream, they included Jetfire) who's not available as a Deluxe is Ramjet. I didn't get Thrust though cos I already have Breakaway. Meh... I guess I really don't care that much about completing the movie Sky Raiders because, as you said, they're not the same characters.

 

To me the Classicsverse Seekers were, so I did definitely have a more burning desire to complete them.

 

It's the demand for Seeker repaints in every other TF franchise that comes along that leaves me scratching my head. To me, they're just repaints that have colors and maybe personalities similar to their namesakes, they're not the same character. It's not the name reuse or character homage that bothers me. I love that ROTF Dirge is a homage to G1 Dirge in character and a new take on the coneheads in design. It's the fans' insistance that these guys should always be the "Rainbow Starscream Squadron", and have to be done all the time. Movie Dirge and Thrust were must-buys for me because they weren't Starscream repaints.

 

Basically, I'm not denying that it makes sense for Hasbro to do this repaint sceme, I'm trying to figure out why the fans insist on it in every franchise. Yes, it makes perfect sense for us to want Classic Starscream redone as the rest of the Seekers, even to me. It makes less sense to me for people to demand repaints of the movie Starscream molds as Seekers who never showed up anywhere in the trilogy. If the characters show up onscreen (like the Animated Rainbow Starscream Squadron) then yeah we ought to get the toys. But gratuitous repaints 6 times over just because that's what G1 had? that's the same reasoning that gave us a whole line of toys with ugly black birthmarks instead of proper faction symbols. Pass.

Okay, but I think the point is this -- Hasbro WANTS to make repaints. Hasbro are going to make repaints. If Hasbro are going to give us repaints, why not give us repaints that make sense and have an appeal factor and thus sell better than all the endless slews of pointless and random repaints they keep pumping at us that just peg/shelfwarm?? e.g. Recon Ravage, Sea Attack Ravage, and the plethora of Optimus Prime and BUMBLEBEE repaints!! :o

 

If we always have to get what G1 did then why did we get so many red Bumblebees labelled "Cliffjumper"?

Because someone at Hasbro was stupid and inattentive. In G1 Cliffjumper was NEVER a red Bumblebee. We had a red Bumblebee in G1... he was called BUMBLEBEE. Cliffjumper was a different mould (albeit same stock transformation, but not the same mould). Bumblebee was the yellow or red VW Beetle and Cliffjumper was the yellow or red Porsche 944 Turbo ... or they could both be the yellow Mazda 323 (aka Familia) if you got the "Bumblejumper" mould. ;)

 

At long last Hasbro realises the fact that Cliffjumper wasn't a red Bumblebee and shouldn't be a red Bumblebee. I can accept a red Bumblebee with a retooled head as Cliffjumper (eg Alternity, Generations)... but the one thing that excites me about Prime Cliffjumper is that he's a whole new mould! YAY! They should release a yellow repaint and call it Bumper. :P

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That for me is the biggest issue right there. For some reason it seems like it's damn near impossible to get a complete set of seekers released in a timely fashion. I didn't start collecting again until 2007 after long absence. As such, I have all the U.S. released Deluxe molds of Classics Starscream out since then, but missed out on Skywarp and Ramjet. I have Movie 1 Starscream, never even saw Thundercracker, and picked up Walmart exclusive Skywarp.

You want to see fandom flip its $#/+ on both sides of the issue Hasbro? Release a box set of that Classics mold as Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker, Thrust, Dirge, Ramjet, Acid Storm, and (really drive sales) that Sunstorm Deluxe people have been clamoring for since forever. Slap a $100 price tag on it and call it a day.

 

I would buy that in a second.

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I wonder how long it'll take them to realise that random and pointless repaints like all those Bumblebees and Optimus Primes just don't work! Oh look, another shelfwarming Bumblebee repaint.

 

 

Last week I was at a Walmart, and all they had was DOTM Optimus and Bumblebee. I know Hasbro wants to push those two as the main bots in the TF movies, but, there are only so many times the same character can be released in a new deco.

 

I agree with what you said about Frumble. I have the ML ones, but these are the guys I want for my Classics collection.

 

 

 

 

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It's not the name reuse or character homage that bothers me. I love that ROTF Dirge is a homage to G1 Dirge in character and a new take on the coneheads in design. It's the fans' insistance that these guys should always be the "Rainbow Starscream Squadron", and have to be done all the time. Movie Dirge and Thrust were must-buys for me because they weren't Starscream repaints.

 

 

Hmm. "Rainbow Starscream Squadron" Rather catchy, if I do say so myself. I may make that my new term for the Seekers. rofflebot[1].gif

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That for me is the biggest issue right there. For some reason it seems like it's damn near impossible to get a complete set of seekers released in a timely fashion. I didn't start collecting again until 2007 after long absence. As such, I have all the U.S. released Deluxe molds of Classics Starscream out since then, but missed out on Skywarp and Ramjet. I have Movie 1 Starscream, never even saw Thundercracker, and picked up Walmart exclusive Skywarp.

You want to see fandom flip its $#/+ on both sides of the issue Hasbro? Release a box set of that Classics mold as Starscream, Skywarp, Thundercracker, Thrust, Dirge, Ramjet, Acid Storm, and (really drive sales) that Sunstorm Deluxe people have been clamoring for since forever. Slap a $100 price tag on it and call it a day.

 

I would buy that in a second.

*sigh*

Yeah, so would I.

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I'd rather see Sunstorm and Icrstorm released I already have all the seekers along with the Classics and Universe Starscreams.

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