Hi-Res Transformers Generations 2011 Volume 2 Scans

Bumblevivisector wrote:SO beautiful, that the pics of BW-Neo Unicron actually make me regret his cancellation. Maybe I'd just seen crummy scans of the prototype before, but I never understood the crowd that wishes we'd gotten the Unicron with those clunky claw gimmicks on his back instead of the Armada version...until now. I'll always prefer the Unicron toy that gave us a trilogy, but now I kinda' wish I had both. Many of us have an unseemly amount of Unicrons in our collection already, right? What's one more?

Seibertron wrote:What's the story behind the Wheelie prototype? It's unlike the style of the rest of the Mini-bots. I wonder if it was planned as a stand alone class originally before deciding on making him a Mini-bot? I'd love to have that standing next to the original Unicron.

Swindle01 wrote:wtf are people on about with BW Neo unicron? i dont see a BW neo unicron anywere. I see Omega Spreem and oppersite i see a black zarak as its clearly the same helmet and claws for hands and design layout

Seibertron wrote:I can't help but think that the Beast Wars Neo Unicron might get released one day. Maybe for a 25th anniversary of Beast Wars or something, if not sooner. It seems like that was a huge investment for them to create that product and not to go to the next step of production. I wonder if they got as far as creating the mold for it?

I'm still holding out hope that they'll make the G1 Unicron at some point. Maybe one day way down the road in like 15 years or so that there might be a "prototype" line made where they finally release a lot of these things that never saw production. I could be waiting for a while but I can always hope!

Unfortunately, as much as we would like to be able to bring these toys to market, the reality is that these prototypes will simply never be mass produced. They are essentially unfinished ideas, notions that will never be completed. We share these exclusive images here as a glimpse of what might have been.

Sabrblade wrote:Has there ever been a case of a cancelled prototype eventually seeing the light of day as an official mass produced product at a much later day?

prmlove1 wrote:The more I look at that Beast Wars Unicron prototype the more I feel like Hastak remolded that prototype to make Cybertron Primus.

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Has there ever been a case of a cancelled prototype eventually seeing the light of day as an official mass produced product at a much later day?

Somebody correct me ... but I'm pretty sure Beast Machines Blast Punch Optimus Primal, Rattrap, Air Attack Optimus Primal, Battle Unicorn, and Megabolt Megatron all fit this description (at least as far as we knew at the time). Though I have a sneaky suspicion that the toys had been made, but not packaged, and/or a retailer hadn't said yes to put the product on their shelves.

Blast Punch Optimus Primal and Rattrap came out long after the end of the Beast Machines toyline and after we had all thought they had been canceled. Those two figures came out in August of 2001, a year after the last episode of the cartoon had aired in Canada and a while after the last Beast Machines toy had been released ... and after the RID toyline had started if I recall correctly.

Seibertron wrote:But I'm really grasping at straws here. The time frame I'm talking about is way too short compared to them coming out with a G1 Unicron after all of these years. If they did anything like that, it'd probably be a new mold made to look similar to the original (and obviously to meet current toy safety laws) ... a la the recent Star Wars rocket-firing Boba Fett figure from Hasbro or the upcoming Fearless Photog figure from Mattel's MOTU line.

Seibertron wrote:Still holding out hope for news about an exclusive G2 Defensor and Menasor set (next chance is whenever Takara decides to do a reissue of either of these two and e-Hobby wants to do us right, even though they dropped the ball with Metrotitan and Battle Gaia).

Sabrblade wrote:Hmm, I dunno. I think I remember seeing BPOP, Rattrap, (and possibly Battle Unicorn) on the shelves when the Beast machiens toyline was still going, though it definitely was close to the end of the line's run, during the "Battle for the Spark" subline imprint.

Sabrblade wrote:One thing I DO remember well is seeing a sweepstakes commercial on Fox Kids when Beast Machines was still airing, with the narrator saying, "One thousands others win a Beast machines Rattrap and Optimus Primal toy!" The Optimus Primal toy shown was the Blast Punch version. We may have to look into this further.

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:Still holding out hope for news about an exclusive G2 Defensor and Menasor set (next chance is whenever Takara decides to do a reissue of either of these two and e-Hobby wants to do us right, even though they dropped the ball with Metrotitan and Battle Gaia).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the selling of the factory samples of G2 Defensor and Mensor inhibit rereleases of them?

Though, reissuing the likes Metrotitan, Battle Gaea, Guard City, etc. are a must!

Seibertron wrote:Rattrap and Blast Punch Optimus Primal were released in August 2001, and only showed up at Kmart, on clearance for $7.50 (or something close to that), which is 1/2 off their regular retail price. They showed up in bulk at some Kmarts filling up an entire end cap.

Seibertron wrote:I think you might have this mixed up with something else. Seibertron.com was already around back then ... I don't recall hearing about that contest but that doesn't meant that we didn't miss the ball. If you can find any information out about what you remember, I'd love to hear more about it. If there was such a contest though it would have had to have been when Beast Machines was in syndication (since both of those toys came out after the cartoon), but I don't recall RID and Beast Machines airing on Fox at the same time and I doubt there was a Beast Machines toy promo during the airing of RID.

Seibertron wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by selling the factory samples. If they can bring us the Constructicons again, they can bring us the Protectobots and Stunticons again.

Seibertron wrote:Now that I think about it, it'd be awesome of e-Hobby or the Transformers Club came out with a G2 multi-pack for the yellow and orange versions. Sigh ... easy and missed opportunities to make money.

Sabrblade wrote:Wait, I just remembered something! RiD episode 1 didn't air on Fox Kids until Sept 8, 2001. And if BPOP and Rattrap didn't show up until August, then that means that this contest could have happened during that one month period between the two. And Beast Machines's last episode aired on May 3, 2000, so this contest could have most likely taken place during the August 2001 BM reruns.

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by selling the factory samples. If they can bring us the Constructicons again, they can bring us the Protectobots and Stunticons again.

The limbs were sold on eBay, right? Weren't those factory samples?

Seibertron wrote:Now that I think about it, it'd be awesome of e-Hobby or the Transformers Club came out with a G2 multi-pack for the yellow and orange versions. Sigh ... easy and missed opportunities to make money.

Go e-Hobby.

Though, I still see plenty of decent-quality KOs of the yellow Devy at Big Lots, but it's just not the same as the real thing.

Seibertron wrote:Those toys were released during a very, very pivotal point in my life and there are some other things in my personal life that occurred during that time frame that happened that helped cement all of this in my memories. Plus I sold a dozen or so of those Blast Punch Optimus Primals and Rattraps on eBay because there were tons available at these Kmarts to the tune of 30 or more of each at each Kmart in the Grand Rapids, MI area, and because they were in such demand because of their lack of availability. I actually just sold the last Rattrap from that batch of clearance figures just a couple of weeks ago.

Seibertron wrote:That date is the Canadian air date, not the US air date which I believe was in late 2000 or early 2001. In Canada, Beast Machines ran in its entirety whereas in the US it aired over two seasons. I believe this website has the correct US airdates (though it incorrectly lists the last 13 episodes of Beast Machines as Canada dates for YTV which is inaccurate).

http://epguides.com/BeastWars/

Seibertron wrote:I also doubt any promotion was done with either of those two toys. Again, because the line had been canceled for a few months and the regular line products had gone on clearance long before that. They showed up on clearance at Kmart after never showing up at Toys R Us, Walmart, KB Toys, Meijer, Target, etc.

Seibertron wrote:Weren't you around 10 or so when all of this would've been doing down?

Seibertron wrote:Those toys were released during a very, very pivotal point in my life and there are some other things in my personal life that occurred during that time frame that happened that helped cement all of this in my memories.

Seibertron wrote:Plus I sold a dozen or so of those Blast Punch Optimus Primals and Rattraps on eBay because there were tons available at these Kmarts to the tune of 30 or more of each at each Kmart in the Grand Rapids, MI area, and because they were in such demand because of their lack of availability. I actually just sold the last Rattrap from that batch of clearance figures just a couple of weeks ago.

Seibertron wrote:

Seibertron wrote:Those toys were released during a very, very pivotal point in my life and there are some other things in my personal life that occurred during that time frame that happened that helped cement all of this in my memories. Plus I sold a dozen or so of those Blast Punch Optimus Primals and Rattraps on eBay because there were tons available at these Kmarts to the tune of 30 or more of each at each Kmart in the Grand Rapids, MI area, and because they were in such demand because of their lack of availability. I actually just sold the last Rattrap from that batch of clearance figures just a couple of weeks ago.

This old conversation on alt.toys.transformers states that those two figures showed up at KB at discounted prices as well later in 2001 (which I didn't know, but still is further evidence of their late 2001 release date): http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys ... 9969a824df

as does this: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys ... 9969a824df

Dave Van Domelen's review of it in June 2001, which he bought from BBTS after being unable to find it in stores: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.toys ... b8827839ef

(lots of talk about BPOP in alt.toys.transformers, but little about Rattrap. Was Rattrap released prior to that but I just couldn't find it in the Grand Rapids, MI area?)

This never came to fruition, but Air Attack Optimus Primal was released as a TRU / Amazon.com exclusive: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys ... 9969a824df

This one contradicts my statement saying that it showed up at a Walmart at some point in 2001, but considering the rarity of it at the time during summer of 2001 and the release of RID that summer, I'm assuming it was only some Walmarts and in very limited quantities. It showed up in insane bulk at Kmart in August 2001.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys ... 358a0b25b3

And this one has a toy Fair press release from February 2001 that states Rattrap as currently available and Blast Punch as coming out in April 2001.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys ... 5035c4ce26

I must've gotten Rattrap sooner than BPOP because I didn't do a gallery or review of Rattrap, but I clearly remember being very excited about BPOP when I got him. Maybe Rattrap was just rare initially?

Seibertron wrote:Ah well, now that I think about it, this whole derailment of the topic is just that ... a derailment. They really don't even fit what we were originally talking about now that I think about it.

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:That date is the Canadian air date, not the US air date which I believe was in late 2000 or early 2001. In Canada, Beast Machines ran in its entirety whereas in the US it aired over two seasons. I believe this website has the correct US airdates (though it incorrectly lists the last 13 episodes of Beast Machines as Canada dates for YTV which is inaccurate).

http://epguides.com/BeastWars/

Whoops. My bad.

Ah, epguides. Haven't been there is years.

November 18, 2000... now THAT seems more believable for a U.S. airdate (Wikipedia's list agrees too). Still that means that there was still time between then and Sept 8, 2001 for reruns of BM to air, during which the contest in question could have taken place.

Seibertron wrote:I also doubt any promotion was done with either of those two toys. Again, because the line had been canceled for a few months and the regular line products had gone on clearance long before that. They showed up on clearance at Kmart after never showing up at Toys R Us, Walmart, KB Toys, Meijer, Target, etc.

Oh, no, the BPOP and Rattrap toys weren't the grand prizes, they were just the secondary prizes for 1000 of those who entered but didn't win the grand prize. both Fox Kids and Kids WB! did this sort of thing all the time with the toys of their various programming.

Seibertron wrote:Weren't you around 10 or so when all of this would've been doing down?

10-11ish, yes. Good times... until disaster struck my viewings of Fox Kids right before RiD premiered.

Seibertron wrote:Those toys were released during a very, very pivotal point in my life and there are some other things in my personal life that occurred during that time frame that happened that helped cement all of this in my memories.

Me too, as I hinted above, a very sad moment (for a kid hooked on cartoons) occurred to me about two weeks right before RiD began.

Seibertron wrote:Plus I sold a dozen or so of those Blast Punch Optimus Primals and Rattraps on eBay because there were tons available at these Kmarts to the tune of 30 or more of each at each Kmart in the Grand Rapids, MI area, and because they were in such demand because of their lack of availability. I actually just sold the last Rattrap from that batch of clearance figures just a couple of weeks ago.

Cool. Still wish I had picked up these two figures as a kid.

Seibertron wrote:

Seibertron wrote:Those toys were released during a very, very pivotal point in my life and there are some other things in my personal life that occurred during that time frame that happened that helped cement all of this in my memories. Plus I sold a dozen or so of those Blast Punch Optimus Primals and Rattraps on eBay because there were tons available at these Kmarts to the tune of 30 or more of each at each Kmart in the Grand Rapids, MI area, and because they were in such demand because of their lack of availability. I actually just sold the last Rattrap from that batch of clearance figures just a couple of weeks ago.

This old conversation on alt.toys.transformers states that those two figures showed up at KB at discounted prices as well later in 2001 (which I didn't know, but still is further evidence of their late 2001 release date): http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys ... 9969a824df

as does this: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys ... 9969a824df

Dave Van Domelen's review of it in June 2001, which he bought from BBTS after being unable to find it in stores: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.toys ... b8827839ef

(lots of talk about BPOP in alt.toys.transformers, but little about Rattrap. Was Rattrap released prior to that but I just couldn't find it in the Grand Rapids, MI area?)

This never came to fruition, but Air Attack Optimus Primal was released as a TRU / Amazon.com exclusive: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys ... 9969a824df

This one contradicts my statement saying that it showed up at a Walmart at some point in 2001, but considering the rarity of it at the time during summer of 2001 and the release of RID that summer, I'm assuming it was only some Walmarts and in very limited quantities. It showed up in insane bulk at Kmart in August 2001.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys ... 358a0b25b3

And this one has a toy Fair press release from February 2001 that states Rattrap as currently available and Blast Punch as coming out in April 2001.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys ... 5035c4ce26

I must've gotten Rattrap sooner than BPOP because I didn't do a gallery or review of Rattrap, but I clearly remember being very excited about BPOP when I got him. Maybe Rattrap was just rare initially?

All I remember is seeing BPOP and Rattrap in BM packaging at a Toys R Us (might have seen them elsewhere too, but I don't remember), these two offered as a secondary prize in a Fox Kids contest during Beast Machines' broadcast, and Air Attack OP in RiD packaging as a TRU exclusive. I wasn't around during the ATT days (man, how I wish I had been), but they got some great info in there.

Seibertron wrote:Ah well, now that I think about it, this whole derailment of the topic is just that ... a derailment. They really don't even fit what we were originally talking about now that I think about it.

Whoops! Let me try to steer this back by saying that all these Beast Machines figures don't necessarily count as "prototypes that were finalized and mass produced as real toys at much later date than" since tthey were finalized and their eventual releases were still pretty cclose to the run of the Beast Machines toyline, whereas Beast Wars Neo Unicron wasn't finalized beyond an unfinished prototype.

So, if there aren't any cases of a TF toy prototype being made, held off for a long time, and finally completed, finalized, and mass produced for retail at much much later later date, thne I guess we'll probably never get this Unicron.

Baneblade wrote:Sadly yes you are correct... then again, it would also mean that there would have to be character refinement in the figure too.... certainly making ther back shell less solid and maybe more rounded and hollow..maybe make it almost like a set of wings...i digress thats my idea if they were going to release this figure... but alas it might never now see the light of day

Sabrblade wrote:One factor is its size. This BWN Unicron prototype was said to be as tall as Optimal Optimus, which would make it about half the size of Armada Unicron. It'd only be something like a tall Ultra or a short Leader by today's size class standards. Ignoring the Cybertron Unicron toy, that's a pretty short size for a planet-former, right?

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:One factor is its size. This BWN Unicron prototype was said to be as tall as Optimal Optimus, which would make it about half the size of Armada Unicron. It'd only be something like a tall Ultra or a short Leader by today's size class standards. Ignoring the Cybertron Unicron toy, that's a pretty short size for a planet-former, right?

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:One factor is its size. This BWN Unicron prototype was said to be as tall as Optimal Optimus, which would make it about half the size of Armada Unicron. It'd only be something like a tall Ultra or a short Leader by today's size class standards. Ignoring the Cybertron Unicron toy, that's a pretty short size for a planet-former, right?

Are you referring to the Hot Rodimus figure in that pic? That's a Micromaster. The proto is still only about the size of a leader.

Seibertron wrote:Just posting a pic for reference for your discussion.

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:Just posting a pic for reference for your discussion.

Oh, cool, thanks.

Though, now that I think about it, I guess it would have been cool for kids to have someone to stand up against Optimal Optimus on equal height (since TM2 Megatron was an Ultra instead of a Super), so this Unicron would have been good for that.

michael alex kawa wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:Just posting a pic for reference for your discussion.

Oh, cool, thanks.

Though, now that I think about it, I guess it would have been cool for kids to have someone to stand up against Optimal Optimus on equal height (since TM2 Megatron was an Ultra instead of a Super), so this Unicron would have been good for that.

Even though large Transformers are cool ,i sometimes think the are too big to have any fun with .A Unicron this size would of been cool ,