Dave's Transformers Rant: Robot Replicas Wave 2 Optimus Prime Decepticon Frenzy Autobot Jazz Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Replica2 Oddly, the P/N's have a gap here. Prime's ends in 300, then Frenzy at 500 and Jazz at 600. See http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Replica1 for packaging details and general line comments, including comparisons to Revoltech. While Wal-Mart seems to have been matching K-Mart's higher price, Target is only asking $9.99. CAPSULES Optimus Prime: Good sculpt and articulation, and other than the head has good paint applications too. Recommended. $9.99 at Target. Decepticon Frenzy: They tried too hard to look movie-accurate, ditching the articulation the line's supposed to also be about. Okay if you just want a fairly accurate Frenzy statue, though. Very mildly recommended. $9.99 at Target. Autobot Jazz: Very nice sculpt and articulation, decent paints. The accessory is a loss, though. Recommended. $9.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: Same as Wave 1. The cosells on the back show the three in this wave, there's no -400 figure I missed. On all three packages, the side panel has "Includes interchangeable (weapon name)," while the call-out on the back says "Arm-mounted (weapon name)". AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME Weapon: Ion Blaster Licensor: None OPTIMUS PRIME sometimes gives the impression of grimness. Command weighs heavily on him; though he has never hesitated in the fight to recover the AllSpark and restore CYBERTRON, he feels every soldier lost like a blow. Eons of war have left him steeped in memories of lost friends and comrades long gone. It is their memory that drives him on, and keeps him always dedicated to his principle of preserving freedom not just for the inhabitants of CYBERTRON, but for all creatures across the cosmos. One rubber band runs from one foot to the other behind the blister, that's it. Dimensions: 5.5" (14cm) tall at the head. Maximum arm span is 5" (13cm), as the arms can't go straight out to the sides. On the other hand (or leg), the maximum stance width he can pull off is about 7" (18cm). With the weapon included it masses 118g, so it keeps to the "build by mass" rule of thumb seen in the first wave. Sculpt: Good hero proportions, leggy enough to give an impression of greater height despite being as tall as Jazz. Big stomper feet provide good support. The neck joint looks a little awkward, though. Plastics: The forearms and ion cannon are bright red plastic. The shoulders, thighs, shins and feet are dark blue plastic with metallic sparkly inclusions. The rest is various types of silvery light gray plastic. Paint Applications: Good color matching on the blue and red paints used, although the blue lacks the swirly metallics. Good flame tampos on the upper arms, chest, belt and boots, plenty of silver detailing as well. The chest windows and several other bits on the front of the torso are a light metallic blue. There's some gold details here and there as well. With one exception, it looks very good and I'm not all that tempted to do a repaint. The exception is the head, which has some sloppy applications and nothing on the eyes. I might touch up the head and add a little bit of black wash on a few parts, but I'm otherwise happy with the factory colors. Ironically, he has no Autobot symbol. Articulation: Revoltech-style joints on the shoulders and knees. Oversized Revoltech-style ankles with detailing molded on them. The head is the usual ball joint, and the mid-torso turns. The elbows and hips are non-Revoltech soft-ratcheting universal joints (hinge plus swivel). The hips swivel where they connect to the pelvis, the elbows swivel where they meet the forearms. The forearms pop off in a Revoltech style. Weapon: Another forearm morph cannon, 2.25" (6cm) long and made of bright red plastic with extensive paint work. It's meant to replace the right forearm, sharing some detailing near the elbow end with that forearm. Overall: Okay, there's no shortage of Prime toys out there, including ones large enough to be pretty movie-accurate in addition to transforming. Still, of the Robot Replicas, this is one of the better ones out of the box. Aside from the head, it looks pretty good with factory paints. DECEPTICON: DECEPTICON FRENZY Weapon: Attack Claw Licensor: None DECEPTICON FRENZY is built for silence and cruelty. His elaborate optical sensors are so sensitive they can make out the microscopie bacteria that swarm on the skin of Earth's inhabitants. The antennae-like interceptors on his head can resolve human brainwaves into coherent data, giving him limited mind-reading capability. Bladed joints on his extraordinarily agile hands serve as weapons as easily as they do tools. He never speaks, except to communicate quietly with MEGATRON, BARRICADE and one or two other DECEPTICONS, opening his mouth otherwise only to emit his hypersonic code breaking shriek. Heh. He doesn't just see humans as microbes, he sees humans AND microbes. No rubber bands, although some of the claws poke through holes in the blister to keep him in. Don't miss the little razor disc stuck into the blister. Dimensions: 5.75" (14.5cm) tall at the head. The arms don't spread out as the shoulders are just swivels, but the ball joint hips allow a stance width of 4.5" (11cm). A mere 38g including the weapon arm, just the first of many ways this spindly robot breaks the "rules" of Robot Replicas. Sculpt: Spindly and sharply detailed, about the right proportions for the character. Of course, it's not a design that really lends itself to any real toy. He's digitigrade, which is to say that his ankles are high enough up to look like backwards knees, while the joints down where you'd look for ankles are actually toes. Unlike all other Robot Replicas so far, he has an action feature built into him, albeit a fairly weak one. A razor disc inserts into his chest, and pressing a button on his back makes it pop out weakly. It seems intended to work like a marble-shooter launcher, but isn't held in strongly enough to pop out very well. Probably for the best, though, as the little (15mm across) shuriken would be very easily lost if it could fire more than a few inches. Plastics: All silvery light gray. Paint Applications: Metallic blue eyes (only the biggest four are painted), numerous greenish gold accents all over the place, and dark gray charring effects on the claws. There's also some gunmetal gray paint on some of the spines. Could stand some silver drybrushing, plus paint on the other four eyes. Articulation: No Revoltech-style joints at all. The head is the usual ball joint, the waist does not move. The shoulders are swivels. There's a weird sideways hinge joint around the general elbow location on each arm, and the left forearm pegs in so it gets a rotational swivel out of the bargain. The hips are somewhat restricted ball joints. The true knees are not articulated at all. The "backwards knees" are soft-ratchet hinged, as are the "ankles". I think they should've tried to at least fit Revoltech-style joints into the ankles, a little extra bulk would be excused by the greater stability of stance. Also, the "knee" joints don't bend forward enough to be all that useful as pose joints. Frankly, for a character so defined by flexibility and fiddly bits, not only is the amount of articulation disappointing, but the choices of which joints to articulate and in what way are also a letdown. Weapon: The left forearm is replaced by a version in which the main claw is larger and opened up to pop out a cannon (with ammo belt appearing out of nowhere), and the secondary claw is closed. The elbow spike vanishes. Given how little plastic is used in this one, I think I would have preferred leaving out the disc-shooter and getting more weapon arms to swap out. Or even a couple of action figure scaled altmodes, like a radio and a blackberry. Overall: Disappointing. I'd much rather have had "non-movie-accurate" larger ball joints used more extensively to let him twist into movie-style contortions. I think the Fast Attack Battler has articulation as good as this or better, and it's from a line marked by lower detail. AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT JAZZ Weapon: Crescent Cannon Licensor: GM There's more to AUTOBOT JAZZ than just style. Beyond his flashy exterior and hip communications modeling software lays a keen mind and commanding presence. OPTIMUS PRIME relies on him for his ability to assimilate and understand alien cultures, but also for his laser-precise strategic mind. His understanding of others extends even to the DECEPTICONS, which helps him keep the AUTOBOTS one step ahead of them at all times. His is an adapive, flexible mind, unique among the TRANSFORMERS. For that reason, in the absence of OPTIMUS PRIME, AUTOBOT JAZZ is often left in command. There's no other mind like it! And now there's none like it at all.... No rubber bands, but the hands stick through holes in the blister. Dimensions: 5.5" (14cm) tall at the head, arm span of 6" (15cm), stance width of 6" (15cm). Sticks to the general rules at a mass of 118g. Sculpt: Still a bit leggy, but not quite the total "Dad Pants" look of the transforming version. (By "Dad Pants" I refer to the stereotype about how as your dad gets older, his belt goes higher and higher, until it's practically up under his armpits.) The actual figure looks good, although it does emphasize that Jazz has claw hands (does Claw have jazz hands?), four mutually opposed digits. The left claw is open to grasp, the right one is nearly closed for a spiky jab. The weapon sculpt...not so good. More on that later. Plastics: All made of medium gray with swirly metallic inclusions. Some soft, some rigid. Paint Applications: Some silver bigs here and there, occasionally sloppily done. Lots of black paint, and some gold accents here and there, including on the insides of the claws. It's moderately impressive that the nearly closed claw is still painted on the inside. The Pontiac logo on the chest is painted red, and there's some dark reddish brown bits on conduits on his abdomen, hips and lower shin. Overall, it generally looks right, which is to say as boring as the official design. It could stand some medium gray or gunmetal highlights on some of the black parts to bring out details, and a bit of other color on the headlights, but that's about it. Alternately, repaint the whole thing in G1 colors. Articulation: Identical to Prime, including the special oversized Revoltech-style ankles with wheel details molded onto them. He "wears" it a little better, although his hips don't spread quite as far apart. Weapon: The Crescent Cannon is meant to replace the forearm, but is molded like a sidearm that is held in the hand. The main shaft is a simple pipe, rather than trying to look at all like a morphed forearm, so it looks really really stupid plugged onto the arm. Nor is there any way to attach it to either forearm. Pretty much a "toss in the parts bin" accessory. And you can't even give it to Frenzy, since his weapon arm has a peg, not a hole, so you can't attach this to Frenzy's stump. Overall: Very nice figure, lame accessory. Worth picking up. Dave Van Domelen, sad that Frenzy turned out so weak.