The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[JB0]

*sigh*

Hasbro. Hasbro, Hasbro... listen to me here. You keep making the same mistake, over and over. It is getting old. When you cram robot parts so far into the car cabin that there's feet against the windshield and knees poking out the windows, then FOR GOD'S SAKE PAINT THE WINDOWS!

[Scyla]

My Kuro Kara Kuri (hard to shorten to only the first three letters) Drift arrived from PSX. Superb packaging. The box was packed in a thick plastic bag with hard plastic corner protection and padded out with fitted foam packaging. So the box arrived in pristine condition. I don't have time to open it up today so it has to wait for the weekend. Maybe I can do some comparison pictures with classics Drift, MMCs Ater Beta and this one.

After a first peak in the box I'm a bit surprised. He is bigger than expected and the box is super heavy. Looking forward opening him. 

[mikeszekely]

14 hours ago, JB0 said:

*sigh*

Hasbro. Hasbro, Hasbro... listen to me here. You keep making the same mistake, over and over. It is getting old. When you cram robot parts so far into the car cabin that there's feet against the windshield and knees poking out the windows, then FOR GOD'S SAKE PAINT THE WINDOWS!

I don't like bare paint for windows.  Looks sorta cheap or tacky.  I don't mind paint under translucent plastic, though that might be a bit much for a Deluxe-class toy.  Like I said in my review, I think the best thing to do would have been to use a nice, dark, smoked translucent instead of the so-clear-it's-practically-invisible stuff that they did use.

Anyway, Studio Series Ratchet...

He's a Deluxe, and he's closer to the size you associate wtih Deluxes than Bumblebee.  Here he's just a hair taller than Titans Return Hot Rod.  And although I've heard that he's a new mold, he seems to share a lot of engineering with Dark of the Moon Deluxe Ratchet, but I can't be sure since I don't have that toy.  I did have the original Voyager-class toy, and despite being what I thought was one fo the better toys from the first movie line Studio Series Ratchet definitely seems more screen accurate.  From the waist down, minus some paint and the fact that he has real kneecaps instead of exposed machinery, he seems especially on target.  The paint on his head is pretty lazy, too, as he should have a lot more silver and the chin that is painted silver shouldn't be, but again the sculpt is good.  His chest is almost there, aside from not squishing up to hide the outer lights and turn the line of inner lights into a triangle.  His shoulders are also close, but he's trade some pretty random kibble from his movie model for actual folded panels, plus the front tires (which I guess just disappear in the movie?) live there.  And his biceps just really need more green.  His forearms would almost be correct, if the elbow still bent in that same direction but the forearm were rotated inward 45 degrees.  Those trios of pipe-like things on the inside of his arms should be on the back, the molded detail should be on the inside, and the car panel should face outward.  Had they actually done that, though, more transformation would have been involved to keep the car panels out of the way.

My real big gripe, though, is that they did pretty much nothing with the top of the car.  I mean, yes, he's mistransformed in my pictures (I figured that out later).  There is another hinge that allows the roof to bend in half, so the back half tucks under the front half.  But the black rack with the light bar and extra tire doesn't split, and half of it doesn't stay on its half of the roof and get tucked under.  It just hangs from his butt like the world's worst coattails.

Ratchet's lone accessory is this saw blade thing.  I can't recall where it's from.  Really, I don't recall Ratchet doing much of anything except commenting on Sam's pheromones indicating his desire to mate with Mikaela and getting murdered to death by Lockdown in Age of Extinction.

Ratchet's articulation is decent enough.  His head can swivel, but there's no tilt at all.  His shoulders are on pegs, with ball joints in his back.  They give him rotation, but limit him too a little under 45 degrees laterally.  He's got a bicep swivel, a hinge at the elbow that's good for 90 degrees, and another the top of the bicep for transformation that can be used to fake a double-jointed elbow if you want him to curl all the way.  No wrist swivel- I guess you have to be a Voyager for that.  No waist swivel either.  Ball joints at the hips can go kick-a-guy-in-the-face far forward.  Properly transformed, with his back kibble folded up and pegged down, they can't really go backward due to his back kibble being in the way.  If you unpeg it and lift it, tough, he can bend his leg backward as much as you like.  Laterally they're good for about 90 degrees, but so far Ratchet's hips are the loosest of the Studio Series figures I bought so I'll be breaking out the floor polish.  He's got a little thigh swivel around the ball joint, but no cut in the thighs with a mushroom peg for a real swivel.  His knees can bend 90 degrees.  His ankles are ball joints, so they can swivel, pivot inward a little under 45 degrees, and bend downward 90 degrees, but nothing up.

His little saw blade can fit into his fists, if you want, or they can peg onto holes in his forearms.

The only other place to store it is the same place it goes in vehicle mode, in the middle of the tire on his roof.  However, doing so pretty much requires unfurling the roof, like it is in all my pictures.

Ratchet's transformation is probably the simplest of all the Studio Series figures, as he's basically a shell former with a little chest poking out as the front grill.  His legs tuck up, panels on his shoulders and the outside of his lower legs unfurl to meet the one on the outside of his forearm, then his backpack unfolds as the front windshield, the entire roof, and the rear, locking everything in place.

The vehicle is very accurate, with plenty of molded detail including lights, vents, mirrors, running boards, and the tools on the edges of the roof.  What it's lacking is color.  "Fire Department" should be yellow (and not read "Department Fire" on one side- blame the hinge).  The unpainted green between the reds should be white.  The rear bumper and running boards should be black or, more accurately, gunmetal, along with the vents, gas cap, and sideview mirrors.  The skid plating that the tools sit on and around the lights should be silver, and the lights themselves could have been picked out in red and white, and the tools that sit on the skid plates could have been colored.  The Autobot symbol on the door should be silver, and the quadrants of the circle behind it should have pictures (trees, waves, medic, not sure the fourth).  There should be a caution stripe above the running board on the door, and and there's no H2 logo.  I guess that's a lot of extra paint to expect from a Deluxe-class toy, but its absence makes an otherwise very good alt mode look a little bland.

The saw blade, as mentioned, can store on the roof tire like some kind satellite dish made out of cutlery.  There's also barely enough clearance for it to peg onto the sides.

Ratchet's not bad, but he's not great either; I'd say among the Deluxes I prefer Bumblebee.  He's fun to mess around with, but I wouldn't recommend him unless you're going all in on the Studio Series line.

And now, for the group shots.

I'm not an expert on Bayverse scale.  I've seen some numbers tossed around.  I've seen different fan-made attempts at a Bayverse scale chart.  I don't know, though.  All I can say is that it's a goal of the series to keep everyone roughly in scale in robot mode, and I guess this looks about right.  I'd have though maybe the bigger guys (Starscream, Blackout, and Grimlock) could be a little bigger, but Grimlock is the tallest, Blackout is taller than Starscream, who's taller than Prime, who's taller than Ratchet, who's taller than Bumblebee.  That much is definitely correct.

There's no way the alt modes are right, though.  Leaving out where an alien T-Rex might fit in for a minute, I think Blackout and Starscream kind of work, but Prime would definitely be smaller than that.  And even if we leave the Decepticons out, I think Ratchet should still be smaller compared to Prime, and Bee should be way smaller.  As is, he's longer than Ratchet.

All told, though, if you have any interest in movieverse figures the Studio series is definitely a collection of better-than-normal toys from Hasbro that look really good together in robot mode and look nice but not in scale in robot mode.  They're the most fun I've had buying Transformers at a Target in years.  While some figures are definitely stronger than others, as a line I think the Studio Series is worth checking out.

[M'Kyuun]

I still have my old voyager scale? Ratchet from the 2007 toyline, and chunky beast though he may be, esp his legs, I still prefer that figure over the more screen accurate toys that have been made since, including the Studio Series mikeszekely so kindly reviewed here. I think it's the chunkiness that appeals to me, as he seems to me more like a standard Transformer than many of the other Bayverse toys that tried to capture the skeletal and shardy look of the CG.

Speaking of the Studio Series, I saw the majority of them today at Target. Of the lot, Blackout is really the only one that holds my interest, and yet, even holding the one and only copy they had, showing it off to my bored wife, I was able to put it back on the shelf with no regret. Hoping Takara will make an MP that outshines this figure.

[mikeszekely]

Guys... I might have a problem.  Turns out when you buy a few Studio Series guys and you enjoy them, you're tempted to buy more.  I mean, they scale with each other!  So you buy a few more you weren't really interested, but you're starting to make a nice display.  Still having fun, so you find yourself at Walmart picking up the new God of War and...

...well, here's Deluxe-class Stinger.

For a guy that's supposed to be like an evil Bumblebee, Stinger's actually a little taller.  And he's a totally new mold!

That said, whether remolded or not, the other Studio Series toys have felt like a step above Hasbro's usual movie cash-ins and nostalgia grabs.  Even at the Deluxe-point, where paint has been a little lacking, there's been noticeable effort to include better articulation (like Ratchet's ankles) and screen-accurate details.  Stinger, though, feels less like a Studio Series toy and more like a toy that they designed and intended to sell when Age of Extinction came out and just forgot.  For all the black they put on him he's missing a ton of detail (and some of the black in his chest shouldn't be, so there's that).  His feet and shins are alright, minus the lack of paint on his feet and the huge car parts on his calves.  His legs look like someone started to mold them correctly, gave up, and decided they're half black and half red instead of putting the black and red in their proper places.  His abs are an empty gulf.  His chest is sort of similar to his on-screen appearance, although his clavicles aren't as protruding and pointy, and while they're not super screen accurate some effort was made to get the headlight section of the car up and over his shoulders.  And his head isn't too bad, just lacking in a little fine detail.  But dear Primus, those arms!  Even if we ignore the fact that nearly the whole top of the car is curled under his right forearm the molded detail is wrong, the lack of black on the forearms is wrong, and the presence of red on his biceps is wrong.  They look like the sort of cheap, lazy effort that'd driven me away from Hasbro's main-line Transformers over the years.

And his only accessories are four of these shuriken-esque bladed wheels, unpainted and molded in a soft rubbery plastic.

Articulation is average, for a Hasbro Deluxe.  Ball-jointed head can look up and down a decent amount, but tends to pull his collar (which doesn't actually lock in place) with it.  Ball joints at the shoulders provide rotation and allow him to move his arm laterally 90 degrees.  He has a bicep swivel just above his elbow, which can bend 90 degrees.  He has no wrist articulation- his hands aren't even a separate piece, they're just molded chunks at the ends of his forearms.  No waist swivel.  Ball-jointed hips move laterally 90 degrees and over 90 forward and backward.  He does have a dedicated thigh swivel, and his knees can bend just under 90 degrees.  His toes can move down for transformation, but otherwise he has no articulation in his feet or ankles.

The roof kibble on his right arm can rotate on his arm, and the instructions and box art seem to imply that both orientations are correct, and that we're supposed to make-believe that some hollow folded-up roof panels are his Bumblebee-style arm cannon, which I'm not really buying.

The bladed wheels can be affixed to pegs on his wrists, because reasons.

Or, you can affix them to four awkward armatures on his back, to simulate his appearance in the Age of Extinction.  All that junk on his arms, and now they care about screen accuracy.

As in the movies, Stinger transforms into a Pagani Huayra, a car that probably isn't a good disguise for a KSI drone or a Decepticon considering there's only like 100 in the world.  Having never seen a Pagani next to a '70s Camaro I can't say for sure, but I think this looks about right scale-wise.

The basic red and black color scheme, with the diagonal white stripe on the sides, is pretty screen accurate, and the molded detail is basically correct, but again little details like the rims, tail lights, and ducts in front of the rear wheels are left unpainted.  The result is a toy that looks like Hasbro bought the license but still shoveled out a $10 toy, like the majority of movie toys (especially for the last two films).  Which, if it were a $10 toy, would be fine, but remember that Hasbro's charging a premium for the Studio series and Stinger here retails for $20.

You may also note that his front end doesn't seem to want to fit together properly, and a peg (or two) on the underside of the car are actually pushing the rear tires off the ground.  Needless to say, Stinger doesn't roll every well.

 

The spinning blades can be attached in car mode.  Two of them go into the pegs on his wrists, the other two go onto two of the four armatures that were on his back.  

Now I've made no secret of the fact that I've been pleasantly surprised by this Studio Series line.  Stinger, though, is a crappy figure of a throwaway character.  This one's an easy pass.

[mikeszekely]

In this deep, I guess we might as well do all of the Studio Series, eh?  This guy is Deluxe-class Crowbar.

Well... he's kind of difficult for me to comment on aesthetically.  I mean, I kind of remember the three police SUVs turning into Decepticons.  I remember that one was a dog, and one had whip-like dreads, and that one had big spikey shoulders that sort of reminded me of G1 Shrapnel.  I remember seeing Berserker in The Last Knight and wondering if that was one of those guys (he isn't).  But that's kind of all I remember.  I had to Google this guy to really see what he looked like, and well, the character model is pure anime magic.  Seriously, there's like no car parts on him.  The result is a shelformer, with the top of the alt folded onto his back and the sides on his forearms and calves, and none of that kibble is accurate.  The tires on his hips and feet aren't accurate.  The the rest of him, well, it's a little skinny and could be more jagged, but I guess it's close enough.  The head is actually pretty good, and he does have the dreads, so there's that.  He's about Ratchet's size, which I guess is fine.

For accessories, Crowbar comes with two spiked clubs.  I don't think he used them in the movie... and in fact, they seem to be carried over from the The Last Knight Berserker toy that this figure is actually based on (and Berserker was modeled after the Shrapnel-looking guy instead, so go figure).  They're made out of a rubbery plastic and bend easily.

Crowbar's head is on a ball joint, and the ball peg is hinged at the other end.  So, he can turn his head, tilt his head, look up a fair amount, and look nearly straight down, but he can also crane his head forward.  His shoulders are also on ball joints for rotation and about 90 degrees of lateral movement, and those ball joints are also hinged for transformation.  if you use that hinge, too, he can basically move his shoulders laterally 180 degrees.  He has bicep swivels and elbows that hinge 90 degrees.  No wrist swivel, but his hands can bend inward for transformation.  No waist swivel, either, but 90 degrees of ab crunch.  Ball-jointed hips can move less than 180 degrees forward, about 90 degrees backward if you work with the kibble on his butt, and about 45 degrees laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees can bend 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt up and down a bit, but he's got no ankle pivots.

He holds his clubs just fine.

Crowbar turns into a Chevy Suburban police SUV.  I think the scale with Ratchet works ok... I feel like ratchet should be a little taller or wider, but Suburbans are pretty long vehicles, and the Suburbans in the movie did have the jacked-up suspension.  Getting him into this mode is pretty simple, since it's mostly just curling him up right and unfolding the kibble around him.  The trickiest parts are just getting all the panels lined up right and getting the dreads out of the way.  The dreads basically need to be gathered and pulled out the back, then tucked back up and under.  Leaving him in alt mode for awhile will cause his dreads to curl and stick out behind his head instead of flowing down his back.

As is typical with a Deluxe-class toy there's some details like the foglights that could have used a little extra paint, and I'd have liked some blue on the light bar instead of just red, but this is one of those cases where the lack of paint isn't really too bad because they really were almost entirely matte black in the movie.  If I could change one thing it'd be to put a little more detail in the headlights and taillights.  The headlights especially look lazy.  As far as molded detail goes Crowbar is pretty spot on, just with a bit of robot kibble (including his dreads) peaking out. Curiously, despite almost the entire body of the vehicle being molded from black plastic it seems that the color of the plastics don't match at the bottom rear of the vehicle.

The clubs have little hooks on them that allow you to peg them onto the sides of the car.

In my previous review I referred to Stinger as a "throwaway character."  I kind of feel like Crowbar is even more of a blink-and-you'll-miss-him bit player.  Now, his toy is so-so... not as good as Ratchet or Bumblebee in this size class, but definitely an improvement over Stinger.  He's such a minor character, though, that you probably don't need him unless you're trying to fill out your Decepticon ranks, and with Megatron, Lockdown, and Brawl all confirmed for the future I'm not even sure that's necessary.  You can safely pass on him.

[JB0]

Decepticon SUVs? I don't remember this at all.

 

That said, he's just cool. If he were a better class of toy, and Transformers weren't basically impossible to find around here, I'd probably get one. Even though it's a Bayformer.

Edited April 23, 2018 by JB0

[mikeszekely]

12 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Decepticon SUVs? I don't remember this at all.

 

That said, he's just cool. If he were a better class of toy, and Transformers weren't basically impossible to find around here, I'd probably get one. Even though it's a Bayformer.

Dark of the Moon, the scene where the Autobots are escorting Sentinel Prime on the DC Parkway.  There's actually three of them, and this Crowbar was the first one to transform before grabbing John Turturro's character and smashing into a freeway sign that the other two used as a ramp to launch themselves into the the air before Transforming.

[JB0]

Ah. I think I vaguely remember that scene. Thre's large parts of that movie that failed to stick with me in any way at all.

[tekering]

I'm really pleased with Crowbar, actually.

It's pretty amazing how all of that ends up hiding under the SUV shell!

[M'Kyuun]

I vaguely remember a deluxe version of this guy- I'd thought about picking it up, but the idea of a bot with dreads just made me - oh, Michael Bay, how profound are the depths of your ability to suck. Bias aside, it seems to me that the deluxe cleaned up better in truck mode, and the bot mode wasn't as accurate. They went the opposite direction with the Studio Series, from what I'm seeing- big toes sticking out behind the rear wheels, not to mention a pretty obvious undercarriage. I find it a bit unusual to have that much compromise, especially in an obviously branded alt mode- guess they're not as picky as Lamborghini or Ferrari.

[anime52k8]

if aliens and demons and demonic aliens can have tentacle dreadlocks, then a sentient robot can have mechanical dreadlocks. funny thing, I have a deluxe figure like him that I know was from Dark of the moon era, but for the life of me I can't remember theme actually being in any of the movies.

[SMS007]

23 hours ago, JB0 said:

Decepticon SUVs? I don't remember this at all.

 

22 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Dark of the Moon, the scene where the Autobots are escorting Sentinel Prime on the DC Parkway.  There's actually three of them, and this Crowbar was the first one to transform before grabbing John Turturro's character and smashing into a freeway sign that the other two used as a ramp to launch themselves into the the air before Transforming.

For reference, here is a YouTube clip.

 

[mikeszekely]

Despite being number 9 in the series, I'm not sure that this final Studio Series figure should count.  This is Studio Series Voyager Thundercracker.

So, yeah, I think it's pretty cool that Thundercracker isn't just a repaint of Starscream, like the Dark of the Moon Deluxe was.  But, despite his box declaring him to be from Dark of the Moon, Thundercracker wasn't actually in any of the live action movies, meaning there is no screen accuracy to talk about.  And, while some of the Studio Series toys were definitely based on previous toys they all had at least some remolding to make them more movie-accurate.  Thundercracker here is almost entirely a repaint of Age of Extinction Voyager-class Nitro (Zeus).  The only new part is his head, which is vaguely shaped like Starscream's but has a different face.  A new head and repainted body apparently isn't enough to get you released outside of a store in the process of closing (and, AFAIK, won't be released at all in Japan).

Speaking of that new head thing, the repainted Nitro body is entirely the same, so that remolded head actually uses a Titan Master connector to fit onto the body.  So, if you want, you can pull his head off and stick it on a Titans Return figure, or put a Titan Master head on his body.

Aside from the head, the only accessories he come with are the same as Nitro's, a pair of missile racks.

Thundercracker's head can swivel, but any other wiggle is really more the looseness of the connection than intended articulation.  His shoulders rotate and can move 90 degrees laterally.  Both arms have bicep swivels.  His left arm can bend about 90 degrees at the elbow, but his right arm his limited to about half that due to the junk on it getting it the way.  No wrist or waist articulation.  His hips can go 90 degrees forward and 90-ish backward, maybe a little more either way if you spread his legs a bit.  Laterally they can go 90 degrees.  He has thigh swivels and knees that can bend 90 degrees.  Due to transformation his feet can bend backward, but that's it at the ankles.

The missiles plug into his backpack.  Hinges on either side allow the chunks of his backpack to swivel up so the missile are pointed forward.  If missiles aren't enough, I'll note that he's got a pair of gatling guns on his collar, his right arm looks like a crossbow, and his left arm has a big cannon.

Thundercracker transforms into a fictional jet, because Hasbro couldn't or wouldn't license the Saab Gripen that Nitro Zeus actually transformed into.  He sports a somewhat G1-inspired blue with a black nose and some red and white stripes  Weirdly, he's got a panel on each wing that's just gray.  They matched the rest of the wing on Nitro's toy, so I don't know what's going on here.

As for the rest, like all jetformers you seem to have a lot of robot junk on the underside.  He's got fold out landing gear with molded, non-rolling tires, and the missile racks can plug into the wings.

His cockpit can open, and there's room inside for a Titan Master pilot.  It's almost a shame that his own head stays attached when he transforms and doesn't turn into a little robot on its own.

Well, like I said at the start of the review, I like that Thundercracker isn't a repaint of Starscream, and by most accounts Nitro was one of the better toys in the Age of Extinction line, which means that Thundercracker is pretty good, too.  But to me the big draw of the Studio Series is screen-accurate figures that scale with each other in robot mode, and since Thundercracker isn't in any of the films those benefits are lost.  Honestly, with The Last Knight being the only film not represented in the Studio Series line (so far) I really wish they'd focused on improving the mold more and making a more-accurate, Saab-licensed, scale-conscious Nitro Zeus toy than simply repainting the existing toy as a character that wasn't in the films.  So with that in mind, he's not bad and probably worth picking up if you happen to be at a TRU before they close and you happen to find a copy (and if you don't already have Nitro), but he's not really worth making a special trip for.

[Scyla]

I figured that the gray is meant to mimic the gray intakes on G1 Thundercracker.

[M'Kyuun]

Same here. I saw this at TRU a couple weekends ago (they had about 6-8 of them), and I was mildly curious. I recognized the mold from one of the last two movies, and, it's not a bad looking figure overall. Just the same, I passed. I like that intake marking on the kneecap- too bad there's a huge hinge where the intake should be. My interest in Bayformer designs has waned significantly over the last couple of years (while I'm not crazy about the aesthetic, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that I've found quite a few of the toys to be interesting, and that I probably have a couple dozen or so of them in my collection). Just a few years ago SS Blackout would have been bought on sight, but even in my hands, I just didn't feel that urge, that thrill of finding something cool. I wish they'd done those hands differently, as in just about every other respect, this is the Blackout toy I've been waiting for.

[tekering]

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

I wish they'd done those hands differently, as in just about every other respect, this is the Blackout toy I've been waiting for.

Blackout's hands really bugged me, too... so much, in fact, that I had to do something about them.

I removed the pins holding them in place, so they could be reoriented perpendicularly.

So far, I haven't bothered to secure them in this position, since they stay in place well enough as it is.

[anime52k8]

13 hours ago, SMS007 said:

 

For reference, here is a YouTube clip

 

wait, hold on a second; there was a Ferrari Autobot in Dark of the Moon?

[tekering]

3 minutes ago, anime52k8 said:

there was a Ferrari Autobot in Dark of the Moon?

Yeah, Dino.  Didn't you see the toys?

Admittedly, only the third-party version actually turns into a Ferrari...

...but it's a really sweet one.  

[JB0]

Apparently, Mattel has the exclusive license to make Ferrari toys, so no alien robot Ferraris from Hasbro.

This is apparently also why the character's name is different in the movie than in other material(where he's known as Mirage). Ferrari wasn't comfortable with their character bearing a Hasbro toy trademark(more specific than Autobot).

[mikeszekely]

Since I really enjoyed the Studio Series I wondered if this renewed effort on Hasbro's part was unique to the Studio Series or if it was a product of Hasbro raising prices.  See, the shift to $20 Deluxes and $30 Voyagers didn't begin with the Studio Series, it began with The Last Knight (and, for what it's worth, there's some scuttlebutt going around that all of the toys for the upcoming Bumblebee Movie will carry the Studio Series label).  So out of sheer curiosity I picked up Voyager-class Premier Edition Optimus Prime.

He's a head taller than Studio Series Optimus... is Optimus supposed to be bigger in this form?  I have no idea.  So maybe this will work with your Studio Series figures.

A criticism I had with Studio Series Prime was that it was a pretty good, pretty accurate toy, if only it had a little more paint.  From the start, I can and will say the same thing about TLK Prime, but even more so.  Although he's certainly sporting some more truck kibble than his CGI counterpart, especially on his back, the molded detail on his arms, legs, and torso is honestly very screen accurate.  And you can see they did use some paint, like some silver on his torso, shins, biceps, and crotch flap, and a little blue on his forearms and pecs and collar.  However, the paint is almost jarring because it's like they quit halfway through.  While silver on the front of biceps, but nowhere else on his arms or his thighs?  His forearms and the tops of his hands need more blue (we'll ignore, for now, all the missing flames), as do his hip skirts and parts of his shoulders.  The tops of his feet are missing some red.  Somehow, the missing paint seems all the worse when you realize they wasted paint on spots that didn't need it.  The silver in the middle of his crotch flap?  Should be blue.  The blue on his pecs?  Aside from blue flames, his pecs should be red.  And the blue they painted on his collar should really be silver.  I ordered the Reprolabels set for this guy, because it does fix some of my complaints, but I think I might actually try painting some of this guy.  And you should know that I'm terrible at painting toys, so if I'm willing to try you know I think the paint on this guy is wrong.

As far as accessories go, he comes with his sword and shield.  Just like the figure itself both accessories are sporting paint, orange on the sword and blue on the shield, and just like the figure itself the paint is wrong.

Prime's head is on a ball joint for swiveling, looking up a little, down a little less, and miniscule lateral tilt.  His shoulders rotate and have a hinge for 90 degrees of lateral movement.  Hinged swivels keep the shoulder armor out of the way.  If you unplug the shoulder, as if you were starting to transform him, you can fake a butterfly joint.  His biceps swivel, and his elbow bends 90 degrees.  No wrist articulation.  His waist swivels.  His hips are actually universal joints, and they can go 120-130 degrees forward, 45 degrees backward before his backpack gets in the way, and you can get 90 degrees laterally if you bring the hips forward a little first.  He has thigh swivels.  His knees only bend about 45 degrees due to kibble on his calves.  No articulation in the feet.

The sword slides into either fist, no issues.  Both foreams have a peg hole on the outside that you can plug his shield into.  If you don't want him wielding his sword there's a slot on his back you can slide the sword into.  There's nowhere to put the shield but on his arm, though.

And truck mode.  I couldn't tell you why, but I thought AoE/TLK's truck mode always looked like it would be smaller than his previous movie form (although I read that a Western Star 5700 XE is only an inch shorter than a Peterbilt 379 with the extended cab, so I guess not really).  The extra aerodynamic roof would make him taller, sure, but I think it's clear looking at other details that these figures are not the same scale in truck mode.  Perhaps a Studio Series version of TKL Prime would fare better.

Scale aside, I think Hasbro did a pretty good job here.  Naturally, there's a lack of paint, most notably on the rims and the tool boxes, but nothing actually seems wrong.  Even the stripe of blue through the grill, which bugged me at first, is actually correct.  Aside from the fact that most of what you see is a kibble shell (and to be totally fair, it's not like the CGI model gave Hasbro a lot to work with here), there's not a lot to complain about as far as the alt mode is concerned.

He's even got storage for his accessories.  The shield can plug into the 5th wheel, and the sword slides between some grooved tabs on the underside of the truck.

Long story short, no, it's not as good as the Studio Series Voyagers, but it's not exactly bad either.  Better than recent Voyager-class figures in the Generations line, anyway.  I'm just inclined to be a little harder on it than it maybe deserves because of the haphazard way Hasbro decided where and what color to paint.  If you want to pick him up I don't think you'll be too disappointed, especially if you're handy with an airbrush, but if you skip him you're not really missing out, either.

[mikeszekely]

Well, you can't have a Prime without a Megatron, eh?  So this is The Last Knight Voyager-class Megatron.

Maybe because Optimus has all that bright red, blue, and silver, or because he's had two movies, or because he's the hero, or whatever other reason, but it was pretty obvious to me that Prime's toy wasn't right and I just had to dig up a few images to confirm what my brain already recognized.  But Megatron, by virtue of less screen time or a more drab predominantly gunmetal color, just isn't as recognizable to me.  So I look at this toy, I see he's got his armored knight look, his three-toed feet, his fusion cannon on his arm, the horns on his mostly round head, the mostly gumetal color, and I think, "yeah, this checks out."  And, for the most part, it does.  Most of the sculpted detail is fairly accurate, and where it's not (shoulders sit a little high, right forearm is a little off, inside of both forearms is a little off, hip skirts are totally different, fusion cannon is a little small, jet kibble on his calves and back) seems to be concessions toward his transformation.  And with color, they went a little overboard with the gold where it is applied and there are a few spots that are missing some gold, but that's about it.  Arguably the biggest deviation is on his head, where he's got some recessed parts that are red inside his head that should be gunmetal, and the red should really be more like warpaint slopped on the side of his face.  All told, when we're talking about minor discrepancies that I have to image search to even been aware of I think they're the kind of stuff I can easily overlook on a Voyager-class, mass-market toy.

His sole accessory is his sword, and unlike Prime's it doesn't look too bad.  The molded detail is pretty accurate, with subtle paintwork to break up the gunmetal plastic.  I do wish they'd have included his shield, though, so he'd be more evenly-matched with Prime in a melee fight.  Then again, Megatron does have a fusion cannon, which is not removable by the way.

Megatron's head is on a ball joint and can swivel and look up a bit, but due to his large chin and the molding around his collar he can't really tilt his head or look down.  His shoulders can rotate, and panels on the sides of his shoulder armor swing out to allow for 90 degrees of lateral shoulder movement.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows can bend something like 120 degrees.  His wrists can't swivel, but due to transformation they can bend inward, or away from the fusion cannon, which is always nice to have on characters with big guns on their forearms.  No waist swivel.  Hips can move 90 degrees forward, a little less than 90 laterally, and only a bit backward due to his back kibble on universal joints.  His thighs can rotate, and his knees can bend 90 degrees.  He's got a transformation joint in his calf that bends his lower leg backward a bit, but that's not really useful articulation unless you don't mind his leg looking like it's broken.  He does have ankle pivots, though, and 90 degrees worth.  This might have been something they tossed in just for transformation, but I'm certainly not going to complain about the reason why it's there as long as it is there.

He holds his sword fine in either fist.  Alternatively, you can use a tab on one side of the hilt to plug the sword onto his back.

Being that Megatron turns into a Cybertronian jet with next to no screen time it was a little harder for me figure out how accurate his alt mode is.  I had to dig up concept art because I couldn't find even one clear still from the movie.  And, as with the robot mode, the sculpt is generally fine, although his half-hidden legs add a little extra bulk in places and he's missing some spikey bits around the too-small... am I supposed to assume they're intakes?  I mean, they look like jet exhausts that are on backward, but what pictures I could find do indicate that backwards jet exhausts are movie-accurate.  I think the main gripe would be less about the sculpt and more about how overboard they went with the gold paint.  Truthfully, I'm not even exactly sure that it's wrong so much as it's more of a brown mustard color than the subtle metallic gold used on the CGI.  But while they were slathering on the mustard gold they seem to have forgotten the Cybertronian that should be on his wings and the intakes behind the cockpit.

There's really not a lot to say about his jet mode beyond commenting on the aesthetics, because it doesn't really do anything.  No landing gear.  The cockpit doesn't open.  The sword can be tabbed in to the top of the jet.  Technically, you could tab it in the same slot used for robot mode, which is under the nose, but a jet with a huge sword extending from the nose (at a slightly upward angle) isn't as intimidating as you'd imagine.

I don't have a stand laying around that might be compatible, but it does look like there's a small hexagonal hole on the underside of the jet that I'd assume might be compatible with some kind of stand.

Between the two TLK Voyagers I have (three, if you recall that Studio Series Thundercracker is actually Nitro Zeus), Megatron is definitely the superior figure.  I don't think the little bit of extra kibble detracts too badly from either mode, he's reasonably well-articulated (I'll take ankle pivots over wrist or waist swivels any day), and his transformation is pretty quick and fun.  From the handful of reviews I've watched I'd venture that this is actually a better toy than the Leader-class.  If the paint had been just a little better and a little more accurate this Megatron could have easily been a Studio Series figure.

[JB0]

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

the too-small... am I supposed to assume they're intakes?  I mean, they look like jet exhausts that are on backward, but what pictures I could find do indicate that backwards jet exhausts are movie-accurate. 

I see them as cannons, mostly because they're on Megatron.  And really, when you get down to it, a rocket is just a really big flamethrower anyways.

[Kuma Style]

Got an insane deal; MP-36, FT Sovereign, and the MakeToys Visualizers for $360 shipped. Couldn't believe it. Have had regret ever since selling my MP-36 so really glad to have an opportunity to have it again at a decent price. 

[mikeszekely]

15 minutes ago, Kuma Style said:

Got an insane deal; MP-36, FT Sovereign, and the MakeToys Visualizers for $360 shipped. Couldn't believe it. Have had regret ever since selling my MP-36 so really glad to have an opportunity to have it again at a decent price. 

That is pretty good.  It's like buying Soveriegn and MP-36 and getting the Visualizers for free.

And, ironically, it's your thoughts on the Visualizers I'm most curious about.

[Kuma Style]

29 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

That is pretty good.  It's like buying Soveriegn and MP-36 and getting the Visualizers for free.

And, ironically, it's your thoughts on the Visualizers I'm most curious about.

I reviewed them before but my copies were full of q.c. issues. If these ones are better I'm definitely going to redo the entire review and gallery so I'll post up either way.

[mikeszekely]

I give the Bay movies a lot of grief for their robots looking like someone emptied the cutlery drawer into the blender (at least in the first three movies).  I've grown to accept them a bit, even if the movies are getting progressively worse, but one design that kind of grabbed me even then was Barricade.  Sure, he still had the cutlery in the blender look, but I think he pulled it off better than the other 'Cons in the first movie, and there's something I still really dig about him, like he's the anti-Prowl.  So while I picked up MPM Prime because he's Prime and Bumblebee just because he was marked down, and I yawned at the announcement of MPM Ironhide, I really wanted MPM Barricade.  My local TRU never got any in, so I wound up picking up the Takara version (which, at the same price the Hasbro version was supposed to be at TRU, is now cheaper than the Hasbro version at outlets like BBTS or TFSource).

Yes, MPM Barricade is technically the most movie-accurate Barricade toy we've got.  Maybe because, aside from the Human Alliance one (which was maybe hampered by having Human Alliance gimmick of places for someone to sit on both modes), all we really got were two Deluxes and a handful of Legends.  Because, while the torso does some neat stuff to get a movie-accurate scrunched up look and proportions, he's still not totally right.  The shoulders are the most obvious, as it doesn't even look like HasTak tried to get that right.  They just folded the front fenders down and over the wheels on his shoulders.  His arms are kind of where my gripes are in general, actually.  While the movie model does have monstrously long arms his elbows were still under his biceps, and the white part of his doors with the "Police" print were on the outside of his biceps.  On MPM Barricade his elbow is actually on the side of his bicep, and the white part of the door is on his forearm, desperately trying to hide the fact that his forearms are really a collection of ill-fitted panels with huge gaps you can see right through.  Credit where it's due, though, everything that's not his arms looks pretty good.  And I do like how the tires on his wrists split open.

Barricade comes with two accessories.  One is the big spiked wheel he tried to beat up Bumblebee with (although I thought it was more like a flail in the movie), and the other is a stand you can put it in when you don't have Barricade carrying it around.  It's a shame he doesn't come with Frenzy.

Barricade's articulation is... so-so.  His head is on a ball joint so he can look up and down a good deal, tilt his head enough, and turn his head, but his chin gets caught on his collar so it can't go all the way around but what he can get is pretty natural.  His shoulders can rotate on a soft ratchet and move laterally on a harder ratchet nearly 90 degrees before his shoulder junk hits his head.  The shoulder junk is actually hinged, but it tilts in toward his head and therefore offers nothing to help his articulation.  His biceps can swivel.  As mentioned, his elbow is on the side of his bicep instead of under it, and it can bend 160 degrees or so on a single hinge.  His wrists can't swivel, but his fingers and thumbs are hinged at the base knuckle (the fingers are one molded piece, though).  His waist can swivel, although the kibble on his back interferes with it.  His hips can move about 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally, and the lateral movement is ratcheted. He has thigh swivels, but they're cut mid-thigh and his legs are much longer front to back than they are side to side, so using them really ruins the sculpt.  He has double-jointed, ratcheted knees that get roughly 90 degrees using just the top, 90 degrees using just the bottom, or 90 degrees combined.  No, that's not a typo; due the shape of his legs and the placement of the joints he's never going to get better than 90 degrees of bend.  His feet can tilt up plenty, or down just a smidgen, and he's got 45 degrees of ankle pivot.

The spiked wheel can clip onto a spot on his arm that essentially requires you to go halfway back to car mode.  In the movies, the spiked wheel was his left hand, and attached to a wire so he could whip it around.  Soft, unpainted gray plastic doesn't look particularly intimidating, it doesn't work like it did in the movie (for little bit he used it), and you can still see his robot hand where his elbow should be.  I wish that instead of this they'd given him the gun he was using to execute Autobot prisoners in Dark of the Moon, because this monstrosity is going back in the box and into the closet.

Barricade's alt mode is of course the Saleen Mustang from the first and third films.  It scales nicely with Bumblebee or G1 MP cars.  As is the case with HasTak MP cars, the tires are plastic.  And yes, while black rims are screen accurate, they're left unpainted here.  A glossier black paint for the rims would have helped them stand out from the tires, like Bee's painted rims do.  The overall effect is kind of cheap.  As for the transformation, like I said there's some new stuff going on in the torso area to get it more screen-accurate, and the forearms are a little more involved, but the gist of it is surprisingly similar to the original 2007 Deluxe toy (which itself was probably the best of the movie 1 toys).  There are some tolerance issues getting his wings to move around the roof and vice versa.  There's also one step in the instructions that has you split the light bar in the middle and rotate them so the clear sections point out to the sides and slightly down.  They don't go out far enough to extend past his torso to been seen from any view but his back, and I don't recall his back being on screen long enough to know if that's accurate or not.

I don't really have a ton to say about his alt mode.  It's very accurate to the movie, but then again the old Deluxe was, too.  The MPM moves some of the "643" markings to more accurate locations and has the "Emergency 9-1-1 Repsonse" bits that the Deluxe was lacking.  He's got a painted-on license plate.  He's also got a huge seem running across his door, but I guess that's the cost of doing business.  Point of fact, the white part that goes with the windows to form his wings isn't actually on his wings in the movie, so I suppose they did it to give the door a more movie-accurate shape on his arm.

I don't know, you guys.  As a Barricade fan I'm happy to have one that looks a lot more like the movie than any other toy, but frustrated with his accessories, frustrated with his arms, and frustrated with the lack of polish on him.  It's like they made an MP head, body, and legs and slapped arms you might find on a Voyager-class toy onto it, complete with unpainted wheels.  If you're into the MPM line or Barricade he is still the best Barricade toy and the only Masterpiece version, so soft recommend from me, but he's definitely a weaker figure than MPM Bee or Prime.

Side note, given how crappy, inaccurate, or both a lot of the first movie's toys were messing with the old Deluxe Barricade impressed me with how much they got right.  It gives me hope for what Has/Tak might accomplish if they do a Studio Series Barricade.

[Tking22]

Boy I hate to acknowledge the nonsense on TFW2005, but I can't help but think something is up with the official MP line.

MP-42 was just announced, and it's the police Sunstreaker repaint Cordon, which was expected, but it was also expected he might just be MP-39C or something, but no Takara is making him MP-42. They've done this before, made a repaint a whole numbered release, but damn if it didn't suck then, and now. Honestly, we haven't gotten even a new tease or announcement for the next G1 figure, it's been quite some time too. People are wigging out, claiming the line is dead. While I don't think it's dead, I do think this is a sign the MP releases will be even fewer and farther between then ever before.

I've read the rumblings, Takara isn't doing that hot financially, but the MP line is usually a guaranteed money maker, even with the rising prices. I'm not sure what to think, it's just been month after month with no new announcement, Dinobot is almost here, and nothing to look forward to after. I hate to doom and gloom, but this has been the longest we've gone without something new announced, I'm wondering if G1 is being pushed to the back burner to focus on Beast Wars and Bayverse MPM.

[tekering]

20 minutes ago, Tking22 said:

I've read the rumblings, Takara isn't doing that hot financially, but the MP line is usually a guaranteed money maker, even with the rising prices.

Yeah, but TakaraTomy has done a lot to damage the Masterpiece brand of late.  The whole "+" series is flooding the market with older releases, molds that have been repainted, retooled, and knocked-off multiple times already, with only minor cosmetic changes to differentiate them from previous versions.  Who wants to buy yet-another Sideswipe variant, since their original release has now been rendered (slightly) inferior?  Who wants to buy yet another Datsun mold, now that Prowl's got cartoon-accurate blue windows?  Who wants to buy that shitty Hot Rod mold again, seeing as it comes with a Targetmaster now?

Not many, it seems, judging by retailer discounts and aftermarket prices...

40% off MP-26

43% off MP-10B

44% off MP-40

46% off MP-12+

49% off MP-31

[Tking22]

4 hours ago, tekering said:

Yeah, but TakaraTomy has done a lot to damage the Masterpiece brand of late.  The whole "+" series is flooding the market with older releases, molds that have been repainted, retooled, and knocked-off multiple times already, with only minor cosmetic changes to differentiate them from previous versions.  Who wants to buy yet-another Sideswipe variant, since their original release has now been rendered (slightly) inferior?  Who wants to buy yet another Datsun mold, now that Prowl's got cartoon-accurate blue windows?  Who wants to buy that shitty Hot Rod mold again, seeing as it comes with a Targetmaster now?

Not many, it seems, judging by retailer discounts and aftermarket prices...

40% off MP-26

43% off MP-10B

44% off MP-40

46% off MP-12+

49% off MP-31

This also leads me to believe Takara may be taking it's last big gasp before ending the MP line, they're pumping out as many re-releases as possible, and they are doing easy retools and repaints, Shadow Panther, + releases, MP-42 is Cordon not a new mold or character. Those + figures really are for the hard core collector that is willing to buy a figure twice for slightly more cartoon accuracy, I personally think they look quite ridiculous, especially Prowl +.

I see some folks are getting hyped about another MP Hound rumor, like the one from two years ago, and a year ago, and six months ago...

[Mechapilot77]

4 hours ago, tekering said:

Yeah, but TakaraTomy has done a lot to damage the Masterpiece brand of late.  The whole "+" series is flooding the market with older releases, molds that have been repainted, retooled, and knocked-off multiple times already, with only minor cosmetic changes to differentiate them from previous versions.  Who wants to buy yet-another Sideswipe variant, since their original release has now been rendered (slightly) inferior?  Who wants to buy yet another Datsun mold, now that Prowl's got cartoon-accurate blue windows?  Who wants to buy that shitty Hot Rod mold again, seeing as it comes with a Targetmaster now?

Not many, it seems, judging by retailer discounts and aftermarket prices...

40% off MP-26

43% off MP-10B

44% off MP-40

46% off MP-12+

49% off MP-31

i kinda HATE the "+" variants, but dig the diaclone repaints.  the diaclone ones are different enough and have a reason/history to exist IMO.  diaclone/tvmovie screener magnus is the superior deco IMO.  the + variants go with the totally toon deco/no detial direction of the line more recently (a trend i don't like that started with i guess...mp magnus or so) and represent something i don't like about the line...its decontenting IMO.  also i coulnd't give a crap about targetmaster hotrod...he should have had it to begin with if they were going to give him one.   that being said....if i didn't already own diaclone magnus or mp-10b i'd buy them at those prices. haha.  

[mikeszekely]

Yeah, I can't speak for all the variants, but I'm a sucker for police cars.  I skipped the actual MP Sunstreaker because I already have Sunsurge, but I'll almost certainly pick up Cordon.

[Dangard Ace]

Masterpiece Beast Wars Megatron has been announced.  I’m dreading the price but.    Yyyyeeesss!!

[kanedaestes]

 

Seems theyve been quiet trying to work on the engineering for the still going beastwars line

Edited May 10, 2018 by kanedaestes

[mikeszekely]

What is it with giant heads on Takara Megatrons?  Cartoon accuracy probably doesn't need to be adhered to so slavishly when you're working from bad '80s cells and bad '90s CGI.

Side note, I could have sworn Cordon already had a name, so I'm digging around and I realize I was remembering a police Countach, but it was based on Sideswipe/Red Alert.  Now I have MP-14C Clampdown on the way.