Grave Considerations: MP-44 Optimus Prime (version 3)

This is being written half in laughter, and half in a rage.

Just this week, Takara released images, at first of a grey prototype and then soon after in color, of MP-44, the third verison of Masterpiece Optimus Prime. This time, again, intended to get Prime in scale and aesthetic with the next iteration of the Masterpiece line, the idea is apparently that this Prime looks the most like Prime in the G1 cartoon, so Masterpieces’ next focus is going to be cartoon accuracy over all. The changes, in my opinion, are mostly cosmetic and rather subtle, although if you sift through enough hot takes online you can find people saying that this Prime is vastly different, and generally for the better, than both MP-01 and MP-10. But to find those, you’re going to have to sift through a lot of takes on this Primes’ greatest feature: his absolutely, totally, 100% ludicrous price tag.

Preorders are up across the etail landscape, and the price for this figure is $450 American dollars.

$450.

The Masterpiece line has been increasing in price for the last few releases, and we can’t even be kind and say that prices have been creeping. They just flat out jumped well over the more or less regular $100-150 price range. MP Coneheads released at about $180 a piece. Dinobot is over $200, as is the newest G1 Megatron. Beast Wars Megatron is $350. Even Cordon, a Diaclone repaint of MP Sunstreaker, and not even an actual character, is $150, $40 more than Masterpiece Sunstreaker. What is going on?

There certainly are theories. Some people think that the Takara price explosion is somehow the fault of the Third Party market, since that established this idea that collectors were willing to spend large amounts on quality figures that they felt they weren’t getting from anywhere else. This theory essentially states that if MakeToys sells their colossal Pandinus for $350-400, just as an example here, and collectors are willing to buy it, then that’s teaching Takara that they can charge a similarly large price for premium figures and collectors will be will to buy them. There very well may be some truth to that, as the Third Party scene has undoubtedly taught the official market a thing or two over the years, but I don’t think it’s accurate to claim that what is likely a Voyager-sized Masterpiece figure going for $450 is the same thing as Pandinus or the various Omega Supreme-alikes out there going for $450. There is a disconnect there. Third Party products are made in smaller numbers and by smaller companies, ones far smaller than Takara or Takara’s eternal backer Hasbro, a billion dollar annual corporation. There will be much smaller runs of Pandinus produced than MP-44 here, which will no doubt be produced in the tens of thousands, as while big companies do not make an infinite number of figures, they make far, far more than a Third Party could.

Apparently, the grossly inflated price tag of MP-44 is due to a wealth of accessories, and the figure does come with quite a few, but aside from a jet pack and Starscream head, both intended to recreate that one scene from that one G1 episode, respectively, none of the accessories are anything that an MP Optimus Prime hasn’t had already. He’s got a trailer and Energon ax and Roller and blah, but so did MP-10 at a literal fraction of this cost.

It’s probably no surprise that I won’t be buying MP-$450, but I know that other collectors will. But I wanted to get a sense of what the response to this price was on the fan boards, so I did a very little bit of lurking. Nothing that I found surprised me at all, as despite my being absent from the fan boards for a few years now it seems that the overall responses haven’t changed at all. On one board, reactions were a mix of shock and laughter, while on another, far more Hasbro psychofanatic board, the responses were generally sad. On the Hasbro loyalist site, posts spoke of disappointment in the cost, but optimism that somehow the accessories and/or engineering would make the cost worthwhile. I don’t know, maybe the “gas hose” piece that MP-44 comes with will be of such high quality that you’ll be able to look at it and say, “this tiny rubber hose that I will put in storage is valued at $26, and that is fine.” Responses on this same board also invoked that odd rationale that “at least” MP-44 is an official product, and somehow paying for that Takara name or Hasbro name stamped inside a thigh somewhere is capable of driving up the value of a figure. I know, I know, we’ve talked about this a hundred times, you and I, over these three and a half years of the Coffin, but I can’t get my mind to square that notion at all.

There are multiple Masterpiece-tier Optimus Primes to choose from, and frankly, the existence of this new one really only means one thing: the line is shifting its direction, again. The Masterpiece line initially was providing realistic alt modes and high quality robot modes, but screen accuracy was not a priority, as MP-03 Starscream makes abundantly clear. Then came the second wave, which appears to have been dedicated to providing officially licenses vehicle modes for the Autobots at least, with late releases like Inferno and Grapple and Sunstreaker edging over into cartoon robot accuracy. And it seems that Masterpiece Version 3 will be all about screen accuracy. That’s honestly pretty cool, and probably the driving force behind quality second wave Masterpieces like Prowl, Wheeljack, and Sideswipe getting rereleased in “anime colors,” so that those figures don’t need to be remade, freeing release slots for characters like the pending Hound and (maybe) Jazz in this new third version of the series. The Beast Wars MPs look like they stepped right out of the television, so we’re going to get that treatment for the G1s now. I think Sunstreaker is a great example of how incredibly cool it is to have a toy of a cartoon character that looks exactly like the cartoon character. Maybe this is going to be the flashpoint for a glut of Third Party G1 Optimus Primes that are highly cartoon accurate, either better than this official one, or less mind-blowingly expensive than this official one. Several posts on fansites do end up being people announcing their intentions to search the 3P scene for alternatives to MP-44.

For my own part, when I saw the preorder price, I had two thoughts. First, I ordered MakeToys Striker Manus reissue. Second, I thought this could lead to a drop in prices on existent MP-10s, and then I could get one that wasn’t the Shattered Glass repaint. The Striker Manus preorder is really only tangentially related. But I think it is really, really unreasonable to price even a Masterpiece figure this high. I’ve felt that the pricetags on that last few MPs have been way too high, with Dinobot and Megatron and Beast Wars Megatron and Cordon and even Ultra Magnus effectively pricing themselves out of my collection, absent some excellent sale or deal in the future. The Masterpiece line truly does provide us fantastic representations of characters and excellent figures, but as with all things, there really is a threshold that is not crossed, and that line is often tied to cost. Certainly some figures are bigger or more intricate or have more accessories, but I have a very hard time justifying toys that are over $200. I’ve got entire Third Party combiner teams for less than the cost of MP-44. I have purchased some very expensive figures in my time, and I don’t know that I’ve ever honestly sat down and determined what my absolute price line not to be crossed is, but I can comfortably say that this amount for an Optimus Prime is totally beyond that line.

What remains to be seen is how well this figure will sell, and what it will mean in terms of future Masterpiece pricing. Beast Wars Megatron should probably do well, given that it is gorgeous and is an absolutely beloved character, and is something completely unique figure-wise. But, if Takara has been taking cues from the 3P scene and its pricing, then MP-44 could be the apex point of the experiment. This could be the last tragic overpricing, or it could be, if MP-44 is successful, the beginning of this truly being the new normal. Only time will tell, but for now it’s real hard to find anyone who is alright with this price and what the package contains to attempt to justify it.