Dave's Movie Transformers Rant: Legends Wave 2 Megatron Optimus Prime Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Legend2 So far, I only know of two in this wave. They may be shipping with more of Wave 1, or I just got beaten to all but Megatron the first time I saw 'em in stores. Update 9/7/07: I still have yet to see Prime separate anywhere in brick and mortar, even when over a dozen Megatrons were on the pegs. The only places to get it have been online and in the Target four-pack. However, those finally went on clearance for $4.98, so I got one. :) I won't be bothering to review that pack separately...it's just the Megatron and Prime below, plus the Cybertron Megatron and Optimus Prime, no paint differences at all that I can tell. I basically bought Prime for $4.98 and got three spares free. Also, Starscream has been spotted as part of a TRU *six* pack, I doubt that'll ever be clearanced enough to bother. Update 9/9/07: I've improved Prime a bit, adding a second smokestack (it's not exactly the same as the original, but we're talking differences of a tenth of a millimeter here) and giving him a rifle made from a spare Warhammer 40K Tau gun plus a segment of hexagonal rod for a grip. http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/legopr.JPG - robot mode http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/legopv.JPG - vehicle mode CAPSULES Megatron: Okay in both modes, decent transformation, very wrong instructions. And still probably the best version of Movie Megatron in terms of capturing both modes. Mildly recommended. $4.99 at TRU. Optimus Prime: A bit weird in robot mode, clever transformation, decent vehicle mode with some odd alterations of the design. Mildly recommended. Part of clearanced multipack for $4.98 at Target. RANTS Packaging: Same as Wave 1. Has "Series 8" on the back. The Target exclusive box is the same shape as their all-Cybertron set, angled in on the sides like a wide "Black Widow" hourglass. The techspecs are on the angled sides, instructions printed on the back of the box. The figures are each held in robot mode to the blister by four twist-ties. The first version of the movie line catalog is packed in behind the tray. DECEPTICON: MEGATRON Altmode: Spaceship Licensor: Yeah, right STR 10 INT 10 SPD 10 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 9 FRB 10 SKL 9 Avg 9.75 Packaged in robot mode, four twist-ties. The instructions for transformation, in addition to being vague, are also wrong in several places. Fortunately, it's not too hard to just use the photo reference on the package to get the transformation right. Robot Mode: 3" (7.5cm) tall and made entirely of a light bluish gray plastic...except for the chest core piece, which is a slightly lighter bluish gray plastic. :) Oh, and the arms are made of a slightly rubbery light bluish gray plastic. Suffice to say, while at first glance it looks to be just a single sprue's worth of plastic, it's actually at least three. Many gaps and lines are filled in with black paint. There's some gunmetal paint on the abdomen and elbows, silver on the face, and red eyes. He has a slight backpack due to the altmode's needlenose hanging off the back. The shoulders are restricted ball joints, and the arms end in weird vehicle prong things rather than hands. The arms do actually bend a bit due to the kind of plastic they're made of, but I don't think this is intentional so much as it's a safety thing. The head is on a ball joint, the waist turns, and the hips are unrestricted ball joints. The ankles are not meant to move, their ball joints are purely for transformation. Transformation: The arms lift up and rotate 90 degrees on their long axis. The nose of the vehicle mode swings up, pushing the face into the chest and sort of hiding it. The legs spread out into wings, with the ankle joints coming into play to make the fins at the feet turn sideways. The waist spins to get everything in the right direction. Vehicle Mode: Okay, this one gets to cheat by not having to look like anything in particular, but it does seem to capture the fantasy space ship mode pretty well. 3.25" (8.5cm) long, with a 4.25" (10.5cm) wingspan. It's sort of an inverted T shape, but with three prongs in front. I suppose you could take a big capital I followed by a sideways stretched E and get pretty close to the basic shape. A bit floppy, given that everything's held in position by the friction of ball joints or swivels, but it holds together well enough with gentle handling. Unlike the first wave toys, the vehicle mode will not fit in a Hot Wheels storage case. :) Also, I doubt it's meant to be to scale with the first four. Overall: Decent. I mean, the altmode's already kinda cheaty, so they didn't have to make too many compromises to get it to work at this scale, but they certainly could also have botched it in some significant way too, and didn't. Worth picking up at the $4-5 level. [Later note: Sadly, this is probably the best version of the movie design we're going to get, in terms of looking decent in both modes and having a non-crappy transformation.] AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME Altmode: Peterbilt 379 (unlicensed "close enough") Licensor: None. STR 10 INT 10 SPD 7 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRB 10 SKL 9 Avg 9.5 Oddly, the Skill is one lower than on the Voyager Robovision version. They've otherwise been making sure all versions of a character have the same specs, so maybe this was an oops. Robot Mode: 3" (7.5cm) tall. The torso and arms are dark blue plastic, and the head is a solidly attached part of the torso. The thighs and the backs of the shins are black plastic. The boot fronts are red plastic. There's red on the pecs with metallic light blue windows, and silver on the abdomen. The faceplate is silver and the eyes are metallic light blue. The rest of the paint details are for the vehicle mode. The overall color balance is a little odd...where most Primes are mainly red on top and blue on the feet, this one is almost entirely blue on top and red on the boots. As such, it doesn't look all that Prime-like. The skinny waist that has to fit between the legs in vehicle mode doesn't help either. The shoulders and hips are ball joints, and the waist bends forward and back (a little loosely), no other articulation. The hands can hold 1/8" hexagonal pegs, and I just so happen to have a supply of 1/8" hexagonal rod. [Later note: Turns out he's mistransformed in package. His pelvis rotates so that his skinny waist collapses down a bit, giving better proportions. However, now he's 2.75" (7cm) tall.] Transformation: Well, this is certainly different from any semitractor TF I can recall. The legs unfold into the bottom half of the vehicle, the arms go over the head to form the top half, and it all folds together at the hips, which are at the rear of the vehicle. The lower nose halves peg around the robot fists, and the whole thing is very stable in vehicle mode. Vehicle Mode: 2.5" (6cm) long, but rather out of proportion with the other versions of the character. The segment behind the cab is much shorter relative to the cab then on Voyager or Leader, much less Titanium Vehicle (which is the closest to the real Peterbilt in proportions). To give some idea of the squashing, it's 2/3 the total length of Titanium Vehicle Prime, but the cab section is 9/10 as long as TiVehicle Prime's. The very rear section, wheels and much of the underside are black plastic, the front lower quarter of the toy is red, the top and middle dark blue plastic. All told, the paint apps are decent. The doors are blue with red flames, there's blue flames on the hood and front fenders, metallic blue front windows, and silver on the rooflights and visor. But this tends to point up the places where there isn't paint, like on the side windows or on the running boards and the single smokestack. Yeah, one smokestack. The other didn't break off, the mold simply only has a smokestack on the passenger side for some reason. Heh, the back of box photo mirrorflops the vehicle mode. The headache rack is molded against the back of the cab, but also unpainted. I may just have to do a repaint job on this. Maybe I'll try adding the driver side smokestack too. There's four rolling wheels. The hip joints are molded as the rear pair of wheels, raised up a little to avoid dragging, a clever bit of design. Overall: Feels a little small and cheap, but sadly is still one of the better Movie Legends toys for all that. And the transformation is pretty clever. A lot of the color balance problems can be fixed by customizing, though, since there's a lot of spaces that are hidden or internal in vehicle mode that could be repainted to better match classic Prime balance (i.e. the fronts of the boots are on the vehicle underside and could be painted blue, most of the arm details are actually hidden inside the cab in vehicle mode, and could be painted red and gray). Dave Van Domelen, needs to mod Prime up.