7 replies to this topic

[Beastformers]

It´s nothing new that the Battle Beasts (BB) line continues to surprise us with new finds, info or a change of interpretation, etc. but this time I got tricked by an at first sight simple question;
 

I´ve a Triple Threat Snake figure of which the arms don´t match up with the figure shown in the Guide/Checklist (here) see fig below;

 

 

Well that´s a question that´d be easy to answer I thought while looking over my shoulder checking my various Snakes (BB, BDC, GBB) and based on what I noticed there the only right conclusion could be that the picture in the guide was wrong so I mentioned there was nothing to worry about since the arms on his figure were correct being similar to mine.

But I decided to look a little deeper into it since I´d always found it a little bit odd that from the 76 BB and even from all 112 figs in total (with the Laser Beasts) the Snake is the only figure with its right hand facing outwards. In the design of the line the decision of having the weapon hand (right hand) facing inwards towards the body seems to be clearly made but the Snake has always been a strange exception in that story. So I decided to take out some Snakes for a closer inspection and I directly noticed those round marks left by the mold on the FRONT side of the figure while we all know those markings are always found on the backside of the figure. This together with the outwards facing hand made me clear it needed a deeper look and there was only one way to figure this out and that was to start digging into original files.

That´s where I took fully advantage of the Beastformers Archaeology (BA) Project research that´s already been done because that allowed me to easily look back at some old and original files as it was clear I needed to get back as far as possible to see what´d be the original position of the arms.

Starting, as way back as I could go, with; The Original Wax BB Figure Castings and that´s where I found this picture;

 6-1.jpg   96.88K   22 downloads
 

This clearly shows that just like all the other BB the Snake was initially designed to have the opening of his right hand facing inwards (towards the body). As described in that topic there´ve been some adjustments made in some of those Wax BB sculpts in order to erase sharp edges or to make it more suitable for production but I doubt the opening of the hand would´ve been an issue in that case so I can´t imagine that being changed. So this clearly shows that the opening of the right hand of the Snake was originally intended to face inwards. But why did all of mine and a large majority of the Snakes found have the opening of the right hand facing outwards!?

To clarify that I decided to take the next step in the process looking at some of the original promotion photo´s which have been released via various advertisements all over the world in which the BA Topics; Original Takara/Hasbro Catalogs from the late 80´s and the Advertisement (JP/US/UK/FR/NL) were great sources.

 

 Takara Catalog 1987 3.jpg   214.91K   34 downloads

(Takara 1987 Catalog (Japan))

 Hasbro Catalog 1987 France -2.jpg   225.94K   30 downloads
(Hasbro 1987 Catalog (France))

 Speelgoed en Hobby Maart 1987.jpg   228.16K   22 downloads
(Dutch Toy Vendors Magazine Advertisement (1987))

 

As you can see above that some of the files found there ALL show the Snake with the right hand opening facing outwards.......... so this is in conflict with the way it was designed as shown and mentioned above. This probably means that the Snake made it into those photo-shoots with the arms placed in the wrong position. But to make it a little more complex if you look at the original BB Commercial made for the US/UK it shows the arms of the Snake in the correct position again;



Than we also have the artwork on the Snake cards and like this one is showing the design of it is in line with the original intention of having the opening of the hand facing inwards, all cards clearly make this distinction in which the majority of all Beasts hold their weapon in the right hand.



So with so much conflict in information it´s hard to come to a final conclusion since if you´d look at the advertisement material your Snake is probably correct but when you look into the Concept sculpt, the commercial and the artwork it really shows us that the Snake arms are most likely to be placed in that position. Is it just a coincidence than that all of my Snakes had their arms positioned the way they did?!

In order to check that out we´re lucky to have Koppenschevelle´s Snake Army out here because based on my estimate so far I´d say 80-85% of all Snakes have the arm position with the right hand opening facing outwards and by looking at this impressive 100+ Snake Army that´d be easily something to tell. So have a look at one of his overview pics.....



As you can see the large majority of his Snakes also have the arms in the ¨wrong¨ position because we can now slowly start to conclude that the arms of the Snake were initially meant to be placed like the Snake shown in the Guide/Checklist but that an error has occurred along the way, probably with the wrong pic or instruction making it to the factory, resulting in the fact that during the actual assembly of the figure a huge amount of Snakes got their arms attached in the wrong order with the Left hand on the Right side and the Right hand on the Left side. But you can imagine placing those tricky arms on the Snake body in the right order all day long might not have been the most easy task and it´s been causing some confusion for the people working in the factory as well, especially if they´d been given the wrong instructions.

 

All this has led to quite some Entanglement in the Snake-pit.........

 

 IMG_20150620_124148~3.jpg   87.16K   17 downloads
On the Left the Snake how it´s been released in most of the cases on the Right the Snake how it was meant to be released.
FYI for this pic I changed the arms in the ¨correct¨ position (Right side figure) myself. On the one on the Left you can clearly see the round mold markings on the arms which are supposed to be on the backside of the figure thus explaining, together with all the info above that, right and left had to be flipped.

 

Enjoy the Beasts!

Edited by Beastformers, 21 June 2015 - 04:47 AM.

[Jesse]

Great stuff man! Thats some beastformer archeology... Nice attention to the slightest detail, and interesting notifications though im not a bb collector i find this interesting. Im gona check my FoP for this kind of things for sure now

[bot3ro]

Great archeology digging and interesting.  Thanks!

[Grencats]

All of my standard snake figures have the arms on the wrong way, with the molding circles facing forward. I had gotten a pink snake where they were reversed and I had noticed that it worked either way, and that it gave some variation without looking strange. Funny that his arms are actually correct. Almost like the person who initially installed the pink arms looked at the molding circles to decide what way they go. Or, actually I just found an image of him on the Greek foldout that shows his arms the correct way.

 

Attached Files

•  greek snake 1.JPG   41.56K   13 downloads

[retroactive80z]

Wow mate soooooo cool. Just another reason to get my beasts out and have another play with them lol
Great information.
It's stuff like this that makes this toy line so fun to collect.

[H23454]

Mind is blown right now. Left is right right is left? Right is wrong all this time! I am crushed and intrigued!?! Great write up! Great great great!!!

[Edmasta]

Great stuff as Allways bro

[koppenschevelle]

Beastformers,

 

What a fantastic write up! I learned so much that I didn't know about a figure that I own hundreds of copies of. Over the years of collecting this one figure, I have noticed that i will get figures one way or the other. While I prefer the right hands facing in so that those flat circle mold marks are on the back of the figure, I have noticed in the past receiving more figures showing the right hands facing outwards. After reading your conclusions, I had to go through my collection and count up which ones had their right hands facing outwards vs inwards (I will avoid referring to either orientation as right or wrong).

 

For my collection, here is what I found:

 

Classic Original Battle Beast Triple Threat Snakes:

- 96x Snakes have their right hands facing outwards

- 18x Snakes have their right hands facing inwards

- I did not include any snake in which I knew the arms had been removed at somepoint as that is not a fair representation (snakes pieced together from spares, customs, etc..)

- That means 85% of the original series snakes that I own have their hands facing outwards, which does indeed show the two mold markings facing forwards.

 

My Greek Battle Beast Snakes are a mixed bag:

- The Silver, Pink and Black Snakes all have their right hands facing inward

- The Green and Light Blue Snakes have their right hands facing outward

- However, I don't really take this into much consideration as Greek battle beasts often have incorrect or mismatching arms, sometimes two arms from two different beasts.

 

My Mexican bootleg Snakes all have their hands facing inwards

 

A couple further notes to add:

- The original bio card for Triple Threat Snake has his right hand facing outwards on the back of the card (attached below)

- My MOC Snakes all have their hands facing outwards, like the majority of my Snakes

 Snake Bio Card.jpg   41.7K   4 downloads

 

I was curious if the factory code would yield any further clues, however I found that it was a fairly even mix between all factory codes. The factory code is located on the back of the left leg, in the flat grove on the back left side of the leg armor. I thought perhaps if all the snakes with right hands facing in came from one of the factories, that could give us a clue. Of the 18 snakes with right hands facing in, I found the following factory code distribution:

- 4x "A"

- 6x "B"

- 4x "C"

- 4x No factory code

 

So again, a fairly even mixture there too.

 

Funny thing, the very first Triple Threat Snake that I ever got a long, long time ago actually had both hands facing out. He was a trade with a friend, so I am sure he swapped his arms out at some point, but when I was young I had no idea. Then, when I started picking up other snakes I realized how wrong it was that my original snake had both arms facing out. Clearly he had two right arms (or two left arms!) put on him at some point. Thinking about it though, I find that strange as me and my friends didn't really have extras of any of the beasts to be able to swap arms between two of the same beast. If we swapped arms, it was to put the elephant's arms on the bear's body, etc...

 

But I ended up actually liking the look with both arms facing out. That is what felt "right" to me for quite a while. To reverse that, later I even swapped arms to make one snake with both arms facing in, which I also kind of like the look of.

 

 photo.JPG   80.8K   3 downloads

(My very first Triple Threat Snake is on the right. The figure that launched an army! lol)

 

These two however obviously did not come from the factory that way.

 

My guess is that these were originally designed at the concept/sculpting/mold production stage to have the right hand facing inwards, but at some point between the original prototype mold being made and the instructions for assembly/full production somehow accidentily got switched. At this point, who knows? An interesting thought none the less.

Edited by koppenschevelle, 12 August 2015 - 08:36 PM.