Gears!

[138 Scourge]

So I'd heard mixed things about this one. Seems like some of you guys dug the mold as Stockade last movie go-round, some of you absolutely hated it. I was ambivalent, myself, having completely lost interest in the first movie line by the time he came out. So I'd have probably ignored the repaint, too, if they hadn't hit upon one of my weak spots. Tricky bastards.

The G1 Gears is one of those characters from G1 that I've got the unshakable fondness for. You can guess why, yeah? Yup, had the toy. So I was pretty much gonna get this guy.

Vehicle mode: Silver Escalade with ridiculous gear design on the hood. They gotta have something to say "Gears" on this guy in truck mode, I guess. It might have looked less incongruous on a less expensive truck, on a high-dollar Escalade it just looks silly. But an alien robot's not gonna really know that his deco doesn't make much sense, and besides, I've seen people that have dumber decorations applied to similarly expensive SUVs. So I'll let it go. Beyond that, the truck's fairly unremarkable. It's okay, but there's a couple weaknesses. The rear side windows are painted, while the rest are clear plastic. Even the damn sunroof is in clear plastic. I don't get that upset about painted windows, but the combination is kind of crappy and looks distracting. Then, the silver paint on this version of the mold don't hide the cracks between the various panels well, and there's one bit that comes off of the rear wheel well where the plastic just doesn't match the rest of the shell. These flaws are there, but not overly irritating, I didn't even really notice them that much until I took a good hard look at this thing for review purposes. In a nice unintentional touch, the hubcaps (or maybe the term's rims? Whatev) on this thing kind of look like a gear image, too. Lucky coincidence!

Transformation: And we come to my favorite part about this toy. It's an easy transform, big chunks of the truck fold apart and the robot's almost inside of them. The legs are revealed by folding back the hood, the arms make up the bulk of the top half of the truck, and the bottom half folds up into a sort of backpack, albeit an extremely flat one. It's almost a shellmaster, but since the big sections that fold apart actually become the robot's parts, I don't think it quite counts. I find it to be a lot of fun to flip this guy back and forth, and it effectively hides most of the vehicle form. There's still some visible vehicle parts on the outside of the arms and the back of the legs, but if you're looking at the figure straight-on in most poses, it's almost not there.

Robot!: The biggest appeal to me here is how different the robot looks from the truck. Like I said, the most obvious kibble sort of folds away to the back and the sides, and the robot has an entirely different color scheme to the truck. There's still some silver, but the blue and red really dominates here. This is a big ass looking robot, too. Dude's arms are massive, and the chest pulls off a broad appearance, combined with the shorter legs, you do get a very ape-like vibe from this guy. The chest, though...the chest is odd. A lot of it's apparent bulk is made up by the wide but flat backpack, and if you look at all of that as a backpack, you get a very narrow waist, very narrow chest, and then enormous damn arms attached to his backpack. It works at first glance almost as an optical illusion, but on second look you think "Now wait a minute". Overall, though, this thing provides the image of a very big and strong beast of a 'bot. The G1 homage to the character that I liked works well enough. You got the blue body, red feet, and visored-up face. It's definitely no Classic-stand-in material, but it worked well enough to sell me. Looking at the guy, though, I can't for the life of me why they didn't just paint the entire sumbitch purple and call him "Beastbox". You've got a robot that looks like a gorilla already, run with it. But that doesn't bother me. It does bother me, though, that the windshield and rear window end up splitting in half, being raised up on either end of each arm and then...that's it. The rear window can at least fold down at the shoulders and not be as noticeable, but the windshield panels up front just sort of hang there.

Overall: One of those cases where, sure, I can see the flaws, but they don't bother me that much. And really, most of said flaws are in the vehicle mode. I like an alt. mode that looks like something, but outside of that they're not the selling point, so alt. mode flaws are the most forgivable for me. Mostly I like this guy, and the fact that I've spent so much time playing with this toy, flipping him back and forth and posing him, when I bought a damn G1 Grail the same weekend says a lot, I think, about how much fun the toy is. So while the fun value of the toy outweighs the flaws, they are still there. So I'll give him a "B". Because a Transformer should have a fun transformation, and this guy just nails that.

[BWprowl]

You didn't mention it in the review, so I guess you missed it. He has a gimmick in robot mode: Those ridge/rail/whatever pieces from his roof that wind up on his lower arms in robot mode? Slide those back. Coolness ensues.

I really love this mold to bits. He can do finger quotes!

[Onslaught Six]

I really just didn't think the robot mode colour scheme was all that attractive or Gears-like, so I passed. I mean, I already own Stockade.

[andersonh1]

I really just didn't think the robot mode colour scheme was all that attractive or Gears-like, so I passed. I mean, I already own Stockade.

That's pretty much what I thought about the figure. It was a good choice to repaint as Gears, but the colors weren't close enough to suit me.

[138 Scourge]

You didn't mention it in the review, so I guess you missed it. He has a gimmick in robot mode: Those ridge/rail/whatever pieces from his roof that wind up on his lower arms in robot mode? Slide those back. Coolness ensues.

Oh yeah, I have no idea why I forgot about this. Alzheimer's kicking in, I suppose. But yeah, the extendo-fist gimmick is pretty neat both as a punching thing, or with the arms left extended to make him look more apelike if that's what you're into.

I really just didn't think the robot mode colour scheme was all that attractive or Gears-like, so I passed. I mean, I already own Stockade.

That's pretty much what I thought about the figure. It was a good choice to repaint as Gears, but the colors weren't close enough to suit me.

Yeah, I could see that. I really dig this mold, but I don't think I'd need more than one. And I dunno, I'd say the colors are pretty close to Gears' old scheme. Blue body, red feet, I can see it.

[Onslaught Six]

Well, yeah, it's 'sorta-there' but in this day and age--I need more of a commitment than that. The red is also really muddy and not really red at all. And the blue sucks. Gears is brightly coloured--when he's not, that's 'wrong.'

[Gomess]

The G1 Gears is one of those characters from G1 that I've got the unshakable fondness for. You can guess why, yeah? Yup, had the toy.

I thought you just liked grouchy robots? =3

(Do these movie repaints have bios?? If Gears is meant to be cranky, and makes a decent gorilla, I might nab him.)

[138 Scourge]

I thought you just liked grouchy robots? =3

(Do these movie repaints have bios?? If Gears is meant to be cranky, and makes a decent gorilla, I might nab him.)

Well, yeah, I do like Gears being a grumpy complaining pain in the ass, too. If you picture him as a sort of robot Oscar the Grouch, he gets even more awesome.

So the movie guys do have bios, and Gears' does keep up the tradition of Gears' constant griping. It does add that the other Autobots find it hilarious, so he keeps it up. Don't remember if old-timey Gears had that going on. And he does make for a decent apey kind of guy. So you could do a lot worse that to get him.