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TFW2005.com board member Icepick is at it again as now he brings word of a $29.99 listing for Transformers Megatronus. Whether this figure is part of the Robots In Disguise line or the Combiner Wars / Generations line is not known, but you can view the listing below.
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TFW2005.com board member Icespark has gone sniffing around the ToysRUs computer system and is reporting finding an entry for Masterpiece Bluestreak listed at $59.99. The figure does not have a release date and the document appears to be dated as the 9th Jan even though Icespark posted about it today.
For now take this news as a rumour but you can view the entry below.
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Transformers Age of Extinction leads the Razzies awards with 7 related entries in this year offering. The Razzies are Hollywoods "Worst Film" awards and see's the latest Transformers installment up for Worst Picture, Worst Supporting Actor, Worst Supporting Actress, Worst Director, Worst Sequel/Rip-off/Remake, Worst on-screen Duo and Worst Screenplay.
You can view the full list below
Worst Picture
Worst Actor
Worst Supporting Actor
Worst Actress
Worst Supporting Actress
Worst Director
Worst Remake, Rip-off or Sequel
Worst Screen Combo
Worst Screenplay
Redeemer Award
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Hasbro Inc and Cartoon Network have issued the following joint press release regarding Cartoon Network acquiring the rights to broadcast Transformers: Robots In Disguise worldwide.
Next Series in Beloved Franchise to Air on Cartoon Network Channels in Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East Following Earlier U.S. Deal
Los Angeles, Jan. 13, 2015 – Cartoon Network has acquired the global rights to start airing the brand new series, TRANSFORMERS: Robots in Disguise, beginning in 2015. The agreement follows Cartoon Network’s previous U.S. deal for the show with Hasbro Studios, the Los Angeles-based entertainment division of Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS). Stephen Davis, Chief Content Officer of Hasbro, Inc., made the announcement today.
“We are thrilled to have expanded our ongoing international relationship with Cartoon Network, freeing them to unleash our Transformers characters to the entire world starting early this year,” Davis said. “Fans everywhere will now be able to experience the humor, fun, adventure and cooler, lighter, brighter animated style that our Autobots and Decepticons deliver as we open up the next storytelling chapter in this beloved franchise on Cartoon Network around the globe, from hubs in the U.S. and Europe to Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Finn Arnesen, senior VP of global distribution and development for Hasbro Studios, added, “Cartoon Network makes a tremendous launch pad for TRANSFORMERS: Robots in Disguise. Complemented by additional Turner channels, Cartoon Network provides the ideal fit across the board for our series, reaching a core demographic of boys 6-11 and kids of all ages.”
The mission begins as Bumblebee must step up to be leader in the years after we left the Autobots in Transformers Prime. Summoned by Optimus Prime to save Earth from a new Decepticon threat, Bumblebee puts his light-hearted mettle to the test after assembling a rouge team of young Autobot action heroes. Bumblebee must balance his job fighting off evil with being equal parts squad leader and coach to a rascally band that needs constant coaxing to learn how to work together. The results are comical when the cool rebel, elite guard cadet, bombastic dinobot and overly excited mini-con must balance team-building with chasing and capturing their new enemies in every episode packed full of action, fun and adventure.
The highly innovative TRANSFORMERS franchise is one of the biggest brands in the world, spanning television, film and digital entertainment (including the 2014 global blockbuster, TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION, the fourth in the hit film series); as well as gaming; apps; publishing; transmedia events; toys, games and licensing.
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The first recolour of the Masterpiece Bumblebee has been announced and it is not the expected Cliffjumper remould but instead is a metallic gold repaint based on the Generation 2 figure. The figure comes with a facemask to mimic the original toy. You can view the preview image below.
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YouTuber Felzbug has posted a video review of the Year of the Goat Transformers Masterpiece Soundwave Platinum Edition figure. This version of MP Soundwave is made from transparent and orange plastic. You can view the video below.
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As a follow-up to our latest article over on TheVisionaries.net we thought we would bring you a short piece on some of the history of the Transformers TV spot. The information contained within this article was taken from an series of Q&As we held with Robert Runbaken in November 2014.
Hasbro Inc. were one of Griffin-Bacal's first clients and are best known for producing the toy adverts for the Hasbro franchises G.I. Joe: Real American Hero and Transformers. As Hasbro Inc's client, Griffin-Bacal also shot the spots for most of their other brands, and worked closely with Hasbro Inc and Sunbow Productions on the supporting TV series to go with which ever line they would be shooting spots for.
Griffin-Bacal mainly shot from studios based in Amsterdam and Arizona, though some of their latter TV spots were shot in studios in Vancouver. The Amsterdam studio was used as the primary location for the more successful brands, whilst those with lower advertising budgets were shot in the US studios.
We had the pleasure of speaking with former GB employee Robert Rundbaken who worked on most, if not all, of the Hasbro Boys Toys properties including Visionaries, Inhumanoids, G.I. Joe and Transformers.
Robert remembers re-cutting the very first Transformers TV toy spot with Optimus Prime along with creating the signature look for the various video transitions and effects which were used during the Transformers toy commercials. Robert was quick to also credit his editors. At the time Robert held the position of an Associate Producer for Griffin-Bacal.
The original spot was cut by Roberts boss, Bacal. The spot turned into a bunch of stills as he was trying to show each stage of the transformation transition. I.E a shot of the arms folding out, another shot of the rotating etc. The Hasbro Reps hated it so Robert was bought in to re-cut the footage and to come up with something
. He remembers that they recut the footage at Broadway Video and he had them bring every video transition device into the room so that they could experiment all night. He asked about a transition effect that was created by the ADO which was a digital effects tool. The effect turned an image on screen into a ball. Robert asked if one image could start the effect and then have another image come out. From this idea they took the footage of the child actor rolling the Optimus Prime toy and applied the effect to the footage resulting in him becoming a robot. Another technique which they applied on the Transformers commercials, and latter on others including Visionaries, was to film with a huge turntable that was a cyclinder painted to look like the sky, or they could build the side of a mountain and a road on it. When you spun the cylinder and held the toy, they found that you could simulate it driving or flying. Once they spliced the two scenes together with the ball transition in between it was an epiphany for them and that opened up the spot to move forward. From there they were able to cut it to the track and employ similar effects and transitions to the rest of the footage. This would become "the look" for the Transformers TV spots in the future.
After working through the night, Robert went straight from Broadway Video to the office to show his boss who took him to the back room where they would look over the footage alone. Robert was convinced that he was going to be fired on the spot as he had left out all of the still shots of the different transition stages of the toy. His thinking was that kids knew how they worked and that they did not actually need to show them on screen. In their, the kids, minds and from the animation, they knew the robots changed quickly which was an effect he wanted to emulate in the TV Spot.
Immediately after Bacal saw the cut he called the other agency heads into the room to see the footage and then they (Bacal and the agency heads) flew out to Providence to show the new spot to Hasbro. They loved it! Thanks to his work saving the spot, Robert was then assigned to work on cutting the rest of the spots from the first package of spots. He remembers creating 4 or 5 spots from that footage.
The spots were a hit and Robert was soon promoted and started producing whole packages of Transformers and other Hasbro Boys Toys spots. Soon he found himself on his way to Amsterdam where we wound up then shooting most of the G.I. Joe spots and other lines as they were introduced including Visionaires, Inhumanoid, Battle Bearts, Air Raids, Jem, etc. He remembers tat Visionaries was short lived with them trying various techniques to highlight the holograms. The Visionaries, Battle Beasts and Air Raiders were all very short lived whilst he remembers that the Inhumanoid brand was a little more successful even though, as we all know, it did not produce enough revenue to warrant the 2nd series release. Transformers and G.I.Joe were their "billion dollar", in sales, products where as everything else just came and went. Transformers, G.I.Joe, Jem, My Little Pony and Inhumanoid all has decent advertising budgets and were shot from Amsterdam, where as Visionaries had a smaller budget and was shot stateside. Robert remebers that Battle Beasts were really hot for a short period before they dried up.
When you look back at the early Transformers TV spots, and other Hasbro brands for that matter, you will notice that the kids who are cast tended to very much be blonde haired and blue eyed. It was actually Robert and his colleage who wrote the spots that convinced Hasbro Inc. to allow them to cast minority child actors including Black and Asian kids. Hasbro agreed and this change is obvious when you watch the spots now.
A interesting piece of trivia for you all is that despite being an Assistance Producer at the time, Robert was actually in the office when they came up with the name "Transformers" for the brand. Robert recalls that they had a prototype of Optimus Prime and a bunch of people were bouncing around ideas for the brand. He was fascinated by the process and decided to stay to learn more. Someone said something like "they transform from this into that .." and then a voice, which Robert believes was Mr Bacal exclaimed "Transformers!", and thus the brandname was decide.
Robert remembers that Hasbro Inc wanted to re-issue the 12" G.I.Joe figures from the 1960s, he actually owned seven himself, but he recalls that Mr Griffin suggested to Stephen Hassenfeld, the "Has" in Hasbro, that "kids love collecting smaller things so reintroduce G.I. Joe as smaller figures". The idea was that if you sell the collectible, small action figures, that this would lead to sales of larger, more expensive vehicles and accessories. This of course is exactly what happened and the Hasbro account, which started at $7 million and had grown to to $30 milllion, would now grow to over $300 million. Life was good for everyone at GBI and Robert places a lot of that down to Griffin and Bacal themselves who he describes as being the "very best bosses".
We'd like to thank Robert for answering out questions and for sharing his insight and memories with us, so that we have been able to share them with you. It sounds like he loved his time working at Griffin-Bacal and that he was not the only one.
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We have updated our sister website The Visionaries.net with a brand new article which takes a look at the Toy TV Spots which were produced for the short-lived 1980s Hasbro licensed property. Whilst researching some of the history of the TV Spots we held a conversation with former Griffin-Bacal employee Robert Rundbaken where we learnt a more about the history of the Transformers toy TV spots than the Visionaries ones. We shall publish those details via a news story right here on Transformers At The Moon in the next couple of days. For now thoughyou can read the Visionaries article here.
The Visionaries.net is currently being revamped so most of the content is offline, but you will find some preview articles and contentw which we have pubilshed prior to the official relaunch.
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Zap2it has once again updated their listings with summaries of the next four episodes of Tranformers Rescue Bots Resecue Bots Season 3.
S3 E11 - Did You See What I Thaw?: The Bots discover a caveman preserved in ice and attempt to help him adjust to modern life.
S3 E12 - The Attack of Humungado: Monsters from Kade's favorite movie materialize; it's up to the Dino Bots to corral the Kaiju.
S3 E13 - Thieves Like Us: The Bots must contend with thieving miniature souvenir replicas of themselves.
S3 E14 - Time After Time: A renovated clock tower causes Cody to relive the same morning over and over.
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Hasbro.com uploaded seven new video clips from the forthcoming "Robots In Disguise" cartoon which you can find on their website. The clips include the following:
Meet The Autobots
Meet Team Bumblebee
Meet The Decepticons
Meet Bumblebee
Meet Grimlock
Meet Sideswipe
Meet Strongarm
You can jump directly to the R.I.D videos here.
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I hope that everyone is having a great time. To celebrate the holiday season we, and myself and Dave, have decided to publish one of the new articles for our "currently being revamped" Visionaries website www.TheVisionaries.net early. So as of right now you visit the website and find out about "Visionaries Reborn".
The article will take briefly take you through the last 4 years of history for the Visionaries brand enabling you to see what has been going on, why and where things are heading, or at least are trying to head. We have also included some concept art relating to the Visionaries Reborn project.
Without further ado, we present to you "Visionaries Reborn" - http://bit.ly/13Eeo6K
Disclaimer: Some of the information may seem a little sparse, but since the project is ongoing and we do not want to be sued, we have decided to leave out certain documents right now, plus we do not have access (currently) to the current or previous Hasbro work which is covered by various NDAs anyway.
Let us know your thoughts on Visionaries Reborn via Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. What do you think of the new concept designs? The new "lifeforce" transitions, the current state of the project and any other feedback you may have.
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Friend to the site, and old site sponsor, Robot Kingdom, have posted a nice gallery of the soon to be released Transformers Masterpiece Ultra Magnus toy on their Facebook page.
Click the link to take a look
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.898106796874703.1073743004.168147899870600&type=1
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Thanks to Seibertron.com for the heads up as well as Nick Hughes we are pleased to report that the first wave of Combiner Wars figures including the Voyager body parts are now for sale in Smyths stores across the UL and Ireland. You can use their Store Location to find your nearest store, so happy hunting!
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The Transformers Universe team have announced that, as of today, they will be closing down and issuing refunds to paying members with the full closure being at 10am GMT on Jan 31st 2015. You can read the full announcement below
Today Jagex and Hasbro can confirm that Transformers Universe will close. This decision comes at an important time for both companies as they both realign their plans and focuses for 2015.
What does this mean for our players?
We’re hugely disappointed, but the game will be closing over the coming weeks before its full closure at 10am GMT on 31st January 2015.
As a team, we can’t thank players enough for the support that they have shown us over the last few years of development, and even more so during our BETA period.
What’s next?
The shutdown period will begin from today. As part of the winding down we will be refunding all those that have purchased a Founders Pack, as well as anyone that has purchased relic bundles and starter packs. These refunds should be all processed in the next 30 days. In addition we will be closing the ability for new players to make accounts, those of you that already have accounts will continue to be able to use them until the closure date.
If you haven’t received a refund after 16th January 2015 and believe you should have, then please contact the Jagex customer services team (tu_refunds@support.jagex.com). We will also be pushing an update live today that will switch off the ability for players to buy any more relic packs, or starter bundles.
As mentioned, on 31st Jan 2015 @ 10am GMT we will be shutting down all servers and forums and will freeze all Transformers Universe related accounts. These accounts will then be live for another 60 days (approx.) for any final queries before deletion on 31st March 2015.
Between now and the date of closure the Jagex CM team will continue to operate on the forums and we will provide relevant updates on the website as necessary.
If you have any queries about your account or refunds please contact our customer support team on tu_refunds@support.jagex.com. Please understand that they may be very busy during this time but they will respond as quickly as possible.
Thank You
Once again we want to thank all of the players that have played Transformers Universe and all those that have worked on the project. We’re sure you have thoughts and feelings that you’d like to share on this, so please do so on our forums. Please bear in mind that this is obviously a challenging time for all involved, especially the CM team. There will be plenty of things we can’t comment on, so please respect their position.
Sincerely
Transformers Universe Development Team
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Takara Tomy's Transformers PR account has tweeted out some new comparison images of the Generation 1 Ultra Magnus toy with the soon-to-be-released Masterpiece Ultra Magnus figure (MP-22), the toy is due on shelves at the end of month. You can view the images below.
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Fisitron
Transformers Animated
Choose Your Fate
Ep 12: Dinobots Revealed
OTFCC 2003 (USA)
US Sheet 1
Transformers Animated
