M'Kyuun

Ah, I see your point now. Sometimes the ole cranium is like that lab door in Tron. I concede your point and, too, would have preferred a removable box and double doors at the rear, like the original, as well a fold out ramp akin to that on 10497 Galaxy Explorer. The air drop mechanism is cool in its own right, but IMHO, neither fitting for this particular model nor as engaging, practical, or fun as the original's box and door setup. I would assume, perhaps erroneously, that Chris, the owner and host of Duckbricks, who himself has been to Billund numerous times for unveilings of new sets and interviews with their designers, keeps abreast of what other reviewers, especially those of Tiago's stature as a former designer himself, are posting. Chris himself is friends with a number of LEGO designers and is generally well-informed on his subjects. Having watched Tiago's interview before Duckbricks', I was a bit surprised that Chris continued his assurances that the GWP Cruiser, an update to the original Blacktron Invader, was compatible with the new Renegade. I'm sure he owns that set (he has over 6000 LEGO sets in his collection and intends to found a LEGO Museum) as he often receives full waves of sets free from LEGO to review as well as specialty items. I guess that only proves he's human like the rest of us.

I'll likely try to get two copies. I don't hate it, but I sure do wish Jae hadn't sacrificed the central cargo box to the gods of creative liberties. I haven't looked much elsewhere online, but I'm curious if there are similar sentiments coming from the fandom. If so, I kinda feel bad for Jae, as he seems rather passionate about Classic Space and wanted to put a new spin on the old set. Unfortunately, no one told him along the way that perhaps the box and the double cargo doors in the back should remain as essential play features.

TBF, Jae holds the ship almost vertical to retract the gears and the buggy stays in place. It would've been cool had he done a roll with it just to prove that it's secure, but after watching the vid, I'm feeling confident that the buggy won't arbitrarily fall out. Of course, that does little to ameliorate my disappointment that the box element is altogether missing. I can't smite that deceased Equus enough. On a side note, while I appreciate the 'B' build, it just doesn't say Alienator to me, either. I've seen MOCs over the years that did it better, IMHO. I really wish Mike Psiaki had been the designer. His update to the Galaxy Explorer introduced an interesting way to realize the superstructure and the wingplan all while still retaining the essential look and features of the original ship, as well as adding some new ones. It's a masterclass in approach to creating an update of a vintage model. However, no model is created in a vacuum; even the most experienced designers still get feedback from other designers as well as other folks throughout the process of bringing a model to production, and with Jae being a new designer and this being his first Icons model, I'm sure there were many eyes on it and lots of feedback sought and given along the way. That it made its way through all those checks without having some fundamental changes made to hew it closer to the OG ship is telling for future vintage Space updates. Check your expectations. edit: After posting, I checked out Duckbricks' review in which he turns the ship completely upside down and the buggy remains secure. Oddly, he continually reiterates that the GWP Blacktron Cruiser set from earlier this year is cross-compatible when Jae the designer of the new Renegade said it is not due to differences in the clip systems utilized for modularity.

I'm familiar with Tiago. He was a former set designer who reluctantly quit the job for family reasons. Concerning the interview, until now, I wasn't familiar with Jae but I think it's cool that as a new designer he got to work on a project of this level. I appreciate his passion as he walks Tiago through the features and functions. Alas, knowing the background has done little to change my feelings about the model on the whole. There are a few things I like but it's just not quite what I was hoping for or expecting, especially after the excellent 10497 Galaxy Explorer set the bar so very high for these Classic Space revival sets.

I haven't been on social today as I was busy making soup earlier and then working on a MOC. I decided to check my messages and this thing popped up. Needless to say, curiosity piqued so I put the MOC on hold to do some internet recon. I got the Renegade for Christmas as a kid, probably in '87 the year it came out. I loved the Blacktron I figs with their all-black suits, that cool white-printed harness, and that awesome black visor. I was a big Robocop fan and I loved putting those guys' visors halfway down so only their mouths could be seen. Decades later, they're still one of LEGO's most striking original minifig designs. Concerning the update, like others, it's a mixed bag for me as well, especially as someone who grew up with the original theme and still has a copy of the original Renegade on his Classic Space shelf. The OG Renegade First the negatives: I wish they'd produced a new version of that windshield that tapered towards the front, even if only by two studs, i.e. 6 studs wide in the back- 4 in the front, or even 2 in the front. I think it would have helped the look of the cockpit considerably. However, the OG set had a similar shaped canopy, albeit only 4 wide, with a printed wedge brick to serve as the nose. Lacking a proper piece at 6 studs' width to represent said wedge brick, the designer used a large polyhedral flag which looks ok. It's not the best and one would think a company making a couple billion dollars a year would spring for a new mold or two, but apparently not. I also wish the winglets on the sides of that cockpit were larger to scale better, as the original's did. The little scooter craft on the wings employ yellow triangular road signs in a pattern invocative of the Blacktron trifoil, but honestly, I'd rather they had used a printed slope on the front of those scooters and also found a way to reuse those old tri-directional thruster pieces. I think the OG did it better. The proverbial elephant in the room is the lack of a removable cargo container and opening back doors a la the Galaxy Explorer to facilitate its loading and unloading. Instead, there's a functional air-drop mechanism built in to simply let the vehicle fall out of the ship. Lacking a crane and being confined to its alcove on all sides, there seems to be no other way of disgorging the vehicle when landed. IDK about all of you guys, but opening the cargo doors on those old ships to remove whatever sufficed as cargo was a huge part of the fun and they've engineered that salient feature right out of this design. Moreover, the vehicle doesn't even get a cargo box with a lid to nest in, which was also part of the fun of the original. That nesting box was also a modular component which could be attached to combos of the other bits and bobs to form smaller craft in the OG set. Wasted opportunity, IMHO. Also lost is another opportunity to build in a folding ramp to load the vehicle. The area behind the cockpit tapered down to a nice gooseneck on the OG ship; this one has a bulky section instead to house the retractable landing gear. While I LOVE retractable gear in a model, I can't understand why the gear couldn't have been more compact allowing at least a little of the original's taper to remain intact on this update. It seems that many of the salient features were ignored or rebuilt in such a way as to remove any flavor of the original set. The positives. Retractable landing gear! As I said, I absolutely love it when LEGO includes this feature in a set, as it's a rarity. I think the housings are oddly too bulky , but I'm glad the feature's there. The asymmetry is also preserved even if the cockpit section doesn't extend out as much as it did on the original. It looks a little stubby on this model which isn't helped by the bulky gear housing. However, the designer seems to tried to mitigate that bulkiness and give the impression of a thinner "neck" by using these girder support bricks which also add a nice heavy industrial feel to the ship. The modularity is also preserved, although the lack of a central cargo box erodes the playability compared to the original set. It comes with an additional minifig and a little buildable robot that looks identical to the one that came with the FX Star Patroller, another excellent CS set. Arguably the best updated part of this set is the ground vehicle, a much larger and more heavy-duty take on the OG. Alas, there doesn't seem to be a single printed tile or brick with the Blacktron trifoil, but all the signature colors are there, and it looks downright lovely. Again, it's a shame that the main ship doesn't feature a ramp enabling it to drive into its alcove. A storage box with drop-down sides with tools and accessories would have been glorious and would have really gone a long way towards redeeming some of the set's other misses. I'm not certain if any background details behind this set's development are in the public domain just yet but given the differences in approaches between this and the Galaxy Explorer update, it seems like there were two very different goals or two different designers behind them. As 10497 was an improvement in virtually every facet of the original's design (baseplates and little satellite station notwithstanding), this takes too many liberties thus eliminating much of what made the original's set design appealing. IMHO, they were going for a heavy-duty industrial feel as opposed to the original ship's minimalistic and more streamlined design. Personally, I wish this was more streamlined with more interior spaces for the figs to work/live in, like a small area behind the cockpit with a bed or a small galley with snacks, built into a tapered cowl to match the original enabling all three minifigs to ride in the cockpit section. I love the ground vehicle and to have had a cargo box that accommodated the vehicle along with a small workbench area with tools and accessories that can be offloaded as a total unit out the back of the ship while landed would have added a great deal more playability to the set than the air-drop function. LEGO has been doing a pretty good job over the last few years giving us the occasional Classic Space era homages so perhaps they were due for a dud. I don't outright hate this version, but it's admittedly not what I was hoping for either. I'm still going to get it, and with luck, like 10497, it'll get early price reductions like 10497 did at Wally back when it came out. Even at $100 MSRP for 1151 pieces, it's a pretty good deal, but I wouldn't mind picking up a second copy perhaps to mod at a reduced price.

The dialog is pure stereotypical over-the-top tripe, but the gameplay and visuals look solid. I wonder if everything is piloted, or if the animalistic bots are A.I. partners to the anthropomorphic mecha? While it'd be fun to pilot a creature mech for a change of pace, having it as a partner to send out on various commands or errands would be interesting, too.

Age is potentially a factor; I was thirteen when Transformers came out, so a very different outlook and set of expectations. Compared with Gobots, and many other cartoons, I appreciated the more mature tone and story of the first season. Alas, they round filed that direction and devolved into silliness and whimsy for the remainder of the series and I pretty much stopped watching it with any regularity during second season. To this day, the first season is the only one I own and the only one I've seen in its entirety. So far as the toys were concerned, after picking up Prowl, I really wanted that fig in the box to look like that box art so my disappointment was profound from the very beginning. MP Prowl was the realization of what I wanted in a Prowl toy; I only had to wait about thirty years for it. I also love the WFC and Earthrise Datsun bros toys, especially Prowl (I just love his overall livery and look) and Newage's Harry. I missed the boat on Magic Square's version as I was just starting to dip my toes into the legends stuff and didn't want to get sucked in. Shoulda known that was an effort born in futility. 😄 So far as articulation, that was always my greatest source of disappointment with the og toys, so that's a personally subjective focus for my criticism. I liked the deco of the G1 toys, stickers didn't really bother me, nor the sometimes-wonky proportions as there was nothing else better to compare with at the time, at least known to me. Had the OG toys been what Missing Link is, I'd have had a completely different view of those toys and a far deeper appreciation for them. But, by and large, they were pretty statues and I found them too limited to be much fun, especially with the really well-articulated GI Joe figures and even better articulated Microman figures existing concurrently with Transformers. I constantly questioned why the Transformers toys couldn't have the same levels of articulation. That was my constant complaint about the toys until the 90s when ball joints started to be introduced and figures finally started to be fully poseable, with limitations of course. But it was a step in the right direction, and I was happy to see improvements in that area, as well as sculpting, paint apps, and complexity as the years, and new toylines, came and went. Complexity was another area I was hawkish about until Bayformers took it to the far extreme. As I get older, I find I'm more easily frustrated by really complex transformations and I tend to be more heavy-handed as well which doesn't always bode well. Patience was never an easy virtue for me. But back in the early 2000s, I welcomed increased complexity with gusto. Just shows how our perspectives can change over time. I can't say that age is really a primary factor for appreciating G1. There are fans who were born after the millennium who are discovering G1 and have a passion for it- everything from the toys, the show, the comics, and they pursue collecting those things the same as the folks who grew up with G1. Like anything, it comes down to personal tastes and biases, personalities, and influences. At the end of the day, we like what we like for whatever reasons and so be it. I don't know why big robots that turn into other things (with lots of articulation!) ignites a passion within me; it just does and I suspect it's the same for other fans of whatever they're fans of.

😄 For me, that's the point. The original toys sucked. Edit. After thinking about it for a minute, let me amend that. I think the OG toys, many of them anyway, like Jazz, Prowl, Sideswipe, etc, presented very well. I liked the way they looked but deeply lamented their lack of pose ability which greatly reduced their value and enjoyment as a toy. They were more knick-knack than toy due to those limitations. While I'm not collecting them (yet), I think Takara struck gold with the Missing Link line. Had they done this ten, fifteen years ago I'd have been over the moon and likely would have bought them all without hesitation. But, IMHO, better toys exist, and have existed for some time now, which capture a good marriage of both toon and toy aesthetics along with a goodly range of articulation, all the things the OG toys lacked. I think they should have released this line years ago before alternatives existed. That said, seeing as how they're moving into the carbots with Sunstreaker, I'm hoping for Prowl to receive the ML treatment. He was my first G1 toy and I ruined my copy trying to jimmy-rig some articulation into the hips when I was a kid. Still regret it, and if I have the opportunity to get an improved version, I will.

Likewise. I have a reissue of G1 OP (I don't think I ever opened it. It's tucked away somewhere in storage), I have the deluxe Legacy United OP, which makes some improvements over the Missing Link at a fraction of the cost (I can live without chrome and die cast), and I have both Earthrise and SS86 Optimus Primes, either of which can fill the void in my mainline collection. SS86 is great, but I still love the Earthrise fig. IMHO, with Missing Link a reality, I'm not sure why one would want the original toy. Well yeah, nostalgia. Nostalgia only carries me so far. At least the Missing Link toys offer a close facsimile to the OG toy while delivering much improved articulation and other features. Even as a kid collecting the odd G1 bot, due to their many limitations my disenchantment with those toys grew with every acquisition (except the cassettes, which are still pretty cool and far superior to the crappy cassettes in Legacy). I would much prefer modern takes with all the articulation and complexity they offer. However, to each their own.

I'm playing some serious catch-up. I completely missed this back when it was new and I regret it greatly, as I'm sure I would've been in for a kit. This is on a shortlist of valks that I wish would get official toys. I just started working on a LEGO version, but the shortcomings of that particular medium along with my own as a designer mean that any final product will still fall short of the finesse, craftsmanship, and beauty of yours, Xigfrid. This is brilliant work.

Just perused the Cybertron Con pics over on TFW2005 and I realized that the pic with the opened shins was the Superion combiner frame and not Silverbolt. I think it's a shame that they resorted to another frame system instead of figuring out a way to just let the bots themselves form the limbs. Perhaps they couldn't stabilize them hence the wobbly instability issues inherent of the Combiner Wars gestalts. Granted, Menasor proved a frame system is effective, but I reiterate my constant mantra that this company has forty years' experience designing these things and finding a solution to solidify a bunch of bots connecting together to form a solid larger bot should not be beyond their capabilities. Looking through the pics, I realized there was very little on display that interested me. I'm curious to see what the new Rescue Bots crossovers look like in toy form, as I thought they did a great job with Chase. I like Animated, but I'm not sure if I'll pick up a copy of Wasp or not. Who am I kidding, I probably will. I don't own a copy of Wasp from the original line so this would fill that void. I still really, really wish they'd made a way to rotate his feet so that the actual front sections of his car formed his toes. As to Wingtail and his tails, I know extremely little about the Sonic Universe as I never played the games and have no interest in the character or associated media. I realize I'm likely in the minority of people my age who grew up with it, but I didn't and so I never formed associations with it. To that end, this is the first time I ever heard of Wingtail or Blue Rooster, so I didn't know what Wingtail looked like until @mikeszekely posted the above pic. Regarding the figure, you can't even squint and imagine that those empennage sections look like fox tails, as it seems they didn't incorporate any plastic origami to attempt to make them look somewhat fox-like. I suppose it's enough that they split in two. For me, it's moot as I don't intend to get the set. I still think Blue Rooster needs a retool/repaint into a Batmobile/Batman mech; I'd be down for that.

Ms. Lofting left an indelible impression. Baroness is the role that I know best, a voice I heard nearly every weekday afternoon as I did my homework or just chilled in front of my small CRT tv in my room after school. Good memories. RIP.

Amazing how all three Aerialbots are inaccurate misshapen messes in alt modes but this Sonic biplane, though somewhat cartoony, is fairly accurate and smooth betraying little of its transformative nature. It looks great, one of their better plane alts. I'm not into Sonic or I'd consider getting it. However, Wingtail's bot mode suffers the indignity of having the empennage halves just hanging awkwardly off his back. Is it just me, or does the car mode give off a Fisher Price Batmobile vibe? I wish it was Batman instead of Sonic as I'd likely get a copy. Blue Rooster looks like he fared better in bot mode than Wingtail. I'm trying to imagine that fig with a Batman head. 😄 The whole set is just begging for a Batman recolor with Joker replacing Wingtail. If you're reading this Hasbro, repaint potential all over this set with only minor retooling! Someone forgot to close Silverbolt's shin panels, or at least I'm assuming so.

I suppose I should have expected them to skew far more towards the toon than the G1 toys, which actually, blocky bot undercarriages notwithstanding, resembled the real-world aircraft they were meant to represent fairly well, at least from a top-down perspective. Anyway, I've about given up on ever having a set of Aerialbots that I like, especially when companies are chasing the toon look and they can't even be bothered to integrate the robot arms or tuck them in flush to the aircraft's fuselage. That sort of thing almost never happens with ground vehicle alts, but for some reason, they just don't seem to care how much robot sticks out of the alt mode when the alt mode is a plane. Well, on the bright side, with my shelf space dwindling, I can save both money and space by passing on these guys. I don't even think it's a matter of their not understanding, but more an absence of care. Takara has demonstrated said lack of care when it comes to aircraft alt modes since the Diaclone era. The only reason the Diaclone seeker was even close was because Kawamori, an aircraft enthusiast, designed it, and the VF-1 which would be repackaged as Jetfire. That's not to say that every aircraft alt has been a total fail- they seem to do a great job with helicopters, and there are a handful of jetformers that have been decent. On the whole, however, looking at the totality of forty years of these things, most Transformers with jet alt modes are executed poorly to egregiously poorly on the alt mode end. Unfortunately, that same defective approach seems to affect third parties as well, so it's not just Takara. I think the Machine Robo toys had some of the most accurate jet modes in the 80s, and unfortunately, the care died with that line of toys. I'll mention Chinese company Touch Toys as a notable exception: to wit, they stand alone as the only company currently producing transforming jets with remarkably realistic and accurate jet modes. I don't own any of them, but that doesn't prevent my vicarious enjoyment of them via pics and vids. I wish Takara had even a fraction of their investment.

Any faith I had that Has/Tak might actually produce Aerialbots with decent somewhat accurate alt modes has dissipated entirely. The Combiner Wars bots and planes looked better, IMHO. These are just beyond terrible. I will say I think this version of Silverbolt looks better than CW Silverbolt, but that doesn't erase the fact that he's still a giant block of bot under a plane, with none of that long fuselage used to form the robot. SMH. Pretty f'n shitty for a company with 40 years' experience making these things, and yet, not unexpected. And yet still, rather disappointing given the overall quality we've come to expect from the main line of late. I'm equal parts sad and mad.