Dave's Cybertron Supreme Rant: Starscream Just in time for my 35th birthday (July 18, 2005, for the benefit of anyone reading this in the archives in future years), I got the rest of the first batch of Cybertron. This is the only Supreme for the time being, but if they decide to recolor it (say, as Skywarp), it is extremely unlikely I'll be buying that. [Updated 10/12/05 with key code info.] CAPSULE Starscream: Big. Sturdy. About as poseable as you could expect from something this size. A few design annoyances, but otherwise a good toy. Recommended. $49.99 at TRU. RANT Packaging: The basic shape is the same as the Leader packaging in terms of being a somewhat odd prism, but it's made of stiffer corrugated cardboard and holds up a LOT better than the Leader boxes. There's also "handles" at the top because the box isn't QUITE big enough for Starscream, so there's holes at the top for his shoulders to poke through a little. The box is 14.5" (37cm) tall, 14" (35.5cm) wide at its widest, and 7.5" (19cm) deep. The windows are pretty much just front and top, which helps with structural integrity. Starscream's art is on the left front, and his keys are lower front right. Yes, two keys. He has an Earth Key with gold instead of silver paint and chrome, plus an unnamed key that is the Cybertron Decepticon Key in Galaxy Force, and probably will keep that name here. His crown is visible at the bottom of the box interior, twist-tied to a clear bubble extrusion. The left panel has co-sells of Prime, Megatron, Jetfire and Scourge, with his techspecs below them. The right panel has the Earth Planet story, as seen on several other toys, so I won't repeat it here. The back has the usual photos of both modes and the Key gimmicks, plus it names the crown the "DECEPTICON crown of leadership!" Just legal stuff on the bottom. 8 pieces of tape hold the top of the box closed. The blister piece holding the Keys is attached to the outer box rather than to the inner tray, unlike with other boxed Cybertron toys. A bag with the Speed map, instructions and one missile is taped to the back of the inner tray. 9 twist-ties hold Starscream to the tray, and 2 more plus three rubber bands hold bits together without being held to the tray. One more tie holds the crown onto its blister (you have to either cut the tie, or rip up the blister to undo the tie, and the blister is held down with taped tabs). Starscream is packaged in robot mode, his legs spread apart and his wings folded back, with his weapons deployed. DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM Planets: Earth, Cybertron Altmode: Jet Planet Key Code: s5a3 (same on both keys) Unsurpassed in ego or ambition, STARSCREAM is the scheming second-in- command to MEGATRON. With his mastery of the sword, null-ray cannons that can disrupt the functioning of even the most hardened AUTOBOT and a vast array of secondary weapons, STARSCREAM is second only to MEGATRON and OPTIMUS PRIME in power. His speed is uncanny, often giving slower 'bots the impression that he actually teleports around the battlefield. Left stranded on Earth to battle JETFIRE - the only AUTOBOT warrior capable of even coming close to matching STARSCREAM for speed or skill in aerial combat - he plots to seize a Cyber Planet Key for himself in order to gain the power he needs to finally overthrow MEGATRON and take command of the DECEPTICON army. Though his battle prowess is legendary, he lacks the practical intelligence to hide his ambition from his leader, and MEGATRON is more than aware of his plotting. STR 10 INT 7.5 SPD 10 END 8 RNK 9 COUR 7.5 FRB 10 SKL 8 Avg 8.75 (Same stats as All-Star, I typo'ed in the All-Star review.) Key code info: Starscream, the backstabbing general of Megatron has always been a jet of some kind. The Transformers: Cybertron version of Starscream is no exception. The design team working on TF: Cybertron borrowed element from the fan favorite comic book series "the War Within" to create this all-new Starscream look. (Also shows concept art. Text added to site in October.) Robot Mode: 15" (38cm) tall at the crown, 13.5" (34cm) at the head without the crown. 2 lbs 13 oz, 1.28kg. This is a big toy, befitting the Supreme price point. The overall look is reminiscent of the ancient Cybertronian form of Starscream seen in the War Within comics, and the main color scheme is red/light gray/black. The main plastic colors are light gray (chest, shoulders, forearm shields, wing pods, boots, Key chamber, tail kibble), REALLY dark gray (head, inner torso, pelvis, thighs, the rest of the arms, feet) and transparent purple (cockpit, flip-out weapons, shoulder missiles, 'clear red' accents on shoulders...which are really purple with a thin layer of red paint). The Keys come from their own batches. There is a LOT of slightly metallic red paint and black paint to flesh out the color scheme. There's a bit of gold paint here and there, and some silver paint on the chest blasters. Also some light gray paint on black parts to tweak the balance. His face is painted light gray with a silver chin, and the eyes are clear purple but look effectively black when not lit up by the sword swing gimmick. There's a bit of metallic red paint on the thruster nozzles atop his shoulders, a thin layer that makes it look like it might be clear red plastic over black. The crown, which is a pretty good representation of the G1 movie crown, is actually made of flexible clear plastic and entirely painted gold with bright red accents. I think it's the same flexible clear purple used on the flip-out weapons. Molded Decepticon symbols are on his wingtips, and painted purple. Poseability isn't as good as it could be, but it's fairly close. One needs to keep in mind that poseability does NOT linearily scale with size. Once you reach a certain bulk, you have to start cutting down on the poseability in order to avoid the figure simply falling over or drooping its arms. While not as severe as Fortress Maximus, Starscream is trending in that direction. You also have to make sure he won't break too badly if he falls, as his weight works against him. The head turns, but the waist does not. The shoulders swivel in a 16 point ratchet, and also can ratchet about 20 degrees out in one click, but only when in certain positions (this is as much to make transformation easier as actual poseability). The elbows ratchet with three positions: straight, bend 45 degrees, bend 90 degrees. There is no upper arm swivel. The hands are simply blocks with softer plastic "caps" inside the holes to accept 5mm pegs. There have been some complaints about the lack of finger articulation, and that's a valid complaint, I think. But a minor one. There's a pair of guns flanking the cockpit on his torso, which can rotate up smoothly to point forward. The hips are ratcheting universal joints (1/16 of a circle per click out to the sides, 1/12 of a circle per click to the front/back). There's a swivel just above each knee, and the knees ratchet (1/16 of a circle per click). The ankles are hinged ratchets (1/12) that stop at normal standing position...they can point, but not bend further. The heel spurs can be bent to compensate for the foot not being flat on the table, though. Despite the bulk, the lack of some joints, and the shortness of the forearms, some pretty impressive poseability is available to this toy. And it can even stand in the classic G1 Big Brick's "side kick" pose on one leg. And if you fold out the jet mode nose tips from under the feet, you can get a sort of spiked boot Deathscythe effect. There are three sound and light gimmicks, none of which involve the Keys (2 AAA batteries required, not included). Pressing a button on the left shoulder missile rack generates a zapping sound (2 eighth-beat zaps, an eighth-beat pause, another eighth beat zap) accompanied by two flashes of the missile racks. The red LEDs are positioned behind the bottom of each pair of missiles, and mostly just light up those missiles. Moving the left arm to one click above straight forward, from either direction, triggers a series of three zap-zap-zap sounds with two missile flashes for each triple-zap. Moving the right arm to one click above straight forward gives a single sword clang, accompanied by three flashes of the missiles AND three flashes of a green LED behind the eyes. This is the only way to get the eyes to flash. There are two metal contacts on the lower of the two Key storage slots on the back. It has been suggested that these are for some later gimmick, but it has to be one built into some other toy. Connecting the two discs with a paperclip didn't change any of the sounds, and there's nothing in the Key slot to get pushed and activate something different. If they ARE for a later gimmick, the only option is for them to allow a clipped-on toy to activate when pressing Starscream's shoulder button. [Addendum: it finally occured to me to use my multimeter to test out these bits. There is no change in current, voltage or resistance between the two when pressing the button, and resistance is effectively infinite. These are just structural rivets.] On the topic of Keys, there are four places to put Keys on Starscream. There are two "dead" slots on the back which are purely for storage, although the cartoon has this being where the Keys go during powerup. There's a live slot atop each wing pod. Inserting a Key into the right pod causes a clear purple blade (soft plastic) to spring out. The blade is 5.5" (14cm) long and patterned to resemble the blade of Energon Starscream. The left pod has a blaster that looks a lot like Shockblast's or Sixshot's, including a trio of black spines that fold out when you slide the trigger forward. The gun is 5" (12cm) long and fires a single clear purple missile somewhat weakly. The two weapons are not removable or interchangeable. The two-blade mode seen in the cartoon is not possible with this toy. The Keys can remain securely inserted into the pods, as they merely unlock a spring-loaded mechanism rather than fighting against the spring. [Correction: the gun can be removed, it's on a safety joint. And some have reported that theirs flies off when deploying.] To summarize: War Within shape, Armada coloring, Energon sword, G1 crown and weapon name (null ray). Planet Keys: One is a standard Earth Key, but with gold paint and gold chrome instead of silver (hm, blue with gold...Stratego flashback). The other is a sneak-peak at the Cybertron Keys, made of clear colorless plastic. It has a vaguely football-like shape, with bluish-silver paint all around the techny border. There's a raised Decepticon symbol painted purple (the corresponding Autobot Key is the same except for having an Autobot symbol in red). Both have the same code. Transformation: Some have commented that this is not a toy for small children, because they will lack the strength to transform it. That's not too far off, really. Between the many ratcheting joints and the sheer size of the thing, it's a workout. In principle, it's the same as the All-Star version, but with more little details. The arms transform with an extra backwards folding joint, the tail splits apart, the nose has a few more joints involved, and so forth. For safety reasons, the wing pods can snap off, and may well do so during transformation. Also, be sure to use the shoulder raising ratchet joints to make it easier to get the arms out of the way for transforming the legs. You can place the crown on his head in this mode, there's even a notch cut out of the robot chest to make this fit snugly, but it still looks kinda dumb and I don't recommend it. Jet mode: 17" (43cm) long, 15" (38cm) wingspan, roughly triangular shape. 7" (17cm) tall at the tail. A little lighter, because it's kinda dorky to keep the crown on in this mode, even though it's clearly made to fit snugly. There's actually some Skyfire elements to the design, which is kinda cool if intentional. Going by the size of the pilot's seat and assuming a human-sized pilot, Starscream is NOT 1/24 scale (as some have been saying, calling him an Alternators-ish jet). He's approximately 1/100 scale (1cm = 1m). And he can kick the butt of any 1/100 scale Gundam model. :) There's a few places where he looks like he should connect up better to give smoother lines, but nothing in the pictures or instructions to indicate that this is possible or even intended. The other main visual flaw is that the red paint was already chipped in a few places before I even removed it from the box, something not really noticeable in robot mode. The jet rolls smoothly on three underside wheels. Unlike the All-Star version, it's very stable in jet mode...not rock hard or anything, but pretty good despite being mostly held together by ratchet joints rather than pegs. The missile sound and light gimmick still works, but the lower missiles are obscured. Overall: Okay, I can afford to toss around $150 on a shopping trip for Transformers and not have to worry about it (got a bunch of other stuff today too), so I'm probably not the best judge of whether this is worth the money. But it IS worth the space, and I have a lot less of that. :) I'm generally pleased with it, although it's a bit more limited than Omega Supreme in play value. (Not that this has stopped people from coming up with a fanmade base mode for Starscream.) Dave Van Domelen, thinks he strained some muscles in his arms playing with Starscream.