It’s Unicron! Run! Via Gizmodo website we can share a new Haslab War For Cybertron Unicron Transformation Video for your viewing pleasure!
Takara Tomy designer Takashi Kunihiro, wearing an elegant tuxedo for the occasion, transforms Unicron gray prototype from planet to robot mode. A very clever and interesting transformation; and not as complicated as we could expect; inspired in what we saw in the classic Transformers Movie from 1986.
Not much left to say, check the video here and an extensive gallery of screencaps after the jump. then sound off your impressions on the 2005 Boards!
Update: You can also check the video via the Haslab Unicron Crowdfunding page and the official Transformers YouTube account.
GuardianMonkey
Just a correction, that doesn't fix the issue and it certainly doesn't help everybody's problems. The screws will obviously continue to loosen over time from regular posing. As for me, the screws were tight as can be on mine and the knees are still loosey goosey. Any further attempts to tighten are liable to strip the screws, leaving me in an even worse position. I've spoken directly with Hasbro customer service (for a different issue with my Sentinel — the lights don't work!) and they immediately informed me they were looking into the knee problem. They have gotten calls since they started arriving to customer.
Paco Grande
I agree with you, but seeing how the MPM-12 upgrade kit costs $55 USD I think a proper fix for Unicron would be very expensive and not enough people would buy it. Unfortunately for us, most people seem to be fine with the maw the way it is.
daimchoc
Are you sure it's Kanji (Japanese) and not Hanzi (Chinese)?
octobotimus
Outside of a board member on here offering the files for one, stickers and paint have been out only option. Think 3p figure it’s too much hassle. Wish they made one tho…
Argus
The Asia release has a japanese booklet included so there is a minor differences. I ended up with one of those due to the route used at the time caused by Hasbro being extremely late in getting official partners globally.
Argus
So, after all this time is there a decent alternative to the maw issue by now? I've seen covers for the mouth around but they appear hard to find. Painting or putting stickes on it doesn't feel like an option to me.
I'm surprised we didn't get one of the bigger 3p guys solving this by now. With we all paid I imagine most of of us would be 'ok' with shelling out a few bucks to 'fix' the issue somewhat.
mx-01 archon
Verdict is still out for long-term stability, but apparently, those with loose knees just need to pop off a joint cover and tighten a screw. Dumb factory oversight, but nothing ultimately debilitating. A bit strange that they weren't ratcheted, though, for a figure that large. But they do apparently work fine.
octobotimus
Gotta agree there, those sentinel knees are a real shame.
Lex79
From what I saw in video reviews, the Sentinel box is much thinner than Unicron's, so maybe it costed much less and there was budget for paint. Anyway, between the box and the missing paint applications on the figure, it looks like in terms of finish Unicron got the short end of the stick. I'll take ratcheted knees over more paint every time, though.
mx-01 archon
Very much not the point. Superficial similarities are non-transferable. A new tooling still needs to be engineered from scratch. All the joint tolerances that are key to Transformers functionality are measured within micrometers.
Most of that work is entirely unnecessary with standard action figures. Soft PVC defies the need for precision tolerances. Joint pegs are almost entirely standardized, so it's easy to splice the basic structure into the CAD, and have your figure turn out as intended. Almost every figure has all of their anatomy built the exact same way, so there's zero guesswork as to how many parts you might need to achieve a certain design.
octobotimus
Outside of occasionally making figures bigger or a different alt mode you’d be surprised how similar a lot of the WFC toys are.
Hicks_Royel
Plus, the box is probably the last thing I would be worried about when buying a toy.
mx-01 archon
You do understand how formulaic and standardized all their other toylines are, compared to Transformers, yes?
octobotimus
Which is a pretty bad considering they have it nailed down in all their other toy lines. They seem to apparently become incompetent when dealing with transformer budgets. Mistakes are mistakes sure, but having it supposedly be this common is poor management more so than mistakes.
dark gundam
Even high-interest accounts only do about 5,000$ in interest for every million a year…..
Oniconvoy
Really? We see it all the time in the main line with paint apps dropped at the last minute because they didn’t have the budget right early on.
Not saying that’s the case here and I honestly don’t care about the box. But Hasbro definitely still makes budgeting mistakes after 35 years.
mx-01 archon
Not sure why it's difficult to digest that idea. Unicron's the biggest toy they've ever made, and they wanted to make it the BEST big toy they could as well. They locked their $575 pricetag, which in turn governs their budget ceiling. An extra $200,000 budget leeway spent on the toy itself, instead of earmarked for a damned box seems like the design team's dream, to me.
octobotimus
Maybe unicron did, but I hear the maxed out budget excuse on every single Figure from transformers. Its always people outside of the company to that say it’s maxed out. I have a hard time believing that after 35 years Hasbro still doesn’t know how to budget out their figures properly.
mx-01 archon
Shit gets cheaper when you make more because you subsidize the overhead. Printing materials are not overhead. They're material cost. And magazine-quality print is expensive.
The best you'll get is a service discount on large orders.
I've personally dealt with bulk print orders before. I could easily drop $500-600 CDN on a set of industrial CAD drawings, maybe 100-150 34"×22" sheets in total. And that's just laserjet quality, on basic paper stock. 90-95% black and white.
Even if you could knock it down to $20-30 a box instead of my above ballparked $50, that's still $200,000 that could instead go to tooling development, and Unicron's budget was certainly min-maxed to hell.
octobotimus
I have also been over this and pointed out how I could have easily ordered 11,000 colored boxes for unicron that are no where near as expensive because this shit gets cheaper the more you make. More boxes=cheaper. Idk why it ls so hard to admit they simply chose to not color it. Just like their uncolored boring selects packaging.