Merry Christmas

    A safe and happy holiday to all of you and yours, and a prosperous new year

from Me, Tango, and the Hoard

Transformers Prime Part the Second

Continued from part 1


    We continue on with the toys, hitting the autobots we have not yet gotten to. Only one First Edition Autobot left to go, but he is a doozy

First Edition Optimus Prime voiced by the one and only Peter Cullen
the engineering on this one is not quite as crazy as bulkheads but still
quite innovative. The small "backpack" of his grill just winds up looking
 like heavier armor rather than looking cluttered

Wheeljack, voiced by James Horan...not your fathers Wheeljack.
Cynical, tough, and a lone wolf, he was one of the wreckers in this particular
storyline, and shows up in the episode "Con Job", returns in "Loose Cannons"
but doesn't actually join Team Prime until Season 3; His toy is not FE, but it could be.
Excellent engineering, good show likeness and nothing wasted; he comes with a pair of vicious
swords in terms of weapons, and he rarely needs more, but loves grenades

Later in season 2, in the episode "Recruit" we get to meet Smoke Rod Hot Screen
Screenimus Prime Smokescreen voiced by Nolan North. I Would really like to like his
 toy more than I do, but I have some issues with it. the same "false chest" problem as we see
with Ratchet, a completely "bare frame" back where the pieces that fold onto the bottom of his arms
might have been used instead, and shoulder joints that as often as not pop out
rather than fall into his rather fiddly transformation. He's a good looking figure from the front, but
a living nightmare to move from one mode to another

Early in season 3, we get Ultra Magnus, Voiced by Michael
Ironside, and he is by the books and follow the regs all the way.
his toy is based not on the FE version of Optimus Prime, but on the RID
 version instead, with a new head, chest, and shoulders. the weapon he comes with is
the forge of Solus Prime. Almost every toy of Ultra Magnus has been a re-mold
or a repaint of Optimus Prime, but this one is by far my favorite (until he gets a good
mold of his own)

And coming up in part 3-a season 1 overview

Transformers Prime part the first

     Re-watching Transformers Prime from season 1 before I watch the final DVD: Predacons Rising that wraps the series. I thought I would put up some thoughts on the franchise as a whole as I go through. I am midway through season 1 right now, so I don't feel like I have a fresh perpective to throw out on that season yet but...

    What is the show there for? To sell toys, and keep the franchise fresh between big screen movies. Let me state clearly: when I say "to sell toys" that is not neccessarily a bad thing. It is in the very best traditions of a storyline based upon a toy line to sell those toys and to make them appealing.

    That being the case, I thought I would give my thoughts on those toys, starting with the Autobots who got screen time on the show. The toys came in two waves- the First Edition toys and the Robots in Disguise toys. in most cases the First Edition toys are nicer, and more screen accurate, so I have used them here wherever possible



The First Autobot we see in the series is Cliffjumper, Voiced by
Dwayne(The Rock)Johnson. his time on the series is short but he makes
a big impression. The FE Cliffjumper toy has some marvelous engineering
including flip-out cannons in his arms

The Second Autobot to get screentime is Arcee voiced by Sumalee
 Montano and featuring almost no pink whatsoever. On the FE toy her rear wheel splits
in two and folds into her legs, which is a remarkable way to get it out of the way.
She does have a fair amount of "backpack" including her front wheel and handlebars

Bumblebee (voiced by random sound effects and eventually by Will Friedle
(more about that later) is an extremely nice toy(first edition again). All of his vehicle parts
nicely become his robot body with not much left over. if I have one complaint about this figure,
it was the fact that he only came with one cannon(I had to "borrow" the other)

FE Bulkhead(Aptly voiced on the show by Kevin Michael Richardson)
has engineering that goes beyond good and approaches "Crazy-Ass"
his vehicle sides sort of accordion out and wrap from his chest to his back. my
intial figure of him was the RID version, since FE bulkhead was not released in the states
until about a year after the initial FE release. The difference is measurable 

Ratchet is the characterization I actually find the freshest and funnest
on the show. Voiced by Jeffrey Combs he is grouchy, bad tempered,
and somewhat of a mad scientist. He did not get a first edition release,
and his toy, while having a lot of innovative features has one serious
aesthetic downside for me. His animation model indicates that his doors'
become part of his chest, and it appears they were unable to make this happen
on the toy, but instead had to give him sort of a "false chest" by molding the
doors onto it


This is sort of take two on this post, I managed to delete all my pictures and captions trying to remove one
Coming Soon: Part 2 with more toys!

Ghost Mine

so I am a little over halfway through the season finale, they have found the masonic symbols on the big stone bulkhead(not HIM), and all I can think is


"You fear to go into those mines. The Masons delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of the crescent mine... shadow and flame."


or BALROG!

could be a dragon tho, too


Update: neither Balrog nor dragon...