anyhow
Metroplex's buddies
Now combine them!
Huh, never did work Slammer into this....
anyhow
Metroplex's buddies
And whoever wins this race is the real Optimus Prime!
Machine Wars line ideas
Optimus Prime- Legacy Motormaster
Prowl- Legacy Dragstrip
Mirage- Legacy Dragstrip
Hubcap- AotP Swindle
Hoist- AotP Swindle
Sandstorm- Gen Selects Rotorstorm
Megatron- Legacy Evolution Needlenose
Megaplex- Legacy Evolution Needlenose
Starscream- Legacy Evolution Skyquake
Thundercracker- Legacy United Slipstream
Skywarp- Legacy United Slipstream
Soundwave- ER Doubledealer
Regarding MW slander...Oh, and we were talking about Machine Wars. A quickly thrown together concept made out of compromise that everyone complained about when it came out and only had to be good enough to get out the door.
I like the mould myself. The double cockpit is all kinds of goofy but it's goofy in the way I can appreciate.I'm not super into the Spinister mold and wish we'd get a new helicopter mold out, but it might look good in Sandstorm colors. Just use opaque plastic for everything.
The Legacy Motormaster mould apparently has that Thunderclash alternate tooling worked in, so it would work as MW Optimus.The box art for this line was all tweaked versions of earlier box art anwyay, but I'd rather the toys match the toys. Even going with Mirage/Hoist or Scraphook for the other Autobots doesn't preclude using a Motormaster for Prime in this scenario. Of course the next question is the feasibility of Commanders at all for a capsule (although SG did use Jetfire, it was a Hasbro capsule rather than Amazon/Target/Walmart, iirc), but we're just talking mold usage here.
They kept the Predator scopes in but removed the mirrors. This line is post-modern art in toy form.It's a mess, but a beautiful mess. So many things about it are "wrong" that it turns into a cohesive weirdness. Megaplex looks more like Megatron than Megatron does. It's so much more fun than if they'd put the toys on the right cards.
When everything is wrong, nothing is wrong.
(shrug) I'd be fine with that. People are going to say and do what they want regardless. Not going to trade in five closer likenesses/homages to avoid something that'll happen anyway.The Legacy Motormaster mould apparently has that Thunderclash alternate tooling worked in, so it would work as MW Optimus.
Problem is... it's also a Combiner torso/frame. So even if you went out of your way to never mention it on the box... it's still there. And people will make their own combiners out of it.
G-ddamn. Machine Wars Optimus turning into a torso while two ER Hoists and two KI Mirages hang unwieldy off his limbs with 3P connectors actually sounds kinda amazing.(shrug) I'd be fine with that. People are going to say and do what they want regardless. Not going to trade in five closer likenesses/homages to avoid it.
Besides, it IS the modern combiner frame situation. Let DNA or whoever has time and a 3D printer whip up connectors to staple these Autobots to the combiner frame, done.
(Idly wondering if it's possible to retool Windsweeper to add a swivel to the jet backpack arm so it can swing around to be the right orientation for the MW jets in robot mode)
Part of it is nostalgia. They were K-B Toys exclusives and we mostly got experience those when we went to the States on vacation. The K-B interior is just burnt into my brain. And ofc I could never get MW figures the one year I saw them when we were on vacation because "we already got you something at Disney" and so on.
So MW kinda sat there as this mythical thing in my head for a few years and it was actually kinda a letdown as a teen discovering the online fandom in the early 2000s and finding out it was widely regarded as a joke. Like not even the people who liked Beast Machines stood up for it.
As I got older I just grew to appreciate it more though. Yeah it was a rush job. No, nothing makes sense even if you add the caveat that it's not G1 and thus they're free to shake stuff up.
The weird colour schemes, mould choices, tampo choices, even the way the packaging was weirdly consistent with Beast Wars packaging... it all adds to the charm. It's the ultimate hipster TF line, and as someone who still has a working VCR, that's appealing to me.
I don't think anyone outside of Europe did. On one hand it makes sense... Hasbro had these moulds the American market never got... the brand is healthy again thanks to Beast Wars... let's see if these things have any juice?I forget what year it was, maybe around 99 or 2000; Like you, we were on vacation. Visiting relatives or something. I went to a KBs and the lights over the action figure isle were mostly out... except over the Transformers. And there, was the Machine Wars line. It felt like I was literally guided to them. I walked out of there with almost the entire line, I think I blew my entire "budget/allowance" doing it. I didn't care, I had new transformers. I spent the entire night in that hotel room working on the stickers and such. For me the oddity of them being the only thing lit up in that asile has always stuck out to me, and is why this has become a core memory of mine. I never much cared that they looked different; what bothered me was the fact that they seemed like they could have been more articulated but weren't. Like Optimus's shoulders, or some had legs that could have moved more freely with minor alterations. I didn't realize at the time of course that these were leftover G1 toys.
When doing some research awhile back, I watched the Bob Forward panel video YouTube from BotCon 1997, and while the majority of the questions asked of him were appropriately Beast Wars related, there were some in the room who just kept on pestering and badgering him about a Machine Wars cartoon that Bob had no knowledge of or association with since it was never even going to be a thing. Yet so many in that room were so sure that such a cartoon was coming and that Bob and Larry were definitely making it.