Dave's TF:LK Rant: Voyager Optimus Prime

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers: The Last Knight Rant: Voyagers Premier Wave 1

Optimus Prime (semitractor)
Grimlock (redeco of AoE Voyager)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFLK/VoyagerP1

I initially passed on this wave entirely, due to it being $30 for no
significant improvement over the normal Voyager level...maybe a little more
paint, that's it. Plus, Grimlock was clearly just a redeco of the AoE
Voyager. But once Walmart in my area dropped the Premier prices to more
reasonable levels, I picked up Optimus.

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/AoE/VGrimlock1 - Grimlock original
(the new one is more movie-accurate in all steel tones)


CAPSULE

$30 initially, dropping in some places to $25-28 level.

Optimus Prime: Impressive transformation design, more paint than usually
seen on a a Hasbro toy, but robot mode is still very Bayformer. Recommended,
unless you actually like the greebles-and-swarf aesthetic, in which case
strongly recommended.

Grimlock: Original was Recommended, but a straight redeco for even $25
is a bit much unless you never got the AoE one.


RANTS

Packaging: Well, these are in regular Voyager-sized boxes, but of course
with all new trade dress essentiall the same as that of the Deluxe Premier
toys, but scaled up.


AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME
Assortment: C1334
Altmode: Truck
Transformation Difficulty: 30 steps (yow)
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Epithet: Earth's Greatest Protector

Packaging: Posed with his sword in his hand, one of the ties keeping it
from falling out. Seven ties on the robot, which seems to be correctly
transformed, one tie on the shield. (I finally realized this year that his
shield is supposed to be his trailer hitch.)

Robot Mode: Surprisingly light on the shellformer aspects. He has a
shell backpack, but it's folded up nicely and held together by tabs. His
boots have a bit of a Rick Dom thing going on thanks to the cab nose chunks
stuck in back, but the use of extra folding panels compacts them down
significantly. Unfortunately, it's still a Bayformer in general design,
meaning that all of the non-vehicle parts are covered in tech greeble
details. He does have a few fake-vehicle-kibble pieces in his design, such
as shoulderpads that look kind of like fenders, or his adjustable pecs, but
it's mostly true to the Swarf-former aesthetic.
7" (18cm) tall at the head, the curved smokestacks rise a few
millimeters higher. The color scheme is standard Movie Optimus, a lot of
silver and dark gray with some blue and red in the mix. The dominant plastic
color in this mode is a dark slightly metallic warm gray, used on the front
and middle parts of the torso, the thighs, the upper arms, elbows, forearms,
and shield. Light gray plastic makes up the torso back (including the
smokestakes), the sword, the pelvis, the feet, nack, and panels on the inner
sides of the boots (these become the trailer hitch). The rest of each boot
is metalflake blue plastic, which is also used for the head, fake fender
shoulderpads, armor skirt, and a lot of the vehicle shell. The pecs, panels
on the forearms, and the fender chunks on the boots are bright red plastic.
Not entirely sure what the back of the pelvis is, but it appears to be blue
plastic under the paint.
Loads of paint, so it lives up to the "premier" label in that respect.
Metallic blue paint (a bit darker than the plastic) on the collar, pecs, and
forearms. Silver on the face, forehead, most of the torso front, part of the
armor skirt, the rear pelvis, the shins, the biceps fronts, and vehicle parts
to be described later. Lots of light blue on the shield, and also on the
eyes. The sword blade is painted gloss orange. There's no Autobot symbols
visible from the front in this mode, just the vehicle mode ones on the
backpack.
Pretty good articulation, although the foot transformation renders the
ankles fixed. Ball joint neck, waist swivels. The universal joint shoulders
are fairly stiff and the transformation hinge of the shoulder root is weaker
than I'd like, so the shoulder dislocates easily. Upper arm swivel, single
hinge elbow, no wrist articulation. The shoulderpads are on hinges at the
end of swiveling stalks, so they can move out of the way at need. Universal
joint hips, mid-thigh swivels, single hinge knees that can bend about 45
degrees from straight before being blocked by kibble. The pectorals are on
swivels so they can perk up or sag down, as various people have already taken
advantage of in toy photography comics.
The sword is a single piece of plastic 4.5" (11.5cm) long, with the
blade making up 3.25" (8cm) of that, and a long hilt. If you deliberately
dislocate the shoulders a little, the sword can be held two-handed. The
shield is 3" (7.5cm) long and a very stylized trailer hitch, with a single
5mm peg on the back. Both hands can hold 5mm pegs, and there's a 5mm peg
hole on each forearm for shield mounting. There's one more 5mm peg hole on
the inner facing of the right boot, but that's really meant for vehicle
mode. There's a 3mm hexagonal hole in the back of the pelvis for action
stand purposes. A dedicated sheath is built into the back of the torso, so
he can stow the sword. There's no intentional storage for the shield other
than leaving it on a forearm, but it can be sort of jammed up into the
backpack and stay there.

Transformation: I was able to transform it without looking at the
instructions, but it required some intuitive leaps and I had to reattach the
head when I was done...which meant undoing the front end to get at the head,
which was rattling around inside the cab. Lots of "thing needs to be in
exactly the right spot" massaging, and some of the tabs are rather hard to
get into their slots if you don't do things in the right order (or even if
you DO). The instructions do specify weapon and shield storage in both
modes, and the contrast is better than on the Titans Return instructions
sheets.
The complexity is worthwhile, though, because the result is a robot mode
with minimal backpack kibble and the rest of the vehicle stuff spread out
over the robot in a way that is consistent with Bayformer aesthetics. Of
course, there's still a lot of fake vehicle kibble (the shoulder bits were
particularly confusing because I was trying to get them to be fenders and it
just wasn't working) and a large chunk of vehicle shell on the back, but it's
an improvement over some designs.
You can sort of fake a Truck-taur mode by transforming just the legs,
but you can't actually get the chest into the right place for truck mode
without undoing the front end of the truck-taur first.
http://www.dvandom.com/images/OPtrucktaur.JPG

Vehicle Mode: Pretty good, all told. The front armor skirt from robot
mode just sort of sits on the back, but otherwise there's minimal robot
kibble or gapping. It's a standard movie-issue longnose tractor complete
with a trailer hitch, although the shield has departed significantly from its
origins as such. If you remove the shield, there's a peg for attaching a
trailer, if you have one of the appropriate size from somewhere else
(wouldn't be surprised if Takara makes one). He has the beefed up
smokestacks (three on each side) seen on Prime in the later movies, and
"W5700/OP" is molded onto the bottom edge of each door with a star in the
middle of each W. The W-star is also molded in larger size on the rear
fenders. This is the Western Star Trucks logo, and it also appears on the
box and the licensing legalese notes that Western Star is a subsidiary of
Daimler Trucks.
7.5" (19cm) long, for a scale of about 1:30 (comparable to a lot of the
Deluxe cars). Mostly blue with red flames (and blue flames on the red),
extensive silver detailing, and some black and light gray. The cab shell and
most of the lower frame is made from the metalflake blue plastic, while the
hood and front fenders are red plastic. The grille/center bumper parts are
blue plastic. The steps below the doors are unpainted black plastic. The
smokestacks, headache rack (including sword sheath that can't hold the sword
in this mode), and the trailer hitch/rear bumper piece are light gray
plastic. The wheels are black plastic, disappointingly free of paint. The
dark gray robot thighs are visible on the deck. The windshield is also a
piece of black plastic, probably on the same sprue as the other black stuff,
so a later clear window deco would have clear tires I guess.
There's red paint on the cab doors and the flames behind them, and blue
metallic paint for the flames on the nose. Lots of silver: grille (except
for a stripe down the center), front bumper, windshield shade, fuel tanks,
and Autobot symbols printed on the sides of the wind shell on the roof. The
side windows are painted black. The Autobot symbol hood ornament is just
part of the overall silver, not painted red. The molded tail lights are not
painted.
It rolls okay on the six snap-on wheels, and the sword stores securely
on the underside without reducing clearance (its clip does present the lowest
spot on the underside, though). There's one 5mm peg hole on the trailer
hitch, intended for shield storage. No other standardized connection points,
just tabs and slots for holding robot mode together. Nothing on the
underside for a Tamashii-style base's 3mm peg, but plenty of places for a
claw holder to get a grip for "flying off a ramp" display purposes. (A 5mm
peg on the roof would have been nice for shield storage.)

Overall: A fairly impressive bit of engineering, but still dominated in
robot mode by the Bayformer aesthetic, something that knocks it down a peg in
my esteem. But as shellformer designs go, it's a pretty good one.


Dave Van Domelen, got the review pile cleared for now, unless he decides
to go back and write full reviews for some iffy toys he picked up and only
capsuled.