It makes me sad
Oct. 11th, 2009 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trickykittyOk, so my youngest nephew's birthday came, and that was the day that we celebrated at Chuck E. Cheese (see earlier entry). There was something that came up regarding the birthday that I had to rant about and just hadn't had the chance till now.
Now this particular rant may cause some bad ju-ju between me and a couple of die-hard fanatics out there, and that's ok.
You know how the remakes of Transformers sucks because you can't follow along when they are transforming? You just can't keep up with what's going where and where that part came from and that part went. It was one of the things that I LOVED about watching Transformers as a kid. It was a visual puzzle game, and when I owned a couple of the die-cast models, I was even more transfixed. I had too much fun moving this part and that part over and over and over again. I'm so surprised that I somehow didn't break them from overuse and over-transforming. I was totally looking forward to the movie, but that ended very quickly whilewatching attempting to watch the buggers transform. I couldn't. I couldn't follow along to save my life, let along figure out what the hell I was watching when two or more of them were in the middle of a transformer fight scene.
So, fast forward to the birthday and the point of this rant.
My dad bought a couple of the new-style toys for my 3-year-old nephew for his birthday. Now, he is too young for these toys, but the older nephew should have had fun with them and been able to help the younger one learn how to transform them. I don't blame my dad - the purchase itself was amazingly awesome. I tried to stay back and let the boys have their fun with them in the same manner that I did as a child. It didn't last.
Toy 1: Chromia, which since there's not a lot of pics on that link, looks a lot like ARCEE when in robot form
Toy 2: Dead End
Within 2 minutes, I fucking kid you not, a whole chunk of the first of these asstastic plastic toys fell off while the older nephew was trying to move it. My mom got out the instructions and couldn't follow them. The second toy came out and the boys managed to get the doors open and then proceeded to get it torn into three big chunks.
I had two major issues with these toys. The hinges allowed for the sections to pull apart before they would allow the section to move correctly to its new location. Once I figured out the hinges I realized that it was way too easy to take the piece off, move it to where you want and then shove it back on - easier in fact than coaxing it to move in the first place. (I used this same technique of detaching and reattaching the stickers when solving my first Rubik's Cube. My parent's thought I was a genius.)
The second issue is the plastic itself and it's lack of smoothness in some areas (due to the massive detailing of the parts to match the massive detailing in the movies) and lack of hold and grip in other areas. I couldn't for the life of me get Chromia's chest to stay together. If I tried to move the robot even a little he fell apart and looked more like the T-1000 after getting sliced in half (a few moments right before that first image there).
I, a big Transformers (original) fan, gave up and put them back into their motor vehicle forms. I decided that the boys would have more fun adding them to their Hot Wheels collection than trying to solve the riddle of the plastic puzzles. To my credit, they also lost interest while trying their own hands at the transformations and were off playing in the backyard well before I finally gave in.
Just to show that I still don't hate all Transformer toys due to this incident, I still really want this sexy guy, and this is great in concept, but it would really be worth it if it was a working phone, even if it were as basic a phone as you can get.
Now this particular rant may cause some bad ju-ju between me and a couple of die-hard fanatics out there, and that's ok.
You know how the remakes of Transformers sucks because you can't follow along when they are transforming? You just can't keep up with what's going where and where that part came from and that part went. It was one of the things that I LOVED about watching Transformers as a kid. It was a visual puzzle game, and when I owned a couple of the die-cast models, I was even more transfixed. I had too much fun moving this part and that part over and over and over again. I'm so surprised that I somehow didn't break them from overuse and over-transforming. I was totally looking forward to the movie, but that ended very quickly while
So, fast forward to the birthday and the point of this rant.
My dad bought a couple of the new-style toys for my 3-year-old nephew for his birthday. Now, he is too young for these toys, but the older nephew should have had fun with them and been able to help the younger one learn how to transform them. I don't blame my dad - the purchase itself was amazingly awesome. I tried to stay back and let the boys have their fun with them in the same manner that I did as a child. It didn't last.
Toy 1: Chromia, which since there's not a lot of pics on that link, looks a lot like ARCEE when in robot form
Toy 2: Dead End
Within 2 minutes, I fucking kid you not, a whole chunk of the first of these asstastic plastic toys fell off while the older nephew was trying to move it. My mom got out the instructions and couldn't follow them. The second toy came out and the boys managed to get the doors open and then proceeded to get it torn into three big chunks.
I had two major issues with these toys. The hinges allowed for the sections to pull apart before they would allow the section to move correctly to its new location. Once I figured out the hinges I realized that it was way too easy to take the piece off, move it to where you want and then shove it back on - easier in fact than coaxing it to move in the first place. (I used this same technique of detaching and reattaching the stickers when solving my first Rubik's Cube. My parent's thought I was a genius.)
The second issue is the plastic itself and it's lack of smoothness in some areas (due to the massive detailing of the parts to match the massive detailing in the movies) and lack of hold and grip in other areas. I couldn't for the life of me get Chromia's chest to stay together. If I tried to move the robot even a little he fell apart and looked more like the T-1000 after getting sliced in half (a few moments right before that first image there).
I, a big Transformers (original) fan, gave up and put them back into their motor vehicle forms. I decided that the boys would have more fun adding them to their Hot Wheels collection than trying to solve the riddle of the plastic puzzles. To my credit, they also lost interest while trying their own hands at the transformations and were off playing in the backyard well before I finally gave in.
Just to show that I still don't hate all Transformer toys due to this incident, I still really want this sexy guy, and this is great in concept, but it would really be worth it if it was a working phone, even if it were as basic a phone as you can get.
