>>9728113Then why go through the trouble of adding a red strip on the center of his forehead, a la super megatron?
Or did they know Takara was already working on it, and had he won we would have just gotten him as a mainline release?
>>9728118Yeah, except combining all the elements was a terrible idea.
I think when they decided not to do the 13 primes as individual figures, it changed everything. Originally, Rodimus was going to be a voyager with a legends size figure of hotrod that fit in his chest.
Starscream was going to be an overlord retool (so was Prima and Megatronus)
That suggests to me they were going to give the deluxe sized bots a voyager evolution mode, and the voyager sized bots (like megatron) a leader sized upgrade.
Star Saber, Thunderwing, and Ultra Magnus already fit the evolution motif. I'm sure it's not surprise we got a very ultra magnus-esque optimus in POTP, and sky shadow in TR. Hell, Grimlock would have been fine retooled into Deathsaurus.
We also learned that PotP was the first line that they did entirely digital, from concept to prototyping. It was probably super easy to swap some modelling from the starscream they had planned into a whole new starscream.
