[BOTCON] the big BotCon 2002 report - SPOILERS
cmq
***There are SPOILERS regarding episode 1 of ARMADA and two of the
unaired RID Episodes below, if you don't want to know, don't read!
Welcome to the coverage of BotCon 2002!
Friday afternoon pre-registration went like a breeze, assuming you
didn't try and get there and go through as soon as the gates
opened! I figured with 5 hours of pre-reg available, there wasn't any
reason to line up with the rest of the crowd at 1PM, so I
came over at 2PM and breezed right through since no one was even there!
It looked like they had planned it as well as they
did last year, with multiple lines covering different registration
numbers. Any wait was probably going to be minimal anyway.
Good forward thinking on their part.
Pre-registration packets were in nice 'pizza' boxes that included the
program, badge and lanyard (RID Optimus for the fans,
Megatron for dealers and someone else for guests) which had a metal clip
(unlike last years or the years before which was
lousy and had all sorts of problems in design, causing many to lose
their badges), a mini-litho from 88mph studios (one of 3
random designs: Skywarp done in a pseudo toybox style painting, Tigatron
by Dan Khanna or an anime-style Optimus and
Rodimus Prime), an Optimus Prime lollipop(!) was contributed by Rhino
Home Video (surprising me, as 3H is usually very
innovative and clever in coming up with new goodies), a t-shirt (one of
2 designs, Optimus or Megatron, featuring all the Gen 1
and RID versions of each in vertical bars) and the exclusive pre-reg
toy, Tap-Out, an Autobot bodyguard created from a
Cliffjumper keychain mold in green and silvergrey. Tap-out is pretty
neat, I would have never figured an actual Gen-1 toy
would be issued as an exclusive (even if it does have the keychain hole
and chain). His bio is on the inside front cover of the
program, in full color. The program also had one more surprise, the
location and date of next year's convention, Chicago on
7-25 to 7-27, 2003.
BotCon 2003 will be at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Chicago, and there is
an exclusive toy for every hotel room reserved (2
total, for Friday and Saturday nights if you stay those days). This toy
is unique and will not be available by any other means,
so that meant I had to make my reservations that very afternoon! Call
me obsessed, crazy or just plain insane, I made the call
and booked my room for next year before this year's con had even
officially begun! As it turned out, that might not have been
as crazy as I thought. More on that later...
Friday night dinner was as impressive as always. Someone even brought
his Metalforce Optimus Prime kit complete with
custom tuxedo jacket! We were all surprised to find a bag of Armada toys
on every seat, one deluxe and one mini-con set per
seat. What you got was random (unless you got to a table fast and could
choose whichever seat you wanted!) and, as it
turned out, this was the dinner exclusive (more on this later too).
After dinner, Glen, Karl and Jon welcomed everyone and
introduced the guests, which were plentiful this time around. Dreamwave
Productions, Hasbro, voice actors, writers, etc.
Plenty of people to hear from when the convention opened! A special
drawing at each table awarded one lucky soul 2
Heroes of Cybertron figures (I was one of the people who had a card
taped to the bottom of the chair and got a Starscream
and Powermaster Optimus pvc in USA packaging). At first it sounded like
it was a special 2pack but it ended up being just 2
of the regular cards the figurines are going to be sold in at retail.
Not that I'm complaining too much, free toys is free toys!
The exclusive merchandise was revealed: Cyclonus (repaint of the
Ultra-sized Beast Machines Jetstorm and done up in a very
nice Gen-1 style box), CatSCAN (an Autobot medic created by Apelinq,
think Star Trek Voyager Emergency Medical
Hologram) made from a night slash Cheetor Beast Machine mold (new glow
in the dark circuit board deco over red and white
and an Autobot insignia added to his chest-not in the spark, which is
blank), Glyph (the Autobot Archeometrist, or something
like that- a blue and gray repaint of the Bumblebee keychain toy,
complete with card and chain) comes with the Wreckers #2
comic book (a nice continuation from last year's book), the collector
plate (featuring RID Optimus choking the heads of RID
Megatron in 2 headed dragon mode), an Arcee lithograph by Pat Lee (she's
sort of posed like a bathing suit model) in both
unsigned and signed versions and the Beast Wars postcards (thirty cards
featuring Mainframe art and bios/history of all the
BW characters in all their incarnations, including Ravage...nicer than I
thought it would be!).
3H had one more surprise for the dinner guests. The premiere of the
first episode of Armada, barely completed in time and
still in rough form. Needless to say, no videography, photography or
recordings of any kind were permitted. They were
pretty strict at monitoring tables for people trying to sneak a
snapshot, threatening to turn off the thing and send everyone
upstairs if someone breached that trust (and you just know someone would
have if they thought they could get away with
it)...Anyway, the basic gist of Armada episode 1 follows:
*********SPOILERS BEGIN HERE**********
Armada starts off with the history of how Autobots and Decepticons had
colonized various planets, Cybertron being amongst
the oldest of their colonies. On Cybertron, the third faction of
transformers, the Minicons, were exploited by both sides and
the power they bestowed on the two factions threatened to get out of
hand and destroy the planet itself. A truce was made
and the Minicons were put on a spaceship and sent off to the depths of
space, never to be used by either side again.
Animation was very good, in the classic anime cel style of old but with
all sorts of cgi manipulation to enhance certain effects
(like the warp passage the Minicon ship goes thru)...
The ship exits hyperspace, bounces off the moon and scatters Minicons
across the planet Earth (not unlike the way stasis pods
were distributed at the beginning of Beast Wars). Flash forward a
million years or so and we're introduced to the three kids
who will be the core of human representation in this series. Rad (your
average 7th grader, who is the narrator for most of the
ep), Carlos (his best buddy and skateboarder supreme) and Alexis (Rad's
future romantic foil, apparently...sparks are flying in
the she-love-to-hate-me fashion)...Anyway, the dialogue and writing for
the kids borders on torturous at times and people in
the audience were already getting restless as about half the episode has
gone by and no Transformers have shown up yet!
During the awkward 3 minute commercial break when the screen went blank,
Glen did an impromptu comedy act, stalling for
time till the show started again...
So the 2 boys go spelunking and get tailed by 2 bullies, one of which
has pretty severe psychological issues that get played for
laughs (he's a neurotic, paranoid, hypochondriac, etc)...they find the
remains of the Minicon ship, promptly activate it by
grabbing a glowing crystal Minicon sigil-thingy and cause an earthquake
of significant proportions. The ship comes to life,
lighting up all over and sending out beams of energy to the moon, across
the Earth (activating the other Minis, presumably) and
deep into space to Cybertron where the fans got one of the biggest
treats of the show. Many Gen 1 Autobots are seen
scrambling about as the signal arrives that alerts them as to where the
Minis are. Hound, Powerglide, Skyfire, maybe an
Aerialbot who transforms, amongst others show up in this tantalizingly
all-too-brief 5 seconds or so...it was a real rush of
adrenaline for the audience, who were getting quite annoyed with the
over-expository nature of the kids (they activate the ship,
it shakes, lights up...they have responses like "What's happening?",
"It's an earthquake!", etc) up to this point...
Alexis, back home (this town is centered around a mountain/dormant
volcano? with all sorts of scientific research going on in
labs and buildings built onto the mountain...radar dishes, etc), feels
the earthquake, gets worried for the 2 guys who said they
were investigating the cave, and goes off after them...
The 2 guys get out of the cave (not sure what happened to the bullies,
who got lost in a fork in the tunnel when they tried to
follow) and run into the bicycle Minicon (blanking on his name, I don't
remember the details as to how they meet him...that
glowy thing had something to do with it) in his protoform/Cybertron
robot mode...He (High Wire, now I remember) talks in
R2-D2 style beeps and bloops, scans Rad's bicycle and promptly takes on
his new Earthly form, a rather futuristic looking
bike...
At about this time a beam of light comes down out of the sky, and
standing before them is Armada Megatron, towering over
the 3 kids (Alexis finally caught up with them) and trying to get his
hands on High Wire (or maybe the glowy thing)...he hasn't
spoken yet (just rumbling growls, kind of annoying), but stomps
menacingly towards them as they take off, loaded onto HW
and moving as fast as they can. Armada Megs topples them with a well
flung boulder and finally speaks as he demands the
humans turn over what belongs to him. Just as he's about to grab 'em a
hand reaches out and stops him and tells Megs in a
very familiar voice that he won't stand for it. Armada Optimus makes
his appearance and the two lock hands in the beginning
of a battle royale...I could swear Peter Cullen did the voice for
Optimus but as it turns out Gary Chalk is onboard for OP and
David Kaye is returning to Megs...nice touch to hear from both of them
again!
*********SPOILERS END HERE************
So that was pretty much it for Friday. No toy pickup that night (they
tried something different to give the staff a breather and
avoid burnout...all pre-regs could pick up their stuff Saturday
beginning at 1PM, and from what I heard it didn't work out quite
as smoothly as they thought it might...I didn't end up picking up my
stuff till 5:55PM because other stuff was happening
Saturday that appealed to me more than standing in line in the middle of
the day) so that was it for the scheduled stuff...
Saturday the crowds were there bright and early. I got down into the
queue around 6:30AM and there were probably a
hundred people there already (I was planning on going down at 7AM
originally, but apparently people were there as early as
6AM or earlier!)...The doors opened a little late (they always do, not
that big of a deal for the most part) around 8:15AM or
so and the mad rush began!
Of course the entire dealers room was filled to capacity with tables and
toys everywhere...one of the first things I noticed was
the t-shirt dealer who had a pretty impressive 15 foot tall rack of
shirts from various anime, comic and popular culture
properties...Hasbro had a table and a booth showing off the upcoming
Armada and Commemorative Reissue product. I didn't
get a good look at most of the new Minicon stuff (the race car and
destruction teams), nor the deluxes (Blurr and the crane
guy...) but I did see Jetfire upclose (space shuttle that changes into
robot and an extra set of legs for Armada Prime! I wonder
if similar gimmicks will come in the future like a submarine turning
into scubalegs for Prime or somesuch?) and Galvatron
(Armada Megatron redone in grey and purple) and Thundercracker (Armada
Starscream done in blue and red)...There was a
setup with Armada Prime in all his modes and a new smaller, deluxe sized
Prime that looks exactly like the larger version (but
apparently with new and better articulation)...Packaged Gen-1 Optimus,
Rodimus and Magnus (I think) were there, as were
some new Heroes of Cybertron packs...They handed out surveys for people
to fill out as well as free Autobot stickers and
mini-comics (the ones packaged in the Armada toys)...
The dealers had pretty much everything...a lineup of many Ultra Magnuses
(Magni?) at one table, $700 European Action
Masters, Japanese pvcs and reissued Prowl and Jazz (these are very nice
boxes, totally tape-free so that you can open and
repackage them without damaging the box, which has a nice booklet
featuring bios, tech specs, cartoon summaries, poster,
etc), a lot of bizarre knockoffs (white and purple Gen1
Cyclonus-Cyclownus? Itsy bitsy Optimal Optimus, etc). Dreamwave
had all their posters and calendars (nice art for both Armada and Gen 1)
for sale (and gave away their GI JOE/TF poster for
free) and their comics and lithographs were at a lot of tables (I got
the Megatron/Bumblebee one plus the Metroplex/Trypticon
one and Shockwave to go with my Arcee)...some dealers had Armada stuff
out already (as well as USA HOC pvcs...$20 for
Skywarp anyone?)...I got a Playskool Speedbot, since I haven't been able
to find it back home and a BW K-9 loose...$100
Ultra Pretenders complete (whew!)...
Lots of rare stuff on display, Japanese prototypes for Jazz, Metroplex
and Bumblebee/Cliffjumper, S.T.A.R.S. inserts, new
shirts, mini sailboats (with Autobot/Decepticon sigils), blinky light
badges, and a lot of other neat stuff...books and tech specs,
and more loose toys than you could imagine...and more! It's amazing
what the fine line is between junk bin toy and loose on
the table toy...
There was, of course, other merchandise...GI JOES, Star Wars, Beanie
Babies even, Star Trek (sign said MUST GO!
MAKE OFFER!) and all sorts of other 80s properties, but it was far
outweighed by the Transformer items!
Panel one of the day was the writer/director panel featuring Bob
Forward, Simon Furman and the RID team of Richard Epcar,
Steve Kramer and Tom Wyner (who all also doubled as RID voices
Armorhide, REV/Cerebros and Grimlock,
respectively)...right off the bat it was a little awkward for Bob and
Simon, since the RID guys were much more boisterous and
easygoing (as voice actors are want to do) but things evened out as the
panel went along...
Amongst the tidbits revealed, Bob said there were no plans for a season
4 of Beast Wars...Both he and Larry (who aren't
really partners but co-writers hired for BW...they often had differing
views on where the storyline should go and would try and
one-up each other or steer the story back the way they wanted) had the
desire to wrap up the show without leaving any loose
ends rather than leave the ending nebulous for potential return visits
(as it turned out Beast Machines did end up adding onto
BW and Bob did quite the tapdance around whether he liked what Bob Skir
did...under the outline Marv Wolfman submitted
and the restrictions of appeasing Hasbro, Bob thought Bob probably did
the best he could but stopped short of actually
complimenting or denigrating what Skir did in Beast Machines...as it
also turns out, he and Skir have tried to get together for
lunch to discuss some of this but schedules just haven't worked
out)...the Vok were intended to be the ultimate evolution of the
human race (and all lifeforms in general) and quite eager to rush the
development of humanity to the much preferred Vok level
but those darn BW guys kept interferring and thus, their enmity...
The RID guys had to work under the restriction of an already made tv
show, so their challenge was to write and dub to the
lipsynch of whatever was already plotted and animated...and even though
they had translations of the original Japanese
storylines, it left a little to be desired as straight translation ended
up too clumsy and just too bizarre sounding for an English
audience (I believe Steve read some of the Optimus/Magnus dialogue from
one of Magnus' first eps and it just proved there
had to be a lot of rewriting and re-thinking of plot points to get a
coherent story for the USA audience)...Hasbro supplied the
Gen1, and previous series references to be inserted into the show and
there was a lot of give-and-take between the writers
and Hasbro as to what worked when they tossed in references to shows
kids today weren't familiar with...RID guys preferred
not to confuse the younger set but Hasbro insisted on a certain amount
of classic homages and what ended up happening is
that over half of whatever scripts someone might have written ended up
looking like a completely different piece of work...
Just picking out the right words to explain the science behind the Space
Bridge was a chore...There were about 50 or so
different terms they came up with until they settled on a certain
description of how it worked...Timewise, writing the eps were
long and exhausting tasks since they couldn't move very far from what
already existed...and that doesn't even cover the looping
of dialogue! They gave a rundown on just what it took to time out mouth
movements to the actors performance...and I think
one of them was grateful for any character without a normal mouth
(Optimus!)...
Simon revealed his Death's Head character was his homage to Judge Dredd,
and all that ultra-violence must have rubbed off
as he loves to kill off all sorts of Transformers whenever he does
stories! There's almost no chance DH could appear in a
current Dreamwave project as Marvel owns the character rights...
The second panel of the day was the long awaited Hasbro
presentation...and boy were they well prepared! An overhead
screen showed a well thought out overview of how Hasbro and Takara
joined up to create a single TF storyline for the entire
world so that everyone would be on the same page...They showed some of
the design work that went into the look of the
Armada toys (some of this is printed in the program) and how the
back-and-forth between Japan and the USA resulted in the
final look, color, etc of each character. The intial idea was to get
back to the vehicle roots of what the Gen 1 TF were all
about, and when it was realized Transtech was not that way (it was still
more of a beast/vehicle hybrid idea...Monkey Truck,
as one of the team described) that direction was abandoned and RID
brought over to give the design team a whole year to
plan out Armada (a neat image sold the Minicon idea...a robot smacking
another in the face, and the pieces and sweat flying
off were smaller robots who transformed into vehicles and turned the
tables as they charged back). Some of the designs of the
Minicon logo (a circuitboard style rather than a face, which was too
iconic and perhaps would lean more towards either side)
were shown as well as some weirder concepts (an RID Scourge style tanker
truck turning into a knight-like steed and rider)
that didn't make the cut...
Continuity wise, the new show will be on its own but with respectful
nods to its past and predecessors. It was better this way
so that kids coming in wouldn't be overwhelmed by the backstory and the
turnover rate for kids is quite high year to year. As
far as reusing classic names, one of the team said he loved the cool
sounding names and said it would be a shame for kids of
today to be deprived of playing with an Optimus Prime, Megatron or
Starscream. Another reason is the trademark issue
where you lose it if you don't use it (see Hot Rod, now owned by
MATTELL, INC)...
Takara designs the transformation around whatever the Hasbro/Takara
teams decide will be the robot/vehicle form (one of the
Takara team was there too and received much applause...apparently they
do not rely on Computer Assisted Design but do it
all by hand on paper. Hasbro's reps complimented them on their knowlege
of every type of joint, pivot, hinge that can
exist...often it's difficult to limit themselves to a recognizable
vehicular form and fit in all the transformation requirements, thus
brand new vehicle designs are more preferable right now).
As for Armada's future, we can expect to see more Minicons and
vehicles...probably no beast forms as that has played out for
the most part over BW and BM...no female TFcharacters in the Armada
show, but maybe for the next year?
Maybe...Laserbeak is one of the exceptions to the animal rule (role-play
action and micro play are two of the points Hasbro
wanted to hit upon for the new Armada line, based on the success of
other companies' lines and Hasbro not doing anything in
that arena for awhile) and it was revealed that he (it?) will be orange
in the show as well as in toy form in Japan (I guess there
was some supposition the colors would be more realistic there due to the
lack of restriction that the US toys face in terms of
hand-held weapons having to be a day-glo color, but that is not going to
happen even though Takara didn't particularly like
that...compromise is all part of the cooperation between the
companies)...Hot Shot is getting a new face since fans don't
particularly like the one on the toy now (Hasbro listens to you!).
As far as Gen 1 reissues, they chose TRU because there was more
shelfspace and flexability with that retailer...some mold
changes (like OPs smokestacks truncated or Magnus' missiles lengthened)
are the result of having to make 20 year old toys
measure up to current safety rules...Rodimus Major is an extension of
the Optimus Minor thing (perhaps they award honorary
titles as they progress in experience, the tech spec reveals the
answer)...There will be no Gen 1 Megatron reissue! They
showed a ghastly photo of an orange and blue Megatron that they tried to
get passed. He had blue metal parts and orange
pretty much everywhere else and it was such an ugly thing that would do
no justice for the character that they dropped any
ideas of getting it done. They tried their best but it would have been
a hassle and an inferior product and not the best thing to
do for the line. People in the audience had a hearty laugh when he
showed up on screen and it was pretty evident it's not
worth it to get something that looks nothing like the way it should
look. More Gen 1 reissues will come if the initial toys sell
well (the survey Hasbro handed out had a list of toys you could rank in
preference)...the HOC pvcs and larger SCF figures
from Japan are coming...
Unicron as a toy is something they would not confirm as something they
are working on or not, but the designer said IF he
were making one he would want to make it worthy of the name and powerful
imagery conjured up when one thinks of the
name. When asked if such a toy would be bigger than Fortress Maximus,
he responded he would make it as big as he could
(as long as it could be fit into marketing's plans)...
Speaking of Fort Max, the man responsible for getting the cool
exclusives out to the USA (RID Scourge, Air Attack Optimus
Primal Supreme, etc) said the big holdup with FM is the failure of
performance in the drop test...someone in the audience was
under the impression that a drop test involved injury to a child upon
which FM fell! It actually refers to damaging pieces, sharp
ends, impaling projectiles that might occur if the toy fell onto the
floor and shattered...so it is on hold till it passes...
The repaint of Armada Megs as Galvatron will presumably have a voicechip
of David Kaye when it comes out as there was
no time to put out the current toy with his voice (he was just cast
within the month I think)...All in all, a well plotted
presentation by the Hasbro team!
The final panel of the day was the voice actor panel featuring Dick
Gautier (Rodimus Prime), Neil Kaplan (RID Optimus),
Mike McConnohie (Gen 1 Tracks/Cosmos and RID Hotshot/Ironhide), Wayne
Lewis aka Wankus (RID Prowl), and Peter
Spellos (Sky-Byte) and it was positively hilarious as these panels
usually end up being.
Right off the bat the differences between the RID and Gen 1 voice
recordings were revealed as the classic cast often got to
work with each other (under the stern direction of Wally Burr, who often
insisted on retakes over and over until he got what he
wanted for a scene. It was not unusual for a multiple hour recording
session to fit a 22 minute show) and the RID cast doing
the complete opposite, being alone in a booth and timing their lines to
beeps and counters to fit the pre-animated Car Robots
footage and having to do it until it fit the exact alloted time. Dick
Gautier was particularly taken aback by the difference the
RID guys had to adjust their performances to what had already been
created.
Peter was quite the comedian, his forte, and had the audience laughing
whenever he said something. His "Who's the Greatest
Shark in Town?" song was pure improvisation on the spot that seemed to
come to him where the script directions merely said
"Sky Byte sings". It was so well-received by the director that they
both knew it had to be done again if they could fit it in and
fortuitiously the final scene in the series is of Sky Byte and so it
fell into place. Someone asked him to do a haiku and he
couldn't recall any from the show exactly (they don't memorize lines
they mostly come in and read it cold) but he did pull off an
improv haiku right out of his head.
Neil Kaplan is a wiseacre, as he cracked self-depricating jokes at his
and others' expense numerous times during the panel.
He tends to pull out a Bullwinkle-ish moose voice routine inbetween
takes in the studio and Mike has to continuously chastise
him to "Put the moose away" during recording sessions. He loved playing
Optimus but like all the other actors wanted to do
SkyByte when it was found out that character was so much fun for Peter
to do. He actually auditoned for X-Brawn first but
was asked to perform as Optimus (drop the accent) and didn't find out he
actually was going to be the official voice for OP till
much much later (he said when the episode aired but I have a hard time
believing they tape the show a mere week before it
airs...on the other hand Armada is still not finished as far as casting
goes...who knows?). He did the happy Snoopy dance
(see Peanuts Charlie Brown Christmas) to show how excited he was over
being one of icons of his childhood...He would
really love to play the part again if there was a possibility...
Wankus (he got the name from an on-air co-host who tried to call him a
wanker and doofus but she misspoke and said
Wankus, and the name stuck ever since) was a complete cartoon voice
novice when he first did RID Prowl. He literally
walked in cold the first day (and early to boot) and watched the routine
of how the process worked so that he wouldn't make
a total fool of himself when it came to recording! He apparently is
quite the comedian as well and there were all sorts of
gossip about a scene he made at the bar.
Mike, being the only Gen 1/RID crossover voice artist had some stories
to tell about the old days and had nice things to say
about his late co-workers Scatman Crothers and Chris Latta. Of course
the first question to Mike was answered quickly with
a "Tracks is NOT gay!". His Tracks performance was based on the late
Jim Backus (Thurston Howell on Gilligan's Island)
and Cosmos on Peter Lorre. When asked how his character would order at
McDonalds (a BotCon tradition, apparently),
"Tracks" complained about clipping his fender at the pickup window and
how that had to get fixed (Optimus ordered a Happy
Meal and Sky-Byte ordered the Fillet O Fish before backtracking).
Dick Gautier was the Michael Bell from this year. There were all sorts
of racy comments out of his mouth that had everyone in
stitches. When asked to do the Serpentor Cobra La yell, he replied that
he couldn't remember how it went exactly but he did
remember his "THIS I COMMAND!" and related it came in handy when dealing
with women into S & M. ("Get out the
whips and chains...THIS I COMMAND!" He appeared in a Wonder Woman
episode, playing a magician who, he thought,
needed to have a European accent to make the scene work but they had him
do it without. And later they admitted he was
right and had him redub his lines with the accent, except his mouth
didn't move too much using an American accent and a Euro
accent requires much more broad mouth movements so he had to compromise
and do a thick Euro accent with his lips
practically closed and it ended up just being too bizarre looking.
That whole story above came about as someone asked about his WW episode
and he remembered he didn't know if he
wanted to do Wonder Woman at the time. Of course Neil piped up with a
"I would love to 'DO' Wonder Woman" and got
smacked down by the other actors (Peter whipped off his hat in true
Skipper beating Gilligan fashion) for turning that line
totally around in a seedy manner. A lot of humor bordered on the
not-quite-appropriate-for-kids line (I think it was Neil again
who noticed the guys on the panel were named: Dick, Wankus, Peter) and
Dick had a line ("I love to have sex with myself")
that I don't remember how it got to that point, but it had everyone
howling with laughter. One of the actors remembered
having a Gas Skunk toy to show to the actor coming in to play the part
and changing it around and realizing his head ends up in
the skunks ass and not knowing how to break it to the actor as good or
bad news!
The voice actor panels are always a riot and this years did not
disappoint.
The Scavenger Hunt for Saturday night was cancelled because of problems
(Glen Hallit said it was either the toys or the
scavenger hunt...they opted for having the toys ready for the con). It
was to be a sort of like CBS' Amazing Race show with
people running around the town looking for clues and solving trivia
questions that lead them to more clues and finally back to
the hotel. Maybe next year (in Chicago, right...Glen thought it would
be funny if the hunt led right back to the hotel in Fort
Wayne)...
Since the video room was not open 24 hours, that pretty much left it
open till Sunday...I tried to catch the episode on Saturday
that did not air on FOX yet (Attack from Space, or somesuch) but
couldn't see more than the last few seconds of it when the
panels ran a little long (Movor comes flaming out of orbit screaming
'Hot-hot-hot-hot!' before he crashes into the ocean)...oh
well...
Sunday was a little more relaxed and I got to look in the art room.
Lots of really nice ideas and stiff competition for the top
prizes. Among the highlights: costumes of Arcee (from last year, but
more polished looking), Mirage (made of cardboard), a
huge metal guy (I think it was a costume, it didn't seem likely anyone
could wear it though)...some Decepticon Xmas cards
featuring wholesome holiday images (Ramjet baking cookies, Megatron
under mistletoe), a decoy chess set, Stunticons
customized from Spychangers, HotWheel modified Autobot cars, a fully
animated Delorean transformer commercial
(interspliced with Hasbro logos and complete with narrator) and toy
(with box!), a wrecked Optimus from his post-death
episode (Reawakening?), a computer assisted BW toy catalog featuring all
the toys from each year, a cute diorama of multiple
Beast Machine Scavengers liberating their bretheren from their plastic
blisters (discount signs saying ALL TOYS 2/$3.99 were
being altered by the guys to read $13.99) right next to another cute one
of swarms of Buzzclaws (I think, this was the fuzor
lizard/bug) dismantling three Supreme Cheetors and dumping the parts
into a big box...a huge b&w piece based on the cover
of DCs Crisis On Infinite Earth tpb except with all TF characters won
the prize in that category...
Pretty neat stuff and I took tons of photos...
I was able to get some deals from the dealers unwilling to pack all
their stuff up on Sunday...got the Prowl reissue and some
lithos and books...Hasbro had packed up their booth on Saturday so I
missed out on checking out their Armada stuff more
closely...Hard Hero had Unicron on display and busts for Hot Rod,
Starscream, Ironhide and prototype
Devastator...Unfortunately Unicron wasn't available to take home, being
delayed in the Orient, but then I wasn't looking
forward to taking him onto a plane anyways! I noticed a lot of tables
actually had security cameras watching over the wares.
Sad, but apparently well founded as someone swiped a headmaster head
from a monitored table and an announcement went
out that charges would be dropped if it was returned immediately.
Autograph lines seemed to be managed much better this year, having
people pre-assigned to be at the room where signings
were happening based on their badge color. It did cut down on the wait
but caused some people to miss some panels if they
got stuck there too long.
Dreamwave's panel started late on Sunday by half an hour and poor Simon
Furman was kind of left by himself for about ten
minutes and a whole roomfull of fans awaiting the rest of the crew.
Once they got started a few facts got out: This is a melding
of continuities from all sorts of sources (cartoon, toy, comic, etc) to
allow them to cover all the bases as far as what they want
to do and allow the casual nonfan to pick up the book and recognize
something familiar regardless of which they were more
familiar with. Pat Lee melded the character designs from various
sources to create a look he liked and wanted to draw.
Much of what Dreamwave is doing is to very much make their mark and make
the property their own and having fun with that
rather than slavishly copying the toon style or rigidly following the
comic continuity.
Pat Lee told of how he broke into the comic industry, pretty much
getting rejections all the way till his last attempt when he got
a job at Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios...currently he works about 15-18
hours a day, doesn't have weekends off, and doesn't
see daylight! The Dreamwave studio in Canada is very conductive as
other artists can be there to bounce opinions off of and
have that artistic synergy going when they're all trying to get
something done. Based on the original art in his portfolio, which
was pretty awesome to see, it's very time-consuming. Hasbro has little
demands on the content of the book but they try and
do it a little more adult without forgetting that it does boil down to a
license from a childrens' toy line. Pat said the next two
issues will be pretty intense and expect surprises. His interpretations
of Devastator brought more than a few comments and he
admitted he just thought it was more fun to draw him insanely huge.
It's his dream job and he's having fun doing it.
Dreamwave pretty much got the TF license based on the original Wizard
Magazine image that Pat did for a retrospective
article and promising to have Pat draw the miniseries. They have plans
to do a TF Universe style book with all new drawings
and text entries (96 pages per month for about 4 months starting this
November I believe) covering all the Gen 1 characters
they can fit in. Pat would love to do a RID book, and there are plans
for doing a BW miniseries at some point. None of the
comics are designed to specifically fill in missing details and loose
threads from any previous series (that would limit the appeal
of the book to the super hardcore fans) but instead are there to tell a
great story. Gen 1 miniseries will fill 6 months of each
year, with events built upon what happened before.
Takara contacted them as to using their art for the cover of their
reissue Jazz and Prowl toys as Takara didn't have any art
prepared for the boxes (other than the original box art I assume). Pat
was proud of having his art grace the included
miniposters and covers of the toys.
As far as the Armada license, Chris Saccharini said Hasbro does have
certain plot points he needs to cover (the 3 kids will be
a part of the book when it gets to Earthbound stories) but otherwise
isn't too restrictive. He wants to have fun filling in stuff
inbetween episodes that might need to be expanded or touched upon. The
book is a monthly, with no break in scheduling,
and should run until cancellation (hopefully a long long time...).
Simon's 'War Within' book was praised by all parties for the great
design and art by Don Figueroa...Simon is particularly
pleased that he will not have to rest on his laurels of past work but
actually have new TF work for fans to compliment. He
says he got the job to do a miniseries like this by shamelessly emailing
Pat Lee and asking to do it. He is planning on showing
how the Autobots became these legendary heroes, as they were not
supposed to be heroic right off the bat, and the chronicle
of their evolution as to how we know them. He said Optimus is a very
different character than from the Gen 1 we all know.
The charity auction got off to a shaky start. I think they were limited
in terms of the donated merchandise (a lot of non TF
related items like SW Battle Droid, Captain America video tapes, and
such), which was a shame. A lot of old BW 2 and Neo
stuff from Japan were up for sale, as well as some lackluster stuff like
Gas Skunks from Japan (which were so undesired they
resorted to throwing them out into the audience for free at certain
points) and bootleg TF toys (they got Jon Hartman to read
one of the instruction lines to get a cheap laugh 'Set weapon in the
rear hole'. That's not to say the whole thing was a disaster,
there were some nice items like extra axe pieces for the Metalforce
Prime (complete with replacement stickers so you could
reseal you box!) brought some nice bids, Armada Optimus sold for over a
hundred dollars both times he was up, the new
wave 2 Minicons went for a pretty penny as did a lot of the current
Armada stuff. There were insane prices for the BotCon
exclusive Tap-Out ($110, $190!) but it was for charity.
Something brought an over $200 bid (might have been Armada Optimus) and
there was the insanely funny man-eating bunny
routine. A plush toy from the famous Monty Python routine was sitting
on the auction table and the auctioneer (he was from
England and I'm blanking on his name) kept playing around with it during
the auction. At one point he had it 'attack' him,
falling down behind the table and tossing the bunny up in the air as if
it was pouncing on him. After doing this a couple of times
the bunny happened to fall into Karl Hartman's lap and he promptly fell
over dead and tossed the bunny up in the air at Jon
who managed to kick it like a hackysack right back at the auctioneer who
did another header under the table and then behind
the curtain. It was a great and hilarious improv routine and anyone who
has it on tape has one of the gems of the weekend.
They even managed to auction the bunny off for $130.
The final panel of the day was the BotCon presenters who announced the
art contest winners and went over the logistics of
this years con. About 2100 people attended BC '02, of which about 1400
were pre-registrants (and about 600 of those sent
in their forms within the last few weeks...Jon had to carry 2 postal
bins full of forms just a day after the cutoff point). So
bottom line, make it easier on them and send in your forms early, early,
early! Apparently there wasn't as big a bump in
pre-regs due to the ad in TF #1 as they thought there might be (which
was rather worrying to the person who asked that
question). They're trying to figure out ways to get people to send in
forms early but even with incentives it just doesn't seem to
work.
Speaking of incentives, the BotCon 2003 toy available with reservation
of hotel room apparently resulted in all the rooms
selling out as of Friday. Glen could not believe it at all, saying the
people at the 800 number must be mistaken (his actual
quote was something like 'dip me in wax and call me a candle' which led
to people rooting for that to be the 'exclusive' for next
year) as he reserved 600 rooms in the hotel (assuming 2 people per room
max already gives a total of 1200 preregistrants,
almost the amount of this year and a lot of people put more than 3 in
one room). At any rate he was going to call to see what
the deal was the sellout. There are tons of rooms available in the
general area at the 5 hotels and the question was brought up
of allowing those to have an exclusive too, which would defeat the point
of having one for the host hotel. The identity of the
exclusive is apparently hinted at in the ad on the rear of the program.
I think it has something to do with the quote "We don't
bend rules...We break them...a lot" but can't pin down who that might go
to (probably a Wrecker, maybe Skywarp? Warp,
as in bend?).
Anyway, new exclusives could be pretty much anything as 3H Productions
(they finally got a license from Hasbro and thus the
new name) could probably do something with any mold available. Whether
that means any Gen 1 stuff like what Takara is
putting out, Glen said since they already do recolors it would not be as
special if BotCon did the same thing. There won't be
any brand new molds made but there may be some retooling of existing
molds for future exclusive toys. BC Europe will have
five exclusives this year (not necessarily 5 toys, could include other
merchandise...some of which MAY make it over to the US
thru BC proper)...Someone thanked them for making a date for her
Bumblebee (Glyph is a female Autobot!)...
Future location of BotCon beyond Chicago next year: possibly further
west, which brought some hooting from the audience
and Glen said there's nothing wrong with a state like...California.
"I'ts good to travel!" Take that for however you read it,
might imply where '04 is going to be...
Someone asked why Karl Hartman didn't talk too much during the panel and
he responded in a deep bass reply and that is
apparently how everyone got the idea that this is the way he talks all
the time! He would like to perform his saxaphone skills at
one of the dinners in the future if people were up for that.
Since 3H Productions can now produce products, one of the first things
Glen wanted to dust off is the Transformers Fan
Club. He would like to get an official club going again (possibly by
the end of the year) and have a newsletter/magazine plus
neat stuff like the old STARS program. Whether this means we have start
saving up our Robot Points...He did ask people to
respond with comments on what they would like to see in the fan club on
the survey form for the convention (which was a
plain ole piece of note paper this year...some of the stress of running
the convention seemed to be showing this year. The toys
weren't given out Friday night to help the staff with burnout since they
only received the things 2 days before the con started
and had to pack all the CatSCANs by hand).
Glen cautiously said they might be willing to take on volunteers to help
out the staff, as the convention continues to grow and
the current staffing levels would be overwhelmed. He did say it would
be tough to figure out how that would work as they
need to find people that are trustworthy and won't reflect poorly on the
regular staff. They did a particularly good job running
the show this year considering the negative chops they took (the
non-exclusive dinner, autograph sessions conflicting with
panels, toy pick up hassles, no Unicron, etc). I sometimes think not
enough people really appreciate the time and trouble they
go through making all of us happy! Yeah, there were some potholes this
time around, but not enough to totally ruin the
convention!
Other tidbits: The Optimus lollipop was apparently white grape flavor
(Glen was aghast someone actually tasted it rather than
saved it!), a non-attendee rest area (possible but with minors running
around loose inside without supervison might be messy
as far as liability to the convention), fan panels returning (they
didn't think there was enough time to set up panels since so many
other things were going on, and they rarely get enough advance notice as
to what these panels might entail to make it easy on
them), 3H would rather have guests here that want to be here than
someone like Judd Nelson or Leonard Nimoy (who would
both demand appearance fees that would not necessarily reflect their
interest in the genre...fortunately for this year, the voice
actors' agents didn't get involved with fees and that allowed the costs
to include more people than usual).
I did manage to see two of the three long-lost RID episodes after the
panel ended (it ran long too, so I missed the reairing of
'Attack from Space')
************SPOILERS START HERE****************
"Landfill" is the episode that seems to fit right after the Build Team's
introduction. A lot of it was shown in the compilation
episode that featured various bits of Decepticon footage but it was
pretty obvious why this episode was pulled as a lot of
shooting at buildings and falling rubble and stuff happen in this show
when the Decepticons manage to reroute the Space
Bridge so that the Autobots can't get where they need to go.
This episode features one of the alternate Landfill configurations (dump
truck on back rather as a leg) and has a lot more
personality given to the Build Team members (they all get to do their
personal attacks on the Decepticons, including Heavy
Load's grasping claw, Grimlock's shovel grab, etc) than we saw in some
of the other eps. A fun episode but the next one was
even funnier.
"Sky-Byte Saves the Day" fills in that gap where he goes from zero to
hero in the eyes of Koji and the rest of the humans. In
an aborted attempt to crash a giant Space Needle-like tower (where Koji
and company happen to be visiting) the inept
Predacons only succeed in weakeing the foundation of the tower and have
to keep it precariously vertical as they demand
something in exchange for the hostages above. In a hilarious turn of
events, Sky Byte goes from hostage-taker to protector
when he accidentally severs the remaining support strut and has to
physically hold the tower with Predacon help. Imagine a
plate spinner and you get the idea of the visual humor that ensues. Of
course people now cheer him on since he's helping the
Autobots keep the tower up and he becomes the hero of the day when its
all said and done. Pretty funny stuff, but with a
falling building with people inside it's no wonder why it got yanked.
Hopefully all three of these eps could air before FOX Kids goes kaput in
September...
**********SPOILERS END HERE************
Well, that is pretty much what the convention was all about. I had fun,
maybe not as much as last year but fun nonetheless.
BotCon is growing and there do seem to be issues that need to be
hammered out but I think 3H Productions is up to the task.
I'm already looking forward to what surprises they have in store for
2003!
Derik Smith
the
>program. I think it has something to do with the quote "We don't
>bend rules...We break them...a lot" but can't pin down who that might go
>to (probably a Wrecker, maybe Skywarp? Warp, as in bend?).
Sideswipe's techespec quote is "I don't break rules, I bend them... a
lot."
-Derik
"You have zero talent. Give up writing." -Yuki Eiri
"In film you will find four basic storylines. Man versus man, man versus
nature, nature versus nature, and dog versus vampire." - Steven Spielberg
I probably don't care what you think
cmq
> lot."
and that actually makes a lot more sense, in that a mold one year removed from
Armada would imply a RID toy, and RID Prowl done up in red (he has those rocket
thrusters too) and with siren bar removed (they did mention retooling, though that
would eliminate the jetpack mode) could be the spitting image of a classic Gen 1
character reborn...
Pyre
>
> and with siren bar removed (they did mention retooling
What retooling? Just grab a screwdriver and take the screw out that holds
that piece in. Piece of cake.
--
Pyre[Rock] - pyres...@crosswinds.net
http://pyresdomain.crosswinds.net/
"I don't know if i care.
I'm the jerk. Life's not fair."
- Papa Roach
Chris McFeely
> takes in the studio
Of all the bits to pick up on in this post, I'm choosing this one. Why?
'Cause it explains why a Divermon Neil voiced in season three of "Digimon"
had an otherwise nonsensical Bullwinkle voice. Thanks for that. ^^
Chris
Black Zarak
> Speaking of incentives, the BotCon 2003 toy available with reservation
> of hotel room apparently resulted in all the rooms
> selling out as of Friday. Glen could not believe it at all, saying the
> people at the 800 number must be mistaken (his actual
> quote was something like 'dip me in wax and call me a candle' which led
> to people rooting for that to be the 'exclusive' for next
> year) as he reserved 600 rooms in the hotel (assuming 2 people per room
> max already gives a total of 1200 preregistrants,
> almost the amount of this year and a lot of people put more than 3 in
> one room). At any rate he was going to call to see what
> the deal was the sellout. There are tons of rooms available in the
> general area at the 5 hotels and the question was brought up
> of allowing those to have an exclusive too, which would defeat the point
> of having one for the host hotel. The identity of the
> exclusive is apparently hinted at in the ad on the rear of the program.
> I think it has something to do with the quote "We don't
> bend rules...We break them...a lot" but can't pin down who that might go
> to (probably a Wrecker, maybe Skywarp? Warp,
> as in bend?).
I called the hotel Sunday evening twice -- I called both numbers. They told
me that they had no rooms left. However, I called Monday evening and I was
able to book a room.
As for the quote, it's from Sideswipe.
--
Black Zarak
za...@csolve.net
G1 TFs for Sale: http://us.geocities.com/saraiferia/tfsale.htm
Gabi T.M. D'Galvatron
Thanks for the great report ! :-)
Are you gonna post the pics you took up on a
web page somewhere ?
-Gabi.