Talk:Generation 1 (toyline)

Japanese and American differences

Shouldn't this page mention the Japan-only as well as US/West-only toys? I have added Japan's lack of the latter three Pretenders. But I think there should be mention of the lack of the Small Targetmasters as well. Conversely this page should also show the Japanese only characters such as Browning, Minerva etc etc. If they were to be included there should be an agreed format either by series (Victory etc), or by redeco (Buster etc).

This is handled by giving each of the Japanese toylines their own page. - Chris McFeely 20:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Like he said. You're looking for Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers and its various successors (which, by the by, should be prominently linked from this page.) -- Repowers 20:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

But is Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers linked on the page? And shouldn't there be mention of the US Exclusives (sure, you could work it out manually by comparing the two releases side by side, but a helpful "Nightbeat is US only, fanboys!" might exposite things a bit easier). Drmick 21:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

1986, Unicron and Arcee

Do we want to include the Unreleased Arcee and Unicron toys in the 1986 list? Unlike other Prototypes, these 2 got cast in final colors and had painted detail, so they were probably almost as close to release as the G2 Stunticons and Protectobots --FortMax 16:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Do those unreleased G2 toys appear in a toyline list someplace? I think they shouldn't, except perhaps in a seperate "unreleased" section.

Regardless... As far as I know, the Unicron and Arcee toys were not that far along... there are supposedly only two of the large Unicron toy in existence, for example, so it's not like there were production molds for him made. And the only picture of Arcee I've ever seen (aside from the Chromedome repaint) is this one. It doesn't look very final to me.

--Steve-o 17:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorting

Started restructuring the toy list similar to the Euro G1 list. I think it makes more sense breaking the toys from a year up into product ranges instead of mindlessly listing all Autobots and all Decepticons from a year without any sort of distinction or details about availability aside from the occasional "mail order only". After all, this is supposed to be a "list of available toys", not a "list of characters available in toy form", right? LMK if this is okay with you. BTW, were the Omnibots first available in 1985 or 1986? My notes say "1986", and as far as I recall, I tried to track down solid confirmation the last time I was confronted with this question, but unfortunately I don't rememeber the source. Anyone? - Nevermore

So, reworked the 1986 list again, with a preface noting that some toys were available in mixed assortments (technially, it would make sense to me to break up combiners into "Mini-Vehicles", i.e. limbs, and "Large Vehicles", i.e. torsos/leaders, but then, that'd be more confusing then simply listing them by team; for the same reason, I kept the Cassettes listed individually with a note on availability rather then listing them as two-packs). Now, when it comes to 1987-onwards toys, the assortments started getting more and more mixed, with 1989 and 1990 having stronger division lines between "Pretenders" and "Micromasters" or "Micromasters" and "Action Masters", respectively, rather than factions. My suggestion would be to follow the divisions from the official Hasbro catalogs - the question, though, would be how 1987 and 1988 should be broken up? My reasoning is that a list that gives an overview on a toyline would be more useful when it explains how the line was sorted, which toys were available how and which categories they fit into, rather than sticking slavishly to the factions the fiction attributes them to. Think about it - if someone wants a quick overview on, say, the 1990 toys, would he be more interested in which Micromasters were available ("Hot Rod Patrol", "Military Patrol"), or which Decepticons were available ("Woo! Cement-Head! And Bombshock!")? A possibility would be to add "A" or "D" indicators after the names. In any regard, any structure would be better than a simple alphabetical list of all Autobots and Decepticons available in a specific year.--Nevermore 16:51, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Something along the Beast Wars (toyline) article would be nice. Each year is split into Autobot and Decepticon, which are then split up into subgroups. --Crockalley 21:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

My point just is that in 1989 and 1990, Hasbro had specialized and diversified the "Transformers" range - first into "Pretenders" and "Micromasters", then into "Micromasters" and "Action Masters" - to a degree where they were almost separate toylines. The trend continued in Europe in 1990 and 1991, where we got "Micromasters", "Acion Masters" and "Classics" in 1990, and "Action Masters", "Classics" and a few imported/slightly recolored Japanese toys in "Classics"-esque gold boxes in 1991. My suggestion would be to keep splitting toys into "Autobots" and "Decepticons" until 1988 and then add a brief disclaimer about the more distinct separation between the two sub-lines in 1989 and 1990. There would be no "confusion" as some people fear if there's a disclaimer right at the start of the 1989 section saying "Beginning with 1989, Hasbro was effectively releasing two almost distinct sub-lines concurrently, a separation that was stronger from a marketing standpoint than the Autobot/Decepticon disinction from previous years." Basically, what I'm suggesting is: 1989 => Pretenders => Autobots, Decepticons; Micromasters => Autobots, Decepticons, rather than 1989 => Autobots => Pretenders, Micromasters; Decepticons => Pretenders, Micromasters.--Nevermore 18:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I see what you're saying now. What is more important for the toyline after 1989, faction or subline? I still have to say faction. I think it's weird to have the first half of this article split between Autobots and Decepticons, then the second half split between sublines.

I don't know how to do this, but maybe some sort of table with the left column being Autobots and the right column Decepticons, and along the side would be subgroups. --Crockalley 20:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The "G1" line was inconsistent to begin with, though. That's the problem. It started out with strictly faction-based assortments (or, rather, assortment-based factions), then started introducing mixed assortments in 1986, occasionally split assortments up again into parallel assortments (1986 "Special Team Mini-Vehicles" and "Special Team Large Vehicles" were mixed Autobot and Decepticon assortments; 1987 had "Autobot Special Team Mini-Vehicles", "Decepticon Special Team Mini-Vehicles", "Autobot Special Team Large Vehicles" and "Decepticon Special Team Large Vehicles" instead), slowly started shifting more and more towards shared assortments (starting with the 1988 Pretenders) and ultimately resulted in almost entirely separate sub-lines. I agree it's weird to suddenly split up between sub-lines - but then, the official Hasbro catalogs for 1989 and 1990 did the same! Also, looking at the Hartmans' old case assortment lists, 1989 is the first year where pretty much all toys except for really large toys (Countdown, Skystalker) or faction-exclusive toy groups (Pretender Monsters) were available in shared assortments.--Nevermore 22:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I concede. You know way more about this that I do. I'll be glad to see this article organized better. --Crockalley 23:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Declarative statements

An anonymous editor made some edits recently (here's the cumulative diff) that includes several statements of fact which, personally, I have no idea how to verify. I guess asking the Hartmans or something? Whether the old version was right or the new version is right is something that I imagine most readers would have no way of evaluating, and sadly there's no real way to cite a source to back up one version or the other. I'd like to think that the wiki could be seen as authoritative on some subjects thanks to citations, but, toy distribution detail from the 80s seems like it's going to always be a grey subject. Years ago, I used to think of Rob Jung's old toy list as authoritative because I knew he'd put a lot of work into it and had a lot of collaboration, but I later learned that it had quite a few mistakes. Not that I personally knew what they were, but, that's kind of the point. How do we decide what to report on that sort of thing? --Steve-o 16:15, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

There's one point where tbe article says: "G1 tended to be extremely non-self referential; until 1988, only one character, Bumblebee, had ever received more than one toy." On the Bumblebee (G1) toys page, it says he was the second character, the first being Hot Rod and Rodimus Prime (same character, two toys, even if 2 different names). Additionally, this article also lists Kup, Blurr and Hot Rod twice (making it three for the Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime character) - once for the original, once for the Targetmaster versions. 59.167.64.21 11:07, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I should probably rephrase that, yeah. The three Targetmaster guys don't really qualify -- for all intents and purposes, they're the same toy, just with a new gun and some bigger fist holes. Hot Rod/Rodimus are indeed two toys for the same guy, even though the packaging materials omit this info; however, it's not a case of going back to an older existing character and redeveloping him with a new design and new body, which is what "self-referential" refers to. One assumes that, right from the start, the development team planned for Hot Rod and Rodimus to be the same guy. -- Repowers 14:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Q: Are they the same toy, or are they not the same toy? We seem to distinguish between even minor deco changes, minor accessory variations, even cases where the toy isn't any different, just included as a bundle with someone(s) else is listed separately, eg: Takara decos vs Hasbro decos, "Battle of the Somethings", boxsets. So..........? I mean, do what you will, I don't care, I'm just pointing it out. 59.167.64.21 21:24, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Toy ads

I LIKE this. That's a pretty spiffy way of illustrating the page. If we could do this for all the "toyline" pages... --M Sipher 21:22, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't pitch your Movie toy boxes! Scan those cross-sells, folks! -- Repowers 21:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

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