Hasbro Power Rangers Future and T-Mobile Merger Talk

You're tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek. Hello and welcome to Altered Geek. I'm

your host, Steve Megatron Phillips, and joining

me in this episode is... That's right, it is

I, Mike the Birdman Dodd from the Great White

North. Called Canada. Exactly. Called Canada,

though more specifically north of Toronto. If

you really want to get things down to the nitty

gritty, I'm from a little place called Guelph,

Ontario, home of Guelph Storm, the only notable

thing that I can think about this entire town.

Nice. It's a hockey team. I think they're out

of the playoffs. I'm 99 % sure of that. That's

about how much I've been following that local

sports team. Hey, because if you're in Canada,

the only things you care about are hockey, maple

syrup, and occasionally baseball. Let me see,

I'm pretty sure the Raptors are out of the playoffs.

I know the Toronto Maple Leafs are out of the

playoffs. I think it's Winnipeg Jets versus everybody

right now. Yeah, I know nothing. Yep, I know

nothing. Just making it up as I go along. But

that's okay. That's what we do here at AlterGeek.

Make it up as we go along. Yeah, sometimes. So,

recent news. There's been a couple of mergers

that are a little bit interesting, and I thought

that it would be the perfect topic to bring up

in the episode. Namely, the ones between we have

Sprint and T -Mobile, and we have Hasbro buying

Power Rangers from Subban. Yeah, and that deal

went through for something like $533 million

or something like that, or $503? Which is cheap

for that franchise, I think. See, that's ludicrous.

But then again, they own the toy rights, the

film rights, the television rights, so we've

had the Saban era, the Disney era, Neo -Saban

era, now we're in the Hasbro era of Power Rangers,

which will begin with Beast Morphers, I think

next year, because we're just finishing Super

Ninja Steel right now. So, I'm interested to

see what will happen with this particular toy

line, specifically, because what will be continued,

what will be discontinued. what toy lines will

come out of this. I'm hoping they'll continue

the legacy line of figures from Bandai of America

and Bandai of Japan. They've been a big favorite

of mine. They're the only Power Rangers toys

I really collect. I now have a complete, or 95

Mighty Morphin set of the legacy figures, which

I've gotten some incredible deals on. I'm only

missing Metallic Pink, the Green Ranger, and

that's it. I've got everything else that I want,

so. Yeah, see, I do what Hasbro is going to do.

I mean, I know they're going to milk it as far

as the toys are concerned, but they really didn't

have much way in as far as like tent pole franchises,

other than what they created themselves from

a toy line originally. So it'll be interesting

to see what they do with Power Rangers from here

on out. Well, you see I'm one of the things I'm

very curious about is how they'll cross over

with other franchises I guarantee you there will

be a Power Rangers transformer crossover at sanding

of comic -con next year if they are smart There

will be a Dinobot combiner colored in the Megazord

colors Because that's a no -brainer and that's

just a recolor and a retool No, see as far as

I know the only way I would see that happening

is in comic form Well, that's another interesting

thing too because currently most of the Hasbro

licenses are at IDW But boom comics has go -go

Power Rangers and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

right now But who knows how long that license

has been has been signed for yeah So I'm curious

to see what will happen with that because IDW

like I said has Transformers My Little Pony Ninja

Turtles Ninja Turtles, oh no, that is Playmates,

not Hasbro. But IDW has Ninja Turtles. Yeah,

so I'm curious to see what'll come out of this.

Now, seeing a Transformers crossover with Power

Rangers to me seems like a no -brainer. I guarantee

you we'll see something mocked up by Toy Fair

next February, guaranteed. Also, if you were

to put a Ranger helmet on a My Little Pony figure,

guarantee you'd sell some ponies that way. Like

if you had Pinkie Pie up as the Pink Ranger,

that sells itself virtually. Like there's so

many possibilities to cross brand between boys

and girls. Now they can expand the brand out.

I'm curious to see... What it means for other

toy lines like for example Hasbro owns nerf If

you told me I could get a mighty morphine blade

blaster that shoots little nerf darts or Like

when they have beast morphers, I'm there there's

gonna be power in your nerf guns I assure you

they'll be power in your nerf weaponry Like probably

the power sword and all that stuff from mighty

morphine or whatever. That would be a no -brainer

Honestly with that that's Like there's so much

stuff here, plus Hasbro's animation. Most of

the original Mighty Morphin cast is still around

and is still active doing stuff. If you told

me, if you want to make money, you make a Netflix

or whatever series animated, you do Boom Comics

Shattered Grid. If you did that in animated form,

With as many people as you can get, obviously,

you can't get Thuy Trang because she passed away.

But if you got everybody to come back for, say,

13 episodes, put it on Netflix or put it on Hulu

or something, you have made so much money, you

are laughing all the way to the command center.

Yep. Like it's... It's stupid how much money

you could possibly make off this and that's another

thing too I mean one of the other things I wonder

about because power morphicon is this huge Powerage

convention that happens. I think every year or

every two years Will that get folded into Hasbro?

Hasbro con which is the big one that happens

out out East I think it would get folded into

has con unfortunately and in Hasbro has this

reputation for their conventions Yeah, and that's

really going to hurt it because Power Morphicon

is phenomenally well -run. It's got a lot of

star power behind it. Basically, any ranger who's

ever been on the show shows up. They're like,

hey, you want to come out? Yes, sure I do. I

am the Pink Ranger from Zeo or the Red Ranger

from, I don't know, Time Force or whatever. And

they'll all show up. Yeah, and that's even better

than any of the Transformers. ones that have

been over the years, that and GI Joe, like they

haven't really, I mean, they've had their poll,

but when Hasbro got more involved, the conventions

not only started charging more and making it

near impossible for anybody to afford anything

at any of the conventions in the way of interviews

or pictures or signings or whatever. They...

I mean, they essentially killed BotCon. I went

to one of the last BotCons before they folded

it into HasCon, which was a total joke from what

I heard from a couple people that were involved

with the original BotCon and parts of Hasbro.

See, part of the problem, as I've worked on the

convention side behind the scenes of it, when

you start getting corporate influence, Things

start to go a little bit sideways. You start

to get a little too much meddling You start to

get a little too much corporate buzzword and

corporate jargon and at that time you're not

building it for the fans You're not building

it for your paying attendees and that's where

things get a little bit dicey which is really

really unfortunate because it's the fans and

the consumer that suffers when they're trying

to because this should be a huge marketing event

honestly has con or whoever the The powers that

be at Hasbro should be like, okay, you guys do

what you need to do. You will have some corporate

oversight. We'll give you the once over. We trust

you. See you later. We'll see you on Sunday of

the convention. Trust them to do what's right.

Like BotCon knew what they were doing for the

most part. Hascon, I've heard similar problems

where it wasn't as, it wasn't spectacle that

it should have been. is I've gone to both TFCon

and BotCon. Out of the two, granted, I went with

my brothers. I met half the people I did fandoms

with. I met Frank Walker. I met a variety of

other people I knew in the fandom at BotCon,

including people that we've talked to on GCRN

and Michael Wilson, one of the co -hosts of a

lot of the Transformers podcast. BotCon did not

live up to my expectations. Whereas when I went

to TFCon in Canada, years before, I enjoyed that

convention probably the most out of any convention

I've ever gone to. Now is that because it's a

little bit smaller, a little bit more intimate?

They're almost as big and it was just better

run. Like the timing between things was better

the Between like panels the way that they organized

lines the way that they organized like just about

everything was just infinitely More satisfying

The interactions were better how they You know,

they didn't really rush you along when you were

going to meet the guests and get pictures and

photo ops and stuff I mean I went and talked

with Scott McNeil who's a phenomenal person anyway

and they wanted him to kind of move along they

brought him food he sat there he ate it you know

while he was still meeting guests so that he

could still sit there at the table and he would

do his voices for people and do you know voicemails

and sign as much stuff as they wanted sit there

and have little anecdotes and you know just it

didn't really matter like and then you go to

BotCon which was run by you know corporate oversight

and then everybody was kind of like all right

you got your thing move along yeah and that's

really unfortunate because that's definitely

upon the con organizers not just the the con

chair and the main committee but the people that

are on the floor doing the work obviously they

have to take their their orders from somewhere.

That's unfortunate. I mean, that's really good

for TFCon because they're representing their

guests and moving the convention well for everybody.

Well, and they got big enough that they actually

started having a TFCon in Chicago as well, like

in the fall. They have it in Chicago in the fall,

and then they have it in the summer in Canada,

in Mississauga. They also I think they swallowed

up another small convention that was about to

fold under and like North Carolina or South Carolina

or something and it was it was about to go under

and they They folded it into TFCon and just made

it another event location Now are you going the

TFCon this year? Probably not but it's more so

just because I don't really hit the convention

scenes as much anymore I mean, most of my experience

from convention comes from Con Bravo. I was involved

in that for a couple of years. And I also did

Con G, oddly enough, here in Guelph a couple

of years ago as well before that convention decided

it was time to close the curtain on it. But back

to the merger talks. There's a lot that Hasbro

can learn. from the fan scene, especially Power

Rangers has a very passionate, very committed

fan scene. Obviously Transformers and My Little

Pony having their own passionate fan scenes and

Hasbro does seem to listen to those fans occasionally

and occasionally makes the right call for them.

but they almost equally make the bad decision

too. Exactly. I'm very curious to see how this

will all play out, especially because Power Rangers

collectors are just as rabid as Transformers

collectors. We expect a certain quality of the

build of the toys. We expect equal between collector

scale, be it Masterpiece or Transformers, or

the legacy line from Power Rangers. I'm very

curious to see what's going to happen. I can't

see Hasbro. Shutting out the collectors, but

Hasbro primarily markets the kids It just so

happens that Hasbro toys that are built for collectors

are Some of them are pretty cool for kids like

you like you look at some of these Titans Returns

figures. Well, those are marketed towards like

in a sense like us Mid -market base. Yeah Hasbro

has like three different tiers. They have like

the very simplistic designs. They have the ones

that are like geared towards their more adultish

series on machinima. And then they have like

their masterpiece line. And then whatever happens

to come out in between like for the films and

for like the timelines of like universe kind

of just legacy figures. And they have many moving

parts going on between them depending on what's

going on in the media. So it'll be interesting

to see what they do as far as the toys with them

producing them instead of Bandai Namco or whatever

it is, the company that produces them. But the

other thing too is we could end up seeing a more

kid -like... More kid -friendly and a more adult

version of Power Rangers like kind of further

separating the lines of what we have now Yeah,

I mean if you told me they would produce something

that was equal to their legacy line But something

a little bit more adult ish. I'd be all for it

like if you told me they could produce a Trying

to think what might be really good Yeah, yeah,

if they could produce shattered grid as a Netflix

series or even as like a one -shot animated movie

or something like that. I'd be down for that.

I would love to see it as a Netflix series, honestly.

I mean, there's so much money to be made there,

or if like Hasbro could, like I said, adapt so

many things from it, or I'm curious to see where

they'll take Beast Morphers, what toys will come

out of that, because you know those toys are

already being tooled up right now. I mean, I

know they're still casting the show right now,

but you know, the Zords are ready to go. The

action figures that don't show the actor's faces

are already being tooled. So I imagine we'll

see product leaks because Hasbro, at least in

my experience, you always see toys being leaked

a few months before a toy fair. You'll see Hasbro

Power Rangers toys leaked probably in the next

couple of months, if not sooner. That's one of

the wonderful things about Hasbro is a lot of

that information comes out sooner just because

the Hasbro fan base of whatever toy franchise

that they have is practically all over it when

it comes to any kind of news that comes out of

that company. They're one of the biggest toy

retailers in the world. You've got Mattel in

there too, but those are pretty much the two

juggernauts. Yeah, and Mattel, they hold a portion

of the Power Rangers license, but I guess they

don't anymore because they had the Imagine X

Megazord, Dragonzord, and the White Tigerzord.

So I guess that license is now reverted to Hasbro,

I guess. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure on that,

but I knew that Bandai Namco had the license

for the most part. I used to follow a lot of

the stuff that they had. I mean, I don't really

collect toys anymore But still like I enjoy looking

at the the level of quality that comes out of

the companies now compared to what we got is

You know adolescents One thing I hope they'll

do It's something that's kind of a recent addition

to the Power Rangers line Not just legacy stuff,

which I've talked endlessly about but they do

these throwback toys They did they recently did

the automorphers where you press their morpher

button on their belt and the heads would flip

between their un -morphed head and the helmet.

I'd like to see more of these older toys come

out as sort of re -releases, kind of like how

they did Transformers classics a couple of years

ago. Well funny you should say that Hasbro is

notorious for repaints and rehashing old molds

so if they produce it once you're pretty much

going to see it come back at some point. It'll

be interesting to see how they do that with power

rangers because each see each season has new

zords now if we're getting repaints and recolors

Okay Actually, I just thought of a really awesome

idea for if they wanted to do a sanding of comic

-con exclusive Hasbro, I hope you're listening

You want to make some money? And I mean real

money, money I will pay for, because this is

how cool this is. In Power Rangers Shattered

Grid, there's something called the Grave Zord.

The Grave Zord is made out of all the destroyed

Zords, and that's Lord Draken's new, basically

evil kick -ass Zord that'll fight the mighty

morph in Power Rangers Megazord in the course

of Shattered Grid. Or if you give me the Shattered

Grid Sentries, the yellow, the black, the red,

the ranger slayer. They don't have a blue one

because Drakken didn't get the blue coin. And

you give me Lord Drakken in like a five pack,

even if it's the three and three quarter inch

scale, that's money. Just throwing some ideas

at you. Oh, I'm sure they'll come up with something.

Oh my god, next year, San Diego Comic Con cannot

come soon enough. I'm really excited to see what

they're going to pop out. But that's not the

only merger we talked about. Sprint and T -Mobile

have merged, right? Yes. And how many phone companies

do you guys have left? We have a lot of smaller

ones still around, like Cricket and some of the

other wireless ones. But for the most part, it's...

It's Verizon's AT &T Sprint in T -Mobile, and

in that order, as far as global reach, or at

least in the United States. I've always wanted

to try T -Mobile, just for the sake of it, because

I've had Verizon in the past. I've had AT &T.

I've had Sprint. Sprint was terrible. AT &T is

not that better. Verizon was probably the...

the quickest and the best calling that I've ever

had on a phone. But their prices are outrageous.

So I'm looking forward to seeing what they do

after the merger, because none of the companies

are in the realm of affordability. And I say

that being one of the people that did the it

was around the time that before they had contracts

ending, like before they stopped doing the contracts

altogether. They had the option to lease the

phones to own, lease to own, and we opted for

that method, and then when we paid it off, it

allowed a much cheaper cell phone bill. So it's

literally under $100 for two phones with, I think,

seven gigs of data and unlimited talk and text,

which is standard on everything now. Sprint,

we had unlimited everything, but the service

sucked. I'm looking forward to seeing what the

pricing is once they come out, once they have

a full merger going on. They're going to retain

the T -Mobile title, and Sprint will be no more.

The CEO of T -Mobile will be the CEO of the new

T -Mobile Sprint -owned company. They're essentially

wanting to get bigger so that they can play play

ball and hardball Verizon and AT &T Because things

are gonna get messy base it's gonna get super

messy and They're they're wanting to essentially

combat with the big boys now at this point so

they the only way they can take over that table

is by merging, you know to medium -sized to create

a juggernaut and They're by no means, you know,

as big as AT &T or Verizon, but they can put

a nice dent in them now. And so I'll be looking

forward to seeing what they do there. I wish

that the phones were more affordable because

I'm currently in the market. I really don't want

a piece of garbage phone, but at the same time,

I can't afford a $800 a piece phone. So now I

listen to a radio station out of Philadelphia.

Quite a bit WM MMR and doesn't sprint have a

deal right now You can get two iPhone 8s for

like zero dollars as long as your credits good

Not as far as I know but I also don't I don't

fly the Apple flag But say that could be local

to Philly for all I know But yeah, I'd be curious

to see what kind of deals you'll get, like who

their primary supplier of devices is, be it Samsung

or whoever the major Android person is. As far

as Android, Samsung is pretty much the number

one because they're the one that's always sold

neck and neck with the iPhone. And I would love

to have a new Samsung Galaxy phone. but I don't

like the price attached to it. Motorola would

be my second favorite go -to. I've had HTC phones

before, they're horrible. I've thought about

getting a ZTE phone, which I've kind of talked

about on the podcast before, because they have

the double -screened multitasking phone, but

apparently the ratings weren't that great on

it. I'm thinking about an ASUS phone. Is a possibility

because I can get one for about $200 and have

better I can basically double what my phone does

currently Being the galaxy s5. So But I'm kind

of waiting for my phone to die at the same time.

I Don't know. I I've never I've had another phone

that wasn't an iPhone very early on back 2008

2009 I've been iPhone ever since. I can't imagine

going to anything but iOS, which is weird. And

it's not because I'm an Apple fanboy, because

I'm afraid of change. And Apple is safe to me.

Obviously, with some of their software patches

bricking phones and other devices at times, that's

a pain in the ballsack, to say the very least.

Well, see, I've always thought about trying a

Microsoft phone, but at the same time, I've got

Windows, so I really don't want a Microsoft phone.

So yeah, exactly, because you don't know whether

it'll work if you turn the thing off. Well, I

mean, they just had recently some bad Windows

update that because Windows update, you can't

turn it off and it kind of forces itself to install.

Although the new spring creators update, they're

supposed to do away with the auto install. They're

supposed to let you pick a time, but. I have

it disabled completely, like all Windows Update

functions are dead on my computer on purpose.

And I won't tell how long ago I did this because

there's varying stages you can do it and it tells

which version you have. But I killed it enough

that it will no longer install Windows Update.

unless I physically unlock all of the things

I did to it. But they had a bad Windows update

that breaks a bunch of copies of Windows and

gave them blue screens and had to revert said

update. And luckily they are able to do that,

but still it was kind of a mess. You would hear

me screaming from here in Michigan if that ever

happened to my computer. Yeah, I'm guaranteed.

I have three Windows 10 machines in my house.

One's a laptop, one's a portable computer, and

one's my desktop. And all of them have Windows

10 on it. All of them have Windows 10 update

disabled. The portable one that we use for the

television asks me every time I boot it up, do

I want to do the update? There's something wrong

because it can't connect, an update. But it knows

it needs an update. So it'll load the browser

and tell me how to manually update it. And I'm

like, no, click. No, fuck that noise. Yep, and

then the laptop gives me an occasional one, and

then my desktop never does it anymore, thankfully.

My desktop, I did get a Windows update a couple

of weeks ago, and fortunately it didn't mess

up. But yeah, having a Windows phone, it's untested

territory. I don't trust them enough. As cool

as it would be to have Cortana be my virtual

assistant, I'm fine with Siri. See, I've witnessed

the power of Amazon's Echo. And I honestly would

not mind having a Alexa AI device helping. But

at the same point, I don't necessarily use any

of the assistant programs. It's just one of those.

See, I like it because it's fun. Sometimes I

can make it do some funny things. But yeah, it's

not something I would rely on in my day -to -day

usage as a user. Now... And they listen to you,

like... Well, then my phone is hearing me making

fart noises, bad jokes, and talking to my wife.

Your CIA can do with that data whatever they

want to. They don't care. You hear that? They

don't care you're Canadian, but Microsoft might.

They can hear everything we're saying. Oh...

Well, that's no fun. Well, when you use Skype,

they actually screen all of them, like, through

a thing now. I probably shouldn't say the words

bomb and terrorist in the same sentence, right?

Like, now. Like, yeah. One will get me put on

a watch list, Steve. You'll never enter Michigan

again. Wouldn't that be funny? You run a podcast

with this Mr. Megatron, like, oh, Christ. Wouldn't

that be hilarious, though? Would kind of die

laughing at the border Be a massive inconvenience,

but I would die laughing they would they would

detain you they'd be like Do not pass go Yeah,

I do not click $200 not get to this country.

Mr. Terrorist daughter the goodwill, excuse me

Just tell them live for your die -hard. That's

right. Like all that and sounds like words of

a Sessionist or something. I'm like, oh my god.

I'm not from California. Thanks Yeah, exactly.

I'm not Looney Tunes. Just trust me. But anyway,

I mean, the merger could be good. Maybe it'll

improve cell service in certain areas, though

I can't see them putting a lot more money into

infrastructure. They'll probably just rebrand

those towers. You might get a softer upgrade.

Yeah, I'm a little leery of it, but I would be

willing to try it once it's in. I mean, I'm kind

of at this point, like I'm waiting for my cell

bill to kind of there's an eventual skyrocket

like it's been going up like a couple of pennies

a month since our phones have been paid off eventually

it's gonna end up to where it's over a hundred

dollars and you know once it hits the hundred

twenty dollar mark then I'll switch but I think

I'm thinking about a hundred and twenty bucks

now and that's Canadian you guys have way better

cell phone plans than we do yeah I mean we do

but they also like They rip you off and I think

also I think they they purposely will throttle

Older phones to get you to upgrade to newer stuff.

I could believe it I believe I think that there's

like a death switch built into these phones because

it seems like when you hit about the the year

year and a half mark they kind of give you this

itch for a new phone because Your phone starts

working like crap Yeah, my wife's phone for example

her phone. I think it's complete garbage, which

is why I'm not a big fan of Android And her phone

started the crap out at about the year and change

mark give or take because she's on a two -year

cycle as Am I I mean I got I purposely took an

older iPhone so I can get more storage I got

a 256 gig iPhone 7 plus I could have took a 64

gig iPhone 8 for the same price, but I'm like

I want the storage. My wife has a Samsung something

or other, and that thing has nothing but problems.

See, I've got the S5, the Galaxy S5, and so does

my wife. And we've had them since they came out.

And now they're on the S9. I just don't want

to spend the money. See, that's why we've got

to get you hooked up with some cell phone reviewer

people. We'll figure that shit out. Oh, I would

too. I would have fun with it. Because to me,

like the biggest thing is battery life and how

the phone actually functions, like how much memory

is in it and, you know, how much crap I can run.

For me, it's all about the camera. and memory.

That too. Because I take a lot of pictures. Yeah.

And my iPhone now shoots, I think, I think now

they all natively shoot 4K. Yeah, my phone has

higher capabilities. The problem is, is that

when something's moving, it takes horrible pictures.

There's like no proper focus. And I think that's

because like the phones themselves don't have

good cameras. Although I hear that new stuff

does because they put two cameras in the phones

now. Well, yeah, because you got your front -facing

camera, your rear -facing camera. They also have

one built for telephoto stuff meant for stuff

at a longer range and then stuff that's closer,

like your kind of macro camera, so to speak.

Yeah, they put the double camera on the backside

now so that they can take the two distances and

create a perfect meld of photo quality. As I'm

looking at the back of my phone right now the

iPhone 7 plus I kind of wonder if I have Two

cameras because I've got two lenses on the back

of it So I'm guessing I do if you do then you're

you're lucky. I don't We'll work on it. Yes.

So anyways that That I think kind of rounds about

this episode of altered geek I think so too.

Obviously, we've talked about Hasbro and Power

Rangers mergers. It's going to be a good thing

for the Power Rangers brand, likely. We'll have

to wait and see. We'll know more about Toy Fair

in February. We'll see what images leak out between

now and then. Sprint and T -Mobile. Well, we'll

have to see what they'll offer as in terms of

a competitive package for new users. Will they

find a new flagship phone? We'll have to wait

and see. Yep, so you can get a hold of the podcast

on the social media in most places by searching

at Altered Geek. You can get a hold of me on

Twitter at SCP21 and yourself, sir. You can find

me at birdman .across Facebook, Instagram, and

Twitter. And until next time, get altered, get

geeky with the Altered Geeks. Morphin time!