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Transformers Legacy Breakdown In-Hand Images & Video


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Following the Takara Tomy Expo debut, Just in from vproject, Shoppee, Ebay and Youtube are in-hand images of the Transformers Legacy Breakdown deluxe class figure. Finally, we get to see this guy fully transformed in his robot and alternate modes. Breakdown appears to be a partial of Wild Rider with some mold changes in the robot and alt modes. - Read the Full News Story

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Here are my thoughts:

 

Good Morning,
 
As a place to start: let me re)introduce myself.  I'm a 43 year old avid fan of the franchise.  I have a wife, kids, dog, cat, cars, mortgage and a good job/career that pays the bills and is fulfilling.  I have a hobby or 2 other than, say, collecting action figures or specifically transformers.  And honestly I think I'm slowly moving away from being a fan or more correctly moving toward other things in life.  
 
So basic intro out of the way let's talk transformers.
 
I grew up watching cartoons and playing with toys in the 1980's.  And I didn't just love Transformers, I adored it.  There was nothing better to me than watching the second season with all the new settings and characters and the world building. It was wonderful, it was joy, it was phenomenal.  Sunstreaker was one of the few transformers I was lucky enough to have; Sideswipe looked cool and was one I desire but it wasn't until later in life that I'd get one.  Sunstreaker really cemented my love of the Lamborghini Countach design and to this day prefer Lamborghinis over other car designs.  I was even lucky enough to have Breakdown for a short time and I liked the clean and simple car design, maybe even more so than Sunstreaker.  Just reminiscing about it: it was arguably the most faithful Lamborghini Countach design of the initial Generations 1 run.  
 
My fandom was so strong that  the existence of G2 made me happy and I could nostalgically enjoy the old cartoon again, revamped.  And I loved Beast Wars.   I got into collecting all the old toys I never had as a kid when I had income and have since collected just about some variant of all the characters from the first 3 seasons of the show plus 4th and beyond and much of Beast Wars.  And while my life is such that I don't have time to just play, I do enjoy looking at them on my shelf, I get a hit of dopamine, and I get a little energized.  
 
Now regarding the toys themselves:
I enjoyed how the toys could appear like completely different vehicles and even transform completely different but have the same function or even the same vehicle but different robot designs, for example: the original Dead End looked and transformed exactly like Breakdown but the cars looked so different as cars that to me they were different cars, and Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had similar alt modes but completely different transformations and robot modes.  I own both Sunstreaker and Sideswipe masterpiece and respectively earthrise and kingdom and I'm amazed at the attention to detail that took 2 very similar cars and through engineering and good design gave us faith robot designs that matched the show model more so than the original toys could (noting here that the show designs were derived from the toys, but since the cartoon was an advertisement to buy the toys, having things match would have been optimal)   
Combiners were my favorite gimmick.  I liked how both Silverbolt and Scattershot were flying plane spaceship, things that looked completely different but could have the same function and they both worked well enough.  And this was a disappointment with the combiner wars designs.  One thing I loved about the designs as a kid was not recreated: instead of selling/creating a Scattershot with a completely different design then Silverbolt they gave us the same basic toy with a new wing, plane nose, and head shape.  I had the original g1 designs of both back in the 1980's, and Scattershot was such a solid amazing toy and probably a better overall toy than Silverbolt.  And while the CW Silverbolt was an upgrade to the G1 in almost every way the CW Scattershot was not, so much was lost like the turret mode and the nose gun function, not to mention a unique blaster design was not included and they just used a repainted Silverbolt blaster.  But, since Scattershot came with the entire Computron set, he became a small piece of a greater whole, and as a piece of Computron he was amazing in that respect.
 
This new Legacy Breakdown is giving me the same feeling I had with the CW Silverbolt and Scattershot, but maybe even more so.  He has a disappointing alt mode, he isn't really a representation of a Lamborghini Countach, which I'll reiterate is one my if not my favorite car designs.  And if the rest of the Stunticons were similar and stylized it wouldn't be as much of a thing.  But the rest of the Stunticons are faithful to the original toy/show designs.  So why did Breakdown not get his alt mode, why is it a glorified repaint of Wild Rider's Ferrari?   And really does it matter why?  In the big scheme of things it doesn't matter, this is just a toy, and piece of interjoined plastics that's supposed to be fun to play with and look at.  But, in that same sense, it's a toy and it's supposed to represent something, and in this case it is supposed to represent and be derived from a Transformers character called Breakdown: a design and character that's a living robot that turns into a car, and this character is made unique because it wasn't the same car as the others, the colors were different, as were the surface details.  These details provide value and a reason to buy it and the rest of the crew, otherwise, why not just buy duplicates of the others if they're a lower price to complete the combiner function?  A Lamborghini Countach was once called the Darth Vader or cars:  and it is such a popular design that Lamborghini just made an updated electric version.  I wanted another Lamborghini Countach robot that also completed the Stunticon set.  And based on the G1 historically faithful other Legacy Stunticons I was really looking forward to seeing this design and picking it up as soon as it was available.  In fact, at the time of this writing I have Drag Strip and Wild Rider, the latter of which I scoured the internet and stumbled across a store that had it available, and I purchased it there despite a $5 up charge for shipping.  So it does matter what alt mode Breakdown has, it matters to me and if it matters to me, then it probably matters to someone else.  When doing any task it should be completed well and in this task of designing and creating Breakdown, Hasbro did a poor job.  And it's not just disappointing because of this ideal I have.  It's disappointing because I have purchased 3 of 5 and I want the fourth one as well.  5 of 5 to me wasn't just completing a set, I wanted the whole package: the white and blue Robot Lamborghini that becomes a leg of a bigger robot named Menasor.  And while this Legacy Breakdown has most of that it's only 75% of what it should be:  I'd be ok with 90%, but now instead of getting Breakdown because I want Breakdown, I'm getting a piece of Menasor: so as an individual toy, Legacy Breakdown is less then it should be, but as a piece of a greater whole, maybe it'll be excellent?  
 
I really feel like that because this is the last toy of the set that they skimped, and cut corners.  And empathically the company may have had logical reasons or even needed to cut corners, but really I can't buy that as an excuse.  WIth all the love and obvious effort on the rest of the Stunticons this one stands out as not matching the original toy.  People are going to buy it regardless because they want to finish what they started.  But many people, including me, won't be ok with the design. This has caused me to reevaluate future team purchases.   And more than that:  I've been considering investing in Hasbro as a company and to me this screams as a tactical move to maximize profit instead of making the hard and right choice of giving the customer what they wanted.  And at the end of the day, the customer is right, the customer is always right, because the customer is buying the product and service.  And I feel like this move will reduce costumer'. Hasbro did a big thing and while it started well, it ended badly.  And I will remember that. 
 
My last thought on this is:
It seems coincidentally relevant that the toy name is "Breakdown".
 
And here's a few phots that show off my love of Lambos and combiners.  Putting my money where my mouth is so to speak
 
 
 
 
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