FPcast for July 3 2017: Transformers Last Knight!

This week we endure the 5th instalment of the never-ending Transformers franchise: Transformers: The Last Knight. Plus we let you know why we didn't cover Supanova this year, and catch up on a missed week of news and trailers. And we're both still sick and one of us won't make it through the show! INTRIGUE!

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FPcast! The Fruitless Pursuits Podcast for June 30th 2014! Age of ExSTINKtion!

This week Jacinta is not at all impressed that Luke made her sit through three excruciating hours of Transformers 4: Age of Extinction! Brace yourself for our incredulous review! Plus I'm sure we talk about some other stuff like Gary Oldman's woes, Star Wars delays, and Jacinta losing her Battlestar virginity! Stick this thing in your welcoming head!

Download here! (click to stream, right-click to save).

And be sure to SUBSCRIBE to us on iTunes because we do this every week! And join the discussion in our friendly Facebook group!

FPcast! The Fruitless Pursuits podcast for November 11th, 2013! Nightwhinge!

This week Luke and Jacinta soberly and succinctly discuss new Nightwing rumours in Superman vs Batman movie, Ghostbusters III, leaked Transformers 4 dinobots, Marvel television news, new World of Warcraft and MORE! Stick it in your nerd hole!

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Thursday Threesome: Three 80s/90s franchises that I horribly misunderstood

The 80s were my pre-school years, and accordingly I was a trusting and gullible little doofus. This was not helped by the fact that my sisters were ready and willing to feed me untruths to amuse themselves, which means nowadays I become immediately defensive if someone gets all incredulous about the gaping black holes in my pop culture knowledge. Screw you guys, I was busy reading Asterix and teaching myself hieroglyphics. Important things.

To add an additional layer of confusion, my older sister was very happy to load her own enthusiasms on me, who dutifully tried to mimic fandom though I was really too young to make any sense of it. 90210 springs to mind. As does East 17 and Snow's Informer. I overshot and tried to understand teen sensations and thus missed out on a big chunk of primary aged stuff that my schoolmates were all over. 

Yet despite all this I managed to develop my own healthy crop of misunderstandings about the franchises that surrounded me as a pre-school and primary aged child, many of which I'm still actively undoing (I only learn recently that a badger is not, in fact, the size of a bear. The animated Redwall series had led me to believe otherwise). 

Join me after the jump for more ridiculousness!

Thursday Threesome: '84 Transfomers

For my shot at the Thursday Threesome this week, I figured I'd pay tribute to one of my very first obsessions.  The toyline that cemented my geek-status forever once they appeared on toy store shelves back in 1984.  Of course, I am talking about The Robots in Disguise...The Transformers!!

IT IS A WORLD TRANSFORMED, WHERE THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM. IT IS THE WORLD OF THE TRANSFORMERS...A WORLD OF HEROIC AUTOBOTS AND EVIL DECEPTICONS!"

It's Stryder's Top 3 '84 Transformers!!  Take a look after the JUMP!

Transforming Collections: An Interview With Philip Reed

Transforming Collections is Philip Reed's unofficial guide to 3rd party Transformers toys. Not to be confused with bootleg figures, these toys are all-new creations or simply additional parts to enhance an existing figure.

The book was fully funded on Kickstarter within it's first few days, but there are still 24 days to pledge and make the book bigger than ever. Fans of action figures, Transformers, designer toys, and customization will need to check this one out. It's a world that you might not even know exists.

Check out the Kickstarter project at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/102137316/transforming-collections-toy-reference-book. The book is only $15 for a physical copy and just $6 for a pdf. There are a few extra big rewards if you would like to contribute more to the project.

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You may know Philip as the COO of Steve Jackson Games (Munchkin, Ogre, Car Wars) or as the owner/writer at the toy news/review site BattleGrip.com. Now, we can soon add published author to his extensive resume.

We had a chance to talk to Philip about Transforming Collections, Kickstarter, and the toy industry. Click through the jump for the full interview, as well as plenty of photos of 3rd party Transformers.

THE TRANSFORMERS: Regeneration One

NEW!! Transformers: Regeneration One #81 - When I heard that IDW was bringing back the creative team from the original Marvel Comics run of The Transformers, I was skeptical but intrigued!  Generation One died with issue #80 back in 1991!!  21 years ago...it feels like several lifetimes to me.  However, my love of Transformers has never died...I still collect the toys and am a fan of the current televised incarnation, Transformers: Prime.  I also loved last years' Transformers: War For Cybertron video game and eagerly await the sequel.  However, the orginal comics...I have to say, I own the whole set but I'm in no rush to go back and struggle through some of them.  On the other hand, many of the best characterizations and most interesting elements of Transformers lore came from the Marvel run of The Transformers.  So it was with mixed feeling that I purchased Transformers: Regeneration One #81, a direct continuation of the original comic by the creative team of Simon Furman, Andrew Wildman and Stephen Baskerville, all of whom also worked on issue #80 back in 1991 (and of course several other issues leading up to same!)  Furman, in particular, is practically synonymous with Transformers fiction, contributing as much or more to the mythos as any other writer, ever! 

So how was it?  Join me after the JUMP to find out!

War For Cybertron GRIMLOCK!!!

Can't wait for this game to come out...never MIND that space T-Rex's don't make sense...just watch!!


GRIMLOCK SMASH!!!!

Speaking of Transformers...

Oh hey you guys did you know that the Transformers: Prime season 1 blu ray is released next week?

They've scheduled it for March 6th!  I'm very excited.  even though I've seen season 1 all the way through, I mostly only watched it in Standard Definition, as that is all they offered on Teletoon here in Canada (and yes I already complained to my local cable provider!)  I DID get to see some of the episodes in HD thanks to the magic of the Internets and they are mind-blowing!  Don't believe me?  Check out this clip after the jump!

Peter Cullen - We Are The Explorers

This is just too cool not to share.  Peter "Optimus Prime" Cullen narrates this clip from NASA!!!

Autobots Assemble!

For the new Transformers: Fall of Cybertron teaser!

Sweet!

Thank Gif It's Friday

Rocktober/Under the Man-croscope: Rock Lords!

How about a post that slides perfectly into (guffaw) both our ROCKtober coverage AND my continuing series Under the Man-croscope where I critique childhood treasures with cynical adult eyes. Talk about killing two bastard chirping birds with one stone. STONE! HA! It's like a rock, which is exactly what I'm here to talk about. Oh yeah! I'm talkin' bout' ROCK LORDS.

ARE YOU READY TO ROCK LORDS!?

You remember Go-Bots, right? The poor man's Transformers? Led by the shittily monikered Leader-1 and Cy-Kill? Well, in 1986, after a large run of toys, manufacturer Tonka said (actual quote): "You know what, you guys? I bet those damn hyper kids are absolutely sick of robots that transform into awesome shit like fighter jets and Lamborghinis. What about robots that transform into rocks? Kids are fascinated by rocks. They love them. They love throwing them at my car."

Join me after the jump for more robot/rock action!

Our Week of Reading! Vol. 3!

I didn't think we had it in us, but the team came through! We are LITERATE (barely), and a few of us actually read stuff this week, even though many of those things were obscure, ridiculous, or very, very, very short.

Join us after the jump to shake your head disapprovingly at our reading level!

The C-List Podcast Episode 13! Transformers Part 2 Revenge of the Fallen!

Due to some unlikely miracle, Taylor and I have produced another episode of our podcast The C-List in just a week! Cats and dogs! Living together! Mass hysteria!

Here's the skinny on what to expect!:

Don't be put off by our rapid return with a second helping of Transformers! True, we might be discussing the C-List humans and robots of Michael Bay's craptastic sequel Revenge of the Fallen, but this episode also contains our ANGRIEST INTRO EVER! Plus!: find out who dropped the ball and messed up our earlier Better Off Dead episod, and keep a keen ear primed for a surprise burrito! There might even be a second part to last week's rap!

And I'm not kidding when I say it's an angry intro! I woke up far too early to record and Taylor does something truly unthinkable and unforgivable about seven minutes in! It's my favourite intro so far, so even if you don't give a shit about Revenge of the Fallen (and who does) pour this episode in your ears!

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT HERE!

Are you surprised to learn that that thing's name is Reedman? Find out much more on the show!

Transformers Classics: Autobot Hound!

Not wanting to disappoint my fan, I figured I'd better put up a picture review of everyone's favourite Autobot scout/tracker, Hound. As promised, here's a few comparison shots of the original G1 toy, released in 1984, and the Transformers: Universe (the second incarnation of Classics) toy released in 2008. As a bonus, we also get a comparison of G1 Ravage and Transformers: Universe Ravage, since he was an accessory with Hound for the 2008 release!

 

The C-List Podcast! Episode 12: Transformers 1-2 Robot Boogaloo (part one)

If you were unaware (and millions are) Taylor and I have a podcast called The C-List where we analyse, taunt and discuss the blink-and-you'll-miss-them minor characters of your favourite blockbuster movies! Our schedule is sporadic, but Episode 12 has just hit, and this is how I'd describe it:

We pit the C-List humans against the C-List robots in Michael Bay's outrageous first Transformers movie! Only one team can take the Not-Quite-so-Crappy-as-the-Other-Team-of-Losers crown! Also: we answer questions such as: does Michael Bay command a tiger? Is Megan Fox part Oompaloompa? And what does an agitated monkey sound like when performed by a globe-spanning American and an Australian?
But that's not all! Learn about our inclusion in the Spooky Outhouse Productions network and we discuss Eric Walker's (Mace Towani in the ewok movies!) successful Kickstarter campaign to publish his book Growing Up on Skywalker Ranch.
And if you make it all the way to the end, there might even be a rap! It miight not be our best episode content wise, but it's our best sounding episode now we've finally conquered our new gear!

You can grab the episode at the official site, or RIGHT HERE (click to stream, right-click to download).

Nothing says "C-List" like a robot that shoots Mountain Dew!

Transformers: Classics. Cybertron's finest warriors....

 Back in the fall of 2006, in order to appease long time fans such as myself, Hasbro released a line of action figures called Transformers: Classics. Knowing that the entire design aesthetic for Transformers toys was about to change due to the upcoming Michael Bay movie, they wanted to give us one more taste of the characters we'd known and loved since 1984. These few figures were designed with the idea "What if the original Transformers figures were released today with modern technology?"  The end result?  A line of Transformers figures that fans have waited for since first hearing of the planet Cybertron.

Tremble Before the Might of (Kre-o) STARSCREAM!!!!

First off, I'd like to say hi and thank-you to the various members of Fruitless Pursuits for inviting me to contribute to what is bound to be an extremely amusing, internationally spanning waste of time!   Those are my favourite kinds!!  And Mike Taylor (who let me in the door here) also told me I could steal posts from my own blog.  So in lieu of doing any actual work, here's the last post from Stryder's Dementia.  It's surprisingly relevant to the topic at hand. 

At TFCon (the local Transformers convention here in Toronto, Canada...read about it HERE) last week the Hasbro rep mentioned a new line they are releasing of Transformer-themed, Lego-like building blocks called Kre-o.  When I saw some at Toys R Us the other day I figured I'd give them a shot, so I picked up Starscream.  

Tremble before the might of STARSCREAM!!!!

The blocks themselves are nearly indistinguishable from standard Lego blocks and obviously would work well with them.  They aren't doing anything too fancy.  Of course, robot hands and heads are not too standard, but otherwise there are no big surprises here.

Read on after the jump...

Kickass Lego Custom Creations!

I'm kind of becoming obsessed with Lego over again. I say "again" because I had a lot of it as a kid (my first Lego was pre-minifig!) and then I sold it all. And then about ten years ago I got a couple of Star Wars sets. And then I sold it all. And then I got the giant Death Star, and I've recently picked up a couple of the newest sets. 

But what really amazes me are the custom creations that are being churned out and shared on Twitter. These guys must seriously be insane-genius engineers who think in five or six dimensions. I have no idea how you even begin to plan out models like these, nor how you would even start to gather up all the necessary pieces - IN ALL THE RIGHT COLOURS! My head is spinning right now. I am incredibly jealous that I have not developed this skill and am astounded that Lego is not yet a recognized course of study at University.

A few custom creators instantly spring to mind, starting with this recent piece by Iain Heath who is Ochre Jelly on Flickr...

In the immortal words of Ryan Reynold's Green Lantern. "I KNOOOWWW, RIIIGGHT??!" And it's not even just the fact that he has managed to create accurate, instantly recognisable models of the Adventure Time cast TO SCALE with each other, but just how brilliant is the diorama design in general? And how the hell is that rainbow unicorn thing staying up there?

Lots more after the jump!