TR Trypticon

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Clay
Posts: 7209
Joined: Mon May 24, 2004 2:19 am
Location: Murray, KY

TR Trypticon

Post by Clay »

DON'T LOOK AT MY OUTLINE. WIP!

Name: Trypticon
Function: Decepticon HQ
Hi there. I've been collecting transformers since about 2002, and if you had told me then that Hasbro would make a gigantic new-mold Trypticon as a retail product, I would have been incredulous at best. At the time I started collecting, Armada and the subsequent Energon and Cybertron lines would do homages to older toys with a light touch. That block of the franchise, for better or worse, tried to do its own thing in terms of new characters.

Ever since the 2006 Classics line however, Hasbro have slowly been trickling out new iterations of Generation One characters with more-or-less consistent success in terms of marketability (they are still going in 2017, after all). The approach to the design of the figures has changed broadly over time, though: whereas earlier figures in this "classic-ifying" process would frequently feature new ideas or transformation schemes (compare the original Astrotrain to the Classics version, for example), with Titans Return and the upcoming Power of the Primes lines have included figures that hew closer to their original counterparts (compare the original Hardhead with the Titans Return deluxe, for example). While this is by no means a bad approach, it does mean that the fun of discovering how a new figure works gets traded away in favor of more closely resembling a figure that you've known how transform for thirty years. That doesn't mean that a new design is always warranted or even good (the 2008 Universe versions of Ironhide and Galvatron come to mind very quickly), but sometimes a character gets a new design from scratch that's better than the original (the 2010 Generations Scourge comes to mind here).

Trypticon however is basically supersized version of the original toy, and for good reason. Given that he's so huge, it's far safer to trade on a design that people know and recognize than, say, the War Within version, or even something totally new like the aforementioned Scourge. The problem then is not really whether Trypticon is well executed as a figure (it's actually great, but I'll get to that in a minute), but whether it's really offering anything new besides being a bigger and more articulated version that you may have already owned for decades (and also if that's enough in-and-of itself).

City
It's a city for the little titan master guys.

Spaceship
It's a spaceship for the little titan master guys.

SPACE DINOSAUR
It's a kaiju for the little titan master guys.



Conclusion
It's great, but it does make me wonder if transformers brand is slowly morphing into a self-consuming ouroboros.
User avatar
Clay
Posts: 7209
Joined: Mon May 24, 2004 2:19 am
Location: Murray, KY

Post by Clay »

I have not abandoned this, and in fact I have a pretty fun idea for it. It's just that I suck and I'm terrible is all.
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