Saturday, June 23, 2007

OMG I just realized I'm a geewunner

G1 Fan: Finds a 20th anniversary movie edition Optimus Prime at Wal-Mart on clearance for $50 and buys it.

HArdcore G1 Fan: Finds a 20th anniversary movie edition Optimus Prime at Wal-Mart on clearance for $50 and deosn't buy it because their Japanese import version with the long smokestacks is more true to the character.

Geewunner: Finds a 20th anniversary movie edition Optimus Prime at Wal-Mart on clearance for $50 and thinks, "How is 20th anniversary movie edition Optimus Prime better than the original?"

I never bought a 20th anniversary Optimus Prime when they came out in 2004, mostly because I was living overseas in Turkey where they never hit the shelves. So having not seen one in person I was never tempted. I'll admit I was a little curious when Toyfare gave it the OMG GREATEST TOY EVAR award but with a retail price of 89.99 I still wasn't all that excited about it. Then last week I found one on clearance at the Rapid City Wal-Mart for $50. It was the DVD edition, which is the version released alongside last year's Sony DVD of the 1986 animated movie. It had the talking base where if you press a button, he-who-is-not-Cullen quotes lines from the movie in quite possibly the worst Optimus Prime impersonation I've ever heard.

I was intrigued at the thing because it's a gigantic awesome Optimus Prime. But unfortunately I knew enough about the lineage of the figure to spoil the fun of owning this particular version. I knew that the Takara version had long chrome smokestacks and for just $125 more I could get the super duper Takara version with the gigantic ass trailer. I put clearance Prime back and I went home and went to TFSource.com where I knew they were selling the super deluxe MP-04 Convoy with trailer for $175 bucks. But wait! Over the five days when I was mulling over whether or not I really wanted the most extravagantest Optimus Prime evar, TFSource increased the price of the damned thing to over $220 with shipping. I was like, damn. I'm not that hard up for super duper Optimus Prime.

This got me thinking about a lot of the TF related purchases I intended to make over the next few weeks. I was all set to blow upwards of $800 on Masterpiece Skywarps and MP-3 playing Soundwaves and all sorts of neo-G1 stuff that's all the rage with the kids these days. But then I realized that I don't have a lot of essential things I need in order to fulfill my ultimate vision of collection awesomeness, which is recreating the 1985 catalog in my laundry room. $800 would go a long way to procuring like two of every Deluxe Insecticon. So in the end I decided that this new stuff is not for me-and by new I mean everything after 1986.

6 comments:

naladahc said...

This was just not the post I ever expected to read from you.

Evil King Macrocranios said...

Oh who am I kidding. I may not buy the trailer version, but I'm going to Wal Mart now to see if I can still get that Prime.

Also, I was shopping around for the cheapest places to get some upcoming stuff and I ran across this Action-HQ listing for MP-05 stating that a second run would be
coming out July 4th.

They had Megatron listed as a preorder for $109.95. I also preordered Music Label Soundwave from them because they had that one listed at $80. Although they're overseas I decided to just eat the shipping, which came out to a total of $36.62. Ouch! Ultimately this is all money that would have gone towards plane tickets to Botcon so it feels good.

Speaking of finding stuff cheap, I found Imageanime.com is taking preorders for BT-18 Clear Mirage for $80. They're US based so shipping on that one is $11.50
for a grand total of $91.50 shipped for Clear Mirage. If anyone can beat those prices, I don't wanna know!

Heavyarms said...

You know you can get replacement stacks that look like the longer Japanese versions for only about 10 bucks, huh?

Can I be a geewunner? I didn't buy the US MP Optimus until I saw it on sale for 50 bucks, then spent the extra cash to replace its stacks, then found two DVD Primes on clearance for 17 bucks and got those too.

Evil King Macrocranios said...

You mean the ones from AgesThreeandUp.com? I totally forgot about that! Dang. Every minute I spend procrastinating on this Prime gives some other Wal-Mart shopper a chance to get it. I really doubt it's still there but tonight we're going into town so maybe I'll get it yet.

I don't know what the standing definition of Gee1nner is but I imagine it's someone who disregards everything made after 1990. So you don't get to be a Geewunner based on your obsessive Masterpiece mold Prime consumption. But on the Today show this morning, Shia LeBeouf referred to Transformers fans as "Trannies" so there's a label for you if you really want one!

Heavyarms said...

Gee...thanks...I think.

(yeah, the ones at 3andup. The only bad thing about them is that the original "stub" stacks spring nicely back into place. The replacement stacks fit really tight, and the spring has no effect on them. But they do look nice and are definitely worth the purchase.)

Anonymous said...

I hate how the stupid ass movie raised the prices on this thing. I was like thinking about getting it and then all of a sudden everyone sold out and ofcourse now all the scalpers on Ebay are having a field day with this.

 

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