Hasbro is a company which has often divided the Transformers fan community (especially with the recent reports of conditions in its factories).
There is something about Transformers fans which makes for some interesting arguments. Some of us love the toys, but are appalled by the movies. Others enjoy the toys and the films. There are more shades of opinion among us than colours in the rainbow. Whenever something fresh happens in the transformers saga, nobody can predict what our strong reactions will be… least of all Hasbro.
On February the 18th, Hasbro is launching a new show called ‘Transformers Rescue Bots’. On the very same day, Hasbro will also be starting the second series of ‘Transformers Prime’. It will be fascinating to hear feedback from what we know can be a choosy audience. Hasbro has a chance to win back support from some disillusioned fans, but if they get it wrong another segment of their audience might voice dissatisfaction on the forums of various TF websites, including ours.
In some ways, we can see that Hasbro has a difficult balancing act. It has to attract new people to Transformers in order to keep the franchise alive. At the same time, it has to keep old fans pleased (and we’re rarely pleased). However, as a fan it is hard to see it in such a neutral fashion. Some fans who have followed Transformers for years often feel that their loyalty has counted for little in the wake of recent decisions, especially the way in which Shockwave was wasted in DOTM.
Predicting the reception of anything is very difficult. However, Hasbro has taken the step of using the experienced Jeff Kline as the executive producer of ‘Transformer Rescue Bots’. Transformer fans may or may not love the voices of Steve Blum (Heatwave) and LeVar Burton (Doc Greene), but only time will tell.
