TF Views

Thrust!

So here's an interesting fella. Take an Autobot toy that maybe has some sorta cute freak appeal, and try to do him up menacing like. I didn't get Breakaway, so I have no idea how that toy works. But something about this mold in these colors appealed, so I wound up with Thrust.

Jet Mode!: An F-35 (I think) in a G1 tribute color scheme. The black circles on the wings are a nice touch, even if they couldn't get the VTOL fans on there, it at least suggests 'em. I think it'd be hilarious if there was a story where I Transformer jet was spotted by humans because of all the weird alien stuff on the undercarriage. Thrust's not a horrible offender here, though, he at least keeps roughly the right shape. No action features on the jet, but the swooshing around appeal must not be denied. Also, I like the head in the cockpit thing. It reminds me of BM Jetstorm without having anything to do with him, but I like the idea he's piloting himself. I'll expand on this idea later in the review.

Transform!: When the movie line started back up, my thoughts were kinda "Oh, great, complicated transforms for robots with boring movie looks." Which is why that the only movie deluxe I've gotten so far was Ravage, who doesn't even really transform. Anyway. So this is actually a fun transformation. It does some different stuff, but it is kinda fun to flip back and forth. Getting the cockpit open is tricky, but sometimes if you apply pressure at the front of it, it'll pop the rest of it up. I like sliding the cockpit back better than just flipping it up, but whatever works for you.

Very Odd Robot!: Crazy hunchback with a tiny head, but I do kinda like him. It makes me kinda laugh that he seems to be about two joints away from a traditional Seeker design, but the designers just sorta said "Eh, quit here, good enough." Have a look at this guy, if those wings folded onto the back a bit more, and the chest folded down a lil' bit, the head'd have to pop up some more, but that'd basically be a regular seeker. Also, looking at the cockpit makes me wonder. Because if the head moved up a bit, and stayed behind the cockpit cover when it moved up, you'd have a more normally-porportioned robot head in a helmet kinda thing. Makes me wonder if maybe that's what was intended. But I've been going on about what it almost is. What it is, is a hunchbacked pinhead robot wearing most of a jet. For some reason, I still like it. The tiny head seems to come to a point back there, and the cockpit kibble also echoes the conehead shape. You gotta want to see it, but it sorta looks like a conehead. As for the crazy kibble, the big jet kibble makes it look like he's wearing some sorta flight-suit armor, to me. It's almost like the kibble is a vehicle, and it transforms into the jet mode, which the head-in-cockpit feature reinforces.

So clearly, this toy's caught my imagination something fierce.

Beyond the kibble and head placement issues, he's a pretty good robot. Something about he feet being made to look like huge-toed bare feet instead of boots seems a bit odd to me. Not bad, but odd. Anyway. I like the spinning gatling-gun, too. It's neat.


Homage Appeal!: It's nice that all three of the coneheads are getting some love in this line. Though, I'm sure most fans would be happy if the Dirge mold got repainted into Thrust and Ramjet, too, I'm happy with all of 'em being different molds. If nothing else, the prospect of having three of the coneheads has tempted me to get that Ramjet repaint.


Overall!: Neat toy, inspiring, and makes me want to play with it and think about what kinda things it's doing with it's design. This is coming from a guy that can count his ROTF toys on his fingers, but Thrust here is easily my favorite from the line. Maybe not for everyone, but I like him a lot.

Revenge of the Fallen - Sideswipe

This particular character got about five minutes and two lines in the movie, at least as far as I remember. Still, I liked the look enough that I was willing to overlook my dislike of ROTF and ask for this for Christmas.

Vehicle: A Corvette Stingray concept car, in silver with black tires and blue windows. This car is very low, very sleek and futuristic-looking, and I'm assuming since it's a concept that it's not actually in production. It looks fairly good, though there are a lot of seams in the various panels. There is a simplified version of the twin- flag Corvette logo on the front, unpainted. The rear has what looks to be four exhaust pipes dead center under the raised but otherwise undetailed license plate. The pipes can slide in and out of their housing for no discernable reason. A very nice detail are the brake pads visible on the front wheels inside the rims.

The car rolls, but the clearance is so low that it's hard to get all four wheels to roll at once.

Transformation: I must be getting old... I ended up resorting to instructions, so I wouldn't break the thing. The front of the car becomes the legs and feet, which is apparent as soon as you flip it over. There's some 'shell-former' aspects to the change, with a lot of the hood and roof of the car ending up as a backpack. The tailpipes end up behind his head like grenade launchers or something, and the taillights are pectoral muscles or whatever. The lower half of the doors end up as swords which attach at the elbow via the wheels, and can be rotated to be deployed or not.

Robot mode: Looks great from most angles. Lots of silver and charcoal grey wtih black here and there give Sideswipe a uniform color scheme that avoids being too monochromatic and dull. The only real splashes of color are the dark blue knees and red from the taillights. The transparent blue form the windshield is visible behind the waist and adds some subtle extra colors depending on the angle.

The major problem I've found with the figure is keeping it balanced and upright. The figure has 'wheel-feet' and they extend slightly below the flat from and back portions of the feet, unless I've just missed a stop somewhere. Combine this with the backpack, and this guy is likely to tip over at the slightest provocation. It gets a bit frustrating.

Overall: Looks good in both modes, and has a satisfying transformation and a good sculpt. If it could stand up better, I'd be happier. Still, one of the better figures from this line.

It's not the official config, but flip his feet over so the flat ends are in front, and fold them so the flat bits are facing outward. I've found it helps. Also good is flipping out the inner circly bits and using them to balance.

Onslaught Six wrote:It's not the official config, but flip his feet over so the flat ends are in front, and fold them so the flat bits are facing outward. I've found it helps. Also good is flipping out the inner circly bits and using them to balance.

I actually just gave up trying to balance Swipe on his toes and used the heels, since gravity tends to pull the figure backwards given the big backpack. It leaves the 'toes' angled slightly upward, but it's pretty stable.

Mm, that works too, my solution just looks cooler.

This is what sucks about having sold so much of my collection. I had both Sideswipe and Swerve at one point and had them both standing perfectly sturdy, but damned if I can remember how I did it.

Jetfire! Leader class!

Having finally had time to fiddle, I've decided that I hate transforming it to vehicle mode. I wish it had been packaged that way actually if for no other reason than to see what it's supposed to look like properly transformed. I did eventually get into jet mode, but I still have rubbery dangly things hanging off to the side that don't seem to go anywhere. And on top of that, I had to actually read the directions for the legs (I have yet to do so for said dangly things). Jet mode looks ok from the top, but there's still a lot of robot kibble visible. And the front end doesn't seem to lock together very well, which means that if you touch it, it pops out of place. Robot mode is nice and seems pretty poseable. Sculpted well and I think effectively captures the character well. Haven't tried Jetconvoy mode yet. Maybe the jet mode will grow on me in time. Given some of the flaws, I'm having a hard time understanding why this figure is as rare as it is, but I would still recommend it, just not necessarily at the full 49.99 price point.

I almost got my Sideswipe to stand the other day.


As far as Jetfire goes, there is no guarantee that it would have been correctly set in jet mode, even in the package.


Dom
-will post a review of HerpenDerps Ice Cream soon.

Very true, how many toys lately need assembling to vehicle mode out-of-package?

Also, the rubbery dangly parts (heheheh) are the seatbelt for Soopah Jet Coneboy mode. I remember 86 specifically telling me there's some way or other that they can go, and I did it with success, but I'll be damned if I can remember it offhand. That said, when you do finally get it together, it's a 'beautiful' altmode. Just a bigass 'jet.'

I hate the twins, but I picked this former shelfwarmer up at Target today for $2.52 on clearance. A month ago, they had 9 pegs with nothing but Tuner Mudflap. This was the last one, and I've got a little buyer's remorse even spending only $2.52.

There's only one solution... put him in my photocomic and have the other characters beat him mercilessly.

Otherwise, character aside, how is the figure?

Auto mode: Quite good. Chevy Trax complete with little chevy logo on the front grille and plenty of auto details. The ground clearance is also good... no robot bits dragging the ground as the car rolls.

Transformation: a little fiddly. This thing doesn't really transform so much as get stuffed into a box made up of car panels. And rearranging the parts is a pain in the neck. Not very enjoyable. And half the car ends up as a backpack. Ok, more like 3/4 of the car.

Robot mode: Ugly, unstable and very much a shellformer. And not a fun one either. I'm glad I didn't pay full price for this thing. Probably one of my least favorite Transformers ever, at least at first glance.