Dave's Movie Transformers Rant: Legends Wave 3 Starscream Blackout Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Legend3 I've decided that so much time has passed that this is really wave three, with Megatron being the only new toy in wave two. I'll leave Prime in with Megatron at http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Legend2 though. The full wave 3 includes Megatron and Prime in the shipping case. Starscream was first available in the TRU-exclusive five-pack, but I passed on that. CAPSULES Starscream: Ugly robot, simplistic transformation, okay jet. Neutral. $4.79 at K-Mart. Blackout: Decent robot, okay transformation, very nice helicopter. One of the better Legends. Recommended. $4.79 at K-Mart. RANTS Packaging: Same as Wave 1. Has "Series 9" on the back. Four twist-ties hold Starscream onto the blister, five twist-ties hold Blackout in. Blackout has his six rotor blades in three clumps (two down, two 60 degrees to the right of that, two 60 degrees to the right). This is because, rather than having six independent blades, he has two clumps of three. DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM Altmode: F-22 Raptor Licensor: Lockheed-Martin STR 8 INT 4 SPD 10 END 7 RNK 9 COUR 5 FRB 8 SKL 8 Avg 7.375 Poor guy still stuck with Skywarp's old INT stat. Robot Mode: 3" (7.5cm) tall and made largely of a pale gold plastic with the sort of swirly metallic inclusions that warn of future Gold Plastic Syndrome. The tail backpack and arms are made of light gray plastic, as is the internal pelvis section. There's silver paint on the shins, the central torso and lower face. The teeth are yellow, the eyes are red. There's a bronze paint on the pectorals. The gorilla-like aspects of the character are present, although the arms are a lot more spindly and end in hands that have four fingers plus two mutually opposable thumbs each. Poseability is iffy. The shoulders and elbows are ball joints with good range. The hips are VERY restricted ball joints, mainly for transformation. There's also some "rock side to side" hinge motion at the waist. No knees or ankles. Transformation: Mainly just folding in half at the waist. You twist the legs to connect and put the arms up in front of the face, plus swiveling the tail pieces up, but it's generally pretty simple. Alternatively, at the cost of more bulky underside kibble, you can leave the legs in robot position and hide the forearms between them, it'll look better from above but worse from the side. Vehicle Mode: 3.5" (8.5cm) long, 2.5" (6cm) wingspan. The tail bits are light gray plastic, as are the trailing edges of the wings and the robot forearms that just sort of stick out the back. The rest is the gold plastic. The leading edges of the wings, the nosecone and the trim around the cockpit are painted silver, and the cockpit itself is painted yellow. Looks okay, not too much kibble aside from the arms. The shoulder joints are a bit obvious, as is a hinge behind the cockpit. There's no front landing gear, so it rests a bit point-down. If you do the alternate transformation I suggest, though, it rests a little nose-up. Overall: Okay, Starscream's movie design robot mode is inherently fugly, but this version does it no favors. The jet is decent, if kibbly, and the transformation weak. Pass on this one. DECEPTICON: BLACKOUT Altmode: Sikorsky Pave Low helicopter Licensor: Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation STR 8 INT 6 SPD 8 END 7 RNK 7 COUR 5 FRB 9 SKL 5 Avg 6.875 And the balance is now attained. Four Autobot Legends (Prime, Jazz, Ratchet, Bumblebee) and four Decepticons (Barricade, Megatron, Starscream, Blackout). Given that wave 4 looks to be versus packs (albeit with recolors), the balance will be maintained. Robot Mode: 3" (8cm) tall. The shoulders/upper arms and thighs are black plastic, as are the rotors on the back side. The rest is blue-gray plastic. There's black paint on the chest, some silver accents on collarbone, face, forehead and shins. The eyes are red. A nice little detail is a round bit behind the head to evoke the big sonic weapon thingy. Also, the hands have the same hexagonal holes as Prime's fists, but flattened on the thumb side so a hex peg would need some filing down. The shoulders are ball joints, the elbows hinge inward. The hips are ball joints. There's balls at the knees, but only to bend sideways for transformation, making the knees effectively non-jointed except as a swivel to point the toes different directions. The proportions are good, the default stance impressive, and frankly it looks better than the real movie design. :) Transformation: The arms fold together over the head to make the front end, the legs twist around and fold together to make the rear section. It can take some effort to get the legs to properly clip together, though. Kinda hard to get the legs OUT of vehicle mode, though. [Later note: If you put the rotors in the orientation found in the packaging for robot mode, the tail can't fold up without misaligning the rotors. However, if you offset the two chunks by 30 degrees, you get a "fan" of all six blades with a gap down the centerline into which the tail can go. This looks much better, and more like the larger versions of the toy.] Vehicle Mode: Very nicely locked together, just a gap in the underside to betray the robot aspects. 3.5" (9cm) long, with a rotor circle of 3.25" (a little over 8cm). The rotor and tail rotor are black plastic, as are some visible joints, but otherwise the fuselage is the same blue-gray color as other Blackout toys. The front radome, the jet intakes and the side pontoon- like things are painted silver, while the windows are painted black. The way the main rotor is set up makes it kinda lopsided in deployed mode, probably the only downside of this mode. It's otherwise a very nice mini-scale Pave Low with minimal gap and seam issues. Overall: I like this one. Might not really be a five dollar toy, but it comes closer than most Legends. Dave Van Domelen, didn't buy a single-carded Prime, since the Target four-pack hit $2.48 before leaving shelves and he snagged a spare unkitbashed one that way.