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Zob's Thoughts on Transformers: Generations Voyager Rhinox
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Zobovor
Apr 20, 2014, 11:15:05 PM4/20/14
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It occurred to me today that there have been enough updated Beast Wars toys that I should probably put them in their own box. (For those who don't know, most of my collection is in Hasbro shipping boxes that say things like "TRA GENERATIONS DELUXE AST" on them. It helps me to keep track of the many boxes of toys I've got, and to me there is nothing more appropriate than putting Transformers in a Transformers box.) I'm actually kind of surprised that there's enough interest in Beast Wars that Hasbro keeps revisiting it. I know that in previous years the attempts haven't done so well (the 10th anniversary toys were shelfwarmers and the Robot Heroes characters were always the last to sell through) but maybe it's finally been long enough that the people who watched Beast Wars when they were kids are adult collectors and fans now?
The toy packaging really sells Rhinox as a power character, talking about his scientific brilliance and his robust strength and his amazing Gatling Guns of Doom (pretty sure the fans used to call them Chain Guns of Doom, but whatever). The ratings for his numerical tech specs really don't match up with the text description; his Intelligence, Fireblast, and Skill are all 6, which is only above average.
So, the problem with the early Beast Wars characters was that the animators at Mainframe took some serious liberties with the designs for the characters. Some of this was to make them easier to animate but some of it appears to have been an aesthetic choice. His original toy from 1997 (which was included in the 1996 pilot episode despite his toy not being available in stores yet) had something of a samurai motif, with Gundam-style armor panels and carrying a sword. Early sketches of Rhinox were closer to this look, but the final design for Rhinox eliminated it almost entirely. Due to the way his mutant head (a mainstay on the early Deluxes) flipped open, his robot mode ended up with absurd-looking elephant ears. The original Rhinox was, when you get right down to it, a fairly ugly toy.
The new toy is larger (about six and a half inches tall) putting him at more of a proper scale with the other modern-era Maximals (we're going to need a Deluxe-sized Optimus Primal eventually, though... the Cybertron toy is okay, but it's the wrong colors), and a lot of effort was put into making him look more like the CGI model. His head sculpt is beautiful, and retains the twin Maximal emblems on his forehead. The only real kibble he's got is the rhinoceros head on his back, which is consistent with the way he was portrayed in the show. The legs are a little loose on my toy, but this can be easily remedied if I choose to do so. He's got about 18 working joints, including a fully-articulated head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees, and ankles. The only design element that misses the mark is that he lacks the Dinobot-style green shoulder armor that wrapped around the robot's upper arms in the CGI model.
The original Rhinox toy came with one bizarre weapon that was sort of a green box with a spinning blade and two morning stars attached to it. You pieced it together from the various parts that were tucked inside the rhinoceros body. On the series, Rhinox was originally equipped with one of these, but he started carrying two of them around the time of "Chain of Command," if I recall correctly. Amazingly, not only does the new toy come with two, but you can still fold them up and store them inside the rhino mode. They each have a push-button gimmick where the saw blades spin when you repeatedly hit the trigger.
Like a lot of early Beast Wars toys, the original Rhinox was a variation on the old "stand up the quadruped and switch heads and he's a robot" routine. The new Rhinox does that too, to an extent, but he's a much more elaborate toy. I'm struck by how many modern toys now rely on skinny support struts in their design and how much they depend upon the superior tensile strength of modern plastics. (If they had designed a G1 toy like this, his arms would have broken off inside a week.) The key elements are still there (rhino mouth opens wide to form the chest; front rhino legs are the arms; rear rhino legs are the robot legs) but with lots of new tricks. The rhinoceros hip armor actually shifts down to cover the lower robot legs; the robot chest has cheater panels intended to bulk up his upper torso, which tuck away for the transformation.
A lot of effort was made to make the rhinoceros mode authentic, particularly the head. He doesn't look a lot like the CGI model (his eyes are completely black), but he does look like a real rhino, so that's a plus. I'm not a zoologist, but he appears to be a white rhinoceros to my eyes. It looks like his ears should be articulated on ball joints, but they're not; they're rubbery plastic, actually the same piece of vinyl as his rhino horns and his top teeth. The whole thing is stuffed into the inside of his rhino head. His jaw is articulated, though it's easy to cross the line between natural-looking and comically wide. His rhino legs can move in limited ways. He's got some obvious green-colored panels on the backs of his front rhino legs, but aside from that he has very little in the way of undercarriage kibble.
So, is he worth about the $30 you can reasonably expect to pay for this toy? Depends on how much of a Beast Wars fan you are, really. He's an excellent update for the original toy, a win in the way that Waspinator was (and the way Rattrap certainly appears to be) and in the way that Cheetor and Dinobot were not. It's hard to believe that it's already been almost 20 years since Beast Wars made its debut. When we hit the 20-year mark following G1, we got Masterpiece Optimus Prime. I've said this before, but I think it would be great to see updates for some of the other Beast Wars characters. I would be happy to see the entire first-season cast, but I wonder if second-string characters like Scorponok or Terrorsaur or Airazor are memorable enough to warrant inclusion. I'd want to see Blackarachnia, certainly, and Tarantulas, and like I said before, we do need a new Optimus Primal now that the core cast of Maximals has been addressed. (I have a Deluxe-scale knockoff of the 1996 Ultra-class toy that is actually nearly perfect.)
One thing I really don't much want to see is more Beast Machines toys. Except, well, you know. Diagnostic Drone. Botanica. Other'n that, though, not so much.
Zob
The toy packaging really sells Rhinox as a power character, talking about his scientific brilliance and his robust strength and his amazing Gatling Guns of Doom (pretty sure the fans used to call them Chain Guns of Doom, but whatever). The ratings for his numerical tech specs really don't match up with the text description; his Intelligence, Fireblast, and Skill are all 6, which is only above average.
So, the problem with the early Beast Wars characters was that the animators at Mainframe took some serious liberties with the designs for the characters. Some of this was to make them easier to animate but some of it appears to have been an aesthetic choice. His original toy from 1997 (which was included in the 1996 pilot episode despite his toy not being available in stores yet) had something of a samurai motif, with Gundam-style armor panels and carrying a sword. Early sketches of Rhinox were closer to this look, but the final design for Rhinox eliminated it almost entirely. Due to the way his mutant head (a mainstay on the early Deluxes) flipped open, his robot mode ended up with absurd-looking elephant ears. The original Rhinox was, when you get right down to it, a fairly ugly toy.
The new toy is larger (about six and a half inches tall) putting him at more of a proper scale with the other modern-era Maximals (we're going to need a Deluxe-sized Optimus Primal eventually, though... the Cybertron toy is okay, but it's the wrong colors), and a lot of effort was put into making him look more like the CGI model. His head sculpt is beautiful, and retains the twin Maximal emblems on his forehead. The only real kibble he's got is the rhinoceros head on his back, which is consistent with the way he was portrayed in the show. The legs are a little loose on my toy, but this can be easily remedied if I choose to do so. He's got about 18 working joints, including a fully-articulated head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees, and ankles. The only design element that misses the mark is that he lacks the Dinobot-style green shoulder armor that wrapped around the robot's upper arms in the CGI model.
The original Rhinox toy came with one bizarre weapon that was sort of a green box with a spinning blade and two morning stars attached to it. You pieced it together from the various parts that were tucked inside the rhinoceros body. On the series, Rhinox was originally equipped with one of these, but he started carrying two of them around the time of "Chain of Command," if I recall correctly. Amazingly, not only does the new toy come with two, but you can still fold them up and store them inside the rhino mode. They each have a push-button gimmick where the saw blades spin when you repeatedly hit the trigger.
Like a lot of early Beast Wars toys, the original Rhinox was a variation on the old "stand up the quadruped and switch heads and he's a robot" routine. The new Rhinox does that too, to an extent, but he's a much more elaborate toy. I'm struck by how many modern toys now rely on skinny support struts in their design and how much they depend upon the superior tensile strength of modern plastics. (If they had designed a G1 toy like this, his arms would have broken off inside a week.) The key elements are still there (rhino mouth opens wide to form the chest; front rhino legs are the arms; rear rhino legs are the robot legs) but with lots of new tricks. The rhinoceros hip armor actually shifts down to cover the lower robot legs; the robot chest has cheater panels intended to bulk up his upper torso, which tuck away for the transformation.
A lot of effort was made to make the rhinoceros mode authentic, particularly the head. He doesn't look a lot like the CGI model (his eyes are completely black), but he does look like a real rhino, so that's a plus. I'm not a zoologist, but he appears to be a white rhinoceros to my eyes. It looks like his ears should be articulated on ball joints, but they're not; they're rubbery plastic, actually the same piece of vinyl as his rhino horns and his top teeth. The whole thing is stuffed into the inside of his rhino head. His jaw is articulated, though it's easy to cross the line between natural-looking and comically wide. His rhino legs can move in limited ways. He's got some obvious green-colored panels on the backs of his front rhino legs, but aside from that he has very little in the way of undercarriage kibble.
So, is he worth about the $30 you can reasonably expect to pay for this toy? Depends on how much of a Beast Wars fan you are, really. He's an excellent update for the original toy, a win in the way that Waspinator was (and the way Rattrap certainly appears to be) and in the way that Cheetor and Dinobot were not. It's hard to believe that it's already been almost 20 years since Beast Wars made its debut. When we hit the 20-year mark following G1, we got Masterpiece Optimus Prime. I've said this before, but I think it would be great to see updates for some of the other Beast Wars characters. I would be happy to see the entire first-season cast, but I wonder if second-string characters like Scorponok or Terrorsaur or Airazor are memorable enough to warrant inclusion. I'd want to see Blackarachnia, certainly, and Tarantulas, and like I said before, we do need a new Optimus Primal now that the core cast of Maximals has been addressed. (I have a Deluxe-scale knockoff of the 1996 Ultra-class toy that is actually nearly perfect.)
One thing I really don't much want to see is more Beast Machines toys. Except, well, you know. Diagnostic Drone. Botanica. Other'n that, though, not so much.
Zob
Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats
Apr 21, 2014, 2:07:31 AM4/21/14
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On Sunday, April 20, 2014 8:15:05 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> His original toy from 1997 (which was included in the 1996 pilot episode despite his toy not being available in stores yet) had something of a samurai motif, with Gundam-style armor panels and carrying a sword. Early sketches of Rhinox were closer to this look, but the final design for Rhinox eliminated it almost entirely. Due to the way his mutant head (a mainstay on the early Deluxes) flipped open, his robot mode ended up with absurd-looking elephant ears. The original Rhinox was, when you get right down to it, a fairly ugly toy.
I always really liked the Fox Kids Rhinox -- the new color scheme really highlighted how little the toy resembled the character model, and at that point I was able to enjoy the toy on his own.
> His original toy from 1997 (which was included in the 1996 pilot episode despite his toy not being available in stores yet) had something of a samurai motif, with Gundam-style armor panels and carrying a sword. Early sketches of Rhinox were closer to this look, but the final design for Rhinox eliminated it almost entirely. Due to the way his mutant head (a mainstay on the early Deluxes) flipped open, his robot mode ended up with absurd-looking elephant ears. The original Rhinox was, when you get right down to it, a fairly ugly toy.
> The new toy is larger (about six and a half inches tall) putting him at more of a proper scale with the other modern-era Maximals (we're going to need a Deluxe-sized Optimus Primal eventually, though... the Cybertron toy is okay, but it's the wrong colors)
> So, is he worth about the $30 you can reasonably expect to pay for this toy? Depends on how much of a Beast Wars fan you are, really. He's an excellent update for the original toy, a win in the way that Waspinator was (and the way Rattrap certainly appears to be) and in the way that Cheetor and Dinobot were not.
> One thing I really don't much want to see is more Beast Machines toys. Except, well, you know. Diagnostic Drone. Botanica. Other'n that, though, not so much.
Zobovor
Apr 21, 2014, 9:36:32 PM4/21/14
to
On Monday, April 21, 2014 12:07:31 AM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
> The was a 10th anniversary version of that mold, in the BW color scheme. You
> might have it in a box somewhere. Also, Robot Masters Optimus Primal.
Even the right-colored version of the Cybertron toy still doesn't look a lot like the character. The Robot Masters edition is pretty good-looking, though. Is it Deluxe-sized?
> The was a 10th anniversary version of that mold, in the BW color scheme. You
> might have it in a box somewhere. Also, Robot Masters Optimus Primal.
> I think the whole cast could benefit from new molds -- with the possible
> exception of Optimus Primal, as Blast Punch is pretty great.
Zob
Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats
Apr 22, 2014, 12:58:26 AM4/22/14
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Zobovor
Apr 22, 2014, 8:10:46 PM4/22/14
to
On Monday, April 21, 2014 10:58:26 PM UTC-6, Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats wrote:
> Updates to the RID Spychangers, with all the articulation that a team of ninjas
> requires?
Only if they reuse those new molds to create new versions of the G2 Go-Bots. (Oh, irony of ironies.)
> Updates to the RID Spychangers, with all the articulation that a team of ninjas
> requires?
Zob
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