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I can't believe what I've been missing!!! (MP-01) part 1
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brianj...@gmail.com
Mar 3, 2015, 10:35:18 PM3/3/15
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10 years later, I finally have MP-01 Masterpiece Optimus Prime in my hands, and I absolutely can't get enough of him! Everything that he does just impresses me in a way that triggers all the "I want more" responses that I have, I guess this is how people who have great first experiences with highly addictive drugs feel. So I guess I can say I lucked out in that I can say the most destructive vice I have is collecting $200 action figures.
So why did it take me so long to get this guy? Well I got my first Transformer (Bumblebee (yellow)) in 1984 when I was 4. That started about a 4 year streak of Transformers being my favorite thing in the world. I got as many as I could entice adults to buy for me and watched the cartoon religiously. Once the cartoon ended and I got a bit older everything waned a bit. I still got a few here and there and when I found out about the comic I got that too (even though I can't say I enjoyed it until Furman took over).
Without the show to breathe life into the toys that were being produced, and the toys themselves seeming to get simpler and less exciting as I was getting older, interest declined in the current line but I always kept the memories of the first couple years and the magic feelings I had for the toys and characters.
When Action Masters came out in 1990 I was really excited to finally (finally) have toys that resembled how they looked on the cartoon!! Except they kinda sorta lacked the somewhat important feature of you know, transforming. And thus, the line was gone, Transformers had had a great run of 4 years and held on for another 3 before it was all over...
Until I got Inferno as a birthday present in 1992! Now remember, this was 1992, when there was no internet, no knowledge of Japanese Transformers, no DVDs of all the cartoons, and the secondary market for Transformers was what you might find at a yard sale of another kid your age getting rid of his old junk. Maybe it was because I recognized that the first 2 (and some 3) years of Transformers were designed better (you just can't compare transforming say Hardhead with Prowl), or maybe it was because they were what I first attached to, but they were the ones I wanted. I remembering literally having dreams that somehow someway I could walk into a Bradlees (yes, that was part of the dream too, does anyone even remember these stores??) and see the shelves filled with Jazzes and Trailbreakers and Ramjets and Swoops and Infernos that I could finally add to my collection! So you can imagine how bewildered I was to be literally holding my dream.
Generation 2 got me hooked back and I got every single figure that came out, and this extended into Beast Wars where I did the same. Unfortunately Beast Machines was pretty terrible and I lost interest as the demands of my last few years of college took hold.
I tried to pay attention to Robots in Disguise and collect the toys that "returned Transformers to vehicles!" as much as I could, but then Armada or something or other came and I pretty much lost interest in collecting again. Add this to military service with the Marines, a few crazy ex-girlfriends, living in my car for a while, etc and Transformers really took a backseat. I would always try and read up on and stay somewhat current on what was going on, but buying wasn't a priority.
Somewhere along the line (I swear I'm trying to get to the point of this post!) I had heard that there was a Masterpiece line. Not much of one though. So there was Masterpiece Optimus Prime. I heard that he fully transformed and was very close to the cartoon animation model (awesome!) and that he was about a foot tall (that seems big..) and that he was a couple hundred dollars (that's something I can't afford) and that the next Masterpiece was him painted white (that's something I didn't want at all) and that the next Masterpiece was a weird looking very military not so character model accurate Starscream (that's something I didn't have much interest in). As the line went on I really did appreciate what TT was trying to do, and they were blowing the Alternators line out of the water, I didn't want just 6 figures who didn't scale next to each other and didn't have any connection to each other. I've always been really picky about how I display my Transformers and Skywarp, Ultra Magnus, and Grimlock really have no reason to ever be standing next to each other. It seemed like the whole line would be cherry picked characters that had name recognition.
And then the line rebooted. A much better Starscream? Sideswipe? Soundwave? Red Alert? Prowl? Ok Takara, you have my interest. I dabbled and bought Acid Storm and Prowl when they showed up at Toys R Us and I was impressed. I wanted more. But I didn't want to get too excited because if I was going to go all in I wanted Takara to go all in. I didn't want a few of the 1984 cars, I wanted Masterpiece representations of the entire 1984 catalog!! I think it was when Wheeljack and Bumblebee were announced that I decided that there was enough of a chance to get a bunch of the guys I wanted to start buying every figure to show my support.
So I found myself with some catching up to do. It wasn't as easy as just getting every one that had been released. I still had no interest in White Optimus Magnus or Nemesis Hot Rod, but I also wanted to collect a bit of the history of the line. By this time MP-11 Starscream was out and redecoed into Thundercracker but not Skywarp yet. I had quite an interest in seeing all the differences between MP-03 and MP-11 so I was initially going to buy the old mold Skywarp and new molds Starscream and Thundercracker. Ehh.. I actually kinda wanted all my Seekers to match... Ghost Starscream! Perfect! The icing on the cake was when MP-11SW was announced with that awesome paint job.
Then I had to figure out what to do with Optimus Prime. MP-10 was out, and I knew it was an upgrade to MP-01, and I knew it scaled with the new rebooted line, and I knew it would save me a couple hundred dollars, and I knew just getting MP-10 and forgetting MP-01 even ever existed would be the best decision to make....but my curiosity took over and I wanted to see what came before to breed the new line, the new Optimus. What was so wrong about MP-01 that they had to re-do him?
Acid Storm was really cool. Prowl was very impressive. Ghost Starscream was "yeah I can see why they wanted to re-do him". MP-01 Optimus Prime is magnificent.
Got lots more to say but didn't expect this post to take so long so I will try and finish it tomorrow!
So why did it take me so long to get this guy? Well I got my first Transformer (Bumblebee (yellow)) in 1984 when I was 4. That started about a 4 year streak of Transformers being my favorite thing in the world. I got as many as I could entice adults to buy for me and watched the cartoon religiously. Once the cartoon ended and I got a bit older everything waned a bit. I still got a few here and there and when I found out about the comic I got that too (even though I can't say I enjoyed it until Furman took over).
Without the show to breathe life into the toys that were being produced, and the toys themselves seeming to get simpler and less exciting as I was getting older, interest declined in the current line but I always kept the memories of the first couple years and the magic feelings I had for the toys and characters.
When Action Masters came out in 1990 I was really excited to finally (finally) have toys that resembled how they looked on the cartoon!! Except they kinda sorta lacked the somewhat important feature of you know, transforming. And thus, the line was gone, Transformers had had a great run of 4 years and held on for another 3 before it was all over...
Until I got Inferno as a birthday present in 1992! Now remember, this was 1992, when there was no internet, no knowledge of Japanese Transformers, no DVDs of all the cartoons, and the secondary market for Transformers was what you might find at a yard sale of another kid your age getting rid of his old junk. Maybe it was because I recognized that the first 2 (and some 3) years of Transformers were designed better (you just can't compare transforming say Hardhead with Prowl), or maybe it was because they were what I first attached to, but they were the ones I wanted. I remembering literally having dreams that somehow someway I could walk into a Bradlees (yes, that was part of the dream too, does anyone even remember these stores??) and see the shelves filled with Jazzes and Trailbreakers and Ramjets and Swoops and Infernos that I could finally add to my collection! So you can imagine how bewildered I was to be literally holding my dream.
Generation 2 got me hooked back and I got every single figure that came out, and this extended into Beast Wars where I did the same. Unfortunately Beast Machines was pretty terrible and I lost interest as the demands of my last few years of college took hold.
I tried to pay attention to Robots in Disguise and collect the toys that "returned Transformers to vehicles!" as much as I could, but then Armada or something or other came and I pretty much lost interest in collecting again. Add this to military service with the Marines, a few crazy ex-girlfriends, living in my car for a while, etc and Transformers really took a backseat. I would always try and read up on and stay somewhat current on what was going on, but buying wasn't a priority.
Somewhere along the line (I swear I'm trying to get to the point of this post!) I had heard that there was a Masterpiece line. Not much of one though. So there was Masterpiece Optimus Prime. I heard that he fully transformed and was very close to the cartoon animation model (awesome!) and that he was about a foot tall (that seems big..) and that he was a couple hundred dollars (that's something I can't afford) and that the next Masterpiece was him painted white (that's something I didn't want at all) and that the next Masterpiece was a weird looking very military not so character model accurate Starscream (that's something I didn't have much interest in). As the line went on I really did appreciate what TT was trying to do, and they were blowing the Alternators line out of the water, I didn't want just 6 figures who didn't scale next to each other and didn't have any connection to each other. I've always been really picky about how I display my Transformers and Skywarp, Ultra Magnus, and Grimlock really have no reason to ever be standing next to each other. It seemed like the whole line would be cherry picked characters that had name recognition.
And then the line rebooted. A much better Starscream? Sideswipe? Soundwave? Red Alert? Prowl? Ok Takara, you have my interest. I dabbled and bought Acid Storm and Prowl when they showed up at Toys R Us and I was impressed. I wanted more. But I didn't want to get too excited because if I was going to go all in I wanted Takara to go all in. I didn't want a few of the 1984 cars, I wanted Masterpiece representations of the entire 1984 catalog!! I think it was when Wheeljack and Bumblebee were announced that I decided that there was enough of a chance to get a bunch of the guys I wanted to start buying every figure to show my support.
So I found myself with some catching up to do. It wasn't as easy as just getting every one that had been released. I still had no interest in White Optimus Magnus or Nemesis Hot Rod, but I also wanted to collect a bit of the history of the line. By this time MP-11 Starscream was out and redecoed into Thundercracker but not Skywarp yet. I had quite an interest in seeing all the differences between MP-03 and MP-11 so I was initially going to buy the old mold Skywarp and new molds Starscream and Thundercracker. Ehh.. I actually kinda wanted all my Seekers to match... Ghost Starscream! Perfect! The icing on the cake was when MP-11SW was announced with that awesome paint job.
Then I had to figure out what to do with Optimus Prime. MP-10 was out, and I knew it was an upgrade to MP-01, and I knew it scaled with the new rebooted line, and I knew it would save me a couple hundred dollars, and I knew just getting MP-10 and forgetting MP-01 even ever existed would be the best decision to make....but my curiosity took over and I wanted to see what came before to breed the new line, the new Optimus. What was so wrong about MP-01 that they had to re-do him?
Acid Storm was really cool. Prowl was very impressive. Ghost Starscream was "yeah I can see why they wanted to re-do him". MP-01 Optimus Prime is magnificent.
Got lots more to say but didn't expect this post to take so long so I will try and finish it tomorrow!
Zobovor
Mar 3, 2015, 11:04:38 PM3/3/15
to
On Tuesday, March 3, 2015 at 8:35:18 PM UTC-7, brianj...@gmail.com wrote:
> 10 years later, I finally have MP-01 Masterpiece Optimus Prime in my hands,
> and I absolutely can't get enough of him!
It really is an amazing toy, isn't it? I like it so much that I actually bought a second one so I can display Prime in both robot and vehicle modes. This is something that I have never, ever, ever done, before or since.
> 10 years later, I finally have MP-01 Masterpiece Optimus Prime in my hands,
> and I absolutely can't get enough of him!
> When Action Masters came out in 1990 I was really excited to finally
> (finally) have toys that resembled how they looked on the cartoon!!
> And thus, the line was gone, Transformers had had a great run of 4 years and
> held on for another 3 before it was all over...
> Until I got Inferno as a birthday present in 1992!
> Generation 2 got me hooked back and I got every single figure that came out,
> and this extended into Beast Wars where I did the same.
> Add this to military service with the Marines, a few crazy ex-girlfriends,
> living in my car for a while, etc and Transformers really took a backseat.
(Since you were living in your car.)
(Which has seats.)
> I didn't want just 6 figures who didn't scale next to each other and didn't
> have any connection to each other.
> I've always been really picky about how I display my Transformers and
> Skywarp, Ultra Magnus, and Grimlock really have no reason to ever be standing
> next to each other.
> I was initially going to buy the old mold Skywarp and new molds Starscream
> and Thundercracker. Ehh.. I actually kinda wanted all my Seekers to match...
> What was so wrong about MP-01 that they had to re-do him?
> Got lots more to say but didn't expect this post to take so long so I will
> try and finish it tomorrow!
Zob
Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats
Mar 4, 2015, 3:36:36 AM3/4/15
to
On Tuesday, March 3, 2015 at 8:04:38 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
> > I've always been really picky about how I display my Transformers and
> > Skywarp, Ultra Magnus, and Grimlock really have no reason to ever be standing
> > next to each other.
>
> I thought I was the only one who was picky about things like that. It's good to know I'm not entirely alone in this particular brand of psychosis.
Awkward photos. The Autobots and the Decepticons both ended up going to Six Flags Over Cybertron for team building morale events, accidentally scheduled on the same day. It ended badly.
> > I've always been really picky about how I display my Transformers and
> > Skywarp, Ultra Magnus, and Grimlock really have no reason to ever be standing
> > next to each other.
>
> I thought I was the only one who was picky about things like that. It's good to know I'm not entirely alone in this particular brand of psychosis.
> > What was so wrong about MP-01 that they had to re-do him?
>
> I think maybe they realized after doing Prime and Megatron that a toy line of gigantic Transformers just wasn't sustainable. The new, smaller Prime is to scale with Rodimus, Grimlock, etc. I'm hoping they do a smaller Megatron too at some point.
Also, it was a way to get people to buy another toy. I expect MP-20 to be another Optimus Prime mold.
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