Zob's Thoughts on the Beast Wars Reissue Optimus Primal (Gorilla) and Megatron (T. Rex)

[Zobovor]

I wasn't ever planning to buy these toys unless they went on deep clearance. I still have my 1996 versions, and I got them as a young adult, so they're still complete and in fine shape. I mean, a hundred bucks for two toys I already own is a lot of cash. My local Walmart has stubbornly had both of these toys for $40 on clearance for months now, and they haven't sold. Nobody wants them. When somebody on Reddit posted that Megatron was only $12.97 online, though, it was definitely worth the purchase price. Primal was $22, which wasn't quite as much of a steal, but with shipping I ended up spending like $40 for both of them together, which is how much they retailed for twenty-six years ago. So I'm fine with that.

The packaging is largely the same, with the main difference being the removal of the cross-sells (Polar Claw and Scorponok were on the back of the box instead of Cheetor and Rattrap; a number of other 1996 toys like Insecticon, Snapper, etc. were on a bottom box panel).

Mostly, I'm struck by how much pointless, empty air space is in the box. Primal easily has enough room on either side of him to stuff a couple of Deluxe toys to the left and right of him. Incredibly wasteful packaging. The 1996 packaging had two additional cardboard panels that flanked Primal and made it feel more like the box was actually intended for him. For the reissue, it seems like the packaging is just way too big.

But, I do want to take a moment to appreciate how times have changed significantly. Back when Beast Wars made its debut, you could get a small spring-loaded toy for five bucks, a mid-sized toy for ten bucks that would always include at least one spring-powered or water-squirting gimmick (sometimes two or three in one toy), and a large toy for only twenty dollars that boasted multiple functions. The toys did a *lot* back in these days, and you got a lot of bang for your buck. And, with only two Ultra Beasts per year, the toy line was relatively inexpensive to collect (Star Wars action figures were about five or six dollars each).

OPTIMUS PRIMAL

This was the second Optimus Primal toy released. Even though he appeared in this form on the show, the first toy we got was a much smaller, light blue version that transformed into a bat. The story editors were allowed to pick and choose which toys they wanted to feature, and even got to pick toys that weren't available yet when the pilot episode aired, so they wisely settled on the larger, more complex versions of the leader characters to advertise.

In the package, he's strapped down with multiple black rattan ties, plus a couple of rubber bands around his body and left arm to keep the spring-loaded parts from popping open.

In gorilla mode, it's possible to stand up the toy straight up on his legs, but that's not really how the toy is designed. He's likely intended to be stood hunched over, with his knuckles supporting him. This allows you to hide the greatest number of non-gorilla robot parts (the white patches on his legs) and it's the only pose in which his gorilla head is facing forward (stand him upright, and he's perpetually peering up into the sky). I've alway thought the toy could have benefited from black paint to cover the white patches on the insides of his arms, which were sculpted with fur. Even though he would stand at nearly nine inches if he were fully upright, his nominal height is closer to six inches on all fours.

The toy was designed with a chest-beating gimmick, operated with a lever on his back. The lever was meant to fold flat when not in use, but could be flipped out when operating the gimmick. On the reissue, it doesn't seem to fold flat any longer, so it's always sort of perpetually poking out even after you fold it down. I read that the toy's gimmick was redesigned for the Transformers Universe release, so this is likely the result of that update. But, the core gimmick remains unchanged—manipulate the lever up and down, and his arms swing back and forth, banging his fists against his chest, as one does.

His transformation is relatively simple for such a large toy. His legs straighten for use in robot mode, and the waist rotates to reverse the orientation of the toes. The gorilla arms serve double duty as the robot arms, with the sides of the gorilla biceps opening to form shoulder pads for robot mode. The gorilla head assembly shifts down to cover the chest, with the face rotating to hide (and reveal a design that's shaped vaguely like the Maximal symbol, but isn't one).

He's got an intermediate mutant mask that's monstrous and gruesome, using the prongs from the robot helmet as fangs. To complete the transformation fully to robot mode, you rotate the head around, and swing the fangs up to form helmet antennae. This toy was initially conceived as an update for the original Optimus Prime, not a separate character, so he wears the classic Optimus Prime mask, and lacks the visible mouth as the character wore in the CGI series (he would occasionally sport this look when he donned a battle mask, in episodes like "Victory").

The reissue toy comes with the same accessories as before, but they're cast in a lighter sky blue color instead of the deep blue as on the 1996 version. I'm not sure if this was a deliberate choice, or the result of some incorrect color matching. I don't think any of the Beast Wars reissues so far have been one hundred percent authentic to the old toys, though. The lighter color creates better contrast, so aesthetically it looks better, but it's not as accurate.

So he's got a pair of missile launchers in his left arm, and unlatching the clip causes his forearm to spring open and simultaneously allow the launcher to spring into position. Two missiles, which can store behind his head when not in use, can be loaded into the launcher and will travel about four or five feet.

He also has two more missile launchers, one behind each shoulder, that are completely hidden and only reveal themselves when you press the trigger on his lower back. They will deploy in tandem, with the shell pieces used to conceal them hanging awkwardly over the sides of his chest. These launchers use the same missile style and will travel about the same distance. (You can deploy these launchers in gorilla mode, too, but they look absolutely ridiculous.)

Deploying the launchers also provides access to his twin spinal swords, which store in the cavity where the launchers rest, and are named so because they follow the curvature of his spine. The same chest-pounding gimmick is used to swing the swords in this form, but with a modification. Switches on each of his robot arms will disengage the upper arm movement and engage a gear to make the elbows swivel instead, so now when you manipulate the lever, he rotates his elbow joints. If you bend his elbows, you get a toy that can swing his swords furiously at his opponents. It's a super clever gimmick that must have taken a lot of engineering and ingenuity. I'm glad they didn't gut the gimmick to sell the toy at a cheaper price, because it's probably the coolest thing about this version of Primal.

He's got one more weapon, a mace with handle that are connected by a piece of string. The weapon can store inside the cavity in his right forearm when not in use (and you can see the spikes poking out a little bit through holes in his arm). When you equip it, the spring allows the weapon to dangle loosely, so it looks great when he swings the weapon using his gear-driven gimmick. This weapon is, of course, the basis of the look of the head on the Kingdom Fossilizer toy Paleotrex, intended as a direct tribute.

The colors have changed for robot mode, as the robot head was originaly a medium blue color, to match the accessories, but this version is painted a very dark metallic glittery blue. His mask also seems lighter, though it could just be the result of the higher contrast against the dark blue helmet. One other change is that the gears make a loud grinding sound when I try to pose his arms. The toy was originally designed so that you could still use it as an action figure, but on the reissue it sounds like I'm going to break something if I try to pose him.

But, overall, this was one of the best Beast Wars toys ever released, and in some ways it pleases me that he's become relevant again after a quarter-century. In some ways, the Kingdom toy is better because it's more media-accurate and is scaled correctly to the show (Megatron was a lot bigger than Primal in the TV series), but this is where it all began.

MEGATRON

This was arguably the second toy for Megatron. The first version was the Basic-class alligator form, which was available during the launch of the toy line in early 1996, while the more familiar T. rex form didn't hit the market until around August of that year. (It might have even been his *third* toy, since the McDonald's Happy Meal toy marketed as "Beetle" clearly had a Megatron head sculpt, complete with the same fangs as the alligator toy.)

As a Tyrannosaurus rex, Megatron is about 11.5" long from head to tail, and stands at around 7" tall. The first Jurassic Park film came out in 1993 and was one of the first pieces of media to suggest that T. rex stood with his head and tail in balance, instead of dragging his tail on the ground like G1 Grimlock and Trypticon. So,this was one of the first dinosaur Transformers to exhibit that new way of thinking. Like Primal, you could position Megatron with the tail on the ground, but you had to partially untransform his legs to do so, and then his head was perpetually peering up into the air.

He's lavender from head to toe, with a green color airbrushed on his back and a tan color spray painted on the length of his belly. People infamously called him Barneytron back in the day, a reference to another well-known purple dinosaur. It's a little weird, admittedly, but scientists were always quick to point out that we had no idea what color the dinosaurs actually were, so you can't exactly point to a live specimen and claim that they got Megatron wrong. He's got a bit more articulation than Primal in beast mode—he can rotate his head at the neck, his forelimbs are on ball-and-socket joints, and he can move his legs at the knees (they move at the hips, too, but doing so throws dinosaur parts out of alignment).

The toy's main gimmick in dinosaur mode is a water-squirting component. Remove the tongue and throat assembly, fill it up with water in the kitchen sink, and in theory it's supposed to spray a fine water mist every time you open the dinosaur mouth (which springs shut afterwards). There must have been an assembly error with my toy, because I couldn't get the water-squirting gimmick to actually function. They called it out in the instructions, so I know they didn't gut the gimmick. It just doesn't work. Water guns are some of the cheapest and simplest toys to make (you can get one at Walmart for like fifty cents), but for some reason they botched it this time. It worked just fine on my 1996 release and the original T-Wrecks redeco, so I'm not sure what went wrong.

Transforming the toy is a bit more complex than Primal. The upper body halves open up on either side, revealing the robot upper torso, which is sideways with respect to the dinosaur mode. The T. rex legs double as the robot legs, and a heel strut flips out to prove more stability (they locked in place on the vintage toy, but a mold change or something must have removed the locking ability, because now the heel struts swing back way too far). The tail explodes into multiple panels to create the left arm, while the T. rex head becomes the right arm.

As a robot, he's about 7.5" in height, with lots of the lavender still visible, but also complemented now with a black robot chest and upper legs and mask, and a dark purple pelvis, hip launchers, and upper arms. His mutant head opens to either side to reveal his true robot head. The pieces are connected to the sides of his robot helmet, like the vintage Rhinox toy, so there's no way for him to look like he does in the TV series unless you pop them off entirely.

The robot head was originally painted silver, meant as a tribute to the look of G1 Megatron, since this toy was conceived as an update for the character. The CG artists at Mainframe probably had an unpainted sample when they were designing his cartoon look, since he had a black head in the show. The reissue has a glossy painted black head, making him less authentic as a reissue, but more accurate to the media. (He appears with the silver helmet in box art and packaging photos, so the black helmet was a surprise to me!)

He has two hip-mounted missile launchers which fire projectiles with C-shaped missile heads. They will fire about three or four feet. The missiles come separate in the package, but you can keep them loaded whether he's in robot or dinosaur modes. (This was one of the hands-down best things about Beast Wars as a whole—the design philosophy that every single accessory could be stored somewhere on the toy.)

He can use the water-squirting gimmick in robot mode, too—or, rather, he could if it worked. His other gimmick is the spring-driven gimmick in the tail claw. The way it's supposed to work is that you press down on a lever in the elbow, and the entire tail assembly is supposed to jump forward and the claw at the end will snap shut. But, I can't get mine to work at all. When I depress the lever, nothing moves and I just hear gear teeth grinding against each other.

Also, the toy would originally have its arm at rest if you closed the claw and retracted the tail assembly, covering the forearm (which, unlike the show, and the Kingdom toy, has no left hand to speak of at all). Closing the claw was supposed to prevent the tail from springing outwards on its own. On the new toy, the spring is so powerful that it forces the tail assembly to jut forwards every time. I don't know what Hasbro got wrong, exactly, but the gimmick doesn't work as intended any longer. I'm starting to understand why this reissue went on deep clearance. (You can kind of wrap the hinged tail shell pieces around the robot arm to help keep it in place, but it's an awkward solution, and one that should not be necessary.)

Well, Megatron still makes a very nice display piece, or as a curiosity if you never owned the vintage toy and are wondering how it stacks up to the Kingdom version. But it's not very fun, because none of the things that it was designed to do actually function. I would have been incredibly disappointed if I'd spent the original asking price on this toy ($50!) so now I'm honestly glad I waited.

Cheetor and Rattrap reissues came out at around the same time as Primal and Megatron, and we got reissues of Cybershark and Tigatron and Scorponok shortly after that. I think Wolfang is available on Hasbro Pulse but I haven't seen him in stores yet. As of this writing, they're talking about reissues for toys like Terrorsaur and Tarantulas, as well as K-9, which makes me think they're just going after which molds are still viable and available, and not necessarily which characters they think will sell. We'll probably never get the entire 1996-1999 range again, but it's nice that they're bringing these toys back so fans can enjoy them again, or for the first time.


Zob (it's remarkable how different Megatron looks with the black helmet!)