Transformers are way better than Gobots

[Ronnie]

Everybody seems to be enjoying themselves. That's very clear. These events aren't for me, though. 

I enjoyed Friday. (Programme here.) Jean-Paul Bove's talk on colouring, the presentation about salvaging a lost Dreamwave issue, and James Roberts' fluent delivery were highlights. I think one of the principal contributions to my enjoyment was that there was plenty of space.

That wasn't the case on Saturday. I was particularly glad that I'd come the day before when I clocked the line to register; you might've concluded that a beloved monarch were lying in state.

I tried the traders' hall a couple of time but without much luck. The room was swamped. A corollary of my getting irritated by people blocking me is that I don't want to be a hypocrite and so am always in motion, which makes perusing very difficult. I picked up three BO problems. Since there were probably 300 people in there when I was, that's about a 1% problem rate, which I suppose is reasonable. One of them was so offensively noxious, though, that the smell was sickening, and the effect lasted well beyond the hit to the olfactory centre because even now I'm agitated at the selfishness of this person: “I can't be bothered to have a shower this week. Everybody else will just have to cope.” Surely staff must have noticed: turf him out until he descales himself!

The queue for James Roberts was dreadful. He likes to give people their five minutes. If the queue is twenty-plus, you can see the problem. I tried to join it twice when the numbers were reduced. That wasn't a coincidence; the line had been capped so that he would finish on time. No luck, then.

I really didn't like Club Con, which was standing-room only. The dress-up might have been good but I was three or four rows off the back so could barely see anything. I was only interested in the final programme but didn't want to lose my seat so stayed in for the lot. Too much noise, too many people, too much irritation. (The people in front creating some bonus space for themselves by pushing their seats back and stealing from me and others; the Ric Flair whooo coming from directly behind me whenever Pavlov directed a response from the front ... )

The end piece was fascinating, though. I love “what-might-have-beens”. It involved the obtaining of an alternative pilot episode and cartoon bible, commissioned by CBS. They'd put their own demands in: each side had six named Transformers; there had to be females in there; the leader of the Decepticons could not transform into a gun: “Negator” was an “orbital light pulse” or something similar.

The pilot episode was called, “Dog: A Transformer's Best Friend”, or something like that.

After the presentation came the episode, with voice artists from the real franchises volunteering their services. It was certainly very different! No crash-landing on Earth, no Spike or Sparkplug ... The Decepticons were already on Earth, ruling it, whilst the Autobots were undercover. There was plenty of mentions of “a Decepticon” to work around the fact that there were only six named ones. Jazz destroyed a couple early on, you have others monitoring lessons in schools ...

The presentations are very good but my people allergy is flaring up, unfortunately.

[davertfnewman]

Saturday was just ridiculously busy. Luckily, I didn't have anything in mind to get, but I would've been annoyed if I had and I missed out because of the mad scrambling for them from some of the people with less manners or social skills.

I never bother standing in the queue, I just find a seat somewhere and wait until the place has opened and go straight in, which does obviously affect the above, but just not my thing. Some people get up at six or so and wait in the queue (no exaggeration - I've known somebody who does, and my mates and I just rolled our eyes at him).

You only picked up three hygiene problems? You were lucky!

I was in the queue for James Roberts with my mate, who was the person of the two of us who really wanted to get his book, for almost ninety minutes. James is a good guy and I felt bad in retrospect when I said "The book will take more than ninety minutes to read, won't it?" because he is trying to give people their time, but it just feels like the system needs looking at. I thought about whether something like a deli ticket schedule would work, but that would just lead to someone wandering off, missing their call, then griping about it.

I'm just reading that pre-production material now. Question: did Chris McFeely, the big, beardy, Northern Irish presenter volunteer himself for acting duties?

[Ronnie]

23 hours ago, davertfnewman said:

You only picked up three hygiene problems? You were lucky!

I don't spend time around people! I'm having the time of my life at the minute, sitting in the kids' quiz (about 30 people tops in here) watching “The Key to Vector Sigma”!

23 hours ago, davertfnewman said:

but it just feels like the system needs looking at.

It does in his case. How about a second table manned by somebody else, from which you can just pick up his goodies if you prefer to sacrifice chat and an autograph in order to save the horrendous queuing?

23 hours ago, davertfnewman said:

I'm just reading that pre-production material now. Question: did Chris McFeely, the big, beardy, Northern Irish presenter volunteer himself for acting duties?

I don't think so, although he's not shy of talking. I admire his work but am not a fan of his having a private conversation for 20 minutes with that big voice of his during JPB's session on Friday.

Edited August 11, 2025 by Ronnie

[davertfnewman]

Great idea on the 'just sales' table.

I find Bove obnoxious, even though he does great work, but McFeely produces really irritating YouTube videos with that fake voice and for him and some of the organisers it does feel like it's their show and you're just a guest. He also thinks he's got performing chops that he really should leave home.

Report back on however much of the rest of the day you spend there. Will definitely be quieter.

[Ronnie]

23 hours ago, davertfnewman said:

it does feel like it's their show and you're just a guest

I think we have different approaches because I prefer that! They deviated from that in a 90-minute presentation by McFeely and Sorenson about this CBS attempt to get the licence, and they said near the start that people should feel free to interject with questions. Immediately there was a pointless question, followed by plenty of others. 

Today was much better. Not uncoincidentally, there were far fewer people. There wasn't much in the way of irritation besides one girl a few seats down click-click-clicking her new toy, an admittedly impressive-looking Grimlock. I tried to catch her parents' eyes but had no chance; all four were glued to their phones. Oh, there was one person snoring behind me at one point, too!

By and large everybody was OK, getting on with enjoying themselves. No BO problems today, either!

I picked up some supplies, like an idiot. I thought I'd found a way to salvage wasting my money, but Santa has just informed me that she's not interested in taking ownership of them. Bah!

I got my hands on Roberts's new book. £40! It does look a professional piece of work, to be fair, and he's published it himself. First impressions, 22 pages in: it's excellent.

Tonnes of work has clearly gone into the weekend, and there were plenty of volunteer helpers keeping things running along. I think they can consider it a success.

I'm not a good fit for it, though. If I go again, perhaps I should skip the Saturday.

Edited August 11, 2025 by Ronnie

[Ronnie]

Oh, here's Bumblebee from that CBS pilot:

They changed the name to Muffler, sometimes Muffy. That was the result of a misunderstanding, though. The internal correspondence shown today indicates that he'd been given the name Toad. Hasbro were adamant that the toy's name should be used but expressed this pithily as something like “Toad name no good”. That led to a new name rather than the anticipated reversion.

You might also note that the colour is off. Confusingly, the first line of the bio does mention being yellow, but is contradicted by a later line stating that Muffler is pink.

[davertfnewman]

Yeah, less worthwhile questions are always a waste. I was in the The Rest is Giant Robots panel and I'll allow for the person who asks the "Coke or Pepsi?" question because at least it's quick and we don't necessarily know the answer, but asking who Simon Furman's favourite character to write for led us to him saying "Everyone know it's Grimlock, so I'll say Nightbeat or Bludgeon instead this time".

My first time at a convention, Auto Assembly, there was someone who was messing with the original Masterpiece Megatron and had dropped a piece that was likely to land underneath his shoe and get crushed, so I told my mate to tell him before he trod on it. Best to leave playing with them until you're home or back in the room.

I think you're right that the Sunday might be a better option for the future, I've thought about that myself if it's a lesser experience.

I've seen the artwork and read most of the stuff for the CBS pitch and I just can't see it as anything other than in the style of Gobots.

ADDENDUM: TFN 2026 to take place earlier than normal - July 31st to August 2nd.

Edited August 12, 2025 by davertfnewman

[BigJag]

Thanks for the reports @davertfnewman and @Ronnie. I'll get to a TF Nation show one day. I've seen a few posts on sm regarding the show and it looks to have been great fun.

I was very fortunate to get myself this. FT-40A Hannibal.

It's made by Fans Toys, and is their version of Cerebros, the head of Fortress Maximus. Cerebros is himself a Headmaster, with Spike Witwicky becoming the head of Cerebros. The build quality of this thing is amazing! Easily better than Masterpiece figures. It's weight is reassuring and impressive. A bunch of accessories are included as well as a couple of light up features. I was able to transform it from bot to alt mode without the instructions. Thats a testament to the engineering that Fans Toys have applied to it. Everything tabs together securely and the joint ratchets are nice and robust. Definitely one for the collectors. I'll have to be careful when the nephews are visiting.

Fans Toys have plans to eventually release a Fort Max body that will utilise this figure.

 

Edited August 15, 2025 by BigJag

[Jazzy G]

This just turned up in my YouTube recommendations. 

 

[BigJag]

An Ultra Magnus Missing Link figure is coming. They obviously want to make as much use of the Prime Missing Link mould as they can. The picture seems to suggest that the Magnus armour will be a brand new mould,  which will attach to the white Prime. Colours look great. There should also be a variant in the original Diaclone colours. Where the core Prime is blue and the Powered Convoy armour is red and black. My preference would be for that version.

There's better and possibly more useful pictures of Powered Convoy. They aren't as cool as this though.

 

[Surf Digby]

I always struggled to like Ultra Magnus, and any other Transformer really where they didn't have proper legs.

I got even more annoyed when the ones without his face painted silver appeared. 

[BigJag]

What do you mean by 'proper legs"? Are you referring to the additional armour that has to be attached to the base Prime figure?

 

[davertfnewman]

I think it's meant as separate legs, so not like Magnus, Jazz, Prowl, Bluestreak, Smokescreen, Wheeljack...

[Jazzy G]

7 hours ago, Surf Digby said:

I always struggled to like Ultra Magnus, and any other Transformer really where they didn't have proper legs.

I got even more annoyed when the ones without his face painted silver appeared. 

When I was in secondary school one of my mates (that we called Neddy for some reason) lent me his Ultra Magnus. Also gave me a Star Trek The Next Generation alarm clock that you turned off by detaching the saucer section. Lent me his Atari Jaguar as well. 

[BigJag]

6 hours ago, davertfnewman said:

I think it's meant as separate legs, so not like Magnus, Jazz, Prowl, Bluestreak, Smokescreen, Wheeljack...

Hmmm. I'll have to check my Smokescreen MP. I'm not understanding what people are referring to by "proper legs". 

The missing link figures have improved flexibility and poseability. Much more so than the older figures from the 80s. It will be interesting to see how this Ultra Magnus will take advantage of the extra features.