Bumblebee Movie Trailer 2 hot takes, Bumblebee Movie Trailer 3 hot takes, Aaron and TJ serve up a piping stream of hot takes straight into Vangelus’s mouth.
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Rexidus
For completely selfish reasons, I am salivating for a MP Snapper.
That Guy
I follow, I misunderstood the first time I thought it was about the limitations based on the Generations price point, but you'd be fine with Generations figures that were just pure "Hasui" G1 aesthetic. More a mix of toy and cartoon than all cartoon that they are now?
LegoTFGuy
After listening to this episode, I would totally watch a series where Vangelus talks about how Bumblebee is taking elements from the Bayformers movies and improving them. It hadn't even occurred to me how Bee being half transformed to keep the humans in his cab is a spin on the Bayformers 'vomiting out the humans as they transform' trope until he pointed it out.
EDIT: Re: Shatter and Dropkick switching places in the one trailer- I just rewatched it and in some shots they're on a road, while in others they're just in the middle of the desert, so yeah, looks like footage from 2 different scenes spliced together.
onslaught714
Well, personally the aesthetic I want is that of the hasui era masterpieces. Which, siege is so close to being, but the cybertronian alt modes and battle damage kinda ruin them for me
That Guy
I am confused first you say that SIEGE isn't the aesthetic you want, then it sounds like you are saying masterpiece figures are so expensive because they are too close to the aesthetic that SIEGE isn't?
GWolfv2
It’s been softened a lot. Charlie won’t cut herself on contact anymore.
0ptimus__Prime
And that’s perfectly alright! I keep forgetting the battle damage is a little controversial and is turning people off. I guess I’m overly excited over G1 designs doing something different for a change, rather than looking pristine and clean all the time.
onslaught714
Well, then apologies for my assumption. Still though, Siege itself…I don't know, it's doing nothing for me. I dislike the "cybertronian" alt modes, and I feel like the battle damage ruins perfectly good sculpts, espescially on parts where there's battle damage ontop of painted parts.
0ptimus__Prime
I beg to differ, I just graduated college and recently gotten married so it’s just not in the budget to drop a ton of money on Masterpiece figures. The Seige line however allows me to get roughly 8 figures from different size classes for what it cost me to get something like MP10 with the trailer. It feels like WFC is a budget masterpiece with Sci-fi futuristic alt modes in lieu of the their traditional alt modes.
But I can completely understand if these arent satisfying to those who seek Masterpiece tier representations for their collection of favorite characters.
onslaught714
I feel like saying "well, there's 20 dollar collector focused items" is disingenuous, because say for example, Siege occupies a very different aesthetic than Masterpiece, and presumably, the aesthetic is why you're buying it. There's no 20$ collectors item that would scratch the same itch a masterpiece would, I feel.
Also, as an addendum, on the conversation of masterpieces having increased complexity…honestly, sometimes it feels more complex than is necessary, especially in the the case of g1 masterpieces, which practically bend over backward to slavishly adhere to honestly kinda terrible character models.
Requiem Prime
I am hoping to the moon and back that "it's not a prequel anymore" is a dead topic. My stance is it's sorta like that "aligned" thing they tried. None of them were the same story, but you could take one story and say stuff very much like it must have happened in another story.
Take the first episode of Animated using G1 "war footage". The moment you see that universe's Optimus you know it has nothing to do with G1, but it's a wink and a nod that G1-ish stuff had already happened.
As for the movies themselves, I love how the decepticons are being deceptive but it's not that old "we're the good guys" angle. They just say it's for a good cause so shutup and be useful.
I really wish they shot for Kaye's Optimus or maybe Chalk's, instead of Cullen. Something about him his design doesn't feel right with that timbre.
Vangelus
I mean I'm not going in ready to flip a table over the moment they say "sector seven"
I'm going in ready to hear that and for none of it to form any coherent continuity with the previous 5 films besides shared vocabulary and the odd familiar plot point (which is barely a shift from the norm anyway)
Jarl
Regarding the Bumblebee movie being a reboot or a prequel, you don't put in a big orbital establishing shot of Hoover Dam while talking about evil because you hate hydroelectricity, man. I think you're setting yourself up to be disappointed when we find out what agency John Cena works for.
That said, the tonal shift is the real star and I'm a big fan of it.
I also miss the Hasui era and think there's still room for that level of complexity and polish in the Masterpiece line, but I fully admit to being a Toy Aesthetic person moreso than Toon Aesthetic, at least how the Masterpiece line has been executing it lately.
I got a toy-only beast character I want a good update of: Ramulus. I love his name, I love his beast mode, his robot mode is alright. I always think of him as a vaguely Solid Snake-esque character with a thick Sean Connery voice, and I think if you imagine him saying "Ramulus, Maximize!" you'll agree.
excelhedge
The 2 main transmetal people would want as MP are pretty much being Handled by Perfect Effect anyway.
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OptimusPhillip
I'm not feeling any rush for a Masterpiece Transmetal, since the Transmetals took far less liberties with the toy designs, so I don't see how you could put much Masterpiece engineering into them without it just being needlessly complicated.
superkeaton
this audio hum tho
InhumanElm
Maybe this is just an outlier but I think MP Dinobot demonstrates a lot of the downsides of the increased MP prices. It\'s perfectly justified with it\'s engineering but because of that, I doubt we\'ll see any KO\'s any time soon to lower the price. And it was produced in what seems like a limited run making it even harder to find one on a sale since they fly off the digital shelves. With the shoulder breakage issue, buying a used copy online seems extremely risky given how much you\'d have to spend. Is it worth the $250? Most likely, yeah (I don\'t have one because I didn\'t have that much extra cash when it came out). I don\'t think I\'d want one that was compromised for the price, it\'s just lousy that because of that price and everything surrounding it, I\'ll be missing out (unless it gets restocked) and possibly any others that are as complicated/expensive.
KevinSig
I agree with Vangelus that the Cybertron bits look a bit sub par, compared to the other movie characters.
I don’t have the need for G1, but it’s a better look that the Bayverse designs. I think the one part of the Bumblebee movie that I’ll hate, is how he still uses the horrifying mug the Bay movies gave him.
shamanking282
I expect Hound to cost the same as Sunstreaker. That's gonna be the cost of leaning more into the Floro Dery aesthetic that current MP is after. The engineering will be more impressive, yes, but that is mainly because the designs they're adhering to require a more involved transformation that the Hasui cars did. That's why we're gonna be getting a new Prime with chest windows that aren't the truck's windows.
(I will also admit here that, despite the great engineering, I hate Sunstreaker having the fake chest. I pretty much hate fake chests in most situations.)
Also, I just looked it up, until Sunstreaker, there had not been a new car mold since Tracks back in 2015, right when the aesthetic shift started.
I also think that the plus version of Shockwave proves that Takara's basically just willing to arbitrarily increase the price since they know enough people will pay it. I guess that's a good thing, but I feel like $70 is a sweet spot that should be hit by something. Maybe if they end up doing more minibots.
Vangelus
my one minor counterpoint to that is those mid-size car cast members were also already mostly executed upon during the hasui era (with only the lambos really need anything beyond an MP+ repaint to feel more cartoony), so they're still just as 'easy' to get if you are cast-building regardless
so it's like, I get where you're coming from but those cast members are no less expensive, and most of the remaining non-minibot ones are inherently larger/more complicated anyway
I think Sunstreaker makes full use of his higher cost in a way I would not want to see simplified for the sake of being 30% cheaper & am kinda curious if Hound might dip down cost-wise due to a potential lack of having as much shapeshifting (we'll see when there are more proper photos I guess)