Masterpiece Beast Wars Megatron and KB Toys Return

This is Optimus Prime, and you're listening to

All Things Transformers. Hello and welcome to

All Things Transformers! I'm your host, Steve

Megatron. Philips N. In this episode, I'll be

talking about, well, the new Prime Wars trilogy

episodes, as they've debuted so far, and various

Transformers news. So if you're not already a

fan of Transformers, uh... Hasbro type news areas.

Hasbro Pulse on Instagram, which I'm not very

acquainted with Instagram, being that I just

signed up Geekcast Radio for it. It shows off

some interesting things of some new toys going

for a variety of franchises, whether it's Transformers,

Star Wars, Marvel, you know, G .I. Joe. just

things of that nature. So anyways, they had this

really cool wireframing of Megatron Pretend Engineering.

Pretend Engineering is pretend engineering created

to explain the dynamic functionality of each

transformer's robot. So basically they draw up

a schematic of how the transformer works. How

the various cranks and ball joints and things

that move in how it will function as it transforms

So anyways, they showed this really cool Megatron

Basically fully detailed very much like the Prime

Wars trilogy Megatron that turns into the tank,

looks very similar to that, actually looks really,

really interesting. But I love the way that it

breaks it down into different pieces and it's

kind of how they pretend engineer it or reverse

engineer it as they're going into building the

figure itself and I think that it's kind of just...

enlightening to see, despite the fact that you

know some of how it's produced. It's just kind

of cool to see the wireframing and how they break

it down. So I thought that was kind of neat,

how they're doing this starting point for new

Transformers and kind of prototyping the movable

parts and gimmicks and everything else. But it's

definitely an early iteration of Cyberverse Line's

Megatron. But like I said, it looks just like

the Combiner Wars type of... aesthetic. Another

thing is Masterpiece 41 Beast Wars Masterpiece

DinoBot release date has been changed in Japan

anyway. Amazon has received notifications that

there'll be a delay in arrival from the originally

planned release at the end of July. Not really

surprising. But yeah, I'm kind of looking forward

to seeing how this figure looks after people

get it in their hands and get to review it. But

they're saying that it's going to be coming August

3rd, or July 27th, so... Like I said, it's going

to be kind of cool to see how that turns out.

I'm loving all the Beast Wars Masterpiece figures,

among them being how a while back we touched

on that Masterpiece was working on a Beast Wars

Megatron. Well... A great prototype has been

revealed for masterpiece 43 is Beast Wars Megatron.

I am stoked for this. Don't have any money to

buy it, but I'm really, really looking forward

to this because it would be a great piece to

go with my Beast Wars masterpiece, Optimus Primal,

and it's show accurate and... Man it looks gorgeous

for a toy It doesn't have that stupid Grin that

every like 90s Beast Wars figure had it actually

has his face with the kind of upside down smile

I'm assuming they'll have the gimmick of the

the His grimace that he gets from time to time.

They've got the little hip cannons that that

are a part of the the legs of the beast form

It's got the the removable arm piece and then

the the head for the dinosaur looks slick It's

it's so So cool to look at even though it's a

prototype. I feel like I already know this figure

I'm really looking forward to this like crazy,

but I have a feeling that this thing is gonna

be a run for the money as far as I have a feeling

it's going to be $250 to $300 just American dollars

for this thing and it makes me sad because I

more than likely won't be able to get it or afford

it if that's the case. I've been kind of run

out on various other masterpieces when it's concerned

certain figures that I would have wanted. Like

I don't even have my masterpiece MP01 Optimus

Prime anymore. I sold that a while back but the

only masterpiece I still have is Optimus Primal

and even if I couldn't get to the trans metals

which I'm not a huge fan of all of the trans

metals, but if I were to get a trans metal it

would definitely be I would definitely want Beast

Wars, Transmetal, Megatron, and the Dragon Megatron,

if I were to get any of them done and purchased,

it would be the Beast Wars Megatron line. And

that's about it. Like I really, I love all of

the Beast Wars figures, but if I were to choose,

and I had to choose some of them, the only ones

I would put emphasis on are Megatron. And that's

because, oh yes, I can do Megatron! I can do

justice to him as well. Fashion a blade sharp

with a point made entirely of pure energon. So

I missed that voice. I need to get back in practice

of it, especially if Darkglass may continue.

I haven't heard anything on that in a while,

but regardless, I'm really looking forward to

this figure. Something terrible! I need it. What

in tarnation? Uh, yeah, so anyways, quick strike.

Bad. Bad pet pun. So, moving on. Hasbro is essentially

taking it upon themselves, because we haven't

had an episode of this in two months, I think

some of these things are still warranted and

some of them are not. So Hasbro wants to help

recycle broken or unwanted toys to help the environment,

primarily their own content. My guess is that...

It won if it's a Hasbro toy they can repurpose

it repair it and resell it if not then they can

kind of boil it down to more parts and Can you

imagine though if you had these toys that you

just no longer wanted they were broken or something

was wrong with them and you could You could turn

them in and then it could thus and result in

maybe a discount voucher on new toys or I'm getting

the Like a lower pricing on toys in the future

Just because you would be not you would be helping

the company essentially by giving back some of

these things And I I see it kind of as a terrible

idea in the sense that you're giving them something

for nothing But at the same time like if they're

just gonna go into landfill like why why not

just turn it in them? So I get it on both fronts

but yeah, that's that's a pretty hefty new endeavor.

So since we're talking about Beast Wars, Transformers

Forged to Fight, the fighting game for mobile

devices. They've added another character yet

again. You can add Beast Wars Transmetal, Cheetor,

to the ranks. And although I don't play this

game, I think it's kind of cool that they've

added him in there. There's a variety, like there's

an Optimus Prime in the game, there's... Rhinox,

there's a couple other characters. I want to

say regular Cheetah Wars in there, but I'm in

favor for any time Beast Wars makes a return,

honestly. I think that it's quite honestly something

that draws me back to Transformers. Speaking

of drawing back, the whole thing with... Prime

Wars. I mean, for crying out loud, the Fallen,

Mark Hamill, the Fallen, took out Peter Cullen,

Optimus Prime, blew him away in the last episode

of Season 2, and if you haven't seen that, I'm

sorry, but that's what happens. This season,

you get to see Predaking, you get to see the

Dinobots, you get to see a variety of the the

Combiner's blown away, you get to see... Rata

Kron or Rodimus Kron which is kind of stupid

sounding but it's Rodimus with the Decepticon

Matrix. You have Overlord helping him and helping

the Fallen and they're looking for the Requiem

Blaster which doesn't tell you what it is but

the The Matrix and the combiner heart thing is

under Unicron the Fallen's... Megatronus! I call

him the Fallen, he just reminds me of that. But

Megatronus' control, and everybody's looking

to Generation 1 Megatron to kind of lead because

he's like the legend at this point with Primegon.

I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what they

do with him. I know he's gonna play an integral

role, and I know at some point they're gonna

bring up Optimus Primal, who's gonna be voiced

by Ron Perlman. I wish that they'd gotten Gary

Chalk to reprise, but again, I can kind of see

why they went a totally different direction.

They did get Grimlock back, which was cool. But

yeah, it's... It's an interesting series. I am

looking forward to seeing how this whole thing

plays out because It's it's not like super high

on my priority list, but at the moment It's the

only transformers we have and it's made for us

the fans for the most part unlike, you know cyber

verse which is coming which is Gonna be kind

of a cross between prime and in robots in disguise

again But it's gonna be animated and so almost

transformers animated mix with robots in disguise

It's something I'll probably tune into, but I'm

not entirely sure at the moment. It just depends

on the storyline. So, yeah, I'm gonna kind of

go blitzing through some of the episodes as it

goes for Combiner Wars Trilogy and keeping up

to date with it, but I'm not gonna go too in

-depth on the episodes. I'll just say go to goniny

.com and watch it yourself if you want to see

it. Transformers Cyberverse figures are starting

to pop up and that's aside from the fact that

the Toys R Us stores are going away. My local

one is 30 to 50 % off. I think most of them are

at that point now. They're definitely wanting

to sell out and I think they're about gauging

to bump up the liquidation percentage off at

some point. I bought a board game. when we went

in. I didn't really focus on toys or transformers

because I have a feeling that even if I was to

do that and try and sell some on eBay or something,

I think that everybody's gonna be doing the same

idea or at least purchasing what they want of

it all. I have no intention of going in and buying

anything. Now if they had like a Masterpiece

Cheeto or Dinobot or something I would have done

that, but I really don't see that happening.

So anyways, there are liquidation sales going

on between Toys R Us and Babies R Us, and a lot

of these things are just starting to get picked

over. A lot of the crap stuff is there left at

this point. Legos are 20 % off, which are still

overpriced at Toys R Us, so when it hits 50 %

off, all the good stuff will be gone anyway.

But I am looking forward to the fact that KB

Toys... had discussed that bringing back their

name and have like a competitive sustainable

business model like we mentioned in a previous

episode and that they're gonna be resistant to

financial errors made in the past and Toys R

Us. So the KB CEO, Ilya Kassov, elaborated that

his plans during his open forum remarks that

the Toys Associations PlayCon, among the highlights,

three to four hundred KB Toys pop -up stores

will open during the 2018 -2019 holiday season

as a quick way to test each market. While the

best performing of those papas will be reviewed

in early 2019 for potential expansion to one

of the larger permanent 600 to 800 stores, which

I think that's really smart is testing the market

to see whether they should actually open up a

permanent fixture. And honestly, even if they

just open them up for Christmas time, that would

even be something smart on their their behalf

as well if the demand wasn't there. But I guess

that Simon is among the many mall organizations

that replied with interest to cast off LinkedIn

posts and are now on board as investors. Banks,

outside investors, and private equity are not

involved in this version of KB Toys, which is

kind of good because I think that that's what

created the downfall in the first place, is that

it wasn't primarily owned by KB and they kind

of had to do what they were told. But the special

interest to collector communities, a dedicated

toy nerd in each store, which so basically it's

like a geek squad. Which is really awesome. I

would love to do that role. Each store will help

buyers with in -store hot off -the -delivery

truck purchases along with events like meet -and

-greet autograph sessions with toy designers.

See those are ingenious ideas. So it's like a

portable toy convention in every toy store. Which

I think is is kind of ingenious amongst itself

like just just in that that medium. I think that

that's a great draw to bring people in. But I'll

definitely be looking to see what their pricing

is like when they come back because I remember

their pricing was kind of on par with Toys R

Us in that they were kind of overpriced in some

things, specifically action figures, whereas

you could go to like Walmart or Target and get

things much cheaper. I hope their website doesn't

suck like Toys R Us or like Meyer or... some

of the other places like Walmart is kind of iffy

like their website sucks in that they they show

things that they carry and then they show things

that they don't carry and things that other almost

like Amazon yeah other distributors carry that

aren't necessarily backed by Walmart so that

means that you have to take care of the shipping

yourself if it's something that they don't carry

in the store so I think it's kind of a mess So

I'm hoping it's all inside or they run it that

way or they use like a proxy like Amazon to kind

of run through. But I'm looking forward to seeing

what KB does and their mission this year. I'm

really looking forward to stepping into the stores

and seeing the new thing there. And I might even

do something where I kind of go into one and

I kind of do like a behind the scenes or something

and then I kind of capture it and bring it into

the podcast. It's kind of an idea, but I do love

the fact that they're gonna have a dedicated

toy nerd in each store and an autograph session

with toy designers. Those are the two key elements

that I see that will help bring people back into

the stores. And then of course Hasbro writes

a new chapter for Transformers. So they decided

on Bumblebee for the future of their Transformers

franchise because they wanted to go in a bit

of a different direction. They wanted a character

-focused film. Versus an ensemble. He is loved

by kids, multiple generations, girls and women.

Everyone loves Bumblebee, which was their excuse

for making him a film. All on his own. It says,

and then Hasbro is off to a running start with

two new television programs, Cyberverse Chapter

1 and Prime Wars Trilogy. The first is an animated

series with Hasbro Studios and Boulder Media.

That follows Bumblebee as he attempts to recover

his memories on Earth. Prime Wars Trilogy picks

up on the Transformers Combiner Wars storyline

with a more detailed look on the franchise's

characters and history. Though the shows are

not set in the 1980s, Cyberverse emphasizes the

idea of keeping memories alive while Prime Wars,

which debuted on Verizon's streaming service,

Verizon Go 90, was conceived as a way to reach

older devoted fans who have grown up with the

franchise. Which, again, I love both concepts,

so... Hasbro seems to have this knack for recapturing

people even if they've tweaked the aesthetic

just slightly. It's not too jarring. Unlike something

like Thundercats where it seems like everybody

is up in arms about it. Even Ninja Turtles doesn't

go as polar difference as what they've done with

Thundercats. They tweak it slightly or do specific

aesthetics. that stick through the series, but

again, it's not as polarizingly different. And

I think that's where the fandom's a little bit

hardcore into attacking. And that's any fandom,

like any fandom's that way. But again, I think

that... I think that there's going to be some

exciting things in the Transformers world in

the next year, between toy store things and between...

I mean, could you imagine meeting somebody in

a KB toy that has something to do with the designs

of Transformers toys? That would be pretty slick.

Or some other things like that. So anyways, let

me know what you guys think, what you want to

hear in the next episode. your questions, comments,

suggestions. You can hit us up at allthingstfv3

on Twitter, or myself, at scp21. You can also

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the place. So until next time, transform and

roll out. Yeah!