Transformers: The Last Knight Google Hangout with the Transformers Team

On June 1 2017, the Hasbro Transformers brand team held an online press conference highlighting mainline and exclusive products based on the upcoming The Last Knight film. Matthew Karpowich attended for MediaWiki.

Presenters

• Aristides "Arrow" Membreno - Design Manager, Transformers. With the brand for a year and a half, works on exclusives.
• John Warden - Design Manager, Transformers. Knew most of the people at the Hangout already!
• Ben Montano - Brand Marketing Director, Transformers. Marketing director for more than two years, been at many conventions.
• John Frazier - Senior Brand Development + Marketing Manager, Transformers. With the brand team for two years, his first time meeting fans.

L-R: "Arrow," John (Warden), Ben, John (Frazier). They are presumably higher-resolution in real life.

The Event

Following some incidental sound and video issues (yay technology), the Hangout began slightly after 5pm EST with a "show and tell" that dove into more detail on items that Entertainment Weekly had revealed earlier in the day.

• "Arrow" showcased Premier Edition deluxe class Hot Rod with his licensed Lamborghini alt-mode. Hot Rod was mentioned as part of an initiate to bring story-elements and older lore forward into the movie universe. He is a Walmart exclusive and part of the "Autobots Unite" exclusive program.
• Premier Edition deluxe "knight of Cybertron" Skullitron was up next. The team considers his rusty deco and "insane broken down skull face" to be his highlights. The rust was said to be pearlescent and functioned like a paint-wash. He is a Toys"R"Us exclusive and part of its "Mission to Cybertron" series.

Nyeh! Skullitron!

• Combiner Infernocus was called out as being in some of the television commercials - or "versions of him," anyway. The fit of the combination was improved over previous versions of the molds. Infernocus comes with a tiny clear representation of the mysterious alien sorceress Quintessa. He (they) is (are) also a Toys"R"Us "Mission to Cybertron" exclusive.
  • Each "Mission to Cybertron" exclusive comes with a unique two-sided trading card. One side has a website URL that allows you to translate the glyphs found on the toys; on the other side is a piece of a poster that you can form with all the exclusive cards.

Quintessa. Sufficiently advanced alien magic is indistinguishable from science.

• Premier Edition deluxe Cogman is a Headmaster! Cogman's converting head has the same type of connections as the concurrent Titans Return toys and is entirely compatible with them, as is his larger body - which was specifically mentioned as a Transtector! Cogman's body turns into a licensed Aston Martin DB-11 that seats two.
  • As part of an Easter egg, Cogman's Titan Master has cross-compatibility with the voyager class Decepticon called Nitro. Nitro's head is removable (but does not become a little robot), which enables the tiny Cogman to take over Nitro's body. Nitro's jet mode also has an opening cockpit that Cogman can ride in!

Cogtro? Nitman?

• Premier Edition leader class Dragonstorm was called out as a Duocon made up of Dragonicus (dra-GONE-icus, guy with wings) and Stormreign (guy with mace). Dragonstorm's beast heads are based on the actual CGI model files from the film effects!
  • Each half of Dragonstorm is larger than a deluxe, but not quite the size of a voyager class toy. They're sort of in a class of their own.
  • Dragonstorm's wings have a "metal thorn" look and deco to make them look ancient.
• All exclusive items are planned to be available in overseas markets as well, though it is possible they'll be at different region-specific retailers.

Q&A

Mainline

Please, Mr. Zeus was my father. Call me Nitro.

• When asked about how toy development has changed since the first live-action movie, the team felt the biggest change in the Last Knight product range was their partnership with Paramount now enabling them to use CAD files from the film's special effects to make the toys more accurate than ever before. They also feel that having better information about their consumer base has allowed them to market their toy segments more accurately, creating equally quick-fun toys for kids and detailed-out items for collectors instead of focusing on one area or the other.
• In regards to the Last Knight line having reused product from Age of Extinction, the idea was to make the items available for a new generation of kids who might not have been in the appropriate age range for the preceding film. In the case of Grimlock and some other characters, they also used it as an opportunity to do more screen-accurate deco.
• The change from blister-pack bubbles to boxes for the deluxe class range came about after consultation with other brand teams within Hasbro. (We're looking at you, Marvel Legends and Star Wars Black Series...)
• Nitro's fighter jet mode is a Hasbro-original creation designed by John Warden. He used Nitro as an outlet for the military vehicle design muscles he developed during his time on the G.I. Joe brand.
• Leader scale should be widely available in the fall of 2017. Most items shown during the event are expected to hit in early August.
• The items shown in the presentation round out the Last Knight Premier Edition items for the rest of the 2017 calendar year. However, they look forward to sharing more items going forward, as 2018 is going to be another big year for the brand (*cough*Bumblebee*cough*).

Tiny Turbo Changers

Everybody love me, Tiny Turbo Changer Grimlock!

• The team appreciates all the love for the Tiny Turbo Changers! There are currently no plans to expand the range beyond the film series, but they will at least feature characters from movies 1 through 5. It was reiterated<ref>Ohno's association with the Tiny Turbo Changers was previously mentioned at Toy Fair 2017.</ref> that long-time Takara designer and "wizard of transformations" Koujin Ohno helped bring them to life, which helps give them a sense of design continuity with the franchise's roots.
• Regarding the development of small transforming figures instead of small static figures (like Tiny Titans), the team acknowledged its difficulty, as it took almost a year to get the concept to their satisfaction. There was a dedicated effort to make sure the figures converted differently from each other to bring out their individual character. The designs of the physical transformations, meanwhile, were aided by working in vinyl instead of the ABS material normally used for Transformers.
• The team didn't have anything to say about Chopter, but liked the notion that a sub-line having its own unique characters helps give it an identity of its own.

Miscellaneous

• On the subject of bringing film characters into other Transformers series, the presenters noted the success they had with Grimlock and Grimlock, Drift moving from comics into movie and Robots in Disguise, and Blurr moving between Rescue Bots and Robots in Disguise. Hasbro is always searching for opportunities to mingle characters across their entertainment properties to create interesting stories, and look forward to surprising the fandom with certain characters popping up in different venues. The sky's the limit with the character roster in their hands!
• When asked about Valvotron, the Hasbro team said the promotion with Valvoline was intended as a fun way to introduce new fans to the property. While there are no plans to introduce Valvotron into their "story universe", they indicated there might be other partnerships along the same lines in other countries.

• The inspiration for the redeco of planet Cybertron came from its depiction in the original television series; the new toy tries to capture the contrasting "internal glow against dark blue planet" Cybertron had there, with the glow of the planet's core now becoming "revealed" with the conversion to its robot mode. They thought it helped better portray the idea of the planet as a living being. As well, the sounds and features from the original release are all retained.
• When asked about their favorite items across the line:
  • Warden's favorite is Cogman: the ability to showcase a classic play feature like Headmasters in a line supported by a blockbuster film is incredibly exciting. He also hopes that any kid who ends up with Cogman discovers that the figure is cross-compatible with any Titans Return toys they might own, opening up a world of personal story possibilities for them.
  • "Arrow"'s favorite is Hot Rod: he enjoyed the ability to bring back a classic character and the opportunity to work on a Lamborghini. (He also noted that he was the only person on the team who worked on Hot Rod's deluxe.)
  • Frazier's favorite showcased in the event is Dragonstorm, because of his high level of detail and Duocon combiner play. However, his favorite figure in the entire line is leader class Megatron, which he feels looks like a work of art.
  • Montano's favorite shown during the event is Hot Rod because his daughter thinks Transformers is cool now that it has a Lamborghini in it. However, his overall favorite is Masterpiece movie Optimus Prime, because it represents a true concentration of the effort that both Hasbro and TakaraTomy put into bringing the brand to life.

References

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