Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Ultra Magnus

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Leader Wave 2

Ultra Magnus (retool of Siege Ultra Magnus)

Permalink: https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/LMagnusK

This is the third use of the basic mold, and normally I wouldn't be
buying that many of a Leader mold. However, I got the Netflix Ultra Magnus
for $25 on clearance, so I barely count that. :)

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/LMagnusS - Siege mold

This was shipped with more of Beast Megatron, and then shipped again in
wave 3 with Galvatron. The choice of trading cards is likely different
between the two, but I wouldn't be surprised if some Wave 3 Ultra Magnus
boxes come with Wave 2 cards.


CAPSULE

$50 price point.

Ultra Magnus: Original mold was Recommended. While this is missing two
of the weapons, it's a big aesthetic improvement, both in terms of mold and
in terms of the lack of Siege Splatter. Recommended.


RANT

Packaging: Same as previous Kingdom Leaders. It's notable for being a
"traditional" Cybertronian without the Siege-style sigil on the packaging, as
that spot on the box back is taken up by an inset showing the inner robot and
separate cab altmode. While there's room for it on the front page of the
instruction sheet, they don't bother to put it there either.

Note, in the Netflix continuity Ultra Magnus was killed off, but I
wouldn't be surprised to see him pop up again in Kingdom since they have the
model already.


AUTOBOT: ULTRA MAGNUS
Assortment: WFC-K20
Altmode: Car Carrier
Transformation Difficulty: Inner Robot to Cab is 12 steps, Inner Robot
to Full Robot is 21 steps, Cab to Full Truck is 16 steps. This is
slightly different than the Siege version.
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: Gen:Siege, Netflix:Siege

Packaging: Ten ties hold the robot to the inner cardboard tray, two on
the rifle, two each on the shoulder missiles. All three weapons are on the
left side wall of the tray.
I got yet another Dinobot "becomes a Maximal" fate card.

Color Swaps: There's some variation due to extensive remolding, but in
general the off-white is replaced by bright white, the red and blue are about
the same, the silvery gray is maybe a little lighter or maybe that's just
batch variation, the clear blue is darker, black is more of a dark gray.

Paint Apps: No silver splatter, yay!
On the inner robot, there's gunmetal on the grill, chest window borders,
wheel hubs, and forehead tablet. Medium blue (definitely darker than on
Siege version) on the faceplate and belt details. Red Autobot symbol on the
front of the left shoulder (no silver border), a bit bigger than on the Siege
version. The armor up mode's belt is painted mostly white.
In cab mode, the gunmetal continues on the lower part of the grille, and
the headlights are bordered in gunmetal with white on the lenses (they didn't
just leave the plastic white, it's white paint with almost no UV glow).
Another just red Autobot symbol in the front license plate indent.
The armored up face and antennas are painted gunmetal, and the fold-out
abdomen piece is painted all dark red except for the tabs.
The shoulder towers are painted white except for the 5mm pegs on the
tops. While there's a nice clear spot for an Autobot symbol on the right
shoulder front, it's left blank. The warheads of the shoulder missiles are
painted dark red. No paint at all on the forearm armor pieces.
The red paint on the boot fronts is the same, but without the silver
border. The kneecaps are solid gunmetal with no red. No other paint on
the boot pieces, either mode.
The rifle is painted gunmetal instead of silver, but same pattern as in
Siege.

Mold Changes: Quite a lot, actually, all devoted to making it look more
G1 (or Earthrise).
On the inner robot, the arms and legs are unchanged except for the
wheels being replaced by fatter Earth-style tires. The head is also
unchanged. The torso front is now a G1-style cab front with slots flanking
the top of the grille for the armor up tabard to peg onto. There's 3mm studs
just above the bottom corners, facing forwards. While the front half of the
pelvis is the same, the back end is new, having wheel well backs for the
front tires. The armor up belt side is also remolded to be mode G1 for big
bot mode. The backpack chunk has the same inner plate (which stays blue),
but the front end of the vehicle bumper is totally new, matching up with the
new chest. The wheels are remolded to be Earth-style tires.
The red plastic parts of the "tabard" piece are unchanged. The head is
entirely new, made of blue plastic with clear blue lightpiping on the
rectangular G1-style eyes. The main chestplate is slightly simplified and
G1-styled, made of blue plastic with clear blue windows. The fold out piece
that fills the gaps (and serves a purpose in truck mode) is remolded as well,
and is done in black plastic covered in red paint rather than white plastic.
It has two rectangular tabs that go into the slots on the chest (the original
had those tabs on the blue part and more widely spaced slots on the chest).
The shoulderpads are slightly shorter, and made of blue plastic rather
than white. They have a simpler G1-style detailing, although they're not
mirror images of each other, the left shoulderpad has a few details on the
front that are missing on the left. There's 3mm studs in the upper outer
corners of the shoulderpads, but no studs on the towers themselves. The
shoulder missiles are similarly simplified, but retain 3mm studs on front and
connect in the same way as the Siege versions. The forearm armor pieces are
very slightly retooled, some of which might just be mold aging, but the
rounded piece on the top face is slightly less-detailed now.
The boot cores and feet are the same, but every panel of the fold-out
parts is retooled and the rear wheels are not just Earth-style but also much
fatter.
The rifle is unchanged.

Other Notes: They left out the leg rifles entirely in this version.
This seems to be pure cost-savings, as this version adds no complexity that
was missing in the original. I checked, this new one is six grams heavier
with all accessories, which seems unlikely to have been a dealbreaker on
including the guns purely on a "mass of plastic" basis.
It's easier to slide the front bumper piece up and down and the torso in
and out for transformation, but that might just be batch variation.
The gray bits on the backs of the shoulderpads are supposed to fit over
tabs on the backs of the inner robot shoulders, but they never stayed on in
my Siege toy. They fit fine here.
The functionality (or lack thereof) of the trailer in vehicle mode is
unchanged, the differences are purely cosmetic.

Overall: The differences are entirely cosmetic save for the removal of
two guns, but the cosmetic differences are improvements. Even leaving aside
the benefits of not having Siege Splatter, this just looks more Ultra
Magnus-y to me. Yes, it's the third go at this mold, but it's a good one.


Dave Van Domelen, will do Core wave 3 next, and will try to remember to
update this review after Kingdom drops on Netflix.