As most Transformers fans already know, 2026 is the 40th Anniversary of
The Transformers: The Movie. Having done other celebrations of the movie in the past, I've decided to do something different this year. Most of the time I feature a Transformers toy in 2026, I intend it to be a representation of one of the characters introduced in that movie. It probably won't be the toy that actually came out in 1986 (I've featured many of those already), but it will nonetheless be one of the characters first featured in the movie. To start things off, I'm looking at the "Classics" version of Hot Rod.
First, a quick reminder, since it's been a while since I've discussed this line: "Classics" isn't formally cited as the name of this line, but it captures the unique trade dress and designs associated with a stop-gap line of G1 characters released in 2006, filling the time between the end of the so-called "Unicron Trilogy" and the first live-action
Transformers movie, which came out the following year. And, yes, technically
this toy came out as "Rodimus," due to the fact that the name "Hot Rod" is harder to trademark (although Hasbro seems to have made more of an effort in recent years. It might well be that there was an active trademark conflict in 2006, but I'm not sure what competing toy was in mind... indeed, there may well have been
several candidates. "Hot Rod"
is a fairly common term when referencing road vehicles, toys or otherwise). But it's decidedly an interpretation of the youthful "Hot Rod" character, and not so much the mature "Rodimus Prime," as he became at the end of
The Transformers: The Movie.
When the "Classics" line came out, it was still the practice that, even if a new toy depicted a "G1" character, the toy depicted a rather different vehicle than the original toy, perhaps recognizing that designs had changed since the 1980s, and expecting the characters to desire more modern vehicle modes to be "robots in disguise" in the more modern era. Hot Rod, of course, being an animated movie character, was depicted as being from the then-future year of 2005, which was
already in the rearview window by the time this toy came out in 2006 (let alone now, a full 20 years after
that! Feel old yet?). Thus, it's a bit ironic that the "Classics" vehicle mode resembles the G1 toy's vehicle mode so closely. So far as I'm aware, the G1 toy was a completely made-up design at the time, while by the time the "Classics" toy was being designed, there was a real-world concept car called the
"Dome Zero" that resembled Hot Rod closely enough that, with only a few tweaks to avoid legal issues (not to mention giving Hot Rod his iconic spoiler), that design could be used to give Hot Rod a (by then) a more-or-less present day disguise (although the Dome Zero was never mass produced, and thus would have still been more than a little conspicuous on the road). There was quite a bit about the cartoon's imagined "future" of 2005 that never came to pass in the real world, but here, they got it surprisingly close!
First, a quick reminder, since it's been a while since I've discussed this line: "Classics" isn't formally cited as the name of this line, but it captures the unique trade dress and designs associated with a stop-gap line of G1 characters released in 2006, filling the time between the end of the so-called "Unicron Trilogy" and the first live-action Transformers movie, which came out the following year. And, yes, technically this toy came out as "Rodimus," due to the fact that the name "Hot Rod" is harder to trademark (although Hasbro seems to have made more of an effort in recent years. It might well be that there was an active trademark conflict in 2006, but I'm not sure what competing toy was in mind... indeed, there may well have been several candidates. "Hot Rod" is a fairly common term when referencing road vehicles, toys or otherwise). But it's decidedly an interpretation of the youthful "Hot Rod" character, and not so much the mature "Rodimus Prime," as he became at the end of The Transformers: The Movie.
When the "Classics" line came out, it was still the practice that, even if a new toy depicted a "G1" character, the toy depicted a rather different vehicle than the original toy, perhaps recognizing that designs had changed since the 1980s, and expecting the characters to desire more modern vehicle modes to be "robots in disguise" in the more modern era. Hot Rod, of course, being an animated movie character, was depicted as being from the then-future year of 2005, which was already in the rearview window by the time this toy came out in 2006 (let alone now, a full 20 years after that! Feel old yet?). Thus, it's a bit ironic that the "Classics" vehicle mode resembles the G1 toy's vehicle mode so closely. So far as I'm aware, the G1 toy was a completely made-up design at the time, while by the time the "Classics" toy was being designed, there was a real-world concept car called the "Dome Zero" that resembled Hot Rod closely enough that, with only a few tweaks to avoid legal issues (not to mention giving Hot Rod his iconic spoiler), that design could be used to give Hot Rod a (by then) a more-or-less present day disguise (although the Dome Zero was never mass produced, and thus would have still been more than a little conspicuous on the road). There was quite a bit about the cartoon's imagined "future" of 2005 that never came to pass in the real world, but here, they got it surprisingly close!
No comments:
Post a Comment