More Than Meets the Eye: Star Wars Transformers

[Cold Blooded]

Apologies if this has already been posted:
http://www.starwars.com/collecting/news/hasbro/news20051107.html



The power of the Force meets the power of the Allspark with a new assortment of Star Wars vehicles from Hasbro that are actually robots in disguise. Star Wars Transformers combine the classic characters and vehicles from a galaxy far, far away and transforms them into mighty mechs with seamless Star Wars alt-modes. This first wave of unique crossover toys includes four 'bots, with a mix of good and evil to wage shapeshifting battles among your other Star Wars or Transformer toys. Each figure also comes with a miniature pilot.


http://www.starwars.com/collecting/news/hasbro/img/20051107_vader_bg.jpg


http://www.starwars.com/collecting/news/hasbro/img/20051107_luke_bg.jpg

[MRUS]

How cool.

[Jason McMaster]

it's like a tag team childhood dream gangbang. Now all I need is for someone to make a short film about Thundarr the Barbarian getting drunk, nailing Ookla and waking up in the morning and taking a rage shit while crying.

Please, let our fond childhood memories die

[Gladguy]

You have *no idea* how cool these things are. I was playing with a prototype last month. I guess there is some upside to being out of the game business and working at Hasbro...

They'll be on shelves in January.

[MattKeil]

As a tremendous fan of both Star Wars and Transformers who still buys the occasional toy from both lines, I would just like to say that these things look awful and make me confused and sad.

[Jason McCullough]

.....a rage shit?

[sluggo]

http://archive.gamespy.com/sluggo/xformvaderno.jpg

[Marcus]

Oh dear.

[Kalle]

This is just sad on so many levels.

Wait, that's an exaggeration. There's no possible way Star Wars could be any sadder right now. It's just a shame that the Transformers are going to be associated with it.

[Jack Black]

it's like a tag team childhood dream gangbang. Now all I need is for someone to make a short film about Thundarr the Barbarian getting drunk, nailing Ookla and waking up in the morning and taking a rage shit while crying.

Yes, but resistance is futile. I won't buy one for me, but I will be damned if a friend's kid doesn't get one of these that I might take a second to play with it myself trying to 'transform'.

Oh, sad, mutilated, dead childhood.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Well, at least it ain't Gobots.

Check that, who fucking cares, this is sad. Dunno about you palookas, but I tried to inject some ersatz form of rationality into my cheesy, weak boyhood playtime toy epics. THOU HAST STRUCK DOWN HAWK MOST UNRIGHTEOUSLY COBRA COMMANDER (or, well, his fucking thumbs fell off and his spinerubber band is creaking) AND I SHALL anyway, you get the point. And I was good at it, mind. I could blend genres. OH GOD THE VECTREX IS ATTACKING THE MASK GAS STATION FUCKING DO SOMETHING MATT TRACKER. Shit, I bought the original GIJoes line with He-Man's castle at the same fucking time. Why? Pffft, I dunno, I'd already loaded the stupid castle in my (Mom's) shopping cart and then I spied them Joe dudes. Didn't even know they existed. I'd raked fucking rocks out of my front yard for 3 months, I was getting mine, y'know? So, first mission: GIJoe invades He-Man's castle. Sure.

But, this. I AM YOUR FATH- NO UH PROGENITOR ROBOT, LUKETIMUS PRIME. JOIN ME AND I WILL SHOW YOU THE WAYS OF THE FORCE MATRIX AND WE SHALL RULE THE WORLD AS ONE, LIKE THE CONSTRUCTICONS BUT GAYER.

I mean, uh huh what? However, it does unite the two coolest sound effects in toy history, the light saber and the transforming sfx.

[MattKeil]

It would be different if they made them look like the actual characters, at least. Vader and Grievous are passable, but who the fuck looked at Obi-Wan and thought, "Eh, close enough"?

http://www.starwars.com/collecting/news/hasbro/img/20051107_obiwan_bg.jpg

And on top of that, it's a shitty robot mode even without trying to look like Ewan McGregor. Maybe they should have just made it some lame story about Transformers who were Star Wars fans and decided to adapt their alternate modes accordingly. Like those guys who mod their Hondas into A-Wings and shit.

[Bill Dungsroman]

http://www.starwars.com/collecting/news/hasbro/img/20051107_obiwan_bg.jpg

And on top of that, it's a shitty robot mode even without trying to look like Ewan McGregor.

AIM FOR THE DIMINUTIVE CROTCH, ANIKON (ahahaha get it?).

Yeah. At least the Luke bot is sort of cool. Shame about Obi Wan, since the ship model is the best of the 3 pasted here. Vader's TIE looks cheesier than the ol' Kenner toy.

Transformers were weird fucking toys to begin with. Their whole raison d'etre for playing with them was to physicially transform them and admire the detail, obviously, but in the cartoons it took about 1.5 seconds for them to transform and they simplified the models so that every goddamned one of them had a rectangular torso with similarly boxy arms and legs (the motion picture was done better, though). So you'd be having your big Transformers showdown and be all

Optimus: MEGATRON MUST BE STOPPED NO MATTER THE COST waitasecfuckingarmsneverfoldbehindtorsoproperlyugh .

Megatron: IT'S OVER PRIME YOU SLOW TRANSFORMING FUCK I WILL MAGICALLY SHRINK TO A FRACTION OF MY SIZE AND LOOK LIKE A WALTHER P-39 EXCEPT THE SIZE OF A DUMP TRUCK NO ONE WILL KNOW DON'T DROP ME SOUNDWAVE

Soundwave: WMMMW WMWMW WMMWW

Optimus: WOW A CASSETTE TAPE THAT TRANSFORMS INTO A DOG HOW TERRIFYING

Starscream: EEEEEEYUGHHH TREACHERY

Optimus: COBRA FUCKING COMMANDER HOW YA BEEN? HEY HERE'S IRONHIDE NICE FUCKING MODEL JUMP OFF YOUR SCOOTER THERE HALF-PINT OR WHATEVER THE HELL IT IS YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE.

Sorry, went on a tangent there.

[Funkman]

There are waaaay to many capital letters in this thread.

[Rywill]

The Transformers work because they're robots that don't have to look like anything in particular when they're not being cars. Every one of these Star Wars toys looks like some hideous nightmare when in human form. Jesus, it looks like someone ran Luke and his ship through one of those teleporters from the remake of The Fly.

[XPav]

My favorite transformers were the ones that didn't transform. I didn't have any of them though, they came out slightly after that.

My transformers toy collection was interesting. I think my parents were trying to tell me something, because I had around 15 Autobots and 2 Decepticons. So we've got Optimus Prime, Sky Lynx, Omega Supreme, and a host of supporting characters (half of them busted) vs Motormaster and a gimmick transformer with some sort of flip action that looked like crap in robot AND vehicle mode.

[Brian Rubin]

Oh I am all over this like white on rice.

[mono]

I just want the Micronauts to come back.

This Battle Cruiser was the best birthday present ever:
http://static.flickr.com/28/62626042_4ad56ef69b.jpg

[Wholly Schmidt]

I just want the Micronauts to come back.

This Battle Cruiser was the best birthday present ever:
http://static.flickr.com/28/62626042_4ad56ef69b.jpg
Looks cool, but not as cool as this:
http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/2877/killerwhale17jy.jpg
Man, I loved that hovercraft.

[Warning]

Wow I totally forgot I had the Micronauts Battle Cruiser. Loved that thing!

[Andrew Mayer]

Sorry, but I'm going to have to tell you that your Hovercraft wasn't even in the same league.

See those huge orange things on the front of the Battle Cruiser? Those are missiles that fire! And it was no nampy pamby bullshit either. You could fire those fuckers all the way across the family room and they still woud inflict pain on the target. See how they're vaguely gun shaped? That's because they could be pulled off and used as guns!

Also, see that pod in the front? There was a button that would fire that off the front. Oh, and the whole thing had a wired "remote control". It would totally freak out the family pet.

I can still remember putting the stickers on that baby on Christamas morning.

[Wholly Schmidt]

Hey, that's cool, I didn't want to fondly remember my childhood anyway.

P.S. You're not invited to my birthday party this year, and we've having it at McDonalds!

[Marcus]

Sorry nothing is as bad ass as this.

http://i18.ebayimg.com/04/i/04/5a/9c/4e_1_b.JPG

I hope that image works.

[Brian Rucker]

Major Matt Mason (http://www.majormattmason.net/mcat3fc.htm) was the shit when I was a tot. It's amazing that I've very few memories of being very little but I definitely remember these toys. Looking back I was 5 years old the last year these came out (1969) and look at them. Giant (to a kid of that age) gliders your guys would fit in, space bases, one-man-hoverjets on ziplines. A million things to choke on, trip over, or put someone's eye out with. Man, we had it good back then!

[mono]

Sorry man, no 2nd-gen GI Joe "American Hero" toy can come close to the Micronauts lineup, which came before most of that child safety bullshit. Every Micronaut piece that looks like a gun, does in fact shoot rockets that are small enough to choke your kid brother or sister. As Andrew stated, those orange blasters were hardcore, my sister must still have a concave forehead from those fuckers, 25 years later. Couple that with the super-strength tensile spring powered exploding fists of 2' tall Shogun Warriors, and GI Joe never made it off the beach.

http://membres.lycos.fr/rodmax2/hpbimg/RAYDEEN%20POPY%202.jpg

[MRUS]

Major Matt Mason (http://www.majormattmason.net/mcat3fc.htm) was the shit when I was a tot. It's amazing that I've very few memories of being very little but I definitely remember these toys. Looking back I was 5 years old the last year these came out (1969) and look at them. Giant (to a kid of that age) gliders your guys would fit in, space bases, one-man-hoverjets on ziplines. A million things to choke on, trip over, or put someone's eye out with. Man, we had it good back then!

Oh yeah, the best Christmas I can remember as a child I got a ton of Major Matt Mason stuff. The big two were the space station and the space crawler. The catalog doesn't show the token alien though, Callisto. Man, I can still remember that name after all these years. :oops:

[Peter Frazier]

I had Callisto, I couldn't remember the name of him but I sure as hell remember that gun thing that spat out a thin tongue. Man, we're talking almost primeval memories for me.
http://www.majormattmason.net/gif/6331f.jpg

[Rywill]

I had the Micronauts battle cruiser (which did indeed totally rawk), and a couple Shogun figures (and I had the Godzilla and Rodan ones as well, although they weren't as cool). But by far the coolest overall toy was my brother's GI Joe aircraft carrier. It didn't shoot stuff or anything, but this fucker was really, really huge (edit: 7 1/2 feet long, looking on the net). We set it up in the basement for him one Christmas. Awesome. Like, it had a flight deck that was big enough to fit the giant GI Joe jet plane (I'm sure not actually in scale with it, but big enough that you would believe it was in scale as a kid). I remember my bro woke up while my dad and I were setting it up on Christmas Eve, and my mom had try and explain away all the noise coming from the basement. At one point I pushed the battle stations button that the carrier had (making a big siren noise), and my mom told my brother it was "mice." Funny.

http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/85/ussflagg/flagg_title.jpg

http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/85/ussflagg/flagg_interior.jpg


The best thing I ever personally got was the Star Wars Death Star playset, which I think I only got because I was in the hospital that Christmas with a busted head. Still, it ruled: I loved the trash compactor, and was psyched to find out what the trash compactor monster "really looked like," although I was secretly disappointed to find out that it looked like an uncooked turkey.

[Andrew Mayer]

I had Callisto, I couldn't remember the name of him but I sure as hell remember that gun thing that spat out a thin tongue. Man, we're talking almost primeval memories for me.
http://www.majormattmason.net/gif/6331f.jpg

Oh my God, I had one of those. I must have barely reached the age of recommendation on it. The "toungue" was a piece of string spat out by air pressure...

[MattKeil]

Yeah. At least the Luke bot is sort of cool. Shame about Obi Wan, since the ship model is the best of the 3 pasted here. Vader's TIE looks cheesier than the ol' Kenner toy.

I actually can't even tell if the Obi-Wan shot is a real picture of the toy or a computer model of it. It looks really unnaturally clean and clear.

Transformers were weird fucking toys to begin with. Their whole raison d'etre for playing with them was to physicially transform them and admire the detail, obviously, but in the cartoons it took about 1.5 seconds for them to transform and they simplified the models so that every goddamned one of them had a rectangular torso with similarly boxy arms and legs (the motion picture was done better, though).

Yeah, I generally got to the point that I needed the character to transform in my "story," transformed him, then put him back down where he was before and went "KEKUKAKUKO!" and pretended it happened instantaneously. My Transformer wars were usually fairly intricate, because I had like twice as many Decepticons as Autobots, most of them combiners. So it was like Prime, the Dinobots, a couple of cars, and Perceptor against all the Decepticon combiner teams, Trypticon, and like ten other guys. The Autobots always had some devious strategy to win, which usually involved toys from other toy lines helping them. One time my sister wanted to play so the Autobots teamed up with the Care Bears and Care Bear Stared at Devastator until he fell apart.

These new toys really annoy me. I loved Star Wars to death when I was very young, and when Return of the Jedi was over and done with I kind of got over the toys (primarily because I didn't like RotJ very much), and transitioned right into Transformers. So this idea should be like the ultimate childhood nostalgia toy for me, but instead they have created monsters.

Fuck Star Wars Transformers.

[Andrew Mayer]

I have to admit that as a kid I would have found it difficult to create a cool world for Transformer Vader to inhabit.

I probably would have played it as some kind of new technology they'd just invented, and that they downloaded the brains of the characters into the ships.

I was pretty into downloading brains as I remember it.

[RobotPants]

These toys greatly confuse and bewilder all my stored up childhood nostalgia. :?

[MattKeil]

New wave on the way.

Clone Trooper
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/images/products/out/large/HAS11873.jpg
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/images/products/aux1/large/HAS11873.jpg

Jango Fett
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/images/products/out/large/HAS11876.jpg
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/images/products/aux1/large/HAS11876.jpg

[MattKeil]

Emperor Palpatine, apparently...
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/images/products/out/large/HAS11875.jpg
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/images/products/aux1/large/HAS11875.jpg

And Han and Chewie, who combine to form the Millennium Falcon...I have not the words.
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/images/products/out/large/HAS11874.jpg
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/images/products/aux1/large/HAS11874.jpg

[Damien Falgoust]

One time my sister wanted to play so the Autobots teamed up with the Care Bears and Care Bear Stared at Devastator until he fell apart.El Oh El.

The little Japanese kid next door to me growing up had this bad boy. I don't remember ever seeing it in store shelves, so I assumed he had some kind of super-secret Asian toy connection.

http://www.virtualtoychest.com/voltron/Voltron_panosh_1_crop.jpg

http://www.virtualtoychest.com/voltron/Voltron_lion_2_crop.jpg

[XPav]

Um, that's Voltron. It was definitely available in stores in the US.

Strangely enough, growing up in England, I went over to a little japanese boy's house, and he had it.

I never did.

[Damien Falgoust]

Um, that's Voltron. It was definitely available in stores in the US.Yeah, I know, Voltron was an integral part of of my regular after-school cartoon diet. And I know thanks to the intarweb that it was in fact available in the US -- I just never seemed to see it on store shelves.