Dave's "Fries With That" Transformers Rant Burger King 2005 Kids' Meal Transformers - Jetfire (Week 1) - Optimus Prime (Week 2) - Megatron (Week 3) - Red Alert (Week 4) I will be updating this review as I get more toys. Updated 8/25/05 with Megatron and the magazine. Updated 8/29 with Red Alert, finishing the review. First off, if you have a BK local to you that carries these and will sell just the toys without requiring a meal purchase (most will), I recommend picking them up. They're just a buck, after all. My recommendations below will focus more on the idea that you might be thinking of buying these on the secondary market, after the promotion has ended. CAPSULES Jetfire: Good vehicle mode, transformation about as good as one might expect, lame robot mode. Serious need of paint. Mildly recommended. Optimus Prime: Modified G1 transformation, "Fatimus" robot mode. Vehicle mode susceptible to poor QC. Wheels don't roll. Mildly recommended. Megatron: Almost literally cut off at the knees. Pretty hideous. Hard to say if it's actually worse than Rallnox, but it comes close. Red Alert: The blue doors are a bit of a detractor, but looks pretty good in both modes. Recommended. RANTS Packaging: Each comes in a plastic bag 5.5" (14cm) wide and 6.5" (16.5cm) tall, with a tear-line. The front of the bag has green and white art ("grayscale" but in green), with the line logo and art of Megatron, Prime and Jetfire. Red Alert's art was apparently not available yet when the bag was designed. The bag lists the toy as being for ages 3+, with the usual CYA warnings about supervising play and not letting kids play with the bag. Inside the bag are the toy (in vehicle mode) and a secondary bag with two pieces in it. Each is 3" x 4" (7.5cm by 10cm). The first is a single-page mini-poster, a shrunken version of the Speed Planet poster with a brief blurb about the planet, the art of Override, and the Scrap Metal turn inset piece. It also shows Speed's Cyber Planet Key, and the text, "These keys unlock hidden powers of the TRANSFORMERS and must be collected to save the planet of CYBERTRON. One is included with each TRANSFORMERS CYBERTRON purchase." On the back is a mini-catalog showing the following toys in vehicle mode only, with name, faction and planet: Hot Shot, Clocker, Landmine, Ransack, Overhaul, Dirt Boss, Thundercracker, Scattorshot. The other bit of paperwork is a fold-over booklet. The front page has a different arrangement of the package art for Megatron, Prime and Jetfire, with the logos for Cybertron and Burger King. Page two is a B&W&gray instructions sheet for the toy it comes with (this is the only difference between booklets). My initial impression was "who needs instructions for these?" but after seeing a physics graduate student puzzle his way through Prime's transformation, I guess they're necessary after all. :) The third page is line art of all four toys in vehicle mode. The back cover is an application for the BK Kids Club, but you have to be age 4-12 to join. Adventures Magazine: This is a 4 page 8.5" by 11" (standard printer paper size) pamphlet that's available for the grabbing in a cubbyhole or other slot at the counter, usually. This one is volume 16, issue 7, so they've been doing this for a while. It's split roughly half and half between Transformers and Care Bears (which are the girly side of the promotion). Page 1 has a "match the symbol with the bear" thing on the left half, and Prime scowling at a pseudo-Jumble on the right. Page 2 is all Care Bears, and I shall not go into detail. Page 3 is Transformers. The top shows four copies of the same Prime art that's all over the packaging and paperwork, with one of them being "fake" (it has extra yellow in the helmet area). The bottom half is one of those gradeshool "copy what's in each square to make a larger version of the original art" activities, showing Jetfire's head. For a sample of the completed activities by David Willis: http://www.shortpacked.com/images/blog/burgerkinghavearacesm.jpg Page 4 is a comination of ads and showing the available toys. There's another mini- poster of Speed, and all the BK TFs are shown in vehicle mode. Note: the Under-3 toy is not a Transformer or a Care Bear, it's a Little Tykes product. Which I didn't care about enough to inquire about. AUTOBOT: JETFIRE Vehicle Mode: Pretty faithful, mold-wise, to the Voyager class toy. 4.25" (11cm) long, wingspan of about the same, tailspan of 2.75" (7cm). The nose section and belly are the yellowish green seen on the "real" Jetfire. The rest is dark olive green. There is no paint visible in this mode. There is an Autobot symbol molded into the nose in the same place as on the real toy. Assault Mode is possible, by unplugging the tail and putting it in the robot mode position. Transformation: Pull off the tail and plug it into the top of the plane. Swing the belly down 180 degrees to form the legs. Pull the nose forward, then fold the section down to make the chest. There's no arm transformation, the wings stay where they are. Robot Mode: 4.25" (11cm) tall. The head is painted white on the front, the only paint on the toy. There is no poseability to speak of, although the transformation joint at the hips lets him sit down. There are fists molded onto the fronts of his jet engines, so he basically walks around like Big O, with his arms pointed up. Also, his "chest" is so low that it's really a potbelly. Jetfire after too many cans of Fosters, I suppose. A Burger King logo on the abdomen is mostly obscured by the jet nose. Overall: As kidsmeal toys go, it's not horrible. But it could have been a lot better with even one extra paint application. It's definitely a "keep in vehicle mode" toy. AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME Vehicle Mode: Well, it has the cab of the real thing, but is just a standard semi in back, more or less. 3.25" (8cm) long, 1.75" (3.5cm) wide, same for height. The cab is red plastic with blue-painted windows and black tires. The rear section is medium blue plastic with black-painted tires. On one of the ones I got, there's a serious problem where the rear section will not move all the way into correct position, so the vehicle mode is bent. There are Autobot symbols on each side of the cab, in the upper rear corners. Some reportedly have open mouths, possibly a mold bubble error or something. There's a Burger King logo in the trailer hitch area. Transformation: Order doesn't really matter. Pull the arms out to the sides (they feel like there should be a trigger, but there isn't), swing the rear down to make legs, and push down on a lever on the back to pop the head up (which is the only aspect that isn't strictly G1-Prime). Robot Mode: 4" (10cm) tall, no meaningful poseability, and a real "Fatimus" look going on in terms of a big belly. It's looking like these are all the middle-aged-spread versions of the characters. Torso and arms are red, head and legs are blue. Overall: If the quality control issues are as widespread as my admittedly small sample suggests, then be very careful when buying later online. Make sure you get one that isn't bent in vehicle mode. DECEPTICON: MEGATRON Note: neither of mine came with the poster-let/catalog piece. I've since been told some did have it, so it looks like I got a bad batch. Vehicle Mode: It's the jet mode, not the car mode. I guess they wanted two land and two air. Annoyingly, all it would take is a different type of shoulder joint (swing up to sides rather than rotate forward) and a little remolding to let this be a triple-changer. Primus knows it needs SOMETHING to make it suck less. Anyway, this is a mashed and warped version of the jet mode, 4.25" (11cm) long and with a 4.5" (11.5cm) wingspan. The main fuselage and cockpit piece are a bluish gray plastic with sky blue paint on the cockpit bubble. The wings are ick brownish orange/yellow, and the rear wheel sections are darkish purple. A Burger King logo is molded into the tail area. Transformation: Pull back the cockpit piece and sorta lock it in place. Fold the purple bits down to form the legs. Wonder where the other half of the legs went. Wonder if they just stopped trying on this one. Robot Mode: a stumpy, broad-shouldered 3.75" (9.5cm) tall abomination that is tall enough to waddle up to your GIJoes and beg them to end his pain. If you doubled the length of his legs, he'd actually be reasonably well proportioned. He also has no real feet to speak of, so tends to tip over at random. His Decepticon symbol is molded into the center of his chest. The head is painted light gray (face) and purple (helmet), and I suppose one good thing I can say about the toy is that the purple plastic and the purple paint match pretty well. But, dude, PURPLE HELMET. Not only is it rife for bad jokes, but if they'd left most of it unpainted it'd be more accurate to the real toy. The arms swing forward on stiff swivel joints, but are weirdly bowed out. The hips are theoretically ratchets, but only one of the hips on mine actually does that, the other flops around. The head does not turn. This is the most poseable of the four, but that's not saying much. Overall: Even for a $1 kidsmeal toy, this is pretty awful. Oh, and... http://www.dvandom.com/images/megaBK.JPG AUTOBOT: RED ALERT Note: Yet again, no poster. I'll write it off as a bad batch, and figure some people did get 'em. Vehicle Mode: With the exception of the big chunky hinge for the back section to fold up in transformation, this is a pretty good mold in terms of representing the original toy. 3.5" (9cm) long, it's a solid molded shell without moving wheels. The side panels are dark blue plastic with no paint. The front, top and back pieces are a very light gray that's almost white. There's blue stripes on the hood, red windshield and flasher bars, golden brown headlights, and black-painted tires. The blue paint doesn't quite match the blue plastic. There is an Autobot symbol molded onto the roof behind the flasher bar. I'm tempted to repaint one to be more toy-accurate. Transformation: Fold the rear section back 180 degrees. Pull the front section forward. Pull the arms out to the sides. Rotate the legs section 180 degrees. Kinda reminiscent of Speed-Bot/Mototron without the autotransform features. The order of operations is important, unlike with most toys of this level of simplicity. Robot Mode: 3.5" (9cm) tall and surprisingly toy-accurate. About the only real differences are that the backpack is hollow (and has a Burger King logo on the inside), and the doors don't separate from the arms. Well, and the rear wheels are on the backpack. :) Still, it looks pretty good, all things considered. The head is painted solid blue , and the upper legs are made of blue plastic. The chest is molded to be similar to the real toy, but not exactly the same. It does have the Autobot symbol in the middle of the chest, though. Poseability is minimal. The arms can swing out from the sides about 30 degrees or so, and the waist can turn. That's pretty much it. Still, that puts it at the #2 position for poseability after Megatron. Overall: Best of a pretty sorry lot. And a bit of paint on your own could probably help it a lot. Dave Van Domelen, thinks matching the off-white on Red Alert would be really difficult, though. Also, should probably look into buying a triangle driver so he can take these things apart.