Trivia / Transformers Studio Series

• Author's Saving Throw: The toyline counts for many, many examples since it specifically aims to upgrade past figures or remedy mistakes of the past:
  • Toys widely considered to be vast improvements on what had come before include, but are not limited to: each of Megatron’s toys, Long Haul, Jetfire, Ironhide, and Shockwave.
  • Hasbro admitted in a 2008 Q&A that they should’ve given Bonecrusher and Brawl Voyager class figures (if not Leader class for the former) and Leader Class for Blackout; all three got new figures in these size classes.
  • Leader Class Blackout in particular has been a pipe dream of many fans since he was the largest Transformer in the original film, but only had a Voyager figure that due to the character's top heavy design gave him a disappointingly short robot mode. The desire also got exacerbated when in Revenge of the Fallen , Grindor appeared as a retool of Blackout who was visibly much larger than Optimus Prime.
  • The original Revenge of the Fallen toyline featured both individual Constructicon toys as well as the Supreme Class Devastator set. However, the individual Constructicons couldn’t form Devastator (half of them didn’t even get major toys), and the Supreme Class toys could only transform from vehicle mode to combiner limbs. The only toy that had each Constructicon with all three modes was the Legends Class Devastator which, to put it lightly, didn’t quite fill the void. A decade later, Studio Series finally delivers a Devastator formed by eight Constructicons, all of whom have the three modes.
  • Studio Series gives toys to characters who had never had a mainline toy before, most notably Hightower, Scavenger ^note not counting 2009’s Voyager Demolishor since he was inaccurately painted with Scavenger’s colors, Scrapmetal, Scrapper, Overload, and Brains.
  • Grimlock's previous toys have mostly been considered disappointments since they were usually not very accurate in terms of appearance. Studio Series gives us a gorgeously painted Leader Class figure that towers over his fellow toys just like the movie Grimlock does.
  • Several characters who were late releases in their respective movie toylines ultimately finally get their mainline US release.
    • Soundwave’s form from Dark of the Moon has never had a mainline US release before, since to prevent spoilers, his Deluxe and Human Alliance toys from 2011 were held back to the end of the line, by which time retailers had moved on to Transformers: Prime (a fate that usually befalls most late wave releases in modern times).
    • Due to licensing restriction with Ferrari and Mattel at that time of Dark of the Moon, Dino/Mirage never got any mainline figures (other than a small Legion-scale figure and a Japanese exclusive Deluxe-class figure which is just a Palette Swap of Sideways) before, which was eventually fixed when Studio Series finally released a mainline figure of Dino/Mirage that boosts a more movie-accurate robot mode than prior toys (even if licensing still only allows him to be an approximation of a Ferrari).
    • Cogman suffered from not only late releases, but extremely limited distribution; both toys only really saw circulation at Ross and other cheaper stores well after the end of The Last Knight. Lo and behold, Studio Series to the rescue by reissuing Cogman in early 2019.
    • Hot Rod was the same case as Cogman above, only he also had the issue of being a retool of Age of Extinction Lockdown, which while an acceptable figure to many, still lacked accuracy to the character, and even his first figure in Studio Series was a retool of the divisive WWII Bumblebee. This got redeemed in 2022, with the announcement of a new Hot Rod that is his own mold.
  • Elita-1’s original Deluxe was poorly received since she was a redeco of Chromia in non-accurate colors; her sisters also, while received better, were noted to really be out of scale with the other figures. Studio Series gives each sister their own unique mould that fits in scale-wise.
  • Blackout was widely hailed as a holy grail of movie toys as noted above, but the main criticism of the figure was that he lacked articulated hands. After a few years of fan-modding and third-party revisions of the figure's hands, the toy's later retool into Grindor featured re-done, articulated hands. The fact that Grindor barely looks any different from Blackout besides the hands meant that, unless someone really wants Scorponok, if a fan missed out on Blackout, Grindor was a solid choice.
  • Galvatron's original Voyager toy was a major shellformer thanks to the character's impossible to replicate transformation on screen. His new figure offers a much better engineered transformation that better integrates with the robot mode and a new more screen accurate color scheme.
  • Despite making toys of nearly every single robot that's been on screen, Hasbro has still wisely ignored the much hated twins, Skids and Mudflap, and it doesn't look like they'll be changing their minds on that anytime soon.
  • The first Gamer Edition figures had the gimmick of the figure having to take off their arm to swap it with a weapon to mimic how characters deployed integrated weapons from their arms in the game. Fans didn’t like how the lack of any 5 MM ports otherwise meant you couldn’t have the figure hold the weapon without costing their arm; by the release of Starscream, Hasbro heeded the criticism and returned to adding ports to allow the toys to hold their weapons normally.
• Creator Backlash: In late 2023, the toyline's design team admitted that they think Bay Ratchet should've gotten a Voyager class figure to scale better with Ironhide and are interested in redoing him as such one day.
• No Export for You: Due to some of the toys ended up as store exclusives or saw limited distribution, some toys that suffered from this includes:
  • Ironhide saw an extremely limited and poor distribution to the retail market, which forces some fans who do want the figure to buy him at online stores; Due to said poor distribution, the aftermarket price for Ironhide is also notoriously high, perhaps even more so than other figures of the same Voyager-class price point in this toyline.
  • Leadfoot was released as a Target store exclusive in America, while the rest of the Wreckers (Roadbuster and Topsin) were released in mass at retail stores.
  • Dark of the Moon Thundercracker was released as a Toys "R" Us exclusive in America, but he ended up being the last Toys "R" Us exclusive in the US with the liquidation of the United States division of Toys "R" Us. This meant the figure was quite tricky to come by, being only briefly available in some stores before their closure.
• Refitted for Sequel: The Concept Art series takes scrapped designs from the films and puts them to toy form.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Scavenger and Overload were considered to be Commander Class figures, but they ended up as Leader Class since it was decided the best option for stability and weight distribution would be if they were Leaders supported by several Voyagers for the limbs.
  • Rumors have said that Devcon - the background Decepticon from Dark of the Moon whose robot mode was a send-up to the titular monster from Cloverfield - was considered for either a Leader or Commander Class figure. However, the prospect was axed after the figure was found to have too many parts and was too large of an investment for a background character.
  • The same source also stated that the Studio Series '86 figures were supposed to be released in the Kingdom line, but were moved to Studio Series to give Kingdom room for more figures.
  • The mini-figures of Wheelie and Daniel Witwicky were created as a preemptive measure when Hasbro wasn't sure if they would be introducing Core class to Studio Series. Wheelie eventually got a Core class figure, and Daniel's father Spike followed suit, meaning Daniel is likely in the works as well.
  • The remaining Bay Dinobots Slug, Scorn, and Strafe were supposed to get figures a lot sooner, but the addition of Studio Series 86 and their focus on full size G1 Dinobots delayed them for the indefinite future. Don't expect them to come down the pipeline until the '86 Dinobots are completed.
  • The delay of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts to 2023 resulted in its' toys being delayed by a year as well. To fill the gap, the remaining cast members of Bumblebee received figures in 2022.
  • In 2022, leaks surfaced for Buzzworthy Bumblebee releases of Dark of the Moon Hatchet, as well as G1 Hound as part of Studio Series 86, but the figures never surfaced, as Target cancelled the release due to the poor sales of Buzzworthy Cliffjumper and Kup. It wasn’t until early 2024 when the figure would finally see release in Legacy: United as a Generations Selects exclusive, packaged with cartoon-accurate decos of Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker, Wheeljack, and Jazz. Listings were also found for Hatchet slating him for a release in 2025.