M'Kyuun

5 hours ago, Big s said:

Don’t get me wrong, the ghoul is very important. But there’s a lot I liked other than him. I loved the Armor guy and awkward armor shenanigans and the stuff going on in the vaults is pretty entertaining as well. There’s a lot of little mysteries going on in the show. The ghoul and his story are definitely the glue that helps tie things together and a lot of things revolve around his character

Lucy and Maximus are important, of course. Just like in the game, Lucy, the vault dweller, provides the viewer's main frame of reference when it comes to the wasteland, and her character has the greatest growth in terms of her outlook, decisions, and actions as her story progresses. Max has a smaller arc, but after the conclusion, I get the sense his importance to the story is going to expand much more.

The Ghoul is a fascinating character. He's lived a long time, seen a lot, knows a lot, and time and the wasteland have changed him. But at the core, he still holds on to some of his ideals from when he was purely human. He offers an adjacent yet seasoned view of the wasteland in stark contrast to Lucy's naive and optimistic outlook. He comes off as a bad guy, and some of his actions are ethically questionable, but he rarely does anything without a reason or purpose behind it, and he's not just killing for the sport of it. His is the most interesting viewpoint given the lens of time through which we see events unfold over a 200+ year timeline and all the machinations to which he was privy.  Walton Goggins is captivating in the role. Just overall, I like all the main cast and I'm looking forward to S2.

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Dr Wu put them up on Weibo. They're not ready for pre-order yet. They might be available end of the year.

Thanks, Mike. Welcome news, indeed. At least now I know so I can keep an eye out for them. Much appreciated.

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I mean, I'm in for Decibel, but I guess you haven't seen this yet?

Ooooh! I had not seen those, but I'm totally down for a set. Where did you find these guys and are they available for PO yet? I've been on Showz and TFSafari all week and haven't seen them there.

That's nice, but I just don't have the space to display it. I'm already sitting on a backlog of large sets for which I haven't the space to display, so, as much as I like space themed sets, I'll likely pass on this. Still pretty happy with my Saturn V.

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Oh, that reminds me.  I only ever bought Dr. Wu's version of Squawkbox.  I skipped the drones (which seemed kind of cool, but I wasn't feeling the need for original designs), but I still need Dr. Wu's version of Slamdance.

EDIT: Found and ordered from TFSafari.

I'm not against it, but I'd rather he start with Slugfest and Overkill, since we don't have any version of them yet.  And depending on how much of his resources the cassettes take, I'd kind of rather he keep working on the Extreme Warfare line.  He teased a Megatron and a Wheeljack awhile back, and frankly, I'm in for the entire Sunbow cast.

Although I have a soft spot for Beastbox (love that little pink gorilla- still have my G1 set, and love Wu's update), compared to his Squawkbox, IMHO Wu's take on SlamDance translated into a more cohesive toy except for the precarious weapon attachments which could have greatly benefitted from stronger tabs. Be careful with them, as they're very small and their attachment is tenuous at best. That bit of frustration notwithstanding, I hope you enjoy them. I wish Tak/Has were doing the cassettes at this level, but alas, not even close, except for Legacy Eject. Wu's figs still enjoy better articulation but Eject is the best official cassette thus far in the Legacy scale. Their new Rumble was so close, but the lack of elbows was pretty disappointing.  Like, c'mon man, just two more parts on the sprue could've given us ball jointed elbows, and that would've been awesome. I would have rather had elbows than the pile drivers.

As much as I love the cassettes, I own nary a single copy of Slugfest or Overkill, so a new Dr. Wu set is very much welcomed for my CHUG collection. I'd love to see Keith (KFC) do an updated version as well in the OG micro-cassette scale. If they were to turn out anywhere near as good as his recent Ramhorn and Steeljaw, fantastic! And of course, I'd love for MMC to do their takes as well for the MP scale. 

In case you weren't aware, this set is coming from Fans Toys: Robot Paradise RP-01C Buzzsaw, Overkill, Autoscout & Slugfest Set of 4 - Show.Z Store (showzstore.com)  

FT's cassettes are OG micro-cassette scale, and with this set, I'll finally have my first copies of Slugfest and Overkill. I wish they'd put Ratbat in there instead of the pointless Autoscout, but I guess they need to keep him tied to Acoustic Blaster so people will buy him. Hopefully, they'll eventually do just a solo release of Ratbat or a two-pack with him and another recolored cassette, probably the Autoscout just to get their money from the mold.🙄 Just to add my additional $.02, I have both KFC's and FT's recent OG micro-cassette scaled Ramhorn and Steeljaw and I think Keith's versions are far superior. At that scale, I don't know how he could've improved on them, especially Ramhorn; they're just so well done. If Keith can replicate that effort with the dino-cassettes, yes please.

I won't begrudge you Dr Wu's Extreme Warfare line, as it obviously has its fans or he wouldn't still be making more figs. Although initially I tried to resist falling down the legends rabbit hole, I've plunged, especially this month. I've spent a lot more than I should have filling the ranks with various figs from both MS and NA, especially NA's Dinobots (their Sludge and Swoop are excellent, their Grimlock not as good, but still ok IMHO- looks slightly undersized to me). However, I have holes in my cassette collection that I'd love to finally have filled in at least some capacity and, given how much quicker he's pumping these things out than anyone else currently, I'm hanging my hat on his continued production of these things. Moreover, he's making cassette teams that we'll otherwise not get if left solely up to Has/Tak, or really anyone else for that matter.

Case in point:  https://showzstore.com/drwu-mini-cassettes-impact-wave_p5895.html 

 I know, not the Slugfest/Overkill team we both want, but it is a Dino combiner cassette team. And yeah, I know that pterosaurs aren't technically dinosaurs, but for the sake of simplicity, I abuse the term. These guys are based on Graphy and Noise, of which I had no familiarity until Pulse had the G1 cassettes for sale awhile back. I passed, as they were pretty expensive, had G1 Frenzy (cartoon's Rumble) packed in as a third wheel to raise the price, and had even more lackluster articulation than most other G1 cassette bots. Guess my waiting for better paid off as Wu's versions are vast improvements, especially Noise's articulation and most certainly Decibel's. I'm looking forward to their and the FT 4-pack's releases to fill some voids in my collection, and I continue to hold out hope that Wu will eventually plumb the entire library of G1 cassettes to give us improved versions in Legacy scale. Versions of Dile and Zaur would be awesome next to Overkill and Slugfest- a nice little menagerie of dinosaur cassettes. Beyond that, if Wu wanted to really get adventurous, he could do updated versions of Micro-change Battle Bike and Jet-heli from the Microman line along with his own mini Microman figure. It's a stretch, but dreams are free. If you're reading this, Dr Wu, do all the TF cassettes first please, and thank you most kindly.

Cassette Machine Battle Bike HG90 (MC-08) (Microman, Microchange, VS/Unaffiliated) | Transformerland.com - Collector's Guide Toy Info  Cassette Machine Jet Heli XL120 (MC-09) (Microman, Microchange, VS/Unaffiliated) | Transformerland.com - Collector's Guide Toy Info

25 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Speaking of tiny, I picked up Dr. Wu's Microscope, a Micromaster-sized Perceptor from their Extreme Warfare line.

I don't have a Lego minifigure to compare with.  I don't have a ton of Legends-sized guys, either... but I do have Studio Series 86 and Titans Return Perceptor, and he's about knee-high to those guys.  Kind of hard to make out the details, though...

So here he is with the "Child's Play" miniature Perceptor that came with X-Transbots' MP-style offering.  Microscope is much more solidly built and can even transform, despite being roughly half again tall, but you start to notice that, proportionally, Microscope is on the chunkier side.  I wonder if this isn't a necessity of the size, like you can only make a ball joint so small and only make the plastic around the socket so thin before it's a horrible floppy mess that feels like you're going to break it if you sneeze too hard.  Because that's how the XTB figure feels, but Microscope is a more robust figure that you can certainly play with.

Aside from being a bit chunky, Microscope seems to take a lot of design cues from the Studio Series figure.  On the one hand, that's good!  The SS86 figure was trying very hard to look like the '86 movie, so Microscope is very G1 Sunbow accurate.  He just needs a little silver on the end of his scope, and a little red faux hinge on his waist.  On the other hand, they really copied the Studio Series figure.  Same hollow edges on the insides of the forearms, same molded but unpainted treads on the inside of the legs, same hollow back.  Both even have a tab on the side opposite the scope, only it's more obvious on Microscope due to it being black and relatively thicker.

Microscope doesn't come with any accessories, so we'll jump right to articulation.  Head's on a swivel, no tilt.  His shoulders are ball joints that can rotate 360 degrees and move laterally 90.  His elbows are hinges that bend 90 degrees.  Normally, I prefer hinges to ball joints, but on a figure this small what it really means is that he's got no bicep swivels.  Nor does he have any wrist swivels.  His waist can swivel, though.  Hips are ball joints that can go slightly over 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally.  Technically his legs can swivel a little around the ball joint, so he can turn his feet out a bit, but he lacks a more dynamic dedicated thigh swivel.  His knees bend a little over 90 degrees.  His toes can tilt down 90 degrees, up very slightly, and his ankle can pivot 90 degrees.

Transformation is basically identical to the Studio Series toy.  Turn his head, tuck it into his back.  Fold his hands in, rotate his shoulders, then double hinge them down and into his sides.  The scope hinges over, and the tab on the other side folds up to lock into it.  He sits down, spreads his legs, then a transformation joint folds them forward again.  Finish it off by bending down the toes and opening the chest.

The simple engineering gives him a sort of unfinished look.  There's no mirror under the slide tray.  The dials on his arms don't turn.  Nothing actually locks his legs into place.  Thing is, this is all true of the Studio Series toy, too.  It's a lot easier to forgive, though, when the figure is like a quarter the size.

And no, Dr. Wu didn't forget about the tank mode.  Microscope lacks the extra toy-style treads that the Titans Return figure had, but there are extra hinges for tank mode, and pegs on his legs that lock into ports on his shoulders that hold everything together nice and tidy.  In other words, it feels like less of an afterthought than it does on the SS86 toy.

I guess I don't have a lot to say that I haven't already said about Dr. Wu's Extreme Warfare figures.  The engineering isn't mind-blowing, and the lack of accessories is kind of a bummer, sure.  On the other hand, they're usually better painted and engineered than Hasbro's Core-class figures, and they're half the size, which makes them even better options for displaying with Titans.  And they're cheap by 3P standards, usually running around $30 for two figures (I actually got a pair of two-packs for $44).  That puts the in impulse buy territory for me.  So I recommend Microscope.  Like the other Extreme Warfare figures he's a fun, tiny figure well worth the asking price.  Just know that to get him, you'll wind up with another figure...

I've been collecting Dr Wu's cassette bots, and I've been pretty impressed all around with the majority of them. As you say, despite their diminutive sizes, they're robust enough to be played with and they generally capture their subjects very well. The only non-cassette Wu fig I own is their take on Arcee. I chose Wu's over NewAge's, as I felt both the backpack and alt modes were better executed. However, I'm more into the cassettes, which are all done in Hasbro's new smaller-than-RW micro-cassette scale so they fit in with current figures only better engineered with superior articulation. Thus far, he's been concentrating on the cassette combiners which Hasbro seems unlikely to do, but eventually, I hope he'll move on to the regular cassettes like Ravage, Laserbeak, Rumble, etc. Ravage is my all-time fave of the cassettes, and I'd love to see Wu's take- I'm not expecting MMC levels of engineering, but if he could approximate what Keith did with his excellent takes on Ramhorn and Steeljaw recently, albeit at regular micro-cassette scale, that would be remarkable as I seriously doubt that Tak/Has will ever come close. I know Hasbro's planning a Steeljaw later this year, but again, after owning the travesty that is Ravage, I have little faith that it'll anywhere approach good let alone mere mediocrity. Dr Wu seems to be our only hope of decent Cassettes at the current scale. Have money, want cassettes.

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Transformers One Optimus up for preorder on Amazon.  Weirdly not on Pulse (in the US, at least, but he's up on the European site).

Also on BBTS and Entertainment Earth.

My usual prejudice towards Cybertronian alts is manifesting with this fig. Just like most jetformers, the arms are right out there in plain sight. However, based on the trailer for One, perhaps the transformations at this stage in Cybertronian evolution are purposely more simplified. That doesn't please me, but holy heck, that trailer sure did. Many of my fears are relieved as the look and feel harken back to Prime. They're obviously leaning hard into the humor, and just from a few minutes of footage, it feels somewhere between Animated and Prime, and even a bit like the Marvel films in its tone. Setting the story in the deep past of Prime and Megs before either wore their destined honorifics, after seeing the interplay between them, essentially a buddy comedy, feels like a good decision. I like a good laugh like everyone else, but I hope this movie, like the '86 Movie, has a lot more to offer across the gamut of action and emotion. After all, we know how that friendship ended and if they choose to show that parting of ways in this film, there's going to have to be some substance there. I'm assuming both Prime and Megs are going to assume those names and their roles in the coming war by film's end, but if I had my druthers, the film would lead up to a fracturing of the friendship and a parting of ways only to continue the story of their developments and the development of the Autobot and Decepticon factions in a tv series. After all, there are likely thousands, if not millions of years of history between the events of One and the G1 series in 1984 in which any number of stories can be told. The friendship of Starscream and Skyfire. The forging of Megs' and Soundwave's relationship (why is Soundwave so loyal, and at what point did he develop the ability to carry his minions around within his body?) Are Cybertronians built in factories as base protoforms, lovingly crafted by Wheeljackian inventors, or some other methodology(ies)? Why did the bots who would become Insecticons leave Cybertron? Why is there such a vast range of size differences among the denizens of Cybertron? Will they finally try to explain mass-shifting as a technology rather than an artifact of animation cheatery? And on and on. A tie-in series to One presents an awesome opportunity to not only tell stories about our favorite bots early in their lives but also to explain some of the burning questions surrounding the characters and circumstances that remain elusive. I'd be down for a series like that, a deep dive into Cybertron's history with good storytelling and writing that appeals to kids but doesn't speak down to the older fans. Like Prime and Animated. Here's to hoping Hasbro will leap at this opportunity to tell more stories, create new characters, and sell more toys along the way. This could be the new G1, a perfect gateway into that universe for this generation of young Transformers fans who thirty years from now will still keep this franchise going strong. I hope it continues long after I've become one with the Matrix.

Just got these guys in this week. They are New Age's Rhedosaurus (Sludge), Freyr (Swoop), Herbie (Bumblebee), and Vanishing Point (Cliffjumper).

These guys are tiny. a few reference pics. First a LEGO minifig for scale.

Here they are with New Age's takes on fellow Minibots Powerglide and Cosmos.

Sorry for the blurry pic. Here they are with G1 Huffer, the only OG Minibot I own.

With Iron Factory's takes on a blue Cliffjumper repaint and their take on Huffer.

Here  are Rhedosaurus and Freyr with New Age's take on Grimlock. I also wanted Freyr (Swoop) in G1 toy colors except with a blue chest, but they only make a toy version with a red chest. So the blue version unfortunately has the toon coloration instead of the shiny paints and tampo. I love how that blue looks though. NA's Sludge stays true to the G1 toy's shaping and placement of the robot chest in sauropod mode, two areas where the Has/Tak SS86 deviated much to my disappointment. This take on Sludge is nigh perfect. Like the SS86, there are dino-specific front legs, which store in the bot's torso, used effectively. The sauropodian neck has two swivel joints built into it allowing for several degrees of motion omnidirectionally, the head can look up nearly 90 degrees, and the mouth can open about 30 degrees. The tail has three swivel joints allowing for some expressive left and right swishing. Bot mode has all the standard pose ability, including ankle rockers. He also has double jointed elbows for 180 degrees of bend, single jointed knees that extend well past 90. Paint and tampo are crisply applied and look amazing. Being partial to Sludge, the only Dinobot I owned as a kid, I love this figure.

Freyr is no slump, either.  As well as sporting an excellent range of articulation throughout in bot mode, his transformation skews towards the G1 toy where the arms collapse on themselves, the chest collapses upwards and inwards, and then the arms further collapse inwards giving his ptero mode a slimmer body. he's still somewhat brickish , but it's not as bad as it could be if all those things didn't collapse to thin him out a bit. Overall, he looks great in both modes, and again, I'm glad I got him. New age is killing it with their Dinobots and I'm excited to get their takes on Slag and Snarl when they release.

28 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

I think they've been available since the 10th.  I bought tickets on Sunday for May 19th.

I'm catching it on Sat the 18th with the wife. I seldom go to downtown Spokane (parking is expensive), but as it happens, the mall with the theater playing Transformers just got a LEGO Store last year, so that and eating somewhere where we don't usually frequent are additional draws. Kinda wish they'd come up with some new animation for this instead of just playing a few eps of the old toon (as much as I love it), but I guess we have Transformers One to look forward to in the fall. I hope it's good.

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

I think the blue was actually a side effect of some of the weird coloring seen on other Star Wars toys at the time.

It was never really clear in the movies, but some of the color filtering did make the Ties look darker blue-gray, and many of the toys echoed that.  The one that sticks in my mind is the Action Fleet version, which was definitely closer to blue than gray.

 

I doubt they were referencing other toys, as Lucasfilm would provide them with reference materials, not to mention they look grey in the films, and LEGO was still fairly isolationist in its approach to media. The OG Kenner TIE was white, and that would have made more sense to me than the blue and black which never matched the Kenner toys or how the actual filming models looked onscreen. Again, I just chock it up to LEGO's weird choices. However, I remember that Action Fleet TIE; I like that color as a way to distinguish it, besides the forked wings, from standard TIE fighters. Almost wish they'd made the current TIE Interceptor set (75348) a similar shade of blue, but they went with standard light bley.

 CW from top left: New Age's Freyr (Swoop), Rhedosaurus (Sludge), Herbie (Bumblebee), and Vanishing Point (Cliffjumper). 

14 minutes ago, Old_Nash_II said:

Final season...

Alas, all good things...      

Such a good show. Looking forward to how they wrap it up.

37 minutes ago, wm cheng said:

LOL you said my thoughts exactly!!!  I got the 2000 blue and black tie as a b-day present from my office at work back in the day.

For its day, it was an impressive model. There were virtually no curved or rounded bits back then and most of the System scaled TIEs were essentially cubes with panels. That they were able to coax a somewhat ballish cockpit section for that model really elevated it above the smaller sets. The blue and black color scheme always made me scratch my head, but it may have come down to the cost of the colored plastics. This was back when LEGO was struggling financially, and I've heard over the years that black was the cheapest color for them to produce, so maybe that was a factor. But then again, they did the Millennium Falcon and AT-AT sets in grey, so who knows? It was just one of those weird LEGO decisions from the past. Fortunately, they're much more concerned with accuracy these days and they've got the financial wherewithal to do pretty much what they want.

12 hours ago, treatment said:

wotafa's...

 

Wotafa's reviews always evoke a smile or a laugh. I don't speak Nihongo, but his enthusiasm and presentation carry the message clearly. This is a guy who really likes toys and has the personality and skill to show them off in a light and enjoyable manner regardless of language.

Gotta say, Takara did a good job with OG Wheeljack. Sure, his bot mode is a little compromised to fit all those panels, but in this case, I'd prefer all the panel-fu over his just being a big shellformer where the entirety of the vehicle mode maybe split into two parts and folded into one another. This guy's engineering took ingenuity and manipulating all those leg bits to form his boxy Cybertronian hover-van mode is satisfying. Love, too, how, like the toon, his arms form the front of the vehicle. They didn't need to add his shield, or his little propellers, but they did to complete the scene, and I appreciate that. The proverbial frosting, though, is being able to fit OG Bee, after folding the outer bits of his hull, fully into Wheeljack's vehicle mode. Again, they could have just phoned this fig in, but they went the extra mile to bring him as close to the animation as possible at this size class and I think they did an admirable job. What he lacks in accuracy in bot mode he makes up in sheer fun factor, play experience, and nostalgia. I think most G1 fans will be happy to have him. I surely am.

13 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Impressive panels.. but it feels like they make the ball uglier with every iteration.  

Still might try and grab one though, it's not too bad.

Yeah, I've seen MOCs that do the ball section better, but I think they're trying not to copy anybody else and put their own stamp on the design, not to mention make the build experience more interesting. However, as it's a display model, I'd prefer they just went with what looks best. I have the OG set still in all of its blue and black glory (still wonder what they were thinking going with that color scheme for TIEs for years when light and dark grey existed), and my need to collect everything LEGO Star Wars cooled off years ago. I wish there was a LEGO lending library where you could check out a set just to build it for the experience and then return it. But maintaining the integrity of the sets would be extraordinarily difficult even if you kept the sets in-house. Sure, I could buy the set, build it, and then sell it, but what a hassle. I'm better at buying stuff than selling it, which is why I own so much crap. 😄

I've played most of the Fallout games since Fallout 3, and it captures the look and feel of those game very well. Kudos to the location scouts for finding so many real-world derelict and dilapidated places to film. In Fallout, the environment is as important to the game as any other element, and they did an exceptional job of capturing those areas and set pieces in the show to resemble game environments. Ella Purnell does a great job as a cheeky adorable Vault dweller who leaves the safety and naivete of her vault on a quest. Aaron Moten, in turn, gives an enjoyable performance as a member of the Brotherhood of Steel with his own issues. Not to be outdone, Walton Goggins chews the scenery in both his pre-bomb life as a popular actor, and post bomb life as a ghoul bounty hunter.  Moreover, just like in the games, the Vaults hold secrets and surprises. My wife and I watched the first six eps today, and we're planning on finishing it off tomorrow. My wife has never played the games, so I give her a little bit of backstory as we go along, but she's into the show regardless due to the strengths of the storytelling, the incredible visuals, and well-acted roles across the board. Def hope this gets another season or two. It's fun to visit the Fallout universe in this format.

14 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

I'm excited to see the trailer as this is the movie I'm most excited to see this year. It'll be a pure TRANSFORMERS movie (finally!) so I expect it'll be really good!!

I wish I could be so enthusiastic, but I have no expectations for this at all. Nevertheless, I'm curious to see the trailer if only to get a feel for it. I hope it's good. 

4 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

Some movies are classics and should just be left alone. The Crow being one of them, they also tried to ruin another Classic, Jacobs Ladder with a piss poor reboot.

There is a solution to the reboot madness but only time will tell what it is.

Classics are classics for a reason; there are qualities to those films that have had an effect on people that have made them extremely popular for various reasons and that are difficult to recapture in an update or a reboot. The simple answer to reboot madness is to do original stuff and leave the classics alone. Sequels are another category where sometimes less is more.

I wasn't aware of a Jacob's Ladder reboot. That's a film that I never would have even pegged for reboot material. The original gave a pretty haunting look into the life of a post-Vietnam veteran's dealing with delusions from what we today would call PTSD and likely exposure to all the chemicals we dumped both for defoliation and psyche-ops. Tim Robbins gave a great performance. No need for a reboot.

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

I'll be watching the first G1 episodes in theaters on 5/18 or 5/19.  Hopefully the table read is live in my area.

Robosen Megatron.

Interesting. I'm guessing they're going with a tank mode, as a pistol at that scale would be ludicrous except in the hands of someone with gigantism. (Sadly, Andre's no longer with us). Moreover, there's the old chestnut with gun restrictions. I'm still curious to see what they pull off. Robosen have proven themselves extremely adept at doing what seemed impossible- making Transformers toys that can move autonomously and transform on their own. As I get older, more and more I get to see what was once sci-fi become reality. Fantastic!

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

OK, Voyagers out of the way, we can move onto the Legacy United Leaders.  One of them is already two-year-old Laser Optimus Prime (time flies!) in a new box.  The other, as @M'Kyuun shared, is Sandstorm.

It's kind of nuts that since the guy on the right came out I've reviewed two guys named Sandstorm, but one was a Decepticon jet and one was a Predacon scorpion.  Astrotrain, Blitzwing, and Springer have all been updated post-Siege, and while I might hope for more G1-accurate post-Siege versions Octane's release in Titans Return and Broadside's in Power of the Primes are more recent than Thrilling 30 Sandstorm.  You had to figure the last main triple-changer was due!  And now that he's here... he kind of doesn't look right to me.

To be fair, I think Sandstorm is actually quite accurate... to the G1 toy.  That's the toy face with the mask, and the mix of dark and light oranges is accurate to the toy's color's.  There's even some darker orange paint outlining Sandstorm's shoulders highlighting the edges of what would have been a hollow space on the original toy.  Sculpted and painted details on his shins and stomach replicated stickers from the G1 toy.  For greater toy accuracy, though, they should have made his thighs orange and his hands black.

That said, I didn't have Sandstorm as a kid.  My strongest memories of Sandstorm are from the cartoon, which would replace much of Sandstorm's lighter orange with a yellower shade, ditch the sticker details, and most importantly, give him an actual face.  The black thighs here are cartoon accurate, but I'm still wondering why he doesn't have black hands.

Anyway, Sandstorm's got a pretty big backpack... but that's G1 toy and cartoon-accurate.

To help justify his Leader-class price tag, Sandstorm comes with quite a few accessories.  You get a black rifle that's styled to look like the one that came with the G1 toy.  You get a smaller gray pistol that seems to from the cartoon.  There's also a flat gray panel, some black parts, and a winch.

Sandstorm's head does seem to be on a ball joint, and on my copy you can tilt his head up... but it snaps back down for some reason.  No downward or sideways tilt, but his head swivels.  His shoulders also swivel and move laterally.  His biceps and wrists swivel, and his elbows bend about 150 degrees.  His waist swivels.  His hips can go a bit past 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees laterally, but only about 45 degrees backward due to his backpack.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt down but not up, and his ankles pivot about 60 degrees.

Sandstorm can hold either weapon in either hand, no issues.

And you can use 5mm ports on his backpack to store them in bot mode.  Additionally, Sandstorm has 5mm ports on either shoulder, on the outside of either forearm, on the flaps on the outsides of his legs, in the screw holes on the backs of his legs, and under his toes.  If you really need it, you can also remove his tail rotor; it's a separate part plugged into a 5mm port above his head.

With all those ports, though, there's still not a lot you can do with his other accessories in bot mode.  The bars plug into the gray panel to form a sort of cage, although anything that fit inside could simply walk out the open front and back.  The winch can plug into the top of the cage, and the other end of the rope is just a 5mm plug so Sandstorm can hold it... but what is he supposed to do with it?  Swing it like a flail?

Transforming Sandstorm into his dune buggy mode is fairly straightforward, as it doesn't really involve his backpack.  His feet fold up and his legs collapse.  His hands go into his forearms and then his forearms tuck over his biceps.  His upper body pulls away and hinges down to tab into the top of his shins, with his arms folding out and down.  With his chest open, you can pull out the engine and tuck his head inside.  Then it's just a matter of splitting the top of the tail rotor and splaying it out into a spoiler.

On the one hand, I think that aside from a little extra forearm showing and a little more helicopter kibble behind the rear wheels, that this is a pretty good take on Sandstorm's dune buggy mode.  Heck, it's even got actual rubber tires!  From the side, though, it strikes me as a little unbalanced.  The front half sits pretty high, with the vehicle sitting up off the ground, but it drops off behind the cabin with just a little gray engine sitting above a ton of mostly helicopter parts that sit very close to the ground.  I don't care for the spoiler, either.  What's that tiny thing supposed to do?  The cartoon had an actual spoiler, and while the G1 toy only had half a spoiler it was a decently-sized squarish panel, not whatever this needle-thin thing is.

The G1 cartoon had a roll cage over engine, for some reason, and that's really where the black bars come in.  Without the gray panel the bars can slide into two notches on the side of the engine.  The gray panel still has storage, though, fitting onto the backs of his legs on the underside of the vehicle.  Speaking of the underside, if you store the guns on the two 5mm ports on his backpack, same is in bot mode, he should still have just enough clearance to roll.

That said, the instructions actually suggest plugging the pistol into one of his forearms, still under the vehicle.  It also suggests plugging the winch into the engine before you enclose it with the cage, then the rifle can plug into the port on top of the cage.  However you arrange his guns, Sandstorm's dune buggy mode definitely has the most cohesive storage for all his accessories.

For helicopter mode, you'll mostly have Sandstorm something like halfway between robot and dune buggy.  His hands are still folded in and his arms still covering his biceps, but they're not folded away from his chest.  His feet are still folded up and his legs still collapsed, but the panels on the sides are folded around and his tires are arranged to lie flat against his shins.  His chest is still pulled away from his body, but his head and engine are actually collapsed more into his body instead of pulled out.  Once you get to that point, everything else is in the backpack.  The sides unfold and wrap down and around his head to form the front of the helicopter.  The rotor blades slide up and free from the clip, then the rest of the backpack folds down to cover his legs.  Doors that let the rotor pass through the backpack close up to for the top and tail.

Divorced from all sources, aside from visible tire on the rear and the tail looking a little off, this is a good helicopter mode.  There's little wheels on the back and the rotors spin.  When we consider the sources, though... I'd say he's fairly close to the G1 toy, save for two things.  One, his arms sit back farther than the they did on the G1 toy.  Two, the front of the helicopter had three blue window stickers... and that's it.  I don't know why the designers put some extra windows and mechanical details on the front of Sandstorm here.  The cartoon didn't have those extra details either, just an Autobot badge.  Hmm... I wonder if someone on the design team looked at Sandstorm's page on TFWiki, read that G1 Sandstorm is a CH-53 Sea Stallion, looked at pictures of said Sea Stallion, saw that it has those extra windows, and slapped them on United Sandstorm.  The problem there, though, is that the wiki is almost certainly wrong.  Given the four blades instead of six on the main rotor, the single horizontal stabilizer on the tail, the lack of engine nacelles on the top, and the placement of the pontoons, I think it far more likely that G1 Sandstorm was meant to be a SH-3 Sea King.  Thoughts, David?

In any case, Sandstorm's guns can be stored by conveniently plugging them into either of the two 5mm ports on his arm/pontoons.  Part of his robot tummy with the faux sticker details flips over in helicopter mode, revealing one of those little peg holes for a flight stand.

Which just leaves the winch and cage, again.  So, you can plug the winch into a 5mm port just under Sandstorm's face, between the tires on the nose on the front of the helicopter.  With the bars plugged into the panel you can plug the 5mm peg on the other end of the rope into the top of the cage.  Variants of the Sea King, especially civilian ones, are often used in search and rescue roles, so this sort of use of the accessories makes sense.  I think the real issue, though, is deciding to keep your toy in helicopter mode and finding a flight stand to keep hm elevated enough to use the cage.  Honestly, I think it's a lot easier to go toy-accurate on the dune buggy and just toss the winch and cage in a drawer somewhere and forget about them.

Objectively speaking, Sandstorm is a mostly toy-accurate representation of a G1 character who's needed an update for a long time.  Solid articulation, plentiful accessories, and engineering that makes him possibly the best-executed triple-changer Hasbro's done so far should be enough to make him an easy recommend for most people.  That said, I sincerely hope for a Gen Selects version with a "handsome Sandstorm" cartoon face, a yellower light orange plastic, and none of the extra windows or mechanical details on the front of the helicopter painted.  Then, if DNA is doing upgrade kits for United characters, a replacement tail rotor with a more G1-accurate spoiler than those rinky-dink points.

I'm with David; I think Takara took inspiration from large American military helicopters while not actually copying any of them directly. I looked to see if the Japanese had any large choppers in the JDF from which they may have drawn inspiration but turned up only American helicopters like the CH/MH-53. I read the Wiki which claimed CH-53, but the SH-3 Sea King is another good example for inspiration. Comparing Sandstorm's G1 and Legacy chopper modes to both the CH-53 and H-3, notable bits, like engines, are missing from Sandstorm; the shape of the pontoons is incorrect for both SH-3 and CH-53; the large horizontal stabilizer is missing; the vertical stabilizer is too small and incorrectly shaped to match either RW chopper; the SH-3 has 5-bladed main and tail rotors while the CH/MH-53 has a 6-bladed main rotor and a 4-bladed tail rotor; the shape of Sandstorm's empennage and tail differs from either RW chopper; the number, size, and placement of the windows differ from either RW heli. In short, Sandstorm is a caricature inspired by large American helicopters. The latter is an assumption, as I haven't done a deep search to look at all of the world's large helicopters circa 1984 to see if there are better candidates. However, as the Japanese have exposure to America's military by virtue of our bases on both Honshu and Okinawa, as well as our military partnership with Japan, their direct exposure to our aircraft is likely to be the main inspiration.

On 4/6/2024 at 2:44 PM, mikeszekely said:

Well, enough about Studio Series, at least until Shockwave and Swoop ship.  It's time to get back to the mainline, with wave 2 of Legacy United.  From smallest to largest, this actually won't take as long as you might think.  First up would be the Core-classes... and considering how mediocre the first wave was, I'm kind of done with Core-class, unless it's a character that's supposed to be smaller or a G1 character I want with my Titans.  And in wave 2 we got Beast Machines Cheetor, which is neither of those things, so pass.  I can't recall if that's the only Core slot or if there's a package refresh in the wave, but either way that's it for new molds.  Onto Deluxe.  Sureshot's been moved to fill out a fifth wave.  And aside from a nice head sculpt I don't really care for Chromia... Siege has a better robot mode, Thrilling 30 has a better bike mode.  Well look at that, all the Cores and half the Deluxes done already, and I didn't even have to buy a toy!  Probably doesn't make for good reading or pictures, though, so we'll do one more today- Deluxe-class Shard.

So Shard's another of those Infernac-Universe guys who is somehow both a Rock Lords and an Inhumanoids homage despite looking like neither, who is a robot made out of rocks but doesn't turn into a rock.  This is where I'd usually go into my rant about how we don't need original characters with goofy gimmicks eating up slots that could be used for other characters, especially G1 characters like Sureshot who got bumped from the wave... but honestly, Shard's pretty cool!  For one, she's green and gold crystal instead of boring gray rock like Magneous, with a cooler crystalline spikey texture.  The green is broken up nicely with some gunmetal robot parts.  Whereas Magneous was like some kind of prehistoric Transformer made out of stone instead of metal, Shard comes across more like a regular Transformer that happened to get infected by or covered with crystals.

Her feet are a tad large, but it gives her a nice stable base to stand on, and helps her balance her large tail.  I think another hinge in the tail so it could fold up against her backpack might have been nice.

Shard's got a couple of accessories.  We've got a pair of these cannons, two crystalline panels, and a quartet of blades.  Notice, how the blades appear to have 5mm handles, but they have tabs on them?  That's going to be an issue in a bit.

Shard's head is on a mushroom swivel, so she lacks any neck tilt.  Her shoulders rotate and move laterally 90 degrees.  Her biceps swivel, her elbows bend 90 degrees, and she's got wrist swivels.  Her waist swivels.  Her hips can go 90 degrees forward, a tad less than that laterally, and a tad more less backward.  Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend a hair over 90 degrees.  Her feet can tilt up a fair bit, down plenty, and her ankles do pivot but they're a tad lacking.  Interestingly, as an armorizer, you can pull her legs off at the knees and swap them, and because her ankles tilt farther the other way you'll increase her pivot (but you'll have to swap them back to transform her).

Shard can hold the cannons, no problem, using 5mm pegs.  She could techncially hold the 5mm peg on the back of the crystal panels, too.  And she can hold the blades, but here's where things get a bit odd.  There's a 5mm peg on one side so she can hold them like guns, with the blade pointing away from her like a barrel.  They do have those other 5mm pegs I mentioned before, and you can use them to plug the blades into the cannons... but remember that tab I pointed out?  It'll slot between the "teeth" on the cannon's opening, but it prevents her from holding the blades like swords.  Which is kind of extremely dumb, if you ask me.  I may cut them off on my copy; worst case it affects how you plug them into the cannons, which I'm not inclined to do anyway.  They serve no purpose in alt mode.

Aside from her fists, Shard has a 5mm port on either forearm, 5mm ports on the outsides of her thighs, a 5mm port on the front of each shin, a 5mm port under each foot, and a quartet of them on her backpack.  The instructions tell you to plug the crystalline panels onto her shins, which is honestly where they work the best as they won't need to be removed during transformation, and if you plug the cannons onto her forearms they'll also be in their alt mode spot.

Speaking of alt modes, Shard turns into a helicopter.  Her arms and sides untab from her torso and fold back into her backpack; just twist her bicep so that the outside of her forearm is still pointed toward the outside, and if you have the cannons on her arms you'll need to unplug them, turn them 180 degrees, then plug them back in.  With her sides out of the way, her chest his free to lift up over her head and form her cockpit.  Her feet tilt down and her thighs swivel so that bottoms of her feet and calves can tab together, then her waist comes apart on double hinges, first swinging back against her arms then forward so her legs lay along the underside of her alt, with her feet connecting to her chest to form the nose.  Finish it off by plugging her blades into the four ports on her backpack (using the same pegs she can hold, not the ones with the tabs) to form her rotors.

Less gunmetal can be seen in this mode, but her rotors, tail, and sides are add another shade of green (looks more bluish in my photos than it does in hand).  The aesthetic carries over; Magneous is some kind of prehistoric truck mode of stone, but Shard is a regular (and pretty cool) helicopter that somehow got covered in crystal.  I don't hate it.

You might have noticed the crystalline panels on the sides, and her cannons look like engine nacelles.   If your curious, though, here's how she looks without them, and it's interesting that there's more standard, non-crystal "metallic" surfaces.  It makes me wonder if Shard might get retooled into a more conventional helicopter.  I'd think most of her parts would need to be remolded, but the basic engineering here is pretty sound.

Shard is, of course, an Armorizer.  That means she's got the gimmick of breaking apart into "accessories" you can use for other Transformers.  However, like the Junkions in Legacy but unlike the Weaponizers in Siege, you're really just using her own accessories and limbs, leaving her torso just lying around.  It's really here, in Armorizer mode, that the blades get pluggined into the barrels of the cannons.  There's also a hollow gap on one side of the cannons with another 5mm port that you're intended to plug a blade into.

And then you half-hold the bladed cannons in the top and bottom of a fist, and half hold the legs in the top and bottom of a fist, and plug her arms into the shoulders or backpack on another figure.  Maybe find a place to put the panels, and... yeah.  I dunno.  Turning into accessories kind of worked for the Weaponizers, but it made them kind of crappy Transformers that you had to disassemble and reassemble into alt mode.  I applaud the design team for making the Armorizers (and the Junkions before them) able to transform without having to be ripped apart first, but then they're not as good as accessories.  What's the lesson here?  I think it's that gimmicks are dumb and we should just stop doing this.  

Fortunately, Shard's utility as accessories doesn't affect my review.  As a Transformer, even an original character that's made out of crystals, I think she's actually quite good.  I dig the colors, I dig the transformation, I dig the alt mode.  My only real complaint is the tabs on the blades that prevent them from being swords in bot mode, but I'm reasonably certain I can just cut them off.  Unless you're dead set on Sunbow only, I think Shard's definitely worth picking up.

Y'know, I love helicopters and as well as she was realized she should appeal to me but somehow she doesn't. I picked up Magneus, and although I'm not the biggest fan of their Rock-Lords-esque exteriors, I dig him. I love his color scheme, monochrome though it may be, and the overall design of both of his modes. Shard's chopper mode is well-executed (as I mentioned above, Has/Tak have no problem cranking out a decent looking chopper, but ask them to do a fighter and, in the majority of cases, prepare for disappointment). Even her bot mode is decent, although that tail should have either folded up or found some utility as a weapon. I think the two-tone green color scheme is the greatest detractor. i get what they were going for, but a robot cum chopper laden in Kryptonite isn't the best look, IMHO. I didn't order her, but if I happen upon her in the wild, I may pick her up, especially if I haven't bought anything in awhile when I see her.

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Busy day ahead of me, so I'm going to get this out of the way early.  We're already done with the Deluxes, and we're moving into the Voyagers with Legacy United Silverbolt.

I'm pretty impressed with how Silverbolt came out.  He's very cartoon accurate, down to having fake hinges in front of his shoulders where the CGI copied the hinges on the original toy.  The colors are pretty close to the original toy, but I'm not sure that's doing him any favors as he's kind of monotone.  I'm not 100% sure, but I kind of suspect he was made entirely from a single color of plastic,, so the black on his face, the yellow eyes, the silver muzzle, the wing details, and all the gold trim is paint (the only bit I'm not sure about is the red in his belly).  More silver paint might have helped him pop; the cartoon had his robot bits like his hands, forearms, and parts of his chest as a more metallic color than the gray beast-mode bits.

Some people were suggesting that Silverbolt is somehow a retool of Tigerhawk.  I can sort of see where they came to that conclusion; both stand on legs that become their alt mode's front legs, both have the loincloth thing going on, both have prominent wings... but no.  Tigerhawk is a lot bigger and more complex, especially in the torso transformation.

One of the more interesting changes from the original toy is the back.  In the cartoon, Silverbolt's wings appeared to be on his back, but the original toy they remained parallel to the ground, with his beast back sticking off his own back like a hump.  For this version, the alt-mode tail winds up sitting a bit lower, but his back is cleaner and flatter on the whole.

Silverbolt comes with the same accessories as the original toy, his signature... clubs?  Axes?  I mean, they were really missiles that some designer at Kenner realized could be held in his hands, and that's what got animated.  They're neither the all-gray of the orignal toy, nor the mostly-gold with silver edges of the original cartoon.  Rather, they're gray with gold and black paint in just the right places to blend in with the paint on his wings.

So yeah, Silverbolt's head is on a ball joint, but tilt in any direction is pretty limited.  His shoulders rotate and move laterally slightly more than 90 degrees.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and bend 180 degrees- the beast legs sticking off his elbows are cartoon accurate, so don't mind them.  His wrists swivel, as does his waist.  His hips have some crazy articulation; his forward/backward movement is a swivel that could go a full 360 degrees if his arms weren't in the way, so his forward/backward range is basically until his is legs start bumping into his shoulders.  Lateral movement is a disc hinge that again is impeded only by his arms, spreading his legs far beyond 90 degrees until his legs touch his shoulders.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees.  His feet don't tilt up, but they do tilt down and he's got about 45 degrees of ankle pivot.  If I have one complaint about his robot articulation, it's simply that his mouth doesn't open.  I know that's not really a thing for bot modes, but it seems like it should be here.

For whatever reason, Beast Wars characters don't get the plethora of 5mm ports that other figures do.  There's some in his heels, if you want to use effects parts there, and his hands are 5mm, which lets him hold his clubs.  That's it, though, so no Armorizers for him.

That's not to say that he lacks weapons storage, though.  There are tabs on the edges of his wings and slots int he handles of the clubs that allow you to blend them right into his wings.  Weirdly, the clubs and wings have different molds.  His right wing has one long tab that fits into one long slot on one of the clubs, and the other wing has two small tabs that fit into two small slots on the other other club.  No mixing and matching here, or guessing which side is meant to be the front and which side is the back.  There's only one way they'll fit.

Transforming Silverbolt isn't terribly complicated, but it's surprisingly different from the original.  On the original, everything stayed sort of level.  His arms double-hinged backward to become the beast mode legs, his robot legs shifted up into their place, which freed his tummy to flip up and become the beast head with the loincloth becoming the neck.  His wings and beast back never really moved.  With the United version, his back opens up, allowing you to tuck in the robot head, and his tail lifts as well.  His arms double hinge, but upward this time, covering over his robot head, and the loincloth folds up onto his belly.  His entire back swivels 180 degrees, so his beast head is now near his butt.  The beast tail goes back down, tabbing into robot shoulders.  His thighs spin 180 degrees, then little holes on them fit into little pegs on his loincloth.  You finish him off by closing his back and locking his beast head in using two small tabs that fit into two notches on his robot grundle.

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And, for the most part, it totally works.  Colors are a bit closer to the original toy than the cartoon, which is a good thing, I think.  I thought that Silverbolt's head looked a bit like a rat in the cartoon.  I might have liked some paint on the rear claws, but it's far from a dealbreaker.  There are two things worth noting, though.  First is that his robot arms are on the backs of his beast thighs instead of the front.  I can't decide if that's better or worse.  In theory, they're less visible from more forward angles, which is good, but from the back or sides they can't rely on hiding under his wings or being obscured by his front legs.  It's exacerbated by the second thing, that he's a bit longer than the original.  I don't actually mind that his body is longer, but his back isn't longer to match it, so his tail feathers don't reach all the way to his rear and also can't help cover his robot hands.

Properly transformed, his beast articulation is actually quite limited.  His wings have two flapping hinges, and one joint for tucking the wings in.  His front elbows can bend forward and backward, and he's got some feet/ankle tilt on the front paws.  His rear knees bend forward (which is the wrong way).  He can open his jaws... and that's it.  HIs head is locked in place.  His front thighs are actually pegged into his chest, locking them and his shoulders in place.  His rear thighs are similarly tabbed in place, locking them and his hips into place.  And really, since he can't move his shoulders/biceps/hips/thighs, there's really only going to be one way to position his elbows/knees/front paws and having him standing on all fours.

I've told you this before, I've watched Beast Wars as an adult and thought it was pretty good, but I was definitely in the "truck not monkey" camp in the '90s, I prefer Transformers that turn into vehicles (or at least more mechanical beasts), and I don't have a strong attachment to the Beast Wars characters and lore.  Which leaves Silverbolt in kind of an awkward place for me.  If you asked me who the main Maximal characters were I'd say Primal, Rhinox, Rattrap, Cheetor, and Dinobot, with Tigatron and Airazor being the runners up.  The Transmetals and Fuzors from the second season just didn't have the same impact.  But Silverbolt did have a pretty major arc, being a staple in that season and in Beast Machines and being the main impetus for Blackarachnia to switch sides.  So maybe I've got all the Beast Wars I wanted in WFC/Legacy already.  If you feel the same way, maybe Silverbolt's not really a necessity.  But maybe you're a Beast Wars fan.  Maybe you're hoping for Quickstrike, Depth Charge, and Rampage yet.  Maybe you're hoping for Transmetal versions of the "main" cast.  In that case, Silverbolt's a very good upgrade to the original and definitely worth a look.

I never cared for the Fuzors, but due to the writing and awesome super-cheesy but noble characterization Scott MacNeil delivered, I became a fan of this guy. That said, I never bought the OG toy, so when this fig was revealed, I was onboard. In hand, he doesn't disappoint, and I have a companion for the oft reluctant but ultimately charmed Blackarachnia.

Along with Silverbolt, Legacy United Sandstorm occupied most of the room in the Hasbro Pulse box. I'll leave the in-depth review to Mike, who does a far more admirable job of it. he comes in bot mode, as most do, and well, he's definitely G1 Sandstorm. Right up front, I dig him. The old Thrilling 30 fig was an interesting retool of T30 Springer, arguably one of the best triple changers Hasbro has ever delivered. However, T30 Springer's translation to Sandstorm gave us a cool VTOL mode, but a rather questionable buggy mode due to the extreme size difference between front and rear tires. and he didn't quite scratch the itch for a G1 accurate toy. This achieves that, IMHO.

Unfortunately, there's really no storage for the cage in bot mode. However, the main rotor hub can be extended up for chopper mode or pushed down into his back for bot and buggy modes. If you extend the rotors, you can slide the cage under the rotors and carry it like a backpack with little to no effect upon the rotors. With every triple changer, there's usually one alt that takes the brunt of the compromises, and in Sandy's case, it's the buggy. However as compromises go, it still presents pretty well, at least from the front and sides. Move to the back, however, and the heli tail , poorly disguised as a ludicrously small spoiler, as well as the heli nose halves, are rather apparent, although the nose halves are sculpted well and rotated to blend with the fenders. As compromises go, it's not so egregious as Astrotrain's unfinished shuttle mode nor Blitzwing's half a folded tank hanging off the bottom of his jet mode. If those cockpit windows could somehow be turned red, they would have made good tail lights making for a more believable back end to the buggy. 

Chopper mode works a little better IMO. Sandstorm is another t-changer whose alts are severely off-scale to their RW counterparts. Likely inspired by Sikorsky's CH-53, a beast of a machine which I've seen up close, but sadly never got to fly in, the alt modes for both the G1 and Legacy toys capture a decent likeness. It's a passable representation that at the very least, puts to shame the vast majority of jetformers Has/tak have cranked out over the nigh 40 years of the franchise. Takara, for whatever reason, can make a pretty decent helicopter alt, as they've proven many times, and I wonder why they can't do the same for fighters. As both an aviation fan and a Macross fan, it's frustrating. My only niggle with the heli mode is that I wish they'd incorporated a set of retractable main gears into the arms for accuracy's sake. Unfortunately, due to how he's designed and due to his triple changing nature, there's really naught to be done about the huge back buggy wheels serving as his nose gear. As Mike pointed out, too, having the rest of his windows painted black would have been nice. Overall, though, nice copter mode.

Anyway, in the accessories department, Sandstorm benefits more than most, as he comes with a rifle, a pistol, a working winch, and a cage, which gives the helicopter mode something to do in terms of utility and said cage doubles as a protective cage over the buggy's engine. It's fantastic realization and implementation. I'm down for accessories like this, even if there's little to no storage or use in bot mode.

Overall, pretty neat figure, def one of the better triple changers, and overall a win for fans for how well it skews in all three modes to the G1 toy. It's a good update, and I hope Blitzwing and Astrotrain, via SS86, get theirs too. We already know Springer's coming, and IMHO, the Seige toy was nigh perfect, so it remains to be seen how and if they can improve on an already good fig.

21 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

OK, enough of the videogame and Bumblebee toys.  Enough with the made-up characters (even if they're really good).   I know us Macrossworlders skew hard into G1, and for me personally at least the first wave of Legacy United was probably the worst wave of mainline Transformers toys since before Siege.  Which is why, for myself and likely most of you, one of the most anticipated figures in this wave is the update on a 1984 stalwart and regular in the cartoon, Deluxe-class Gears.

Considering that the above image is the only three (transforming) Gears toys that Hasbro's ever released, the new Deluxe is off to a great start.  His head is very Sunbow accurate, with an appropriately Gears-esque grumpy face.  His chest, like the Sunbow cartoon, as the stripe running down it that copies the G1 toy's sticker, but also the trapezoids under and around it.  A little of the silver waist is showing, but it's broken by a red hinge.  His thighs have a band around them that's not present in the cartoon, but seems to be taken from the G1 toy, and although there's more molded greebles and mechanical detail the geometry of his shins and feet match the cartoon.  His shoulders are a bit more blocky than the animation model's, but they do have the faux tires molded into the tops like the cartoon, now with additional molded tread.  The only details I wish could have been "fixed" would be to replace the silver-gray elbow hinges with blue ones, and to replace the silver-gray hands with gunmetal gray ones.  

Gears has a lot of blue on the sides and backs of his legs.  This is technically not cartoon-accurate, but it's toy-accurate, and I think the only way to have all-red legs would be to take the truck details and have them on some kind of flap that wound up somewhere else in bot mode, and that sort of engineering may not have been possible on a Deluxe-class budget.  I'll note that his legs don't have wheels on them, which does copy the cartoon, and it probably would have been a lot easier for the designers to have simply left them on his legs and passed it off as toy-accurate.

Gears does suffer from a rather chunky backpack.  This is largely due to the fact that a good chunk of his alt mode's front end is his head on the G1 toy (and you'll notice the upisde-down Mysterians M on the back of his head, a nice nod the the M on the G1 toy's hood).  That front end has to go somewhere, and while I might have preferred some engineering that folded in inside his torso, that'd likely have necessitated that Gears kept his wheels on his shoulders and legs like the G1 toy, as if you look at the side view near his shoulders that his torso is actually stuffed with all four wheels.

Gears' sole accessory is this gun.  Of course, the G1 toy never came with a gun.  Gears did use a gun a couple of times in the cartoon... I think it was more tube-shaped and blue.  That said, I think this one is ultimately fine for Gears.  It has elements of that generic G1 gun you saw pretty often in the cartoon.

Gears has about all the articulation you could want from a little Deluxe.  His head is on a ball joint.  It can only swivel about 45 degrees in either direction before it bangs into his backpack.  Despite the width and shape of his noggin, he actually does have a little up/down/sideways tilt.  His shoulders rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees, plus due to his transformation he's got butterfly hinges.  His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend a fully 180 degrees.  His wrists swivel, as does his waist.  His hips can go 90 degrees laterally, and slightly more than that forward or backward.  His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed knees bend about 160 degrees.  No up/down tilt on his feet, but his ankles pivot almost 90 degrees.  

Gears can, of course, hold his gun in either of his hands.

In addition to his hands, Gears has 5mm ports under his feet, on the sides of his legs just above his ankles, and on either side of his backpack.  The ones on his backpack work pretty well as bot-mode weapon storage, as his gun has an additional 5mm peg on one side.

One other gimmick Gears has is that his chest can flip up to reveal some molded mechanical details underneath.  It would have been nice if it had been painted silver, but the molded details are clearly copied from the episode "Changing Gears," where Megatron removed a circuit board from Gears to use in his Solar Needle, and without that circuit Gears' personality changed to happy and helpful.

Gears' transformation is pretty simple, albeit not as simple as the G1 toy.  The backpack flips open and the wheels fold out, then it folds back on another hinge to go over Gears' head.  His chest opens, both where it does for the gimmick and the mechanical detail behind it.  This will leave a void where Gears' arms can curl up into.  Gears' heels fold down to make part of the roof, but then his legs fold over just like the G1 toy.  His chest winds up against his thighs, with the wheels behind it folding out to become his rear wheels.  The front part of his chest wraps around his knees and winds up on the back of the truck.

Gears' truck mode is ok, but definitely not on the level of his bot mode.  The blue color and red bumper, and the robot shins and feet in the bed of the truck, that all checks out.  The silver grill and the silver spot on his hood are accurate.  The headlights are a bit more stylized, but I'll let that slide considering the cartoon was just blue squares and the toy had the molded suggestion of headlights and nothing else.  The sides of the truck aren't very cohesive, though, with the hinges and arms bulging out, and something's off with his suspension.  The tires sit far below the fenders.  I'm also not a fan of Gears' windows.  Both the cartoon and the G1 toy had as single window that wrapped around from the front to the sides, but for whatever reason the designers thought it necessary to square things off and add the A and B pillars.  While they were adding windows to the sides, they were subtracting them from the roof.  Here we've just got a solid blue roof where both the G1 toy (under the rubsign) and cartoon had sunroofs.

The worst part, though, is the rear.  I mean, I suppose that exposed knee joints don't particularly look like a truck's tailgate, but that unfinished look is somewhat common and not necessarily out of place on a transforming toy.  What is out of place, though, is an entire definitely-not-truck-parts robot chest.

In truck mode, Gears has 5mm ports on the front fenders, on the sides just above the rear fenders, and a pair on the roof.  Any of those are adequate places to store his gun.  If you prefer something a bit less obvious, his weird suspension does give him a lot of ground clearance.  There's no ports underneath, but if you turn his fists he can barely hold the peg on the side of the gun with his left hand, with the barrel pointing toward the front.

For some time, Gears has been my poster boy for a neglected G1 character in dire need of an update every time Hasbro would waste a Deluxe-class slot on a newly-created gimmick character like Magneous or some obscure character like Devcon that nobody asked for.  So it feels kind of weird to say that the newly-created gimmick character in this wave surpasses Gears as my favorite Legacy United Deluxe.  The backpack in bot mode and the gave-up-halfway truck mode just bring him down a bit, whereas the worst thing I can say about Shard is that she's way cooler than someone with no fiction has a right to be.  That said, if I compare Gears to other Deluxe minibots like Cliffjumper, Brawn, and Huffer we'll recall that they've got similar compromises, and aesthetically Gears fits right in.  So Gears gets a solid recommend from me, as he'll look perfect with your other G1 Earthrise/Kingdom/Legacy/SS86 figures.  Here's hoping they do Windcharger (and Buzzsaw, and maybe a better Mirage) soon so we can put a pin in the Season 1 G1 cast.

Great review, Mike. I agree on all points, but I still think he turned out better than expected, compromises notwithstanding. Woulda been nice had they found a way to hide that bot chest within the truck, but I appreciate the "Changing Gears" gimmick. It's a nice nod to the toon and shows that Hasbro and Takara are paying attention to what third parties have been doing for a long time now. Def agree with that last sentence, as that's what I've been wanting since the early 90s when articulation standards started to improve, and especially when Classics was introduced. Been a long wait, but has/Tak is finally giving me, for the most part, what I want in the mainline concerning updated G1 figures. Oh yeah, and you can add new improved more accurate F-15 alt-moded Seekers to the list, as well as better versions of Blitzwing and Astrotrain with much better alt modes than the last pair.

Glad I'm not into the Japanese Transformers; that Ginrai looks all kinds of terrible to me.

23 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Let the floodgates open!  Today we've got Voyager-class Origins Wheeljack!

One of the quirks of the G1 cartoon is that the robot modes were presented as sort of the Transformers' natural appearances, like it's some kind of coincidence that Bumblebee's feet would look like the front end of a Volkswagen millions of years before humans invented automobiles, but the animators still figured that actually turning into a Beetle before coming to Earth was a bridge too far and so designed futuristic alt modes with no thought of how they'd actually go from one mode to the other.  It's almost like they didn't anticipate that 40 years later fans of the cartoon would be working at Hasbro and want to make toys based on those one-off Cybertronian modes.

And so here we have Wheeljack, and sure enough he looks quite a bit like Wheeljack.  To be really cartoon-accurate he should really have a green stripe on each of his shins (and there's no reason he couldn't have, as his shins are inside the vehicle in alt mode), but on the other hand since his feet don't have to turn into the front end of a Lancia Stratos they're actually more cartoon-accurate than the Earthrise figure.  I'll note that he swaps the off-white and black of the Earthrise toy for cartoonier pure white and gray, and the translucent plastic that makes his chest window is tinted blue instead of smoked.

So how does one go from a cartoon-accurate robot that was based on a sleek sports rally car and turn it into the boxy Cybertronian alt mode seen in the pilot episode?  If you're thinking "shellforming," good guess!  Wheeljack's got a pretty substantial backpack, as well as a lot of folded panels on his calves and the sides of his legs.  He looks like the Sunbow animation model carrying a bunch of extra gear on his legs and back because he more or less is the Sunbow animation model carrying an entire alt mode on his legs and back.

Wheeljack doesn't get to be a Voyager entirely by being a Deluxe-sized figure with enough extra plastic hanging off him to make another Deluxe-sized figure.  He's got a bit more in the accessory department than his Earthrise counterpart.  There's two silver bits that remind me of Lego flowers.  There's a gun you may have noticed as his cartoon-style shoulder cannon.  And there's this big translucent blue hinged piece.

Wheeljack's head is on a ball joint that has minimal up/down/sideways tilt but swivels just fine.  His shoulders rotate and move 90 degrees laterally.  His biceps swivel, his elbows bend 90 degrees, and his wrists swivel.  His waist swivels.  His hips can go a little over 90 degrees forward, but his backpack limits him to about 45 degrees backward.  There's really no reason for it, but his hips also fall just short of 90 degrees laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little over 90 degrees.  His feet are on ball joints, so they swivel, tilt down slightly, tilt up about 45 degrees, and pivot.  The pivot is a bit less than I'd like, though.

You may have already seen than I plugged his shoulder cannon into a 5mm port for it next to his head.  He can also hold it like a pistol, and the silver bits can plug into the end of it.  Wheeljack also has 5mm ports on the outside of each forearm, on the outside of each leg, in the middle of his back, and under each of his heels.

Storage for the silver bits is a bit more limited.  There's a peg on the back of each forearm you can use.  Otherwise, there's just a pair of pegs in his backpack.  Speaking of his backpack, the translucent blue part can tab into it as well, giving him big blue wings.  Y'know, like that one time... ok, I don't think he ever had wings in the cartoon.  It's more about finding a place somewhere on his bot mode for an accessory that's really for alt mode.  The nice thing is that the silver bits still fit on his back under the translucent piece.  You'll lose access to the 5mm port on his back, though.

Transformation isn't really complicated.  You need to shift his head and chest down, spin his waist, and unlock some special hinges in his knees.  His arms tuck up over his head to form the front bumper.  From there, it's really a matter of unfolding all the panels on his legs, lining them up right, and then unfolding his backpack to close it all up.  Credit where credit is due, it's easier to buy Wheeljack as a Voyager in alt mode when you see how much larger he is than Jazz and Bumblebee.

While, sure, it's largely shellforming, the end result is still happily cartoon-accurate.  I mean, you've got the boxy shape with the sloped front end, the large gray bumper on the front that wraps around the trim, the sort of cassette-ish mechanical detail under the front windshield, the green stripe around the middle with the lighter green/blue suggestion of side windows, and the spoiler around the rear.  If I'm nitpicking I might point out that the if the white shoulders peaking out were gray they'd blend into the bumper better, that the the sides should taper toward the roof a bit more, or that the spoiler should be smooth on the outer edge and stick out from the sides a bit more.  He could also use a big Autobot insignia on the roof.  But minor imperfections don't detract from the fact that it's definitely the alt mode you see in the cartoon.

Besides, there's a reason for those bits on Wheejack's spoiler.  If you have the fuel rods from Origins Bumblebee (which I do, but currently can't find), they'll clip into the spoiler.  As for Wheeljack's own accessories, you can actually store his silver bits and gun inside the vehicle, on his backpack, if you just want them tucked away.  Alternatively, there's a 5mm port on his roof you can plug the gun in.  The silver bits fit into small pegs on his bumper, because, ah, they're "that thing from that episode".  Specifically, they're the cutting blades that Wheeljack deploys when the Seekers had them surrounded by fire.... that he used to cut through the fire?  I guess?  I mean, after charging through the flames he rams into the Seekers, but the blades weren't deployed then, so... anyway, the translucent blue part plugs into one side, wraps over the front, then plugs into the other side.  It's supposed to be the blast shield that Wheeljack raised when they first saw the Seekers ahead.  At least Wheeljack kept that up for the rest of the scene.

The translucent part has another use, too.  You have to pull the hinges apart, then swap rotate the ends and swap them.  The "V" shape will become a straighter shape, and you can set Wheeljack on top of it.  It's supposed to be the road... I guess?  Honestly, the translucent blue part is likely to get misplaced in a drawer with the fuel rods, as I don't really think I'll be using it all that much.  But given how uncomfortable it feels to pull the hinges in it apart I'd recommend skipping the road configuration and leaving it as a blast shield/robot wings.

Wheeljack doesn't just interact with Bumblebee's fuel rods.  He can interact with Bumblebee himself!  You can open the roof and fold down the tailgate on Wheeljack, and you'll notice  that he's mostly hollow inside.  If you take Bumblebee and fold his wings up, you should have just enough space to jam him into the back of Wheeljack while still being able to close him up again with Bee inside.  And for those of you who maybe passed on Bumblebee because you thought it was a one-off thing, but now you're interesting in Wheeljack and kind of wish you'd bought Bumblebee to go with him, good news!  I have it on authority that Origins Bumblebee will be getting a reissue.

Origins Wheeljack is an interesting figure.  On the one hand, due to his shellformery transformation that leaves most of his largely-empty alt mode folded up onto his back and legs, Wheeljack feels a bit more poorly-executed than Jazz or Bumblebee.  On the other hand, he starts the same size as Earthrise Wheeljack and expands in alt mode specifically so that Origins Bumblebee can ride in the back like he did in the cartoon, and is therefore feels more ambitious than Jazz or Bumblebee.  And ultimately, I think a lot of his value comes down to whether or not you own (or will own) Origins Bumblebee.  If you do, Origins Wheeljack is a fantastic companion piece that I'd definitely recommend.  On his own, though, he's just sort of ok, and not really a substitute for the Earthrise figure.

So, I initially missed the PO window for this guy on Pulse and secured a PO through Target instead. Then this Sunday morning past, I just happened to click on Pulse and Wheeljack was once again available so I POed him there as well with the intention of canxing my Target PO. Unfortunately, I hadn't logged in when I made my order and had no receipt in my email, so I just figured I'd get two copies and perhaps sell one of them off. So yesterday my Target Wheeljack showed up. After messing about with him, I discovered to my chagrin that the left elbow had been improperly drilled and pinned which causes the elbow to rub against the forearm and limits the elbow bend to under 90 degrees.  It's also harder to move the elbow in general. I decided to try and remove the pin and see if I could potentially redrill the joint, but I could only get the pin to pull out about an eighth of an inch before it was just kinda stuck. I didn't want to damage the arm irreparably, so I just tapped the pin back into place. In all other respects, the figure is fine and I enjoyed transforming him into his Cybertronian mobile cube mode. 😄 Perhaps that's the Cybertronian version of the minivan; in hindsight, given that that's the alt they gave him on Cybertron, it seems like a van or truck mode would have been more suitable for ole Jacky. For an inventor who likely often scrounges for junk and materials to build his gadgets, it seems most fitting, certainly more so than a racing car. Alas, history. Anyway, in light of the unfortunate elbow, I'm glad I have a second copy on the way and I vehemently hope it'll be assembled correctly.

In regards to the figure itself, as a fan from the very beginning, this is one of those unexpected figures that I didn't know I wanted until they did Bee in his og Cybertronian form. At that point, Wheeljack was an absolute must.  Although the bot mode is compromised a bit by a lot of kibble to achieve that blocky alt mode, the arms forming the front just like the animation, the little ramp in back, the propellers out front, the shield, and best of all, the ability to fit Origins Bee inside like the animation all conspire to make this figure a triumph. In hindsight, it's a shame that the cartoon bot modes weren't tailored to reflect their Cybertronian modes, but in the 80s, toons were 22-minute commercials and the focus was on reflecting the toys. Too, most toy lines only enjoyed popularity for a year or two, maybe three tops. Had they the foresight to see that Transformers was still a flagship property 40 years on propelled primarily by its now global adult fanbase, perhaps more consideration would have been given to how these characters were depicted. Different time, different way of thinking. 

Happy to report I managed to get a PO for SS86 Swoop. Although I have my reservations about the overall design ( undersized and improperly shaped wings, non-compressing arms that don't partially retract into the body, chubby beak, barely-there toes, no tail, back thrusters sit too close together- all in reference to the OG toy), I think he looks great in bot mode and also alongside his fellow Dinobots. I'm sure there'll be a handful of third-party upgrades to make him look more like his G1 toy self, but stuff like the arms likely won't be addressed. A longer curvy set of wings will go a long way to making him look Swoopier, though, so I welcome that. Compared to the other four, it feels to me like there was far less investment in his design, as the majority of the others were almost over-complex and changed for the sake of change (looking at you Sludge). Swoop, by contrast, is less complex than his G1 toy, and that just shouldn't be the case in a leader class toy priced at nigh $60. 

10 hours ago, MKT said:

Hopefully the tilting mechanism will be further tweaked. It was a bit scary when the bed suddenly jumped a few notches as it was lifting. But at least we know the Ingram is secured or pegged some way onto the bed rather than just being laid there, otherwise it would have been thrown off the table.

Oh!!!! I didn't see it in action, just the pics.

Watched the vid. Yeah, a herky-jerky mechanism controlling a surface that large with a sizeable and potentially fragile load, no less, should definitely be smooth-acting. Until a certain point, it seems as if there's a spring-loaded mechanism helping to propel the bed up. At the lower end, it seems like the spring is held in check whilst the motor moves it to a certain point at which point something releases and the spring, or potentially compressed air in those cylinders, gives it that rapid upward jerk. I think it'd be better served using gear-driven linear actuators. It would be a slower ascent, but at least it'd be a smoother action.

2 minutes ago, MechTech said:

What do I think of the R/C function? "Interests:Models of: Macross - Aircraft - Armor - Warships and R/C Makes it better!"

I agree, that may put it out of everyone's price range. Maybe the "catapult" action helps the Ingram get out into action faster!? 🤣  - MT

Catapult action FTW! 😁