Dave's Transformers Movie Deluxe Rant: Wave 0 Protoform Optimus Prime Protoform Starscream Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Deluxe0 As a teaser before the planned flood of toys in June, Hasbro has released a couple of Protoform toys, to start staking out the shelf space. CAPSULES Protoform Optimus Prime: Nice if underpainted robot mode, better transformation than I expected, so-so vehicle mode. Recommended. $9.96 at Wal-Mart. Protoform Starscream: More detailed and gimmicky than Prime by a little, but less poseable as a result. Decent transformation and vehicle mode. Mildly recommended. $9.96 at Wal-Mart. RANTS Design Theory: Where most Transformers lines work on the principle that transformation involves shifting blocks and panels, with some size shifting of parts possible, the movie Transformers (mTFs from hereon) are closer to the morphing of Beast Machines. mTFs are basically like those magnetic sculptures where you mold a pile of metal chunks into whatever shape you want. And once the mTF is in the rough form desired, it extrudes plates and details to cover up, either for protection or disguise. The Protoform, contrary to its use in Beast Wars, is basically a fully functional entity, simply with minimal to no panel-extrusion, folded into a rough form capable of surviving atmospheric re-entry or otherwise flying through space. They cannot, according to the prequel novel, travel faster than light via wormholes, a ship or a dedicated starship altmode are required for that. But any mTF can change into Protoform mode and at least zoom around in space. Obviously, the actual toys can't act like Floam beads and just squish around into new shapes, so every possible altmode for a character needs its own unique transformation, and leaves plenty of vehicle kibble on the robot mode. But you could probably kitbash any character into a Protoform by just taking one of these two, changing the head and tweaking some other details. :) They have similar transformations and gear, so a lot of the Starscream review will just refer back to Prime. Packaging: Both have roughly the same trade dress and colors. There's no red/purple divide (all faction symbols are red), nor is the Cybertron packaging mirror-flop tactic employed. The cardbacks are 12" (30cm) tall and 7.5" (19cm) wide, mostly rectangular but with some truncations and trapezoidal cut-outs. The movie logo is across the top, with the relevant faction symbol behind it in the upper right. The background of the card shows a fireball streaking across the card, representing a Protoform making atmospheric re-entry. In the upper left, an "Ages 5+" advisory is printed. The blisters are roughly quarter hemisphere flattened domes (upper left quadrant of a circle) with some tech detailing molded into them and the faction symbol molded into the flat right side. The figures are in robot mode inside the blister, with guns to the right of them. Starscream also has a missile, which is to the left of him. A card insert along the curved upper left proclaims "MOVIE PREVIEW". A card insert along the front bottom has the name, faction, and the Protoform label to the left. To the right is an image (photoshopped photo, I think) of the "Entry Mode". The left side of the insert calls it Deluxe Class. The underside has legalese, including a "not suitable for children under 3" warning. So it looks like 4 year olds are a gray area. A sticker on the top of the blister says "Includes BONUS MOVIE POSTER!" in a starburst. Cardbacks have the logo along the top left. The upper right has the techspecs and bio note. The new techspec bars are a string of beads fading from white on the left through yellow and into red, with the numerical value printed in the right-most bead. The upper left quarter has a life-sized photo of the robot mode of the toy, and below it a photo of the Entry Mode. Smaller in the lower right is the robot mode of the other toy, as a co-sell. The blisters are glued on top and bottom, with taped tabs wrapping around on the sides. The instructions inside are the usual line art with pale color highlighting the areas to be changed in that step (pink for Prime, purple for Starscream). The poster is just the teaser one with the robot eye over Earth. On the other side is a catalog showing what I presume is the first wave of toys: Leader Class Megatron and Optimus Prime; Optimus Prime voice-changer helmet; Cyber-Stompin' Optimus Prime and Bumblebee (these are non-transforming toys that make stomping noises when they walk...not sure if they walk on their own or have to be moved); Deluxe Bumblebee (Camaro), Barricade (police car), Brawl (tank) and Autobot Jazz (sports car); Optimus Prime Battle Rig Blaster shown transforming from truck mode to forearm blaster glove. The Starscream Barrel Roll Blaster is listed as also available, but not pictured. The techspecs do not have mottos or functions. Each figure evokes some other altmode with the various functional kibble on them. AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME Altmode: Protoform Evokes: Truck Summoned by a signal from one of his bravest warriors, OPTIMUS PRIME thunders down through the space above Earth and races into battle, his protoform body tracing a fiery path across the sky. Most powerful among the AUTOBOTS, he is dedicated to the recovery of the Allspark, and the protection of both the humans on Earth and his own people back on CYBERTRON. Scanning an Earth truck, he morphs into a form that will allow him to hide until the time comes to enter battle against MEGATRON STR 10 INT 10 SPD 7 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRB 10 SKL 9 Avg 9.5 Packaging: Five ties hold Prime into the blister, 1 tie holds his gun. All are easily removable. Comes with the flank panels folded forward, but they should be flipped back like wings. Robot Mode: A little over 5.5" (14cm) tall, a pretty standard Deluxe figure size. Good proportions, although the munky-ish feet do look a little odd. There's three colors of plastic involved in his contstruction: black, light metallic blue, and clear orange. The clear orange fluoresces to nearly white under UV, but the other colors don't really react. The eye lightpiping and the orange flame piece are clear plastic. The hands, upper arms, hip joints, ankle joints, and most of the gun are black, as are many of the internal joints for transformation. The rest, including the front end of hte gun, is light metallic blue. The window panes on the chest are painted a glossy deep blue. There's some little red accents here and there on the figure, and a load of silver airbrushed all over, especially on the chest and head. I think the head would have looked better with some dark blue on it, or at least black. The abdomen and details on the hips and ankles are painted black. There's gold paint on the flame piece, covering the narrow end. The neck is a swivel, and the waist is a restricted ball joint (although the "wings" can get in the way of posing that joint. Universal joint shoulders, upper arm swivels, hinge elbows, swivel wrists. The armor bits on the forearms greatly restrict wrist motion. Ball joint hips with swivels right below them. Hinge knees, elbow-style restricted ball joint ankles. There's a fair amount of protoform kibble hanging off the back, looking vaguely like he strapped a skinned Skybyte to his back. His gun does not fire, the flame piece just plugs into it so it looks like it sprays a fan of flame. The handle is a standard 5mm peg. If you're of a sacriligeous bent and wish to emphasize the martyr complex Prime always seems to have, you can always pose him like this and hang him from the wall by a bit of string threaded through his backpack: http://www.dvandom.com/images/protoprimex.JPG Transformation: Essentially, you grab the chest, turn the legs around at the waist, and then fold everything back into a teardrop. But there's a lot more fiddly details involved, and it takes a certain amount of massaging to get everything properly locked together. As such, it's more interesting than I expected. The flame burst clips on at the end as a fiery trail for re-entry effects. The gun stores internally, with nothing showing. Protoform Mode: Including the flame trail, it's 7" (18cm) long, and roughly teardrop-shaped. The front end looks sort of like a truck's front end, and there's black oval shapes along the sides that resemble wheels, nicely evoking the eventual vehicle mode without being it. The only robot kibble really noticeable in this mode is the feet, which kinda look like they're supposed to be a vent arrangement with the toes connected together they way they are. There's three little real wheels on the underside in a tricycle landing gear configuration, although the front wheel kinda comes loose inside its slot and skids rather than rolling. A small Autobot symbol is molded in the roof over the front windows, and painted red. Overall: This one emphasizes the robot mode poseability and sculpt. The gun doesn't shoot, the protoform is somewhat dull. But it's still a lot better than I was expecting, and worth picking up. DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM Altmode: Protoform Evokes: Jet One of the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy, STARSCREAM commands the DECEPTICON search for the Allspark while MEGATRON is missing. Streaking towards Earth, he reshapes his body, morphing his metal skin into a protective shell that glows and sparks as he makes his fiery descent. On Earth, he will scan a disguise and modify his protoform into an Earth fighter jet form that will allow him to achieve his goal: the total destruction of the AUTOBOTS. STR 6 INT 9 SPD 10 END 7 RNK 8 COUR 4 FRB 7 SKL 9 Avg 7.5 Packaging: Five easily-removable ties hold Starscream into the blister, one holds his gun. His missile is held in just by the blister. His toes are pointed somewhat down in packaging to keep them from sticking out through the blister. Robot Mode: 5.75" (14.5cm) tall, and except for the lightpiping and flametrail piece, made completely of pale gold plastic. Minor swirling of metalflake in it, so it may be susceptible to Gold Plastic Syndrome (see http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Gold_Plastic_Syndrome for details if you have not encountered this scourge of anyone who actually intends to keep their toys more than three years). Closer examination, however, shows that he's made of pale gold plastic and paler gold plastic. The paler stuff is used mainly on joints and the missile, presumably it's a less brittle type. He has red and silver paint accents in various places, including a sort of silver domino mask. His paint lines are crisp, rather than Prime's airbrushed look. None of his colors particularly react with UV, his clear orange is redder and doesn't glow. There is gold paint on the pointed bit of the flame piece, as with Prime. His torso evokes a stealth fighter's angular shapes, and he has big black-painted turbine intakes on his chest...which is about the only "classic" Starscream touch to this toy. The tailfin-like bits sticking up on either side of his head remind me more of Beast Machines Jetstorm. He has clawed hands, two finger and a big thumb, and while his head isn't as Waspinatory as some of his other designs, it's not very Starscreamy either. Head turns on a swivel, waist is a restricted ball joint. The shoulders are a weird combo due to transformation, a ball joint but with the ball part pointed down rather than outward. The arm can still be raised to level, but no higher, and it's sometimes tricky to get it to move the way you want, thanks to the swivel just under the socket part. Elbows are hinges, wrists swivel with full range. The hips are ball joints, and there's some side to side wiggle just below the hip for transformation. However, there's no upper leg swivel anywhere as a result. The knees are hinges, and both the toe and heel pieces are hinged stiffly so that the feet can be usefully posed. Starscream's gun, also with a 5mm peg handle, has a firing missile. The flame piece can either plug into the muzzle to look flamethrower-ish as with Prime's, or fit over the missile tip. Transformation: Similar to Prime in rough outline, but most of the details are different. The head auto-retracts when the shoulders are pushed back, a nice extra touch. Also, the gun is more visible here, and the missile is required to make the flame trail sit on properly. If you remove the flame trail (or at least unhook it), the missile can even fire. While the final result isn't as compact and smooth as Prime, it's more technically interesting in process. [Correction: While pulling the shoulders forward makes the head pop up automatically, it does NOT auto-retract when pushing the shoulders back.] Protoform Mode: 7" (18cm) long including the flame trail, it's a lot more angular than Prime's Protoform. Lots of fins and intakes that look like someone took a jet and wadded it down a bit. As mentioned above, the missile can fire, although backwards. There's a Decepticon symbol molded into the cockpit-ish piece, but it's not picked out in paint. The landing gear is a bit more stable and robust, as well. Basically, it looks a little more "random pile of parts" than Prime's protoform, but has advantages over that one as well. Overall: Less poseable, but more gimmicked and with more emphasis on details. Given that they used two different kinds of plastic, I think it would've looked better with two different colors too, but it's not bad. Dave Van Domelen, willing to wait until June 2 for the main rush of movie toys. Got Alternators and Nike Megatron to tide him over....