December 2008 - Each month, Hasbro will answer five questions about their Transformers products. Here are the latest questions and answers:
1. Any chance of a Masterpiece Arcee?
Answer: No current plans, but we are always discussing potential masterpiece characters with the Takara design team.
2. Any chance we'll see a Masterpiece Grimlock in animated colors show up in the states?
Answer: No confirmation at this time, but it is on the "to do" list. So we're working on a plan to bring it here at some point in the relative near future, but can't say "yes" officially. If we decide to bring it in, we will then evaluate if we want to make any paint changes, etc. at that time.
3. Beast Machines and Robots in Disguise seem to be getting passed over leaving a gap between Beast Wars and Armada. Will we see all of the prominent Universes played out or will it be selective? Can we please finally have a Botanica figure?
Answer: First, we are going to have to say no to the Botanica figure in the immediate future.
The blessing and the curse of having such a successful line with 25 years of heritage behind it is that you have a lot of history. As a result, it has been difficult to incorporate every era into the core line. In those instances where we could not fit the traditional figure into the line, we tried to give that era a nod in our Robot Heroes line.
4. Any chance of revisiting some of the unreleased in America Beast Wars toys at some point in Universe? Personally I'd love to see Break and Mach Kick over here.
Answer: While there are currently no plans to release these figures in 2009, we are always open to releasing figures that we know are fan favorites. With that said, we also need to balance that out to make sure that it fits in with the overall line and theme.
5. When asked about the extra parts on the Universe Galvatron, your response confirmed that not only was a third mode planned, but the figure can still in fact transform into this mode. You had previously stated that there's still a chance that Takara will include the directions to achieve this third mode, but is it possible now to at least see a picture of what this figure looks like in its third mode? There have already been a few attempts online at trying to figure out what it is, but at least one picture of it would become a great frame of reference for fans who actually do wish to make use of this third mode, especially if the instructions are not included in the Japanese release.
Answer: Initially, Galvatron was being designed as a triple changer and was actually going to be in a larger class. But once the decision was made to put Galvatron in Deluxe, his third "walker tank" mode was dropped. Because of molding reasons we had to leave some of those extra pieces in there. I was not sure if Takara would include instructions for this third mode or even if they were going to acknowledge that third mode. Here's the initial sketch and idea for the third mode. (see attached)
