Are Transformers Too Complicated To Be Toys?

Occasionally a Transformer is released that is just too damn complicated, it has too many moving pieces, too many motions you have to go through, and/or pieces frequently pop off while transforming just because there are too many things to move around.

The toylines for the recent movies are full of figures like this. The (big) Optimus Prime toy from the Revenge of the Fallen movie probably takes me about 10 minutes to transform, if I remember all of the steps, and don't have to search out the instructions again, to figure out how to position his gas tanks in order to allow the movement of some other esssential piece.

This got me thinking, and it's been stewing in my brain for a couple of days.
It does seem that a lot of transformers, especially the movie toys, just aren't designed with the traditional play scheme of two kids playing with their toys, and having them fight each other, in mind.

I just don't see a kid getting any of the movie Primes and making him drive around in truck mode, then transform into bot and have him "fight". Even if you've got the transformation down pat, it's still going to take a couple of minutes to transform either the voyager or leader molds.

When you're just playing on your own, of course that's less of a concern, you can pause the "action" for as long as you need. Which is kind of depressing to think about.

Hasbro's company line has consistently been "we make toys for kids, not collectors" over and over again, but it seems like they're aiming at people like us, where the only "play" they're looking for is transforming the toy, and then making it do a cool pose on the shelf.

So, if they're really making "toys for kids" are there a lot of "kid collectors" out there?

Comments

What It's Like To Get Pipebombed

Well, I'm going to break with my rule of not actually mentioning anything about having a pipe thrown at you, but in celebration of the 6 month anniversary, I really wanted to write it up. So, without further ado, here's what happened on my Fourth of July 2009, and the six months since: So, it's the Fourth of July, 2009, about ten-ish or so at night. Being that we live in a condo, and our homeowner's association has prohibited fireworks being let off in our complex, we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood in order to better see the fireworks everyone else was letting off. We walked straight out the front gate, got about maybe 50 feet down the street, and a dark car with it's headlights on pulled out onto the street, about a block ahead of us a man with a white shirt was walking in the same direction as us, nothing noteworthy about either of those. However, upon passing us, something was tossed out of the passenger window and bounced off my chest, upon the g...

Y: The Last Man: Even Spambots Cry After Reading It

Right off the bat, I'm going to say that Y is the saddest story I have ever taken in, with an emotional punch like a locomotive (or a bomb if you will). No work of fiction has ever destroyed me emotionally like this has. That being said, the story may be a tragedy, but gettin there was a lot of fun. The story starts off with every male mammal on the face of the Earth being almost simultaneously wiped out by some kind of illness. With the exception of English major/escape artist Yorick Brown, and Ampersand, a capuchin monkey that he's volunteered to train to help people with disabilities. There's no apparent reason as to why they survived, they just did. At the time the plague hit, Yorick's girlfriend, whom he was about to propose to, was on a trip in Australia, while he was in Chicago. Naturally he sets out to find his true love. Along the way he picks up the companions 355, an agent of a secret government organization called the Culper Ring, and Dr. Allison Man...

The Shadowline Saga: Before It's Time

A good friend of mine got me back into comics a few years ago, and after going to conventions with him and seeing his sketchbook of Punisher drawings by various artists, I started thinking that I might like a character sketchbook as well, but who to pick? I didn't have a favorite character really, I'd been a fan of Deadpool, but as he was on the rise in popularity, there were going to be a lot of sketches of him out there. Then I remembered an old Marvel character from the 90s named Terror. Terror had the unusual ability of being able to graft various limbs onto his body, and gain their memories and abilities. A frequent application of his abilities was to take the ear and the eye of someone who was recently deceased, which would grant him the ability to see and hear the person's memories. Additionally he could use the hands of a locksmith to gain the ability to pick locks, or a helicopter pilot, and so on. His gimmick was interesting, but even better for the purpose...

Bryce's Pipe Bomb Survival Guide*

Search This Blog