Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

20th Anniversary Optimus Prime

Page: (1)2 3

00:08 / 20.01.05

This is just about the coolest useless thing I’ve ever seen. Hail capitalism! You’ve finally done something right.

Hasbro Page.

The articulation is unbelievable. All the joints move, right down to fingers and thumbs. Even the faceplate moves, so you can pretend he’s talking! There’s an opening chest cavity for the Matrix… it’s just fucking unstoppable and I want it I want it I want it!

I want it NOW.

00:29 / 20.01.05

???

01:50 / 20.01.05

My friend has it.

I've touched that shit, man.

Do you know, he told me about it, and I was all like - wow, can you replace his hand with a golden axe though like in 'Decepticon Dambusters', and he was all like, yeah, man, they thought of everything.

03:06 / 20.01.05

I have the original on the bookshelf in the next room. Soundwave and Shockwave are in a box somewhere. My daughter has the Constructacons in with her hot wheels cars.

Hey, is that Megatron in his hand? I always liked the way Pistol Mode Megatron was the size of a semi.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

05:34 / 20.01.05

So it was Optimus Prime behind the grassy knoll? That explains everything... But are they making this Optimus out of the kind of material they made the original out of, or just cheap plastic like the transformers a couple of years down the line? And are they going to release a 20th anniversary Ultra-Magnus, basiclly this toy spray-painted white, with a couple of bits you snap over the top?

05:36 / 20.01.05

Are they going to issue a Megatron you can use to hold up a liquor store?

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:03 / 20.01.05

And are they going to release a 20th anniversary Ultra-Magnus, basiclly this toy spray-painted white, with a couple of bits you snap over the top?

Take. That. Back.

07:46 / 20.01.05

'I have the original on the bookshelf in the next room'

as do i. apologies for calling you names yesterday.

optimus brings peace to the world again.

(i tried to make a matrix or him once out of blu-tac and satsuma skin. didn't work really.)

08:19 / 20.01.05

I never liked the Transformers that much. More of a GI Joe man, myself.

08:36 / 20.01.05

The cover to #2 kinda sucked.

09:54 / 20.01.05

is that a bunch of fleshlings taking down shockwave? but he was like the second toughest decepticon of his era. reckon he must have been temporarily low on energy or something there.

09:59 / 20.01.05

But are they making this Optimus out of the kind of material they made the original out of, or just cheap plastic like the transformers a couple of years down the line?

A lot of the components are die cast, which apparently makes him pretty heavy considering he's thirteen inches tall.

10:03 / 20.01.05

Cobra Commander's costume is the snakiest thing in the world. It leaves no possible doubt about the snakiness of the wearer. Snake helmet, snake shoulder pads, a snake-head belt... And yet somehow we all know he has badger underpants.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:06 / 20.01.05

Isn't that Serpentor? I always felt Cobra Commander went for a more understated look...

Hey, what happened when Starscream and Cobra Commander both wanted to talk at the same time?

10:19 / 20.01.05

As always you are correct, sir.
Cobra Emperor, aka Serpentor

Cobra Commander, aka Jeff

Cobra Commander was much more comfortable in his snakiness. Or maybe he just had a nice sideline as a courier.

Haus of Mystery

11:17 / 20.01.05

US lithers: You are presumably aware of how much better the UK Transformers comic was than the Marvel one, yes? No snarkiness intended, but they used to reprint the US stuff sometimes and it was distinctly lacking the Shakespearean depths of Simon Furman's masterclass in minimal brilliance.

11:52 / 20.01.05

I have the Japanese "Masterpiece Convoy" version. Longer smokestacks. Much better. It's fucking ace and may well be the best thing Man has ever produced. I'm tellin' ya, I want to go back in time, show him to my younger self and say "Hang in there, it's gets THIS GOOD!"

And are they going to release a 20th anniversary Ultra-Magnus, basiclly this toy spray-painted white, with a couple of bits you snap over the top?

Yup. White version with cardboard trailer that doesn't form the armour. So no snap on bits. Just this figure. In white.

12:31 / 20.01.05

The resemblance of Optimus, Roller and the trailer/command deck to the Holy Trinity has already been commented on extensively, but has anyone noticed that his colour scheme is the same as Superman’s and the American flag?

13:30 / 20.01.05

I don't think I went anywhere near the comics till I was in my late thirties. Neither Transformers nor GI Joe were primarily a comics-based franchise in the US. They were on the schoolyard as figures, and on the tube as cartoons, before they were in print, and this was the basis of my preference. The Transformer toys were laaaaaaame, much less cool than the GoBots they displaced, and the cartoon... MAN, did it suck. GI Joe, on the other hand, had cool figures, cool weapons, and a cool TV show. And, you know, I just couldn't really get into the concept of the Transformers, a bunch of alien robots, that didn't have dicks or anything, that turned into Earth vehicles for some reason. Not much there to interest a city boy, I felt.

Ever notice the subtle, crypto-racist rural-vs-urban iconography of the vehicles-vs-guns/boomboxes/planes? GI Joe was also more egalitarian.

13:39 / 20.01.05

crypto racist ruural vs urban?

no. technology designed to kill people vs. technology not designed to kill people, and which better deserves the planets dwindling carbon-fuel resources actually. think maybe you just arrived at the party a little late.

13:53 / 20.01.05

in the brit comic battle action force it was stated that cobra commander, whose real face was never seen (though not cos it was all rank like destro's or snake eyes', just for eeevil mystery's sake), was the latest guise of baron ironblood, who had been the chief baddie of the original action force toys that you could get when i were a very young lad. i had the ironblood action figure, which had a removable helmet, so i actually know what cobra commander's real face looks like. grey hair, white at the temples, with a kind of ming the merciless beard and tache. nice looking really, refined, for such a nasty bastard. ded eyes though, that was the giveaway.

anyway action force, sorry GIJoe, was crap really, its message to the kids, (if such things are ever important) was 'join the army, no one ever dies no matter how often they get shot at, war is cool.' was it an american idea? the fact that the franchise wasn't called 'toughie tommies' leads me to believe it may well have been.

13:54 / 20.01.05

Oh yeah? How is a tape deck supposed to fucking kill people, Gumbitch?

13:56 / 20.01.05

you obviously ain't know much, so i'll go easy: soundwave, who i think you are referring to, wasn't an entertainment device, he was a surveillance device.

now, how about you try to explain blaster?

14:02 / 20.01.05

I don't understand the question.

Anyway, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get drawn into a GI Joe vs Transformers debate. I'm very pleased for you Transformers fans that there is this monstrously cool new edition Optimus Prime. I really liked the Beast Wars show.

14:04 / 20.01.05

14:09 / 20.01.05

sorry about all this. i've been left alone in the office.

soundwave = decepticon communications officer = surveillance = function designed for underhand means, cannot be used without causing harm to an individual

vs.

blaster = autobot communications officer = entertainment = function that just wants everyone to partay, preferably in a highly urbanised environment.

14:12 / 20.01.05

Oh, I thought you meant Blaster from the Joes.

I guess I'm just full of shit.

14:17 / 20.01.05

scool. you ain't full of shit, just don't know the full thing about the transformers. in the real world, you would be proud of that. haven't got any hate for the joes, i was a fan too, but if you're going to go meta on it the transformers are far more groovy as a kiddie-indoctrination tool.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:23 / 20.01.05

soundwave = decepticon communications officer = surveillance = function designed for underhand means, cannot be used without causing harm to an individual

Yeah, but he still transformed into a walkman. That's like saying that Blaster's disguised form is designed to cause harm because if you dropped him out of a fifth floor window and he hit someone on the head they would die. Soundwave's entire modus operandi was to hang around just outside a secure installation until a passing employee thought "Hey, what a hip Walkman! I shall take it past the ring of steel surrounding my workplace and put it in my locker". Havoc ensued.

Further, the ranks of the Decepticons were subsequently swelled by automobiles (the Constructicons, the Stunticons) and the Autobots by fighter jets (Jetfire/Skyfire, the Aerialbots). If there is a lesson here, it is that two forces dedicated to the other's destruction wiull eventually become identical. We can see it even now in Iraq, where both soldiers and insurgents now have Pretender body shells and guns that turn into miniature robots.

14:27 / 20.01.05

miniature alien humanoids with transforming armour on y'mean.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:36 / 20.01.05

IIRC, the Targetmaster, Powermaster and Headmaster processes were not quite about the application of transforming armour, but rather an irreversible process by which the Nebulan became bonded to the robot. "Android" may be a more correct term than "robot" or "alien".

14:39 / 20.01.05

oh god, someone stop me...

the stunticons - drunken gas guzzlers, showoff-mobiles, enemies of conscietious drivers everywhere

constructicons - relentless levellers of forest and polluters of air

aerialbots - far more of a passenger-jet vibe than the warplane antics of starscream, thundercracker and skywarp et al

and when did anyone really have fun listening to a tape on soundwave? 'there's something wrong with this tape, it's just giving me the location of all these oil fields and oh shit, now it's turned into a metal jaguar heyulp'.

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:04 / 20.01.05

Which rather proves my point, and invalidates yours. The stunticons are simply cars - there is nothing inordinately "gas-guzzling" or "dangerous" about their car forms that they do not hold in common with the Autobot car forms. The Formula 1 car (Mirage) or Ferrari Testarossa (Sideswipe) are both gas-guzzling and potentially dangerous to other road users. Hound transforms into a military vehicle.

The Stunticons do not have "evil car modes". They have car modes and are evil. Quite different. Likewise, the aerialbots may have a "passenger jet" vibe to you, but only one of them (Silverbolt) transformed into anything resembling a civilian jet - the others were F-type fighters and one Harrier. They have that vibe for you not because they are passenger jets, but because they are fighter jets who are Autobots. It's not about the disguise, it's about the membership.

15:12 / 20.01.05

phew, i was having fun there, but did ask for someone to put a stop to it and got the master of doing so.

so do you agree with qalyn's crypto-racist urban vs. rural diagnosis?

oh, no, don't bother replying, i don't care any more.

15:15 / 20.01.05

can someone give me back my tranformers? i just threw them out of my pram and

Page: (1)2 3