How ridiculous is it that I’m gonna have to disambiguate this guy as Prime Prime. Well, at least there’s no Prime Primal Prime yet.
I didn’t go to San Diego Comic-Con! But Emerald Beacon did. He’s a guy who’s done some artwork for Fun Publications and he’s the mastermind behind those Bat-Con t-shirts. I have one! I wore it to the Dark of the Moon premiere. It’s a swank shirt. And since he’s a swank guy, he picked me up some SDCC swag. Among them was this FIRST EDITION MATRIX OF LEADERSHIP OPTIMUS PRIME. I think that’s its name, anyway.
It’s the first Transformers Prime toy, unless you want to count the War for Cybertron stuff. And it’s gonna be the only Transformers Prime stuff until November or December, so even though I’m gonna be owning this toy again when I get the “Entertainment Pack” that comes with the three PVC human kids, it’s worth it to me to have this guy five months early.
Plus, dude, his packaging. He comes inside a Matrix, which you can wear, which comes inside a box that looks like Optimus Prime’s chest, sealed with a magnet. And you can remove the toy no problem from the Matrix without wrecking it. You just pop the plastic part, sort through some layers, and voila. Removeable, returnable Optimus Prime toy. So when my next convention comes along (Wizard World Chicago, is it?) I can put him back in and wear him around like a dork. You know, versus shilling my webcomic at a table like a dork.
The toy is more complicated than I was expecting. I’m not sure why I was expecting simpler. It’s not, like, insanely complicated, it’s just more complicated than I thought it looked, apparently. The thing explodes to transform from one mode to another. And I’m increasingly used to Optimus Prime toys having fake robot mode windshields, but it feels a little crazier to have his fake robot mode windshield to fold up and cover his real truck windshield. That feels like a whole new level of absurdity. But I understand why. His robot mode windows don’t actually look like his truck mode windows, so whatcha gonna do. Damn those character designers.
Another thing that weirds me out are his shoulders. They look for all the world like they’re supposed to become the truck’s air foil, and it’s kind of frustrating that they don’t. In both this Deluxe Class toy and the upcoming Voyager Class toy, the air foil instead becomes the heels. Again, I understand why, what with the placement of the parts in each mode and the designed hinging in the front of the shins, but it rankles my brain a little.
In conclusion, this guy comes with a wearable Matrix, within which is a toy which won’t be out for several months. How much either of those two details tickle you should determine how dedicated you are to hunting him down.
All I know is now I hope there’s a Prime Primal Prime in the future of this Aligned universe.
It looks rather plain. I thought this one was supposed to have shinier paint then the retail version. His chest looks rather crummy, what with that hinge sticking out of the center. His forearms make it look like he’s wearing a 3/4 sleeve shirt. LOL.
“Prime” Prime looks too much like a simpler movie Prime for me to really want to get him – I was half tempted by the Matrix box, but you know, the whole Comic-Con bit soured me pretty quick. Might pick up the DVD pack with Megs and the Kids later, but Prime’s the least exciting part of that set IMO.
On a hole, outside of Arcee and any vehicon army builders they make, I don’t see myself getting all that many “Prime” toys. Of course, I said the same thing about Animated, but by 20 episodes into Animated, I was in love with the show. Not so with Prime
Did you mean “on the whole”?
Eh, I’m still debating on whether or not to open mine… or just hold onto it, and sell it later.
Sell it and buy An Ethan Statue!
So he’s a Pokemon? “Prime! PRIME!”
First Edition? So then he’s a Primary Prime Prime!
Now I really want a best wars sequel to TFP so we can have a Primary Prime Primal Prime
And if two of them come out at the same time, they’re a prime number of primary prime primal primes.
With the introduction of the Shadowzone, could we call him Prime Prime of the Primary Prime Universe?
I wish we had episodes disambiguated by series instead of just with (episode). Then we could have Cybertron (Cybertron).
Still on the fence about the Prime cartoon – I can’t get over the general blandness – but I do love the character designs and was almost instantly sold on the toys. Especially Bulkhead.
What IS the general fandom’s impressions of Prime now that the show is going? I just started and I can’t get over how un-fun the whole thing is. Transformers doesn’t need to be super serious and super grim all the time to be a good show. See Beast Wars and G1 and Animated especially.
I’ve been with it since the beginning, but I agree that it could stand to lighten up a little. It’s competently written and the animation is nice, but it’s not as enjoyable as BW or Animated… And it just seems to be getting more stone-faced serious every episode. Combined that with the parade of macguffins we’ve been getting, especially in the last two episodes, and the fact that the violence is so much less graphic than Beast Wars, and none of the good guys ever really seem to get hurt much, and it just feels like the show’s trying to act like things are bleaker than they really are.
Maybe Rescue Bots will bring the fun back?
None of the good guys seem to get hurt much? Violence isn’t graphic? Didn’t you watch the last two episodes where Arcee was bleeding from a wound and Bulkhead was basically waiting to get crushed by a whole cave along with Miko?
The only graphic violence in Beast Wars was flying body parts, which was treated as comedy and not as true damage. The most violent thing BW did really was Depth Charge stabbing Rampage with energon at the end of the show, but then again, Prime had Starscream stabbing Cliffjumper with his bare hands on his first episode.
Neither Bulkhead nor Miko was actually HURT in the cave-in, and Arcee’s wound was… Less visualy obvious than I would have liked. Other than Cliffjumper and the various dead Vehicons, nobody seems to show damage. Hell, in most fights, the AUtobots don’t even seem to take any hits. I’d like to see more dents, scratches, and scorch marks. “Scrapheap” is a major exception to this, an episode that actually shows the ‘bots taking damage.
…Now that I think about it, it’s the last handful of episodes where these things really started bugging me. (And I want Knock Out back, damn it.)
But I’m not gonna change your mind, and you’re not gonna change mine, so how ’bout we just agree to disagree?
If you want visible damage, just watch the flippin’ movies. As always, Transformers is aimed at a younger audience, which means the can’t just show some story-important character getting ripped to shreds. Also, on that note, they can’t exactly kill anyone off (except for Cliffjumper, of course), because A. they will have toys, and no one wants to buy a toy of a dead guy (once again, except for Cliffjumper.) and B. the story would be thrown all out of whack if they just decided to kill off a main character.
I don’t know if Dinobot cutting Inferno’s torso in two with his sword was treated as comedy. Though moments later his head flying up into the sky past Megatron, yeah, that was kind of funny.
I personally love Transformers Prime. People say the show takes iself too seriously but I seriously don’t see it, it’s the exact same tone as pretty much every action show out there, the difference is that unlike most Transformers series the character cast isn’t made up by insane robots with funny speech pattersn, they’re more toned down and while some jump and say “THAT IS BORING” I prefer it that way because I relate to characters like that better, they feel more real to me, heck, they even got a BIG STRONG DECEPTICON with a voice that ISN’T stereotype deep, that’ a plus for any show for me.
The designs are just beautiful too, art direction is a big part of as how for me and I feel that Prime finally found a style that is “Transformers”, not even G1 style I consider “our” because it’s just classic gundam wearing vehicle kibble, in Prime the robots feel more alive and dynamic without being men in jumpsuits like in TFA nor CGI Animator nightmares in Bayformers.
Also brownie points for being the first TF show in years that I could introduce to friends and get hooked on it, sadly I couldn’t get my friends to watch TFA because the art style and voices instantly turned them off before they could get to the good parts (Season 2 and 3).
Prime is still far from how much I loved TFA and BW late on, but their first season is lightyears ahead of TFA’s first season really (cant talk about BW since I haven’t rewatched it in years) , I felt like I was constantly forcing myself to watch TFA until Megatron Rising, but Prime bought me with Con Job (jeez how many times I repeated that last sword fight scene? Can’t wait for Wheeljack toy, gonna buy two and make them fight! )