New Gallery: Transformers Masterpiece MP-29 Destron Laserwave (Shockwave)

Nice photos! What an outstanding figure.

Man, that figure looks so nice.

I wish the purple was darker and his optic more yellow instead of green otherwise he looks great!

Nice shots!!

I think I need some of those clear stands..

Sabrblade wrote:Man, that figure looks so nice.

It is very much underrated. The toy itself is perfect in my opinion. The only thing I didnt like was the price tag. I found it a bit pricey for the parts count, size and simplicity of engineering.

Deadput wrote:I wish the purple was darker and his optic more yellow instead of green otherwise he looks great!

Do you have the figure? I ask because in hand I found his eye to be as yellow as can be.

william-james88 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Man, that figure looks so nice.

It is very much underrated. The toy itself is perfect in my opinion. The only thing I didnt like was the price tag. I found it a bit pricey for the parts count, size and simplicity of engineering.

AND the lack of "licensing"! Why is it the non-licensed characters are more expensive from Japan?!

william-james88 wrote:

Deadput wrote:I wish the purple was darker and his optic more yellow instead of green otherwise he looks great!

Do you have the figure? I ask because in hand I found his eye to be as yellow as can be.

I agree WJ, all kinds of yellow.

itscramtastic wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Man, that figure looks so nice.

It is very much underrated. The toy itself is perfect in my opinion. The only thing I didnt like was the price tag. I found it a bit pricey for the parts count, size and simplicity of engineering.

AND the lack of "licensing"! Why is it the non-licensed characters are more expensive from Japan?!

I dont know, that was weird, and good point. The whole licensing thing is odd though, I dont think money is an issue. Because if it was then they wouldnt be able to sell hotwheel cars for so cheap.
The only reason I bought this toy now rather than waiting for Hasbro's is because I feared that Hasbro wouldnt release him due to him being a gun, nomatter how unlike a real gun he is. And I had to pay an extra 40$ on top of it since Canadian customs "caught" him. He turned out to be far more expensive than anticipated (then again, pretty much the same price as an American buying straight from BBTS). But I still cant take points off the toy itself which I find is amazing and has everything I would want in an MP Shockwave.

william-james88 wrote:

itscramtastic wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Man, that figure looks so nice.

It is very much underrated. The toy itself is perfect in my opinion. The only thing I didnt like was the price tag. I found it a bit pricey for the parts count, size and simplicity of engineering.

AND the lack of "licensing"! Why is it the non-licensed characters are more expensive from Japan?!

I dont know, that was weird, and good point. The whole licensing thing is odd though, I dont think money is an issue. Because if it was then they wouldnt be able to sell hotwheel cars for so cheap.
The only reason I bought this toy now rather than waiting for Hasbro's is because I feared that Hasbro wouldnt release him due to him being a gun, nomatter how unlike a real gun he is. And I had to pay an extra 40$ on top of it since Canadian customs "caught" him. He turned out to be far more expensive than anticipated (then again, pretty much the same price as an American buying straight from BBTS). But I still cant take points off the toy itself which I find is amazing and has everything I would want in an MP Shockwave.

Maybe Hot Wheels/Matchbox signed the license fees decades ago and they stuck?

Maybe it comes down to the electronic gimmick? Then again, if it was that, why are the jets so expensive from Japan but not when Hasbro releases them (no gimmicks)? I just find the cost side of things really confusing, especially when they've made so many variants of the MP03/MP11 mold that is about the same size as Shockwave.

Back on topic, galleries are cool.

I'm going with, the price is higher due to the electronics.

The gallery does look nice. Seib said the color was hard to photograph, but I think the shots came out nice and crisp.

Cobotron wrote:I'm going with, the price is higher due to the electronics.

Its a good theory, but then you look at these which also have electronics and were priced at less than half that:


Transformers (2007) Optimus Prime (Convoy) Gallery


Transformers Prime: Robots In Disguise Optimus Prime Gallery


Transformers Dark of the Moon Ironhide Gallery


Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Optimus Prime Gallery





My point is I dont think electronics cost all that much due to its prevalence in kids toy. Sam with die cast.

william-james88 wrote:

Cobotron wrote:I'm going with, the price is higher due to the electronics.

Its a good theory, but then you look at these which also have electronics and were priced at less than half that:
ALL OF THE THINGS!!
My point is I dont think electronics cost all that much due to its prevalence in kids toy. Sam with die cast.

Word up WJ, we agree again. And the stuff I said about $200 seekers goes with that.

Nice gallery and a great-looking figure. I received mine last week. For $150 they should've made him fully die cast metal but at least he looks tv show accurate.

You know, the talk about licensing has me wondering. Takara doesn't have the license to the original mold that was used for G1 Shockwave. So how can they make new figures based so closely to that design? Isn't that the same kind of infringement that 3rd party toys commit when they make figures?

RiddlerJ wrote:You know, the talk about licensing has me wondering. Takara doesn't have the license to the original mold that was used for G1 Shockwave. So how can they make new figures based so closely to that design? Isn't that the same kind of infringement that 3rd party toys commit when they make figures?

Great question Riddler. Its been debated before and while the rights are complex the latest theory is that Hasbro and Takara do have the majority of the rights. Its not that they didnt have them but that they were shared, which made it complicated. But the other companies that may have had the rights are no longer around to sue (example, Radioshack).

Also itscram, the seekers are 200$ because we can only get them as the asian exclusive version. If they werent exclusive, BBTS would sell them around the same price as Shockwave (and they could be obtainable for about 110$ in Japan). But of course all these numbers I am throwing out are all a far cry from the 60$ we now know they can be sold at. And you know whats crazy, TRU didnt even boost the price up when they got a restock.

I'm so glad that a TransFormers Authority like you Seibertron, agrees with me about how much I dislike Takara's blatant overuse of LILAC and LAVENDAR for some of it's most ICONIC Decepticon villains. There are instances where slavish cartoon-acuraccy simply doesn't work in a real-world 3-D representation. Our beloved G1 cartoon-series is infamously inconsistent in it's animation as far as character colors, body-proportions, and scale are concerned. The limited color-palette of 1980's cell-shaded animation should not always be the final deciding factor when designing Masterpiece TransFormers figures. I, for one, have always wanted more homages to the G1 toys and to the real-world vehicles & objects that originally inspired the vintage figures and characters. That is why I would have preferred having more (high-quality) chrome on car-bots and their weapons, more mold details in general, and a deeper, truer PURPLE for MP Shockwave, Re-issue Galvatron, and Henkei Cyclonus.

AutobotAlvaron wrote:I'm so glad that a TransFormers Authority like you Seibertron, agrees with me about how much I dislike Takara's blatant overuse of LILAC and LAVENDAR for some of it's most ICONIC Decepticon villains. There are instances where slavish cartoon-acuraccy simply doesn't work in a real-world 3-D representation. Our beloved G1 cartoon-series is infamously inconsistent in it's animation as far as character colors, body-proportions, and scale are concerned. The limited color-palette of 1980's cell-shaded animation should not always be the final deciding factor when designing Masterpiece TransFormers figures. I, for one, have always wanted more homages to the G1 toys and to the real-world vehicles & objects that originally inspired the vintage figures and characters. That is why I would have preferred having more (high-quality) chrome on car-bots and their weapons, more mold details in general, and a deeper, truer PURPLE for MP Shockwave, Re-issue Galvatron, and Henkei Cyclonus.

Thanks AutobotAlvaron. Just doing my part to help get the word out there. I couldn't have said it better about the purple (though I am anti-chrome as well ... the chrome on Masterpiece Hot Rod is already coming off 6 weeks after owning him and transforming him a few times).



Apparently, I'm with the minorities on this figure. I was extremely excited about Shockwave when he was first announced last year, after wanting a Masterpiece Shockwave ever since Masterpiece debuted back in late 2003.

Unfortunately, my liking of this figure has done nothing but decrease the more it was revealed all the way up to actually owning it. Here's my rundown of dislikes for "Masterpiece" Shockwave. Normally I try to refrain from posting my opinions when I strongly dislike something, but in this case I've got to level with all of you because I find all of the "wow this toy is amazing" comments from so many of you kind of odd when I find the toy frustrating overall.

• This is the WRONG color purple. It doesn't match the cartoon and to be honest I'm not sure I'd want any Shockwave toy to "match" the color of his cartoon counterpart. Dark purplish blue, bluish purple. Not lavender or light purple or whatever! This toy's color was the hardest color to photograph that I've ever dealt with in 12.5 years of photographing Transformers toys (well aside from some of the crazy neon orange and pink colors like G2 Starscream). I couldn't match it no matter what camera settings I used, no matter how much I tinkered with the RAW files (adjusting hue, saturation, color temperature, contrast, etc). The toy doesn't match the cartoon, and like AutobotAlvaron said above, cartoon accuracy should be used as a guide but common sense should take over at some point.
• What the heck is up with his backup? I'm in disbelief that this was the best solution they could come up with. All we did was trade one partsforming piece for another, hardly an improvement on a toy designed by a lesser known company called Toyco back in the 1980s. If you transform the front of the cannon properly, it screws with his silhouette and overall color scheme since he know has a giant light gray piece on his back. It doesn't get any better when you add the backpack cover, because then he just ends up with a massive purple block on his back (which looks better, but not as good as it does on the original).
• The light grayish purple hands, left arm cannon, and ears ... Takara you're killing me. Not interested in colors like this on my Transformers that should be silver and dark purple!!!!!!
• The lower legs are a mess. I can't tell you how many few dozens of times his leg panels collapsed or didn't stay together when I would move him into a new position or different angle for the camera. I swear every time I kept grabbing his lower legs (because that's where I usually handle a Transformer so that it doesn't tip over when I rotate them for the photoshoot, which I kept grabbing by mistake because of force of habit). The lower legs are a poor design no matter how you want to argue it ...
• ... which brings me to his feet. Ok in robot mode, but the fact that you can't even do what the G1 toy does so that he can "stand" in gun mode is absurd and unfortunate. But hey, we ended up with a silly looking purple stand instead. Nice.
• As for the light piping for his singular eye ... it's a nice feature, but the light piping is too dark or something. While light piping is one of my favorite features on Transformers toys since late G1.5/G2, and while it's something I wish had been on Masterpiece figures from the start, at this point I'd rather they had just painted it properly instead of doing light piping poorly, plus it just kind of looks out of place amongst the other Masterpiece figures.
• The light up feature was kind of a slap-in-the-face. It was a nice touch, but also a reminder that the sound effects were absent, which is what helped make G1 Shockwave so iconic. I liked how they implemented the light up feature, especially with the brief "stay-on" feature, but the lack of sound was disappointing.
• The "hose" is also another disappointment. That metal coil will not last. It will become dented or bent, or whatever. We'll just end up with a hose with a different problem from the original. I just can't believe that was the best they could come up with.
• His size ... Shockwave should have been bigger. And please for the love of god, if someone pulls out that silly G1 size chart, I'll go crazy. Shockwave should be big. Optimus Prime or bigger. Just like his G1 toy was bigger. He should be bigger than Soundwave and Starscream and I wouldn't mind if he was bigger than Megatron (though not the MP-5 Megatron). Ultimately, he just feels like another take on the original G1 toy with the only improvement being posability. So many details are the same, which is probably good, but at the same time it just feels like a rip-off of sorts or a 3rd party G1 Shockwave's original toy is so iconic that to not do it right just seems like an injustice.

A proper G1 colored Shockwave is on the top of my want list. It doesn't resolve the other issues, but fixing his colors would go a long ways toward not making him look like a character that belongs in the My Little Pony universe.

So those are my thoughts. I've unloaded my opinions. Bummed about Shockwave and a few others recently released. Here's hoping we can get back to figures along the "masterpiece" levels of Masterpiece Wheeljack and Prowl soon.

Nice!


Transformers Masterpiece Shockwave (Laserwave) Gallery

Seibertron wrote:

AutobotAlvaron wrote:I'm so glad that a TransFormers Authority like you Seibertron, agrees with me about how much I dislike Takara's blatant overuse of LILAC and LAVENDAR for some of it's most ICONIC Decepticon villains. There are instances where slavish cartoon-acuraccy simply doesn't work in a real-world 3-D representation. Our beloved G1 cartoon-series is infamously inconsistent in it's animation as far as character colors, body-proportions, and scale are concerned. The limited color-palette of 1980's cell-shaded animation should not always be the final deciding factor when designing Masterpiece TransFormers figures. I, for one, have always wanted more homages to the G1 toys and to the real-world vehicles & objects that originally inspired the vintage figures and characters. That is why I would have preferred having more (high-quality) chrome on car-bots and their weapons, more mold details in general, and a deeper, truer PURPLE for MP Shockwave, Re-issue Galvatron, and Henkei Cyclonus.

Thanks AutobotAlvaron. Just doing my part to help get the word out there. I couldn't have said it better about the purple (though I am anti-chrome as well ... the chrome on Masterpiece Hot Rod is already coming off 6 weeks after owning him and transforming him a few times).



Apparently, I'm with the minorities on this figure. I was extremely excited about Shockwave when he was first announced last year, after wanting a Masterpiece Shockwave ever since Masterpiece debuted back in late 2003.

Unfortunately, my liking of this figure has done nothing but decrease the more it was revealed all the way up to actually owning it. Here's my rundown of dislikes for "Masterpiece" Shockwave. Normally I try to refrain from posting my opinions when I strongly dislike something, but in this case I've got to level with all of you because I find all of the "wow this toy is amazing" comments from so many of you kind of odd when I find the toy frustrating overall.

• This is the WRONG color purple. It doesn't match the cartoon and to be honest I'm not sure I'd want any Shockwave toy to "match" the color of his cartoon counterpart. Dark purplish blue, bluish purple. Not lavender or light purple or whatever! This toy's color was the hardest color to photograph that I've ever dealt with in 12.5 years of photographing Transformers toys (well aside from some of the crazy neon orange and pink colors like G2 Starscream). I couldn't match it no matter what camera settings I used, no matter how much I tinkered with the RAW files (adjusting hue, saturation, color temperature, contrast, etc). The toy doesn't match the cartoon, and like AutobotAlvaron said above, cartoon accuracy should be used as a guide but common sense should take over at some point.
• What the heck is up with his backup? I'm in disbelief that this was the best solution they could come up with. All we did was trade one partsforming piece for another, hardly an improvement on a toy designed by a lesser known company called Toyco back in the 1980s. If you transform the front of the cannon properly, it screws with his silhouette and overall color scheme since he know has a giant light gray piece on his back. It doesn't get any better when you add the backpack cover, because then he just ends up with a massive purple block on his back (which looks better, but not as good as it does on the original).
• The light grayish purple hands, left arm cannon, and ears ... Takara you're killing me. Not interested in colors like this on my Transformers that should be silver and dark purple!!!!!!
• The lower legs are a mess. I can't tell you how many few dozens of times his leg panels collapsed or didn't stay together when I would move him into a new position or different angle for the camera. I swear every time I kept grabbing his lower legs (because that's where I usually handle a Transformer so that it doesn't tip over when I rotate them for the photoshoot, which I kept grabbing by mistake because of force of habit). The lower legs are a poor design no matter how you want to argue it ...
• ... which brings me to his feet. Ok in robot mode, but the fact that you can't even do what the G1 toy does so that he can "stand" in gun mode is absurd and unfortunate. But hey, we ended up with a silly looking purple stand instead. Nice.
• As for the light piping for his singular eye ... it's a nice feature, but the light piping is too dark or something. While light piping is one of my favorite features on Transformers toys since late G1.5/G2, and while it's something I wish had been on Masterpiece figures from the start, at this point I'd rather they had just painted it properly instead of doing light piping poorly, plus it just kind of looks out of place amongst the other Masterpiece figures.
• The light up feature was kind of a slap-in-the-face. It was a nice touch, but also a reminder that the sound effects were absent, which is what helped make G1 Shockwave so iconic. I liked how they implemented the light up feature, especially with the brief "stay-on" feature, but the lack of sound was disappointing.
• The "hose" is also another disappointment. That metal coil will not last. It will become dented or bent, or whatever. We'll just end up with a hose with a different problem from the original. I just can't believe that was the best they could come up with.
• His size ... Shockwave should have been bigger. And please for the love of god, if someone pulls out that silly G1 size chart, I'll go crazy. Shockwave should be big. Optimus Prime or bigger. Just like his G1 toy was bigger. He should be bigger than Soundwave and Starscream and I wouldn't mind if he was bigger than Megatron (though not the MP-5 Megatron). Ultimately, he just feels like another take on the original G1 toy with the only improvement being posability. So many details are the same, which is probably good, but at the same time it just feels like a rip-off of sorts or a 3rd party G1 Shockwave's original toy is so iconic that to not do it right just seems like an injustice.

A proper G1 colored Shockwave is on the top of my want list. It doesn't resolve the other issues, but fixing his colors would go a long ways toward not making him look like a character that belongs in the My Little Pony universe.

So those are my thoughts. I've unloaded my opinions. Bummed about Shockwave and a few others recently released. Here's hoping we can get back to figures along the "masterpiece" levels of Masterpiece Wheeljack and Prowl soon.

I thought I was alone on the leg issues! I have to be honest, I don't really feel like he was worth the BBTS price tag. He's nice and all, but the legs are my biggest problem - they really don't hold together well. I got the Takara Quillfire in my Pile of Loot on the same day and thought he was a way better value for his price. I don't know, maybe I'm just comparing him to my high standard of MP Soundwave, G2 Bee and Prime, but a darker purple and some better support in the legs would have made a huge difference. He still would have felt a bit too expensive, but it would have helped.

I agree that this figure is truly awesome but equally frustrating in many regards. I feel like it's nowhere close to deserving a masterpiece tag unlike Ultra Magnus, wheeljack et al. Looks great in the line up and yeah could be bigger buti think the size was due to then proportions. The price was ridiculous too. I haven't tried the light up features but come on, you add lights to this and don't add a light for his eye? missed opportunity in my book.

Other huge probs are the hollow part in the back of the gun mode. This i find glaring considering the original toy didn't have that apparently. Also - screws and screw holes all over the place. I'd be more accepting from say generations figure but blargh.

Also, yeah hot rod's chrome was fading off the same day i got him though I find him a vastly more fun figure...

They're all great toys at the end and worth having but i think shockwave's price left a bit of a sting...

Seibertron wrote:This is the WRONG color purple. It doesn't match the cartoon and to be honest I'm not sure I'd want any Shockwave toy to "match" the color of his cartoon counterpart.

It matches one his purples. He was painted various shades throughout the show. I wouldn't have minded a deeper colour either. Ironically, the screen caps in the instruction sheets are a different purple than the MP.

Seibertron wrote:The lower legs are a mess. I can't tell you how many few dozens of times his leg panels collapsed or didn't stay together when I would move him into a new position or different angle for the camera.

Strange, mine doesn't do that, at all. I hope it won't be an issue with the replacement figure. Are you sure you tabbed everything?

I agree that it would have been cool if he could stand in gun mode! I should find a better looking stand for him.

Seibertron wrote:As for the light piping for his singular eye ... it's a nice feature, but the light piping is too dark or something. While light piping is one of my favorite features on Transformers toys since late G1.5/G2, and while it's something I wish had been on Masterpiece figures from the start, at this point I'd rather they had just painted it properly instead of doing light piping poorly, plus it just kind of looks out of place amongst the other Masterpiece figures.

This surprises me, because I think he's got the best light-piping I've ever seen. It doesn't take much, just standing on my desk.

For the MP line I think he should be the only one to have this feature because he didn't have a face, just a flickering light-bulb. So that's a nice homage.

I'm actually glad that he doesn't have sound-effects.

His height feels right to me, in the series he was the same height as Starscream and a bit shorter than Soundwave. But to each their own!