2/12/2011, New York City, NY

The venue was easy to find!  To our surprise and delight, Dark of the Moon Optimus Prime, complete with trailer was parked just outside The Times Center!  What a hoot!  Once we got out of the cold, we had a chance to mingle with the webmasters of various other toy collector sites.  Good times!  After a short while we were ushered into a theater where Hasbro’s Teams made presentations to an auditorium full of media outlets including unicron.com.

That's me in the middle standing next to the very serious security, the "Buckingham Palace Guard of Toy Shows."  Although it took some serious effort to get him to crack a grin, he was actually a pretty nice guy.  And yes, a good sport, as we staged this silly photo.

Additional note:  drag your mouse to the right of the thumbnail gallery below to view all the images in the "show intro" category. 

Star Wars:  Presented first.  Star Wars vintage line will continue thru 2012.  Fall release on Blu-Ray.   Showed new Clone Wars toys…  Their big “break the budget” figure release:  Republick attack ship transforms to a battle emplacement…

Return of the Jedi, was originally title The Revenge of the Jedi, but Lucas determined “a Jedi does not take Revenge” and changed it just before the film’s release…  There will be 12 figures released w/ vintage packaging… ComicCon exclusive will be 12 figures in Death Star packaging.

Marvel:  March 1^st the first toys.  Nurf foam Thor hammers…  Many figures, >20 in the line.

Captain America, Toys in stores 5/1…  7/1 in theaters.  Cap America shield foam disk launcher, many toys...

Iron Man: will be sold together.  Lots of new sculpt, some amazing artists in Marvel, X-men-3-packs..

GIJoe: Wave 1, on shelf Aug 2011, the first waves of Renegades figures from Hub selves.  Black Dragon VTOL, Crimson HISS Tank.  In the 30 year celebration, a new SkyStriker  amazing complete figure & jet… true to the original, comes w/ Ace.  12” real American Hero, w/ first strike responder, parachute diver…

Cobra commander w/ Starscream deco on Skystriker jet & Megatron handgun.  Sweet Comicon exclusive.

• Tribute to Gianni Lopergolo: professional photographer of action figures, photo studio named in his honor, lost to ALS 2 weeks ago.
• Mike Vogel and Jeff Kline, Executive producer of Renegades: came out to talk about the shows. Getting to reduce characters they all know and love: The Crimson Guard. The Twins ...
• Q&A: talked about story development, Marty Isenberg's (Transformers Animated, Beast Machines) involvment. From the beginning, they have a 3-year story arc in mind. Development of bad guys, they're prevalent, everywhere, Joes vs insurmountable odds... Gearing to as broad of an audience as possible.
• Tribute to Clem Seuve 1977-2011, visual artist whose esthetics are the basis of GI Joe Renegades.

TRANSFORMERS:

Embarking on a HUGE year, toy line, and media presence.  Optimus Prime now with trailer it’s that kind of harkening to the toy line’s origin that he wants to bring.  Greg Lombardo was in London, Bay’s assistant calls him at 2AM to say, “I want fans to know that this time we (makers of the Transformers films) ’ve looked hard at what worked and what didn’t, in ROTF.  DOTM will have much deeper more important robot story.  Movies have had humor, but less slapstick.

• This will be the first live movie truly made for 3D since Avatar.
• 2011 most expansive of the line ever. Offically launch Transformers Prime, season 1
• KRE-O: building construction set initiative: Like Creation w/ Lego...
• Big publication: May 20, 2011 Transformers The Vault book. Gone into Hasbro archives, telling Transformers story that you've never seen before. You're going to think it "not only has 'The Touch' but it also has the power!'

KRE-O: new Hasbro initiave, taking Hasbro brands with construction play pattern.  High quality bricks, like other (LEGO®).  NO other brand makes more sense than starting with Transformers.

• Every set will have 2 modes, action figure innovation. Places to add accessories.
• Kreons, Bumblebee: >300 pieces includes several "Kre-Ons" = Lego-like human figures to interact.
• Starscream: jet also >300 pieces.
• Optimus Prime >500 pieces, trailer opens up, 5 Kreons OP Bluestreak Skywarp and 2 humans.

Rescue Bots: great variety of character depth, a line of new characters developed for kid audience.

• Blades helicopter
• Chase: police car
• Heatwave: fire truck
• Boulder: green construction vehicle
• Pre-school appropriate stories: these are not Autobots designed to fight Decepticons. They're around to help humans w/ rescue and emergency situations.
• They don't require as much manual dexterity in order for bot/vehicle conversion.

High Moon Studios: developing the Dark of the Moon video game.

• they are huge fans of toys and Transformers especially.
• Hard at work developing
• Here they're going to do the story that leads up to the start of the movie
• Showed us video intro. (Voice of Peter Cullen) Evil can take many forms! ... So can we! The ultimate battle is coming... Change the fight! Shows Bumblebee "transforming" looked like "Stealth Force" toys, alt mode.

Jerry Jivoin (sp) talked about the DOTM, worked on Marvel lines for the last 5 years. 

• · Busting into old toys stores, hunting down TFs as a kid…

Michelino Paolino director of design: develop the toy line for the new movie
May 16 toys launch.  All the new movie toys will hit the shelves.  Categories:
“MechTech” = core Transformers: deluxe, voyager, leader, supreme.  New weapons system: adding transformation to the weapon, can interlock and interact.

• Ratchet: another new mold deluxe w/ buzz saw MechTech. Show accurate, same wave as 28740 Starscream.
• Roadbuster: is the green Wrekcer 28743
• 28744 Crankcase: Great, brand new character.
• Wave 2 Autobot Topspin with the gear exposed, is the blue Wrecker!!!!
• Voyager Megatron 28735. Back shroud on truck worn in robot mode.
• Wave 1 Voyager Ironhide new Optimus Prime ports for mech tech
• Wave 2 Shockwave: cyber-tank. Cues from G1, great features
• Leader wave 1 Sentinel Prime Leader version w/ shield and rotor blade. Pix show now
• Wave 1 leader Bumblebee lights and sounds.
• Fall 2011: Ultimate Optimus Prime, stands 22" tall w/ trailer, turns into giant mech-suit; electronics
• Human Alliance: Skids w/ Elita 1 and Sergent Epps, no mention of Soundwave or other new...
• Basic human Alliance: Spike Witwicky and Back Fire the 3 wheel ATV. Ice pick w/ Sgt Chaos: white snowmobile, very sharp. Expanding the Nest partnership. Humans tied into history. 

Cyberverse: expanded world of Legends and Scouts,  in 27 years never had smaller figures w/ playsets.

• W/ Legends/ basic scale you can get away w/ it.
• Blue Wrecker is Topspin bigger legends toys Optimus bigger ones >30 figures saw pix of
• Starxcream Action sets gunner station. Looks like vehicle that was crashed into Detroit bank.
• 28699 Autobot Ark with "Autobot Roller." Alt mode looks like a moon buggy, has a Cybertronian jail, weapon repair bay, vehicle launcher.

Robopower is our younger kids segment

• activators push button play pattern
• Go-bots: transform and described has Bobble-head-like figures...
• Robo fighters: 31672 Revving Robots Optimus Prime
• Great roll play Optimus prime cyber blaster Energon Shock sword
• Also Real-D, 3D mask designed to watch the 3D movie with these, open bottom of face, "designed for maximum snackage" open face below the nose.

Stealth Force: with great weapon reveals

Key Event Dates:

• May 16 movie toys
• June 2-5 Botcon the biggest con of all time. 2nd hall of fame. Working on inductees, will have another "Fan's Choice" vote...
• July 1 TF DOTM
• July 21-24 SD Comic-con, great exclusive

Generations Line: will continue thru 2011.  No reveals.  But it will continue.

Transformers Prime: First addition toys:

• Wave 1 Bumblebee and Arcee, Starscream, Loves esthetics
• Entertainment pack includes OP vs Megatron w/ humans Raf, Miko Jack, DVD.

Mike Vogel and Jeff Kline, Executive producers of Transformers Prime back on stage:

• Clip from upcoming show. Scraplets look like G1 comics Mechanibals... Bulkhead looks, don't these things ever stop eating? Infested at the bases...
• Cinematography: Voice recording session Cullen and Welker, reunited these 2 love each other. Young actors... These 2 reunited, creates a great environment. Among the 15-16 shows he's ever done, this one has the best carma, comradre among the actors ever seen. They have a great time and it shows during recording sessions.
• Darkness rising: What were the challenges: Most CG series have 4 yr production series... they developed this over less than a year. And Polygon Studios has done an amazing job...
• Did you have hesitate to tell this story killing main character in the intro? Thay talked about setting a tone by killing off one of the main heroes right off the bat? Then it build on this. Yeah, they're sending a message. These are 80's characters, but this isn't some 80's cartoon. There are stakes. We're glad to hear Cliffjumper, are you thinking about bringing him back? Yes in flashbacks.
• Last scene in Darkness rising the zombie Terrorcons. That Dave Hartman. Of course there will be more characters introduced.
• The overarching idea is that there will be more Decepticons than Autobots. A's will always be outnumbered! 1 female Decepticon "Sleepers" (Seeker?) included in the cast.
• This is the most ambitious CGI animation ever done for television, by far!
• Talk about humans. The question is, how can we do them so that humans aren't overdone. Trying to make them important to the story. But starting point is that this is a Bot centered show, but still need them for perspective. To still include that sense of wow these bots are huge!
• IN the development of the show. Japanese studio loves Miko! They love her, they may request scene w/ Miko raising her hand, it'll come back w/ her doing a double back-flip! ?
• Favorite characters? The one opportunity they really wanted, they felt they missed w/ movies was Arcee. Ratchet.. Jeffery Combs will grow on you.
• Dark Energon: are we going to see more of it? Yes, it'll be used in ways heretofore unimagined.
• Any major plot points? Here end of season 1 involves build-up to something (emphasis on the word) HUGE. A BIG part of the Transformes pantheon that's been seen before...

Promo Pics: