RotF Ravage review
Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 11:38 am
Now, I'm pretty sure everyone here has gotten it drilled into their heads that I love Ravage. The bot is just so extremely cool, in my eyes, especially given his Beast Wars representation. However, even I have to admit that I was less than enthused when I saw the initial designs for Michael Bay's take on the Decepticon saboteur; much like the rest of the cast, it looked ugly to me, like a 50-car pileup got sent through an industrial-sized metal shredder, then press-molded into a vaguely robotic shape. Ravage, in particular, looked mega-ugly; I hated the all-silver color scheme, I hated the monocular "mechanical love child of Alien and Zuul from Ghostbusters" look to it, and I hated that it turned into a generic comet form like the rest. It really felt like Bay was going to leak oil all over the legacy of Ravage like he did with every other character in the franchise.
Then I saw the toy.
Now, I admit, it looked somewhat better, enough for me to be intrigued by it, but not by much; it had a better color scheme, and it included the hip gun/rocket/grenade/jetpack things that was trademark Ravage, but of course Bay chose not to include in his vision of the character. It wasn't a total sale, but I did become interested enough to at least give it a shot. Well, my mate, spoiling me as usual, has gotten me the figure, and after playing with it for a few minutes, I've got to say I'm really disappointed by it.
First off, the robot mode: This is what the toy comes in as, probably because they felt they couldn't sell the figure in its "robotic space log" form. Right off the bat, I can tell you that the coloring is much better than his movie counterpart; the silver is thankfully restricted to an accent color, with a good, solid black permeating most of the robot. As more of a compliment, various shades of cobalt blue are dotted around the robot, mostly on "ribs" and "spine" of the figure. It's a nice touch, and gives the figure some contrast and detail-popping without being overpoweringly neon. The eye is a translucent purple for light-piping, which is okay, but it kinda breaks the pattern of the colors. At least the faction symbol (bizarrely located on Ravage's ass) is the classic purple, so those of you who are sick of silver faction symbols rejoice.
Out of the box, I found a stark dichotomy with the figure's joints; some are way too lose (like the waist, which is on a weird ball joint, making the front half of the body flop around whenever I try to transform it), while others are too stiff (the legs especially are a nightmare to pose, given the amount of sharp edges located there). The tail, in a most egregious example, popped clean off at one of its pivot joints when I tried taking it out of the package, and it still likes to come loose from that same joint whenever I fiddle with it. Not very good design there, guys.
In fact, there's joints that are oddly placed; for instance, there's this odd joint at the elbows of the figure that look like you can bend the forearms out at a 90 degree angle away from the rest of the arm, were it not for a little bit of plastic stopping it from doing so. I'm not sure why they're there (and I know they were put there purposefully, since the corners of the elbow joint were rounded off to allow that kind of movement, the little block of plastic I mentioned being the only thing keeping it from doing so), but it just seems like a pointless waste of a joint. Similarly, the tail has two pivot points, the one that I mentioned keeps on breaking on me, and one near the tip. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with them, as the instructions don't mention doing anything with them during transformation, but whatever.
As someone else on here mentioned, the head has no joints on it, except for the one on the jaw, which is really loose, in my opinion. Instead, they took a page from Universe Cheetor and put a switch on its back that allows its head to spring forward in a sort of biting motion. It really serves no purpose, especially since the mouth doesn't close all the way in its "rest" position, and frankly, I would've preferred they had stuck with a normal solidly-hinged neck and jaw joint (for the record, I hated the gimmick in Universe Cheetor, too).
The guns don't fire, which is kinda disappointing, as they're big enough to allow such a mechanism to be built in them. Still, it's good that Hasbro, at least, remembered to put them in; it just wouldn't be Ravage without them, in my opinion.
Transforming Ravage into his "reentry" mode is simple, but really awkward given the inconsistency with his joint stiffness. The end result isn't that aesthetically pleasing; as someone once said in regards to the toy, it looks like they just slapped together an alt mode at the last second, making him look half-transformed at best. The tail, especially, is a problem; there's no good way of positioning it to make it look good and keep it from interfering with the rest of the figure in this mode. Maybe that's why those pivot points are there; to twist around the tail for a better fit. Wish the instructions had told us that. Hell, the joints are so finicky, it's a pain to keep all of the parts locked down as they should be in this mode, as only minor pressure will shift everything out of alignment.
For laughs, I tried transforming the figure into its "Killer Chicken" custom mode that we all saw, a while back, and I must say, it looks MUCH better in this mode than it does in its official alt mode. True, it's just the "reentry" mode with the back legs down and the front legs slung over the figure's back instead of attached to its head, but at least it looks like SOMETHING, instead of the lump of scrap metal the official alt mode looks like. If they found a way to extend the wings out further, and recolored them red, I can easily see this mode as being Laserbeak.
All in all, this figure looks better than the movie model, but it's not that great of a toy to have. If you DO buy it, I suggest keeping it in either robot or "killer chicken" form. It's Ravage, so I'm going to keep him, but frankly, if you're as big of a fan of the character as I am, there are far, far better figures of him you can get.
Then I saw the toy.
Now, I admit, it looked somewhat better, enough for me to be intrigued by it, but not by much; it had a better color scheme, and it included the hip gun/rocket/grenade/jetpack things that was trademark Ravage, but of course Bay chose not to include in his vision of the character. It wasn't a total sale, but I did become interested enough to at least give it a shot. Well, my mate, spoiling me as usual, has gotten me the figure, and after playing with it for a few minutes, I've got to say I'm really disappointed by it.
First off, the robot mode: This is what the toy comes in as, probably because they felt they couldn't sell the figure in its "robotic space log" form. Right off the bat, I can tell you that the coloring is much better than his movie counterpart; the silver is thankfully restricted to an accent color, with a good, solid black permeating most of the robot. As more of a compliment, various shades of cobalt blue are dotted around the robot, mostly on "ribs" and "spine" of the figure. It's a nice touch, and gives the figure some contrast and detail-popping without being overpoweringly neon. The eye is a translucent purple for light-piping, which is okay, but it kinda breaks the pattern of the colors. At least the faction symbol (bizarrely located on Ravage's ass) is the classic purple, so those of you who are sick of silver faction symbols rejoice.
Out of the box, I found a stark dichotomy with the figure's joints; some are way too lose (like the waist, which is on a weird ball joint, making the front half of the body flop around whenever I try to transform it), while others are too stiff (the legs especially are a nightmare to pose, given the amount of sharp edges located there). The tail, in a most egregious example, popped clean off at one of its pivot joints when I tried taking it out of the package, and it still likes to come loose from that same joint whenever I fiddle with it. Not very good design there, guys.
In fact, there's joints that are oddly placed; for instance, there's this odd joint at the elbows of the figure that look like you can bend the forearms out at a 90 degree angle away from the rest of the arm, were it not for a little bit of plastic stopping it from doing so. I'm not sure why they're there (and I know they were put there purposefully, since the corners of the elbow joint were rounded off to allow that kind of movement, the little block of plastic I mentioned being the only thing keeping it from doing so), but it just seems like a pointless waste of a joint. Similarly, the tail has two pivot points, the one that I mentioned keeps on breaking on me, and one near the tip. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with them, as the instructions don't mention doing anything with them during transformation, but whatever.
As someone else on here mentioned, the head has no joints on it, except for the one on the jaw, which is really loose, in my opinion. Instead, they took a page from Universe Cheetor and put a switch on its back that allows its head to spring forward in a sort of biting motion. It really serves no purpose, especially since the mouth doesn't close all the way in its "rest" position, and frankly, I would've preferred they had stuck with a normal solidly-hinged neck and jaw joint (for the record, I hated the gimmick in Universe Cheetor, too).
The guns don't fire, which is kinda disappointing, as they're big enough to allow such a mechanism to be built in them. Still, it's good that Hasbro, at least, remembered to put them in; it just wouldn't be Ravage without them, in my opinion.
Transforming Ravage into his "reentry" mode is simple, but really awkward given the inconsistency with his joint stiffness. The end result isn't that aesthetically pleasing; as someone once said in regards to the toy, it looks like they just slapped together an alt mode at the last second, making him look half-transformed at best. The tail, especially, is a problem; there's no good way of positioning it to make it look good and keep it from interfering with the rest of the figure in this mode. Maybe that's why those pivot points are there; to twist around the tail for a better fit. Wish the instructions had told us that. Hell, the joints are so finicky, it's a pain to keep all of the parts locked down as they should be in this mode, as only minor pressure will shift everything out of alignment.
For laughs, I tried transforming the figure into its "Killer Chicken" custom mode that we all saw, a while back, and I must say, it looks MUCH better in this mode than it does in its official alt mode. True, it's just the "reentry" mode with the back legs down and the front legs slung over the figure's back instead of attached to its head, but at least it looks like SOMETHING, instead of the lump of scrap metal the official alt mode looks like. If they found a way to extend the wings out further, and recolored them red, I can easily see this mode as being Laserbeak.
All in all, this figure looks better than the movie model, but it's not that great of a toy to have. If you DO buy it, I suggest keeping it in either robot or "killer chicken" form. It's Ravage, so I'm going to keep him, but frankly, if you're as big of a fan of the character as I am, there are far, far better figures of him you can get.
