Can’t decide whether “Thunderclap” should’ve been named something else originally, or Cloud( )Chaser should’ve been Stormwalker despite the events that led to her being addressed as “Cloudchaser” in Hurricane Fluttershy.
But I guess they saved some chump change in trademarking fees? *shrug*
Well, sense they released Thunderlane and both male and female Cloudchasers as part of the blind bags for the movie, I believe that in the movie, all three Pegasi were present in Canterlot for the Friendship Fesitval even though we though we didn’t see them in the movie. Even Thunderlane performs with the other Wonderbolts for the Friendship Festival in the movie. They’re were later captured, or enslaved, or imprisoned, or menaced, or punished by the Storm King and his troops. And they were later present after when the Storm King died and when Equestria is fully restored back to being a land full of friendship and harmony.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand, man. Just wishful thinking.
@chainchomp2
It’s an idea, but a hard one to implement. Cloudchaser’s animation files are already named Stormwalker; as it is they have to remember (not that it’s hard) that when the script calls for Cloudchaser there are no “Cloudchaser” files they can pull up. They have to use the Stormwalker files. But because it’s not hard, there’s little impetus to have someone spend the time renaming however many hundreds of body part sprites to Cloudchaser.
Since the Stormwalker name is already “taken” in the system then, the male character’s files not only would also have to be renamed from whatever they are now (costing as much extra work as renaming the Stormwalker files to Cloudchaser) but they can’t be named Stormwalker unless they first go through the process of renaming Cloudchaser’s files. And the alternative is to remember that every time the script calls for Cloudchaser they have to use Stormwalker, and every time the script or a storyboard calls for Stormwalker they not only can’t use Stormwalker, but have to remember what the file name is for a much more obscure background character. A character who showed up only once and who they may not ever even use again. And it means they could never use the Stormwalker character who was cut from storyboards, because that was clearly going to be a female. (Which, since they haven’t in 5 seasons now, they probably won’t anyway, but this would cut it off completely.) All so a relatively unpopular blind bag toy from a past series can use a name that was never attached to it in the first place.
They’d be better off spending the effort on making a Flitter blind bag out of a Fluttershy 2.0 mould, and maybe making a second Cloudchaser with the meteor cutie mark, possibly on a Wonderbolts mould. (Though I still think the reason they did what they did is that they already had the tooling to stamp on Cloud Kicker’s cutie mark, so using that version of it, which is not inaccurate to the show, saved them a lot of money. Designing the tooling for her normal cutie mark, plus likely the Wonderbolts cadet uniform tooling if they went with the Wonderbolts mould, and the blue and white highlights for her mane and tail, would have been a lot more expensive than one purple Rainbow Dash mould with a uniform white mane and tail and an existing cutie mark stamped on.) But the real problem is that they stole the Cloud Chaser name for the male character in the first place, thinking nobody would care. You’d think after the Heartstrings/Lulamoon debacle they would have been more careful, but maybe they thought Cloudchaser was obscure enough they could get away with it. The real solution I think would be to give him a totally different name, but it’s actually too late for that. They could try the same rescue as before, maybe re-release him as Johnny Cloud Chaser or something.
But I’d still prefer if they didn’t waste the effort, and just gave us a Flitter instead.
That is the intention, yes.
A consistent “defect” on the toys (and corresponding cards) with the cutie mark printed on their right flank:
…Although it’s surprisingly printed facing the correct on the toy, while it’s backwards on the card. The image for the cutie mark on the card also seems to be one of the wings from the Wonderbolts symbol/Soarin’s old cutie mark.
@Ferrotter
Whether it was on accident or intentional that it’s extended to the toy, either way my money is on incompetence.
@Ferrotter
What 621Chopsuey means stems from how the original “Cloudchaser” never made it to Hurricane Fluttershy’s storyboards or got designed. Fun speculation or something else having “Thunderclap” as the original undesigned Cloudchaser, so to compensate for some “stolen name” business, “Thunderclap” could be (fan)named Stormwalker to “steal” the other name back. This would be difficult to catch on or turn into a thing though, whether it’s that name (she’s probably still Stormwalker to DHX) or Cloud-space-Chaser with Derpi’s aliases on the tag.
Personally I like Thunderclap, bonus of having similarity to Thunderlane as a parallel to his look. But I can see his reasoning (if it is indeed this, anyway).
On that note, the “Thunderclap” toy dates back to Wave 11 (2015). My personal opinion is that they’re within reason to change it given how long it’s been if they see fit (not that they would), or as he’s otherwise “only” a nameless and unimportant extra. Or since it’s happened before (Misty Fly later becoming Icy Mist for some reason despite the former becoming used in the show). Not that I have anything more…substantial.
@bluemeganium
That’s the only stock image of Cloudchaser that they have, I guess. (The goggles I’ll give a pass on its lack of applied translucency.) Actually I just realized with regard to depicting the image she’s also lacking the trainee uniform. I only say that because Thunderlane has a similar image and came with it, even if it’s his third toy and they probably wanted to go beyond the glittery hair as a new variation:
The male one has no history of being Stormwalker. They should have named him something else entirely, but now it’s too late. Now we just have to assume Cloud Chaser is a gender-neutral name in Equestria, like Pat or Chris.
Their best bet would have been to just roll with it and make the original female one Cloudchaser, one word, and the male Cloud Chaser, two words. But they probably had some difficulty trademarking Cloudchaser; considering how much else comes up on an eBay search for it, that’s likely.
(Though it’s also backwards.)
Still, I’m happy there’s an official Cloudchaser blind bag finally.