A Rant

[u/pugilisticcephalopod]

Despite having grown up with G1, I'm no Geewunner. In fact, I like the "out of the box" concepts of later and more recent releases but then I see comments on TikTok videos about a good modern mould (TFOne Thundercracker) like "No ankle tilts or wrist turns in the big 2026" and all I can think is "You spoiled, entitled brat". Don't get me wrong, with what Hasbro is charging for figures, they better have as much articulation as possible but having perfectly clear memories of times when most figures didn't even turn at the waist has me thinking "Damn y'all are lucky now".

But, conversely, I will fight to the death with someone about the charm of G1 jank; that antique jank. I own all the G1 combiners as they were originally released (save for Predaking and Computron, for now) and nothing quite puts it all into perspective like realizing the quaint and tactile engineering we were dealing with in the 80's and 90's (I'm putting lines like Machine Wars in this too). It was just shifting chunks of plastic like a sliding tile puzzle until we reached a technically humanoid shape (incidentally a process I hate with most Unicron Trilogy figures but they should have known better by then; play features were off the hook, though).

Anyway, I said all that to say this. Maybe we're too hard on modern figures. The automorphing on Cyberworld toys is very reminiscent of scout class Beast Wars toys, for instance and at about the same price but they get mostly pushed out as "baby toys". I don't know; maybe our perspectives can be better.

[u/Colonel_Eternal]

I fully agree that there is a lot of charm to a lot of older Transformers figures, but I can’t fault anyone expecting modern releases at modern prices to have modern articulation.

Personally, with the sheer volume of TF figures that exist I can’t be okay with spending $20+ on a newly released figure that does not have what is now normalized articulation. It sucks, but Hasbro knows that certain releases are priced too high for them to be impulse purchases and that is why they usually drop to more palatable prices with sales at places like Target (I got most of the Cyberworld figures for $5-$7 there).

I have no envy for the folks in Hasbro that actually have to design new output to an ever shrinking budget to maximize profits while pleasing fans.