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Till-all-R1 wrote:Heck, if scale really is that unimportant what's the point in different size bots then? Just make very single one of them the same height, no need for Core, Deluxe, Voyager, Leader or Commander. Being as how Animation was all over the place we don't truly know Rumble was shorter than Bumblebee or that Prime was taller than him. lol

Just make them all Voyager Class and call it good.

Why not? Other toy lines have done so and the world didn't end.

Scale, smkhayle, just make an average of what appeared the most in media and run with it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-Kanrabat- wrote:Scale, smkhayle, just make an average of what appeared the most in media and run with it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A bot who transforms into a City.
A team that combines into a Gestalt.

Those are the only figures that objectively need to be bigger than the rest.

Thing is, difference in size is fun. I think "ballpark" scale is the best. As in, respecting roughly who's taller than who, but not going around trying to get the sizes correct to the milimetre.

Different sizes = good
Ballpark relative sizes = fine
This animation style guide says the figure should be X cm shorter = not my bag

Here are some photos I saw on Instagram.

Despite a couple issues, I still see this as being so much better than the previous Siege/Kingdom versions.
I may be alone in this, but even though the back of the trailer is just his lower legs, I’m really liking how that looks.

I love my Siege Magnus, but I never really saw the Kingdom "Earth mode" version as Magnus's true evolution. With the SS86, not only does the Cybertronian Magnus got a REAL Earth mode, he was also got himself seriously upgraded too!

I’ve already shared my thoughts on this figure being too large, but the more I’ve seen the bot mode, the more I’ve decided it’s the overly broad shoulders that I think are the issue.
I know this shouldn’t look much different at all in person, but I’m still anxious to see him in-hand and in front of me. I’ve found that the vast majority of my figures look better in-person than in photos.

Is it me, or does the truck cab actually look a little smaller than that of the Kingdom version?

Sabrblade wrote:Is it me, or does the truck cab actually look a little smaller than that of the Kingdom version?

No, I don’t think so.
But either way, imo it looks a ton better.
For the Kingdom figure supposedly being an “earth mode”, it’s lacking in a lot of ways.

Sowndwave76 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Is it me, or does the truck cab actually look a little smaller than that of the Kingdom version?

No, I don’t think so.
But either way, imo it looks a ton better.
For the Kingdom figure supposedly being an “earth mode”, it’s lacking in a lot of ways.

Keep in mind, the Kingdom cab was a tad on the tall side, so the new one being more proportionate in its design does make it look shorter.

I just found this photo, & here he looks really pretty good.
I know he’s slightly turned, but still…
I think he’s going to be a win.

I really want to not want that Magnus so I can save money
And I like my siege one

But that car carrier mode is really messing with me haha I'd love to have Magnus carrying kup, arcee, blurr and Springer. It's such a cool play feature. That alt mode is fantastic

My biggest pet peeve about scale is the fact a Sony Walkman size tape player turns into a robot the same size as one who's alt mode is a Semi truck. Or that a tape cassette turns into a robot the same size as a VW Bug's bot mode. Those instances are lapse of logic I just cannot wrap my head around, and makes me think the people in charge of their designs were on the same LDS as Spock was accused of taking too much of.

No amount of folding or whatever excuse they want to invent can explain how a tape player can turn into a robot that tall. At most Soundwave should have been the same height as a Human child at the age of 12. And a tape cassette should have been at most the size of, well a 5" toy robot. lol

Sabrblade wrote:

Sowndwave76 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Is it me, or does the truck cab actually look a little smaller than that of the Kingdom version?

No, I don’t think so.
But either way, imo it looks a ton better.
For the Kingdom figure supposedly being an “earth mode”, it’s lacking in a lot of ways.

Keep in mind, the Kingdom cab was a tad on the tall side, so the new one being more proportionate in its design does make it look shorter.

The thing that really didn't helped the Kingdom remold are the obvious bot arms that are just hanging on the back of the truck cab, and the fact that the trailer was made shorter to not hide them. That was my main reason to not buy it. There's also not much difference with the Siege bot.
But for some reasons, all these flaws were forgivable with the SG version.

I'll wait with anticipation for SS86 Magnus to stand along his Siege and SG selves.

Till-all-R1 wrote:My biggest pet peeve about scale is the fact a Sony Walkman size tape player turns into a robot the same size as one who's alt mode is a Semi truck. Or that a tape cassette turns into a robot the same size as a VW Bug's bot mode. Those instances are lapse of logic I just cannot wrap my head around, and makes me think the people in charge of their designs were on the same LDS as Spock was accused of taking too much of.

No amount of folding or whatever excuse they want to invent can explain how a tape player can turn into a robot that tall. At most Soundwave should have been the same height as a Human child at the age of 12. And a tape cassette should have been at most the size of, well a 5" toy robot. lol

Well, it's just silly robots after all. The initial IDW comics explained it as them just shedding the mass into a pocket dimension or some similar space fantasy bullshit, but at least there was an explanation. And in-story, it meant that Transformers who mass-shifted to transform didn't do it as often, because of the huge energy expenditure involved. I think Shockwave even took advantage of that to trap Soundwave in the classic tape deck mode.

But yeah, I much prefer it when it's like the movies, where they roughly respect the relative volumes of the vehicles. And in cases like Starscream, you got bulky, wide robots to keep them the same height as the rest of the cast. I was a bit disappointed to see that the MPM Starscream didn't pull a similar trick, like being long but slick and folding in half to transform, they just made a short jet full of crap underneath.

Till-all-R1 wrote:My biggest pet peeve about scale is the fact a Sony Walkman size tape player turns into a robot the same size as one who's alt mode is a Semi truck. Or that a tape cassette turns into a robot the same size as a VW Bug's bot mode. Those instances are lapse of logic I just cannot wrap my head around, and makes me think the people in charge of their designs were on the same LDS as Spock was accused of taking too much of.

No amount of folding or whatever excuse they want to invent can explain how a tape player can turn into a robot that tall. At most Soundwave should have been the same height as a Human child at the age of 12. And a tape cassette should have been at most the size of, well a 5" toy robot. lol

Apart from the bizarre fact that the intrinsic canonical ability of these shape-shifting alien robots IE Mass displacement, continues to lose people nearly 40 years on. It's actually very simple to explain.


That isn't a tape player at all. Soundwave is an advanced, alien robot in 'tape player' cosplay. It's a costume. A disguise. Fake. The real life dimensions of the altmode bare no resemblance whatsoever to alien robot within.

The Beast Era and Bayformers are the only exemptions. By design.

Till-all-R1 wrote:My biggest pet peeve about scale is the fact a Sony Walkman size tape player turns into a robot the same size as one who's alt mode is a Semi truck. Or that a tape cassette turns into a robot the same size as a VW Bug's bot mode. Those instances are lapse of logic I just cannot wrap my head around, and makes me think the people in charge of their designs were on the same LDS as Spock was accused of taking too much of.

No amount of folding or whatever excuse they want to invent can explain how a tape player can turn into a robot that tall. At most Soundwave should have been the same height as a Human child at the age of 12. And a tape cassette should have been at most the size of, well a 5" toy robot. lol

Well, in the case of all those Micro Change toys that were used to make Megatron, Soundwave, Blaster, the Cassettes, Perceptor, Reflector, and so on, in the original Micro Change line those toys were all meant to represent tiny robots who were the same sizes as the devices they turned into. It was only when they were used for The Transformers that they were reimagined as giant robots who could change their size and mass. So the original intention for them in Micro Change was more realistic.

As an aside, It's also one of the reasons why upscaling Beast Era characters for IDW, Kingdom, ROTB etc falls flat. They were animals, (loosely) scaled to each other. Waspinator's altmode doesn't work if he is the same size as BB.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:As an aside, It's also one of the reasons why upscaling Beast Era characters for IDW, Kingdom, ROTB etc falls flat. They were animals, (loosely) scaled to each other. Waspinator's altmode doesn't work if he is the same size as BB.

It's doesn't work in Beast Wars neither since he's still a giant wasp larger than the size of a human adult in that series too.

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:As an aside, It's also one of the reasons why upscaling Beast Era characters for IDW, Kingdom, ROTB etc falls flat. They were animals, (loosely) scaled to each other. Waspinator's altmode doesn't work if he is the same size as BB.

It's doesn't work in Beast Wars neither since he's still a giant wasp larger than the size of a human adult in that series too.

Yeah, Beast Wars alt-modes were not "loosely" scaled to each other, they were not scaled to each other.

AcademyofDrX wrote:Yeah, Beast Wars alt-modes were not "loosely" scaled to each other, they were not scaled to each other.

Indeed

Swoop is one of the last two figures on my “most wanted” list…
I’m really hoping he is just a larger version of this New Age figure, relatively speaking.
About the only issue I see here is the dino feet and the joints that connect those to the bot legs.
But this has the headsculpt on point, and the wings are done really, really well.
I especially like how those look folded up on the back of the robot mode.
And the proportions of the wings for both modes is spot on.
I’m even okay with how the legs look folded up and over the dino torso.

This looks so good I’m considering getting this figure.

AcademyofDrX wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:As an aside, It's also one of the reasons why upscaling Beast Era characters for IDW, Kingdom, ROTB etc falls flat. They were animals, (loosely) scaled to each other. Waspinator's altmode doesn't work if he is the same size as BB.

It's doesn't work in Beast Wars neither since he's still a giant wasp larger than the size of a human adult in that series too.

Yeah, Beast Wars alt-modes were not "loosely" scaled to each other, they were not scaled to each other.

Which ironically doesn't make them being big ass versions of animals in Kingdom or RotB in any way 'inappropriate' any more than it makes them appropriate.

Anyway, I've been following the discussion as I'm still just not feeling Ultra Magnus' size in robot mode. He's even bigger proportionately than MP-22 to that figure's corresponding figure line and it just doesn't look right. It's painfully obvious they scaled him based on the vehicle mode, which is just bass ackwards. But I'm giving up the scale argument as an every day thing. It is what it is at this point. I totally get that to make him be a working car carrier so we can carry on that fantasy that he ever carried a single car in fiction other than on the commercial bumper and the commercial itself, he had to be bigger. I get it. I just don't like it.

The figure, on it's own, in a vacuum devoid of other figures in the line it goes to is an excellent figure. I'll..ahem...deal with that now because it's my favorite character, but it's not right.Unless it's in vehicle mode.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Apart from the bizarre fact that the intrinsic canonical ability of these shape-shifting alien robots IE Mass displacement, continues to lose people nearly 40 years on. It's actually very simple to explain.


That isn't a tape player at all. Soundwave is an advanced, alien robot in 'tape player' cosplay. It's a costume. A disguise. Fake. The real life dimensions of the altmode bare no resemblance whatsoever to alien robot within.

One of the best ways to explain the 'science' I've heard in a long time.

Just watched the PvP review of UM…
Now I’m even more excited to get this figure.
Not sure I’ll still be in the game to see another incarnation of this character— which should be many years down the road— but either way, this is the definitive version.
I don’t know why Hastak would ever try to top this.
This is one of those figures where I’m betting the next version will be drastically altered from the G1 appearance due to some play gimmick.
It does have me wondering if this new Leader class Springer (and eventually OP) means that the door is being opened to making voyager class versions of Kup, Blurr, Arcee, and maybe even Hot Rod.
Seems like Wreck-gar may be one who is still pretty much in-scale with this new Magnus.

But even with the shoulders being too wide, it really is impressive how screen accurate this is all the way around.
And I appreciate that the transformation isn’t overly complicated.
Now I feel confident that I can say this figure is a big win in my book.