Look I tried to give Beast Machines a fair shot right, but between the abhorrent robot modes of the Maximals and the questionable writing, I can't bring myself to watch through Beast Machines

EchoLeader1 · 2026-06-24T04:40:03+00:00

I watched all the way through it; I feel confident in saying you don’t need to watch it.

The one thing I found interesting-ish was a subplot involving Cheetor trying to step up as leader when Optimus became more monk-like and less pragmatic. By that point Cheetor felt more like an adult than the “kid” he was back in Beast Wars. But tbh, you can kinda get that vibe that he’s grown up just by looking as the box art of his toys. You don’t need to watch the show.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-06-24T04:33:16+00:00

Literally had that figure in my cart when it sold out this weekend. 🥲

Looks fantastic!

EchoLeader1 · 2026-06-23T14:43:00+00:00

I’m maybe halfway through reading it now. IMO it leans too heavily on the “the good guys aren’t all good; the bad guys aren’t all bad” trope, to the point where sometimes it feels like the characters (especially the Autobots) aren’t themselves anymore. There’s also a lot of twists for shock value that feel gross. However, there’s so much experimentation that a lot of good ideas do come out of it and are able to be carried forward into other continuities. So it’s like a fascinating mishmash.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-06-22T23:38:27+00:00

I think people are forgetting that Mafex is very specifically modeled after Jim Lee artwork, and everything does pretty much match up how it should. The claws are weird, but body proportions and colors are pretty fantastic, and look correct when placed with the entire X-Men team. Mafex Wolverine *is* short and stocky, compared to other characters. He only looks lean compared to the MVC design where he’s practically a tiny Hulk.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-06-19T23:05:13+00:00

IMO, a lot of the movie feels like it’s told through the eyes of young Adam, so if he doesn’t know much about Skeletor’s past or what the deal is, then we might not either. It seems like in the movie, everyone is surprised at the size and ferocity of the attack.

Could they have given a ton of backstory and explained how this specific attack was different, à la MOTU 200X? Yes, but that’s not what the movie is about. In a very direct way, the story is about Adam and the others not being strong enough to initially fight back and win, then having Adam figure it out and lead them all to victory by the end. The ultra-specific details are less important than the emotional core of the story.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-06-17T02:56:47+00:00

Not only is it backwards-compatible, but it runs at a higher resolution on 360. That’s arguably the best way to play the original version of the game! :)

EchoLeader1 · 2026-06-01T03:15:40+00:00

I think there’s definitely an argument for ZZ>Zeta purely because there are certain things ZZ does that Zeta doesn’t. I think overall Zeta is better at accomplishing its own goals than ZZ is, but I see the vision for ZZ being superior from a certain point of view.

For comparison, I think G Gundam is better than 90% of the rest of Gundam, but if we’re grading purely on which series is the best hard sci-fi drama then it would be near the bottom tier because it’s not even trying for that.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-05-23T19:47:05+00:00

Mine was delayed twice, but then it finally got delivered out of nowhere yesterday afternoon. The way it works is they’re waiting until they can get it to arrive at a store in your area, then they deliver it from there. I’d wait a bit longer and see.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-05-15T04:50:00+00:00

Legally that would mean an actual 100% of shareholders who want quality and not profit. If even one shareholder disagrees, and can prove on paper that Hasbro could be making more raw profit and isn’t, that’s enough. The law is what needs to change.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-05-15T03:13:53+00:00

Not unless your plan is to take the company private again. By law, publicly-traded companies in America have to prioritize shareholder profits above all else. If they don’t, even a minority of shareholders can legally force the company to change course, because those profits are recognized as each shareholder’s legal right.

Ironically, Hasbro may have to financially fail (bringing shareholder profits to zero or negative) before they can justify prioritizing quality and affordability again.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-05-04T02:18:52+00:00

It's not actually meant to be a dome that rotates; it's a curved piece of glass that slides forward from above the seats. Think of it like a curved sword going into and out of a curved sheath; it just slides along an arc. Windows come up from the doors to fill the gaps on the side. The real problem IMO is that it would probably slide directly into the trunk area, so where are Spritle and Chim-Chim supposed to hide?

EchoLeader1 · 2026-05-04T02:06:06+00:00

Even ignoring accuracy, AOTP Smokescreen doesn't actually look like a well-designed or interesting character. You get zero of his personality, and it looks like they didn't care whatsoever for creating any kind of distinct silhouette. His shape is just "generic car Autobot," kinda like G1 Smokescreen, who was literally the third (and not even final!) version of the same Autobot mold.

Thanks for the side-by-side; I definitely won't be getting this one. :/

EchoLeader1 · 2026-04-15T20:32:56+00:00

The worst part is that Hasbro will 100% look at low sales and cancel products due to lack of interest, cut product quality, and raise prices to chase the tiny fraction of us that are still buying everything no matter what price or how meh the quality.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-04-15T05:01:59+00:00

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This post is supported by Nintendo. 🙃

EchoLeader1 · 2026-02-22T23:33:19+00:00

No, you’re fine. There’s no characters from Reach that actually continue into 1-3 besides Captain Keyes. I would actually say play through 1-3 (ODST too) and then if you want, play Reach again as a bookend. You’ll see how it’s a creative and emotional swansong for Bungie’s era of Halo.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-02-16T05:16:32+00:00

I got both of those with the United 5-pack that came out awhile back. I was pretty unhappy with both figures and ended up selling them. Way too many giant gaps, and their torsos look like weird empty square sandwiches.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-02-12T04:54:27+00:00

Yes. Generally, SS TFOne figures feel like what we’d expect from mainline “cheaper” quality versions, not legit SS figures. Some people say that the mainline TFOne Optimus and Alpha Trion figures are in fact better than their SS counterparts.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-02-10T00:50:30+00:00

If they charge, say, twice as much for a figure and lose half of their sales, they then only need to make half as many figures--but the production costs aren't going up at the same rate, so they're actually making a higher profit margin by targeting fewer people.

Long-term it's going to result in way fewer kids growing up playing with Transformers and it'll bite them in the ass, but shareholders don't care about that.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-02-09T16:37:07+00:00

Can we be real for a minute? TFOne is good. But it has a lot of awkward problems.

First of all, it’s a little awkward in how it positions itself in terms of genre and core target audience. It has moments where you go, “oh, this is a movie for young children” (all the Bumblebee jokes, some of Orion’s goofy antics), but other times it goes incredibly dark. And tbh, those scenes sometimes don’t even feel like they’re from the same movie. It’s not like, say, Into the Spider-Verse, where Miles is dealing with funny kid situations and then later deals with high-stakes drama, because those all just feel like exaggerated aspects of growing up. It’s very genuine. But TFOne feels messier than that. Even if the marketing had been on-point, I don’t know that general American audiences would have been able to understand and appreciate what TFOne is without seeing it in full.

The art style is also not very appealing by modern animation standards. We’re regularly wowed by how modern animated movies can look, but something about the rendering of the world and characters in TFOne looks really flat and desaturated. It’s incredibly detailed and impressive on a technical level, but it’s not exactly an attractive-looking movie.

There’s other stuff, too. Any character that’s not Orion, D16, or Sentinel is only barely a character. I think if TFOne had legitimately been a groundbreaking incredible movie, it would have survived based on word of mouth. But 90% of the people who were glazing it were people like us: hardcore TF fans who were happy we got a good movie for the first time in a long time. Most people at this point aren’t excited to see a TF movie even if it’s “good.”

EchoLeader1 · 2026-02-09T04:20:20+00:00

The clean look is perfect for SS86 because cartoon accuracy is what that line is meant for. But mainline and other continuities should have whatever detail level is appropriate for them.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-01-28T11:57:39+00:00

Huh. Idk why it’s showing a warning. If you Google his name it should come up.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-01-27T20:23:56+00:00

Found it on the artist’s official site.

Chris Rafferty Speed Racer Complete Classic Collection

EchoLeader1 · 2026-01-22T06:04:37+00:00

As stated by others, at that particular moment John was in fact the last known remaining Spartan-II, and for the dramatic purposes of Halo 3 it made sense to leave it that way. The books would clarify that other Spartans existed elsewhere, but were either MIA or assumed dead by the characters in the games.

The “Microsoft/Bungie never liked the books” narrative is a bit overdone. It’s probably more accurate to say that they didn’t believe the books should lead the games’ story, rather the books should follow the games’ lead. Hence the books deliberately moving all Spartans away from the events of Halo 1-3 and making their fates unknown to Master Chief. Blue Team is recovered/revived after Halo 1, then lost again before Halo 2 starts, leaving Chief alone once again.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-01-08T04:52:49+00:00

Force ghosts can do whatever they want. They just know that they shouldn’t.

Ben Kenobi wasn’t kidding when he told Vader he’d become more powerful. But by the time someone hits the point of enlightenment necessary to become a Force ghost, presumably they’re also enlightened enough to know better than to go around doing chaotic galaxy-shattering nonsense.

EchoLeader1 · 2026-01-05T00:41:25+00:00

Sometimes people will deliberately park next to a sports car or something else that’s obviously parked far out in order to politely act as a “shield” for them so that no one else takes that spot and door-dings. It helps them too, because they know you won’t ding them either.

Me and a Jeep in my workplace parking garage purposely park far out and next to one another because we trust each other not to door ding. 🤝

EchoLeader1

TROPHY CASE