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THE 10 STUPIDEST TRANSFORMERS EVER

11/1/2017

27 Comments

 
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I've probably mentioned before about how I sold all my Star Wars toys for £50 in 1984, to have spending money for a trip to America to visit my sister. It broke my heart, and then it broke my heart again when I saw all the Star Wars toys on America store shelves, which weren't available back home.

Worse still, there was a new action figure craze sweeping America in 1984 - Transformers - which was clearly encroaching on the space that retailers were prepared to give over to Star Wars toys. With no new Star Wars movies on the horizon I could see that the writing was on the wall.

Maybe it was bitterness, maybe it was me telling myself that I needed to grow up, but I always viewed Transformers with suspicion after that point. Consequently, even with the dollars burning a hole in my thigh, I was never tempted to buy one... however cool I might've felt they were beneath my affected disinterest.

This is long overdue, but it is at last time for me to enact some degree of retribution on the toys which I associate with throttling my childhood prematurely. Here are the ten worst Transformers ever.
SKY LYNX
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With its three-in-one transforming capabilities, Sky Lynx could transform from a space shuttle (useful), to a deformed lynx (less useful), to a winged dinosaur thing (completely useless). Think about it: think about these toys you loved. What was the point of this idiot? What practical purpose could its transforming abilities have possibly served in battle?

"Come along, space dudes - all aboard our Space Shuttle for another trip into orbit, and - whoah! Our Space Shuttle just turned into a big lynx with a tiny gold head, or something!"

It's nonsense. Utter nonsense. 
CINDERSAUR
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Though it could transform from robot to a terrible horn-nosed dinosaur, the main action feature of Cindersaur was that it could shoot sparks from its mouth.

This begs the question of what exactly the "disguise" aspect of the figure was - not least due to its chunky purple thighs, and yellow arms and tail. People wouldn't exactly turn a blind eye to Cindersaur if it came shuffling down their street coughing up embers, like it had just inhaled a fag.
DOUBLEHEADER
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The Pretenders line introduced a new idea to Transformers: robots who could disguise themselves as humans. You know: so that they could blend in. In the case of the rather literal Doubleheader, he (they?) could blend in with all the other two-headed humans you see walking around. Pity's sake. Think about it. JUST THINK ABOUT IT.
BREAK
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Penguins are pretty useless. They basically do three things: swim, sit on eggs, and huddle. Why would a robot race fighting an intergalactic war have need of an operative who could transform into a penguin? More to the point: who was designing these things? What child would ever want a robot that could transform into a penguin? They're literally nature's biggest dongers.
OPTIMUS PRIME (SPORTS LABEL)
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Of course, what else is the heroic, brave leader of the Autobots going to transform into but a shoe? Just a single shoe. Not even a pair. And once in shoe form, Optimus Prime was completely out of scale with all the other toys in the line, rendering this already impotent toy even more irrelevent. Plus, what are you meant to do with it once it's a shoe? Leave it on a wall? Throw it at a tramp?
COSMOS
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Again, the entire idea of Transformers was that they transformed to blend in. You know: "Robots in disguise and all that". In the case of Cosmos he transformed into something that would do quite the opposite of blending in: a big, red, button, which just demanded to be pressed. Or maybe it was a flying saucer.

​Either way, people aren't going to ignore it, and neither are the Decepticons. And while I've got you: Decepticon is a dreadful name. It's like if Vladimir Putin change his name to President Uptonogoodski.
KUP
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Kup. He's called Kup. It doesn't matter whether he looks cool as a robot, or transforms into a neat vehicle. He's called Kup. Here's a short list of things that you can cup: bollocks.
STRANGLEHOLD
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Another in the Pretenders line. Presumably, Stranglehold was able to blend in with the patrons of fetish clubs. Indeed, even forgetting the leather pants and thigh-high boots, his name alone is something of a giveaway. Whatever happened to Stranglehold? He was found hanging from the back of a hotel room door with an orange segment stuffed into his gob.
REFLECTOR
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Reflector pretty much sums up everything I didn't like about Transformers. Just like that stupid Sony Walkman one, with the casette tape, how was this meant to work? I mean, once transformed into a camera, the three-robot Reflector was again completely the wrong scale, thus rendering it a completely pointless part of your collection.

​Transformers? Pfft. More like GLANSformers.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
THE 10 WORST FIGHTING FANTASY COVERS EVER
10 WORST VIDEO GAME FANCY DRESS COSTUMES
ARE THESE THE WORST COMPUTER SHOP NAMES EVER?
27 Comments
RG
11/1/2017 04:40:32 pm

This is the hard hitting journalism I come here for!

Reply
PeskyFletch
11/1/2017 05:00:29 pm

Sigh, Biffster, sigh. Some points
1) Break is Bizarre, is that a genuine 'bot?
2)Cosmos rules, i loved him as a child. He was a flying saucer
3)Megatron was the right shoe to match Prime.
4)Reflector , in the animated series said "let's see what we can see"
I say that to this day
5)Kup is a mf'ing badass.
6) 3)is a lie

Reply
DEAN
11/1/2017 05:17:19 pm

A short list of things you can cup!

I always thought Soundwave (Walkman) was cool and the transforming tapes were just the icing on the cake.

Say what you like about Transformers but GOBOTS...

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Euphemia
12/1/2017 06:59:45 am

Fuck Gobots.

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DEAN
12/1/2017 09:36:18 am

I think that level of hostility is completely proportionate.

I didn't know why they even existed. Utterly undesirable, I always thought as I spent my Mum & Dad's money on the simply better and justifiably more expensive toys.

Yesterday I Googled Gobots to remind myself what they even looked like and, and this is the darnedest thing, I actually preferred them to Transformers.

In their joyless, cynically plagiarised, cheap, easily broken, stupid plastic faces, there was a charm that no transformer ever had.
A twinkle in those dead eyes that seemed to let on that it knew it too, it was one of us at the Oscars, mingling with the best people on Earth, your Tom Cruises... Christian Bale's over there look shouting at a photographer... calm down, mate... lol Batman...
Look, there's Mark Hamill... cooooo Mark.... just wonderful.
Gobots knew this and they also knew that Transformers, brighter and better though they may be, were still only one grade firmer on the Bristol Chart.

Check them out and then come back...

Euphemia
12/1/2017 01:09:50 pm

Fuck the Gobots, die-cast pricks that they were.

DEAN
12/1/2017 02:44:30 pm

Firm but fair!

Guru Larry link
11/1/2017 05:39:29 pm

Surely Metroplex is the most stupid transformer of all. People would notice if an entire city was missing one day, not to mention all the people who lived and worked there, wouldn't they all get chewed up in the gears?

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Spiney O'Sullivan
11/1/2017 07:01:06 pm

The Decepticon equivalent Trypticon made equally little sense: a giant city-sized robot dinosaur floating in space. I guess astronomers were supposed to just not notice it amongst all the other city-sized space dinosaurs orbiting Earth.

Actually, that would have made for an interesting episode of The Sky At Night.

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lordmitz
11/1/2017 05:46:51 pm

how dare you dis sky lynx

he can turn into a bunch of things which is a bunch of things more than you can and he's a space dragon cat thing

HOW DARE YOU

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Spiney O'Sullivan
11/1/2017 06:24:52 pm

Drsmoov's "The Rude Awakening of Optimus Prime" gives Kup a better name. See for yourself:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bq1_6D9QS9Y

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Simon Davies
11/1/2017 06:26:10 pm

Yes, Kup is a stupid name. But I'll raise you the Triceratops Dinobot. Looked very cool. Name? Slag.

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John Veness
11/1/2017 06:37:35 pm

Cosmos looks worryingly like a landmine.

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Kelvin Green link
11/1/2017 06:40:30 pm

No, the stupidest Transformer is any one of the Action Master line, because their gimmick was that they were Transformers that didn't transform.

"Kup" is short for "pickup" as in "pickup truck". It's still stupid, but at least there's a logic to it.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
11/1/2017 06:56:42 pm

And Arcee was so named because she was actually quite irritable and unpleasant.

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Abe
12/1/2017 09:29:22 am

heeheehee

Barry Blamalow
11/1/2017 07:26:45 pm

The reason the scale so many of the old Transformers were out of whack (Optimus Prime was a massive truck, Soundwave was a fucking Ghetto Blaster) was because The Transformers were made up of two very separate toy lines from Japan.

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Craig Grannell link
11/1/2017 08:01:54 pm

Diaclone (the majority of the early TFs, including the big Autobot cars, Insecticons, jets, Consructicons, and Dinobots) and Microman (Megatron, Soundwave and his tapes, Blaster, and the mini Autobots). Like many Japanese toys (including Zoids), many of the sub-lines had pilots, hence the seats in the Optimus Prime toy.

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Rawce
12/1/2017 01:15:46 pm

I think I had Cosmos. Wasn't the Transformers logo heat activated or something?

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Kelvin Green link
12/1/2017 08:32:55 pm

Yes, some of them had heat-activated stickers that would reveal the robot's allegiance, because that too was supposed to be a surprise. Except they often had other Autobot/Decepticon stickers elsewhere so the hidden badge was redundant. Also, it was on the box.

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Omniro link
12/1/2017 03:13:12 pm

"Break" should clearly been called "Beak".

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colincidence link
12/1/2017 04:53:36 pm

A less comment-controversial article would be "10 stupidest Gamergaters"

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melon
17/1/2017 05:47:26 pm

Where was gg mentioned in this article? Nowhere. Please don't bring it up here.

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SweetMrGibs
13/1/2017 04:37:54 pm

"Transformers, robots in disguise. Huge big up to Newport Cabin Supplies."

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Dansk
21/1/2017 08:47:11 pm

Two minor corrections:
1) Cosmos was the tits. Please do not rag on Cosmos.
2) In your article above, you claim that 'Kup' could transform "into a neat vehicle". Could he bollocks. I recall nine year old me struggling with the thin legged bastard time and time again and I couldn't get the miserable lump of extruded plastic to properly fold into his vehicle form for love nor money. I'm still angry about it.

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Chris Wyatt
9/2/2017 09:55:46 pm

I believe my mum gifted both a Millenium Falcon and an IMPERIAL ALL TERRAIN ARMORED TRANSPORT (AT-AT) to our school, without realising how valuable they'd become :).

I've probably mentioned it here before, but I sold Panzer Dragoon Saga for basically a few quid, without realising it was worth about £100 at the time. Now the bloody thing is worth even more than that.

Reply
Harry link
25/8/2021 05:07:29 am

So true

Reply



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