Tag Archives: My Little Pony

Pictorial Toys Review – My Little Prime & Plasmane

What a wonderful time to be a toy collector eh?  Figures we only used to dream of in our geekiest fantasies are being trotted out right left and center!  A lot of that can be put down to people who loved things in their youth during the 80’s now being (supposedly) grown-ups with disposable income on their hands.

 

Well My Little Pony is happy to jump on that cash-in bandwagon with a new line of Crossover collectible figures.  These range from Dungeons and Dragons to even Power Rangers.  But today we are going to look at by far the two best of the crossover figures, because they cross over with two of the best franchises in history – Ghostbusters and Transformers.

As the only feature of these toys, besides their cool looks and packaging (I love the fact that on the boxes it says ‘approved by Optimus Prime and Peter Venkman respectively), is the fact you can move their tails, there is not really much to review here.  So enjoy the photo’s and hopefully they will help you decide if you would like these awesome figures for your collection.

 

My Little Prime

 

 

 

Plasmane

 

Friendship is Magic!

 

So do you think you will pick up these figures?  Do you love the nostalgia or would prefer the takes be more modern?  Let us know in the comments below.

 

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Can the Transformers fandom just chill out a bit?

Living in the bush I don’t get to see other Transformer fans very often.  I don’t get to pop over to a mate’s house to see his latest acquisitions.  I don’t attend meets, I don’t go to pop culture conventions, hell I don’t even get to visit toy stores.  So when it comes to talking to others about a shared hobby I have to rely almost solely on the internet.

But the way a large segment of the fandom has been going in the last few years, I find myself thinking more often than not why I bother.

The default expression of an online Transformers fan

I don’t know when this all started.  Maybe it was the live action Transformer movies.  Most people seemed to like, or at least tolerate, the first movie in 2007.  Those raising very vocal hatred for it being largely groups of GeeWunners who wanted it to look like the 1984 cartoon.

But then Revenge of the Fallen came out and a massive amount of the fandom started bitching, and it seems they have never stopped.  It’s been three years since a Transformers movie directed by Michael Bay (The Last Knight) has been released, and you still can’t surf a Transformers site without there being negative comments and memes threaded throughout screaming about how people hated them and it ‘raped their childhood’.

‘I was created not for entertainment, but to piss off fans. Didn’t you know that?’

And it seems this negativity of the fandom has spread from the movies to encompass any and everything Transformers.  Be it comics, cartoons, toys – whatever.  If it’s toys it’s all nitpicking about release times, non screen accurate figures and online retailers.  If it’s the cartoons then it’s that the cartoon isn’t specifically aimed at demographic X – and if it IS aimed at demographic X then demographic Y kicks up a fuss.

When it’s about the comics people seem to get the most vocal of all (at least in years where a new movie hasn’t been released).  Pre the reboot at IDW it was all about the writers having an agenda and virtue signalling and what have you.  Now it’s about crossovers.  The amount of hatred on the internet about the My Little Pony crossover coming up has been frankly disgusting. Anyone who isn’t hating on the idea getting accused of being a homosexual or engaging in bestiality.  Grown men – grown men – talking about how they despise My Little Pony.  Why any grown man without a daughter has watched enough episodes to form such a strong opinion on a cartoon aimed at little girls is beyond me – but they must have watched it because they all seem to be experts on it and hate it.  Even one of the artists that did one of the front covers for the upcoming crossover comics has received enough abuse to comment about it publicly.  People abusing someone for doing their job and daring to draw a fictional horse on the same page as a fictional robot – way to make the fandom look good fellas.

‘You are destroying my franchise and deserve to die…. apparently’

Now bear in mind I don’t have a problem with people who have a genuine complaint.  If you’ve bought a figure that snapped the moment you tried to transform it, despite you being gentle and following the instructions precisely, then damn right you are valid in being pissed off about it.  Complain away and you will find a sympathetic ear in me.  You got ripped off by an ebay seller and your TR Trypticon turns out to be a pack of beach towels – yell to high heaven!  Preach brother!  And if you didn’t like a comic or cartoon or movie or toy, then I’ll happily read your opinion if you keep it civil, logical, factual and state your opinion once.

Like Insecticons, angry posts like to clone themselves over and over and over

But it’s the constant bitching I can’t hack anymore.  The people who didn’t like a movie and then years later are still writing post after post about how they hated it.  People talking about how much a toy sucks before the toy has even been made yet, like their opinion makes it fact.  People acting like so-called experts when they know little more than someone who has just entered a toyshop for the first time.

And the bitching about nothing!  Sexuality in Transformers?  Seriously?  That is what brings people to boiling point?  People lost their shit when the first wrist-rest mouse pads were released, like the manufactures had made booby pads based on their mothers instead of fictional shape-shifting alien robots.  People scream abuse at each other over whether it is valid for Transformers to feel romantic affection for each other since they don’t breed.  Is such a thing really worth calling a stranger a ‘f**king c**t’ over?

‘Why does our love cause you such hate?’

So it’s sad to say I’m feeling pretty done right now.  I’m sick of clicking on a link or a FB post or a thread on a fansite to find out about some of the latest Transformer news and being confronted with a wall of vitriolic shit.  I’m sick of saying I like something and having a dozen people call me an idiot or a faggot or worse for daring to have an opinion different to theirs.  Sick of clicking to see if a toy is available only to see the people that got their toys and the people that didn’t, who ordered from the same online retailer, tearing each other a new one.

I know this kind of behaviour is not solely related to the Transformers fandom.  Some days it seems it’s the internet in general.  Maybe I’m too old for the digital world.  Whenever I converse online I try to think about, if I said this to a bloke in the pub, would it earn me a punch in the face?  Because that was the reality I grew up with, with no internet and texting being easily accessible until I was in my 20’s. When you said something to someone you were saying it to their face.  But now we have people who have done nearly all of their socialization their whole lives online, and have grown up in a world where you can say whatever hateful shit you like to someone because chances are that person is on the other side of the planet and you will never have to face consequences for your actions.   Yes, the internet is getting too angry for even Big Angry Trev.

‘Can’t we all just peace out?’

Now people who live in GlassGas houses shouldn’t throw Cyberstones, and there are undoubtedly people out there that I have gotten into heated online arguments with over the years over very silly issues.  So I am guilty too.  But I pride myself that each year I get into less online fights, get into less pointless arguments and get better at cyber-walking away.  I’m not perfect but I’m getting better.  And maybe that it a goal we could all aim for – to improve our skill of walking away from the keyboard or smartphone when the blood begins to boil, and go play with our Technobots for a while.

So when I go home tonight, I won’t be surfing the big Transformer sites.  I’m going to try my best to practice what I’m preaching and be a chilled out fan.  I’m going to open up a bunch of new figures I just got and play with them with my son, as a reminder to myself that this hobby should be positive, should be fun, and in the end is about plastic toy robots.

 

Hey!  If you are a positive person who loves talking about all the things they LIKE about Transformers? Why not restore my faith and write something happy in the comments below!

 

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Hard Times for Aussie Collectors

Big Angry Trev visits Hasbro Australia!

On Monday, myself and 14 other lucky fellows were treated to a behind the scenes look at the offices of Hasbro Australia, located in Sydney.  Organized by the operator of Ozformers, this was for a hands-on experience with the newest Transformers toyline: Power of the Primes.

My Graceland!

After a short wait, myself and my compatriots were ushered up to the fourth floor of the Hasbro offices where a space had been prepared.  Scattered around various parts of the room were examples of some of the great Transformer products that have come out of recent.

 

Of course there was one other major Hasbro product on show and that was My Little Pony.  Whilst this was largely ignored by the Transfans I couldn’t help but have a good look.  I loved the huge Pinkie Pie – if it had been Rarity I would have forgotten the TF’s altogether and tried to work out a way to smuggle her out of the building for me to ride whenever I saw fit (sounds kinda dirty I know but Rarity – I loves ya!).

 

 

Power of the Primes

Of course the main point of the day was to give fans a hands-on experience with the new toyline.  This consisted mainly of Wave 1 which has been released in the USA already and is due out in Australia within the next few months.  Whilst this is all the same toyline, it can be broken into different groups.

The Dinobots

Something that has all the fans excited is that for most of the Dinobot characters this is their first Generations treatment.  On display was the latest (of many) Grimlock‘s as well as Slug and Swoop.  Also on display was the newest addition to the classic Dinobot team – a female raptor named Slash.

POTP Slug meets G1 Slag

Of course, without Sludge and Snarl we couldn’t see the fully combined form of the Dinobot gestalt but I will say that what we could put together did look a lot better than what I had seen in photos to date.

 

The Original 13 & Pretenders

Now I’ll admit – I was not a fan of the Pretenders from G1, not particularly liking organic modes.  But many of these characters have been brought back and in a bizarre twist, has been combined with the characters from TF lore which constitute the first 13 Primes.  The classic Pretender shell characters are used to ensconse the mini-Primes within.  Rather odd, but I know when they hit the shelves I wont be able to resist.

Apparently Landmine & Alpha Trion were the same dude

 

The Primes

A rather interesting concept that has been done here is with Optimus Prime and Rodimus Prime.  Not only do both transform from Truck/Cybertronic Winnebago to robot, but you can remove a smaller robot which transforms into their pre-evolved forms – Orion Pax and Hot Rod.  I  really dig this concept and both toys looked great!  Both also came with a Matrix of Leadership.

The evolution of a hot head

 

And the others…

There were several other figures on show from the new line.  These included Beachcomber, Windcharger and a Dreadwind which is based on an older Combiner Wars figure.  The Ozformer owner was also kind enough to bring a couple of figures that were US exclusives that not many Aussies would have touched – Arcee and Grotusque.

 

So overall it was a very interesting hands-on experience and behind-the-scenes look at Hasbro.  I’d like to thank Hasbro for the opportunity – I’m sure my fellow 14 fans had as much fun as I did!  And to top it off, in the raffle at the end I scored a The Last Knight Hot Rod to take home!

Free toy!

 

Got anything to say about this visit to Hasbro?  Would love to read it in the comments section below!

 

Movie Review – My Little Pony

My Little Pony, much like its boyish counterpart – The Transformers, has a generations spanning popularity.  Despite the 5 to 12 age range on the boxes, just as Transformers is not just for little boys, My Little Pony is not just for little girls.  And now, like The Transformers, My Little Pony has hit the big screen!

My daughters wall

Now let me start off by saying I know waaaay more about MLP than any self-respecting 40 year old male should.  As the househusband I watch it with my two kids when it comes on TV at 8.30am every morning after their mother goes to work. In fact I probably know almost every episode from Season 4 onwards off by heart!    Whilst my daughter loves Fluttershy and my son and wife both love Pinkie Pie, I’m most definitely a Rarity man, whom I find really sexy amusing, especially when she throws a drama queen fit.  I also really like DJ Pon3 for some reason, she is just so cool!  The cartoon itself is really well done, it’s thoroughly amusing on many levels and I defy anyone to watch the 100th episode special from season 5 and not crack up laughing!  Fantastic battle scenes, great music, an interesting and ever expanding cast – in fact I can confidently say it’s probably one of the best kids cartoons out there today.  As such I was hoping for a lot from the movie when I took my family to see it …

 

But it looked so cheerful!

… but sadly it did not deliver.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s certainly not a bad movie.  But if you are familiar with the cartoon this feels like they have watered it down for the movie rather than beefing it up.  A good way would be to compare them to ice cream.  The cartoon is triple-raspberry swirl with rainbow sprinkles – delicious and exciting!  The movie is a bowl of vanilla – certainly nice enough and you may even want a second helping but you aren’t going to rave about it to your friends.

The storyline is very formulaic, but given the target audience for this flick that is forgivable.  All the ponies are gathered for a giant party being organised by the heroine of the show Twilight Sparkle, when the bad guys turn up, capture the other 3 Princesses of Equestria and enslave the Pony race. Cue Twilight and her friends escaping, meeting new comrades in their search for help, then returning to defeat the big bad, turn an enemy into a friend (cause Friendship is Magic dontcha know) and bring freedom back to the land.  I think even most young kids, whom this movie is primarily aimed at, could predict what would happen next in a very by-the-numbers plot.

 

Sadly, everything that happens feels like a sanitized version of the cartoon, designed to have the broadest appeal by ‘playing it safe’ .  The one argument between friends (Twilight finally after all these years gets a gutful of Pinkie Pie) is very short and undramatic, as opposed to some of the larger Rarity & Applejack spats from television.  Likewise the music, which should be a major highlight in a movie like this, lacks punch and is not particularly catchy.  The 2014 Equestria Girls Rainbow Rocks has far superior music that sticks in the head and keeps you humming for days.  The animation, which given the world the storyline is set in had the potential to dazzle, suffers from bland backgrounds, though these are necessitated by the storyline sending the ponies through deserts and other sparse locals.  Tempest Shadow is a pretty cool bad guy with her sparking broken horn and is rounded out fairly well on the whole.  However her boss, The Storm King, is a predictable character who is frankly neither scary or amusing, despite the writers trying to portray him as both.

 

There is not much character development here.  Given the cartoon is in its seventh season perhaps it was felt there is not much more for the 7 stars of the show to grow into.  It would have been nice for the girls to at least use their different abilities in significant ways to aid the plot.  Rarity’s entire contribution consists of performing a 2 second fix on a coat, earning them a friend in a roguish cat which in turn ends up giving Spike his only interesting thing to do in the movie – being used by said cat as a flamethrower.  Rainbow Dash awakens the buccaneering spirit of some air pirates, but her signature sonic-rainboom does nothing but give their position away to the bad guys.  Applejack and Fluttershy sadly bring nothing at all to the plot and in fact the movie could have easily been done without them.  None of the characters really engage in the kind of humorous banter that makes the cartoon so funny and don’t really bounce off each other, mainly they just react to events and – in the case of Fluttershy at least – look scared.

(my t-shirt) Should have just let these two handle the problem

The two stars of the movie from the regular cast are Pinkie Pie and Twilight SparklePinkie serves as the anchor of the group, being too silly-headed to have her spirit brought low by the various precarious predicaments. Meanwhile Twilight allows herself to lose hope but in the end, predictably, uses the spirit of Friendship to win Tempest Shadow over the side of good and defeat The Storm King.

 

So is this movie worth watching?  Well again, it’s like a bowl of vanilla ice cream.  You will enjoy it but you will soon forget you consumed it afterwards.  I laughed out loud a couple of times but sadly my two young kids never did.  Given the price of a movie ticket these days you can easily wait for this to be released on DVD and in the meantime get your MLP on with the brilliant cartoon instead.

One day Rarity my sweet, one day we will be together!

This movie gets 3 out of 5 party cannons.

 

 

Got something to say about this movie?  Would love to read it in the comments section below!

 

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