Snapdragon 64, Get N Or Get Out

My wife picked up Earthrise Snapdragon for me the other day and I was super thankful. I've been really looking forward to this guy for some time now. Like most recent Generations toys, he's a pretty slavish homage to the original toy. If you've heard the term 'G1 with knees' then you have a pretty good idea of what to expect here. If that's something you don't like... then why do you keep pre-ordering them? 

Snapdragon is a Headmaster like his original toy. They don't make too big of a fuss over this on the packaging and don't refer to him as a Titanmaster either. Like Apeface in Siege before, it's an evolution of Titans Return toys in use here. Basically a modern Headmaster toy. It took a few sentences to explain that, which I wish could have been expressed in an emoji. I save so much time with that poop one.

As you'd expect from his name, Snapdragon transforms into a dragon. Admittedly he's more the type of dragon you'd see at a monster truck show than fighting a knight. An alien robot from outer space can only be so realistic when transforming into an imaginary animal. There's a lot of charm to this dragon mode however, it might just be me being a fan of these old designs admittedly. He's weird and blocky and that's one of the more lovable aspects of post movie G1.

Remember the part about Snapdragon being a Headmaster? Krunk, his Headmaster partner pulls double duty. He forms both the dragon and robots head in addition to piloting the vehicle mode. Honestly that's one of the things I love about Headmasters/Titanmasters, the piloting vehicle modes. It draws back to the Transformers Diaclone roots and honestly is a fun play feature.

Speaking of Snapdragron's vehicle mode, his is a spaceship based on the SR-71. I've always called this kind of vehicle a spacejet, because obviously. I absolutely love this mode. It's got that classic 80's styling that always looks great and I just want to fly him around while making flying noises. With triple changers one of the alt modes is generally superior to the other and this is that one. While I do like the dragon a lot, I love this more. 

That's partially due to the transformation. I didn't enjoy the change to dragon mode, while the conversion to spacejet was pretty painless. That's pretty much the one complaint I have and it's likely just me being clumsy. Nothing is perfect, and the idea of a perfect toy line is completely subjective to opinion. So far though, Earthrise has been as perfect as a Transformers line can be for me.

Headmaster of the class

I just really dig the intro music for Headmasters. I've always liked the show quite a bit, but man that intro song is just great. Yeah, yeah... insert guy who put's himself in front of everything at every chance telling me how bad Headmasters is... and just like every other fandom zealot, I ignore them completely (too many folks want to make everything about them). I actually quite like the Japanese series despite how different they are from the American produced ones. Admittedly, I really like Transformers and have a hard time not enjoying Transformers, so go figure I'd like Transformers.

When I first learned of the new seasons made for Japan I was instantly keyed in on finding out as much as I could about them. Here I was in my late teens, Beast Wars was showing in syndication and the internet was becoming available to me. First something at school, then shortly after at home. All I wanted to do was consume all the stuff I didn't know about all the stuff I liked. Suddenly those weird cheap robot toys at Big Lots made a bunch of sense, turns out they were knock offs of Transformers from Japan and other parts of the world!

As much as I enjoyed the Rebirth, I always felt cheated as it was a rushed ending. Sure, I loved season 5, G2, and all the other ways reruns were packaged... but I wanted more. So of course more seasons was just the ticket. Headmasters ignores The Rebirth and acts as a more complete season 4. After that the series kinda follows a more traditional Japanese super robot cartoon format, which is ok by me as I like super robot cartoons as well as variety. I really enjoyed the way Headmasters work better in Japanese fiction than American. It's just more logical too me. The way Titanmasters work fictionally makes better sense to me than US Headmasters as well.

In Japan, the Headmaster is the character and is a tiny dude using the body to make himself bigger. That makes sense. In the US version, it's another guy sharing a body. When the head is disconnected, the actual Transformer is just a car. It's allegedly a play on 'two heads are better than one', but it was always kinda clunky to me. Sure, for a Targetmaster it makes all the sense in the world. The gun aims itself and acts as a partner. A Headmaster? Well great, now this guy has two personalities and one is just a car. A Titanmaster gives the TF it's partnered with special abilities, so now it makes sense as to why somebody would willingly give up their head to share a body with. It's an upgrade of sorts, to me anyway.

So uh... I like the song...

Targetmaster Cyclonus

Compassion is the Autobots' downfall.

An emotionless marauder whose single-minded purpose is to destroy the Autobots. Incapable of fear. Paired with Nightstick, a Nebulan master criminal who doubles as a blinding, corroding black-beam gun. In space jet mode, has nuclear-powered turbine engines that allow him to cruise at Mach 2 in suborbital altitudes and achieve escape velocity for interstellar space travel.

Look what came in the mail today!

No, not one of those 5$ Taco Bell meals

Thanks to Kilby picking me up one at Hascon last weekend, my Titans Return Arcee set came in today. Inside the shipping box was a rolled up poster that I haven't looked at yet, a new RFC staff badge, a Hascon branded can of Play Dough, and of course the Arcee set. Long time Transformers fans know Arcee was made a Headmaster in the Rebirth and we've all heard Don ask for one for over 20 years at BotCon. Titans Return of course being a return to the Headmaster gimmick and well... they actually made the Headmaster Arcee. Arcee is a reuse of the Blurr mold with a new head. The new head is Daniel as a Titanmaster (spelled backwards so they can trademark it) and even resembles his exo suit. Also included with the set is a diecast Titanmaster Ultra Magnus. The box is really neat and not what I expected. I saw images online and just assumed it was a box with the figures inside. If I would have read more, I would have saw it's actually a fancy unfolding contraption that displays the toys, the art, and their collector cards quite nicely when you unfold it. It's a super nice set, and I could happily live with more exclusives packaged in this manner.

Look into my eyes, deep into my eyes

You will give me all your candy... and the glow stick your mom made you carry so cars will see you.

The Rebirth took me a minute

So, around 2001 there was a DVD release of The Ultimate Doom. It was a multi part episode from season one of the classic TF cartoon. I was given it as well as a DVD of the 1986 Transformers movie and a DVD player that Christmas. It was my first DVD player and I was very excited to finally make the move into all the cool stuff that came with DVD's. I had several Transformers VHS tapes, some extremely well worn to the point of almost breakage and it was nice to have much higher quality copies of my cartoons. I was eagerly anticipating the upcoming Transformers box sets and man, it was a good time for TF on home video.

Around spring 2002 (I think) Rhino put out The Rebirth on a DVD and I was really looking forward to getting it. On it's release I headed directly to my local Media Play (remember those) to grab a copy (man, I miss Media Play). There they were, about four copies. I grabbed one and checked out before heading back home. I pretty much had to get dressed and go straight to work, so upon getting back home that evening I stopped and grabbed some pizza and was ready to bask in the glory that was The Rebirth. Turn on player, push play...

The Ultimate Doom?

Somehow I got a screwed up copy of my video. Well crap. So the next morning, I went and exchanged it. Same story, went to work, came home, popped in DVD...

The Ultimate Doom...

Getting a little peeved, I went back to Media Play the next morning, same cashier and exchanged it again. The cashier thought it was weird, but believed me as it has The Rebirth label even on the DVD and what did I have to gain by exchanging it for the same movie? Went home, didn't have to work, put the DVD straight into the player...

DAMMIT.

Went directly back to the store, this time a manage helped me as this was the last copy. The manager didn't believe me, and kept questioning me. I told him, to pop the DVD in the TV they had at the register and got an apology. Before I left we put the last copy in the same player and...

The

Ultimate

Doom.

So, the manager ordered me a new copy, had me help write up the problem for some report and I had to wait a few days. I had got home and decided to sit on my porch to calm down a bit. I wasn't super angry, but I was annoyed. I remember my roommate showing concern and then laughing at me when I told him about the whole thing. Within a few days, the new shipment of The Rebirth got to the store and the manager personally called me to let me know. I went to the store, we opened a copy and...

Oh hey, the movie I tried to buy 4 times now came on. Cool. So I went home with a new and fifth attempt to buy The Rebirth. Of course I had to work and watch it later that evening. With a new pizza, I had ate the one I bought earlier.