The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[mikeszekely]

 

so i'm a few figures deep into siege line but once the WFC arc or the story is over, are they coming to earth?  i can easily see earth mode retools of many of these releases 

(heck some are 90+ % earth mode already) and maybe i should wait for that?  if i do, will i miss out on some great toys?  with seige jetfire i'm not worried because his earth mode was his cybetron jet mode, same with omega.

Well, Siege is part 1 of a trilogy, and their last trilogy (Prime Wars) lasted over three years. If they do Earth it won't be for awhile. I say buy the toys as they come out, enjoy them for what they are, and worry about future Earth mode versions when and if they actually happen.

[M'Kyuun]

 

They have. When it first came out, it was stated that it was not a reboot, and the director said he avoided certain things because they would have required it to be a reboot, but Hasbro officially said a few weeks ago that it is now a reboot.

Even as a reboot, it's still a soft reboot, as Bee and the other bots still share the Bayformer look, albeit not as shardy. But Bee's face is still the same. If Hasbro had balls at all, they'd have given Knight complete autonomy and let him go full G1 throughout instead of just a teaser scene at the beginning of what could-have-been. I hope any following movies continue to distance themselves from Bay's films until they are naught but a cinematic tragedy best left buried and forgotten in the past. Anyway, it's quite clear they were hedging their bets with Bumblebee, tying it enough to Bayverse to consider it a continuity, but allowing just enough differences to let it stand on its own merit, and then sitting back to see which way audiences leaned. After waffling, I guess they're now saying its a reboot. While I enjoyed Bumblebee, those opening scenes really do give a sense of what the whole film could have looked like, and that makes it bittersweet. I have hope for future films, though.

[mikeszekely]

Wrapping up the second wave of Siege Deluxes until I break down and buy Chromia, tonight we're looking at Sixgun.

I think Sixgun was always going to be something of a challenge.  If you go G1 toy you've got a guy who's literally a torso with guns for arms and legs.  He didn't even have hands.  Then you had the cartoon, where he had a lot more red on his torso and actual (red) arms that the toy never could.  The black guns that made up Sixgun's arms were instead on his shoulders.  Plus, the remaining torso didn't turn into a drone or something like Cog that could conceivably have some purpose away from the citybot he came with.  It turned into a tower for Metroplex's city mode.  I think overall Siege Sixgun hews closer to the toy than the cartoon, adding a cockpit to his torso, reimagining the vents on the sides of his chest as missile launchers, and tweaking the design of his gun arms so that he actually has arms.  I think it's fair effective, although I have some quibbles with the colors.  I mean, I don't mind the silver on his toes, the black on his ankles, the blue eyes, or the black missiles in his chest breaking up the colors some... no one wants a return to the G1 toy where you had monocolor plastic parts.  But I would have liked his mouth plate to be red, white instead of black for the part around his collar, and black arms (although, weirdly enough, a lot of 3P Sixguns have at least some white on his arms).  Maybe I'll buy a second one and try painting the arms, at least.

Sixgun is a Weaponizer, like Cog, so he doesn't really come with any accessories.  Instead, he kind of is one.  You can separate him into the the following piece: two small red guns (that are actually a reuse of Siege Sideswipe's red gun), two black guns, two arms that don't totally look like guns without the previous black ones, a chunk of head and chest, a chunk of lower torso and hips that has four hinged barrels and a flip-out 5mm peg, and finally a pair of large guns made from his legs.

Sixgun's articulation is a little hampered by the Weaponizer gimmick.  His head is on a swivel, no tilt.  His shoulders are really 5mm pegs with hinges in his chest.  While he can raise them nearly 90 degrees laterally, the shoulder rotation is supplied by the arms rotating around the 5mm peg.  This means that he can't both raise and spread his arms.  He does have a bicep swivel, and his elbows can bend 90 degrees.  No wrist swivels, but he does have a waist swivel.  His hips are universal joints that can bend about 90 degrees backward or laterally and slightly more than that forward.  High thighs swivel where they plug into the hips.  His knees bend 90 degrees.  His toes can bend up and down a little, and a hinge gives him 90 degrees of ankle pivot.

If you want him to hold a gun the ones that come off of the back of his arm or the red ones on his back have 5mm pegs he can hold.  He doesn't have a ton of other 5mm peg holes; one on the front of each forearm, one on top of each of his shoulders, two on his back, and one in each foot.  There's also two more barrels like the red ones are plugged into that have 5mm openings, but they're close together and pointed at the ground.

Since he's not going to turn into a tower and guns for Metroplex, Hasbro had to come up with something.  And they came up with some sort of attack aircraft.  And I gotta tell you, I don't think it's hateful.  Despite his arms largely copying the shape of the guns that made up the G1 toy's they do have a shape that could pass for VTOL propellers akin to Thrust's.  And, while this is the official configuration, there's no reason that you couldn't tweak the placement of some bits.

Arguably the biggest flaw with this mode is the large chunk of torso and hips chilling most un-aerodynamically on the underside, but I gotta tell you I don't even hate that.  It reminds me a little of the troop-carrying section of a LAAT gunship from Star Wars, or the big boxy cargo section of a Medea from Gundam.

I don't think it was intentional, but if you remove his limbs transform the top half of his torso like you would for alt mode but leave it attached to the bottom half of his torso it does still kind of look like the G1 tower mode.  And if you rotate one hip out of the way but use the other to fit into the lone available peg hole at that spot then you actually can kind of use him as a tower.  And although his limbs are too small to be Metroplex's hand and shoulder guns there are still lots of 5mm peg holes on him that you could still use to attach the rest of Sixgun's parts.

Of course, as a Weaponizer Sixgun isn't meant for Metroplex as much as other Siege figures.  While you're free to just divvy him up as guns for other guys or to try to find combos of your own I figured I'd at least show off the ones in the instructions, with Sideswipe (since he's the guy they used in the instructions.

First up is Defensive mode... which you actually can't do as shown in the instructions, because someone goofed and included four of Sixgun's legs.  So, you can either build the backpack like the one on the left and use another set of legs, like Cog's.  I don't recommend it, though.  It's extremely back heavy, and I don't think even a Voyager would support it all that well.  So an alternative would be to use Sixgun's legs as shoes, but move the his arms to the spot on the backpack mode where the legs were.  I think that gives him a more balanced look, almost like he's got a jetpack.

Offensive mode keeps the shoes and uses arms and lower torso to make a dual shoulder cannon-toting backpack.  And the rest turns into some kind of missile shield gun thing.  Maybe the Hasbro staff mixed up "offensive" and "defensive."

A third mode uses the torso to make a big hand.  This is kind of cool, although it doesn't use the little red guns, the arms, or the legs.  I don't think that's a big deal, though, because those are basically all the guns that can be carried in a hand with a 5mm peg hole grip.

Something that was a little disappointing, but not entirely unexpected, is that Sixgun doesn't work so great with Cog.  While both Weaponizers do have a few peg holes, they tend to have more pegs than holes, and the holes they do have tend to be in different spots than the normal deluxes.  Their arms connect differently, and their legs are shaped differently enough that the pegs on Sixgun's hips can't reach the holes in Cog's thighs, so they can't even swap limbs.  Still, there's stuff you can do with a little creativity... like combine Sixgun and Cog into the ultimate Destroid.

Between Cog and Sixgun, I definitely think Sixgun is the better Weaponizer.  Due to his G1 self literally being six guns attached to a torso the bits that come off of the Siege version make for better weapons, and his alt mode is somehow more cohesive than Cog's.  I'll give Sixgun a recommend, especially if you're curious about the Weaponizer gimmick and never picked up Cog.

[mikeszekely]

Since I found the new Siege Deluxes at the Walmart by my friend I decided to shop around, see if I could find any more (or the new Studio Series guys, although I'm really only super interested in Bee Prime and the Constructicons).  Tuesday I hit the Walmart near my old apartment in the next township over.  Nada.  I see guys like Emgo and Peaugh reviewing them, so I'm getting more anxious.  I checked Amazon, and found only third-party sellers demanding $50+.   I'm not that anxious.  Yesterday I tried my local Walmart and Target again.  Still no dice (although I was slightly amused to see that the only Siege Voyager and the only Studio Series Voyager and Leader Target had in stock were all different versions of Megatron).

Looks like Amazon just got stock of the wave 2 Siege Voyagers, though.  On a whim I decided to look before going to bed tonight.  $29.99, ships and sold by Amazon.  Only minor issue is that even though they're listed as Prime-eligible my order says "arriving Tuesday," but that's still faster than TFSource would get them to me (assuming they got theirs in stock, which so far they haven't) and probably fast enough to beat my local stores.

(kind of starting to miss TRU here)

[mikeszekely]

I know after buying two of the three Micromaster sets in the first wave that I said I wasn't buying any more, that they're just not worth the money.

Well, that excludes Soundwave's tapes.  Here's Laserbeak and Ravage, the Soundwave Spy Patrol.

Now, I kind of like my Ravage a little on the big side (which is why I replaced the official MP with MMC's Jaguar), but I Ravage and Laserbeak both look pretty good with Megatron (sorry, no Soundwave yet).

Ravage with the Fall of Cybertron Generations version, the G1 version, the official MP, and the Universe one that came with Hound.  And... he's ok.  He doesn't have the flatness and the need for add-ons that the G1 toy has.  He's not stuck with the weirdly arched back that the Universe version has.  He's not a complete mess like the Generations ones.  Yes, the MP version is clearly superior, but MP Ravage was sold with red-tape-guy for a lot more than $10, so I expect it to be better.  He's got some rotation in the hips, shoulders, knees, and elbows.  His neck is hinged at the base and can move up and down.  Hasbro even put some little molded guns on his hips and painted them silver.  Sure, for a jaguar he's got weirdly large hips/thighs and shoulders/biceps and a lack of a tail... but if he hasn't gone to Earth yet, he wouldn't really be a jaguar, so I'll let it slide.  I'm more bothered by the gray peg in the middle of his neck and the lack of black on his feet.  Would it have killed Hasbro to put the gray parts on a black sprue and just put some paint on the legs?

Laserbeak, with the Generations version, the G1 version, the MP version, and (since I don't have another Laserbeak, but I have something that looks a lot like him) Booster X10 from the 2007 movie Real Gear Robots subline.

Laserbeak fares a bit better, I think.  He's fairly similar to the G1, just with gray feet, a different backpack (that's sadly lacking in fins and lasers), and a head that's very inspired by his Cybertronian mode from the first episode of the original cartoon.  He doesn't have a ton of articulation; the wings can move back and forth, his neck has a pair of hinges for some head motion, and that's about it.  But, shy of being able to flap and fold his wings, that's kind of enough.

They haven't been to Earth yet, so I don't know what you'd call their alt modes.  This is the topside of Ravage, and he's a rectangle.  He's smaller than the G1/MP/Universe versions.  And he's not round like the Generations version.  Again, no Soundwave yet, but I think he's supposed to be able to fit into Soundwave's chest.

Topside of Laserbeak.  I've got nothing really to add.

Flip them over and yeah, they don't have the same smoothness that the top side does, but neither really did MP Ravage.  And they're still not really cassettes.  Who's to say that on Cybertron that whatever they're supposed to be can't have hollow spaces on one side?

You'll notice that they both have flip out pegs, like other Micromasters.

You can stick them into any 5mm peg hole on the larger Siege figures and they become "Sonic Drone Armor."  I mean... I guess that's fine?  One little bonus with that is that if you fold Laserbeak's legs up and peg out you can plug him into a peg hole on Megatron (or presumably Soundwave's arm) and he looks like he's perching there.

I'm not really sure how to evaluate these guys.  On aesthetics I think they beat out most every official, non-MP version of these characters, including the relatively recent Titans Return versions.  They turn into very cassette-esque rectangles, with none of the gimmicks that some of those other versions had.  And with a retail price of $9.99 you're not really spending as much for them as the Titans Return versions or the Generations versions.  They're not perfect, though, and they don't really do much in either mode.  Objectively, they do less than the other Micromasters that I told you were kind of waste of money, and based on that I can't really recommend them on their own merits.  On the flip side, if you're planning on getting Soundwave these guys will probably pose pretty well with him, and you can excuse some of their more subjective flaws by reminding yourself that they're pre-Earth.  As long as you know what you're getting into, I don't think you'll really be disappointed if you do pick them up.

[M'Kyuun]

Given their size, I don't think they're too bad, although that size difference is the issue I take; why not just make them the same size as a real micro-cassette? There's not that much difference in size there, but enough that they won't work with any other version of Soundwave except the Siege. I think the cross-compatability is a nice selling point.

I still plan on getting the cassettes, though; I have them PO'd through Hasbro Pulse, along with Skyfire and Springer. I hope, but I doubt, that these will get remolds if/when they shift to Earth modes to better reproduce the look of a cassette. I'm hoping the same treatment will be given Soundwave to make him a Walkman.  Soundwave and his cassette minions still stand out to me as one of the best toy gimmicks ever conceived. It's a shame there's really no analog to it today, except something like a Nintendo DS with its game cartridges.

[Kuma Style]

[tekering]

Fabulous work, TJ.  The pose, the angle, and the lighting are highly dramatic and effective.  

[sh9000]

If I was still collecting CHUG, I’d be all over these.

[Numbninja]

 

Damn sir Kuma....i hope to get this and sg drift at end of year....soo badass

[tekering]

Picked up this filthy bug at a convenience store on my way home:

Not nearly so dirty in robot mode, though.

Comes in one of those monochromatic Japanese boxes that scream "EXCLUSIVE!".

Scales great with filthy voyagers.  

[M'Kyuun]

 

If I was still collecting CHUG, I’d be all over these.

I have yet to see any of these guys at retail, although, in truth, I don't plan on getting any of them due to really poor alt modes for all three.  

I'm hoping better versions are planned in future releases.

[mikeszekely]

What's wrong with Shockwave's alt mode?  Take off the extra bits, turn it upside down, and it's his G1 gun mode.

As for Starscream and Soundwave... well, let's start with Soundwave.

That G1 Soundwave.

Ok, seriously, he's got way too much paint weathering (although I've heard that it's pretty easy to get it off the chest, at least.  And yes, he's got some extra kibble under his forearms and on his back.  And as long as I'm listing faults, I'd have really rathered they'd given him cartoon red eyes instead of the G1 toy's yellow eyes.  But in every other way he extremely G1 and, at least as far as robot mode goes, very much the Soundwave figure fans have spent over a decade clamoring for.  I don't know what more I can add to that.

Well, I can tell you about the accessories.  He's got his signature shoulder cannon, his signature rifle, and a weird-looking extra gun.

Soundwave's head is on a ball joint with some upward tilt, very little downward tilt, and plenty of lateral tilt.  His shoulders rotate and can extend a smidge over 90 degrees.  His biceps can swivel.  His elbows are double-jointed and can curl nearly 180 degrees.  No wrist swivels, but they can bend inward due to transformation.  His waist swivels.  He's got actual hinged hip skirts that allow you to bend his hips 90 degrees forward, a little shy of 90 degrees backward, and over 90 degrees to the side on frictioned universal joints.  His thighs swivel.  His knees can bend 90 degrees.  He has a miniscule upward foot tilt, and about 30 degrees of ankle pivots.  There's a peg hole on one side of his head for plugging in his shoulder cannon, and he can hold both of his guns.  There's a peg on the back of the cannon that keeps bumping his backpack, so be aware of that.  Or, you can unfold the gun and use it to connect his other gun to his shoulder cannon to form... well, I call it the worst thing I've seen in the Siege line.

In addition to the peg for the shoulder cannon, Soundwave has 5mm peg holes on the outsides of his shoulders, the outsides of his forearms, the outsides of his lower legs, the bottoms of his feet, and two on his back.

And yes, Soundwave is compatible with Laserbeak and Ravage, albeit one at a time.  The button on his shoulder opens the chest, and Ravage or Laserbeak tuck snuggly into the door.  Soundwave's left hand is even molded to have one finger out a bit so you can pose him like he's pushing the button.

Things were going so well with robot mode, but here's where we run into trouble in paradise.  This is Soundwave's spaceship mode, and... well, it's pretty terrible.  His backpack unfurls into... warp nacelles?  They don't look great or really lock into that position.  I think they'd look better if they could fold out along the sides, but the struts they're on don't bend enough.  Panels on the sides of his legs fold up to cover his thighs, but only from above.  The side-view is still robo-thigh.  And his arms are still pretty clearly arms wrapped underneath the vehicle.  I'll admit that the cockpit on Soundwave's butt is a nice touch, though.

Soundwave does have landing struts, so I guess there's that.  There's also a thin gray plastic thing that flips up on the back.  Couldn't tell you what it's meant to be.  I'm not sure that it serves any purpose short of getting in the way.  His rifle and shoulder cannon are meant to go onto the nacelle-things.  They don't really help the look, but I'm not sure they hinder it... which is more than I can say for the other gun, which tabs onto the one side and doesn't do anything for this mode except look very, very out of place.  Since I don't really care for the combined super gun, either, I guess I'm content to give that gun away to another Siege figure who might be more in need of a gun.

Soundwave's chest is actually the back fo the vehicle, instead of the underside like you might think.  It still has the clearance to open so you can still stick store or deploy a tape in spaceship mode.  The one thing that might have saved the spaceship mode would be places to store more weapons, but transforming Soundwave basically means hiding all the peg holes except the ones on the nacelles.

There is one alternative, semi-secret alt mode.  It's not mentioned in the instructions, but it is official.  A picture of it can be found inside the flaps on the bottom of the box.  I gather that this is supposed to be an homage to the street light mode he had in the first episode of the G1 cartoon, although his arms are curled around behind him instead of hanging out to the sides.  I kind of don't mind this mode.  His arms actually do tab in place, and the landing struts sticking up off them look like handles while the engines on top could be gun barrels, so he's giving me turret vibes.  I just wish the lower half of his body did more than spin 180 degrees.

As far as boomboxes go, there's nothing official and I haven't seen any fan modes that I like.

Evaluating Soundwave is tough.  The robot mode is an easy A, and compatibility with tape-like Micromasters means the things a lot of fans would tell you are the most important in a good Soundwave toy are covered.  That spaceship mode is a D-, though, and that's me being generous.  I think I'm going to recommend him, though.  As bad as the alt mode is, it's ultimately a brick that doesn't do much besides have a compartment you can stick some other smaller guys into, and if I'm being honest that kind of describes the G1 toy, too.

[M'Kyuun]

Addressing your question, Mike, while Shockwave sorta looks like his G1 gun mode when you turn his weird spaceship mode upside down, it just doesn't do the job for me. It's more a happy coincidence (purposeful or not), but it's not a dedicated mode like the MP. Gun laws be damned, he turns into a very unrealistic looking purple sci-fi ray gun, and there's really no viable reason why they couldn't just give him his G1 gun mode. Megatron's Walther mode, ok- I can see where that could cause confusion as it's based on a real gun. In that case, a tank mode is acceptable- not my preference, but I understand why, and MP-36 covers that base for me. Shockwave's spaceship mode, with all of its add-ons, turns me off to the figure completely, regardless of how well they did the bot mode, even if he is only voyager sized. I have the same beef with Soundwave's alt, although I'll extend some leniency to Has/Tak, as, other than his ad hoc street light transformation, his actual Cybertronian alt mode was never shown in the original cartoon. I simply can't bring myself to believe that the street light was his alt- pretty weak. So, I'll give Has/Tak a minor kudo for effort, but the results are arguably terrible. They nailed his bot mode, and that seems to really be the strength of this series- great G1 bot modes, but some of the alts are just awful. And Starscream- could have been a really cool sleek tetrajet, but in true has/Tak style, they cocked it up by having half of his bot parts hanging off the bottom. After 30+ years of designing these things, you'd think they could design any alt mode to be comprehensive without bot kibble hanging out. Guess not.

I keep saying it, but I've got a lot of hope vested in a potential Earth alt mode release of most of these guys with , digits crossed, much improved alt modes that homage the G1 toys/cartoon characters we grew up with. Except Megatron, for reasons.

Despite sounding negative, I'm actually enjoying the line thus far; I cherry pick the figs I like; I have no compunction to be a completionist, and I never have for much of anything, really. So far I have Ironhide, Megatron, Hound, Chromia, Flywheels, and Prowl, with Springer, Skyfire, and Ravage/Laserbeak on order. I'm eagerly anticipating the release of Refractor, as I've been waiting a long time for an official update to G1 Reflector, who currently sits on my CHUG shelves. Overall, I think Has/Tak are doing a pretty decent job of capturing the essence of the characters, and these are by far the most G1 mainline toys since, well, G1.  I applaud the effort, and keep my hopes high for eventual Earth alts while still maintaining the great bot modes we're seeing currently. Ultimately, these are toys, ostensibly aimed at 7 year olds, so I suppose I shouldn't be too critical. Nostalgia's a harsh mistress at times, though. I imagine one or two of you guys know what I mean.

[JB0]

Man, I envy you people where stores STOCK the dang things. Mine've had nothing but Micromasters and Targetmasters almost every time I've looked. One has had a single solitary Skytread for a few weeks.

[sh9000]

https://www.amazon.com/Transformers-Visual-History-Jim-Sorenson/dp/1974710580/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=Transformers%3A+A+Visual+History&qid=1552990440&s=gateway&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Transformers-History-Limited-Jim-Sorenson/dp/1974710572/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=Transformers%3A+A+Visual+History&qid=1552990440&s=gateway&sr=8-2

[M'Kyuun]

 

Man, I envy you people where stores STOCK the dang things. Mine've had nothing but Micromasters and Targetmasters almost every time I've looked. One has had a single solitary Skytread for a few weeks.

Well, they're still hit and miss in my area. From the quantities I've seen, my local store only gets maybe a box of deluxes every couple of months, and the pegs are generally empty. I've yet to see a single leader, and they've had Optimus and Megatron a few times that I've been there (only a copy or two of Megs the last time I visited).

Sorenson's upcoming TF book sounds interesting; might have to pick up a copy at B&N.

On a sad note, Larry Ditillio has passed away. He was one of the principal writers for Beast Wars, but his writing career spans to the 70s, and he worked on any number of  shows that many of us will remember fondly growing up in the 80s and onward, including He-Man and She-Ra. Captain Power stands out to me, as it was a dark, mature, and edgy show with CG characters at a time when CG was still a fledgling technology. He also wrote an ep of Transformers: Animated.  Thanks for the memories, Mr. Ditillio. RIP.

Edited March 19, 2019 by M'Kyuun

[mikeszekely]

 

Man, I envy you people where stores STOCK the dang things. Mine've had nothing but Micromasters and Targetmasters almost every time I've looked. One has had a single solitary Skytread for a few weeks.

Nobody's stocked diddly around here. I've been getting most of my Siege stuff from Amazon.

[tekering]

 

I've yet to see a single leader, and they've had Optimus and Megatron a few times that I've been there

So Optimus and Megatron aren't the leaders any more?

I think Hasbro should seriously reconsider their size classification system.  

[mikeszekely]

 

So Optimus and Megatron aren't the leaders any more?

I think Hasbro should seriously reconsider their size classification system.  

Especially since the current Leaders are basically Voyagers with extra add-on kits.

I propose the following:

Normal class (Deluxe)

Boss class (Voyager)

Xtreme! Class (Leader)

Mega Class (Commander)

Ludicrous class (Titan)

[sh9000]

I might get the Limited Edition version of the book.

[M'Kyuun]

 

Especially since the current Leaders are basically Voyagers with extra add-on kits.

I propose the following:

Normal class (Deluxe)

Boss class (Voyager)

Xtreme! Class (Leader)

Mega Class (Commander)

Ludicrous class (Titan)

Yours make more sense, especially 'boss'. I guess Small( for scout class), Med (deluxe), Lg, XL, and XXL, and XXXL are too generic.  But the current labeling is a bit misleading, especially leader, which should be swapped with voyager, since most of the leader characters are done in voyager scale.  Silly Hasbro.

[mikeszekely]

Well, last one until some more stuff comes out.  It's Voyager Boss-class Siege Starscream.

There's two things jumping out at me right away.  The first is the head sculpt.  I mean, it's better than the kind of mushy head that's on the old Classics figure, but Hasbro's been killing the heads on these Siege figures.  But Starscream's seems kind of off.  I can't put my finger on it.  The other thing I'm noticing is that his legs seem kind of long.  His torso is fairly close in length to the Classics version, so most of his extra height is in his legs.  Oh, and of course there's the usual messy application of silver weathering... I really wish Hasbro would stop blowing their paint budget on it.

Despite these issues, I think it's impressive how much Starscream looks like, well, Starscream, given how different his alt mode is.

His only accessories are these two guns.  Do I call them null rays?  Actually, this might be another complaint I have have... they really don't look like null rays.  I think they look more like sniper rifles.  Although that's basically what the null rays were in the War for Cybertron game...

Starscream's head is on a ball joint with ok up, minimal down, and way more sideways tilt than you need.  His shoulders rotate and can extend just about 90 degrees.  Due to transformation they've also got a butterfly joint; just a little backward, but a lot forward.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and curl nearly 180 degrees.  His wrists can swivel.  He does have a waist swivel.  It's hindered a bit by his backpack, but I think you get all the swivel you'd actually need.  His hips are universals that can get 90 degrees laterally, only about 30 degrees backward (again due to his backpack), but over 90 degrees forward.  His thighs swivel, and his knees can bend well over 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt down a bit, and you can bend just his toes to make it look like his foot is bent down further.  His feet can tilt up probably more than you'd really need.  He does have ankle pivots, but probably only about 30 degrees.

For a traditional Starscream look you'll probably want to plug his weapons into the peg holes on the outsides of his shoulders.  He can hold them in his hands as well.  Plus he's got 5mm peg holes on the outsides of his forearms, the outsides of his lower legs, and one on each wing (facing forward in robot mode).  Additionally, the thruster on the bottom of each foot and and the trio of them on his back are also 5mm holes.  This might be a your-copy-may-vary thing, but I've noticed on my copy that the same 5mm peg on the handle of a gun can fit snugly into some of the holes, but a bit more loosely in others.

Starscream has a few other touches that are nice to see on a mainline Hasbro figure.  You might have noticed that there's no hollow spots on his forearms.  That's because you don't just flip out his fists.  His arms actually open, the fist spins into the opening, then the elbow joint collapses into the forearm in a manner very similar to some of Zeta's Aerialbots (and maybe MP Ironhide... it's been awhile since I played with him).  Then, take a look at his calves.  Again, no real hollowness, even though his thighs partially collapse into his calves for alt mode.  His calves are actually an L-shaped panel hinged at the base (near the front of his leg).  When you fold up his leg the panel pushes in so his thigh can fit, but when you unfold the leg a spring pushes the panel back out.  That especially is a really nice touch, and I hope Hasbro uses it on more figures.

If we peak under his chest, at what would be the bottom of his alt mode, you'll see a small hexagonal hole.  Presumably this is for a flight stand.  I don't have any that use a tiny peg like that so I couldn't tell you what stand does work with him, but I'm still sure that's what it's for.

There's another hole between his legs for some robot flight stand action.  And yes, he is (barely) balanced and doing a high kick there.

Starscream's alt mode is an homage to the "tetrajet" alt mode seen in the G1 cartoon.  It's not the first... I think that honor goes to Don Figueroa's War Within design, which itself was the inspiration for Starscream's Cybertron/Galaxy Force design.  A few 3Ps have tackled that design as well, most notably Impossible Toys, whose robot modes were kind of meh but who really nailed the alt mode.  Hasbro's is somewhere in the middle.  The wings are a bit wider at the tips, the nose is a bit longer, and the nose and tail don't come to points the way the cartoon does.  However, the sides are smoother and the cockpit is flush, which is better than a lot of attempts at a transforming tetrajet. 

There also isn't one big engine exhaust on the back.  Instead, there's three near the top, and his feet make two more at the bottom.  His chest is prominently on display from the back as well, but I don't hate it.  Maybe that F-15 canopy is like a warp core or something.

The engineering is actually pretty neat, and not as shellformery as you might have thought at first glance.  The nose of the jet is actually made from the intakes on the tops of Starscream's shoulders.  That does mean, though, that a lot of the jet is his wings and backpack, and the underside does have a lot of folded-up robot underneath.  When I saw all that robot kibble in pictures I thought it looked terrible, but despite being no less noticeable it just doesn't bother me so much in hand.

Aside from a little gap in the nose everything eventually locks in place nice as securely, so you can woosh this guy around your living room as much as you like.  He might have to stay in the air, in fact... there's no landing gear or struts or anything like that.  You set him down on his shins, more or less.

The instructions have you plug in his weapons onto his robot shoulders... in fact, you can transform him without removing them, if you please.  I personally think they look a little better if you move them onto the wing holes, now on the underside of the wings.  If you like, you still have access to the ones on his forearms as well, but his transformation partially blocks the ones on his legs.  The thrusters on this feet and back are still accessible, too.  They're not in a good spot for guns, but if you've got some fire effect parts from some Battle Masters you can give him some exhaust flames.

One other thing that's definitely worth mentioning is his chest.  For transformation it untabs from his torso then moves up and over his shoulders and collars on these gray arms.  The connection is pretty loose.  I've seen lots of people have them pop off entirely during transformation.  On my copy one side is basically worthless, but it takes some effort to pull it off the other.  It's an irritant to be sure, but I have to stress that it doesn't affect either mode.  Once it's moved it tabs securely back into place.  In any case, the red parts of Starscream's chest have holes on the sides.  It looks like maybe Hasbro meant to put a pin in there, then they just didn't.  There are rumors, even, of a running change that does put a pin in there, so if you're out shopping you might want to look for the pin (you can see the hole through the box's window).  If you can't find one (or the rumors turn out to be a hoax), Youtuber Peaugh has a video explaining how you can add pins yourself.

In any case, Starscream was a figure that I wanted because he's such a main character, and the Decepticons are pretty outnumbered, but I wasn't super excited for him because I didn't think he looked so great in pictures.  In hand, though, he's actually a lot of fun, possibly my favorite mold of the entire second wave.  I have no qualms about buying at least two more of the mold (although I kind of hope they do something different for the Coneheads).  He's not without his faults, but if you can get past them I'm giving Starscream a recommend.

LATE EDIT: I remember that MP Tracks came with a flight stand.  And sure enough, it fits between Starscream's legs justs fine.  However, the hole in his chest seems to be smaller.  I'm not ruling out it's use as an attachment point for a flight stand, but it's clearly different than the other hole.

Oh, and I tried the between-the-legs hole in alt mode.  It kind of works.  The problem is that you're pushing the peg in horizontally, and the weight of the figure is too much for the non-ratcheted joints on the stand.

Edited March 20, 2019 by mikeszekely

[M'Kyuun]

Not feeling Siege Starscream in the least, as he shares all the traits that I generally loathe in TF aircraft. I think they tried too hard with Screamer to adhere to his G1 F-15 alt mode- influenced bot design rather than taking a more stylistic approach as they did with Ironhide. The design is lazy in the extreme, and I wonder if they even tried to actually make him transform into a tetrajet before resorting to their old plane on a bot's back routine.

In retrospect, I imagine the designers at both Hasbro and Takara curse their lack of foresight (although, in truth, they had no reason to believe that the franchise would be stronger than ever 30 years on- most toons didn't last beyond a season or two) so far as giving our favorite Cybertronians bot modes to reflect the alt modes for the characters that were shown on Cybertron in the first episode. It was something that I noticed back then, but y'know, as a whole I think we just accepted stuff like that without questioning it too hard or letting it spoil the experience. Obviously, the toon, plus the toys, struck a note with a few folks. That bit of backwards design for the original toon no doubt poses challenges for toy designers today, and I think Starscream here epitomizes the lowest common denominator of that particular design philosophy. It's funny, as they seem to do a good job with cars, but planes are the bane of their existence. They need a Kawamori protégé to push design in a more elegant direction.

[RavenHawk]

 

 

 

 

While I know he's meant to reference the tetrajets, there's also a bit of a cool BSG Viper vibe here.

[Kuma Style]

  

 

[mikeszekely]

 

While I know he's meant to reference the tetrajets, there's also a bit of a cool BSG Viper vibe here.

Yeah, I'm definitely seeing that. 

[Sildani]

So say we all!

[mikeszekely]

I broke down and bought Chromia. *shrugs*

Chromia seems like an odd choice for Siege, what with Arcee being arguably the most well-known female Autobot, and Windblade featuring heavily in the Cyberverse cartoon and the new IDW Transformers series (the one that's using the toy designs in the comics).  I guess they're thinking that Windblade and Arcee had Titans Return toys after their Generations toys (even if I never got close to one), plus Elita One, Firestar (as Novastar), and Moonracer all popped up in Power of the Primes, so Chromia needed an update to fit more with that aesthetic than her previous toy.  And I guess that works.  I wouldn't go so far as to say she's more cartoon accurate, but she's definitely got less exaggerated proportions, and I do think I prefer that.  Unfortunately, she's got a lot of the same problems as the older figure.  She's got similar, too-dark eyes that look kind of dead.  She's got wheel kibble on her lower legs, although it's a bit more on the sides than jammed into her calves.  And both toys have giant honking backpacks.  It's a bit tidier and locks in place more definitively on the newer toy, but feels more egregious because that backpack is something like 70% of her alt mode.

Something to note, I skipped the Moonracer and Fire/Novastar, as I wasn't a big fan of the PotP line and frankly they didn't look that great to me.  I'm familiar enough with them to tell you that, yes, Chromia shares a lot of the same engineering.  However, she doesn't have any of the combiner parts.  If you've got Novastar, Moonracer, and Elita One you can't buy Greenlight and Chromia and hope to have a complete fembot combiner.  Indeed, despite the shared engineering Chromia seems to be mostly new parts.  Only the thighs and wheels seem to be reused.

Chromia's got a few accessories.  There's a pistol.  There's a white part that can fit onto the pistol as a longer barrel or silencer, or tab into the top like a scope.  There's also a pair of what the instructions call EMP grenades.  The bottom of the grenades are 5mm pegs the smaller peg holes inside them, so you can stick them end-to-end and make one big gun.  They also have tabs and slots on the sides, so you could use one as part of a gun barrel and one as a scope.  The tabs are also just the right size to wedge them into a 5mm peg hole.

Chromia's head is on a ball joint that can look down a little and up a great deal, as well as tilt sideways a little.  Her universal shoulders can rotate, and they can extend a little under 90 degrees.  She has bicep swivels and her elbows can bend 90 degrees.  Due to transformation there's no wrist swivels but they can bend inward.  Her waist isn't ideal.  There is a swivel, but it's lower than her waist and behind her bikini.  So it looks a little weird, and it's fairly limited.  Push it too far and the blue bikini will pop off, as it's just friction clipped onto the sides of her pelvis.  Her hips can go a little under 90 degrees forward and only about 45-60 degrees backwards or sideways.  Her thighs swivel.  The kibble on her legs limits her to about 45 degrees of knee bend, although if you move the kibble the knees can actually bend 90 degrees.  Her feet can tilt forward and backward, plus she's got 90 degrees of ankle pivot.

Chromia can actually hold the grenades like she's going to throw them.  If you don't want her to hold them or to be a part of her gun the instructions tell you to store them in the peg holes on the sides of her backpack.  She also has peg holes on the kibble on the sides of her legs, on the outside of her forearms, one on the back of her backpack, and one on each of her heels.

I was pretty prepared to hate Siege Chromia's alt mode.  I mean, she's a definite shell former, with most of the car coming from unfolding her backpack.  It seems weirdly long and narrow in the middle.  And, frankly, it's just not as cool as the older toy's Tron-esque bike mode.  But then I looked up her cartoon alt-mode, and, yeah.  Could be worse.

I dare say that, in hand, the front half of the vehicle looks pretty decent, shellformer or not.  We do start to run into some problems on the back half, though.  Although Chromia's chest isn't as exaggerated as it could have been, and although the sides of her backpack try to fill in the taper of her waist, a good chunk of the rear still looks like an obvious fembot torso.  And once you get past that, the vehicle just stops.  That leaves a bit of a gap between her robot arms, filled only by her visible hands.  And speaking of her elbows and hands, her forearms are supposed to tab into the backpack, which doesn't actually tab into her torso, and that's supposed to lock everything in place.  Unless everything is lined up perfectly, though, you're going to have gaps between her arms and the backpack.  And a little squeeze on the backpack is enough to start pushing things apart.

You can kind of hide it a bit by plugging the grenades onto the little pegs that fold out as you fold her head in.  Then I guess they're supposed to be like exhaust pipes or something.  Folding her head in also causes a 5mm peg hole to open up on her sternum.  The instructions tell you to tab the white part on top of the blue pistol, then to plug the pistol into this hole.  Be warned that the tab isn't the most secure, though, and you're probably better off leaving the white part on the front of the pistol.  In addition to the new sternum peg hole you've still got access to the peg holes on her forearms and leg kibble, now sitting just behind her wheels in her alt mode.  The one on her back is also available in the middle of her canopy.

I'll be honest, I like Chromia a little more than I thought I would, enough that I do think I prefer this version to the older Prime Arcee remold.  But, in the interest of continuing that honesty, I didn't expect to like Chromia at all.  And everything that I thought would be a negative still is, it's just that I don't hate those things as much as I thought.  And ultimately, "I thought it would suck but it's actually kind of ok" isn't a ringing endorsement.  She's still probably one of the worst Siege figures so far, and unless you're a completionist or a Chromia fan you can safely skip this one.

[JB0]

Ayup. That's definitely a rework of the last Moonracer toy. They sanded off a few of the rougher edges, but it is still pretty dodgy.

 

The smaller backpack is much appreciated, as is the front end of the car coming together in a coherent manner.  Hell, they even managed to make the back of the car less blatantly just a robot chest hanging out there(more because it actually lines up with the car parts than because it looks like car parts). 

[RavenHawk]

That motorcycle Chromia is actually one of my favorite post-Prime toys, so I was hoping this new Chromia would be a spin on that when first announced (though, if I'd thought about how these are bringing in more of an homage to the G1 cartoon, I should have known better). I don't think I'll be picking this one up, but thanks for the great review.

[mikeszekely]

Over the weekend I got a sitter and took my wife out to see a movie.  That took us out near a Walmart that's closer to the city than our local stomping grounds, and I was able to pick up Studio Series Voyager Class Rampage.

I mean... I guess that's movie accurate?  Mostly?  We're really talking about a character that didn't have a ton of screen time, and whose design exemplifies the worst of the Bayformers aesthetic. He's got that same sort of "ovoid of jagged metal with eyes" that a lot of Bayverse Decepticons have and his torso is mostly jagged metal not immediately recognizable as part of his vehicle (save for the two pistons on his chest that aren't actually part of said vehicle).  His distinguishing characteristics were probably his tread-whips, which this toy kinda has, and the lack of actual legs, which this toy has in spades.

Depending on your thoughts on partsforming, Rampage either comes with three accessories or none.  They are these two gray pieces, and this stand.

Rampage's articulation is pretty poor, even excusing his lack of legs.  His head is on a ball joint with pretty good up/down range and the ability to swivel if you want that confused, sideways tilt.  His ability to look left/right is fairly limited at the ball joint, but there's a hinge at the base of the stem that gives him more range.  Another hinge where the neck meets the torso, more for transformation, does allow for more downward range.  His shoulders can rotate, and extend about 90 degrees, plus there's about 90 degrees of forward butterfly as well.  YMMV, but the hinges that move his shoulders laterally are kind of weak and have a hard time holding his arms up.  He has a bicep swivel... but then things start to go south.  He has no elbows.  He has no wrist swivel.  His two upper fingers are hinged at the base, with additional hinges near the tips of his fingers.  The lower claws have a hinge at the orange part and are not individually-articulated.  His waist has a hinge at the top that bends forward, and a ratcheted hinge at the bottom that bends backward.  He also has a ratcheted waist swivel.  However, it's above the lower waist bend.  So the thing is, if he's a straight as you can make him the jagged shards of his torso inhibit the swivel.  But if you bend the lower waist hinge to try to get some clearance he's not turning to the side at the waist as much as he is leaning to the side.  Then we finish off with a hinge at the base of his... leg?  Tail?  Speaking of that, he in no way shape or form can stand on it by itself.  You have to plug it into the black stand that he comes with.  Even then, if you extend an arm too far to the side without counterbalancing it with the other arm he'll tip over, stand or no stand.

There are some some hinges in the treads hanging off of his arms, but the one closest to his hand where the treads are actually connected to the arm doesn't bend forward all that far, just a little past perpendicular, so his treads never seem very whip-like.

As for the gray bits, you can leave them pegged along the sides of his back, where they go in alt mode.  Or, you can pull them off and tab them onto his thumb-claws and use them like guns.  Which, yeah, he did have guns in the movie, but they were a lot bigger than that.

Rampage turns into a Bulldozer, not a tiger... well, Bonecrusher was taken.  TFWiki suggests alternatively that it's a Komatsu D575A or a Caterpillar D11.  I'm no expert, but this is definitely not a Komatsu D575A, and neither was the bulldozer used for Rampage in the film.  It probably is a Caterpillar, but I'd guess D9, not D11.  It's hard to say definitively, since there's no Caterpillar trademarks on the box and Hasbro probably just wanted something vaguely like it to avoid having to pay Caterpillar for licensing.

Rampage's little thumb claws are just dangling off the back, but if you squint I guess you could take them for rippers.  One bigger finger claw on each hand becomes part of the track spring on each side.  His gray gun-bits top off the blade lift cylinders (the tilt cylinders are conspicuously absent).  None of those parts move, so the blade is fixed in place.  There's storage for the stand on the underside of the vehicle.  The tracks don't move, but there are a trio of wheels that he can roll on.

If we're being technical, Bumblebee killed the crap out of Rampage, and a yellow dump truck turned into Devastator's foot.  But for the sake of not having to come up with another name for another Constructicon when Studio Series Devy is already going to be made of eight figures Rampage turns into a foot.  So much for screen accuracy!

I'm not going to beat around the bush.  I think that Rampage is a pretty lousy toy based on a pretty lousy character.  And if this were only a crappy toy based on a crappy robot design that turned into a bulldozer this would be one of the easiest passes I could tell you to pass on.  However, I know that when Hasbro announced that Devastator was going to be done in the Studio Series it was a big deal, and I'm guessing that a lot more people are interested in making sure they have Devastator's left foot than they are a Studio Series toy of "that guy Bumblebee killed two minutes after he rolled up on screen in ROTF".  Unfortunately, we might we waiting awhile before we know how the combined Devastator turns out- Rampage's instructions have three of the remaining seven listed as "available late 2019" and the other four listed as "available early 2020" (although one of those "early 2020" guys is already popping up at Walmarts, so who knows).  I can't guess how good or bad the combined Devastator will be.  All I can say is that if you wait to find out you might not be able to get your hands on a Rampage, but if Devastator turns out to be so bad you can't stand to display them combined you're going to have at least one Constructicon who's pretty much junk on his own.

Edited March 28, 2019 by mikeszekely

[M'Kyuun]

Y'know, they chose a really cool alt mode for Rampage; it's a shame that, in true Bay form, it's bot mode is a tragedy. When Hasbro did the Constructicons for Combiner Wars, it wouldn't have hurt my feelings if they'd taken some liberties with the alts, and given them far better bot modes than what they actually gave us, similar to what they did with much of CHUG.  Even with Hasui-san designing them, the CW Constructicons were really disappointing to me, even with the somewhat improved articulation of the Japanese releases. I really wanted a nice official set of those guys for my CHUG collection, but it was such an underwhelming group of figures that, even when the Japanese version went on sale, I just couldn't bring myself to get them. I spent my money on Toy World's Constructor, which of course, is in a different line and scale altogether.

I'm hoping maybe Siege will give us better Constructicons at some point. Not holding my breath, but it'd be nice if we got something a little higher quality in the mainline. Likewise, Dinobots- all voyager scaled and very G1 without the pesky combining gimmick to complicate things.  And a new Astrotrain that actually looks like G1 Astrotrain.  If they wanted to update his train mode to look like a modern engine and made it work without compromising the other modes, I think I'd be ok with that, too.

[mikeszekely]

Rampage's Voyager-class wave mate is yet another Studio Series Optimus Prime.  This time, it's the one from the Bumblebee movie.

Much like Prime's CGI model in the film, I think most people are going to look at this toy and be happy to see a strongly G1-inspired Optimus Prime with extra mechanical detail befitting of a live-action movie vs a poorly drawn '80s cartoon.  On that note, I myself have no complaints; I think this figure looks pretty awesome.  The little gap between his chest windows actually reminds me of Don Figueroa's IDW Optimus.  I'd be remiss if I didn't point out, though, that he's suffering from some inaccuracies that make me wonder if, like the Studio Series Bumblebee from this film, they weren't working with an earlier design.  From the top down, he's got some silver on the helmet cheeks that shouldn't be there, the panels on top of his shoulders shouldn't have that black, he's missing some armor around the smokestacks, and the smokestacks shouldn't have that bend at the top.  He's missing Autobot insignias on his shoulders, and those circles in the silver bands should be hashes.  There should be more red on his lats.  The inside of his forearms should have silver for the mechanical details, the outside of his forearm should have some silver on the circle near his wrist and some blue, and the front of his forearm should have yellow on the little triangles.  His hands should be blue instead of black.  The black square on his pelvis should be smaller, and the chunk under his crotch should be blue like G1.  The armor on the sides of his hips should be silver, not black, and the yellow stripes on the front of his hips should be gray.  The silver rectangles on his knees should be blue, and the circles should be very small, blue, and horizontally arranged at the top of the rectangle.  The insides of his lower legs should have more blue, and his lower legs and feet should have a more humanoid shape.  Now, if all that seems a bit nitpicky it probably is.  I think most of that can be ignored or written off as the film's CGI model being on Cybertron and Optimus having to make some changes after coming to Earth.  Some of it can probably be fixed with a little paint, a silver Sharpie, and/or some Reprolabels.  And I actually like some of the differences.  The shape of the toy's legs, for example, gives him a chunkier, G1-ier look than the GCI.

Prime only comes with the one accessory, but a rifle is all he really needs.  Seems to be pretty film accurate.

Prime's head is on... some kind of joint.  Might be a ball joint, or it might be a mushroom swivel with some wiggle.  He can look down a tiny bit, but he can't look up or tilt his head sideways.  And while he can swivel his head there's an odd resistance to it.  His shoulders can rotate and the flap at the top is on a hinge so he can extend his shoulders 90 degrees sideways.  Due to transformation he's even got a bit of backwards butterfly.  His biceps can swivel, and his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees.  His wrists can swivel.  His waist can swivel.  His hips can bend forward 90 degrees, but only about 30 degrees backward, and a little under 90 degrees to the side.  His thighs can swivel, and his knees are a single hinge that can bend over 90 degrees.  He's got about 45 degrees of ankle pivots, and they seem to be a soft ratchet.  His feet can tilt down, but not up.  In fact, they way they're designed if all of his leg parts are properly tabbed in place his feet naturally have a little downward tilt, and manipulating his feet can cause his legs to start to come untabbed.  You can avoid some of this- by design, there's a t-shaped tab on the back of his foot that's captured in slot at the base of the calf flap.  Just bend the back of the foot down so the calf passed over the tab, then bend it back up so the tab rests against the back of the calf.  It doesn't really improve his foot articulation, but it does keep his feet from pushing his legs apart when you move them.

A quick look at the back.  Like the Siege toy he's carrying the truck's grill and some of the side panels on his back, but I think it cleans up alright.  There's a pair of peg holes back there.  You can use the smaller pegs on the sides of his rifle to store it on his back.

There's a little bit of extra stuff going on with his legs, but the transformation is kind of reminiscent of the '06 Classics Optimus.  The wheels, grill, and bumper are on his back, you have to spin his torso around just under the chest to get the windows lined up over the grill, and and panels unfold from his forearms to make up the side windows/door.  One point of frustration is that things don't seem to tab together as well as I'd like.  It could be partly because I can't get that top section of the grill to sit flush no matter what I do.

Fit and finish aside, it's a fairly decent alt mode.  I mean, a red cab-over-engine with a silver stripe going around it makes for a very Optimus-y truck, right?  That said, it seems kind of boxy, even for a truck.  It kind of reminds of of Toyworld's Primorion that way.  And there's some inaccuracies again from the truck used in the movie.  That truck had black wiper arms, the smokestacks didn't have that bend (again) and they should be closer to the edges of the truck.  The handrails are too close together and should be silver, not red.  The bumper shouldn't have those rectangular lights (or whatever they're) supposed to be right under the grill.  Instead, he should have circular amber ones on the bottom of the bumper, near the ends, and rectangular gap in the middle (for a license plate?).  There should be a silver vent above the grill.  The fuel tanks should sit a little farther forward, with nothing but a gap (and some silver guards in front of the tires) between the tank and the rear tire.  He's missing the marker lights on top.  And the area behind the cab, with his knees and shins stuffed up behind the headache rack is a little busy and pushes the headache rack out too far behind the cab.  Now, some of those things I could say are a limited paint budget, or the kinds of sacrifices that I advocate for on an alt mode to make a better robot mode.  I can live with most of that.  But the one thing that really bugs me is black hip skirts standing out like a sore thumb behind the front wheel instead of the steps.  His hip skirts, as I said, are actually supposed to be silver anyway... would it have killed them to mold the steps onto the hip skirts?

When viewed from above, you can also see that rear of the truck is mostly a hollow gap.  It does have a molded, painted fifth wheel... maybe I should be happy that it doesn't look like super obvious robot legs?  Prime's rifle can peg into the hole in the fifth wheel, if you need a distraction from the gaping void between the cab and the fifth wheel.

Now, I'm pointing out what I think are this figures flaws, because I think you should be aware of them.  But I may be coming off a little more negatively than I actually feel.  I mean, while the Studio Series started off fairly strong it definitely feels like it's been on a downhill slide, and I find myself skipping more than repaints.  But this Prime figure is a pretty good Prime toy, even without using the "movie" qualifier.  If you're a fan of movie Prime having a more G1 aesthetic, or just G1-ish Primes in general, I'd recommend picking this guy up.

[JB0]

The large silver recessed area at his belly area makes him look like a Powermaster. I'm okay with that.