M'Kyuun

I gave a second's thought to picking up the new multipack SS86 Perceptor at Target. I held it in my hands, and my desire to have that Ramhorn was strong, but not strong enough to coerce me into purchasing. I wasn't aware of the mold change to Preceptor's torso, but I knew about the new panel on his back to cover the hole where his head goes. Nevertheless, I wasn't 100% enthused with the original SS86 release, as I was disappointed that he didn't have the swing-down mirror and the internal focusing mechanism was no longer functional. In my view, these new toys should better the original toys in every sense, so the loss of those functions, functions that the G1 toy and even the TR figure had, is a downgrade from their predecessors. Too, the arms are supposed to form the support columns for the scope, but on this mold, they sit too far apart, and the scope just floats on its transformation armature. Again, a downgrade from both G1 and TR figures. The mold's only saving grace is its bot mode's likeness to the animation, which I realize is the driving focus of the vast majority of TF collectors. Alas, it's not mine. I prefer a good mix of both OG toy and toon where the best attributes of both are captured. Turning to Ramhorn, I think they did a pretty good job on this guy, much better than Steeljaw's Pomeranian look. It's lamentable that both require partsforming, not only to provide their weapons like the OG toys, but to actually fill out and complete the animal forms. Bit of a nasty cheat in my eyes, but the new cassettes, from their dismaying downscaling to the absence of effort to actually make them look like cassettes, and the need to add parts of the bot modes in addition to their weapons all represent downgrades from their 40+ year-old original toys. Again, the trend should be going the opposite way, where, in every measure, the toys should be improving upon what came before. I wish they would return to the original RW microcassette scale, return to ensuring, as much as possible, that the cassette looked like a real cassette with properly placed reels and cassette deco. IMHO, KFC demonstrated some really good engineering on their Ramhorn and Steeljaw, and IMHO, both are the best toys of those characters at the original scale, better by far, IMHO, than the Fanstoys versions which I found a bit underwhelming after waiting what seemed like an eternity for them. I hope KFC will produce the rest of the cassettes at that level. However, FT actually made a really good Ravage (best version at the OG scale IMHO), but I'd like to see what KFC could do. Likewise, Dr. Wu. While some of his combiner cassettes may have had their shortcomings, I really liked what he did with Overkill and Slugfest, especially the latter which captures the cassette mode, alas sans deco, better than any of his previous efforts and yet still pulls off a really well-done Slugfest at that scale. I wish his head was on a ball joint for a little more poseability, but overall, he's so reminiscent of the G1 toys while his leg solution is an improvement. I hope he gets around to doing all the main cassette characters, especially Ravage, my favorite. Ultimately, I wish Takara and Hasbro would change their approach to the cassettes and return to the original scale along with better engineering and attention to making the cassette modes more believable, but I have no faith that that will happen, as the trend seems to oppose that direction. I'm happy for the third-party options we have, but even they fall short sometimes, alas. Still, something's better than nothing at all.

I don't really follow the stories of the various artists that have worked with Hasbro over the years, nor the those of the comics' artists. I liked Don's work, as well as E.J. Su's, and Marcelo Matere's on the current box art. In Don's case, I can see both sides of the argument, but it's a shame that a promising professional relationship was soured, especially when Don produced such a prolific amount of interesting and appealing work that would've made for some cool toys. Perhaps Hasbro learned their lesson, as they seem more inclined to give credit to the various artists they work with currently and over the past few years. I'm always happy to hear Mark and Evan credit the Takara designers who do the heavy-lifting design-wise on Transformers toys. I've said it before and I stand by my opinion that without Takara, there are no transforming Transformers. I think Mark and Evan are talented, but I don't think they or very many American designers have the wherewithal to design transforming toys beyond something like M.A.S.K. Even in the LEGO community, which has no shortage of unfathomable talent, I very, very seldom see anyone make transforming stuff, and even then, it's usually on the microscale. I'm usually the only one bringing minifig scaled stuff to the party, which is unfortunate. Digression aside, it'd be great if Hasbro extended an olive branch to Don, seeing as how they're under new management, and perhaps court him again to use his designs with proper credit and compensation. I'm sure there'd be a lot of happy TF fans if that happened. I count myself among them. I always loved E,J. Su's more mechanically realistic approach to drawing Transformers. Instagram I still think they should have hired him to do the live-action designs. Man, my Wally's been slow getting new TF figs. They did have a couple copies of Solus Prime last weekend, the first I've seen her there. I'm not interested in getting her, but I am on the lookout for Alchemist so hopefully they'll get him at some point. As to your review, I appreciate the comparison with the OG mold. I actually have Sideways, and I thought he was a pretty cool fig back in the day, but I concur that the new fig is an upgrade at least where the bot mode is concerned. I liked the OG's cybertronic jet mode, though, and honestly, despite the changes you mentioned, the overall aesthetic hasn't changed much. While I'm not a big fan of partsforming, it's not as egregious a concession given that the wings can detach and be used as an admittedly cool looking weapon. The lack of spring-loaded key functionality is the biggest bummer, as that was the big gimmick with the OG toys. But at least the shield can be manually deployed in a similar fashion as the original. As Cybertronic air/spacecraft go, I dig Sideway's alt. I may end up picking this guy up, too, if I see him in the store. Thanks for the review, Mike! Checked Pulse after I finished posting and Alchemist is available again so I ordered him. Could've ordered Sideways, too, but having the OG fig, I'm not as concerned about getting the new one. If I see him in the store I might pick him up, but if not, I won't consider it as great a loss.

Came across this on TFSource today. It's about the size of the OG MR toy, 3.3", has a fair amount of metal parts, but it's going for $149.99. Can't see many folks dropping that kind of cash on such a small figure. Consider it BrickyRobo's version of Takara's Missing Link for the MR/Gobots toys.

OK, yeah, I'm thinking of Don Figueroa's concept art. I wouldn't mind having this as a figure.

I'm not really into HoS, as most of the alts don't do much for me. However, I'd love to have Grimlock as a Mark V tank. If you're gonna give Grimlock a vehicle alt, that's about as good as any. Funny Guidi chose Grimlock and not the more fitting Warpath., but whatever. Too, odd that he chose to make Megatron a field cannon instead of a tank.

Well, you're not wrong. 😄 I was just thinking that the hybrids, given their heightened durability and abilities relative to the average human would stand a far greater chance of facing down a Xenomorph. I'm sure acid will do a number on them, too, but they definitely have an advantage. Too, it seems like Weyland-Yutani already had a weapon that could subdue the Alien, if only for a short time. Morrow, a cyborg, seems to know what he's doing from experience and has thus far demonstrated greater success at non-lethally subduing an Alien than ever depicted in the franchise, AFAIK anyway. Since the Colonial Marines were neither hybrids nor cyborgs and didn't have Morrow's fancy bug-zapper/webber-upper, I'm thinking all were shelved and buried prior to Aliens, or at least that's the story they'll tell for continuity's sake. The Xenomorphs are equal opportunity killers.

Considering that this show is a prequel of sorts to Alien, I'm hoping that continuity is at the forefront of the writers' minds as they plot it out. Little rankles more in a franchise than mussing up continuity and I hope Hawley and crew are cognizant of it every step. I am curious, however, if it's going to be revealed at some point that the Maginot collected their Xenomorph specimens on LV426, hence Weyland-Yutani's interest in sending the Nostromo crew there to investigate, with Ash acting on their behalf to ensure new specimens are collected and brought back. I'm assuming that the Xenomorph currently causing all the havoc in Prodigy City will eventually be exterminated, and likely too, the Maginot's W-Y cyborg security officer, Morrow, unless he somehow changes his allegiance, or feigns doing so. Too, the eggs and facehuggers will likely all be destroyed and all knowledge of them erased, meaning our intrepid hybrids will be mindwiped or just executed to prevent their spilling the beans. Morrow is really a wildcard in this series, and IMHO, the most interesting character given his knowledge of the Xeno, especially his knowledge of how to fight/subdue it, and his steadfast loyalty to Yutani. Since the rest of Maginot's crew are dead, Morrow's the only one who can tell W-Y about the Alien, so it remains to be seen what happens. I'm spitballing, but it seems that, based on the comments made in Aliens by the Company execs, nobody's ever heard of what Ripley describes to them. Either that info truly isn't known to W-Y, or it's known only to a select few and closely guarded.

I'm not at all into metal, so the soundtrack was lost on me entirely; it was more background noise to me than anything else. Glad you enjoyed it, though. I suppose, for the genre and the events taking place, the music was apropos. I didn't really pick up on that many of the characters being quirky, a few sure, but in hindsight, yeah, I guess there are more than I realized. Despite a few eyerolling moments, the show demonstrates promise; I hope they fulfill it satisfyingly without breaking established continuity and with a building story that beggars more seasons.

I like the overall premise and execution of the show despite my niggles. I think having this take place pre-Alien is interesting, but also presents a fine line for preserving continuity, a narrative responsibility I hope they observe with the greatest respect. That said, I'm curious to see where they take the story and characters.

I also watched both eps and enjoyed them. Like @Hikuro, I have to wonder at the purpose of showing future flashes without any context- the story's chugging along and suddenly-flashes- and then back to story. It's just a bit jarring, and without any causal effects, it seems more of an odd interruption than any meaningful furtherance of the narrative. Unless- I just had a thought- they're the product of the cyborg security officer's mind. That might explain some things. Anyway, there's enough going on to maintain interest and anticipation for the next episode. I hope it captures a wide audience.

Funny. I have Chinese neighbors, and in my attempt to learn a little Mandarin, I discovered that food is pretty central to Chinese culture- even their greetings have to do with eating. I'm not a car guy, but I do like the way any number of them look, and I appreciate a good-looking car alt mode. I've also been collecting the LEGO Speed Champions sets since the line began, so I get cool cars from both of my hobbies. Enjoyed the review, Mike. I POed this guy as I really like the bot mode and the jet mode, although I wish they'd found a more elegant solution for the feet. Anyway, being a Cybertronian jet, I'm not going to judge it as harshly as I would a real world jet alt. I will point out the old Takara staple of arms just hanging out along the sides with no attempt to even hide the hands. So lazy and careless. On the whole, though, especially from the front or a forward three-quarter view, it's not a bad looking jet. It could've been better, but at the deluxe budget, I'm inclined to agree with you in that it looks pretty good in both modes, niggles aside. Thus far, Starscream and Arcee are the only two TFOne toys I'm getting (waiting on Pulse to release them); However, Airachnid has my interest piqued. I thought she was one of the most interesting characters from the film, I dig her flight mode, and I'm curious to see what the final toy looks like.

I abhor the Bayverse films and I make no bones about it. However, I like a good Transformers toy, I like a cool alt mode, and sometimes a robot mode just looks cool to me. Check all three with this figure. While Takara can be hit or miss on some of these SS figs, in this case I think they did a pretty good job taking a bit of concept art, a beautiful car that apparently was in a single scene (haven't seen the film), and married the two into a figure that, IMHO, looks good and turned out at least standard relative to other figs in the line. I really like the reuse of the Vehicon's roof and windshield folding technique, one of Takara's best for compressing a lot of car into a compact kibble-less form. I can't stress enough how much I love the integrated weapon storage, a feature that, at this point in the franchise's history, should be standard practice. I like how the front fenders form her shoulders, and finally, the 12C is indeed a lovely car, and despite my feelings about the live action films, Bay and Co have an excellent eye for beautiful or interesting vehicles to use as alt modes and Has/Tak do the line proud by securing the licenses in most cases. Fortunately, they do far more justice with the cars than with jets. I've got a PO in for this fig. I don't buy many Bayverse figs anymore, but every now and again, one strikes my fancy for one reason or another. If nothing else, I can always leave them in car mode, but I seldom do. Appreciate the comprehensive look, Mike.

I agree with that approach. Individual rooms would make it far more accessible to both kids and adults and the stackability would give long-term collectors a nice goal of completing the entire ring. As is, price tag notwithstanding, it is a nice set for what it offers, but I still prefer my original spherical Death Star playest, which I have on permanent display on my desk. I dig the mini-Imperial Shuttle. I made my own years ago, but LEGO's version looks pretty good. It could be its own set and I'd certainly buy it, the Lambda Shuttle being my favorite SW ship design. I wish they'd do a line of ships at that scale and with that level of detail, as the Microfighters just aren't as fulfilling.

Recently got the new BeastDrive mold from 52Toys, Fickle Step. Love messing with this thing. 1). Maximum uploads of 3 pictures of a toy even if you bought two. That means if you bought DC Batman you can post a combination of boxed and opened pics of up to three here. Anymore than three will get the post deleted. If you bought another copy of the same DC Batman toy that does not constitute as a different toy and does not earn you three new photos. The moderation team considers that spamming and will be deleted. Text link to an external photo gallery if you have more than three pictures to share. 2). Image size: Height maximum per toy will now be set to 2400pixels for 3 pictures combined. That means one high resolution picture at 2400pixels or three decent resolution picture of 800pixels each. Choose your picture(s), less is more.

Looks like I'm the only one keeping this thread alive. After waiting all last year for it to release, 52Toys finally released the BeastDrive cat-cum-car and it's nigh purrrr-fect! This is Fickle Step. I'm not too crazy about the dark orange or the brownish decals, but I love the mold itself. I wish they'd reversed the colors, making the body panels orange, and the cat's paws, tail tip, and muzzle white. But, it's a fun kit, a little more complex than their previous releases to transform but still fairly intuitive. I daresay I think this is better than anything Takara would produce if they were tasked with turning a car into a cat. Oh wait, they did that already! Remember Alternators Ravage and Hatchet, the dreadlocked cat-like thing from Bayverse? Alternators Ravage Hatchet

I like cassettes, so I'm a little biased, but I dig these guys. I really like the cassette bots that actually look like cassettes, a fleeting reality these days since Hasbro introduced the smaller scale, so Brutality, AKA Slugfest, hits a certain sweet spot for me. His bot mode is adorable- I particularly love the way his legs store within the tape mode. He's simple by comparison with most of Wu's previous cassettes, all of which had to do double duty as combiners, but he has his charm. Slaughter, AKA Overkill, eschews any pretense of looking like a real cassette, but as Mike mentioned, he makes up for it in spades with an impressive amount of articulation in a very small package. I wish his head was on a ball joint for more expressive poses, but as he is, he's a fun little dino-bot. Speaking of little dino-bot cassettes, Wu's previous releases, Explosion, AKA Noizu and Supersonic, AKA Gurafi, did not make the most convincing of cassettes either, although their rectangular wafer modes aren't far off- neither have reel details which would've helped sell the notion. Where they fall apart, literally, is in their combination, which relies solely on Explosion's two hinged flaps, which do not have a much-needed "thoop" point for solidarity, closing over two small tabs on either side of Supersonic's robot torso. The connection is tenuous at best, relying on the merest friction and a prayer. It doesn't help that said un-thooped flaps host the hip/shoulder ball joints, which means you have to press in on the shoulders while manipulating the arms in combined mode (Impact Wave AKA Decibel). For something that should have been designed out of the gate to combine, of the three combining cassette teams that Wu has released, this one is the most poorly executed due to there being no other manner of solidifying the combination. It's disappointing, especially since the combined mode looks really good, has great articulation, nice paint apps, and convenient but wholly inaccurate weapon placements. And, with the merest breeze or vibration, it falls apart into robotic bits that become two pretty decent mini dino-bots (Supersonic's wings are a bit on the thicc side, but at this scale, it's ok). Handling it while typing this, I still can't believe Wu didn't create a stronger connection, especially when the combination was the big selling point. Unfortunately, it's nicer to look at than to play with, at least in combined mode.

Another sad loss of an Apollo era astronaut. It's a shame he never got the chance to walk on the moon. Granted, he got to see it in a way very few humans have, but it's not quite the same thing, is it? However, after an explosion and rapid O2 and power loss, he led his crew successfully by virtue of his intelligence, strength, courage, and optimism to keep themselves alive and their ships viable enough to return home, an extraordinary accomplishment for which he'll be forever remembered. RIP Commander Lovell

Connery's Egyptian-cum-Spaniard with the obvious Scottish accent asking his French costar playing a Scotsman about haggis was such tongue-in-cheek comedy gold. "How revolting!" I have to wonder what a laugh they had making that scene. As to a reboot- why? The original movie was unique and pretty well done for its time. It had some notable performances by the leads, cool music (Queen!), swordfights, immortals, and a neat story. MacLeod won the prize. No more needs to be said or done. I didn't even like the tv show. Highlander 2 doesn't exist. I wasn't aware of the third film. I may have seen it back in the day, but it left so little impression on me that I forgot it completely. I don't think I've seen Endgame or The Source. Why can't Hollywood create anything new? Unwanted, unneeded reboots suck. Just look at the RoboCop reboot. Forgot about it? Exactly. Oh, and James MacAvoy would make a good Highlander- he's actually Scottish, not a huge guy, and adept enough to learn swordplay if he hasn't already done so. Ewan MacGregor and Gerard Butler, also Scotsmen, would have made nice cameos as other Immortals, as both are no strangers to swordplay and both can carry a movie on their own.

The similarities aren't surprising since Hasui designed both sets of Constructicons. Shame he wasn't a little more innovative or based this new design on the OG toy instead of his lackluster CW toy. I had a bad feeling and you confirmed it. Man, I hate it when a utility vehicle gets short shrifted of its functionality. Even the G1 toy's deck could rotate. Little rollers on a treaded vehicle should be requisite, too, though the non-rotating deck is what irks me far more. Unfortunately, both arm bots seem to have absorbed more than their fair share of design shortcuts. If Takara's philosophy regarding combiners is that they can take more shortcuts b/c no one will care since they'll be combined all the time, they're mistaken. Looking forward to your review of complete Devastator once you have Mixmaster in hand. I get the sense, thus far, that unlike Bonecrusher and Scavenger, Devy, who I'm sure was the real focus, will not disappoint.

Agree. Has/Tak did good with these two. Ah, so. Ever new avenues to part us from our filthy lucre! Like a hungry fish, I keep biting. As I mentioned previously, I think ER Prime scales nicely with the rest of the Autobots, at least with all the first season bots. His truck mode is relatively small, but in bot mode I think he scales well. I hadn't actually given much thought to the whole resizing aspect beyond SS86 Megatron to match Prime, but yeah, I suppose any number of them will have to be upscaled slightly to fit the new SS86 scale. To that end, I wonder how much larger the new Seeker will be? I'm actually looking forward to it despite the fact that the nose section, as usual, is truncated vertically, it has no main landing gear at all, and the horizontal stabs need be parts-formed to the backs of the wings for cleaner legs instead of an engineering solution. They're touting it as a mini-masterpiece, but IMHO, it falls a bit short of th...wait, MP-52- nope, right on brand. As to varying size adjustments, I hadn't noticed them, but I trust your observations. The toys have been shrinking somewhat over the years, so maybe they're trying to reverse that trend. I really insist on G1 Megatron's having a gun mode, but I know it's a situation beyond Hasbro's control and as compromises go, this one is acceptable. It would have been cool if Romulus scaled to SS86 Prime, but just like the rest of us, they had no idea that Has/Tak were going to upscale him. I keep hoping that Magic Square will upscale their Doomsday, IMHO, the best G1 Megatron toy ever made. I think they'd make bank if they upscaled to both SS86 and MP scales with that figure. I'd be down for both. According to the TF Wiki, Octane is supposedly inspired by the Boeing 767, but it could be a 737 variant as well. At any rate, it's not a 747, so notably smaller than the shuttle. One of the greatest detriments of triple changers is the oft extreme disparities in sizes of the two alt modes, with Broadside being the worst offender by far, followed by Astrotrain, Octane, Blitzwing, Sandstorm, and finally Springer, whose Cybertronian modes offer more leeway than the aforementioned T-changers with Earth alts. Anyway, Octane would be better served if they chose a small air refueling plane; unfortunately, the smallest US tanker is the C-130 which is much larger than a tanker truck. The P-3 Orion Firefighter is much closer to tanker truck dimensions, even if it traffics in fire suppressant instead of jet fuel, but I'd accept it as a comparably sized plane alt for Octane.

I'm firmly not in the cartoon "accuracy" camp, so I'm all for mechanical details, but of course, mileage varies. And SS86 Prime does have a fair bit of surface detail: rivets and panel lines all over his arms, panel details all over the insides and outsides of his legs, vent details on his midsection, windshield wipers, brace detail on his fuel tanks- lots of surface detail. a lot of it just kinda gets washed away from a distance in the seas of red and blue, but they're there upon close inspection, and that's well within what we've seen in both the main line and SS86 throughout. I'm a fan. If you really want plain figs, go with MP or legends, as both seem to hew closer to the plain low-detail toon aesthetic than either of Hasbro's lines. On one hand, Romulus' scale is a shame, but on the other, he pairs nicely with Earthrise Prime, which, until SS86 came along, was undoubtedly the best official G1 Prime toy in the main line. I still hold it in high regard, as it's a fine figure, and there are some things I like better on it than the SS86, like the 3D molded shin vents. With both toys, we're doubly blessed with G1 OP goodness after decades of waiting. Honestly, I'm not sure why they felt they had to upscale SS86 Prime from his usual large voyager stature, as the ER was already taller than the rest of the Autobots, which scaled perfectly, IMHO.

Great review, Mike. I can accept the tank mode compromise, as there's really no other good option for Hasbro unless they just release a non-transforming cartoon accurate Megatron figure, and I'm glad they chose compromise. My gripe is that it looks like two different teams worked on it, their A-team on the lower half and their C-team on the turret. Perhaps they should have just upgraded him to commander class and improved the engineering on the turret. However, whether he's a gun or a tank, my guess is that most fans, including me, will display Megatron in all his robot glory. That was obviously the primary focus of the design and in that they delivered. I'm with you on the mace- I understand the reference, but like Prime's axe, it's an accessory I'll never use, and as you pointed out, there's little doubt third party will provide options. My own hope is for fusion cannon options that have some transformation elements to make it look less like a gun scope sandwiched between arms and more like an actual tank turret. I think including the Megs-as-a-figure-scaled-pistol was the better accessory, as far more scenes from the tv show and Movie can be played out where someone, usually Starscream, wielded him in gun mode. I POed mine from Pulse, so as usual, I'll likely get my copy later than everyone else, b/c membership has its privileges. Snark aside, at least I'm guaranteed to get it eventually, as finding stuff in stores, while better now than say five years ago, is still not reliable, especially for a fig of this status. In the interim, I need to address my lack of display space so he'll have a home when he arrives. I'm due to get my Long Haul-Hook set today, and I'm not sure where to put them yet, so I need to find a solution. First world issues, I'll tell ya.

Madness. 😄 Y'know, I've often wondered why they completely eschewed real world scale, but apparently the trend stared with the original Diaclone and only got progressively worse from there. Once we got to the combiner teams, all bets were off, Bruticus being a major example of just how wonky scale is in the Transformers Universe. However, scale discrepancies were only amplified by the Sunbow animation and '86 Movie. astrotrain is a glaring example, alongside Soundwave, his cassettes, Reflector, and good ole Megatron himself. I 've also often wondered how Transformers would have turned out had Budiansky changed up the roster and kept Soundwave, his minions, Megatron, and Reflector all at their real world, human hand-sized scale and perhaps made them all spies or something. It would have been a completely different show, but I think it'd make for a neat alternate universe story completely devoid of mass shifting. Of course, the toys wouldn't be able to do that so there'd be obvious concessions there. However, it would be neat to have at least one line where the toys were all in relatively r/w scale to each other. See, that would have been logical. Too, I've always wondered why they chose a Concorde for Silverbolt's alt when the B-1B would have been far more apropos amongst a group of American fighters. Weird decisions. Well, in a toyline where they can make cassettes, motorcycles, dune buggies, and other relatively thin alt modes transform with no bot kibble hanging out, a jet fighter seems, to me, to be a far less challenging prospect. Moreover, I design transforming mecha from LEGO, my own designs as well as Macross. I've been doing it decently well for over a decade and from experience, it's difficult to see how you can start with a robot and design it into a vehicle or object, as so much of the alt mode generally informs the robot mode. Honestly, there's a lot of back and forth, so I have some understanding of the challenges Takara faces when designing Transformers toys. Designing with LEGO poses its own unique challenges, as I'm constrained by the palette, the dimensions of LEGO parts, and my inability to craft a custom part where it would serve better than what exists or what I can cobble together. It definitely pushes my creativity and innovation to overcome challenges. Anyway, Due to his general habit of making the entire powerplant become the legs, I'll concede the point- especially on valks like the YF-19 or the VF-17. And yeah, his latest designs have become thinner and lankier. I don't mind. Floro Dery's blocky designs in some ways improved the looks of the bots compared to their toys, but that blockiness seems to have had a reverse inspiration on the toys that would follow, unfortunately. Concerning the Diaclone JetRobo F-15 initially released in '83, it seems a step backwards in design philosophy since it likely succeeds Kawamori's far more elegant and realistic VF-1. The transformation involves partsforming the lower arms/hands which seems contrary to the majority of Kawamori's valks over the years, although, technically, the VF-1's, and VF-0's by extension, legs partsform from fighter to battroid. It has always seemed odd to me that they didn't just make the area for the arms a little wider and hinge the lower arms into that space to fill out the inner fuselage. I so wish they'd done that with the SS86 toy, but it looks like they followed the Classics/ Earthrise / MP solution of just recessing them into the sides of the plane. I'm not complaining; at least they integrate and aren't just hanging out there in the breeze like so many pf their other TF jetformers. You know my answer b/c they do it routinely with any other alt mode except jets, and they even managed to do it with Maverick, Legacy Prime Dreadwing/Skyquake, and Needlenose, and with Generations Scourge (an innovative blended wing design likely inspired by NASA's Boeing X-48), IMHO one of the all-time best aviation alt modes both by subject and execution. Fantastic figure. I'll throw the Classics fig in there too, whose only real disappointments were the too-shallow forward fuselage and the giant hole between the intakes that should have been filled by forward fuselage. My point is, there are precedents for doing good to decent jetformers; the question is, why are they the exceptions and not the rule? I don't think it's always necessarily about budgets, retailers' needs, or toy safety laws but more of an internal trend of relying on an old tried-but-true simple approach that gets the job done minus nuance, innovation, or adherence to what real jets look like. insofar as combining, again, they can manage to make just about any other alt mode, even construction machinery, look credible, but jets? Same old story: blocks with nosecones, wings, and tails thrown on. Even the G1 toys succeeded with conveying what aircraft they were supposed to be with slightly more accuracy than the Legacy versions. Step backwards. Frustrating both b/c they've proven they can do better, other companies have done it better, and b/c they seem locked into a formula that they seem to have no desire to amend or improve upon. After forty years, they should be able to take those blocky cartoon models and transform them into reasonably believable aircraft- it's kinda what they do, except when they don't. First point, yeah, no excuse for not taking a different approach. However, in Takara's defense, they didn't design the robot modes for Bayformers; a bunch of CG artists chopping up pics of vehicles and pasting those bent, twisted, and otherwise distorted shards of vehicles onto robot frames created the designs. Hence the reason they are impossible to develop as three dimensional toys without a buttload of cheating. I wish they'd let Takara develop the bot modes, although I have a feeling Starscream would've turned out little better b/c Takara's gonna Takara. I think all the ground vehicles would have had more logical bot modes based on actual transformation mechanics, and that would have informed the screen captures as well. Alas, we got Bay's shardbots and history is set. Second point, no, more like a single seat wide cabin area that looks like the Countach's windshield and surrounding windows in the middle of an otherwise normally scaled Countach. That's how I visualize the truncated forward fuselages on jetformers as it would translate to Sideswipe, for example. Apply the same formula to the rest, except Mirage who's already just a single seater. Throw his arms on the outside of the doors and completely close up his aft wheel wells to represent the general omission of aft landing gear. Now take that approach to nearly every carbot and see how the fans react. Guessing it wouldn't go over well. Third point: I checked it out! Appreciate the review. I got them myself last week after waiting what seemed an eternity for them to finally release. Agree on all points. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, the cassette alt mode seems like more of a loose suggestion, if that, on these smaller scaled cassettebots. They should just call them wafers at this point. As someone who really digs the cassettebots, it's a bit disappointing, but I do like what Wu's doing with them for the most part. These two were really well done, IMHO, and I agree that it's likely b/c they didn't have to make compromises for a combination gimmick. I hope he'll eventually do all the major character cassettes, as they'll at least benefit, I hope, from better articulation. If there's a Studio Series '86 Soundwave coming, hopefully at minimum, we'll get a better Ravage.

Part of the problem is that Takara & Hasbro shrink the jets so that the robot modes will all be roughly compatible. However, most jets are much larger than cars. The F-15 is over 63 feet long, roughly 5.5 to 6 feet tall from the bottom of the forward fuselage to the top of the canopy, 18 feet tall from the ground on extended gear to the tops of the vertical stabs, the fuselage from intake to intake is about 9 feet wide, it's nearly 43 feet from wingtip to wingtip, and the C series, likely the inspiration for the Seeker, weighs 27,000 lbs empty. It is a big machine, much larger than the average car. If they scaled TFs with fighter modes appropriately, most would need to be leader scale relative to deluxe and voyager scaled cars. Larger planes, like Silverbolt's Concorde mode, would have to be upscaled tremendously (and, I realize, unrealistically) to scale properly with the average car bot. Scaling definitely makes a difference, but I must point out that Takara rarely uses the forward fuselage to form any part of the bot and it usually just hangs off the bot's back as so much kibble. Same with Concordes or SR-71s- all that lovely long fuselage which could be made to encapsulate arms and part of a torso, but they never use it as such. Considering all of Kawamori's valk designs which approximate real world aircraft, and all of his variations in planform and transformation schemas, I think the problem lies with Takara's exceptionally narrow approach to designing transformable jets and less with their proportions. They can make very small cars and motorcycles transform with well-integrated robot parts in the alt modes, so jets should offer far more real-estate, and thus creative options, to utilize towards realizing a robot mode. Too, look what Touch Toys is accomplishing. I realize we're well beyond the scope of what Takara and Hasbro can produce at their budgets and other limitations, but still, they're pulling off some impressive engineering. On the other end of the scale, I think Newage came up with a brilliant schema for their Seekers. I love how they used the chest intake bits to form part of the lower forward fuselage, thus eliminating that bit of kibble for a more accurate F-15. It's still not perfect, as the legs don't have the proper taper to the augmenters, the intake ramps aren't quite the right shape, and parts of the arms protrude from the belly. However, unlike pretty much every official Seeker except MP-03 and variants, the bottom of the forward fuselage reaches to nearly the base of the inlets, which is accurate to the real jet. I hate it when they put a foreshortened forward fuselage on their jetformers- it's analogous to making the entire cabin section of a car only half of its normal width.

Yep, the chorus sums it up nicely. Haven't heard that song in a long time so I appreciate the reminder.