It's the one iteration of the TR Blurr mold I missed out on, and I bitterly regret it...Maybe not, but I have always liked it
You mean like this?
About as much as my remote work looks like work, which... it'll do!
I mean yeah, it'd be nice to get an even further tweaked SS86 Arcee (or an all-new mold, sure) that has the Headmaster functionality (there IS an open seat there). But this was a pretty neat release.
OR they could have some fun with it and base it on the Chromedome redeco concept from the Generations mook...
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Yes. It does. About as much as any other update. Between the colours, the head/face sculpt, the car fronts behind her shoulders, the white point deco on her chest, and the futuristic car spoiler...thing... yeah.... reads as Arcee to me.
I suppose they could take ER Arcee or SS '86 Arcee and reverse engineer a Titan Master port into it, but I have a feeling the proportions would be off. Meanwhile the TR version exists if anyone absolutely must have a Headmaster Arcee.
I really liked ER Arcee's head sculpt. Meanwhile I preferred SS '86 Arcee aside from the head. So I swapped them. I feel like I got there in spirit 
They changed the lore for Titans Return to make it so the heads were little robots instead of humans in robots suits, which is probably why Daniel became Leinad.
And then IDW just went "actually they're just Japanese style small robots with Transtector bodies."
Seems no one wants to touch the implication of humans and humanoids bending like that.
I miss Nebulans. They make the Masters so much better, because they give them built in story and character conflict. Bob wrote some great little personalities for those guys and not much got done with them ever.
I want a story about the Nebulan quarters on Scorponok's ship and the Steelhaven. Just slice of life stuff from the point of view of a dozen or so "humans" living on a ship of giant robots that they are bonded to.
-ZacWilliam, I think it's more likely they've been left out of modern stuff because they require you to set up Nebulos and explain their race and then explain them bonding to tfs and if you have limited story space it's easier to skip all that.
I want a story about the Nebulan quarters on Scorponok's ship and the Steelhaven. Just slice of life stuff from the point of view of a dozen or so "humans" living on a ship of giant robots that they are bonded to.
-ZacWilliam, I think it's more likely they've been left out of modern stuff because they require you to set up Nebulos and explain their race and then explain them bonding to tfs and if you have limited story space it's easier to skip all that.
That and, as someone who has dabbled in fiction writing, it effectively DOUBLES the number of characters you have to deal with. For every Head, Target and Powermaster, you have to account for TWO characters.
That's a LOT to juggle with the already hefty cast loads most Transformers fiction deals with.
I think the tone of more serious character-driven storytelling would conflict too much with the inherently doofy gimmick. It also adds extra hoops to jump through when any interesting character interactions could be achieved more or less with just the Transformers. "Hahahaha The head and body don't get along" is good for maybe one or two stories, then just becomes cumbersome or another character quirk.
Plus, it never really made much sense. I just can't imagine that having a smaller person be your handgun (or engine, or head, or whatever) would improve your combat abilities.
I can sort of understand the head and engine as acting like copilots, letting the main Transformer focus on one thing while they partner works on another, expanding their processing power. Targetmasters were always silly. Even leaving out cases like Misfire where the partner just makes the problem worse.
Yeah. Just making the HM/TM the character and the body a mech cuts down on that to very helpful degrees. Hell even doing what the TR toyline did and implying the TMs were Armada Minicon-esque helper dudes helps because it's not like those types of characters are burdened with personality.
Economy of the page is a thing and I can see more than one writer going "yeah... no" at the prospect of every character being two characters.
I'll say I love them all immensely and think they're great gimmicks that are really good fictional set ups.
Targetmasters are the easiest to understand imo. How many real life military vehicles have separate pilots/drivers and gunners. That's all Targetmasters are: dedicated gunners that leave the main robot free to focus on the environment. And since they're mentally linked they work in perfect harmony (theoretically).
Powermasters provide the power for the robot like an engine so that's easy to understand. It's not really touched on but being mentally linked could be like having a dedicated Engineer inside controlling your power systems like Geordi managing the Dilithium on the Enterprise.
Headmasters also make sense to me. Imagine having a pilot and copilot who are mentally linked and can handle two tasks at once while perfectly coordinated. Or imagine a dual-core processor. It lets them think faster, react faster and multi-task much better.
-ZacWilliam, and basically all of these give you a Main Character (the TF) and a companion character who can be a friend, or a co-worker, or a rival, or even an antagonist for them. The relationships between the TF and their Nebulan are no more limited than between any two Characters in fiction and that interpersonal drama is built into the gimmick in a really fun way full of story potential.
Targetmasters are the easiest to understand imo. How many real life military vehicles have separate pilots/drivers and gunners. That's all Targetmasters are: dedicated gunners that leave the main robot free to focus on the environment. And since they're mentally linked they work in perfect harmony (theoretically).
Powermasters provide the power for the robot like an engine so that's easy to understand. It's not really touched on but being mentally linked could be like having a dedicated Engineer inside controlling your power systems like Geordi managing the Dilithium on the Enterprise.
Headmasters also make sense to me. Imagine having a pilot and copilot who are mentally linked and can handle two tasks at once while perfectly coordinated. Or imagine a dual-core processor. It lets them think faster, react faster and multi-task much better.
-ZacWilliam, and basically all of these give you a Main Character (the TF) and a companion character who can be a friend, or a co-worker, or a rival, or even an antagonist for them. The relationships between the TF and their Nebulan are no more limited than between any two Characters in fiction and that interpersonal drama is built into the gimmick in a really fun way full of story potential.
I guess the Targetmasters work if you have them shoulder mounted or whatever as an additional gunner, like on Stepper, but when the main robot is holding them like a handgun and pointing them where they want to shoot, I have to wonder what the Nebulon contributes.
It's an idea that maybe could be forced to make sense but quickly becomes convoluted.
I always preferred Takara's approach. For once, the Japanese G1 lore is simpler.
I always preferred Takara's approach. For once, the Japanese G1 lore is simpler.
If they're mentally linked they could be taking control of the arm itself too. That would actually give a bigger benefit to the double targetmasters too - each one takes one arm, while the main bot concentrates on using the environment/dodging/etc.
A more relevant example of the power control thing would actually be the SRX in the various Super Robot Wars series. Rai, the pilot of the R-2 basically manages the Tronium engine in the combined form, as it's unstable and dangerous if pushed to the upper power levels necessary for the SRX to properly operate. (There's a reason the combination is named OOC - Only One Crash). Though actually being the power source is a bit different than managing an unstable reactor, micro-managing the power could be a way to make them more engaging than just basically napping on the chest/back of the bot while the transformer sucks their life force like a vampire.
A more relevant example of the power control thing would actually be the SRX in the various Super Robot Wars series. Rai, the pilot of the R-2 basically manages the Tronium engine in the combined form, as it's unstable and dangerous if pushed to the upper power levels necessary for the SRX to properly operate. (There's a reason the combination is named OOC - Only One Crash). Though actually being the power source is a bit different than managing an unstable reactor, micro-managing the power could be a way to make them more engaging than just basically napping on the chest/back of the bot while the transformer sucks their life force like a vampire.
Some of you have never played a video game with optional auto-aim, and it shows.
Just point the Targetmaster in the general direction of the target and let them adjust the barrel to line up the headshot for you.
The problem for me was always the Headmasters, not because you have two characters, but because you have two characters who are permanently fused. And how does the main body's consciousness work anyway? If Stylor walks away to do something Nebulan-sized, is Chromedome actually aware while he's sitting in a parking garage, or is he "unconscious," or his awareness riding along with Stylor looking through his eyes?