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Zob's Thoughts on TakaraTomy MP-52 Masterpiece Starscream 2.0
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Zobovor
Oct 12, 2021, 11:17:03 PM10/12/21
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Due to how expensive they are, I'm pretty selective about the Masterpiece toys I buy. I don't get Japanese characters that I have no attachment to (like Star Saber) and I don't buy characters who weren't in the media (so no Diaclone-era characters like Spin-Out or Reboost). I also haven't bothered with the Beast Wars characters, because I just haven't felt strongly compelled to own great big expensive toys of Cheetor or Tigatron.
However, when Starscream 2.0 was announced, he was absolutely a thing of beauty. Despite owning two previous Masterpiece Starscream toys (I suppose they're versions 1.1 and 1.2, since I don't have the green Takara release), I knew as soon as this thing premiered that I absolutely had to have the new version. (I can't believe how much I paid for him, though. I must be insane.)
This toy was originally supposed to ship in June, but the ongoing pandemic seems to have caused long-lasting distribution issues throughout the entire world. Technically a TakaraTomy product, I ordered mine from Hasbro Pulse.
VEHICLE MODE
Jet mode is monstrously large. I honestly wasn't prepared for how big he was. (That's what she said.) Unlike some Masterpiece toys who come in huge packaging that's mostly empty space (I'm looking at you, Soundwave), Starscream really does take up the entire box. His wingspan is 8.5 inches, and he's twelves inches in length from nose to tail fin. I haven't transformed the original Masterpiece Starscream in a while, but I just don't remember him being this large.
The color scheme is approximately what most people will remember from the Sunbow cartoon. The deco is so authentic that it even includes aspect of the character design like the dark-colored squares on the top of the fuselage (which were originally just the black plastic connectors that the wings plugged into on the G1 toy). He's got cartoon Decepticon symbols with that extra point in the center of the "crown." However, his shade of grey seems a touch too dark. As a frame of reference, in the past some fans have claimed he was white in the show, and at least one point Takara thought he was, too (SCF figure from 2002). But, we also know that the simple act of photographing animation cels tends to make them look lighter. I have every confidence they did some color-matching, probably using an original animation cel they've got in the Takara offices somewhere.
One thing we really haven't gotten since the G1 days are accurate weapons for his vehicle mode. The original 1984 toy had long missiles for the robot mode, but you removed those and inserted the short cluster bombs for jet mode. This version of the toy actually has transforming weapons that can assume both configurations! The gun barrels swivel and disappear into a trap door that opens on each launcher. Rather than having large peg-mounting holes on the wings, there's an armature to which each null ray connects. It's not absolutely necessary (the blasters still mount to the undersides of the wings using a small rectangular peg) so you can tuck the armatures away if you don't like the look. (The armatures are really there so you can transform the toy without removing the guns. Takara is really enamored with that idea for some reason.)
The jet mode has fold-up landing gears that tuck away into the center of the nosecone and each of the robot feet. The three wheels roll freely, though I had a very hard time getting one of the rear landing gears out of his foot, and I was absolutely convinced I was going to break my new toy. The cockpit swings open, revealing a purple pilot's seat. (No Dr. Arkeville figure this time.) The wing flaps are articulated, and the thrusters are as well. The nosecone swings open to the right, to reveal the radar compartment. This was never in any G1 episode, but it's authentic to a real F-15, so why not. (There's lots of authenticity here that you don't often see. For example, the fin antenna on the left rudder is a different thickness and shape than the right one. The thicker one is the radar warning antenna.)
Starscream comes with this positively massive display stand. I tend not to use the stands that came with the previous Masterpiece jets because they take up a lot of real estate on my display shelf. This is even bigger than those. The base of the stand is two pieces that connect together with dovetail-like teeth. It seems designed so that when you get Thundercracker and Skywarp, you can connect all three stands together so you can display all three jets in formation. The toy also comes with five purple blast effects, in rigid semi-translucent purple, which seem to be designed to mount to the rear thrusters and for Megatron's gun mode (which can plug into the bottom of the jet mode). Nothing attaches to the null rays in jet mode.
If the jet mode has any flaws, it might be the way they tried to hide his secondary cockpit. Starscream's cockpit changes size when he transforms, so this toy has one for the jet mode and another one for robot mode. The robot cockpit is hidden by a folding undercarriage panel, but it doesn't lock in place and doesn't really conform to the shape of the rest of the toy. If it wasn't there, though, there would be a really obvious fake cockpit that would deter from the look of the undercarriage. Also, the air intakes don't lock in place. They do some kind of weird foldy thing when he transforms, but it's easy to brush your hand up against them and knock them out of place.
TRANSFORMATION
The toy actually came with thin sheets of plastic wedged between parts like his legs, robot feet, and robot arms. I think this was to prevent parts from scraping together during shipping. Such care and concern for their loyal consumers!
There are instructions for a mid-transformation gerwalk mode, which basically consists of unfolding the robot legs. Here we get the first taste of the beautiful cartoon aesthetic, as well as a hint as to what kind of black magic Takara conjured for the wing transformation. There were so many innovations with this toy I've never seen before. You actually fold up the grey tail fins into the robot legs! They disappear completely. The knee pads are collapsed for jet mode, and slide up for robot mode. The real jet nose section collapses and folds up into the fake cockpit. There are opening panels in the main wings, and the blue stabilizer fins hide inside them. Seriously. The wings end up with a little more thickness as a result, and the wings aren't really articulated in robot mode, but that's okay. He's also got the same spring-loaded ears as the last Masterpiece Starscream, because why mess with what works?
The wings were really hard for me to figure out, even with instructions, even with Google Translate on my phone. But everything else was pretty intuitive, and while he does end up with a little bit of a backpack, it's not as bad as it was with Hot Rod or Arcee, and the wings help to hide it to a degree.
ROBOT MODE
In robot mode, Starscream is eight inches tall at the head, with his shoulder-mounted air intakes adding another inch. The resemblance to his Sunbow animation model is absolutely uncanny. There's a very specific aesthetic, with tapered shapes and clean surfaces devoid of detail, that I find incredibly pleasing. Most of the time, even for a toy line like Siege or Earthrise or Kingdom where there's a strong cartoon influence, the designers end up taking all that bare real estate and covering the toys with details and greeblies. When it's bad, you get Siege Ultra Magnus. Even when it's good, you still get Kingdom Rodimus Prime. Starscream is an earnest, faithful representation of the cartoon model in three-dimensional space. Its proportions are perfect in ways that even Takara's SCF or MegaSCF figures didn't quite reach. His faux chest cockpit is translucent plastic, and the non-glass parts are painted to match the rest of him. (I still had a tiny piece of masking tape on my toy, a hint at how they accompish the paint job.)
Articulation is really good. The knees and hips are on fairly strong spring-loaded ratchets, and the robot ankles have limited articulation (they need to lock in place to help support his weight, so they don't move a whole lot). He's got a functional ab crunch, which I think might possibly be a first on a transformable toy. Each of his fingers, including his thumb, has two separate joints, and everything's held on with metal pins, so you won't have to go chasing fingertips when they pop off and disappear into your carpet (looking at you, Masterpiece Soundwave).
As is typical for a lot of modern Masterpiece toys, Starscream comes with a few scene-specific accessories based on moments from the G1 cartoon. His hand can be replaced with a drill, like the one he used in "The Core" to try to dissuade Megatron from drilling into the center of the Earth. (Takara got cheeky and shows him in a seated position in the instructions, because he was sitting in a chair during this specific cartoon moment.) He's also got a claw extension based on the one he used in "Cosmic Rust" to remove the asteroid chunk embedded in Megatron's chest, along with the asteroid chunk itself. He's also got a representation of Megatron in gun mode, and it's a different one than we've gotten with previous toys. The silencer and stock are not removable, and the grip does extend slightly to allow Starscream to hold it.
Starscream also has five extra faces for his robot mode for a grand total of six. Takara describes them as the surprise face, the smile face, the laughing face, the scream face, and a plotting face. The last of these, with his little sideways smirk, has come to embody the character so nicely that I imagine most fans will use this one. (I don't recall off the top of my head if Thundercracker and Skywarp are supposed to have different faces than these or not.) The faces are easy to pop off and switch, and it's not fidgety like it is on other toys like Inferno or Grapple. The blast effects will work with the guns in robot mode, but he doesn't have two identical ones that he can use for both null rays. You can mount him to the display stand in robot mode, too. He's got opening hatches in his chest to reveal a battery of boob missiles, as seen in "Fire on the Mountain."
Starscream appears in a lot of episodes, and given that this is an extremely expensive toy, I feel like there are lots of other accessories they could have included to help justify the price. He could have had a "glowing" power chip rectifier ("Heavy Metal War"), a control helmet for his Starscream clone ("A Prime Problem"), personality components for the Combaticons ("Starscream's Brigade"), a pair of boots and a marker to represent his tomb in the Decepticon Crypt ("Starscream's Ghost"), a Metroplex and/or Trypticon eyeball ("Ghost in the Machine")... the list goes on. A larger collection of extra parts would have helped me feel better about dropping so much money on this toy.
Hasbro Pulse had Starscream for $279.99 (and it's been a long wait... the presale ended in October 2020, so it's been nearly an entire year). Three hundred bucks is a lot of dosh to spend on a Leader-class sized Transformer. But, it's also the most amazing Starscream toy I've ever owned. The original Masterpiece toy was so disappointing in so many different ways, which is a shame since Starscream is such an important and iconic character. You have to pay a hell of a lot to get the toy that fixes those problems. But, at least the option exists. There's not much of a predecent for toys at this price point. (Beast Wars Masterpiece Megatron and Dinobot are the only ones I can think of.) Is this toy better than getting (checks notes) fourteen Studio Series Sharkticons? That's up to you to decide.
As an aside, I'm not sure if they'll be able to turn this toy design into Ramjet and Thrust and Dirge. Obviously, those characters wouldn't require the elaborate folding wing design, but Takara would have to find a way to give them the oversized upper leg armor, and figure out how to turn the nosecone into the robot head (or tuck a fake nosecone into the toy somewhere). I begrudgingly ordered all three 1984 characters because they really need to match, but I don't know if I'll ever be replacing my Coneheads. Not unless they drop the price drastically!
Zob (also found the NECA Atilla the Frog and Napoleon Bonafrog at Target today, so yay me)
However, when Starscream 2.0 was announced, he was absolutely a thing of beauty. Despite owning two previous Masterpiece Starscream toys (I suppose they're versions 1.1 and 1.2, since I don't have the green Takara release), I knew as soon as this thing premiered that I absolutely had to have the new version. (I can't believe how much I paid for him, though. I must be insane.)
This toy was originally supposed to ship in June, but the ongoing pandemic seems to have caused long-lasting distribution issues throughout the entire world. Technically a TakaraTomy product, I ordered mine from Hasbro Pulse.
VEHICLE MODE
Jet mode is monstrously large. I honestly wasn't prepared for how big he was. (That's what she said.) Unlike some Masterpiece toys who come in huge packaging that's mostly empty space (I'm looking at you, Soundwave), Starscream really does take up the entire box. His wingspan is 8.5 inches, and he's twelves inches in length from nose to tail fin. I haven't transformed the original Masterpiece Starscream in a while, but I just don't remember him being this large.
The color scheme is approximately what most people will remember from the Sunbow cartoon. The deco is so authentic that it even includes aspect of the character design like the dark-colored squares on the top of the fuselage (which were originally just the black plastic connectors that the wings plugged into on the G1 toy). He's got cartoon Decepticon symbols with that extra point in the center of the "crown." However, his shade of grey seems a touch too dark. As a frame of reference, in the past some fans have claimed he was white in the show, and at least one point Takara thought he was, too (SCF figure from 2002). But, we also know that the simple act of photographing animation cels tends to make them look lighter. I have every confidence they did some color-matching, probably using an original animation cel they've got in the Takara offices somewhere.
One thing we really haven't gotten since the G1 days are accurate weapons for his vehicle mode. The original 1984 toy had long missiles for the robot mode, but you removed those and inserted the short cluster bombs for jet mode. This version of the toy actually has transforming weapons that can assume both configurations! The gun barrels swivel and disappear into a trap door that opens on each launcher. Rather than having large peg-mounting holes on the wings, there's an armature to which each null ray connects. It's not absolutely necessary (the blasters still mount to the undersides of the wings using a small rectangular peg) so you can tuck the armatures away if you don't like the look. (The armatures are really there so you can transform the toy without removing the guns. Takara is really enamored with that idea for some reason.)
The jet mode has fold-up landing gears that tuck away into the center of the nosecone and each of the robot feet. The three wheels roll freely, though I had a very hard time getting one of the rear landing gears out of his foot, and I was absolutely convinced I was going to break my new toy. The cockpit swings open, revealing a purple pilot's seat. (No Dr. Arkeville figure this time.) The wing flaps are articulated, and the thrusters are as well. The nosecone swings open to the right, to reveal the radar compartment. This was never in any G1 episode, but it's authentic to a real F-15, so why not. (There's lots of authenticity here that you don't often see. For example, the fin antenna on the left rudder is a different thickness and shape than the right one. The thicker one is the radar warning antenna.)
Starscream comes with this positively massive display stand. I tend not to use the stands that came with the previous Masterpiece jets because they take up a lot of real estate on my display shelf. This is even bigger than those. The base of the stand is two pieces that connect together with dovetail-like teeth. It seems designed so that when you get Thundercracker and Skywarp, you can connect all three stands together so you can display all three jets in formation. The toy also comes with five purple blast effects, in rigid semi-translucent purple, which seem to be designed to mount to the rear thrusters and for Megatron's gun mode (which can plug into the bottom of the jet mode). Nothing attaches to the null rays in jet mode.
If the jet mode has any flaws, it might be the way they tried to hide his secondary cockpit. Starscream's cockpit changes size when he transforms, so this toy has one for the jet mode and another one for robot mode. The robot cockpit is hidden by a folding undercarriage panel, but it doesn't lock in place and doesn't really conform to the shape of the rest of the toy. If it wasn't there, though, there would be a really obvious fake cockpit that would deter from the look of the undercarriage. Also, the air intakes don't lock in place. They do some kind of weird foldy thing when he transforms, but it's easy to brush your hand up against them and knock them out of place.
TRANSFORMATION
The toy actually came with thin sheets of plastic wedged between parts like his legs, robot feet, and robot arms. I think this was to prevent parts from scraping together during shipping. Such care and concern for their loyal consumers!
There are instructions for a mid-transformation gerwalk mode, which basically consists of unfolding the robot legs. Here we get the first taste of the beautiful cartoon aesthetic, as well as a hint as to what kind of black magic Takara conjured for the wing transformation. There were so many innovations with this toy I've never seen before. You actually fold up the grey tail fins into the robot legs! They disappear completely. The knee pads are collapsed for jet mode, and slide up for robot mode. The real jet nose section collapses and folds up into the fake cockpit. There are opening panels in the main wings, and the blue stabilizer fins hide inside them. Seriously. The wings end up with a little more thickness as a result, and the wings aren't really articulated in robot mode, but that's okay. He's also got the same spring-loaded ears as the last Masterpiece Starscream, because why mess with what works?
The wings were really hard for me to figure out, even with instructions, even with Google Translate on my phone. But everything else was pretty intuitive, and while he does end up with a little bit of a backpack, it's not as bad as it was with Hot Rod or Arcee, and the wings help to hide it to a degree.
ROBOT MODE
In robot mode, Starscream is eight inches tall at the head, with his shoulder-mounted air intakes adding another inch. The resemblance to his Sunbow animation model is absolutely uncanny. There's a very specific aesthetic, with tapered shapes and clean surfaces devoid of detail, that I find incredibly pleasing. Most of the time, even for a toy line like Siege or Earthrise or Kingdom where there's a strong cartoon influence, the designers end up taking all that bare real estate and covering the toys with details and greeblies. When it's bad, you get Siege Ultra Magnus. Even when it's good, you still get Kingdom Rodimus Prime. Starscream is an earnest, faithful representation of the cartoon model in three-dimensional space. Its proportions are perfect in ways that even Takara's SCF or MegaSCF figures didn't quite reach. His faux chest cockpit is translucent plastic, and the non-glass parts are painted to match the rest of him. (I still had a tiny piece of masking tape on my toy, a hint at how they accompish the paint job.)
Articulation is really good. The knees and hips are on fairly strong spring-loaded ratchets, and the robot ankles have limited articulation (they need to lock in place to help support his weight, so they don't move a whole lot). He's got a functional ab crunch, which I think might possibly be a first on a transformable toy. Each of his fingers, including his thumb, has two separate joints, and everything's held on with metal pins, so you won't have to go chasing fingertips when they pop off and disappear into your carpet (looking at you, Masterpiece Soundwave).
As is typical for a lot of modern Masterpiece toys, Starscream comes with a few scene-specific accessories based on moments from the G1 cartoon. His hand can be replaced with a drill, like the one he used in "The Core" to try to dissuade Megatron from drilling into the center of the Earth. (Takara got cheeky and shows him in a seated position in the instructions, because he was sitting in a chair during this specific cartoon moment.) He's also got a claw extension based on the one he used in "Cosmic Rust" to remove the asteroid chunk embedded in Megatron's chest, along with the asteroid chunk itself. He's also got a representation of Megatron in gun mode, and it's a different one than we've gotten with previous toys. The silencer and stock are not removable, and the grip does extend slightly to allow Starscream to hold it.
Starscream also has five extra faces for his robot mode for a grand total of six. Takara describes them as the surprise face, the smile face, the laughing face, the scream face, and a plotting face. The last of these, with his little sideways smirk, has come to embody the character so nicely that I imagine most fans will use this one. (I don't recall off the top of my head if Thundercracker and Skywarp are supposed to have different faces than these or not.) The faces are easy to pop off and switch, and it's not fidgety like it is on other toys like Inferno or Grapple. The blast effects will work with the guns in robot mode, but he doesn't have two identical ones that he can use for both null rays. You can mount him to the display stand in robot mode, too. He's got opening hatches in his chest to reveal a battery of boob missiles, as seen in "Fire on the Mountain."
Starscream appears in a lot of episodes, and given that this is an extremely expensive toy, I feel like there are lots of other accessories they could have included to help justify the price. He could have had a "glowing" power chip rectifier ("Heavy Metal War"), a control helmet for his Starscream clone ("A Prime Problem"), personality components for the Combaticons ("Starscream's Brigade"), a pair of boots and a marker to represent his tomb in the Decepticon Crypt ("Starscream's Ghost"), a Metroplex and/or Trypticon eyeball ("Ghost in the Machine")... the list goes on. A larger collection of extra parts would have helped me feel better about dropping so much money on this toy.
Hasbro Pulse had Starscream for $279.99 (and it's been a long wait... the presale ended in October 2020, so it's been nearly an entire year). Three hundred bucks is a lot of dosh to spend on a Leader-class sized Transformer. But, it's also the most amazing Starscream toy I've ever owned. The original Masterpiece toy was so disappointing in so many different ways, which is a shame since Starscream is such an important and iconic character. You have to pay a hell of a lot to get the toy that fixes those problems. But, at least the option exists. There's not much of a predecent for toys at this price point. (Beast Wars Masterpiece Megatron and Dinobot are the only ones I can think of.) Is this toy better than getting (checks notes) fourteen Studio Series Sharkticons? That's up to you to decide.
As an aside, I'm not sure if they'll be able to turn this toy design into Ramjet and Thrust and Dirge. Obviously, those characters wouldn't require the elaborate folding wing design, but Takara would have to find a way to give them the oversized upper leg armor, and figure out how to turn the nosecone into the robot head (or tuck a fake nosecone into the toy somewhere). I begrudgingly ordered all three 1984 characters because they really need to match, but I don't know if I'll ever be replacing my Coneheads. Not unless they drop the price drastically!
Zob (also found the NECA Atilla the Frog and Napoleon Bonafrog at Target today, so yay me)
Zobovor
Oct 14, 2021, 9:57:53 AM10/14/21
to
On Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 9:17:03 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
<snip>
I should probably mention that there are widespread problems with this toy. There have been multiple reports of fragile parts breaking, particularly the ankle joints and the thrusters and the thumbs. There have been like fifty people alone reporting broken toys, a little less than half the people who were polled on TFW2005. That's outrageous.
At the same time, though, I feel like there's a few other factors at play. The Masterpiece toys are made for the Japanese market as adult collectibles. They're not going to stand up to heavy-handed play like the Hasbro toys you can get at Walmart. People who aren't being careful, or trying to puzzle out the transformation on their own, without understanding how the parts are designed to move, are going to snap something off.
Also, I think there's something about the younger generation. Everybody wants to play the victim. Everybody wants to blame everybody else for the things that happen to them. (It's the same people who cry foul when I use a masculine pronoun to describe a male character because I've triggered them and have somehow damaged them by typing the word "he.")
Finally, it's a form of humblebragging. It's not enough to say, "Hey, guys, I got my new MP-52 and he's awesome!" Now it's closer to, "So, does anybody else have breakage issues on MP-52 Starscream? Out of my three copies, each of which I paid $300 for, one has a cracked wing rudder and the other has a minor paint scuff. The third one seems fine, but now I'm reconsidering spending another $300 to get a fourth one, because I'm literally made of money."
Zob (cha-ching!)
<snip>
I should probably mention that there are widespread problems with this toy. There have been multiple reports of fragile parts breaking, particularly the ankle joints and the thrusters and the thumbs. There have been like fifty people alone reporting broken toys, a little less than half the people who were polled on TFW2005. That's outrageous.
At the same time, though, I feel like there's a few other factors at play. The Masterpiece toys are made for the Japanese market as adult collectibles. They're not going to stand up to heavy-handed play like the Hasbro toys you can get at Walmart. People who aren't being careful, or trying to puzzle out the transformation on their own, without understanding how the parts are designed to move, are going to snap something off.
Also, I think there's something about the younger generation. Everybody wants to play the victim. Everybody wants to blame everybody else for the things that happen to them. (It's the same people who cry foul when I use a masculine pronoun to describe a male character because I've triggered them and have somehow damaged them by typing the word "he.")
Finally, it's a form of humblebragging. It's not enough to say, "Hey, guys, I got my new MP-52 and he's awesome!" Now it's closer to, "So, does anybody else have breakage issues on MP-52 Starscream? Out of my three copies, each of which I paid $300 for, one has a cracked wing rudder and the other has a minor paint scuff. The third one seems fine, but now I'm reconsidering spending another $300 to get a fourth one, because I'm literally made of money."
Zob (cha-ching!)
Codigo Postal
Oct 15, 2021, 11:25:18 AM10/15/21
to
Gustavo Wombat
Oct 17, 2021, 11:28:47 PM10/17/21
to
Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 9:17:03 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> I should probably mention that there are widespread problems with this
> toy. There have been multiple reports of fragile parts breaking,
> particularly the ankle joints and the thrusters and the thumbs. There
> have been like fifty people alone reporting broken toys, a little less
> than half the people who were polled on TFW2005. That's outrageous.
>
> At the same time, though, I feel like there's a few other factors at
> play. The Masterpiece toys are made for the Japanese market as adult
> collectibles. They're not going to stand up to heavy-handed play like
> the Hasbro toys you can get at Walmart. People who aren't being careful,
> or trying to puzzle out the transformation on their own, without
> understanding how the parts are designed to move, are going to snap something off.
I’m going to go with ‘’if half the people are breaking him, he’s way too
> On Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 9:17:03 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> I should probably mention that there are widespread problems with this
> toy. There have been multiple reports of fragile parts breaking,
> particularly the ankle joints and the thrusters and the thumbs. There
> have been like fifty people alone reporting broken toys, a little less
> than half the people who were polled on TFW2005. That's outrageous.
>
> At the same time, though, I feel like there's a few other factors at
> play. The Masterpiece toys are made for the Japanese market as adult
> collectibles. They're not going to stand up to heavy-handed play like
> the Hasbro toys you can get at Walmart. People who aren't being careful,
> or trying to puzzle out the transformation on their own, without
> understanding how the parts are designed to move, are going to snap something off.
fragile”.
> Also, I think there's something about the younger generation. Everybody
> wants to play the victim. Everybody wants to blame everybody else for
> the things that happen to them. (It's the same people who cry foul when
> I use a masculine pronoun to describe a male character because I've
> triggered them and have somehow damaged them by typing the word "he.")
Avaran
Oct 18, 2021, 2:27:58 AM10/18/21
to
Codigo Postal
Oct 20, 2021, 1:39:51 AM10/20/21
to
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