Mayhem Transformers Discussion: United We Shelfwarm

Copper Bezel

Revenge against God for the crime of Being.
Citizen
Sincerely though, I feel like you could get rid of the dials and eyepiece and Perceptor would be a lot closer to an electron microscope cabinet than he ever was to a child's optical microscope. And considering no one ever looks in his scope and he makes beep-boop noises while he magnifies, I find it easy enough to pretend.
 

unluckiness

Somehow still sane
Citizen
I can take or leave the tank mode but the microscope mode needs some work on the SS toy. Some way to hide or retract the thighs, locking the legs in place and to solidify the standing base of the microscope would be appreciated. Feels very fanmode-y as-is and as far as the tank goes, at least you can jostle it and it'll keep together.
 
Last edited:

Blot

Well-known member
Citizen
So I wondered just now how Hasbro could mess up that tank mode so bad in the 80s, and discovered to my own surprise that technically they hadn't.
Microchange Microscope Robo has TWO tank modes and they chose the worse of the two for the Transformers release, omitting the other one.

AraPJr4.jpg
 

Copper Bezel

Revenge against God for the crime of Being.
Citizen
Those look identical to me except for the angle of the center section. Is that all that's going on here? If so, that seems less like two modes and more like angling up for a mortar shot.
 

Copper Bezel

Revenge against God for the crime of Being.
Citizen
Eh, gerwalk mode exists because the creator liked it all along and wanted the robot to look like that, and then accidentally made it so that the toy could still turn into that too. Personally I'm all for the vibe of half of a fighter plane with fists and jet skates and don't need the other two modes particularly. And now you can get gerwalk models with Macross girls bent over them as a personal mount, I think it all works out.
I can take or leave the tank mode but the microscope mode needs some work on the SS toy. Some way to hide or retract the thighs, locking the legs in place and to solidify the standing base of the microscope would be appreciated. Feels very fanmode-y as-is and as far as the tank goes, at least you can jostle it and it'll keep together.
Bringing this back up to say yeah, it's like even when they're not using the G1 toy as reference, they're still leaning on it as an excuse there. Retracting the thighs would make a lot of headway toward looking like the animation model. Maybe they just looked at the animation model and got sad and didn't want to try anymore.
 

Princess Viola

Dumbass Asexual
Citizen
Those look identical to me except for the angle of the center section. Is that all that's going on here? If so, that seems less like two modes and more like angling up for a mortar shot.
yeah that is genuinely all it is

microchange trys to pretend that they're three different modes by calling the mode with the center section down 'scope tank' and the mode with it angled up 'scope cannon' but it's really not
 

unluckiness

Somehow still sane
Citizen
Bringing this back up to say yeah, it's like even when they're not using the G1 toy as reference, they're still leaning on it as an excuse there. Retracting the thighs would make a lot of headway toward looking like the animation model. Maybe they just looked at the animation model and got sad and didn't want to try anymore.
It was probably a friday afternoon and the designer went "eh, close enough."

Another baffling decision is the tab on his taint that serves as the contact point to the surface for microscope mode. Like, why? Would that extra millimeter of crotch really make him any less accurate?

Also tried shining a laser pointer through the scope and it went through. It theoretically could be a working scope but the lens are not quite transparent enough I guess.
 
Last edited:

unluckiness

Somehow still sane
Citizen
Motormaster looks surprisingly good from the waist up. The legs are a clusterhug but that's to be expected given how he has to pretend to be a whole truck+ trailer when he's just the truck.
 

Copper Bezel

Revenge against God for the crime of Being.
Citizen
Hasbro's had that rule of not releasing combiners that require multiple specific figures to work - Combiner Wars had to be cross compatible across a wide selection of figures, Titan combiners came in a single box, and Battleslash and Roadtrap worked independently and hid the fact that they could combine in the instructions. I like that Menasor solves this by taking advantage of the cartoon combination and allowing Motormaster to combine with his trailer for a super mode that you can optionally attach other Stunticons to.
 

Princess Viola

Dumbass Asexual
Citizen
the only thing i'm really interested in is the elita-1 but also mostly for the minerva version of the mold

i mean i might still pick up the elita-1 release if i see her but yeah
 

The Mighty Mollusk

Scream all you like, 'cause we're all mad here
Citizen
I was curious about Tarantulas, but I'm not sure if it's really an upgrade over the original mold. Guess I'll wait for reviews.
 

Copper Bezel

Revenge against God for the crime of Being.
Citizen
I'm going to steal April's Elita 1 because I just love that stupid car mode so much. It's sad and I want to take care of it. Someone pointed out that it looks like the Homer and it's uncanny, down to the megaphone on top. Actually not a terrible robot either.

Edit: The Tarantulas is certainly more show accurate and articulated than the original, and has a decent transformation into a spider that looks like a spider and also like the CG one. It's hard to see how that isn't an improvement. It looks on par with the rest of Kingdom.
 

The Mighty Mollusk

Scream all you like, 'cause we're all mad here
Citizen
Eh. Maybe I'm just burned out on the constant rehashes of old stuff. Just doesn't seem like enough of an upgrade to bother over the BWX version. I'll decide when more in-hand pics show up.
 


Top Bottom