So, a little over a week ago, I got Masterpiece Dinobot in the mail.
I’ve have mixed emotions ever since. To be honest, all of my reluctance to fully embrace this figure comes from his price, and the complete lack of justification for it in hand. I’ll go into that a bit more at the end, because cost aside, it’s a pretty sweet figure. So lets do a pictorial. We’ll start with the box.
Pretty standard, as you can see. Takara has, as I much appreciate, kept a very standard design theme for their MP figures. That’s saying something after 15 years.
Taped to the bottom of the plastic shell you can find the display stand Takara used to help ‘justify’ the jacked up price. Mine will never be taken out of package. Yes, my Dinobot has trouble standing, but to me, using a display stand defeats the point of a Masterpiece figure.
Also included is the now normal face pieces to change expression, and you can see more display stand parts.
In the package with the instructions, you’ll find a bag containing the golden disk, a little clip for said disk, and the light up eye beam accessories for when you get around to putting batteries in his noggin. I’m still kinda debating keeping him, so I haven’t put the buttons in yet, though I probably will.
Then we have Raptor mode. This is very well done, given the limits imposed by the design of the cartoon model this figure is based on. Yes, its very panel liney. Yes, you see lots of exposed robot parts. Yes, the folded feet underneath look like a really deformed nut bag.
It still looks and works great. You can see the scale design on his skin, and it has a very nice paint job.
His tail has bendable sections to give added articulation. Like his robot feet, the raptor ankles are weak on mine, making posing a bit of a challenge. Lets go over a couple of the neato raptor features.
Thanks to a handy clear clip on piece, he can hold the golden disk in either mode.
He has a familiar eye swapping gimmick.
The following pics show how his teeth work.
As you can see, the teeth are designed so you can have them hidden or exposed when his mouth is closed. It’s a really clever and nice touch. When the mouth is open, he has a nice beg tongue as well. I kinda wish it had an alternate version that let him lick his lips.
Now we get to the transformation. While I don’t really judge the figure on this metric, and it is by no means bad, its isn’t the most amazing out there. I’ve said before, and still maintain, that MP Cheetor’s transformation is more complex. Dinobot is the first Masterpiece Transformer, official or 3rd party, that I’ve gotten in a very long time and haven’t needed the instructions for any part of. To sum it up in the most basic terms, you just straighten out his legs, and fold his belly over, and you are pretty much done.
To be fair, bases on the cartoon model, I don’t see how you could do this better, and it works very well.
This also points out one of my major gripes with this figures design, his arms.
As you can see, in raptor mode, his robot hands tuck into the back of his thigh. In robot mode, his Raptor feet tuck into the back of his bicep. In the last picture, you can see how it pops back out when bending the elbow. I find this to be very limiting in terms of articulation.
Also, the piece the neck is attached to pretty much has to be pulled up and out to achieve dynamic poses, and it can look quite silly.
You do get a very good looking and show accurate Dinobot out of all of this. He truly looks like he stepped right of the screen, and onto your desk. I, of course, prefer the cocky looking face for Chomper here, but the selection is quite nice. Yeah, he has a hell of a backpack, and with the weak ankles on mine, it’s a pain, but by this point, I think we are all used to this. Again, I don’t see another way to do it, and the panel pieces around it do help smooth it out. Just ignore those raptor fingers poking out.
He looks good with his fellow Beastie MP figures.
One of my preferred features, he does have weapon storage.
As earlier mentioned, he can hold the golden disk.
All said and done, Dinobot is a very good figure. While I’ve mentioned complaints, they are very tolerable. The weak ankles on mine are super annoying, but from what I’ve read, this is by no means a common issue. All of my complaints come back to the price. He just isn’t a $210 figure. He is a $150 dollar figure, maybe $175. All the excuses and explanations I’ve read and heard for him just don’t cut it for me.
You can clearly see that he is, while not by much, smaller than MP Megatron. He has a more simple design than Megatron by an order of magnitude. He even has far less accessories than Megatron, and yet, he costs 30 bucks more. It feels like Takara swindled us. I’m sorry, but that’s just how I see it.
In conclusion, if you don’t mind over paying for a figure (and I’m trying to get myself to that point), this is a good figure to have for a masterpiece collection, a Beast Wars collection, or just a Dinobot fan. You do have to be willing to swallow the price though, and if that is giving you hesitation with out having it in hand, I recommend passing, or at least trying to wait for a better deal. Be warned though, Dinobot is a popular figure, and there is every bit a chance that he will only go up in price. Maybe at the end of the day, that is the whole reason for his price tag: Takara just wants a piece of the secondary market price mark up that always seems to come with the highly popular figures
