Hasbro Q&A/November 2010

A question archive of, and links to the answers from, the November 2010 Hasbro Q&As, released on or around December 1st.

Questions

Lately, the Revenge of the Fallen line figures seem to have been moving away from the movie aesthetic, especially since the start of "Hunt for the Decepticons". Brimstone and Hubcap, Terradive and Tomahawk, Seaspray - even Human Alliance Jazz to some degree - those are all movie-line figures that feel in many ways more traditional in their styling. Was that shift away from some of the movie universe's more outlandish design stylings intentional with the latest toys, and what prompted that shift?
In the G1 animated series, a character who is clearly based on Jetfire appears under the name Skyfire, his first episode even recently re-aired on Hasbro's The Hub. The same character model was used in the Marvel comic, but as Jetfire. The name "Skyfire" did not appear elsewhere in Generation 1, though it's popped up since. To date, there's never been a real answer as to why the character's name was changed only for the cartoon. Could you shed some light on why the name was changed in the cartoon, and put 26 years of speculation to rest?

There were a lot of people who were not able to attend BotCon and thus never got to see the concept images of the Original Thirteen (Prima, Alpha Trion, Vector Prime, The Fallen, the Liege Maximo) shown in the Hasbro panel there, because photographs were not allowed, and thus, no images of them were ever posted on the net. Will those images be released to the public or officially posted online any time soon?
The inclusion of Generation One homage figures, like Jazz, Tracks, Classics Bumblebee, Wreck-Gar and G2 Optimus Prime, in the mainline's "Reveal the Shield" releases essentially causes the mainline to adopt same function as the "Generations" toy line - providing heritage characters at the "Deluxe" scale. Do these figures fit the mainline aesthetic in a way that characters like Scourge, Sergeant Kup, or Thunderwing don't? Is there some other reason behind this, since both Jazz and Tracks were listed as "Generations" figures at Botcon?

We’ve seen that the upcoming Battle in Space two-pack includes a Matrix of Leadership accessory, but the included figures do not have hands that are compatible with it. Why was it decided to include an extra piece in this set that neither toy is able to directly interact with?
Classics Cyclonus gave us a taste of a modern Targetmaster; any chance that we’ll be seeing any Headmasters in the near future?

Is there actually combination instructions for the movie Arcee, Chromia and Elita-1 figures? And if so, when are they going to be online?
Recently you made the packaging change from plastic covered wire ties to a plastic rope ties. I noticed that the new ties rub the paint on the toys. I noticed this on the WFC Generations figures and had to look through several of each to get ones with little paint rubbing. Is there another way that figures could be packed where they will not get paint rub marks?

When I was little, one year for Halloween I dressed as the GoBot Spay-C and the next year as the Rock Lord Nuggit - both of which naturally transformed! Does the team have any similar fun memories of their Halloweens from long ago?
At times, instead of being a new character, a redeco is a version of the 1st mold using a mission-specific color, such as Roadbuster Ultra Magnus. Does this consideration have anything to do with the size classes, as in, a figure who is not of the top-tier would be a tough sell in the Leader size? I've been thinking about this because of Leader Starscream - the obvious repaints are Thundercracker or Skywarp, but past examples would show we might get a "Deep Star Starscream" instead of one of these other characters.

To what does Hasbro attribute the long-term popularity of the Generation 1 characters and concepts? We get reissues, remakes that have appeared in Classics/Universe/Generations, Masterpiece figures, and the G1 characters currently appear in IDW’s Transformers comics. What do you think gives these characters lasting appeal that most characters from the Beast era, RID, or the Unicron Trilogy don’t seem to have achieved?
At Comic-Con, it was mentioned that the Drones in the Power Core Combiners line originally were conceived as having robot modes as well, but the idea got costed-out as the line developed. Why then use vehicle-only limb drones instead of robot-only limb drones? Was there a conscious choice to make them “faceless” vehicle drones that are not characters? Was the original PCC concept with robot-to-vehicle-to-limbs also meant to be drones, or were they to be unique characters like classic TF combiners?

The ninth installment of the Cyber Missions web series depicts Smolder and Chopster of the Power Core Combiners line as residents of the live-action movie universe. Should we take this to apply to the other members of the Power Core Combiners line?
During the Transformers: Cybertron toyline, packaging for Legends-class figures featured one-sentence character bios - for instance, Sunstorm was described as "a diabolical, super powerful Decepticon thug". However, subsequent lines dropped this practice, which has resulted in some consternation among the fanbase because the Legends size class has become home to several characters who have no larger forms of representation (Revenge of the Fallen Springer, gold-card Override and Duststorm), and in turn this means those characters have no bios of any kind. In a franchise as character-focused as Transformers is, one sentence is obviously better than nothing at all, so would it please be possible for Hasbro to reinstate the one-sentence bios for the Legends class?