TF:Prime Figure Review Thread

[Dominic]

Ah, I forgot how relatively new to the fandom you are. At the time this all went down, you were still a kid wandering in to the toy aisle not knowing what to expect from the toys or cartoon. (In contrast, old timers like myself, JT or Honey Bear usually had some idea of what was coming 6 months to a year in advance.)

Everything that I posted above is supported by an official source, either leaked or in some cases officially released. I actually had the preview catalogue that listed Jetstorm as Skybolt. The fandom as a whole knew about he changed, more or less inverted, premise of the franchise when the first episode was shown at BotCon '99.

We had all seen early solicits for "Beast Hunters", and a vague desctiption of how Optimus and co had to hunt for Megatron and his dangerous band of beast-formed criminals. The original plan was for the cast to return to Cybertron. The Maximals were going to be carrying Megatron and at least a few other Predacons as prisoners. Blackarachnia was going to go nutty (or somthing) and help Megatron escape. Somehow or another, Megatron was going to corrupt and gain control of Tigerhawk. (That middle column that the robot head is mounted on looks like it could have held two sparks. That part *is* speculation. But, it fits with what we know otherwise.)

If "Beast Hunters" followed the same pattern as the second and third seasons of "Beast Wars", the Maximals would have been injured in an early battle, requiring an upgrade to their new (and toy accurate) bodies. Look at the early moulds. Cheetor and Optimus, being main characters, would have kept familiar beast modes. Tankorr's original toy form implies a more intelligent, commanding, character (such as Rhinox). Jet Storm (aka Sky Bolt) would have been Silverbolt. Deluxe Thrust's vehicle mode has a rodent like quality to it.

The Ultra Jetstorm would likely have been a further upgrade of Primal. Again, look at the helmet and the chest cannons.


Dom
-ah, discussin forgotten lore online, we truly are fans.

[BWprowl]

You're gonna need to post a mo'fo'in' source on all that, otherwise I think you're full of speculatory crap. Aside from renames like Skybolt (which everyone knows about), I've never heard about any of that weirdness, not even a cursory mention of TFwiki or anything (and you know Willis would've been *all over* that sort of obscure lore).

How the hell does Tankorr's original toy "imply a more intelligent, commanding, character"? Aside from the fact that the character actually *was* that way in the end (so nothing was actually changed), how exactly does the toy 'look' like that?

There's nothing 'rodent-like' about Thrust.

I've seen some of the original 'Beast Hunters' sketches, like that one from the early solicit in the FoxKids! Magazine. That had Primal, Cheetor, and Rattrap still in beast modes, though vastly different from what had come before, and what they would end up looking like in that actual show.

Ultra Jetstorm looks nothing like Optimus Primal, a faceplate doesn't automatically make them the same character. It only makes sense that he'd have been conceived as an upgrade of what was called 'Skybolt' at the time, and his vehicle mode especially was clearly the design that ended up being in the show.

Seriously, I maintain that you're off your nut.

[Sparky Prime]

Ah, I forgot how relatively new to the fandom you are. At the time this all went down, you were still a kid wandering in to the toy aisle not knowing what to expect from the toys or cartoon.

I've been part of the online fandom since the middle of Beast Wars myself and I have to go with BWprowl on this. I've never seen any of what you're talking about with Beast Hunters here, except in fan fiction...

Somehow or another, Megatron was going to corrupt and gain control of Tigerhawk. (That middle column that the robot head is mounted on looks like it could have held two sparks. That part *is* speculation. But, it fits with what we know otherwise.)

There was never any plans for Tigerhawk to be in Beast Machines. Hasbro didn't initially even want to make a toy of the character and asked that the creators of the show kill him off quickly. Hasbro later changed their mind about making the toy but the plan was always that the character dies in Beast Wars.

The Ultra Jetstorm would likely have been a further upgrade of Primal. Again, look at the helmet and the chest cannons.

I don't see any resemblance to Optimus Primal in Ultra Jetstorm at all. And as BWprowl points out, there was a new design for Rattrap's beast mode shown as part of the Beast Hunters concept art shown in the Fox Kids magazine, clearly indicating he was never intended to be Thrust.

[Dominic]

I just spent more time than I should have looking for evidence. But, I found none.

Still, I know I saw that information somewhere, somewhen. Heck, just look at the front of the vehicle form of Deluxe Thrust. Look at Ultra Jetstorm's helmet, not just the face plate.


Dom
-saw this somewhere.....

[BWprowl]

I just spent more time than I should have looking for evidence. But, I found none.

The important thing is that you tried.

Still, I know I saw that information somewhere, somewhen.

Remember, this was over a dozen years ago, and you’re the guy who mis-remembered Classics Skywarp’s colors just a few years after his release. Isn’t it entirely possible that you, Lewis, and Beary saw the promo blurbs that Sparky and I have corroborated did come out, then just let speculation run wild (as fandoms do in these sorts of cases), and now you’re mis-remembering which was which?

Heck, just look at the front of the vehicle form of Deluxe Thrust. Look at Ultra Jetstorm's helmet, not just the face plate.

What part, the wheel-well-cover-thingy-bit? It’s got a little runic-ish design on it, I don’t see anything that would point to it being Rattrap (and once again, we already had a Beast Hunters design for Rattrap, with a rat mode). Ultra Jetstorm’s helmet has the long pointed ears and angular geometric profile of the Deluxe Jetstorm/Skybolt toy, rather than the squared-off look of Primal’s BW toys or his rounded, humanoid BM design. It *vaguely* resembles the original Ultra Primal's Mutant head mask, but that toy was utterly irrelevent by the time this Jetstorm toy came out. The crest in the center doesn’t resemble any crest worn by Primal, and crested helmets are hardly anything new in TF. And really, why would this toy, which was clearly designed as an upscale/upgrade of the Skybolt design (which we can at least all agree was planned early on to end up being Silverbolt), end up being a different upgrade for a completely different character? I’m sorry, nothing about the Primal -> Jetstorm theory makes any sense whatsoever.

[Tigermegatron]

Ultra Jetstorm looks nothing like Optimus Primal, a faceplate doesn't automatically make them the same character.

I never ever saw a BW/BM homage for Optimus Primal using the BM Ultra Jetstorm toy.

To me Ultra Jetstorm always looked like a homage to 1986 Cyclonus,Apparently the botcon crew agreed too & released a Cyclonus repaint using the mold.

[Onslaught Six]

Some of what Dom is saying checks out. Most of it doesn't.

The "Megatron with an army of beasts" idea probably comes from this early press release that claimed Megs would lead the Predacons rather than any mention of Vehicons--this might've been an early plan, but it was probably someone either not knowing the Vehicons would be Megatron's new faction, or someone deliberately using Predacons as the faction name in early materials to keep it a surprise.
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgr ... DHDwElYpQJ

"BEAST HUNTERS, with the popular Beast Wars characters continuing their fight against the evil dragon Megatron and his hordes of Predacons; "

"BEAST HUNTERS, the next evolution of the popular Beast Wars franchise, continue their fight against the evil dragon Megatron and his hordes of Predacons in 13 all-new episodes with cutting edge computer animation, action, adventure and humor, produced by Mainframe Entertainment."

Obviously, rampant speculation was a huge part of these early threads since right away people are talking about some wholly nonexistant "Dragon Galvatron" character (what the fuck) which is probably referring to, if anything, early pictures of Cryotek--who was planned for BW but never released until RID.

[Dominic]

Maybe the plot summary that I am remembering was one of those speculative posts. I dunno.

Dom
-confused.

[JediTricks]

Got me Smokescreen at Target today. This figure is very interesting, it's like they said "you know how every figure we've done up until this point has been disappointing and cheap and low on parts and paint? Yeah, let's go the other way with this one, but just this one figure, that'll mess with their heads."

First things you should know when you get one though, the packaged robot mode is mistransformed in the chest/shoulders/wings so he's floppy off the tray when he's not in proper transformation. Also, the instructions about the arms turning into the roof are WRONG and IMPOSSIBLE because they have one half go up first then the other -- but it'd have to pass THROUGH the halves use a deep tab that would snap right the hell off if you did this, and the shoulder joints would likely snap off in the next move if they didn't -- so I strongly suggest snapping the roof halves together before fitting them to the windows. This section is fiddly, so make sure you figure out what works best for you, there's tabs on both sides and not everybody will have great success here without care.

This figure is quite articulated, very painted, sports a ton of movable parts from a complex transformation, and 2 different colors of translucent plastic. He doesn't sport Autobot faction sigils though or red on his crest, and his eyes are yellow, and his lower legs have a ton of paint that looks nice but isn't character-accurate, all of which is a touch odd. It's weirdest that they left out the crest considering there's a blue paint mask at work there already.

Anyway, robot mode is good, kibbly yes but largely it holds up to the character on the show, and it isn't gappy or weird. When transformed properly, the figure is fairly solid and poses like a champ thanks to solid leg articulation and big feet - he can't do 1-legged poses though because of the angle of said feet. The facade chest doesn't quite sell the "modern G1 carbot" look as well as the show, but it does hold the show's overall look. 5mm pegholes in each hand, the side of the lowest point of each heelspur, and the underside of the right forearm kibble.

Articulation is swivel head, shrug-hinge shoulders, ball-jointed shoulders, swivel lower biceps, ratchet-hinged elbows, swivel waist, ball-swivel hips, hinged knees, and hinged ankles. Also, the shoulder armor kibble is on its own hinge to get out of the way. The back wings are not intended to move, they help lock the mid-torso into place when transformed properly. The figure stands half a head shorter than the Vehicon.

Transformation to bot mode is very interesting, there's a lot going on and most of it is fun. Going back to vehicle mode though, that's wehre trouble really lies, the last quarter bit with the cockpit roof is a mess thanks to instructions that ignore the impossibility of getting the left cockpit section swinging into place and also just not making clear that the shoulder and arm positions have to be in exactly the right angle to get into place - that stuff is a bummer until you figure out why things have to be where and when. There's a lot of tabs and a lot of panel massaging to go with that, but the payoff is so good that it's almost worth the annoyance.

Vehicle mode is stunning, the lines sculpted here are nicer than the CGI version, this may be my all-time favorite Transformers car ever. It's a racecar somewhere along the lines of the Porsche GT in race spec, maybe a touch of the Nissan GTR GT500 racer and a hint of the Corvette. It's low, wide, lean, and has just the right amount of detail for a race car - including the low, large spoiler, and the thick intakes on the extra wide rear fenders... even the rear wheels in those fenders are wide, and there are sculpted brake calipers. They also balanced out the teardrop of the cockpit so it's not as front-heavy leaving it more sleek. Ground clearance is minimal but evenly so, suggesting a real race car, and the wheels are back to being classic metal pin into the hub so they roll nicely. 5mm holes are found in the center of the roof and on either side of the spoiler. The vehicle mode is slightly wider and longer than the Vehicon and a touch lower, without factoring the spoilers of either into the mix.

Paint is a different balance than bot mode, a lot of blue from the main stripe and the rear fender swoops, and the windows are purple translucent. The doors sport the red and blue swoop but instead of the checkered flag look there's just a white with red outline "38". The wheels are cast in black, no silver. Oddly, the headlamps are covered by a yellow window each instead of clear.

It's not all love though, while there are painted translucent elements they left the intakes behind the side windows unpainted, and they didn't paint in the rear window at all although it is framed by the blue stripe. There's no tail light paint, although racers often don't bother here. Annoyingly for me, the headlamp windows are not the same shade of yellow on mine.

The shadow quill armor is a blue rubbery piece that snaps over the front half of the vehicle and tabs into slots in the doors, it actually looks pretty good for what it's trying to be and it has good sculpted detail and cut-aways to show some of the front of the car through; it also has a clip on either side to hold the included missile (this would look better had it come with 3 missiles though, one in the gun and one on either side of the car). The armor in bot mode is less useful, it has to be bent to sit properly on the shoulder tabs and snaps onto pegs on the hips, and all it does is give him a narrow vest and a pointy bumper behind his head, it's not really worth using in bot mode.

The Electronet launcher is 3 parts - gun, missile, and electronet generator. The gun is a simple spring-loaded black pistol, a little sculpted detail but not much going on. The missile has industrial holes cut into 2 of the 4 fins at the nose, when fired it gets mixed results due to a tiny bit of flashing - sometimes it fires hard about 3 feet, others it dribbles out. The electronet generator is more rubbery blue plastic, the missile slips through the middle of it to load the whole affair into the pistol and sorta reminds me of a Kenner Batman figure's accessory, it doesn't look terrible thanks to a decent amount of sculpted detail, but it can't fire for crap even on its best day. The whole electronet affair put together can sit on top of the car, facing forward it looks stupid (since how much blue rubbery crap does this guy need on the front half of the car?) but if you rotate it backwards it balances the look out better (like another spoiler, or a shield for the engine) to the point where it's not embarrassing to use.

Overall, I like this figure but I can see it frustrating some folks real badly with the stuff that doesn't work. I'm giving it a strong B and I really like it a lot for what it's got going for it.

[JediTricks]

Another quick note on Smokescreen:

it appears the electronet projector that slides over the missile is designed to fold its ends together to make an envelope-type shape, I guess to trap the tiniest minicons or something, one end has a notch and the other has a corresponding tab shaped to fit through it. It doesn't look good on the car mode, but in bot mode it looks much more reasonable than trying to wield a super-wide projectile around.