Dave's Transformers Classics Rant: Deluxe Wave 1 Astrotrain Bumblebee Starscream Rodimus Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Classic/Deluxe1 (if you spot an error in this review, check the URL to make sure I haven't already fixed it before mailing or posting the correction). Updated October 29, 2006: Bumblebee comment added. CAPSULES Astrotrain: Good attempts at both modes, good robot mode, decent transformations. A bit floppy, though. Recommended. $10.99 at TRU. Bumblebee: Really solid vehicle mode, good transformation, fun accessory, good robot marred by a few kibble issues. Strongly recommended. $10.99 at TRU. Starscream: Some kibble and poseability issues, but good vehicle mode, cool transformation, and good robot mode. Recommended. $9.99 at Target. Rodimus: Solid vehicle mode (although it doesn't roll well), very good transformation and robot mode. Strongly recommended. $9.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: In a rough sense, the Deluxe blisters are about the same shape as in Cybertron, with a sort of stacked keystone shape in both blister and card. And as with Cybertorn, the blister's bottom flap is folded under and glued to the card. However, the card itself is actually two thinner cards glued together, with a plastic hook piece sandwiched between the cards at the top (rather than just gluing the hook piece onto the back). A trapezoid 3.5" (9cm) at the top, 2.25" (6cm) wide at the bottom and 1" (2.5cm) tall is removed from the card pieces to reveal clear plastic sheet with a hook cut into it. The card itself is about 12" (30cm) tall, and at its widest point is 7.5" (19cm) wide. The blisters are 7" (18cm) tall, up to 6" (15cm) wide and 3" (7.5cm) deep. The edges of the blister are mostly beveled, with notched indentations running along the front side bevels and a sort of horizontal grille pattern at the top front. The bottom front is indented to take a folded piece of cardstock that's velcro'ed closed, and the top of the blister has either an Autobot or Decepticon symbol molded into it. At the top of the card front is the Transformers logo, with each letter having red fading down to white down to purple. The character's relevant faction symbol is included in the logo, and "ROBOTS IN DISGUISE" is under it. Under the logo is the character's faction, name and function to the left, and a head shot (toy photo) to the right. The background is various shades of red in horizontal stripes regardless of faction. Behind the toy is a swirling energy pattern in red and yellow, again independent of faction. There are some small colored details around the edges of the card that are red for Autobots and purple for Decepticons. Around the bottom of the blister is a gray and red strip (Autobot) or gray and purple (Decepticon). The front left edge proclaims this the Classic Deluxe assortment (interestingly, TRU's computers call it Vintage). The front right edge has the relevant faction symbol. The front says "FLIP FOR ROBOT MODE" below the folded cardstock piece. The folded bit shows a photo of vehicle mode (shuttle mode in Astrotrain's case) and is velcroed closed. Opening it up shows a photo of the robot mode, a bit marred by having a velcro piece partly covering the face. It's not too hard to remove the flip card if you want to toss the rest of the packaging but keep the card. On the back, the "trade dress" is mostly the same for both factions again, except for some red or purple trim along the edges, and the faction symbol in the logo. Under the logo, the techspec numbers are to the right, and at least on the two I have to work from right now, fractional numbers are absent. The robot mode picture is on the middle left, with altmode or modes on the middle right. Various callouts on the pictures proclaim special features, and the mode names are listed more subtly. Behind the photos is a sort of sunrise or sunset silhouette of Cybertron, which looks kinda ruined. The cosells (the other three in wave 1) occupy the lower right corner, and the bio note and motto sort of fill in an irregular space next to and above them. The motto is not set off on its own, it's just a quote at the start of the bio note. Inside the blister, the usual twist-ties and rubber bands hold the toy and accessories into the tray. The instructions are at the bottom of the blister. The instructions are two-color (black and either red or purple) and single-sided. There's no catalog or equivalent. Visible through the packaging is the fact that rubsigns are back. For those of you new to TFs, many of the original Transformers toys (as well as some Beast Wars) have thermal stickers that reveal the character's faction when rubbed or otherwise warmed up. There are no non-rubsign insignia. Another point that's not exactly packaging but bears going into as a general point is that these do use standard 5mm pegs, and often have "dead" Mini-Con hardpoints as pegs. DECEPTICON: ASTROTRAIN Altmodes: Space Shuttle, Train Function: Psy-Ops Warrior Weapon: Ionic Displacer Motto: "The enemy's weakness is his uncertainty." ASTROTRAIN thrives on panic and fear. Though he is mainly used as a transport vehicle for moving warriors and supplies, he only truly feels at home pounding AUTOBOT warriors into scrap metal. His ionic displacer rifle can scramble AUTOBOT sensors, causing confusion in the enemy ranks, and his huge bulk casts a terrifying shadow across a battlefield. Those AUTOBOTS who survive a fight with ASTROTRAIN often need only hear the echoing boom of his engines in the distance to once again quake in fear. STR 9 INT 7 SPD 9 END 8 RNK 6 COUR 6 FRB 7 SKL 5 Avg 7.125 Callouts include: "Converts from space shuttle to train to robot and back!" "Retractable landing gear!" and "Ionic displacer rifle attaches to train!" His rifle is just held in by the blister tray, and two twist-ties hold the shuttle mode in place. I guess they decided the train was a special feature. No rubber bands. Shuttle Mode: Well, there's no two ways around this...it's a space shuttle with the nose section of a bullet train split in half and strapped onto the sides of the fuselage. Mind you, the way the paint apps hide the windows, this isn't as obvious as it could be in a different color scheme. If you don't look too close, it can just look like the Jetfire style of space shuttle with extra booster units. 5.75" (14.5cm) long and with a 4.25" (11cm) wingspan, it's made almost entirely of white plastic. A few of the visible joints are purple (0000CC more or less). The purple glows a little under UV, and the white glows strongly. The front underside is painted black, as are the leading edges of the wings and the tops of the train chunks. The tops of the wings are painted purple, and there are purple and red stripes along the train parts. The cockpit windows are gold, and there's some gold and purple bits towards the rear top of the fuselage. The rubsign is on the right side top of the fuselage, a little less than halfway back from the nose. The front landing gear is retractable (white wheels, purple strut), but the rear wheels are fixed. The ionic displacer rifle can store on the underside using its side peg (which is a Mini-Con hardpoint). This is not noted on the package, but is in the instructions. The shuttle bay doors do not open. The plastic used feels a little more brittle to me. Not weak, mind you, just that where Cybertron toys felt more like they'd just bend and warp permanently, these feel like they might snap if you took a pliers or a hammer to them. And no, I'm not going to destruction test mine. Transformation to Train: Fold the wings down first, trust me. Trying to unpeg the train nose bits without doing so almost guarantees that you'll pop the pieces right off. The entire wing assembly does a flip and fold to cover up the shuttle nose, while the train front pieces snap together. While it's not mentioned in the instructions, it looks better if you rotate the tailfin 180 degrees before folding it open against what becomes the bottom of the train. There's no other use for that rotation joint, so I suspect they just goofed in leaving it out of the instructions. Train Mode: Again, the other mode is pretty clear, with folded wings and the thruster unit at the back. But points for trying, and not just giving up and making both altmodes tech-greebled unrealistic things. The rubsign is on the underside in this mode, and the copyright notice is on the top, reinforcing the packaging's suggestion that the train is the bonus mode, not the main altmode. 8.75" (22cm) long and a bit floppy (the front end doesn't peg solidly into place, so the robot's shoulder joints are what hold it in place, and there's some play). There's four real wheels at the front, two on wingtips at the back, and four molded wheels in the middle. As advertised, the gun can be placed on top near the rear in firing position, or you can lay it flat using the side peg. I expect to see lewd picfics involving this mode and Thunderblast in the near future. Transformation to Robot Mode: The wings need to be in shuttle position, just pull off the thruster unit and swivel it around to clamp onto the underside. Of course, it helps to pull the head out through the back before clamping the wings on. :) The train nose pieces become the arms, and the shuttle front splits into legs. Rather than giving him awkwardly big feet, most of the nose section folds aside into what I suppose are boot thrusters, leaving just the cockpit sections as toes. Robot Mode: Really reminiscent of the G1 animation model, despite numerous obvious differnces (such as the train chunks on the forearms, the big shoulderpads, and the color scheme). Stands 5.5" (14cm) tall and is mostly white with black paint. The upper arms and several of the joints are purple, the head is white with silver face and red helmet beacon. The eyes are yellow. The black and red stripes on the tailfin halves on the chest continue nicely into the colors of the shoulderpads. The head is a restricted ball joint that can turn or tilt back. The shoulders are ball joints that tend to pop apart a little too easily. The shoulderpads are hinged onto the shoulders, and the ball joint part of the shoulder is on a hinged strut for transformation...Astrotrain can shrug. The elbows are ball joints. The train nose sections are on very loose sliders, so you need to keep the arms bent (or put something in the hand) to keep them from sliding back over the hands. The hips hinge side to side, with a front to back hinge right below that. The knees are another front to back hinge and then a rotating swivel below that. The upper legs are kinda short to begin with, and both front to back joints rob them of a few more millimeters of length, but that just increases the G1 Astrotrain feel as far as I'm concerned. :) Not much real jointing on the feet, but the side chunks can be positioned to help stabilize things a little. The figure suffers from joint looseness in several places, notably the forearm covers already mentioned, and the chest crest, which kinda flops around. It depends on octagonal cross-sections to ratchet the joints, but that means there's a few degrees of play in everything. Plus, the officially unused rotating joint is a tad loose. Most of these things strike me as stuff that's gonna happen in every toy, not just a case of quality control slipping. Overall: Well, it's a triple-changer where both altmodes try to look more or less real (other than other-mode kibble), which is a nice change from the "thing with wings and thing with wheels" triplechangers we generally get. The looseness issues are a bit irksome, and I do worry that the plastic may shatter under rough play (I presume it passed all safety tests, but no benchmark test will be as destructive as a real child), but it's a good toy and worth picking up. AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Altmode: Cruiser Function: Spy Accessory: Jet Pack Motto: "Data is power." Small compared to most other TRANSFORMERS, BUMBLEBEE more than makes up for it through his incredible bravery and willingness to go places larger robots won't. Capable of aerial and underwater missions, he is more versatile than many other AUTOBOTS. His eagerness to do his part leads him to go above and beyond the call of duty, often placing him in grave danger. It is a testament to his skill that he has never been captured. STR 3 INT 9 SPD 6 END 4 RNK 7 COUR 10 FRB 4 SKL 9 Avg 6.75 The only callout is "Wave Crusher and trailer convert to jet pack!" WEIBUU KARUSHAA! Oh, and there's a TM on Wave Crusher. Note, that while his official altmode is called a Cruiser, it's not a PT Cruiser, or even really that close, as explained below. There's one twist-tie on the Wave Crusher, and one on the car. A rubber band holds together the front end of the car. I'll note here that Actionmaster Bumblebee had a flight pack, a likely inspiration for his pack here. Heck, you can even fiddle the pack here to look kinda like a helicopter pack, albeit one that will cut Bumblebee's head off. Vehicle Mode: Bumblebee is a sort of automotive Fuzor, a mix of elements taken from various compact cars over the decades. According to my usual automotive expert, the front cabin and rear is Honda style, with some CRX or Civic around the hatchback. It's then "boofed out with Beetle genes". In any case, it's a coupe (two-door) hatchback with the appearance of some ricing. If I had to guess at it, I'd say it's about 1:32 scale, maybe 1:28. Smaller than an Alternator of the same fuzor model would be, in any case. Not counting the trailer hook, it's 4.5" (11cm) long and 2.25" (6cm) wide. The body shell is mostly yellow (FFFF00) plastic with pearly white paint in stripes on the hood and covering much of the rear. The windows are clear light blue (CCFFFF), and the hood/windshield section is painted yellow in a reasonably good match. Both the yellow plastic and yellow paint react a bit to UV. The spoiler at the back and the radiator grille are painted silver. The vents in the airdam at the bottom are silvery gray (CCCCCC) plastic. The headlights are the same clear blue as the windows. The taillights are painted deep red (CC0000). The tires, hitch section and most of the interior are black plastic, with silver paint on the hubcaps and the seats. Yes, seats. Bumblebee doesn't quite have an Alternator level of interior detailing, but he does have reclining bucket seats. The hood sort of opens as a transformation joint, but there's no detailing inside. The rubsign is on an air vent on the roof, but is a bit too big for that raised detail and hangs over the edges a little. Some careful trimming with a sharp blade or tiny scissors can fix this. [Later note: there is a running change in which the mold has been tweaked to widen the vent to let the rubsign fit better.] The trailer is made of silvery-gray plastic with black tires and silver hubcaps, and is 2.5" (6cm) long and 1.75" (4.5cm) wide. The wheels roll freely, and the hitch holds together fairly well. The Wave Crusher is not separable from the trailer. The bottom half of it seems to be made of silvery gray plastic, but it's all painted pearl white as an undercoat, with black seat and orange airbrushing near the back. The top part of it is clear blue plastic with pearl and orange paint. The two can pop apart, likely as a safety matter to prevent breaking in jet pack mode. Based just on the Wave Crusher, I'd guess a person would be an inch tall to scale with it, which is kinda silly, since that's 1:72 scale. Maybe it's a tiny jetski, so a person would be closer to two inches tall. Transformation: Doors should pull out first. :) It's REALLY solid in vehicle mode, and if you try to pop any other part out first it can be quite difficult. The shoulders and rear wheels reverse in a way reminiscent of Energon Strongarm's, and the front end becomes legs and feet in a fairly classic G1 way. The bucket seats fold down as thigh armor. One important step missed by a lot of people who had preliminary pics up is that you need to fold up the hitch section and then push the backpack down and in. This makes the torso lock together firmly and eliminates the hollow look seen in early pics. The Wave Crusher folds open into a jetpack and clips onto Bumblebee's backpack, but it's not necessarily obvious how it does so, even when looking at the instructions. The fact that the core joint (at least on mine) is REALLY stiff to the point I wasn't sure it was supposed to keep turning didn't help. It should clip on with the top of the Wave Crusher on the outside, its little tab slotting into the, well, slot on the roof. The black core joint piece should be opened upward (i.e. the core cylinder is on top, not bottom). With everything properly in place, you can pick the toy up by the wings and Bumblebee won't fall off. Robot Mode: 4.75" (12cm) tall at the head, 5.5" (14cm) at the top of the Wave Crusher if it's attached as a jetpack. The jetpack wingspan is 5.5" (14cm). He has no gun, although you can assume the wheels on the front of his jetpack can fire something, or maybe the slots in his arm shields. He has 5mm hole fists, though, so he can always borrow a gun. And if you fold his arm shields out of the way, their pegs are short Mini-Con hardpoints. The shoulderpads are silvery-gray, as are the forearms. The inner torso, upper arms, fists and legs are all black plastic. The head is painted all yellow with a silver face and dark blue eyes, can't really tell what color plastic it is underneath. The eyes glow strongly under UV, and little metallic blue squares on the shoulderpads also glow. The head sculpt is VERY good, a sort of neo-G1 interpretation of the animation model. The overall color scheme makes it look kinda like he's wearing a yellow pair of overalls over a black shirt...troubleshooter Bumbl-Y-BEE-2 reporting for mission briefing, Friend Computer! The neck is a ball joint that works like Astrotrain's. The shoulders and elbows are ball joints, as are the hips. The knees are hinges, with rotational swivels right below them. The ankles bend for transformation. It's relatively important to stand the figure with feet apart a little, else the wheels come into play. The ground clearance of the vehicle mode is really low so that it doesn't take much to get the insteps down. And even with the feet together, it doesn't rock enough to fall over. The shin guards formed by the hood halves tend to get in the way of the bucket seats on the thighs, and the hood bits pop off fairly easily. Also, the windshield prevents the legs from rising up too much, but some good dynamic poses are still possible. [Later note: astute reader Kevin Sun took apart his Bumblebee's head (or at least scrutinized it realllly carefully) and points out that the eyes are actually clear blue plastic. I guess the lightpiping got abandoned halfway through or something. And the head itself is gray plastic painted over.] Overall: I can say without fear of contradiction that this is the best Bumblebee toy ever. And lest you think I'm damning with faint praise, it's a very good toy in general, marred only by some kibble issues. If there's one other thing I'd have done differently, it would have been to make it possible to get a weapon mode out of the Wave Crusher too. http://www.dvandom.com/images/bumblegun.JPG shows he can hold a spare Armada Prime cannon. :) The main peg is solid, but the front peg just sits loosely in the left hand. DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM Altmode: Fighter Jet (F-15-ish) Function: Decepticon Air Commander Weapon: Null-Ray Cannons Motto: "My enemies will be left nothing but the ashes of their defeat." Ruthless, cold-blooded, and capable, STARSCREAM makes no secret of the fact that he wants to replace Megatron as leader of the DECEPTICONS. The fastest flyer among the DECEPTICONS ranks and oen of the most dangerous warriors ever to grace the skies of Cybertron, he is still something of a coward. He cares too much for his own skin to ever take the risks the overthrow of MEGATRON would require. STR 7 INT 6 SPD 10 END 6 RNK 8 COUR 4 FRB 8 SKL 8 Avg 8.375 Yes, the capitalization is as shown, inconsistent. Callouts are, "Twin null-ray cannons with firing projectiles!", "2 launching missiles!" and "Flip down landing gear!" The "flip for robot mode" interior picture continues the trend of covering the robot face with velcro. Each missile has its own twist-tie, which doesn't need to be undone before you can just pop the missile out. Four ties hold the jet mode into the blister. No rubber bands. The tail section is a bit folded up in package. Jet Mode: Pretty much an F-15, like the original Starscream. 7" (18cm) long and with a 5" (13cm) wingspan, making it about a 1:100 scale. So he can fight your Gundam models. Consulting my Encyclopedia of Modern Warplanes, I see that if you ignore the robot kibble on the underside, it is almost 100% an F-15, differing by some panel lines and some wingtip bits. [Later note: Kalidor of the AllSpark found the likely inspiration for the color scheme, from an F-15A (pics 2-6 of the gallery page here): http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/photos/media_search.asp?q=f-15&page=1 The scheme was used for the F-15 prototypes.] Almost the entire toy is made from a light gray (CCCCCC) plastic with a faint silvery tinge and slight glow under UV. The cockpit is clear yellow (FFFF00) with a strong UV response. The nosecone tip is a metallic blue (can't place the web color) rubbery plastic that shines brightly under UV. The thrust nozzles may be gunmetal plastic, or simply painted that way. There's also some blue plastic (nonmetallic but otherwise the same shade as the nosecone) on the underside (robot toes and arms). There's a bit of black-painted gray plastic under the cockpit (the robot head). There's lots of brick red (CC0000) paint on the wings, tail and air intakes, and a metallic blue stripe down the centerline, tapering to a point between the thrusters. There's silver paint on the cockpit frame and some on the null rays. There's some pale gold paint on the underside, but it really "belongs" to the robot mode. The rubsign is on the port side wing, and doesn't really look like it fits. Mind you, there aren't a lot of flat parts without panel lines on the toy, it'd pretty much have to go on the top of the air intake to avoid stomping on a panel line. The landing gear is not the usual fold-down strut at the nose and flip- out bits on the rear underside. Rather, the chest turbine bits from the robot mode fold out to the sides to make wheels, and there's nubs on the robot toe parts that make the rear "wheels". The cockpit has interior detailing with a pilot's seat and the suggestion of some controls. There's a hollow area in the robot chest section where the nose goes in robot mode...if you have thin enough fingers you can wear Starscream's jet mode as a very large ring and fly him around like those Ring Flyer planes they had back in the 90s. The two missile launchers peg onto the wing undersides with standard 5mm pegs made of blue plastic. The entire rear chunk of the launcher may be blue plastic as well, but they're painted silver. I had my first serious quality control issue with Classics here...I got two left launchers. Fairly weak launcher springs, although Attacktix has kinda spoiled me on that account. :) The missiles themselves are 3" (7.5cm) long and made of silvery gray plastic. Probably the only significant flaw with the vehicle mode is that when you look at the underside it's pretty clearly a bunch of robot parts. Transformation: A LOT of it is G1 Starscream, but without the cheat factor of unpegging and repegging stuff...it all stays connected. The chest opens up to allow arms to fold out and the nosecone to flip around and in a bit more elegantly than G1, too. It's a little hard to fold the fists out from the forearms unless you have strong fingernails. The very tip of the nose doesn't stow as completely as I'd like, but it can be left in an Armada Thrust style of conehead. Robot Mode: 5" (12cm) tall at the head, 5.5" (14cm) at the top of the air intake shoulder scoops. With some mold tweaks and some paint changes, this could be almost exactly the animated G1 Starscream. The null rays can be plugged into the shoulders (G1-style) or hand-held. The forearms, fists and toes are blue plastic. There's extensive red paint on the torso, red stripes on the shoulders, and gold paint on the shoulder scoops and kneecaps. The helmet is gloss black paint on gray plastic head, and the eyes are painted red. You can see down his top and note that the pilot's seat is painted silver (not immediately obvious in jet mode). Some paint on the landing gear/chest turbines would have been nice, but this may be a different plastic that's slicker and doesn't take paint as well. The head turns, but since the cone section is still attached to it, that limits how far it can turn. On the other hand, you can puppeteer his head using the nose as a lever. There is no waist articulation. The shoulders are hinge-and-swivel universal joints, the elbows are hinges. No other arm articulation unless you count the transformation hinge for the fists. The hips are ball joints, the knees are single-click ratchet hinges, and there's a swivel below the knee to let the boots point different directions. The toes can bend up on their transformation joint, and the joint is stiff enough to allow some stable poses. The wings fold out of the way if you want to point the arms forward while the null rays are attached. It's a compromise, but doesn't really look that good. The package photograph wisely has the arm pointing out to the side instead, allowing the wings to remain up. Overall: A bit less poseable than most Classics, and the null ray cannons getting in the way of the wings bothers me, but it's an astonishingly good job of keeping to the spirit of the G1 design while bringing in modern design techniques. Too bad I got two left launchers (although I ordered one frmo HasbroToyShop.com and was unable to cancel the shipment despite it showing as not yet shipped when I bought one at Target, so maybe I'll swap launchers and return the defective one to Target). AUTOBOT: RODIMUS Altmode: Race Car Function: Autobot Warrior Weapon: Photon Laser Motto: "Action is my middle name." Young and bold, RODIMUS races headlong into danger, throwing caution - and his orders - to the wind. He dreams of heroic deeds and hopes one day to gain the recognition his actions deserve. Despite his inexperience, he is a talented fighter. In battle, he can often be seen racing at speeds up to 180 miles per hour, dodging explosions and laser blasts in an attempt to chase an objective. STR 8 INT 9 SPD 9 END 6 RNK 5 COUR 9* FRB 8 SKL 7 Avg 7.625 * The number listed is 9, but the bar for his Courage score goes all the way to 10. Callouts are "Tailpipe becomes photon laser with firing projectile" and "Flip out data-com communicator!" The "data-com" is seen edge-on in the picture and therefore not very visible. And it's a circular saw anyway. Also, if you have to specify PHOTON laser, your science is whacky. The flip-up card on the package for once doesn't cover the face with velcro. A twist-tie holds the gun and exhaustmissile, and two more hold the car mode. The gun and missile can be removed without undoing the ties, while loosening the ties a little is enough to get the car out. Car mode: Ignoring the tail fin, 5.5" (14cm) long and 2.5" (6.5cm) wide. The fin lengthens the car to 6" (15cm), and the exhaust flare missile stretches that to 7.5" (19cm). The fin is 3" (8cm) wide. According to AllSpark's Detective Nightbeat, the car is based closely on the 1978 Dome supercar from Japan: http://www.supercarnet.jp/File/File-Japan/File-Dome.htm with various Hot Rod elements (tailfin, protruding engine, sidepipes) added onto it. The main color is dark red (CC0000), either plastic on most of the body, or a good paint match on the canopy. The canopy piece is made of clear blue plastic, and neither it nor the red plastic glow under UV. The tires, some chunks at the rear that become robot feet, and some joints on the roof are black plastic. The almost comically large fin at the back is orange plastic (FF9900) that glows really brightly under UV, to the point of looking yellow. The hubcaps, side pipes and part of the engine block are painted silver. The rest of the engine is painted black. The headlights are pale metallic blue, and the flame patterns on the hood and sides are gold with black outlines (the package photos show them yellow, possibly a photoshopping). The taillights are red. The rubsign is on the roof, partly covering some panel lines. I'd have preferred it in the middle of the hood flames, and may try to carefully transfer it there. Or just drop a Reprolabel there. The gun fits on the underside rear as a turbojet thruster, with the missile making for an exhaust plume. The gun is black plastic with silver paint on the nozzle and an orange trigger. The missile is clear blue, and it's the Cybertron Crosswise/Smokescreen missile tweaked a bit in the computer modeling. The two toys' missiles can load into each other's launchers, more or less. The gun is VERY solidly connected. One nifty effect is that part of the robot head is visible behind the engine block, but it meshes very well into the rest of the toy, with the lightpiping bit making part of the windshield. The wheels spin nicely, but the clearance is essentially zero thanks to a large hinge joint on the underside. It skids along, I can't get all four wheels on the table at once unless I extend the rear wheels on their weird transformation joints. If you look inside the canopy, you can see red bucket seats amid black upholstery and steering wheel. Like Classic Voyager Optimus Prime, it's a bit crowded as a concession to the robot bits concealed underneath, but still a very nice effect. There's an Attack Mode, in which the middle part of the rear flips up (after you disengage the tabs locking it in place) so that the gun points forward. When in this mode, you can also pop out the majority of the wing mass if you prefer a subtler look. Transformation: Very close to the G1 transformation, but with lots of extra details to allow for better proportions and more poseability. The car mode is very solidly connected, it's easiest if you start with Attack Mode and then pull the legs back. Then the arms pull out to the sides, letting you fold the hood down as the chest. The canopy spins around and then the fin chunk folds double to make the wings. [Later note: also, while not mentioned in the instructions, you should shove the pelvis forward.] Robot Mode: 5" (13cm) tall at the head, add a little for the shoulders and wings. The thighs are orange, the head is red. The hands, feet and data-com are black plastic. There's black paint with yellow slits on the shin pads, and black and silver details on the shoulders. The face is silver with yellow horns on the helmet (which looks more like Energon Rodimus than Hot Rod). The eyes are blue lightpiped. One nifty detail is that the sidepipes form twin blasters on each forearm (not triple, as per G1). He has silver and yellow painted details on his pelvis, and silver painted pipes on the chest-flanks. The other colors are all stuff visible in vehicle mode. The data-com is basically an homage to the buzzsaw tool Hot Rod used in the movie, and begs to be painted silver on the "dish" that serves as a blade. It flips out below the left fist, and sticks out enough to be a credible close combat weapon, with a blade 7mm in diameter. The fists are standard 5mm holes. [Correction: they're 4mm holes, so Rodimus can't share with others. I suppose 5mm holes would have left the plastic too thin on his fists.] The head swivels, the waist does not. The shoulders are restricted ball joints, and the pull-out sections they're on give a little more play. The elbows are hinges, and the wrists just bend inward for transformation. There's no swivels. The hips are...interesting. The joint between pelvis and thigh only swings outward, but the entire third of the pelvis the leg is attached to is swiveled front to back. These front-back swivels are connected to a single axle, and moving one leg will make the other move if you let it, but they can move independently if you hold onto the one you don't want moving. The car doors hang off the hips on their own joints, and while they can't ever really get clear of things, neither do they impede motion to any significant extent. The knees are hinges, and there's a swivel below each knee. The ankles have some play to their transformation hinge. Overall: Given how closely they hewed to the original Hot Rod design, they did a really good job making a complex transformation and a poseable figure. The hairy spoon missile design still looks kinda dumb, even in its role as exhaust, though. Still, you want this toy. Dave Van Domelen, done until the next wave hits...next month, in theory.