Nuttin.' What's a Magnius wit you?
Studio Series discussion
- Thread starter Paladin
- Start date
Nuttin.' What's a Magnius wit you?
I’m with the broader consensus here: Commander Ultra Magnus is very nice, but it doesn’t do anything (short of extra paint and extra accessories) appreciably better than the Kingdom one I already have. Same is true of Ratchet, I already have the Siege (love the Cybertronian “geebles“ ) AND Earthrise versions, the Voyager doesn’t really do much better.
The Studio Core series offers some nifty things. I appreciate they did Noah in his exosuit, but I think I might have preferred a non-transforming figure with accessories compared to the odd jet mode they ended up giving him. Novakane is just a modified Freezer, but I’ll probably end up with both as Unicron Battlemasters.
Nightbird? I feel she has the same issues as Studio Series Mirage: in trying to keep these figures “complex and articulation” we’re ending up with messy figures that fail on multiple fronts. Like with Mirage, aside from the plastic choices, the Core Deluxe is “good enough” (from a design standpoint) and doesn’t look nearly as frustrating. Damn near ALL of the Studio Series RotB toys fall into this trap where they are trying to keep up the “Collector Standards” and end up with gangly messes or overdesigned clumps that fail to capture “the feel” of the film‘s designs.
The Studio Core series offers some nifty things. I appreciate they did Noah in his exosuit, but I think I might have preferred a non-transforming figure with accessories compared to the odd jet mode they ended up giving him. Novakane is just a modified Freezer, but I’ll probably end up with both as Unicron Battlemasters.
Nightbird? I feel she has the same issues as Studio Series Mirage: in trying to keep these figures “complex and articulation” we’re ending up with messy figures that fail on multiple fronts. Like with Mirage, aside from the plastic choices, the Core Deluxe is “good enough” (from a design standpoint) and doesn’t look nearly as frustrating. Damn near ALL of the Studio Series RotB toys fall into this trap where they are trying to keep up the “Collector Standards” and end up with gangly messes or overdesigned clumps that fail to capture “the feel” of the film‘s designs.
I kinda want them to do a re-release of Core Nightbird just with her having more black. That or Toyhax to release a sticker set that covers up most the tan plastic as personally I really like her toy. A lot of the core toys are really solid and well done.
This Ultra Magnus does a lot better than Kingdom. It has two totally accomplished modes. It just doesn't do the one thing I want.
Sure it does, it splits into pieces for Real Drawn And Quartered Action™.
Any Ultra Magnus can do that if you insist on it.
I mean I'm really not sure why you'd want the slavishly media-accurate toy (well as slavishly media-accurate as a mass release toy can be) in the slavishly media-accurate line to do the thing that didn't happen in the media the toy is based on but that's just me.
But can you put the legs back on the wrong side like the Junkions did in the movie?
Because Newage showed us that having the inner robot is not an obstacle to achieving a slavishly cartoon accurate robot mode. We can have it all. I had hopes that a Commander would try.
Same two in my collection as well (plus Classics with the FansProject armor, but that's going back aways), and my initial reaction was "man, do I need another Ultra Magnus?) But, it is tempting. I'm not too upset at losing the white inner robot, and I really like the beefiness of the proportions. Like Jetfire, I wonder if this will be a good "Masterpiece for people who won't/can't pay MP prices" substitute.
Probably also helps that not much else they showed off at SDCC really sparked my interest.
You probably saw me me speculating about that. I really thought they were going to do that.
It would have made some sense, too, seeing as the next HasLab is also celebrating the anniversary, but has been confirmed to not be an Optimus. A Commander class figure instead would have thus fit the bill.
Yeah, it's only the "same" in that "it's Ultra Magnus" and only relevant here for having an inner white robot. And calling that "four times" glosses over the fact that those four are essentially the same thing released with paint differences four times (or sure, three Sieges and a retool) rather than distinct takes/attempts that would more fairly merit being counted separately.
And clearly, if those were satisfactory, then the people disappointed in the lack of inner white robot here wouldn't have been looking to SS86 for a better take to begin with.
Small semantic bit here. I think "why you would expect" is more apt for this than "why you would WANT". It makes sense to want an extra feature (more than it does to expect them to break the pattern).
But the thing is, this extra feature would not PRECLUDE a "slavishly media accurate" altmode and robot mode, in a line that doesn't always have "slavishly media accurate" transformation schemes anyway. If slavishly media accurate is all that important to a person or to Hasbro themselves as part of this line's apparent identity, they can absolutely still have that.
They've done 2-3 Commanders now that had a base robot mode with a trailer that did Other Stuff. And two of them had trailers whose Other Stuff was "turn into part of a bigger robot", whether it's Armada Prime's lower supermode half or Motormaster's Menasor arms AND legs.
They did it at Leader class too but with a trailer that struck a (rough) design compromise between G1 and RID2001 and a robot held back by budget limits; there's more room to nail it at this price point, especially when they design it from the ground up as G1 rather than need to compromise.
It's not unreasonable to think they could have made a base robot here (maybe whose arms and legs extended a bit to accommodate the armor) with a trailer that could break up into armor pieces.
I'm with you, PrincessViola, in that it's not surprising, but it's disappointing nonetheless.
Maybe one day they'll even do a good one.
Not gonna lie, one of the main reasons why I like this Magnus is because he can actually carry vehicles in his alt mode (as mother nature intended!). I can understand the argument that SS86 doesn't do anything appreciably different enough in robot mode to warrant a purchase. But as a kid, I had Magnus in car carrier mode far more often than robot mode. I will probably do the same when I get this version, because it's like, fun.
Well, in theory I can justify this magnus pretty well, as I have seige magnus, SG Magnus and Galaxty Armor prime. Even the old generations Magnus is specifically IDW. I don't have just like, a cartoon Ultra Magnus and this one is near perfect.
Honestly, as much as I have CRAVED this EXACT take on Nova, I'm finding myself looking for more reasons to justify him.
(...I'll probably just get both...)
Honestly, as much as I have CRAVED this EXACT take on Nova, I'm finding myself looking for more reasons to justify him.
(...I'll probably just get both...)