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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

"Unlike you, Cheese Eater, I do not run from battle!


Heeeeeeeey! are you callin' me chicken, Chopper Face?




AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!




(go to 2:48)

My take on this MP hobby.Complaining is like tilting at the windmills as this is for those with "disposable income". It isn't a necessity in life to purchase any (hobby) company's product unless its food etc. Just walk away from the "order" button.

It expensive then don't buy. Plain and simple.

They, Takara/Bandai etc) is in it for the money/bottomline/stockholder's happiness. That's their priority. Takara's products, the MP class that is compare to Bandai's SoC is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper. I own a few of them. Those I really dig. But some, even if love 'em to death, I can't get because it ain't within my price range.

OK, question for those who also own Dinobot: are you shoulder joints a bit creaky? My left shoulder is good and nice and posable and smooth, but the right shoulder is a bit creaky and stiffer. It's less creaky if I hold the gold shoulder piece in place, but it still kinda bothers me that both shoulders are different sounding/functioning.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:OK, question for those who also own Dinobot: are you shoulder joints a bit creaky? My left shoulder is good and nice and posable and smooth, but the right shoulder is a bit creaky and stiffer. It's less creaky if I hold the gold shoulder piece in place, but it still kinda bothers me that both shoulders are different sounding/functioning.

The shoulders on mine are good. Only joint issues are those blasted ankles. I have heard of others having shoulder issues though.

Mine was delayed by a couple weeks from Kapow Toys. I've seen reviews and such since and I can't say I have any complaints with what I've seen nor what has been said. In all honesty, I keep my MP figures in Bot Mode. I transform them once, out of the box, then they go on display. I appreciate that for the price point, and level of intricacy, they are not action figures for continual use.
I think of my Boss Fight Studios' Bucky O' Hare set in the same light.
With all 14 characters of Season One, alongside whatever redecos follow Shadow Panther, I might even pay for a display cabinet. I don't begrudge the price point of any of them so far, including Megatron, because that is how I view them. In essence, Collector statues. Your typical variety of which is often far more expensive than the MP Collection and come with far less.

I love this guy so so so much! This really is the Dinobot we always needed. He's a great figure!

Thanks for the response densh. I'll just keep an eye on that shoulder

The stand....

If anyone has ever seen my MP display, you'll know I want to focus to SOLELY be the figures. In order to fit more stuff, I layer the shelves with stands (bleachers almost) which, are made up of clear plastic dealies.

Any action stands I own are clear plastic, because I hate to see any focus taken away from the figure I'm displaying. And the stand Dinobot comes with certainly qualifies as thunder stealing. So even if I need a stand of some sort, it won't be that big grey monstrosity he's boxed with

I like the base of the stand as a ship floor or Cybertronian terrain, but I would have preferred the arm was clear.

Emerje

Ironhidensh wrote: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.

First off, great review. It's always nice to see non-video reviews these days.

Here's my question for you regarding the cost. Would you rather have your $210 back and never have MP Dinobot? Factor in love of the character and the quite long list of features you just wrote about.

What I'm getting at is, sans justification, are you happy with the Opportunity Cost of MP Dinobot ownership?

Those of us that hunt for rare figures often deal with this on a routine basis. Should I drop a few hundred on a Minicon set? Probably not. However, what is the cost of never finding it again? Some degree of product cost, collectible tax, and satisfaction reward all factor in to whether or not to spend the money.

Have you looked at it in those terms?

Personally when it comes to the Beast Wars Masterpiece line specifically, the price isn't a factor in my decision to buy a given figure.

1) Do I want to complete the entire line?

2) Am I happy with the figure presented?

Those are my motivators. Number one especially, given there are some characters in Season one IE Blackarachnia, Scorponok, Airazor I couldn't care less about.

Dinobot (who arrived today and is Sublime) cost me £180. I paid approximately the same for both Generations Trypticon and TR Fort Max (on sale). Yet I think it would be a false equivalence to compare the two purchases. Sure I got more "toy" for the money with the City Bots, yet they are essentially all the same in terms of display pieces.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Personally when it comes to the Beast Wars Masterpiece line specifically, the price isn't a factor in my decision to buy a given figure.

1) Do I want to complete the entire line?

2) Am I happy with the figure presented?

Those are my motivators. Number one especially, given there are some characters in Season one IE Blackarachnia, Scorponok, Airazor I couldn't care less about.

On the other hand, those three characters in particular would probably cost much less than Dinobot since they were among the smallest of the Season 1 characters.

True. That is why I don't begrudge the price of Megatron as much as others have noted. He is the biggest and tallest from Season one. Megatron represents the ceiling of the Beast Wars set. Other than Rhinox, Tigatron, Inferno and Terrorsaur, everyone else is Cheetor sized and/or smaller. The line therefore can only get significantly cheaper with the release of Dinobot and Megatron.

Now would I pay equal value for the possible redecos/tools of those models IE Grimlock, T-Wrecks et al ... Undecided, at this point. My hope is that Redeco MP Grimlock would be a significantly scaled back Dinobot, such as no light-up features, reduced accessories etc Likewise with T-Wrecks.

As an aside, I spoke again with my friend the other day and informing him of Dinobot's release, he is still annoyed that in Ten Years of the Masterpiece Collection, only Grimlock and Dinobot bear the name.

Counterpunch wrote:Have you looked at it in those terms?

Yeah, and at the end of the day, its why I decided to keep Dinobot. I'm still not happy with the price, but I'm living with it.

Ironhidensh wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:Have you looked at it in those terms?

Yeah, and at the end of the day, its why I decided to keep Dinobot. I'm still not happy with the price, but I'm living with it.

this statement made me happy. Glad you like him enough to keep ole chopper face

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:I love this guy so so so much! This really is the Dinobot we always needed. He's a great figure!

Thanks for the response densh. I'll just keep an eye on that shoulder

I'm very pleased with my Dinobot. Only grips I have are a paint flaw on the side of his head (urgh) and I continue to think he's too big, even in hand. Scale aside, I don't need my Transformers toys to strictly adhere to cartoon scale, which varied wildly anyways. Dinobot can be bigger than Optimus Primal, sure, but I certainly didn't need him to be this huge. While I can't wait for Beast Wars Megatron, I have a feeling that his massive scale is just going to seem out of place. Dinobot looks amazing, but his size is so much larger than Primal and Cheetor that he looks like he's from a different toy line altogether.

In addition, I don't get the stand. It looks like it will connect with other base stands, but I don't get why it's a Cybertronian looking stand. Seems like it would have been a great opportunity for him to come with a rocky/earth type terrain for a stand. Something reminiscent of the actual environment they were in most of the time, sans the Axalon.

For those of you wondering, his box is about the same size as an MP-10 Convoy mold sans trailer (i.e. Nemesis Prime, etc) if I recall correctly (I don't have that box here for comparison).

Concerning the size Takara chose to build him, if he were a bit smaller, would that not affect the "sturdiness" of the transforming parts? Even the final transformed mode.

There are some stuff you can implement on a glorified puzzle toy in a much larger scale than on a smaller one.

See how THS-02 turned out! Excellent robot mode crappy truck mode. Now if that was upscaled to DX scale?

I must admit, the more I see him on my desk next to the other MP figures, his size does bother me. The size is show accurate, I know that and I do look forward to MP Rhinox being able to hold him up by the throat (with the stand, I imagine) and how absurd MP Rattrap will look next to him. However, there is something about him I find off. To the naked eye, where he has so much plain, lightly decaled plastic in his shoulders, arms and everywhere else sans legs, he doesn't seem as intricate as the other two MP BW figures.

I'd have to say MP Primal is still my favourite of the three, with Dinobot second and Cheetor third.

Maybe they chose the scale based on Rattrap? However big Dinobot and Megatron are going to be, Rattrap would have to be that much smaller...

shajaki wrote:Maybe they chose the scale based on Rattrap? However big Dinobot and Megatron are going to be, Rattrap would have to be that much smaller...

Well during Victory (if memory serves) Megatron did hold Rattrap (in beast mode) in his T-Rex mouth, so we are on track with scale in that respect. I don't have a problem with using show accurate scale. As I said before it will make everyone after Megatron a lot cheaper. Especially when we get to those tiny bots like Rattrap and Blackarachnia.

I just hope Rattrap is rightfully smaller than his all too big Generations Deluxe toy.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:I love this guy so so so much! This really is the Dinobot we always needed. He's a great figure!

I loved him too and he was gonna be toy of the year for me. And I wasnt gonna mind the price.

But then his robot mode head broke off.

And now I am thinking of my options, this is truly depressing.

I will be posting pics of the horror later.

Here he is, my broken Dinobot




I am so **** pissed right now

How did it happen?

Ironhidensh wrote:How did it happen?

I dont know. When I was transforming him from raptor to robot (for the 3rd time), I simply opened the back flap to see the head floating around in there broken.