He had a cause originally. But they had to remove it because it turned out the retail budget just couldn't support it or the trailer. We'll see if Takara manages to reissue it.
Meanwhile the only G1 Optimus Prime trailer I have is a reissue of the original one lol.
It’s like five times better than the Earthrise one TBH.
PotP Optimus is back, because no one demanded it:
www.hasbropulse.com
Transformers: Generations Power of the Primes Evolution Optimus Prime - Hasbro Pulse
Transformers: Generations Power of the Primes Evolution Optimus Prime Action Figure
www.hasbropulse.com
It's a neat concept in theory and it did give us the first (and only) mass retail take on Sunbow Orion Pax.PotP Optimus is back, because no one demanded it:
Transformers: Generations Power of the Primes Evolution Optimus Prime - Hasbro Pulse
Transformers: Generations Power of the Primes Evolution Optimus Prime Action Figure
But... it's hard to fit into a traditional collection because there are much better versions of G1 Optimus out there.
So this thing's big appeal to collectors is as a novelty.
My guess is they think it'll move because it's Optimus Prime and non-collectors (kids, nostalgic adults not deep into the franchise) like Optimus Prime.
Yeah, I tend to think of the whole of PotP as a novelty, if I'm being honest. Some ideas were okay, some weren't. But it was relatively short-lived as a line, so I guess there might be some out there who wanted this version of Prime and didn't get it? Feels a bit like, "whoa, hey - we found a few pallets of these old Optimus Primes at the back of the warehouse." Which is okay I guess, but he's being billed by Hasbro as a "back by popular demand" situation.
I just said almost that exact thing over on Discord.
I still have that Optimus on display, fully combined up, thou he not apart of any theming with my figures as what he standing with is a bunch of random figures, like TR Galvatron, Legacy Skullgrin, TFA Shockwave, Legacy G2 Op and TFPGO leaders combiner (forget the name, there also Reactivated OP and Origins Orion Pax (the SS Kup retool/repaint), so he not doing much aside from gathering dust
I'd buy one if there were an upgrade kit to fix its issues. It's so frustratingly close to being great.
We're about to get a movie where Orion Pax turns into Optimus Prime, so that's probably why it's back on shelves.
TR is probably my favourite "recent" line (and it's nearly ten years old,
me) and PotP just felt like a massive letdown. Some good stuff happened during that line but most of it felt like catching up on CW with some TR integration tossed in. Nothing felt as "complete" like TR, which almost felt like an Armada tribute in how the line worked.Does this release use foil stickers? I don't know when Hasbro wised up to those.
I've said it before but the problem with POTP, to me at least, is that it just didn't have a single focused gimmick (or nearly entirely focused) gimmick like the preceding two lines did so it just came off as 'not entirely sure what it even wanted to be'.
Combiner Wars obviously focused on combiners and all the Voyagers could become combiner torsos, the Deluxes could become arms or legs for the combiners, and the new mold Legends (and their repaints) could become weapons or just become like chest armor for the combiners. Only exceptions to the gimmick were the redecos of T30 Legends toys and the Leaders.
Titans Return had the Titan Masters and I'm pretty sure every figure released during the line could interact with them in some way. Even those triple changing Legends-class versions of Blaster and Soundwave's cassettes had pegs so Titan Masters could attach to them, even if they couldn't be seated inside them like the other Legends toys.
But then Power of the Primes was like...OK so we still got the Titan Masters from the previous line but now they come in little Pretender shells and called Prime Masters and they're supposed be the Thirteen so they don't have faces anymore they just have the symbols of which member they are instead, so even though they're otherwise identical to Titan Masters, you can't use them as heads (unless you wanna give a dude a really freaky face - more power to you if you want to). Uhh well Legends dudes are basically the same as in TR, so you know the Prime Masters can still ride inside them. And Deluxes and Voyagers are combiners again and the Deluxes can wear their hands as like chest armor that you can plug in the Prime Masters into because ??????????? and you can also basically do that with the feet that come with Voyagers but they attach to the arms instead of forming chest armor. Also the Voyagers come with a thing that's like that Prime Masters except it's all one solid piece that's compatible with the hands and feet too if you want that's meant to go in the chest of the combiners (obviously Prime Masters and Titan Masters can fit too wow) AND then also the Leaders are Deluxes that combine with armor toe become a Prime and wow they come with Matrices and you can remove the central part of the Matrix and use it for all the other things I previously mentioned and also stick a Prime Master/Titan Master or whatever the things that the Voyagers came with in the Matrix instead WOOOOOOOOOW.
God what a fuckin confused mess of a line POTP was.
Combiner Wars obviously focused on combiners and all the Voyagers could become combiner torsos, the Deluxes could become arms or legs for the combiners, and the new mold Legends (and their repaints) could become weapons or just become like chest armor for the combiners. Only exceptions to the gimmick were the redecos of T30 Legends toys and the Leaders.
Titans Return had the Titan Masters and I'm pretty sure every figure released during the line could interact with them in some way. Even those triple changing Legends-class versions of Blaster and Soundwave's cassettes had pegs so Titan Masters could attach to them, even if they couldn't be seated inside them like the other Legends toys.
But then Power of the Primes was like...OK so we still got the Titan Masters from the previous line but now they come in little Pretender shells and called Prime Masters and they're supposed be the Thirteen so they don't have faces anymore they just have the symbols of which member they are instead, so even though they're otherwise identical to Titan Masters, you can't use them as heads (unless you wanna give a dude a really freaky face - more power to you if you want to). Uhh well Legends dudes are basically the same as in TR, so you know the Prime Masters can still ride inside them. And Deluxes and Voyagers are combiners again and the Deluxes can wear their hands as like chest armor that you can plug in the Prime Masters into because ??????????? and you can also basically do that with the feet that come with Voyagers but they attach to the arms instead of forming chest armor. Also the Voyagers come with a thing that's like that Prime Masters except it's all one solid piece that's compatible with the hands and feet too if you want that's meant to go in the chest of the combiners (obviously Prime Masters and Titan Masters can fit too wow) AND then also the Leaders are Deluxes that combine with armor toe become a Prime and wow they come with Matrices and you can remove the central part of the Matrix and use it for all the other things I previously mentioned and also stick a Prime Master/Titan Master or whatever the things that the Voyagers came with in the Matrix instead WOOOOOOOOOW.
God what a fuckin confused mess of a line POTP was.
It's a completely unchanged rerelease, even down to the packaging.
Nemesis Prime is still by far the best use of that PotP mold.
I only wish that it had the Star Convoy version of the small bot, though. But the spiky mohawk was a nice touch.
I only wish that it had the Star Convoy version of the small bot, though. But the spiky mohawk was a nice touch.
POTP’s gimmick leans too hard towards the roleplaying realm, which isn’t a big hook when there was next to no fiction for it. Hell, half the combiners don’t even have names.
Titans Return has this sort of, but even if we ignore the in-fiction power ups, Hardhead with Chromedome’s head looks significantly different compared to giving Abominus new Jordans. Apart from that, the vehicles could accommodate titan masters, giving an extra play pattern. Overall, POTP came across as microwaved leftovers of the Prime trilogy.
Titans Return has this sort of, but even if we ignore the in-fiction power ups, Hardhead with Chromedome’s head looks significantly different compared to giving Abominus new Jordans. Apart from that, the vehicles could accommodate titan masters, giving an extra play pattern. Overall, POTP came across as microwaved leftovers of the Prime trilogy.
Last edited:
I have both the PotP regular release and the Star Convoy. They're both really good toys.
I mean, I can see it making sense to rerelease him. He's a big, imposing looking figure that has great shelf presence. He's a very good looking Prime.
It seems to be selling very well too.
I mean, I can see it making sense to rerelease him. He's a big, imposing looking figure that has great shelf presence. He's a very good looking Prime.
It seems to be selling very well too.
I'm in agreement that POTP was a very exciting line with some great concepts in it, but it turned into a messy catch-all that's the least cohesive of the trilogy.
It feels a lot like "let's throw in all the leftovers from CW/TR", from Titan Master types, to Legends class vehicles that could carry them, to combiners. The most unique thing to POTP was the Evolution play pattern, which iirc was also the last real "leader characters are enormous because leaders" thing of the modern era before cartoon-scale became a thing with WFC onward.
This is interesting in hindsight given the next trilogy essentially did do a reboot in a whole different direction. I wonder if the plans for that came in around the time they were laying out POTP so they decided to just cram all the remaining stuff into the trilogy closing line. (And then POTP ended up being shorter than the previous lines, shunting some releases off to Selects and canceling others iirc)
This Optimus is a pretty neat release (but i too prefer the Nemesis Prime), and there's a nice thematic link to One that helps make its reissuing make a bit more sense. Also it's still the 40th, so between this and the Earthrise reissue the anniversary year is bringing lots of Optimus love.
It feels a lot like "let's throw in all the leftovers from CW/TR", from Titan Master types, to Legends class vehicles that could carry them, to combiners. The most unique thing to POTP was the Evolution play pattern, which iirc was also the last real "leader characters are enormous because leaders" thing of the modern era before cartoon-scale became a thing with WFC onward.
This is interesting in hindsight given the next trilogy essentially did do a reboot in a whole different direction. I wonder if the plans for that came in around the time they were laying out POTP so they decided to just cram all the remaining stuff into the trilogy closing line. (And then POTP ended up being shorter than the previous lines, shunting some releases off to Selects and canceling others iirc)
This Optimus is a pretty neat release (but i too prefer the Nemesis Prime), and there's a nice thematic link to One that helps make its reissuing make a bit more sense. Also it's still the 40th, so between this and the Earthrise reissue the anniversary year is bringing lots of Optimus love.
Nemesis Prime and Star Convoy were great uses of that mold, which is why I bought them instead of the regular Prime version.