1) I know he's a package refresh, but I'm surprised that Galvatron (and his Selects counterpart) are not only readily available, but discounted to sub-Voyager levels. ER Prime was refreshed, and still sold through. Is Galvatron not a popular enough character? I'd always preferred him to Megatron, and he played a huge role in the Movie, S3/4, and HM. The toy is pretty solid, not like the weaksauce of Universe or TR.

2) Legacy Bludgeon has grown on me. He's more poseable than even the Yolopark models, and his vehicle mode is actually fairly cool as a futuristic tank. I take back my vote - Bludgeon should have been toy of the year.

3) How has the QC been on the Haslabs? There's a whole thread at TFW2005 dedicated to Victory Saber's issues, and the usual suspects have all sorts of upgrades and gap fillers available, which I wouldn't have thought necessary for a Haslab. Thinking of getting Omega Prime, but not if it's going to be at the same level of QC as a retail release.

4) ROTB: with time, I've cooled on my initial positive impressions of the movie. It's greatest sin is that it's deadly dull. Bay's movies at least had a sense of the epic. ROTB meanders like a not-especially thrilling episode of the cartoon. Its one saving grace is the increased presence of the robot cast, even if many of them never transform. The female lead is an annoying Mary Sue who is inexplicably good at everything from carbon-dating to the geography of Peru, and yet she's ultimately completely unnecessary to the plot. Also, I can't imagine that anyone still cares about G.I. Joe. The crossover tease is about two decades too late to excite.

5) I liked the Paramount Plus ad with Scourge and Prime. Almost more entertaining than ROTB itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP1j-ZFwjK0

CodigoPostal wrote:

> 3) How has the QC been on the Haslabs? There's a whole thread at TFW2005 dedicated to Victory Saber's issues, and the usual suspects have all sorts of upgrades and gap fillers available, which I wouldn't have thought necessary for a Haslab. Thinking of getting Omega Prime, but not if it's going to be at the same level of QC as a retail release.

Deathsaurus is excellent.

In fact, just looking at the micromasters that came with each, Deathsaurus's little captured friends are excellent, while Victory Saber's little friends are just redecos showing mold wear with parts that can pop off with light play.

My Victory Saber himself seems fine. Not excellent, not amazing, not even great, but fine. Maybe on the good side of fine. Nothing falls off, but nothing feels quite as solid as I would want it to.

> 4) ROTB: with time, I've cooled on my initial positive impressions of the movie. It's greatest sin is that it's deadly dull. Bay's movies at least had a sense of the epic. ROTB meanders like a not-especially thrilling episode of the cartoon. Its one saving grace is the increased presence of the robot cast, even if many of them never transform. The female lead is an annoying Mary Sue who is inexplicably good at everything from carbon-dating to the geography of Peru, and yet she's ultimately completely unnecessary to the plot. Also, I can't imagine that anyone still cares about G.I. Joe. The crossover tease is about two decades too late to excite.

People really misuse the term Mary Sue. That character isn't a Mary Sue -- she's not the center of attention, she's not outshining everyone else, she's just a walking exposition dump to enable the rest of the characters.

Rey Palpatine-Skywalker was a lot closer to a Mary Sue (along with Anakin and Luke... Star Wars is about Mary Sues. "The force is strong in this one" means "hey, we found our main character and they will be inexplicably great at things for no reason other than 'the force' which we just made up"). And even there, she was not outshining existing characters in ways that didn't fit the world building.

ROTB Lady is not a good character -- I'm sure she had a name, but it didn't stick, and she has no emotional arc, and she has no real motivations or agency, but she's not a Mary Sue.

It's like they folded three bit characters who would be relevant for a scene each to give a little exposition into one character.

I'm not even sure that this itself is a bad idea -- if the story had to switch over to visiting her former professor who knows alot about carbon dating, it might have slowed things down (or it could have been the opportunity for a montage, or a fun little action scene when it turns out they were followed). Indiana Jones movies would have have the fun little action scene, and probably killed off the exposition character, who would be played by a character actor beloved to those who recognize him and recognized in his next movie by everyone.

ROTB Lady could also have been replaced by a second McGuffin, a McGuffin-detector. That would have been worse. Or a mummy, and that would have been awesome (there were Peruvian mummies, what if one of the museum exhibits walked up and dropped some exposition that they saw when they were alive?) I guess a semifunctional robot might be better than a mummy for the theme.

On Monday, February 5, 2024 at 11:35:41 AM UTC-7, CodigoPostal wrote:

> 3) How has the QC been on the Haslabs? There's a whole thread at TFW2005 dedicated to Victory Saber's issues, and the usual suspects have all sorts of upgrades and gap fillers available, which I wouldn't have thought necessary for a Haslab. Thinking of getting Omega Prime, but not if it's going to be at the same level of QC as a retail release.

Unicron had a few issues with people getting two left wing sections (Brian Kilby of Radio Free Cybertron among them) but Hasbro was able to make good and send replacement parts. Some people complained a *lot* about Unicron (the maw/teeth/whatever being the wrong color) but I honestly think at least some of that was buyer's remorse.

Star Saber had a lot of problems. The red cockpit piece not having a pin hole punched, the hands being misassembled, the chrome chest panel not being vac-metalized all the way. Lots of issues. I think the story was that Hasbro had switched to a different production factory, and the quality control standards were not up to snuff. I had to open mine up and inspect like three different features just to see whether it was even resellable or not. Hasbro ended up committing to a second production run and replaced entire Star Sabers for anybody who had problems (you had to send your old one back in first), so at least they made it right.

I have not seen problems reported with Deathsaurus. If he had issues, people aren't making a lot of noise about it.

Zob (still can't decide whether to fund the Omega Prime project or not)

Glad Hasbro made it right with their backers. Gives me more confidence in Omega Prime. It's funny - if it had just been Prime, I'd have backed it in a heartbeat, but I have no interest in Magnus.

Good point. ROTB Lady seemed like a step back after the charismatic and relatively non-objectified Laura Haddock from TF5, and the well-written and actualized character of Hailee Steinfeld from Bumblebee. Felt like we were finally getting female characters that weren't a teenage boy's fantasy ("pornstar hot but likes cars and dates nerds!"). Maybe the next one will do better.