Studio Series: Difference between revisions
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==Pseudo-''Studio Series'' 86 toys== | ==Pseudo-''Studio Series'' 86 toys== | ||
Despite being touted as the main anniversary toyline for ''[[The Transformers: The Movie]]'', the ''Studio Series 86'' subline was ''not'' the only place where characters from the '86 movie received update toys. The ''[[War for Cybertron Trilogy (toyline)|War for Cybertron Trilogy]]'' featured a handful of additional "G1 movie" characters, presumably because the ''Studio Series | Despite being touted as the main anniversary toyline for ''[[The Transformers: The Movie]]'', the ''Studio Series 86'' subline was ''not'' the only place where characters from the '86 movie received update toys. The ''[[War for Cybertron Trilogy (toyline)|War for Cybertron Trilogy]]'' featured a handful of additional "G1 movie" characters, presumably because the ''86'' releases were moved to Studio Series when the War for Cybertron toyline didn't have enough space to fit all planned figures under its budget. | ||
{| style="margin-left:1em;" width="100%" | {| style="margin-left:1em;" width="100%" | ||
|width="20%" valign="top"|<u>'''''[[War for Cybertron: Siege|Siege]]'''</u> | |width="20%" valign="top"|<u>'''''[[War for Cybertron: Siege|Siege]]'''</u> | ||
Revision as of 15:06, 15 June 2021
First revealed at New York Toy Fair 2018, Studio Series, underneath the Generations banner, acts as a celebration of over ten years of live-action movies, with characters from every movie represented. It also coincided with Bumblebee, the sixth film in the live-action film series.
Each toy is numbered, with an indication of their movie of origin. All figures also come with a cardboard backdrop depicting a notable scene from their respective movie. Backdrops from separate figures representing the same scene are designed to be displayed side by side.
With rough robot mode scale as a line-wide goal, each figure is sized in relation to other toys, even in the same size class; 18 Deluxe Bumblebee is shorter than Jazz and 01 Bumblebee, who are in turn shorter than Ratchet and Lockdown.
The toyline boosts a greater accuracy than lines previous, due to using relative scale, as mentioned above, and using models in the films for reference as opposed to concept art, though this does fall short for early Bumblebee toys. Studio Series also explores toys for characters who had none before, or were left to a smaller size class.
First unveiled at the October 16th Fan First Friday, Studio Series 86 is a 2021 addition to the toyline that features characters from The Transformers: The Movie, in celebration of that film's 35th anniversary. The toys are in the style and scale of those from the concurrently-ran War for Cybertron Trilogy. Additionally, all Voyager Class toys in this subline feature blast effects compatible with the C.O.M.B.A.T. System.
Toys
Deluxe Class
Wave 1
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Wave 4
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Wave 5
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Wave 6
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Wave 7
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Wave 8 | |||||
Wave 9
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Wave 10
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Wave 11
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Wave 12
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Wave 13
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Voyager Class
Wave 1
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Wave 4
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Wave 5
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Wave 6
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Wave 7
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Wave 8
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Wave 9
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Wave 10
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Wave 11
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Wave 12
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Wave 13
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Leader Class
Wave 1
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Wave 2 | Wave 3
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Wave 4
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Wave 5
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Wave 6
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Wave 7
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Multi-packs and exclusives
These are even more complicated than usual, and that's before international releases come into play. Thundercracker was originally released as a worldwide Toys"R"Us exclusive, but due to the bankruptcy of Toys"R"Us in several countries, he only had a very short availability window in those markets. and was never added to the Toys"R"Us online store before the latter ceased operations. Likewise, the Bumblebee/Charlie 2-pack was originally intended as a Toys"R"Us exclusive but ultimately was only released that way in Canada, which still had Toys"R"Us by the time it came out. In the United States, both Thundercracker and the 2-pack were eventually made available through numerous online retailers such as BigBadToyStore, Entertainment Earth, ToyWiz, and TFSource, although the 2-pack was also inexplicably found at a single Target store several months earlier.
The Bumblebee Then & Now 2-pack was exclusive to Target in the United States and to Kmart in Australia; the Bumblebee Vol. 1 Retro Rock Garage set debuted at San Diego Comic-Con 2018 and was later also made available via Hasbro Toy Shop (and additionally was also available at general retail in Taiwan and was offered at Comic-Con Paris 2018); and both the Bumblebee Vol. 2 Retro Pop Highway set and the Drift/Baby Dinobots set appear to be "online exclusives" shared between the same online retailers that also offered Thundercracker and the Bumblebee/Charlie 2-pack, although both were initially claimed to be exclusive to Entertainment Earth. We say "appear" because the Retro Pop Highway set was also available at GameStop stores in the United States, and both sets were also listed in Diamond Comic Distributors' Previews catalog, so really the only "exclusivity" for these appears to be that neither of them is available from Walmart or Target. Battle Damaged Megatron was first found stocked by Hong Kong shops, and much later, was put up for pre-order on Toys"R"Us' Canadian website, and then on Target's US website before being found in stores. "As Seen In Parks" Megatron was officially exclusive to Universal Studios, but was released (almost a year after he had been officially revealed) in Hasbro's Asian markets first. Due to the global [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}COVID-19 pandemic|{{#if:||COVID-19 pandemic}}]], the toy was only released exclusively to online retailers in the US. Leadfoot was released as a Target exclusive in the US.
Late 2020/early 2021 saw a celebration of everyone's favourite yellow Autobot in the Target exclusive Buzzworthy Bumblebee line.
United States/worldwide
| Deluxe Class | Voyager Class
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Leader Class |    | |||
| Deluxe Class multi-packs |
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Bumblebee Then & Now 2-Pack | ||||
| Gift Sets | Buzzworthy Bumblebee |
Asia only
Meanwhile, in Singapore, a special Bumblebee was a giveaway at Toys"R"Us with purchase of a currently unknown total value of Transformers.
Singapore (Toys"R"Us)
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China (TaoBao)
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Pseudo-Studio Series 86 toys
Despite being touted as the main anniversary toyline for The Transformers: The Movie, the Studio Series 86 subline was not the only place where characters from the '86 movie received update toys. The War for Cybertron Trilogy featured a handful of additional "G1 movie" characters, presumably because the 86 releases were moved to Studio Series when the War for Cybertron toyline didn't have enough space to fit all planned figures under its budget.
Siege
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Earthrise
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War for Cybertron Trilogy | Kingdom
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Studio Series (TakaraTomy)
Similar to Power of the Primes, in Takara's Studio Series (スタジオシリーズ) line, all figures are identical to their Hasbro counterparts, forgoing Takara's past practice of using more movie-accurate paint jobs. This is most likely due to the line being an official collaboration between Hasbro and TakaraTomy, much like the Masterpiece Movie Series line. ID numbering differs after number 8 compared to the Hasbro release, since some of the exclusives are not released in Japan. Starting with wave 4, the packages feature the franchise's 35th anniversary logo.
In 2021, Takara decided to go back to its old ways and launched the exclusive Premium Finish toyline, featuring rereleases of some Studio Series figures with much more movie-accurate decoes.
Regular retail
Wave 1 (Apr 24, 2018)
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Wave 2 (Jul 21, 2018)
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Wave 3 (Sep 15, 2018)
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Wave 4 (Oct 27, 2018)
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Wave 5 (Jan 26, 2019)
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Wave 6 (Mar 23, 2019)
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Wave 7 (Apr 27, 2019)
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Wave 8 (Jul 27, 2019)
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Wave 9 (Aug 31, 2019)
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Wave 10 (Jan 25, 2020)
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Wave 11 (Feb 29, 2020)
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Wave 12 (Mar 28, 2020)
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Wave 13 (Apr 25, 2020)
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Wave 14 (May 30, 2020)
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Wave 15 (Jun 27, 2020)
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Wave 15.5 (Aug 1, 2020)
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Wave 16 (Aug 29, 2020)
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Wave 17 (Sep 26, 2020) | Wave 18 (Oct 23, 2020)
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| Wave 19 (Nov 28, 2020) | Wave 20 (Apr 20, 2021)
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Wave 21 (May 29, 2021)
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Wave 22 (Jun 26, 2021)
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Wave 23 (Jul 31, 2021)
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Wave 24 (Aug 7, 2021)
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Wave 25 (Nov 27, 2021)
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|}} This item is currently scheduled for release, but is not yet available at mass retail.
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Exclusives
| Tokyo Comic Con 2018/TakaraTomy Mall | Omni7
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Toys"R"Us
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TakaraTomy Mall
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Notes
- Studio Series can be considered a "sister series" to Hasbro's Star Wars: The Black Series and Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years, which are based around a similar concept and feature a similar overall packaging design.
- In July 2017, photos of a computer screen taken during an internal Hasbro presentation were leaked to the public that revealed, among other things, the very existence of the Studio Series general retail line-up, though not the actual title "Studio Series" yet (which was later revealed through separate leaks). The fact that the slides incorrectly featured projected release dates for "2017" instead of 2018 (which included dates predating the leak) led some fans to assume that the still unannounced line-up had long since been canceled. It wouldn't be until several leaks later that Hasbro finally acknowledged the existence of the Studio Series line, and revealed the first few waves during New York Toy Fair 2018, even offering a limited quantity of the first wave of Deluxe Class figures as an early release through the Hasbro Toy Shop website. Simultaneously, TakaraTomy revealed their version of the line at Wonder Festival Winter 2018.
- Among the figures whose existence was revealed through the aforementioned July 2017 leak that were not officially unveiled at Toy Fair was Voyager Class Ironhide, who made his worldwide debut at retail in Singapore in June 2018. Subsequently, Hasbro announced the redeco of Voyager Class Starscream (based on his appearance in Revenge of the Fallen), the final figure revealed through the July 2017 leak, via their "Hasbro Pulse" Instagram account a few days before San Diego Comic-Con, even though they still hadn't officially acknowledged the existence of Ironhide by that point.
- Like with previous movie-based lines, Studio Series also assigned code names to at least some of its characters. This time, the "theme" for those code names was "Australian race horses":
{{ #if: {{#ifexpr: 3 }}
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- Bumblebee: "Stryker"
- Dropkick: "Blue Lightning" or "Blue Light"
- Megatron: "Fox"
- Optimus Prime: "Radar"
- KSI Sentry: "Sentry"
- Shadow Raider: "Mercenary"
- Shatter: "Red Lightning" or "Red Light"
}}
- The code names of many of the other figures, assuming they even had code names, are still unknown, as those toys have (thus far) consistently been listed under their actual characters' names. Meanwhile, a listing for a supposed Voyager Class figure using the code name "Destroyer" later turned out to be a mislabeled Energon Igniters Speed Series Barricade from the Bumblebee movie toy line, with which the Studio Series shares its code names.
- A few of the Voyagers and Deluxes of the previous two movie toylines scale fairly well with Studio Series figures. The latter of the two toylines, The Last Knight, seems to have a greater tie-in to the Studio Series lineup, as a few molds were also redecoed in this toyline as well as a few retools. Furthermore, the static figurine of Quintessa scales perfectly among these molds and also seems to serve as an inspiration for later pack-in figurines like Wheelie, Brains and the Mini Dinobots.
