Super fun, super cute, Super7: Brian Flynn, on the 40-year appeal of TRANSFORMERS

Brian, terrific to welcome you back so soon! We’re going to discuss Super7 in relation to TRANSFORMERS at 40… An age you and I must be approaching ourselves. I’m not saying from which direction we’re approaching it, mind…
Ha! Wouldn’t it be nice to only be 40?!

It’s a milestone for all of us! But on that, Brian, what is it – do you think – that means the TRANSFORMERS franchise continues to endure?
Well, there’s always that want, I think, for that classic ‘good versus bad. But what I think makes TRANSFORMERS especially interesting is that there’s an approachability to it. With some other characters, it’s hard to identify with them… A person’s either tall or short, or muscular, or any number of things that make them different from you. When you go into these personified robots, though, you lose a bit of that. They can be more for anyone and everyone. Your only clue is maybe how they speak, or certain mannerisms.

Beyond that, it’s also very straightforward. There aren’t impossibly complex characters whose morality is ambiguous. You really can understand where they’re coming from. Megatron’s bad, Optimus Prime is good – and they’re going to fight… One guy looks like a blaster, one guy doesn’t. Some very basic archetypes at work allow you to get into it; they have a simplicity that anyone can identify with. This is not to say you necessarily want to be like any of the TRANSFORMERS characters. But you get them, you feel them.

Great answer. You’re right: there’s no moral ambiguity. It’s crash, bang, wallop – you’re all there!
But at the same time, the villains aren’t bad to the point where they’re so destructive that they’re terrifying. They’re bad guys, but they’re not necessarily evildoers as such; they’re not cruel. I think what allows people of all generations to get into this is that it’s a really fun, easy-to-understand universe – because it’s still our planet. And then there are these robots within it, which is, I think, more fascinating… Because a lot of fantasy, generally, is set in another location far, far away or whatever… But this? No! It’s Manhattan.

It’s on your doorstep! And in terms of what Super7 has done with the TRANSFORMERS franchise, what kind of collectibles are in your ranges, Brian?
Well, our point of view on it has always been similar to what you see in a lot of our other lines… Aiming to be as cartoon accurate as possible. Because many of our licenses are things that started out as toys and became animations or movies later. In other words, they became stylized and simplified so that they could more easily be hand drawn…

Right!
…and that meant that what you saw on screen sometimes didn’t actually match the toys. The toys are obviously really cool, complicated and interesting. But me? I want a product that looks like it walked right off the screen! So we really focused on creating THAT line of figures… A simplification and a stylization that you don’t get in the traditional toys.

And to what degree does that simplify the design process?
It simplifies the design process in a lot of ways. The hard part, though, is that the more you simplify, the less room for error there is. So proportions, colour shading, how things look… All of a sudden, that extra 16th of an inch, say, might look very wrong. We might’ve been able to hide it in a model with a lot more detail. But not here! So when we get into the ULTIMATES! or ReAction figures, or other lines that we have, we really have to be particular about shape and proportion. There’s not a lot of room for willing distortion if you will.

“There’s not a lot of room for willing distortion!” Great sentence! I’m loving this. So it needs to be really accurate…
It needs to be really accurate, or it looks wrong because there aren’t enough accoutrements or other visual noise to hide imperfections.

And I suppose that matters tremendously because fans of any franchise – serious fans – would be concerned about accuracy…
Right. This means – to some extent – that it doesn’t matter what you make: it’s going to be wrong for some people. You have to get over that hurdle first and focus on the fans that are going to love it! Once you’re past that, you also have different flavours of people, if you like. With TRANSFORMERS, by way of example, there’s a huge part of the fandom that’s very engineering focused…

Oh, really? Because of the conversion aspect?
Right – that’s integral to their experience. And then you have some people that look at it as a toy, and others that look at it as an animated series and just know the character that they’re into. So there’s different facets of it for us.

But on that, you focus on non-converting TRANSFORMERS, do you not?
Yes. The converting TRANSFORMERS toys are Hasbro’s bread and butter. We really focus on the non-converting robots and, in doing so, really lean into – as I said – on-screen accuracy. But even then, Deej, you could go in episode by episode and find that they’re drawn slightly differently in each one… So the accuracy might depend on which screen capture you got it off, which episode, at which moment! The height scales can differ, the colour might shift. Anything like that!

Which is something idiosyncratic to that kind of animation… That leads to the question, I suppose: with 40 years of content, how do you decide which characters – or moments – deserve recreating in a physical form?
At Super7, we look at these toys very much from an emotional point of view. We’re making these things because we love them; we enjoy having them around us. They make us feel something… So, we’re asking ourselves: what are those moments? How did they make us feel? How do we remember those characters in their prime?

And just help me orientate myself around that, Brian… What’s a good example of that?
A good example of that would be our Super Cyborgs line. For that, we made the grayscale Optimus Prime, Fallen Leader. We made them in all gray with the chest open, head turned to the side. That’s the moment where every child sat in the movie theatre and sobbed… Had that ugly cry for the first time in their life.

Ha! And are you saying that had never been done before?
Yes, it had never been recreated in toy form. I believe we did it first in our 3.75” ReAction scale figures – and based off the success we brought them to life in our Super Cyborg scale.

And why do you suppose no one had done it before?
Probably traditional wisdom would ask why you’re going to make a figure of the moment the main character dies?! But for me, those big emotional moments are the things we come back to. What do you really remember? What was so exciting? We generally find the things that resonate with us also resonate with our customers – because they’re emotionally invested.

So you wanted to do the death of Optimus Prime as a figure because it was emotionally resonant – whereas a lot of people had specifically not done it for exactly the same reason?
Exactly.

Great! I just love talking to you, Brian! You’re really in tune with your customers… And in that respect, what lies ahead for Super7 with the TRANSFORMERS franchise?
There are a couple of things coming out and some really exciting things going on right now, too! Something that’s been really well received is the VHS box packaging of our TRANSFORMERS Deluxe figures. So we have our TRANSFORMERS Ultimates figures, which are $55. They come with every accessory you can imagine. You can recreate any scene you want with them.

That’s the Ultimate?
Right. But then, the TRANSFORMERS Deluxe figures are the same Ultimate figure, but with only a single accessory. That gives people an opportunity to get the Megatron, Optimus and Soundwave characters at a lower price point – packaged in VHS boxes that look like the home videos you used to get in the 80s; those white plastic clam shells that pop open!

They look incredible! I’ll be sure to include images of these things…
Thank you! We also just came out with the TRANSFORMERS blind boxes, which are ReAction figure blind boxes with some chase variants. They’ve done incredibly well. So we’re diving into both of those, as well as some secret stuff that we’re not announcing quite yet.

But you know where to come when you’re ready!
Yes. I know this guy over in England… He’s great!

And when he’s not available, Deej steps in!
Ha! That’s correct!

Ha! I’m glad you mentioned the blind boxes because when I saw those I thought – well, you’ve said super fun; I’m about to say super cute! So super fun, super cute, Super7! That might be the headline! But they are: super cute. When did they come in for you?
We actually did our first ReAction figure blind boxes six or seven years ago with Alien and then took a little hiatus on the format.

When did they come back?
We started them back up a little over a year ago. The moment we did, people went crazy for them! The blind boxes hit on the idea of different customers wanting different things. One customer might be buying this because it’s a throwback – it reminds them of being an eight-year-old again. Others get into the blind boxes because they want fun figures and like the surprise element. They might also be wondering if they’re going to get a chase figure in glitter or something – which really brings in a different crowd of customers. And they’re sort of poetic because, obviously, blind boxes really are more than meets the eye!

Ha! Excellent! Ha! But that’s fascinating, isn’t it? That there are totally different audiences for exactly the same thing – but for totally different reasons… Well, Brian we’ve absolutely flown through this! To wrap it up, what’s the one thing I could’ve asked you about today that you would love to have talked about?
One other exciting product we just announced as a first to market with Walmart, is the TRANSFORMERS ReAction Ark Playset. It’s a throwback 1980’s playset of the Ark…

And for the uninitiated, the Ark is – what?
Ah! When the TRANSFORMERS robots crash to Earth, the ship lodges itself into the side of a mountain wall. That’s their base; the Ark… For some reason, that’s never been made into a playset of any sort. So for the ReAction line, we did a throwback 80’s-style playset with the plastic diorama base and the cardboard backdrop that ties in with some exclusive figures.

I’m just looking at that online…
One really fun thing is on the back of the box… If you remember the vintage boxes, whenever they had a playset or vehicle, they usually had a picture of a child playing with it. Here, we instead have an illustration of Optimus Prime and Megatron playing with it! We’re trying to have fun with it: throwback packaging, but with a cute joke in there as well. And giving it that sense; that this is supposed to be fun. You’re supposed to enjoy this. Let’s play with this!

Brilliant. Well, I think you continue to nail it, Brian. Exactly the right balance of fan service, great product, great humour, and interesting vision. Thank you for making time to discuss it.

–

To stay in the loop with the latest news, interviews and features from the world of toy and game design, sign up to our weekly newsletter here

More Recent Interview

One in a Million: Gamely Games founder Hazel Reynolds discusses selling her millionth game

“Our best ideas are ahead of us…” Hazel Reynolds on selling well, doing good and relentless optimism.

“There’s something for everyone…” Becs Henchey, Becky Matthews and Kate Goss on Golden Bear’s range

How Golden Bear is finding ideas, building its range and keeping things simple…

Golden Bear’s Barry Hughes on the origins – and success – of Soccer Bot

“It sold out within three and a half weeks!” Barry Hughes – MD at Golden Bear – talks us through the Soccer Bot success story.

Nonsensical’s Oli Hills discusses how brands can thrive on TikTok

“While most still think TikTok is an app for kids dancing, the average age of user is 33 years old”: Nonsensical CEO Oli Hills reveals what makes brands tick on TikTok.

Joking Hazard’s Alex Murty and Fuzzballs creator Marc Sach discuss bringing the brand into games

Alex Murty and Marc Sach tell us why Fuzzballs is a perfect fit for the tabletop space.

Rich Mazel and Jeff Wilcox on the ‘Invent-to-Consumer’ model that fuels All 4 Fun Toys

“We can prove there isn’t just a three-year life cycle for great inventions”: Rich Mazel and Jeff Wilcox on what to expect from All 4 Fun.