UPDATE: Vote HERE
Today (Monday), Transformers fans are called to flock to transformers.com to vote on five nominees for the new Transformers Hall of Fame. Hasbro automatically inducted Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, and Starscream, because, really, let’s get those guys out of the way, and they left the fifth inductee this year up to us. The winner will be announced at BotCon.
Last month, a bunch of participating websites, including the Transformers Wiki, held separate polls to get their own lists of five worthy Transformers. The results were sent in, and Hasbro used these results to create a list of five final nominees, the ones we’ll be voting on today. The first five were pretty obvious: Soundwave, Grimlock, Jazz, and Shockwave. The fifth I imagine was a surprise, as this week’s TNI strip addresses. It’s Dinobot! Some guy from friggin’ Beast Wars who hasn’t appeared in any other series! He showed up on almost everybody’s lists, and was the #1 choice from the Transformers Wiki.
This is because Dinobot is awesome.
(Though not everybody thinks so. Some folks from TFW2005 were very adamant that Dinobot was shoved into the Nominee list by Hasbro, as part of some underhanded coup, because Hasbro hates the fans, because nobody would vote for Dinobot! Nobody!)
Of course, I don’t think he’s going to win. He doesn’t have a chance in hell against Soundwave. Dinobot may win some local polls at certain websites, but we’re talking general transformers.com traffic here. Soundwave’s got it locked. But a man can still dream, and I’m still voting Dinobot. (Well, when the poll on transformers.com goes up sometime today.)
I’ve, uh, probably exhausted my well of Dinobot toy photos, especially recently, what with me trying to get every use of his mold ever together in one spot. But there is one thing I know I definitely haven’t photographed for this blog, or photographed period for about 15 years. In 1997, disappointed with Dinobot’s toy (what was wrong with me???), I bought a blue 5″ Iron Man figure, covered him with sculpey and paint and called it a day. His rigid grill structure’s kinda broken off and he’s been at the bottom of a toy bin for a decade, but other than the paint wear that resulted, he’s still in surprisingly good condition.
So enjoy this little bit of personal action figure history. In 1997, Dinobot was a big part of my world. In 2010, even though he hasn’t appeared in a television series since then, he still is. That’s why I’m voting for him.
Dinobot has spoken. My rigid grill structure…
I’m still voting Shockwave. :p
Soundwave, dudes. No way I’d vote for Dinobot. I dont see what’s so great about him, and I’m A) a fan who was introduced to the franchise by Beast Wars and B) a fan who’s second figure was BW Grimlock, purchased because I couldn’t find Dinobot at the time.
I’d vote for Dinobot purely on the basis of resisting G1 monomania.
(He wouldn’t have been my choice as a nominee though. I’d have preferred Rattrap.)
I’m surprise you haven’t already written a script that votes a billion times per day.
I REALLY wanted to point out that the sheer majority, if not all, of the detractors in that TFW2005 thread were bandwagon-jumpers.
Like, that episode of the Simpsons with the cerfew where Homer expresses his hatred of the Isotopes until he is informed that they’re in the finals. He exits Moe’s and immediately returns decked out as if he was the biggest fan in history.
Now, I do love me some Soundwave, and in fact I used to have a lengthy stock rant about how he was actually running the Decepticons with Megatron as a figure-head, but in this situation, with this list of five for the hall of fame? I’ve gotta vote Dinobot, because Dinobot is pure, unadulterated awesome. From start to finish, introduction to death, and after, he’s absolutely awesome. Soundwave is great, for the most part, but when he showed up in RoTF he spent the entire movie humping a satelite, accomplishing nothing.
DinoBot’s tale has been told to those who ask. It was told truly, the ill deeds along with the good. He has been judged accordingly, and I have found him worthy.
I’ll be voting for Dinobot, for sure.
I am honestly surprised that anybody could be honestly surprised by Dinobot winning a nomination. I guess I can understand somebody not voting for him themselves (I guess), but to be genuinely shocked that other people would vote for him? Wooowwwww.
Anyway, Dinobot’s definitely got my vote, considering he’s the only guy I voted for nomination that actually got in.
Like I said, those people who are shocked/claim some sort of set up by Hasbro are probably just one of those bandwagon jumping fans who jumped back onto Transformers when it became cool and popular again. They’re gonna vote for “that tape guy with the cool voice”.
Honestly, I never understood the interest in the character; aside from his arguments with Rattrap, I found his dialog hokey and over the top.
Dinobot died for your sins!
It wasn’t a HASBRO set-up — I BLAME YOU Mr Willis — you rigged it somehow…..
So my question is, why the big to-do about nomination voting, in order to vote for ONE addition to the hall of fame? Why can’t they just take the top five and add them all? Is Hasbro going to keep doing the hall of fame vote as a yearly thing, and if so, aren’t the next four years’ worth of inductees pretty much guaranteed based on the current voting? I don’t understand the whole thing. (BTW even though Soundwave seems like the obvious choice, being super-iconic and appearing in almost every version of TF continuity… Dinobot is still great. Probably the most interesting character in TF fiction, rivaled maybe only by Animated Prowl. He needs a toy with feathers though.)
Hasbro already decided the first four brand names inducted – the usual suspects of Prime, Bumblebee, Starscream and Megatron. Since this is a big marketing stunt, we get to choose the last one.
Dinobot is DEFINITELY better than Jazz or Grimlock! But, yeah, I totally voted Soundwave…
Dinobot~ Beast Wars was really the only continuity I ever gave a shit about anyways, so I’ll certainly vote for him.
He’s a robot dinosaur who quotes SHAKESPEAR. How can you go wrong?
So, I voted for Dinobot, because he’s there (I think I voted Soundwave during the noms), and I note after that you can vote once per day, no login. This would be rather easy to pollute the results …
Yay! But. Sigh. All boys.
Man, those guys are jerks. If I hadn’t voted Dinobot before seeing that, I’d have voted for him out of sheer spite.
Robot Replicas Dinobot! Ultra gear!
Uh, i clicked vote before selecting anything (Didn’t see the bullets).. and it just said my vote was counted.. @_@
Sorry, had to vote for Shockwave. Even if he won’t likely win, I have an irrational amount of love for the guy due to the Marvel Comics Transformers series where he was all kinds of awesome in the early going.
I voted for Dinobot!
I know nothing about Transformers, really. But his name is Dinobot. I don’t see how that could be bad.
If it gets Robin reelected, then I too will vote for this “Dino-Bot.”