User:Brightcoat/Sandbox/Generations Family

In the 35 years and counting since the launch of the original Transformers, action figure design sensibilities have changed. Many Generation 1 toys bear very little resemblance to the animation models and comic-book model sheets that came to define the characters that make Transformers beloved today, and modern values such as robust posability were nearly unheard of until the mid-90s.

As a result, Transformers fans, along with designers and marketers at Hasbro and TakaraTomy, have made many attempts to "modernize" the classic Generation One cast to match current sensibilities and expectations in toy design. The earliest indicators of this can be seen in the many homage color schemes of the Energon toyline, and in the concurrent Alternators, Binaltech, and early Masterpiece collector's lines that explicitly brought to market new toys of beloved Generation 1 characters, many recieving new figures for the first time since 1984.

It was in 2006 that this impulse truly began to solidify, however, with the release of Transformers Classics

[picture of the full Deluxe-and-up Classics toyline, if available]

While Classics featured a mere 13 truly new figures, much fewer than the collector lines that would follow, among those new toys were brand-new takes on characters like Bumblebee, Hot Rod, Grimlock, and Megatron, transforming into newly-reimagined versions of their traditional altmodes with the intent of not just evoking, but being new, definitive takes on the characters at mass-market prices.

Classics was supplemented by various store- and convention-exclusive figures, as well as Takara's counterpart toyline Henkei! Henkei!