Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

[Autobot032]

*snip*

*claps* I agree.

Though I do plan on buying future Human Alliance figures if they start shaping up like Bumblebee. He is without a doubt, the best of the line so far.

I'm hoping Skids impresses me. I know Barricade will.

As for the rest of what's possibly coming...eh. I'll get to them when I can. I won't rush out, out of my way to get 'em.

[Rial Vestro]

I know Barricade will.

I don't understand why they would include any Decepticons in a TF line called "Human Alliance" they have no human alliance. Unless all of them come with an Alice figure or the hologramed mustach man who appeared in the first movie.

[Gauntlet101010]

Just got my MP Grimlock and the crown add-on accessory. For kicks I'll review the crown add-on. I'm gonna go from worst to best accessory here.

Starting things off, there's the mug. Referencing Maccadam's Old Oil house ... I dunno if Grimmy's been there or not. It has clear blue ... "oil"? Energon? Who knows? It helps the illusion, but it has imperfections in mine that spoil the illusion. To make things worse the silver paint on this isn't even in one area and the very plain "M" "logo" (and I use the term loosely) is slightly off center. All in all though, Grimlock comes witha sword and a gun, so I dunno why I'd ever use the mug in my display.

Next up is Thrust. the scult is the best out of the three (dum dum DUM ... ominous music). It's just chalk full of details. However, the paint job is even worse than the mug. There's no clean edges on anything. And the underside reveals a very hastily sprayed torso. It's just not very good. I wish they had just left it unpainted, to be honest, because the wings and the red thrusters give it the right feel. Still, thrust is more useful than the mug. I put him in Grimmy's mouth and it gets the job done. Probably cheaper than the WSTF Thrust too.

And now .... the crown. The only reason you'll be buying this set.Easily the worst sculpting of the three, a lot of the crown really looks blotchy. Also, just looking at Grimlock I can see that the real crown probably pegs into the hole on his head (it's near the front on his "hemlet"). This crown doesn't peg into that slot. Nor does it merely slide on he rectangular head. Instead it's *slightly* bendable and fits around that raised part of the helmet witht he hole and around his head. Unfortunately the sculpting is uneven and it doesn't immediately sit flat on his head! It can be done, but it requires some work. And, although the molding was obviously flawed, the points are VERY sharp. Maybe that's the real reason the official crown was omitted?

The crown sits securely enough and they did a really good job on matching the color. However, City Commander this ain't. While CC showed us all what fan made add-ons can do, this isn't not in the same league. It's like a mirage: good at a glance, but fails upon inspection.

Even with every item pretty much failing the quality test, I can't say I totally regret getting this set with Grimmy. I felt really PO'ed that they left that crown out and even now my Grimlock is standing with his crown on. BTW: it does fit inside of Grimmy's Dino-mode when he transforms.

So, no regrets here. Although if there was another crown made by another company, I'd definately get Grims a replacement. Especially if it was a "clone" of the official one. So, if you wanna buy this enter into it with your eyes wide open.

[DMSL]

Transformers Classic Henkei Inferno Video Review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNx853tuv1Q

Transformers G1 Encore 17 Cassettes Volume 2 Video Review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9fZs4gmTHU

Transformers ROTF Deluxe Class Mudflap Video Review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b7Aefrxdrc

Transformers ROTF Deluxe Class Sideways Video Review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyIMfAmU_Uc

Transformers ROTF Deluxe Class Skids Video Review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKLJjPRaWKg

[Rial Vestro]

So I finally got the Legacy of Bumblebee 3 pack. Before I got these guys I heard alot of reviews complaining about the horrible paint jobs so I just wanted to get this out of the way. The paint jobs on mine are actully not that bad. The only one I have any major gripe with is Animated. Even to my color blind eyes he appears to have 2 different shades of Yellow. One being a more bright color on the head, chest, arms, feet and @$$ as well as his back bumper. However his vehicle mode roof not to be confused with the fake roof on his chest, just between the back bumper and back window, and the pices that hold his rocket bosters are all a dull shade of yellow. This is allso present on Classics Bumblebee but it's only on the roof and just makes him look like he could have a convertable top so it doesn't bother me quite as much.

For vehicle modes...

Classic Bumblebee I didn't really like the first time I saw it because I kinda wish he looked more like the original. The black doesn't really help him not that it's painted badly just that the original didn't have black stripes. Now I've found that his spoiler is detachable which makes him look a little more classic in my opinion. One kind of pointless feature he has seats but nothing can actully sit in them. It's just the backs that show threw the windows, there's nothing to really sit in.

Movie Bumblebee I compaired with his Human Alliance counterpart and there is verry little difference between them. I was exspecting that being a smaller toy they would of skipped some his smaller details but I've taken a close look at this thing compairing him to all the details on the larger Human Alliance version and the only differences I've found are in his front grill but this differences aren't in the paint but rather in the molding. Human Alliance Bumblebee has extra lights and they're molded in different shapes. Even the Chevy and Camaro logos on this guy are panted.

Animated Bumblebee aside from the aformentioned paint job the only thing that dissapoints about this mode and the mold in general is that the doors don't open in the right direction to get Bumblebee to use his arms in vehicle mode like he does in the cartoon. The lack of a removeable siren is a little more forgivable because I'd just loose the damn thing if it did come off.

Now onto robot modes...

Classics Bumblebee unlike his vehicle mode the robot mode actully does a terrific job of replicating G1 Bumblebee. In robot mode he's by far my favorite out of the three. Again I don't really like the innaccurate additions not just for G1 recreations sake but because they just don't work. Namely the "jet pack" which in no way looks like a jet pack but rather shoulder cannons. They should have just had them listed as shoulder cannons. Anyway it dosen't clip into place properly and just kinda sits there. I did a search and found out the original version fits better but I don't have any other Classic toys so I don't know first hand if this is true or not. I'd allso like to point out the return of the rub sign that all G1 and some Beast Wars toys had.

For Movie Bumblebee I again compaired him to Human Alliance Bumblebee and this just furthers my dissapointment in Human Alliance. In many ways this smaller version is actully more screen accurate than the Human Alliance version. His feet are actully painted yellow as they should be. The lower legs don't look like the rear of his car with holes in them. The upper legs are more accurate on Human Alliance so he's not completly more accureate but there are some ways he is. Neither of them have accurate arms but I like that the smaller one has cleaner arm kibble. Rather than his vehicle mode seats which the smaller toy doesn't have anyway his roof is on the arms and it's flat and doesn't show up unless you're looking at it from the back. Both do a fairly good job with the back kibble even though it folds up completly different. The smaller toy doesn't even have his regular lack-of-face which I hate and the Human Alliance version the battle mask fits too loose and doesn't look good. The smaller toy has the added bonus of haveing TWO hands and a transforming weapon. Granted the sword is never used in the movie but it's just kinda cool that he has a transforming weapon. The only issue I have is that his shoulder pieces are not molded on, constantly fall off, and are even smaller than Animated Bumblebee's siren. His head likewise is constantly falling off but that is an issue with Human Alliance Bumblebee as well so I guess Movie Bumblebees in general have trouble keeping their heads on.

Animated Bumblebee as if the vehicle mode wasn't bad enough the screen innaccuracys just get worse here. The feet I'll forgive because there's no way to make it accurate in both modes and still transform. Now this could be another of the painting issues people talk about but his Autobot decal is the wrong color. It's silver and increatably hard to see under most lighting conditions on the yellow backround. It should be red. The main inaccuracy I have issues with is again with the arms. His stingers just look retarded when used individually and they didn't even get the transformation right. The toy can actully have his stingers and hands out at the same time but on the cartoon that was not possible as the stingers were attached to oppisite sides of his rotating hands and did not fold into the sides of his arm. I useually just keep his stingers combined because that's the only way they look good. You can't even get rid of them because they don't fold away all the way so even when not deployed they're still visable. Might as well have them out all the time if you can't hide them.

Now this is a three pack so what I'm going to do is rate them all individually and then give an over all rateing of the pack. Allso rather than doing my usual star or 5 bot rateing I'm going to rate on a scale of 1-10 as well as my useual Bot rateing.

Classics 6

Movie 5

Animated 4

Overall 8

So do I reccomend the Legacy of Bumblebee 3 pack. Yes, disspite their flaws and my own personal gripes I still love these guys.

[Rial Vestro]

I allso picked up Movie Fallen.

Now of course I've allready said several times how much I hate movie designs but I got this guy because... well... He's kinda like the Rodimus Prime of the Decepticons in the movie, that is he was leader of the Decepticons and the only other real leader besides Megatron/Galvatron. Ultra Magnus and Cheetor have taken over a few times for the good guys but Ultra Magnus was the only other Autobot to be really appointed leader on screen and he turned out to either not be the real leader or wasn't the main focus of the series, IE G1 Leadership went to Rodimus Prime not Ultra Magnus and Animated focused on Optimus Prime's team makeing him the leader of the series rather than watching Ultra Magnus' leadership for the series.

I kinda feel the same way about the Fallen. Others have appointed themselfs leader before but never really did anything as leader and the Fallen managed to retain leadership even after Megatron was revived. So The Fallen is sitting verry out of place on my shelf of Primes and Megatrons.

As for the toy itself there are times when I think the toys look better than their movie designs and this is no acception. I thought Bay screwed up the character as his fire effect was never defined on screen except in a few close ups but the toy actully has a few red paint aps that could be fire where the movie version should of had fire seeping out from.

One thing I'd like to point out. I normally don't talk about packageing but the Target exsculsive Burning Fallen repaint seems to be packaged in a box that better accomidates his robot mode where as the stand version was packaged in the standard Vayager class box in robot mode and because of that he was squatting down in his box looking like he was takeing a dump inside of his box. Who's idea was it to package him in that undignifed position? It would of been better if they packaged him sideways (that is sideways in the box not with the Decepticon Sideways) or in vehicle mode he would fit better and not look so awkward.

Anyway... going back to the toy...

The vehicle mode looks like some of the more early concept art for Megatron's vehicle mode from the first movie, in other words... a thorn bush. His hands are allso blantantly visable in vehicle mode the way the instructions so to transform him but he has part on his for arms to cover them and the instructions never say anything about how to use them. Besides that the instructions threwout the entire process seemed to skip steps in the transformation that resulted in parts falling off or not fitting properly. So basically they're good only to give you a general idea on how to transform him and can be usefull if you get stuck but should not be followed step by step.

Now this could be a result of the abouve but I've noticed when other people show him in robot mode he's allways misstransformed and he's even packaged this way. Part of it someone exsplained he did intentionally because the correct transformation hinders his articulation but it's movie accurate so I do it anyway. That is the odd muscule tissue (that's what it looks like) that connects his lower arms to his waist. It does connect, I didn't think it did till I got him but it does if you want the movie accurateness. The other thing is his shoulders. There are large spikes in each shoulder that are pointed outward normally but they're actully on a hinge and are supose to move closer to the head.

Fallen allso has a 3rd mode with involves folding out red "energy absorbtion pannels" but he looks rather dumb and some of the pannels don't work properly.

Now on the positive side of all this the toy has features that were never used in the movie and should have been. A Transformer who never Transforms is just stupid. On the negitive side he lost some of the features he did have in the movie. While the toy added the red detailing the movie lost, the toy lost allmost all of the face details. The toy has an out of place awkward looking red clear plastic like going down the middle of what should be his face. The rest of the toy is verry well detailed but that face is annoying the hell out of me. While he gains a robot mode he looses his main weapon which Optimus Prime used agenst him to rip his face off. That's something no one really talks about but alot of people ask about when ever I found a review but now I'm talking about it. No he doesn't come with his staff.

One last odd design detail I wanted to point out... If you've ever read, watched, or had a toy of Animorphs you've probly seen the hands of the alien "andorian centar" (not it's offican name, just what it looks like.) and his extra thumb. Well if you thought it was weird to have 1 thumb on each side of your hand Fallen makes them seem normal. He has 2 thumbs on each side of his hands giveing him an equil number of thumbs and fingers. His hands are allso verry flat which reminds me of BM Strika.

Over all I give him

Would I reccomend getting him? I'd rather have Titanium Fallen. Movie Fallen is better as a display item for hard core collectors and for that purpus you might as well just get the Robot Replica version.

[Valandar]

Okay, here's an overview review of... the Iron Man / Spider-Man two-pack!

First, the packaging. Both are packaged in vehicle modes. Iron Man's jet mode looks like a slightly chunky shuttle, with hugely wide wings, while Spider-Man is a helicopter with two huge jets on the side. Neither one looks TOO bad in vehicle mode, even with the semi-random color scheme needed for the robot modes to look correct. Spider-Man's rotors are the most annoyiing bit of the packaging, and getting them out is not TOO difficult, but not simple, either. On the other hand, Iron Man has his wingtips folded up, and is held in only by two little twist-ties. The missiles for Iron Man's launchers are held on to the packaging by rubber bands, and are easy to remove.

Vehicle modes:

The plastic is the first thing I notice. It's not up to the standards of usual TF figures, though not as bad as the typical KO, either. Most of it is molded red for both figures, with blue (and a touch of silver and black) paint apps on Spider-Man with a few molded blue pieces, and yellow (and white ) paint apps with a few molded yellow parts on Iron Man. They did a VERY good job of mayching the blue paint apps to the blue shade of plastic, and the few red paint apps they have on blue also match quite well to the red plastic. However, the paint matching on Iron Man is quite poor - the plastic is almost a golden yellow, while the paint apps are a brighter yellow.

Iron Man's jet mode is broad and short, and despite being rather thick actually looks streamlined, and like it could fly, with very little robot kibble visible at all. It doesn't really have any moving parts (unless you count the wingtips that can fold flat, up, or down) and doesn't even have any landing gear, meaning that the only play value here comes from the wing missile launchers, and just swooping around a fancy sci-fi jet. All in all, a nice, solid jet mode with no huge flaws other than some paint / plastic mismatches.

Spider-Man's copter mode as a few more flaws. From above, it's an excellent light, probably one-man helicopter, with a pair of huge jets on either side of the fuselage. However, the underside of the cockpit is hollow, and the 'jets' are very visibly held on by robot thighs. It does have a spinning rotor, and rear landing gear, however. Vehicle mode is thus a bit weaker than Iron Man's.

The transforms are both moderately simple, yet actually slightly ingenious. I won't go into them here, but neither one is either too tricky for young fingers, or too boring for older collectors.

Iron man's robot mode is a SEVERE disappointment. Remarkably blocky, his shins are narrower front to back than side to side, he lacks much articulation on the upper arms and thighs, and much of what articulation he DOES have is limited by extremely restrictive ratcheted joints. He has lots of smooth panels that, combined with the bright yellow and red coloration, makes him look very simplistic and un-detailed, especially for his size. Finally, the weight of his winged backpack and his comparatively small feet means he usually has to be standing leaning slightly forwards, or he'll fall over backwards.

Spider-Man trades places with Shellhead here, as his robot mode is MUCH better than his vehicle mode. Quite articulated in comparison, the ratchet joints aren't as restrictive, he's a lot more detailed than Iron Man, and simultaneously not as blocky yet with better heft, especially in the torso and lower legs. His only real kibble are the tail of copter mode split apart on the backs of his arms, and the cockpit and rotors combined into a backpack that actually looks like a mecha powerplant, not part of a vehicle hanging off his back. He has much more surface detailing as well, and the slightly darker red plus rich blue do well to make that detail stand out better than the colors of his compatriot.

I will NOT review the combined modes, either robot or jet, as I actually find them quite silly - combined jet mode looks like sex between sentient vehicles, while combined robot mode is Spider-Man with a jet for a hat.

Overall, the single biggest flaw is the low quality plastic (again, not as bad as a Big Lots knockoff toy but worse than Classics (Armada) Hot Shot), combined with joints that are either remarkably tight, or ratcheted too broadly for decent poses. Iron Man's vehicle mode wins out, while Spider-Man's robot mode trumps him handily. All things considered the Spider-Man figure is the better of the two, and I'm almost tempted to see if I can get ahold of a second one, and repaint him as Whirl to go with my Marvel TF Captain America Hummer repainted as Roadbuster.

[fowlowl2626]

Speaking of reviews.....GO TO MY CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE!

please...

[Lord Grimlock]

i have finally decided to buy the fabs i sort of like these better than the deluxe class i just like how basic they are they are sort of like how the g1 transformers were easy to transform

[Rial Vestro]

I was woken up by Fed Ex makeing a delivery this morning. Turned out to be an early Christmas present my dad ordered. ROTF Optimus Prime.

I allready had a Movie Prime from the first toy line but I wanted this version and Jetfire (still no Jetfire yet so he will not be featured in this review.) so I could combine the two. My opinion of him is somewhat corrupted by the option of the original toy but I'll do my best to keep this fair.

They're both packaged in robot mode so I'll start there and so you don't get confused latter on I'll be refering to the 2007 version simply as "Movie Prime" while the new one will be refered to as "ROTF Prime". So in robot mode I'm rather impressed with ROTF Prime. He's vastly more screen accurate than Movie Prime. The first thing I did was compair them and there's about the same size. A couple dissapointments though are that Movie Prime actully has posable fists while ROTF Prime does not. He has the same wrist articulation but non of the finger articulation that the original had. Another thing while looking at the sword(s) ROTF Prime are more secured to his arms where as the original was detatchable and would constantly fall off. But the swords themselfs, Movie Prime's sword was far more detailed than ROTF Prime's which are both one solid color. I find it hard to belive that they went threw all that trouble to make the molding more screen accurate and then skimped on the paint job.

Over all though I do prefer the robot mode of ROTF Prime.

Now onto Transformation. Now while Movie Megatron was harder to Transform than ROTF Megatron Optimus desided to go the exact oppisite. Despite the fact that I haven't Transformed him in a while I did it just to see how long it would take me and it was aproximatly 2 min. to get Movie Prime to Robot mode and back. ROTF Prime subtracting the time that I left him on my bed in "car wreck" mode while I had to go to work, it still took about 2 hours just to get from robot to vehicle and most of that time was trying to get pegs into place. There are about 14 pegs that hold just the nose of the truck togeather and I was constantly 1 peg away from getting it done. Every time I got whatever peg I was working on into place 2 more would come undone and it didn't help that his swords kept comming out durring all of it sence on this version the nose holds his arms not his legs as the original did. At this point when I do get Jetfire I'm allmost afraid to get him back to robot mode so I can combine them.

Now in vehicle mode I again have some points where I like Movie Prime better and some points where I like ROTF Prime better but before I get into that... It's not by much but ROTF Prime in vehicle mode is actully slightly SMALLER than Movie Prime allthough that's his overall scale. There are spicific parts such as gas tanks and smoke stacks which have significant size differences. Not having a real rig to compair with right now I have no idea which one is more accurate but I could probly spend all night going over each little detail if I did. Now one part of ROTF Prime that I see as an improvement on the original design is that in the back of the rig he has translucent plastic where his tail lights would be, his trailer riging which he never actully uses but it's still nice that he has it, and there's no robot kibble showing like Movie Prime has. As I've allready stated Movie Prime's arms are in a different part of his vehicle mode, the back, and his sword is clearly visable there. ROTF Prime actully looks like a rig, not like a toy that turns into a robot from the back. Another area where I like ROTF Prime better is that they used a lighter shade of Blue. Movie Prime is dark enough that to my color blind eyes had I not known he was blue I would think he was purple because that's how he looks to me. My liking for ROTF Prime kinda stops there though because I again have a complaint about skimping on the paint job. Movie Prime has silver paint apps and blue headlights. ROTF Prime is GREY with colorless headlights. The tail lights I mentioned earlier are allso made from the same colorless translucent plastic. The Autobot Hood Ordiment was painted red which is kinda cool that they painted something that small but verry unnessisary. It's not even screen accurate for him to have that autobot symbol painted red. The only part of his paint job that I like is the lighter color blue everything else is crap.

ROTF Prime has the better molding. Movie Prime has the better paint job and Transformation.

My overall view is that the toy has suffered and sadly it's suffered from the two gimics I wanted him for in the first place. His Combineing with Jetfire and the fact that he now has TWO swords. Of course if he didn't have thoughs two features I never would of bought him desipite being more screen accurate. I was perfectly satisfied with Movie Prime untill I found out about Jetfire as such despite the fact I like Movie Prime I don't need two Bay Primes and I do want the ability to combine with Jetfire when I get him so I am willing to sell Movie Prime. Hopefully I'll get more enjoyment out of ROTF Prime once I have Jetfire.

For now I'm giveing ROTF Prime...



But that Rating may change once I have Jetfire allthough he won't help much just maybe give one more star.