Dave's Revenge of the Fallen Rant: Deluxe Wave 6 Thrust (Breakaway remold) Autobot Gears (2007 Stockade redeco) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Deluxe6 A sort of padding wave, with two redecos and older toys to pad out the boxes (in other words, the case is not generally just these two). Given how many 2007 molds have been reused in RotF, it's about time they started mining the generally superior "not seen as a robot in the movie" molds. (Okay, Fearswoop is also a redeco from that cohort, but not one of the good molds from that cohort.) http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Deluxe1 - Breakaway http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Deluxe4 - Stockade CAPSULES Thrust: Original mold was Recommended. This one is better. Recommended even if you have both Breakaways already (he got a running change to darker tan). $10 at Walmart. Autobot Gears: Original mold was Recommended. The colors on this are a bit odd, but otherwise it's no better nor worse than Stockade. On the other hand, being the first Gears since G1 is a minor plus. Recommended. $10 at Walmart. RANTS Packaging: Same as previous waves, each has the other as their cosell on the underside, and they come with the same catalog I got with wave 5. DECEPTICON: THRUST Altmode: Fighter jet Licensor: None Previous Name Use: G1, BMac, Armada, Cybertron, Universe2 Previous Mold Use: RotF (head remold) Gimmick: Spinning gatling cannon Function: Warrior Motto: "Haw! You look just like ants down there! And you squish like 'em too!" THRUST loves to fight, as long as he's guaranteed to win. As soon as the odds turn against the DECEPTICONS, he's the first to run and hide. He relishes the chance to push around those smaller and weaker than him, so Earth is the ultimate playground. He avoids the AUTOBOTS completely, choosing instead to pick fights with small, lightly armed groups of humans. Even then, as soon as the humans roll out any artillery, or even rocket launchers, he heads for space, to lay low until he can stop shaking from fear. STR 6 INT 3 SPD 9 END 8 RNK 6 COUR 1 FRB 7 SKL 7 Avg 5.875 With that bio note, he's not so much a retool as a plain ol' tool. Packaging: Two twist-ties hold the jet into the blister, and a rubber band around the fuselage (inside the wings) hold it secure. Color Swaps: Tan becomes maroon, light blue becomes black, green becomes dark gunmetal, clear colorless becomes clear light purple, and the rubbery plastic is black. Paint Apps: Most of the paint here is gloss black. The framework of the cockpit, the tops of the wingtips, the tops of the horizontal part of the tail, and roundels on the wings with negative space Decepticon symbols. The roundels are meant to evoke the wing nacelles of the original. There's also a black Decepticon symbol printed on the right side intake. The tops of the intakes are silver, and there's a funky G-like symbol on the tail fins that doesn't look like a Cybertronian glyph or like something G1. In robot mode, the parts of the upper arms that are painted tan on Breakaway are maroon here. Bright red is used on the circular depressions on the shoulders, several details on the pelvis and some stripes along the bottoms of the outer thighs. The "belt buckle" is silver, and the silver parts of the intakes form a sort of lapel arrangement. He's a legitimate businessman, I tells ya. Mold Changes: Just a head swap, they didn't add the ducted fans on the wings that characterized G1 Thrust. There's a slight resemblance to the G1 head in this mold, crossed with a sort of techno-ninja look. The back is light purple clear plastic, but the geometry of the torso prevents it from being good lightpiping. The front part is maroon plastic, with dark gunmetal paint on the faceplate and forehead. Other Notes: While the head sunken into the cockpit is a consequence of using the Breakaway mold, it can also be seen as a sort of subtle homage to Beast Machines Thrust. I fiddled around with the wings and panels to see if I could find an arrangement that increased the difference from Breakaway, but I wasn't particularly happy with any of them. On mine, the gatling barrel isn't fully seated on its metal pin, but it's too firmly in place to shove on the rest of the way. Overall: Okay, I'm something of a sucker for red and black, as my wardrobe will attest to. It's a good mold to start with, the new face looks better, and I like the colors a lot more. I definitely prefer this to Breakaway. AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT GEARS Altmode: SUV Licensor: None Previous Name Use: G1 Previous Mold Use: Movie1 Gimmick: Auto-Punch Function: Reconnaisance, Transport Motto: "Nobody wins a war - somebody loses." If there's a negative angle to be found in any situation, GEARS will find it. It's not that he's a miserable guy, or even that he's unhappy on Earth. He just really likes complaining. Nothing makes him happier than having something to gripe about. The other AUTOBOTS actually find his complaining funny, rather than annoying, which is part of the reason he keeps on doing it. STR 8 INT 5 SPD 5 END 8 RNK 3 COUR 8 FRB 6 SKL 3 Avg 5.75 "The only stat that's better than his Minibot version is Fireblast. He's dumber, slower, lower-ranked, less brave and far less skilled now. If they couldn't do me right, they should have just left me alone, eh? Where did they find the monkeys to write these techspecs anyway, or did they just grab random pages from the phonebook?" Packaging: "2 twist-ties hold the vehicle mode into the blister, and they chafe like you wouldn't believe. Would it have killed them to put in some spacers, or use a softer wire or something? Nah, no respect for Gears, everyone just stuffs ol' Gears in a box and forgets about him. Not even a single rubber band, so anything that comes loose just rattles around." Color Swaps: "Yeah, Stockade was real imaginative: none more black. I have no idea what the black body shell plastic got turned into, I think it got painted over entirely. The clear plastic is some sort of smoky rose, am I Barbie's Dream SUV now? At least my tires are still black, and not some weird color. My hands, shoulder struts, part of my upper arms and a few connector bits are a dull metallic gray that almost, but not QUITE matches my silver...nice clash, guys. There's a darker gray used on the triggers for my punching gimmick, I can't find more of that stuff. Forearms, torso core, head and upper thighs are medium blue, but at least my pelvis is black so I don't look like I'm wearing blue bicycle shorts. I mean, whoever invented those needs to be run over repeatedly for their crimes against aesthetics. I don't even belong to your species and I find the things unflattering. Also black are my heel spurs and the bits where my shoulder struts attach. A dark red like Swerve's original colors makes most of my legs and feet, the insides of my upper arms and some weird molded details on my back. What, they ran out of bright red after making Swerve the wrong color, so they had to make me the wrong color too? Oh, and more of that probably not really silver plastic on my chest armor." Paint Apps: "What, did I fall asleep in front of a high school and someone tried to 'pimp' me out? Yeah, yeah...I get it. Autobot Gears, so cover him in gears, including a big blue one in the middle of my hood with an Autobot symbol in it. An Autobot gear. My sides are splitting. Or maybe that's just a transformation seam. At least all my silver paint matches up, I figure that they just dunked the opaque pieces in silver paint like they must've for Sideswipe...wow, whose bright idea was a non-red Sideswipe? Anyway, it looks like paint, so at least I don't have to worry about Gold Plastic Syndrome. Or Silver Plastic Syndrome, whatever. The rearmost side windows got painted light blue...great job, geniuses. That really matches the smoky rose plastic of the other windows. I don't even know what to call what they did to my hubcaps...metallic puce? At least my taillights are a reasonable red and orange. The top two-thirds of them, anyway. The bottom third is just silver. My front grille is gloss black, which I suppose I can't complain about (drat), but there's not just blue gears on my doors, there's weird zigzaggy things along the bottoms. Not that my paint in robot mode makes a lot more sense. Dark gold. My faceplate, parts of my forearms and thighs and what looks like a t-shirt collar or something. Since when was my faceplate gold, much less dark gold? I blame Michael Bay. Oh, and I got a little black Autobot symbol on my left chest, since the GIGANTIC Autobot gear is split between my calves." Mold Changes: "You know that guy Swerve, who ripped off my look? HE got half a dozen toys since then, even got a brand new mold that everyone's drooling over. They finally pay attention to me, and they couldn't even be bothered to remold the head! Even the umpteenth Swerve that got released this year got a new head! Sheesh." Other Notes: "Eh, I guess I got the moves now, so that's an improvement. I can see what Stockade likes about this body plan. But I got stuck with the same gimpy ankles he did! Makes me feel like an old geezer, and that's reserved for Classics Kup." [Later note: "Wait a klik! My chest armor just pulls off? It's not glued or bolted in place, just snapped on like some cheap 1970s model kit? Oh, that's RICH."] Overall: Ignore Gears, he likes to kvetch. The color balance is decent, if a bit over-colored, and the ricer paint detailing isn't too garish. The dark red plastic isn't exactly the same as on Thrust, it's a little warmer. None of the problems Stockade had were fixed, but they don't seem to have introduced any new ones. A new head would have been nice, but I guess they figured that Stockade had been off the shelves long enough they didn't need to do anything to entice re-buying...the core audience has already turned over. Dave Van Domelen, started regretting writing Gears's review "in character" about halfway through.