The Transformers thread (shows, comics, toys, all things TF)
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Debating getting this set for him: http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=21590236&cp=&parentPage=search
I have a mostly broken G1 Grimlock somewhere in storage.
Guardian17
Strong & Free
Dinobot Combiner : Extinction
Grimlock, Slag, Sludge, Swoop and Snarl, all combining into one massive behemoth called Extinction.
http://www.seibertron.com/transform...sterclass-dinobots-combiner-extinction/19249/
Dinobot Combiner : Extinction
Grimlock, Slag, Sludge, Swoop and Snarl, all combining into one massive behemoth called Extinction.
http://www.seibertron.com/transform...sterclass-dinobots-combiner-extinction/19249/
Oh my god.. All in there G1 looks? That's a Christmas present for my son and myself.
I also like that Bruticus set, that would be a great gift.
I've still got Skywarp, though he's in awful condition and missing a couple parts. Only Seeker I ever had new, though. Had Thundercracker after my friend lost interest in Transformers, but he was already missing a couple parts. Don't have him anymore, and I'm not going to admit how I came to no longer be in possession of 95% of my Transformers collection
Haha it sucks looking back, I can't tell you how many of them I had, my dad was really into Transformers and always got them for me as birthday presents and what not. Guess that's the danger of collecting for you kid! But all the joys are going to make me have to do the same haha
Guardian17
Strong & Free
Bruticus was a favourite of mine as well!
Check out at 6min 23sec of this clip from Transformers : Fall of Cybertron.
And, of course, the classic Bruticus devastates Devistator from G1.
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
It's not real. Well, it really is a figure, but it's something someone made/modded off of other figures. It's not something made by Hasbro/Takara for sale.
Points for making some nice repainted, articulated Dinobots, but I'm not sure I'm in love with the combine form. That's a lot of mass to have gotten from Grimlock for the torso and the arms, so it makes me think there were giant add-on pieces required to flesh him out a bit. Also Swoop and Sludge on the arms look tacked on rather than integrated into the transformation. They're just like giant dino-mode shoulderpads. EDIT: Now that I look at other pics in that link, the legs have hte same issue. Snarl and Slag are shinpads, attached to the front of what look like independent leg pieces as a skeleton. Obviously huge props for just getting that far since it's a fan-mod, but it would've been mind-blowing impressive if he had actually turned the other dinobots into functional limbs instead of making them coverplates and detail work overtop of a set of skeleton pieces attached to the Grimlock torso.
the issue with people making dinobot combiners really does seem to be Swoop. He just doesn't have enough "meat" to make a convincing limb, especially when you have to balance him out with the much bulkier, chunkier Sludge (since Slag and Snarl are fairly similar and would be more valuable as legs in that regard)
Yeah, looked at that link closer after I posted and realized it was not an official project. I could care less about a dinobot combiner and your above points are well stated.
Guardian17
Strong & Free
Oh well, how about the Predacons!?!
Was always a big fan of the later gestalts! Predaking is quite cool, has there ever been a well done Terracons or Technobots set? I think the Dinobots would whoop Predaking, but it was mostly only Grimlock around in the 3rd season if memory serves
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
The Terrorcons were probably the best G1 gestalt for its actual combined mode. The fact that the bot forming the torso turned into a two-headed monster let them use the monster necks for the tops of hte legs and basically gave Abominus "knees" and hip joints.
sadly neither the Terrorcons or Technobots have ever had reissues or spiritual successors.
and yeah, Grimlock appeared in teh 3rd season far more than the other dinobots. He also was turned from angry, brooding, authority-resenting badass to a dopey comic relief sidekick type
Guardian17
Strong & Free
15 December 1984 - The Debut of Combiners
30 years ago today, the Generation 1 Season 1 finale "Heavy Metal War" aired, and viewers were introduced to a new breed of Transformer - the Combiner.
Devastator was a huge deal on his introduction, since there was nothing like him in the show. Towering over all the rest of the Transformers, Devastator was far more powerful than any other character in the show until this point, and it needed some trickery from the Autobots to bring down the giant.
Needless to say, the Combiner idea was a big hit, reinforced with the introduction of four more combiners in late 1985 / early 1986 - Superion, Menasor, Bruticus and Defensor.
http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers...-december-1984-the-debut-of-combiners-181691/
30 years ago today, the Generation 1 Season 1 finale "Heavy Metal War" aired, and viewers were introduced to a new breed of Transformer - the Combiner.
Devastator was a huge deal on his introduction, since there was nothing like him in the show. Towering over all the rest of the Transformers, Devastator was far more powerful than any other character in the show until this point, and it needed some trickery from the Autobots to bring down the giant.
Needless to say, the Combiner idea was a big hit, reinforced with the introduction of four more combiners in late 1985 / early 1986 - Superion, Menasor, Bruticus and Defensor.
http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers...-december-1984-the-debut-of-combiners-181691/
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
Ohh Constructicons. You and your like 5 different contradictory origins. Choke on it, continuity! 
Reminds me that it's just about time for my annual pre-christmas TF binge-a-thon. Nothing gets you in the christmas spirit like saturday morning cartoons from when you were a little kid. Even if they were actually weekday-airing cartoons (remember that? That crazy, magical time when new cartoons were on daily throughout the year? Season 2 was almost 50 episodes. For some cartoons today don't air that many episodes until almost 3 seasons have passed.)
EDIT:
oh my god, they even aired an episode on Christmas Day. ON. CHRISTMAS. DAY! New episode! Will the wonders never cease?
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/December_25
Reminds me that it's just about time for my annual pre-christmas TF binge-a-thon. Nothing gets you in the christmas spirit like saturday morning cartoons from when you were a little kid. Even if they were actually weekday-airing cartoons (remember that? That crazy, magical time when new cartoons were on daily throughout the year? Season 2 was almost 50 episodes. For some cartoons today don't air that many episodes until almost 3 seasons have passed.)
EDIT:
oh my god, they even aired an episode on Christmas Day. ON. CHRISTMAS. DAY! New episode! Will the wonders never cease?
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/December_25
LiquidSnake
Registered User
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
If you go through the character bios on the TF wiki, Computron was a cool idea that just never got the opportunity to have anything good done with it. Most of the Decepticon combiners were mindless brutes because their component Decepticons were such anti-social asshats that they couldn't get along well enough to function as a single being. Computron, on the other hand, totally integrates the intelligence of all the Technobots and it turns him into a living supercomputer. Problem is that he spends so much time analyzing the data and considering the input of each component Technobot that by the time he's found a solution to whatever problem they're in, it's too late.
I was always partial to Defensor, but he got the shaft in the cartoons. He wasn't introduced until late in the 2nd season, got basically no introduction (the Protectobots were just sort of "there" one episode with no regard for the fact that we'd never seen them before) and he then appeared maybe 3 times before season 2 ended, the movie and season 3 time-skipped everything forward like 15-20 years, and almost every character of importance from the pre-movie, 1985 days was phased out of the spotlight except for like a half-dozen guys and a couple of combiner teams (Blaster, Soundwave, Grimlock, Perceptor, I think the Aerialbots, Stunticons, and Combaticons still got some play.)
I was also a fan of Slugfest, Soundwave's Stegosaurus cassette.
What's that? Soundwave never had a Stegosaurus cassette? Actually he had 2 dinosaur cassettes. They appeared once, in one episode, for all of about 2 seconds. And did absolutely nothing before never been seen again.
*sigh* They're so rare that even the reissue pack of cassetticons sells for $80+. I have a reissue Soundwave on my desk, but it just came with Ravage and Lazerbeak. Not even Rumble. Or Frenzy. I forget which one is which for what toyline. You know, the purple one.
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
Just as a sort of aside to something I think has been mentioned before here about the different TV series, I was reminded of Transformers: Prime today (the last show to air in the US. It finished a year or so ago) and the fact that it went a lot grittier/more mature than G1 ever did.
A lot of people hate the somewhat Bay-movie type designs on some of the characters, but it's got gorgeous animation and a top-notch voice cast (Cullen and Welker return to voice Optimus and Megatron for the first time together since G1. noted sci-fi actor Jeffrey Combes plays Ratchet, big time voice actor Steve Blum (the Toonami guy, and almost every anime series in the last 20 years) does a very different, but very nice Starscream, Adam Baldwin and Gina Torres from Firefly are a pair of Decepticons, etc.) and there are some really good episodes.
It's also got a great bit in the final episode. Bumblebee, who like in the movies, had his vocal processor torn out by Megatron during the war and can't talk, is shot and falls into a giant swirly energy mass that's basically a weaponized version of the creation energy that made Cybertron. And then, well....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8OqTYgvJUk
(not embedded because even the video title is massively spoilery)
[spoil]The sword, for hte curious, originally belonged to Optimus. It was basically Transformer Excalibur, based on some stuff from an older series I can't remember. Megatron's sword was one he forged himself out of pure energon in an attempt to counter Optimus' one.[/spoil]
A lot of people hate the somewhat Bay-movie type designs on some of the characters, but it's got gorgeous animation and a top-notch voice cast (Cullen and Welker return to voice Optimus and Megatron for the first time together since G1. noted sci-fi actor Jeffrey Combes plays Ratchet, big time voice actor Steve Blum (the Toonami guy, and almost every anime series in the last 20 years) does a very different, but very nice Starscream, Adam Baldwin and Gina Torres from Firefly are a pair of Decepticons, etc.) and there are some really good episodes.
It's also got a great bit in the final episode. Bumblebee, who like in the movies, had his vocal processor torn out by Megatron during the war and can't talk, is shot and falls into a giant swirly energy mass that's basically a weaponized version of the creation energy that made Cybertron. And then, well....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8OqTYgvJUk
(not embedded because even the video title is massively spoilery)
[spoil]The sword, for hte curious, originally belonged to Optimus. It was basically Transformer Excalibur, based on some stuff from an older series I can't remember. Megatron's sword was one he forged himself out of pure energon in an attempt to counter Optimus' one.[/spoil]
I had all of them at one point....*sigh* still have Ravage, Laserbeak, Rumble and Frenzy in various states of disrepair. The Autobot cassettes I had are long gone. Never had Blaster anyway.I was also a fan of Slugfest, Soundwave's Stegosaurus cassette.
What's that? Soundwave never had a Stegosaurus cassette? Actually he had 2 dinosaur cassettes. They appeared once, in one episode, for all of about 2 seconds. And did absolutely nothing before never been seen again.
*sigh* They're so rare that even the reissue pack of cassetticons sells for $80+. I have a reissue Soundwave on my desk, but it just came with Ravage and Lazerbeak. Not even Rumble. Or Frenzy. I forget which one is which for what toyline. You know, the purple one.
optimus2861
Registered User
TF: Prime even managed to accomplish something that no other Transformers incarnation ever has: it made me care about the human characters. It did take a while, though. Through much of the first season, the only one I could tolerate was Jack. Somewhere along the line, though, the Miko/Bulkhead relationship really began to work for me, and when they said their good-bye at the end of the series, I actually choked up. I can't point to when that relationship turned the corner for me; maybe the episode where they were trapped in a collapsed mine together.
CrowningMomentOfAwesome
I liked Computron. The individual robots that he was made up of were pretty cool looking and had sweet alternate forms.
Loved Bruticus! Great looking combiner, nice and clean looking. I loved Swindle. He was one of my all time fav Decpticons. He had a couple of individual story lines.
I love this thread!
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
TF: Prime even managed to accomplish something that no other Transformers incarnation ever has: it made me care about the human characters. It did take a while, though. Through much of the first season, the only one I could tolerate was Jack. Somewhere along the line, though, the Miko/Bulkhead relationship really began to work for me, and when they said their good-bye at the end of the series, I actually choked up. I can't point to when that relationship turned the corner for me; maybe the episode where they were trapped in a collapsed mine together.
CrowningMomentOfAwesome
Yeah, Jack got more annoying as time went on. But the Jack/Arcee/Airachnid episodes from the first season were good. The one in the forest was good and surprisingly dark/grim and then the second one where Jack's mom finds out about the Transformers was nice too. The whole night-time fight in the cement yard was beautiful. Plus Gina Torres makes a good creepy villain
I also think that Prime had perhaps the best version of the Megatron/Starscream dynamic. Starscream was actually halfway competent at his attempts to usurp command, it's just that he got saddled with a more calculating, more ruthless, more capable Megatron to deal with. It was more than just "Megatron's down, I'm the leader, oh **** he got back up" or "Megatron's back is turned, time to shoot him with my laser that's never killed anyone before but I'm sure it will work this time, oh no it didn't." like G1. The only time G1 Starscream ever really did well in his bid for power was in the Movie. And he only got to enjoy that for like 5 minutes.
Probably going to start my Transformers binge/marathon tonight. Haven't decided yet if I'm going to try and blitz my way through G1 and see how far I get before Christmas, or if I'll pick and choose a collection of "best of" episodes from the series I have collected.
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
Swindle is one of my handful of surviving (but thoroughly played with) G1 toys. I never go at a complete set of any combiners, but I have 1 piece each of Bruticus, Defensor, and Abominus. I can assemble them into an armless monstrosity too because I have the Defensor torso (Hotspot) and combiner pieces (hands, feet, stick-on kibble stuff) and two other limb bots (Swindle and Blot).
It actually shows well how all the post-Devastator combiners were originally part of a set of Japanese robot toys that were meant to be interchangeable, which is why all the limb bots have tiny square-peg heads and they all have a bigger "leader" bot that has square slots in his shoulders/arms and feet.
My mom once told me that the son (he was a few years older than me, so I didn't really know him that well) of one of the guys my dad worked with at the time had a whole ton of Transformers including all the rest of the Defensor combiners. When he was getting older to the point of not wanting the toys anymore, my mom was going to ask his mom if she could take the Transformers since I was still little and a big fan. But it was too late and his mom had already thrown them all away.
you know what? I think I might've told that story before. Even in this exact thread
EDIT: BTW, maybe we should adjust the thread title? It's kind of become an all-purpose Transformers discussion. Though on the other hand, the anniversary angle might get more people interested if they know there's G1 discussion and it's not all about the bayformers movies.
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Guardian17
Strong & Free
I think this is a great idea, I like talking about the Transformers!
How do we go about changing it?
Do we ask a mod?
SoundwaveIsCharisma
Moderator
The Gestalts were my favourite part of Transformers. My older cousins, who were huge TF fans themselves, got me Superion and Bruticus. It was a weird combination of the Generation 1 figures and Generation 2 figures, so I had some heft diecast pieces with relatively subtle colours, and then super bold plastic figures. Would love if they remade the gestalts, but with premium designs.
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
I think this is a great idea, I like talking about the Transformers!
How do we go about changing it?
Do we ask a mod?
Gimme a sec.
"Hey, me. Can we change the thread title?"
"Sure, I don't see why not. Seems reasonable. What do you want it changed to?"
"How about 'The Transformers thread'?"
"Yeah, that's doable. I'll have it changed in a minute."
"Awesome. Thanks, me."
"No problem. Happy to help."
Can't begin to imagine how much those would cost.
BTW, your name/avy/location makes me want ot ask: Have you ever seen the big Blaster/Soundwave fight from The Headmasters? Man, that was disappointing. If it was ever possible for there to be a double-kill where both sides go down like punks, that's probably it.
SoundwaveIsCharisma
Moderator
Can't begin to imagine how much those would cost.
BTW, your name/avy/location makes me want ot ask: Have you ever seen the big Blaster/Soundwave fight from The Headmasters? Man, that was disappointing. If it was ever possible for there to be a double-kill where both sides go down like punks, that's probably it.
That fight was incredibly weird. They kinda stand still and shoot each other, throw a few punches, and then Soundwave spontaneously self-detonates for no clear reason. I don't think it helped that I could only watch in a terrible fan translation the first time I watched it.
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