Dave's Titanium Series Rant: 6" Wave 4 Soundwave Rodimus Prime Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/6Titanium4 At least initially, it seems that Rodimus Prime is shortpacked pretty heavily. I've gotten reports of piles of Soundwaves accompanied by one or two Rodimus Primes, too big a gradient to be explained by differential popularity. So either they think Soundwave will be astonishingly popular and needs to be the dominant toy, or there was a production problem with Roddy. Rodimus Prime acquired February 11, 2007. Review finished February 12. CAPSULES Soundwave: Looks okay in robot mode, but dollar store-ish in tapedeck mode, and is floppy and unstable in both modes. Mild recommendation to avoid, sadly. $15.88 at Wal-Mart (yes, they boosted the price of all Titaniums at the new year). Rodimus Prime: Decent robot mode, but with some upper body problems. Okay transformation, decent if squat vehicle mode. Mildly recommended. $15.88 at Wal-Mart. RANTS Packaging: Same design as Series 1-3, although it looks like a change is on the horizon. The sides of the boxes are patterned after the chests of the robots, and the robot modes are twist-tied into a nice display-suitable pose inside the box. Rodimus Prime tweaks the design, though, with each side of the box being patterned after the relevant side of his chest, so you could cut the two sides out and put them together to get most of the chest (missing a slice down the middle). There is one tweak I noticed, though. An additional cardstock bit folded over the upper left front corner with the Transformers logo with faction-appropriate symbol and a subtitle indicating the sub-line ("Generation 1" in the case of Soundwave). DECEPTICON: SOUNDWAVE Unique Feature: Able to read minds through remote brain-wave detection. Behind every villainous leader is a cadre of shadowy figures who remain hidden, offering vital encouragement, support and advice. These secretive advisors are often the true power behind the leader, for they control the flow of information that motivates his actions. They feed him flattery and lies that allow him to continue on his path of destruction without suffering the pangs of conscience or the depredations of being proven wrong. SOUNDWAVE is one such individual. A creature of secrets and silence, he fades into the shadow of his commander MEGATRON, all the while subtly steering the DECEPTICON commander to his own ends. He prefers to remain out of sight and out of the fight, often appearing only as a menacing presence behind his leader, arms folded, inscrutible visage promising nothing beyond cold calculation. Despite his maneuvering to improve his status, he is totally loyal to MEGATRON. He hides information or lies only if he believes it would be to is leader's detriment to hear the truth. STR 8 INT 9 SPD 2 END 6 RNK 8 COUR 5 FRB 6 SKL 10 Avg 6.75 The catalog that comes with Soundwave is still only up through wave 2. Oddly, not only do promo pictures show Soundwave mistransformed in robot mode (with his hips slid down too far), but his tray requires him to be mistransformed in the package, giving him an unappealingly elongated look. There's the usual painful twist-ties/barbed wire, and Laserbeak gets his own tie. Main Weakness: There's so many to choose from, but I'd say the collapsing legs are probably the worst problem. Robot Mode: Well, we're back to wave 1 floppy crap on this toy, so it's hard to get the height accurately, because the legs tend to telescope closed with little provocation. I'll call it 5.5" (14cm), and 8oz (230g). The torso, forearms and lower boot pieces are metal. The main colors are a dark blue that glows slightly purple under UV (good match between paint on metal and the plastic), a medium gray (999999) and silver paint on the forearms, feet and trim. The battery guns are black with silver endcaps and barrel. The tape compartment door is clear purple plastic (strong UV glow) with gold paint and a lavender Decepticon symbol. Laserbeak is made of black plastic with red paint, and there's numerous red trim details on Soundwave as well. Soundwave's faceplate is silver, and his eyeslit gold. The head is based pretty closely on the G1 toy, rather than the animation model. The feet are actually separate from the bottom of the boots, unlike the G1 version. The hands have ugly kibble chunks on them that are supposed to conceal them in altmode, but don't...they look stupid in both modes. Otherwise, besides a certain Dreamwave puffiness and an oversized crotch, it looks decent from the front. There's no cover piece to the battery compartment, though, so it looks a little iffy from the back. Too bad it's not stable at all. It turns out that the in-package pose is impossible while actually standing anyway, and the various pictures must have been taken of either a glued-together robot or one lying flat on the table, because the hip joints simply CAN'T stay as in-package while the toy stands. The joints could only be looser if I oiled 'em. The shoulders are ball joints with the sockets on the back, so the range of motion is mostly swivel-like. The elbows are universal joints, and the wrists are limited ball joints. The neck swivels, but there's no waist. The hips are kinda universal joints...the block that connects into the pelvis is almost rectangular, so it stays more or less stable in four compass point positions, but it also can pop out if you're not careful...and it strikes me as being something that will wear out fast. The knees are hinged, as are the ankles. But the hips are so floppy that it's hard to keep the figure stable in anything but a straight-legged standing pose. Rather than having a "normal" tapedeck door with the tape in a recessed cavity in the chest, the metal chest itself is flat (with tape details molded on) and the door is actually a shallow box with a notch in the top so you can pry Laserbeak out. Laserbeak is 30mm by 19mm by 5mm in tape mode, but doesn't have any tape details on either side. It's just a block that fits into the door. The transformation is a simplified version of the G1 Laserbeak, but with no guns to plug into the back. It has tiny little claws that can grab onto a tab on the top of either of Soundwave's shoulders. Interestingly, while the instructions show this placement, they don't show the actual tabs that Laserbeak can grab onto...just flat-topped shoulders. Transformation: The weapons plug into the back, as shown helpfully by the battery diagram molded there (nice touch, there's even + and - molded onto each battery). Rather than having a removable missile part, the gun just retracts into the barrel. The arms fold back and flank the battery compartment, the pelvis splits and the legs telescope shorter to form the sides of the tape deck, and the head turns around and folds into a gap behind it. In theory, everything pegs together, but like wave 1 stuff, the pegs are weak. Tape deck mode: You know those dollar store stereos with tinny speakers and no cover for the battery compartment? That's this thing in a nutshell. They kinda make the boot chunks look like speakers, and the batteries are merely flanked by the arms, not actually covered. 3.75" (9.5cm) wide, 1.75" (4.5cm) tall and 1.75" (4.5cm) deep, it's the smallest and most compact 6" Titanium altmode so far. If it held together a little better, you could even carry it in your pocket (although your pants would sag to one side, what with a half pound of Soundwave there). Overall: Sadly, this deserves to be a shelfwarmer. You'd think that this one would be a gimme, they could just adapt the original design, which was already about as poseable as most Titaniums. Instead, we got a saggy mess that I hoped we'd seen the last of with the very first pair of 6" Titaniums. I mean, if the chest were plastic I could at least kitbash this to hold a new-style iPod Shuffle or something, but even that option's not available. AUTOBOT: RODIMUS PRIME Unique Feature: Opened the Matrix and destroyed UNICRON. AUTOBOT prophecy spoke of a Chosen One who would claim the Matrix and rise to defend CYBERTRON in its darkest hour. No one ever suspected it would be Hot Rod. While no one doubted his courage, his recklessness occasionally put other AUTOBOTS in danger. Few AUTOBOTS were as fast, however, or as smart, and even fewer could have been expected to survive the twisting, diabolical pathways within the body of UNICRON, or a confrontation with the mighty GALVATRON. Survive he did, however, and became RODIMUS PRIME. Yet even after the destruction of UNICRON and the defeat of GALVATRON he was plagued by self- doubt. The power of the Matrix was his to command, and the wisdom of past AUTOBOT leaders lived within him, but he lived always within the shadow of his mentor and idol OPTIMUS PRIME. Leadership weighed heavy on his shoulders, and though he never faltered, he dreamed often of a simpler life. STR 10 INT 10 SPD 9 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRB 9 SKL 10 Avg 9.75 Note that he can be called Hot Rod here, because they're not naming the toy that. And it's not in ALL CAPS like the other trademarks, so as of this time, Hot Rod is still not Hasbro's property (although there's hints that they may have gotten the name back). The usual barbed wire twist-ties and old catalog can be found inside the box. Fortunately, there's only three ties that are chopped down to barbed wire status, and you only need to remove two to actually get the toy out. One really long rubber band holds the torso together. Main Weakness: the torso doesn't hold together very well, and it's a big, open structure that doesn't look good from the sides or back. Robot Mode: 6" (15cm) tall, 9.6 oz (272g), and somewhat hunchbacked. The way the torso holds together makes the figure look like it's leaning forward, and the sloping of the head and the far forward connection of the shoulders only reinforce this. Unfortunately, the hip joints ratchet, so you can't just tilt him back a little bit to counter this. The chest, central back, forearms and the fronts of the lower legs are made of metal. The shoulders, head, pelvis and the backs of the boots are red plastic (FF0000, fairly strong UV glow). The thighs, back wing and a lot of the joints are orange plastic (FF9900, faint UV glow), as are some of the peg hole linings in the metal parts. The upper arms, collar area, toes, fists, wheels and gun are black plastic (no UV glow). The gun is rubbery, but the rest are rigid. Silver paint details are on the forearm pipes (although those cold just be unpainted metal), gun barrel, hubcaps, face, abdomen, "ascot" and various spots all over. There are yellow paint (FFFF00, really strong UV glow) flames on the chest and boots, plus yellow crest on the helmet and some yellow bits on the waist. The eyes and the chest headlights are a metallic light blue, and I think that paint is in a couple of little dots in the middle of the crest. Black paint on the fronts of the boots blends into the toes. The base color on all the metal pieces is red, a good match except it doesn't glow as much under UV. A silver and red Autobot symbol is painted in the center of the chest flames. The head turns smoothly, the waist ratchets 45 degrees at a time. The shoulders are universal joints, ratcheting 45 degrees at a time on the swivel but smooth on the "raising to the sides" hinge. The elbows are smooth hinges, and there's a smooth swivel just below each elbow, so you can turn the forearms. No fist joint, other than the in-and-out sliding for transformation. The hips are universal joints that ratchet every 45 degrees along both axes, and only get a few clicks either way. The knees ratchet and really only get two positions, with the boot kibble keeping them from bending more than 45 degrees. A ratcheting swivel is below each knee. The toes can point. The boot kibble also keeps the legs from coming together flush, as the rear wheels get in each other's way. [Later note: the transformation joints for the shoulders do allow some extra articulation in this mode.] The rifle is 2.5" (6cm) long and is held pretty loosely in the hand. It has a really long handle, which just barely goes all the way into the fist, due to the dimensions of the forearm and the gun itself clashing. He looks better just using his forearm pipes as weapons, you can kinda store the gun at his side. Transformation: Pretty intuitive. The chest becomes the front, the arms go along the sides, and the legs fold up into the trailer. You do need to turn the head around before transforming the front end, though. Most parts peg together or otherwise snap into place fairly well. Vehicle Mode: 5.25" (13cm) long, almost a ChoroQ/Superdeformed version of the G1 Rodimus Prime truck. It has six wheels, and normally looks like there's four on the cab part and two at the back of the trailer. Predominantly red with yellow flames on the front and sides, silver pipes straight up and down except for the curve forward at the bottom. The windshield is clear medium blue (strong UV glow) with red paint over the bits not intended to be clear, and there's an orange "mohawk" going on because the robot's back wing folds up rather than fitting into a slot. It holds together reasonably well, although the tabs that plug the robot knees into the robot forearms are a bit loose. The gun stores inside the half-hollow trailer (the lower half is hollow), reasonably securely. You put a bit on the top of the gun into a slot and than slide forward so it doesn't fall out. If you extend it on the orange slider joint inside the torso, it becomes an articulated truck, with a two-wheeled cab and a four-wheeled trailer. It's about 6" (15cm) long in this form with a centerline turning radius of around 8-9 inches (20-24cm), although the lack of friction between the hard plastic wheels and the surface can result in some skidding. Overall: Anything released with Soundwave is going to look excellent by comparison. And, of course, the original Rodimus Prime was a bit on the spindly brick side, so this one doesn't have a whole lot to live up to. Still a few small changes could have made this an actually good toy, rather than a merely "no so bad" toy. Dave Van Domelen, not planning to get any 6" Titanium recolors, for what it's worth.