mikeszekely

My mom really wanted to see this, and since my mom doesn't really have a social circle beyond me and my dad and my dad's health problems make sitting in a movie theater uncomfortable for him I wound up taking her and seeing it again.  My opinion still stands.  There's plenty of monster action, and the plot's easy to follow even if you've never seen a Godzilla but there's tons of little nods and easter eggs for the long time Godzilla fans.  It's biggest weakness is the human stuff, but that can be said of nearly every Godzilla in the last 50 years, and for all its flaws in that regard is still a major improvement over the 2014 film.  It definitely had some elements I didn't care for, but they basically boil down to "Hollywood gonna Hollywood."

14 hours ago, blackconvoy_D01 said:

I dont understand the negativity on the film either.

Frankly, I don't either.  I mean, everyone is entitled to their opinion and I'm not saying that anyone is wrong for theirs, but I genuinely don't understand what expectations you'd have to go in with to come away with a negative opinion.  As a summer popcorn flick the film is much more action-oriented than the previous film, and as a Godzilla film the filmmakers were clearly Godzilla fans themselves and made a movie that was as close to a Toho Godzilla as Hollywood was ever going to get.

Beachcomber is one of my absolute least favorite characters, but with a recent reissue, a new G2 version, and upcoming competition from Fans Toys I think it's time I took a look at X-Transbots' Arkose.

Beachcomber is one of those G1 characters whose animation model actually wasn't too far off from his toy, and XTB did a pretty great job nailing it.  That being said, just how accurate you think Arkose is might boil down to how much cartoon accuracy you like.  Arkose's chest skews a little closer to the toy than the more simplified look of the cartoon, and like the toy you have headlights on the sides of his legs that the animation model dropped.  The instructions have you angle them so they're pointed forward, but you can leave them pointing up if you like.  There's also the small matter of some bumper bits near his ankles.  Neither the cartoon nor the toy had them, but we'll touch on them again later.

Given Fans Toys' reputation, deserved or not, I think a comparison is inevitable.  All I can say for now, with nothing but gray prototypes to go off of, is that FT's will be a bit more cartoon accurate, but (and this is super subjective) he looks a little chunky and lifeless.

Arkose comes with a few accessories, a lot of which is "that thing from that episode."  Well, he's got a rifle, and while it's not exactly cartoon accurate it works fine for my tastes, and there is a reason that it looks the way it does that we'll touch on later.  You get a toy-style, mouthless face.  And then, from the quintessential Beachcomber episode "The Golden Lagoon" we get a replacement gold-painted right hand and three birds.

Arkose's head is on a hinged swivel that can look up or down maybe 30 degrees in addition to swiveling.  His shoulders rotate and extend laterally about 90 degrees, just be advised that you want to push down on the the parts around his collar when you do so as manipulating his shoulders has a tendency to pull them loose.  His biceps swivel, and he's got double-jointed elbows that curl until his forearm starts colliding with the tires on his shoulders.  His wrists swivel, and he's got a pin hinge so that his hand can open and close.  His waist can swivel.  His hips can move over 90 degrees forward, about 90 degrees backward, and a little under 90 laterally.  His thighs can swivel.  His knees are double-jointed, but still only good for about 90 degrees.  His toes can tilt up and down a little, and his ankles can pivot about 45 degrees.  I think, especially since it's an older figure, that the articulation here is pretty good, although I do wish the hips and knees were a little tighter.

Despite having MP carbot-style hands, Arkose's palm is actually molded into a small peg hole.  The gun simply slides into it.  Alternatively, he can hold the bird with a longer peg the same way.  The other birds with the smaller pegs don't fit into his hands, but there's two small pegs on his shoulders that they can sit in.  Now, he does have something that looks like a peg hole above his wrist, and I've seen pictures where it looks like people stuck a bird into the hole for a pin hinge near his elbow, but those holes seem to small on my copy. 

Now, even though Arkose came from a time when XTB figures were sometimes criticized for their engineering, I think he's pretty easy to transform.  The engineering here is fairly logical.  The trickiest part is transforming the roll cage so you can move the engine into his backpack, but even that can be avoided entirely by simply removing it when you start the transformation and putting it back in place when you're done.

Now, here's what I think could be the deciding factor for a lot of people when deciding between this or Fans Toys' version.  Fans Toys' Beachcomber is definitely much more cartoon accurate in alt mode.  However, if you look at the animation, Beachcomber looks like someone made a generic dune buggy out of Legos.  Beachcomber wasn't supposed to be a generic dune buggy, though.  The G1 toy was actually based on a real vehicle, the Chenowth M1040 Hellfire FAV, and Arkose trades cartoon accuracy for real-world accuracy... hence the bumper that neither the cartoon nor the original toy had.  Presumably, XTB's designer was looking at one of the Hellfires that does have a bumper.  Granted, I don't think I've seen one with a roll cage quite like that, and there's the small matter of his forearms acting as a rear bumper I've never seen on a Hellfire (with weird tail lights that are on the sides instead of the back), but it's otherwise not a bad replica.  My only complaints here are that I wish the tires were rubber instead of plastic and that I can't get things to tab together quiet as well as I'd like, hence the little gaps in places.

The seats have little molded and painted first aid kits on the back, which is a nice touch for a pacifist like Beachcomber, and the interior has two seats, a steering wheel, and a gear shifter.  You can even see the molded circles that were only on his right foot are now like gauges on the dash.  His heel spurs stretch between the seats.  I think they're supposed to be like part of the roll cage, but they seem kind of in the way, and (although maybe I did something wrong) they don't seem to want to sit quite where they're supposed to.

On the other side of the dash from the steering wheel, in Arkose's other foot, you'll find a something like a hinged ball with a chunk cut out.  You can use it to plug in his gun, giving him a mounted machine gun for the passenger's seat.  This is something that was done on actual Hellfires, and the reason Arkose's gun is molded the way it is instead of like the cartoon.  I suppose it's not very in keeping with Beachcomber's personality, but I dig it.

If you're looking for an MP-style Beachcomber for your collection your choices at the time of writing boil down to picking up Arkose or waiting for Fans Toys'.  Without knowing more about the engineering on FT's, all we really have to go on at this time are aesthetics, and that's a pretty subjective preference.  I think if super Sunbow accuracy is your jam then waiting for FT's might be a good idea.  But if you're more of a fan of the older Hasui MPs and a mix of cartoon accuracy with real-world details, then I can easily recommend Arkose.  He's solid, he poseable, he's detailed, and he's not difficult to transform and mess around with.  I don't really need more than that for Beachcomber.

So I recently wrote some reviews for the DNA upgrade kits for Studio Series Ironhide and Megatron.  I think I mentioned I picked up some DNA kits for Titan Metroplex, too, but I never really wrote up a real review.  Well, I happened to find someone selling the Takara version of Fortress Maximus with the DNA upgrades, and I decided to buy it off of him because Fortress > Cerebros, the colors are more accurate, he comes with the Master Sword, and y'know, upgrades kits.  Anyway, with the kits for both Titans in hand I figured I might as well discuss them for real.

Basically, there's two kits for each Titan.  A third (DK-03) was planned for Fortress Maximus, but it seems it never came out.  So the first kit is DK-02 (for Fortress Maximus) and DK-02M (for Metroplex).  The big thing is this kit is fully articulated replacement hands.  They're slightly larger than the original hands, but it's a pretty good trade, I think.  The thumb has a hinge that can move the thumb across the palm, a swivel, then two hinged knuckles.  The fingers have swivels at the base so the fingers can splay out, plus three hinged knuckles.  And of course, they still swivel at the wrist and the wrist can still fold palm down, so they're very articulated hands.  The tips of the fingers are designed like hollow barrels, so finger lasers, and a cut in the palm allows them to hold the same accessories that the default hands can hold (quite snuggly, at that).  The icing on the cake is that the back of the hands open up to reveal cannons inside.  The barrels can extend, and the entire assembly can turn 180 degrees so they can close with the cannon side up.

Attaching them isn't terribly difficult.  You have to remove some screws on the arms to open them up, slide out the old hands, slide in the new ones, then close it back up.

While hands for Metroplex are all you get with DK-02M, Fortress' kit has a bit more.  There's filler for the hollow gaps  on Fortress' arms, and entirely new legs from the knees down.  They're not the prettiest legs, especially with the obvious seem in the middle, but the toes and heels are on pins, giving Fortress some much-appreciated ankle pivots.  Mind you, all of this stuff is molded in gray.  It works perfectly well with the Takara version, but not so well with the US or SDCC versions.

The arm filler just pushes in and is held in place with friction, no biggie.  The legs require a little bit more work, but if you can install the Titan hands you can install these legs.

The legs work fairly well as legs, although the pin hinges are a little loose, but chances are you're going to have him in head mode more often than not, right?  And the what you have here is that the leg transformation is slightly more involved than the original ones, resulting in a head with a slightly less blocky appearance.  Looks pretty good from the front... but when you look at it from other angles, especially the top or bottom, you see that the front of his feet are bowed out, and the panels that fold back from his legs don't sit flush.  It seems like DNA had a good idea but they didn't measure properly and didn't give the new parts proper clearance.

DK-02 comes with one more thing: Fortress Maximus' hip cannons.  To deploy them you push a pair of pegs on the gray part into his side, then position the barrels over the red (Takara and SDCC) or silver (Hasrbo) circles.  The barrels can extend and retract.

What they can't do is fold around into his sides like the G1 toy.  So in the box you'll find a pair of these gray clips with peg holes on them.  You clip them onto the ramp on Maximus' back, then the guns peg onto them and sit on his back.  So, to quote a certain YouTube personality, "it's not hateful."  If the hip cannons are important to you this gives them to you.  I'd have preferred if they didn't have to partsform, but their placement on Maximus' back works out ok.

The other kit, DK-04 and DK-04M, is primarily the foot upgrade kit, for the pair of shoes they give the Titans.  In addition to the shoes, you get new springs and ratchets for the hips, additional foot parts for Metroplex, and a new G1-accurate crotch for Fortress Maximus to replace the recolored Metroplex crotch he comes with.

Installing the hips and crotch is your basic ratchet surgery where you know what you're doing, it's just kind of a pain to sandwich everything back together before closing up the thighs.  Do note that for Maximus' new crotch that you're actually using his old crotch as his butt now, and it's actually the Metroplex crotch-butt that's getting replaced.  And do they make a difference?  Kind of.  They are noticeably stronger than the ratchets in my Hasbro Fortress Maximus, but not much different than the ones in my Takara Metroplex.  They do seem to have a few more detents on the outward hip motion.

As for the shoes, they have hooks on them that grab into molded gaps in the underside of the Titans' feet.  Just line them up and push them firmly into place.

The big draw in this kit is that the shoes sort of provide ankle pivots.  The bottom of the inside is hinged, so while it clings to the bottom of the real foot the rest of the shoe can swing down, giving the appearance of a foot flat on the ground.  I think it works fairly well for Fortress Maximus.  The chunky shoe with the gap between the "toes" makes his feel look more like the G1 toy's.  I just wish that the hinges were tighter; when you lift him up the bottom of the feet flop straight down.  As for Metroplex, well, they do what they're supposed to do and give him the faux ankle tilt.  But the extra chunk looks a little more out of place here, especially with Metroplex's kind of tall and skinny proportions.  Someone said it looks like he's wearing tissue boxes on his feet, and they're not entirely wrong.  Another thing to consider is that, for the shoes to fit properly on Metroplex, you have to unscrew the flight deck on the inside of his shins and replace the sides of Metroplex's feet with new parts DNA provides.

There's one last thing in the kit, and that's these little pegs.  On Metroplex they're mean to go on the front and back of his forearms; I don't mind them on the back, but they're a little unsightly on the front.  For Fortress Maximus they go on the backs of his thighs and shoulders.  They don't have a bot mode purpose; they're entirely for the alt modes.  Which I guess we'll look at now...

Well, the hands are still hands, although the fingers do curl in much tighter, which does help.  And you can flip out the guns on the backs of their hands, to further distract yourself from the fact that they're hands.  So kudos for that.

As for Maximus' hip guns, the clips aren't a bother.  The cannons themselves have pegs on them so they can peg into the conn tower in battleship mode.  So far, so good, right?  Although I guess I should mention that the new legs on Fortress seem to get caught up and don't slot in to the conn tower quite as smoothly as the original legs.

We run into problems the shoes, though.  In theory, they come off the real feet and plug into the back of the thighs  They've even got helipads on the soles!

In practice, though, the toes on the shoes jam into Maximus' waist.  Plus, to get to the back of the thighs, you have to rotate the waist 180 degrees.  Then to get the shins cannon side up again you have to rotate at the thigh swivel 180 degrees on each leg.  But now you're right leg is on the left, and the left on the right... which means that the little thing that hangs on the outside of Maximus' left leg would have to go between them, and it doesn't fit.  So you have to take it off.  And frankly, if you're going to take anything off and just set them to the side, you might as well do it to the shoes instead.  You get a more G1-accurate battleship for less effort, since you're not spinning the waist and thighs that way.

As for base mode, again, the hands are still visible, but you can fold them up and deploy the guns to kind of distract from that fact.  The hip guns stay on the conn tower, and it doesn't matter if you rotate the waist and thighs or not.  Then the shoes kind of peg into Maximus' shoulders.  The instructions make it look like they should sit in closer to the body and use both pegs, but there simply isn't enough clearance for it.  I kind of think they look messy there.

DNA does offer an alternate transformation, though.  Basically, bend the hips and knees so the legs are sticking up like a tower behind the conn tower.  You can even use the sliders designed for Metroplex to push them together, although they don't tab into each other.  You shouldn't rotate the waist if you want the shin guns facing forward, or do rotate it if you want to pretend the calves look more like a building with windows.  Honestly, I liked doing this anyway, as it looked closer to the G1 city mode, although it does just rely on the strength of a couple ratchets to stay in place.  Then the back of the shoes tab into the shoulders, filling in the back and adding some helipads (that aren't covering the flight decks).  I think this look works pretty good, actually.

Unfortunately, things aren't working out quite as well for Metroplex.  I mean, it starts ok.  The shoes come off and plug onto the backs of his arms for battleship mode.  They don't look great back there, but not really any worse than the arms themselves sticking out the back and they do kind of cover the hands (from most angles).

But, the new foot parts on Metroplex' actual feet don't leave enough clearance for the red arms to fold down all the way.  That means that the knee pad can't fold in all the way, preventing it from tabbing in place, and keeping it lower than it actually should be.  The reduced ground clearance means the the knee/armature placement is forcing the flight deck upward.

And then there's city mode (forgive me for not doing all the work and totally transforming him).  This time, the shoes are supposed to plug onto the front of the arms.  This is already strike one, as those pegs are an eyesore on the front of his arms.  Now, for his right arm, you could just turn bicep 180 degrees and keep using the back, it's not really functionally or aesthetically different.  But whichever side you're using, you're not going to be able to flip open his forearm and deploy his forearm gun.  Strike two.

The left arm requires bending the elbow, so you have to use the pegs on the front of his forearm.  All to get a helipad sticking out from the back of the city, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, except it's kind of in the way if you've got the multiple guns of the Takara version.

So, here's how my recommendations shake out.  All around, I think DNA could stand to improve their QC.  But the DK-02M kit is a no-brainer, definitely yes.  The replacement hands are much better than the originals.  The DK-02 kit is still a yes.  The hands, again, are just that much of an improvement.  I personally don't care for the hip cannons, but they're fairly unobtrusive if you do want them.  And I love giving Fortress ankle pivots, I just wish the QC and design was a lot better so things could sit flush and the pins would be tighter in head mode and so that they fit better into the conn tower.  You might also be less inclined to use those legs if you're not rocking the Takara version and its more gray color scheme.

DK-04 is a more qualified recommend.  I like the new crotch, and the shoes work pretty well for giving Maximus ankle pivots.  The shoes are terrible for battleship mode; like I said, i'd rather set them aside then pull his leg bit off and set it aside, and I don't really care for them with the official transformation on city mode.  But they seem to be fine for the unofficial city mode.  Plus the replacement ratchets may or may not help you.

DK-04M, though, is an outright pass.  While they do give Metroplex ankle pivots, his shoes look like the wrong size for his feet.  And while the shoes themselves are alright in battleship mode, the new foot parts you have to install to fit the shoes on him create clearance issues that mess with the flight deck.  Likewise, the city mode seems better off without them.  Unless you really, really want ankle pivots on your Metroplex, don't mind how goofy they look, and aren't planning to ever transform him into his other modes I think DK-04M causes more problems than it solves.

Well, I got my metallic MS-01... And it's not really the knockout improvement I was hoping for.

From the waist down it's (nearly) perfect. The silver and metallic blues look fantastic, I just wish they'd have painted that last little bit at the knee.

From the waist up, though, the design decisions kind of baffle me. The metallic blue looks great on the head, but they skipped painting his ears and for some reason made his forehead black. Likewise, his silver face is a stark contrast to his unpainted neck. The red parts seem like they're still unpainted, same with his hands so they stand out from the legs and head. Actually, with the forearm arrows left unpainted on the new version it seems to have less paint than the original. And what paint there is is just too dark, trading the flat gray paint for the cab stripe and the silver around the lights on the original for a metallic gunmetal color.

So now I'm facing a dilemma. Originally I wanted to get the metallic and sell the original. Now I'm seriously thinking about using the metallic head with the original face one the original upper body. Then maybe I can figure out how to separate them at the waist linkage and put the original upper body on the metallic lower body.  Of course, after I put the other parts back together I'll have a metallic upper body and face with the original helmet and legs, and I don't know that I could get anyone to buy that.

I mean, I guess it looks fine. Not sure if it's so fine it's worth replacing if you already have Maketoys' or Fans Toys' versions, but as long as Takara isn't charging and arm and a leg it should be a choice for the people that don't have an MP Hound.

3 hours ago, VF-Zer0S said:

That’s an amazing price! I’m just glad I own gx-71 and unless they drop a soc Gurren lagann, I’m cool on the line

If you say so. I haven't been paying attention to Bandai's MSRP or what the Japanese stores are charging. All I know is that it's $40 more than GX-71.

2 minutes ago, VF-Zer0S said:

Just out of curiosity, why was the price on Amazon? 

$340 and tax, which for me is another $20.

On 5/31/2019 at 1:06 PM, Tking22 said:

Maybe start at the King of the Monsters line if you're interested in MonsterArts?

Well, that's what I did.  And he arrived today.  And... well, he's not broken.  So I guess that's already better than NECA.

In all seriousness, though, I don't know.  I guess he's kind of what I expected.  The is fantastic, and the paint (where he has some) is top notch.  He's also made of ball joints, many of which like to pop off, but I gather that's kind of par for the course for Monsterarts.  I was a little surprised, though, that for all the joints he has that the articulation is kind of so-so.  Some of that seems to be the sculpt around the ball joints limiting their range, but in the case of his right shoulder I wonder if the joint is actually jammed up.  The rotation there is limited to maybe 90 out of 360 degrees.

So, ultimately, I just don't know.  At $70 I think it's fine.  The Monsterarts stuff just seem to have better sculpts than their NECA counterparts, so the premium is justified.  But in trying to track down some of the older ones at $150-$200+ then I'm starting to think that maybe the NECA stuff is good enough for what you pay for them.

I guess one nice thing is that the NECA figures and the Monsterarts are fairly similar in size, so mixing and matching isn't the worst thing in the world.

Got my preorder in, too. I was hoping it'd be a little closer to the Lion Voltron in price, but eh.

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

XTB Boost, Deathwish, and Overheat have been paid for at TFSource and will be shipped out soon.

Same here, plus XTB's Arkose v2.

54 minutes ago, Big s said:

This is one of those films I agree with the critics recommendations. It’s a bad movie that appeals to die hard fans only. I can’t recommend to a non godzilla fan, but the fans will love it. Just like transformers fans will love anything transformers.

Trust me, as a TF fan I can tell you we definitely don't like anything Transformers.

So I'm hearing that, despite opening at #1, KotM is underperforming. I blame the 2014 film. I think a lot of people were disappointed with it (disclosure: myself included), killing a lot of interest casual fans had in seeing another (myself not included: Legendary had me at "King Ghidorah"). Hopefully word of mouth gets around and it has a good second weekend.

12 hours ago, Tking22 said:

Saw it last night and absolutely loved it!

Me too!  I just got back from seeing it tonight. 

The humans were the weakest part of the story... but honestly, that's about par for the Goji course.  I thought the humans, especially Kyle Chandler and Millie Bobbie Brown, were at least better than the ones in the 2014 (excluding Bryan Cranston).  The film plays with the Godzilla mythos in a way that's distinct from any of the Japanese films yet spiritually similar and did a fantastic job setting King Ghidorah up as Godzilla's nemesis.  I also think the film does a solid job laying out enough information for people who have never seen a Godzilla film to follow the story, but there are a lot of nods to the Toho films for the longtime Godzilla fans.

It's not a perfect movie.  There were some things I didn't care for, and honestly a lot of it is Hollywood doing the Hollywood thing.  But I'd say of the three American Godzilla films it's the closest yet to capturing the spirit of a Toho film.  Quite frankly, I think I liked it better than Endgame.

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

So, I don't think the engineering needs to be at MIT levels of complexity; honestly, if you look at the majority of Kawamori's designs, few are what I would consider complex, as the legs nearly always form the entirety of the propulsion system, the arms rotate back and tuck away, or meld into the sides of the fuselage, and the head is nearly always part of the aircraft's spine, or tucks up behind the forward fuselage like the VF-1s. 

To be fair, while Kawamori's designs look a look more like plausibly realistic aircraft than basically any variable Gundam, Kawamori still had the luxury of not having to make actual planes transform. And it shows... Most of the "hero" Valkyries have shared a lot of the same engineering with the VF-1 and/or YF-19, and pretty much all of them have large engine nacelles to turn into legs with plenty of room for the arms to tuck between. This isn't to say that I think it's impossible to apply that kind of engineering to real-world aircraft, I just think the result isn't going to yield the kind of G1 robot the TF fandom has come to expect.

Plus, while it's possible that a 3P could come along and do a stylized take on a character with a modern alt mode, in a lot of ways Hasbro and 3Ps alike have their hands tied by G1. People expect a robot that looks like the cartoon, sometimes to a fault, and that doesn't give them a lot of room to interpreting the shape of an aircraft into robot parts.

30 minutes ago, Tking22 said:

not sure which Godzilla era you were into or looking for

Heisei is my favorite (with the caveat that I've only seen half of the Millennium ones). Ideally I'd want a '54 Godzilla from the original film, an '84 Godzilla from The Return of Godzilla, a '99 Godzilla from Godzilla 2000, Shin Godzilla from said film, and maybe a version of the Legendary Godzilla, but ultimately my goal is simply to have one figure for each era.

I think the Monsterarts would have been doable if I'd started years ago and got them at retail but the aftermarket seems like it's $130-$200 for most of them, with some like Destroyah pushing past $300. I'm just not sure that's a can of worms I want to open when even the aftermarket for Neca is $20-$50.

Then again, I found the Neca from Godzilla vs SpaceGoSpaceGodzilla at my local Target and decided to try it. The tail was broke out of the box, which doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies...

22 minutes ago, Mommar said:

Me neither.  I'd like to jump on this one though, I really can't stay up Sunday night.  I have a full day of work and then a flight out of town that following day.

I'm in kind of the same boat, except that my attachment to vehicle Voltron is less than the lions.  I'm banking on precedent to get an American preorder, preferably Amazon.  If I miss my chance, I think I can live with that.

I know the lion Voltron got a US release.  I remember the preorder on Amazon.  I just didn't have the money then.

2 hours ago, Tking22 said:

Or PS4? What do you have, just a Switch or Xbox One? No offense, but you need a PS

Kinda this. I'm not begrudging anyone their Xboxes, as the Xbox One still seems to be popular with the online multiplayer crowd. But unless that's all you're into you're missing a ton of console exclusives, not just Death Stranding.

Ironhide's wasn't the only upgrade kit I picked up.  While I was at it, I also grabbed DNA's DKA-09 upgrade kit for Studio Series Megatron.

In the box we find a replacement arm and cannon-claw and some winglets.  Seems the main aim of this kit is to give Megatron's tank the little wings that he used to fly around with in Revenge of the Fallen.  There's also a battle-damaged head, which I suppose is cool if you don't want to try to hunt down the Target-exclusive Studio Series 31 Battle-damaged Megatron (that I've never seen in either of the two Target stores I frequent), although I'm told it's only supposed to come with the first run*.

*Oddly enough, DNA is releasing a second version of this kit as DK-09EX with a paint job that more closely matches SS-31's, and it too is offering a battle-damaged head as a first-run bonus.  Except SS-31's head is already battle-damaged, making it a totally redundant bonus that's only worth it if you don't care for Hasbro's sculpt.  And I kind of prefer Hasbro's sculpt, so...

So, the arm is the main thing I bought this kit for.  It's been awhile since I watched the movie, but I remember Megatron with two arms more than I remember him running around with his claw, so this is kind of the look I wanted.  And you can get this by pushing the old arm off at the mushroom-pegged bicep, and then pushing this new arm into the socket.  The fingers are hinged and allow for some hand articulation, although there's no wrist swivel.

If you do still want the claw-cannon look, DNA's still got you covered.  Their included version fits over the smaller arm, tabbing in on the forearm.  I should point out, though, that it's kind of a pain to get on.

DNA's cannon does have molded detail that's pretty similar to what Hasbro offered, and it even has some extra paint.  That said, the extending blade on DNA's slides inward to retract instead of folding backward like Hasbro's.  That means that the blade itself is much shorter when extended, and always pointing out a little when retracted (which, near as I can tell, is less screen-accurate).  There's also a very noticeable peg on the underside.  The intention seems to be so that you can jam it into some of the hole-shaped molded detail on Megatron's back for storage when he's not clawing it up.

Then we come to the winglets.  The smaller ones wedge into the kibble on the sides of Megatron's feet.  There's not a ton of clearance there, so the winglets actually push the kibble out a bit from the sides of Megatron's feet.  And since Hasbro didn't actually design those parts for anything to be plugged into them they're really just wedged in place and can come loose fairly easily.  As for the the large ones, they grab onto the sides of Megatron's back, much more securely than the smaller ones.

Once they're attached, they fold up and tuck inside Megatron's torso for robot mode.  And, despite not really showing, they do fill in the hollow gaps on Megatron's sides, especially if you take DNA's advice and bend the cannons on Megatron's back down so they're in his armpits (which I don't like to do, as you kind of have to bend them and force them in ways they weren't meant to be bent and forced).

Transformation is only slightly affected by the new parts.  The new arm wearing the claw still stuffs in the way the old claw arm did.  The winglets on his feet kibble slide out, no biggie.  The larger wings unfurl and lay over Megatron's hips in a way that looks very natural, but they can get in the way of stuffing his arms into their alt-mode positions.  And the payoff is that he now has the wings you see him flying with briefly in the movie.

This kit is definitely something of a mixed bag.  It gives you a "normal" arm if that's your thing, but if the cannon-claw look is what you want Hasbro already gave you a better one.  And I'd be a little more forgiving of the downgrade, since I like the normal option, if the cannon-claw wasn't such a pain to attach to the normal one.  It's almost easier to yank it off the mushroom peg and swap the old one back on.  The winglets do fill in the torso in robot mode, which is kind of nice, but ultimately they recreate a look that I'm not sure I needed and add a few new headaches along the way.  So I can't really recommend this kit.  The problems it solves are trivial in the first place, and the biggest benefits bring their own new headaches.

Things have been kind of slow, at least for me, for big 3P figures.  So how about something smaller... DNA Studio's DK-10 upgrade kit for Studio Series Ironhide.

The kit comes with a pair of new feet for Ironhide, a new bumper, and two new guns with detachable knives.  I think movie Ironhide is better know for the pair of cannons he had on his forearms, but as near as I can tell he did briefly use these guns in Dark of the Moon.

Installing the feet is pretty easy.  You have to remove two screws on each leg, pull the inside of the leg off, then work the old foot off.  Just reverse the process to get the new foot on.  In terms of sculpt I think the DNA feet are fairly close to the old feet, but right away you'll notice that there's some silver paint on the toes and the cables that the originals don't have.  I couldn't tell you for sure if that paint is movie-accurate, but the Masterpiece Movie Ironhide seems to have those paint apps.  But, their real contribution to robot mode is that they add the ankle pivots the figure originally lacked.

Installing the new bumper is a bit more involved than other upgrade kits I've messed with.  First, you have to pull off the front tires, which is a little scary because it takes a bit of force.  Then, also scary and also requiring a bit of force, you have to use a small tool (included with the kit) to push this pin out.  Once the pin is out, you can remove the bumper.  Then you put the replacement bumper in, and instead of the pin you removed you use a different pin that came with the kit to secure it back in place.

Now, despite the bent-up faux bumper on his chest, SS Ironhide had his bumper splayed across the front of his waist.  This new bumper seeks to remedy that by having the ends bend backward and fill in his waist.  It's an immediate and noticeable improvement.

Then there are the weapons.  Well, he can hold the guns, as the handles are 5mm pegs.  But the fit is pretty tight.  The knives can stay under the gun barrels, like bayonets, or they also have 5mm handles.  Cleverly, DNA sized the tabs that hold the sides of the bumper to the front to also fit into slots on the knives, allowing him to carry the knives on his waist.  Unfortunately, they come off pretty easily.

The new guns also have storage.  There's angled clips on the sides of the guns, they're meant to grab onto the door kibble on Ironhide's back.  They're not very secure, though.

There's one more thing you can do with the weapons in robot mode.  The slot on the knives that lets them fit under the gun barrels can also fit onto tabs on Ironhide's original cannons.  That said, they look kind of dumb there.

The kit does offer some benefits for truck mode, too.  This one's kind of minor, but the new bumper is kind of matte black instead of the gray plastic of the original.  Despite the MPM also using gray for the front bumper I'm 99% sure the GMC Topkick used in at least the first film had a black bumper, so the new bumper looks more accurate to me.

As for the feet, the outer and middle toes have hinges now.  This allows them to fold up, so you the robot toe kibble under the truck is a little less obvious.  I should note here, though, that after installing the new feet the back halves of the truck don't seem to sit as flush.  I always have a tiny gap.  I don't know if that's a widespread issue with this kit or something I goofed on during installation.  Honestly, I can't recall if the gap was there or not when he was stock, so YMMV.

The new guns have tabs on one side to peg into Ironhide's bed, just like the original weapons did.  You just have to turn the knives around backward first.  The other side has slots, so you can still attach the original cannons.  And the resulting pile of guns is kind of a mess, but to be totally fair it's not like the cannons alone didn't look like crap back there.

Alright, I'm going to lay this out there... do you have, or do you want to have, Studio Series Ironhide?  Then you should definitely get this upgrade kit.  The new feet adding ankle pivots and the new bumper folding into the waist fixes the two biggest issues SS Ironhide had, and elevates him from being one of the middle-of-the-pack figures in the line to one of the absolute best.  The extra paint on the feet and changing the bumper to black is really just icing on the cake for me.  As for the guns, I don't really care to use them with Ironhide, and I'd have been just as happy if DNA hadn't included them, but there are always other figures (especially CHUG) that can use them.  

Hey guys, dunno if I should ask here or in a more Godzilla-related thread, as this question is more SH Monsterarts adjacent. I kind of want a few Godzillas for display. The Monsterarts ones look amazing... but I'm not really ready to drop $150+ one the ones I want. I'm kind of more interested in the Neca ones. At the price I'm not expecting the Neca ones to really hold a candle to the Monsterarts ones, but I'm wondering if anyone with experience with both had any thoughts on how the Neca ones hold up, if they're with the money, that sort of thing.

I mean... where do I even start...

37 minutes ago, JB0 said:

There's nothing LITTLE about that hunchback.

Yeah, this is probably going to be the complaint that you hear the most about MP-44.  I don't know if they're cramming electronics in or something, but even though it's kind of Takara's MO these days it seems pretty lazy, considering TE managed to have basically no backpack at all.

Maybe he's going hiking?

The backpack itself is big enough to be noticeable from any angle but dead on, and that'd be bad enough.  But it looks like, again unless you're looking at him dead on, this hinge is going to be super visible.  And, maybe this is a cartoon thing, but his midsection and grill look to short.  The grill especially looks square-shaped.

It's a test sample, I assume, and may not be set up properly.  But the lack of ankle pivot I'm seeing here is worrisome.

As is the major paint chipping on the yellow spots on his pelvis.  

I personally hate the lack of a stripe around the cab and the lack of blue stripes on the trailer, but I suppose I'll let it slide because "it's cartoon accurate!"  You know what's not?  A flat chrome panel along the bottom.  Even the cartoon drew that fuel tank as three-dimensional.  I'm not digging the molded-in but unpainted windshield wipers.  If they're so intent on cartoon accuracy that they won't paint them, then they might as well loose other realistic truck details like the steps, handrails, and door and make the headlights totally square.

I also see more of that worrying paint chipping... and two red blocks in the bumper that just look like they're going to be unpainted.

Maybe I'm nitpicking.  But for $350-$440 I think one should be...

Especially when this is your competition, and either of these can be had for under $150.  And sure, MP-44 looks to have more paint and a ton more accessories... that I don't really want or need, and would rather they just put more effort into making a robot that looks as good as Magic Square or Transform Element's.

1 hour ago, JetJockey said:

I think it might be time for a lot of people / consumers out there to stop promoting Kickstarters from big or even small to medium sized companies. These companies shouldn't be passing risk to consumers or using Kickstarter as a gauge for whether or not to release a product.

Why not? I mean, sure, I'd say it's pretty asinine if a big company like Capcom or Activision wanted to set up a Kickstarter for the next Resident Evil or Call of Duty. But videogames cost money to make. I doubt IGA was rolling in cash, and Way Forward and 505 Games were basically indie outfits. Isn't this sort of "I have an idea, but I need money to make it happen" passion project what Kickstarter is for?

2 hours ago, JetJockey said:

I've read the excuses that backing on Kickstarter isn't the same as pre-ordering a product.

Maybe because it's not an excuse, and it's really not the same as a pre-order? You're fronting the cash for the development of the game, which you've already noted means assuming the risk. Ideally because you believe in the project and want to see it come to fruition.

2 hours ago, JetJockey said:

But the majority of these Kickstarters that I've seen promise items for pledge amounts. They don't say if you give "x" amount you might or if you are lucky will get this item.

Were items not promised here? Was there something you might have got that you didn't? If they said "back for x dollars and get this stuff" and you're getting the promised stuff then they held up their end.

2 hours ago, JetJockey said:

Of course, they are hyping the normal release and pre-order for the game. Turns out the game will cost $39.99. And some people who backed it at $60 are upset.

They promised a copy of the game if you backed at $60, but they didn't promise the game would be $60. This goes back to what I said above. Kickstarter is NOT a pre-order. You're not buying the game at the retail price when you back it, you're pledging money toward the development of the game at whatever tier promises the goodies you like with no guarantee that any of it will actually come to fruition even if the project hits its funding goals. 

2 hours ago, JetJockey said:

To make matters worse, the "exclusive backer-only content" as posted in the original campaign here:

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night/description

 

Is no longer exclusive to backers as you can purchase it for $9.99.

It was my understanding that they asked their Kickstarter community about this before the decision was made and the majority responded favorably to the idea.

2 hours ago, JetJockey said:

So if I do Kickstarter, it's because I can get something special out of it that a normal release won't get.

And that's really where the problem of Kickstarter lies. Kickstarter isn't a way to pre-order a game that entitles you to special treatment, but people have gotten used to thinking of it that way.

Near as I can figure, the Bloodstained backers are getting what they were promised at the levels they were promised.  They were never promised that the $60 they pledged would be the retail price because backing the game isn't the same as preordering, or that there would never be retailer incentives to actually preorder the game. The only thing that could be argued is a broken promise is making content explicitly described as "backer-only" available to non-backers, but it seems like they checked with backers first and most backers were ok with it.

On 5/23/2019 at 8:03 PM, David Hingtgen said:

Very curious to see how that works/holds up.   Gonna chrome the rear bumper, too? 

I'll probably leave the rear bumper alone.

EDIT: Actually, I'm too chicken to use the Molotow pen on the painted silver section of the front bumper.  Tried it on the unpainted plastic, though.  I think it's an improvement.  It's hard to see under the harsh light at my workspace, but the under normal lighting the silver paint isn't so washed out and whitish, but the unpainted section is still super obvious.  With the chrome paint it definitely blends better, but time will tell how well it actually holds up.  Molotows take a long time to cure, I'm told, so I probably won't touch it for a few weeks.