And just a few hours after we reported images of the HasLab Victory Saber prototype, now another eBay listing gives us our first look at the Transformers HasLab Unicron prototype.
This prototype is molded in several colors and clear plastic parts in the face. The images also show the stand and extra parts. A very rare piece for sure. If you are interested in getting it, it’s listed for not-so-economic $5,500 (Buy it now or make an offer).
See the images after the break and then share your impressions on the 2005 Boards!
RodimusRex
Billions of robots?
I seem to recall there being evidence that there were more like hundreds or thousands.
The Teletraan-2 shorts in Season 3 describe things differently.
The Autobots seen on Earth in seasons 1 and 2 are described as "most of the Autobots" from Cybertron in the Autobots short. Kup, Arcee, Springer are described as Autobots who were "reunited" with the main Autobots after adventures "around the galaxy". In the Decepticons short, the Autobots on Earth in the 80s are described as "the remaining Autobot forces" and says the Decepticons were losing the war by "the year 2000" until Megatron became Galvatron.
The comics have a point where Primus summons "all Transformers" to Cybertron and it's a crowd of around fifty.
I think, from a G1 perspective, we were meant to infer that the Transformers we met were essentially the only Transformers and pains were generally taken to establish new characters as newly created, moreso in the cartoon. But the comics did generally treat the Season 2 cast as being in stasis on the Ark until Simon Furman really started expanding TF lore.
It's only in subsequent media that we're presented with all kinds of characters who are presented as always having existed on Cybertron.
mx-01 archon
The wonky thing is that Cybertron's G1 design also makes it look tiny. Like, you can actually see distinct spires/buildings radiating from its core, and not just indistinct masses. Sure, those buildings/spires are Transformer-scaled, and not human-sized, but Cybertronians aren't that many magnitudes greater in size compared to humans, on average.
FORT MAXie
Pretty sure it was not that close but being so large it was visible. Everything we see besides the sun and moon is star size. In cybertron cartoon series cybertron is roughly the size of earth but G1 there was billions of 30-ish-foot-tall robots some taller and others smaller all moving about all of that takes requires space. Then add in the theory that junkion is part of cybertron that got blown off from the bottom of the planet and that in itself is considered to be a planet. Another thing is they used high speed shuttles to get to the center of the planet others flew in and keep in mind they fly in space as well. For Ultimate doom i think the animation did not give the perspective justice i will add a pic that gives an idea what Jupiter would look like if it was between us and Mars, so cybertron got placed in our solar system and semi close and even so it caused massive issues but if was like the moon orbit it would have crushed earth within minutes.
View attachment 29807442 View attachment 29807443
vvvTheONEvvv
Makes sense that cybertron would be as small as our moon; they can get to its core pretty easily even in G1.
msol
Huh? We see Cybertron next to the Earth in the Ultimate Doom and it’s tiny.
FORT MAXie
Ya there is no way Cybertron is mars sized it has to be closer to Jupiter or Saturn.
lilcarus
yeah i haven't really transformed mine in like a year or 2…
but when i have it in planet mode it still blows me away. i walk by it in bot mode like every day and it is always impressive as well even across the house.
DPrime83
View attachment 29806566 I like transform him about twice a year and every time I'm finished it amazes me how gorgeous this thing is. I know folks have their nitpicks but it still amazes me that this thing was even produced. Makes me feel like a 40 something man child every time.
RKillian
He's all over the place, that's for sure.
That's nuts. Years and years back, I think the consensus was that Cybertron was Mars-sized. I don't think it's even that big using The Ultimate Doom as a reference point (closer to Moon-sized than Earth-sized) but let's just go with it. TFTM has him standing on Cybertron swatting at the coneheads. He's smaller than Mars and Mars is way smaller than Jupiter.
FORT MAXie
Well when making the show I am sure they needed some reference for the scale and at the time we did not know about exo planets so limited options for reference.
vvvTheONEvvv
So the Q&A basically said Unicron is just one big gaseous space fart?
All making sense now.
FORT MAXie
Some convention Q and A they said Unicron is Jupiter-sized so I then reverse scaled it based of MP-10 and came to roughly about the size of the moon a hair larger thou i kinda figured if your making a moon sized Unicron you would mine and plate over the surface bumping him upto scale and also allowing mining to happen. It was lockdown i had spare time, don't judge.
octobotimus
The main sections that give me trouble are the quarter sections that hang from the top half of the planet. Getting the arms into position while those are flopping up top gives me trouble. Because if I don’t support them they’ll be clashing into the arms.
mx-01 archon
He's designed to go together in a pretty systematic way.
You don't really have to do any supporting of the planet quadrants, you can just let them dangle while dealing with the rest of him.
Ball up the robot bits, then wrap the entire middle segment around it. Chain each of the quadrant segments together one by one, and they easily "zip" into place by first lining them up at the back, and then gently pressing them into place, leading up to the clips around the maw.
His enormous heft aside, he's one of the most painless shellformers HasTak has ever designed. That main act of wrapping that first ring of planet crust around him gives you a really solid base to work with, with well-defined locking points that don't create any margin for error. And then they designed the zipper-like tabs for the quadrants really well, with soft bevels to them that make them self-guiding. There's none of the usual need to carefully line up multiple parts at once, and precisely align tabs.
DPrime83
Would love to see some of your collection
ErikB
Usually, there are 10-20 test shots done and passed around to test quality, different plastics, paint samples, and more. The most I've heard of is that the Forms Robo test shots were produced in quantities of around 50-75 pieces; each one being made in sets of 20-25 in various colors. The ones I have are grey and green, but there was a third color as well I think?
I've had Aaron Archer confirm that the Tidal Wave testshot I had back in the day (wish i still had it) was in the 20 piece range.
UtahRobotInDisguise
Unicron can’t maintain scale one frame to the next… so he could be house sized, wall sized and haslab sized and all would be correct.
moon sized wouldn’t be mp scale.
octobotimus
The weight and floppyess of the planet shell is what causes it to take way longer for me. When another person is available I actually ask them to assist in holding them out of the way. I just can’t see it taking only 10 minutes unless stuff is violently clashing together
.