I bought Studio Series Jazz and Lockdown the other day and seeing as how there aren’t too many photos out there (if anyone has found them in the US please let us know, we have yet to news a sighting) I wanted to give you a pictorial review of both. Especially as there are some aspects of these figures that I was unaware of until getting them and wanted to share. However, my Lockdown broke, and the store I bought it at was sold out within a day, so I will only have Jazz for you today.
Another thing before I begin, with a house full of young kids, I could only snap these pics when the sun was almost out, but even then I find there was enough natural light for some crisp pics, hopefully you like them too.
Now onto Jazz and my main complaint: HOLY F%&K is he small. People said he was but I was just not ready. You pull him out of the packaging and there is just so much empty space. Especially compared to Lockdown, who turns out not to even be that tall a deluxe. Now you are wondering how small, well here are some pics of his Legends scaled vehicle mode (no exaggeration).
Yup, that is him next to a Legends figure.
Here are some pics of him in robot mode where he is at least between legends and deluxe class (rather than just being as tall as a legends figure).
So yeah, really small. And with these studio series toys selling at a markup compared to deluxe toys from the Generations line in several countries and retailers, this bites. MSRP in Canada is $29.99, while Generations deluxes are $19.99, just to give you an idea.
I know why he’s small, it’s so he can be in scale with the other toys in the line, as seen here, which does work.
So now that I have that size issue off my chest, is the figure any good? Well, him being small does bring about some issues. Unlike an actual legends class whose design was always based to be in that class, Jazz having his movie proportions feels very light and dainty. He is not particularly easy to pose because everything is made so small with very thin joints. He does not feel solid. He has a far too generous ankle tilt that will reveal gaps in his knees. These gaps are not related to the transformation, they aren’t slots for pegs, so I don’t really know why they are there. I also have an issue with the feet. It's probably accurate but they are just nubs and look off.
As may have seen before, he does have a backpack and it does take away an otherwhise sleek silhouette in many action poses. I do like the accessory. It can be used as a handheld gun in one had or, like in the film, it can attach to one of his arms to give it the look that his arm transformed into the gun. That is probably my favourite aspect of the toy. Because it sure ain't the car mode.
So yeah while the car mode is small, that is not the main complaint. Instead that would be the gaps. It is very easy to make him gappy in alt mode so I highly recommend you read the instructions and look at a video just to make sure you have everything pegged in correctly. I read the instructions and still had gaps but I have fixed it since. There is lots of stuff crammed into him since half his robot mode body is not made up of car parts. And as you saw, the car is smaller than the robot, so there's lots to stuff in there.
The colour is good. I could do with more detail though, especially in the back, which is just silver paint. Plus for a “premium” style toy, those black plastic wheels look cheap as hell. Don know why they didn’t paint some rims, it’s not like the car body needed tons of paint. You can hook the weapon in the back but it dos not hold well and the look does not work for me.
So there you go. Overall, better than the original deluxe in terms of proportions, aesthetic and transformation. But this little dude feels flimsy, especially in the legs, and by no means is this toy worth the asking price.
