Dave's RotF Rant: Legends Wave 1 Bumblebee (Concept Camaro, 89189) Jetfire (SR-71, 89463) Autobot Springer (V-22, 89464) Optimus Prime (Semitractor, 89465) Megatron (Fusion tank, 89896) Sideswipe (Corvette Stingray, 89898) Autobot Ratchet (Hummer H2 ambulance, not reviewed) Starscream (F-23, not reviewed) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Legends1 This one gets pretty long, if you want to cut to the chase, here it is: Jetfire is the best of the lot, all the rest of the new molds are either generally just okay, or rather good but with significant flaws. And Bumblebee's the only one that doesn't look like he needs more paint. Ratchet is a redeco in more muted green, Starscream is a redeco with his glyph tattoos added. Since I already have two versions of each mold, I passed on these. http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Legend1 - Ratchet (originally Neutral, although the new colors look a little better) http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Legend3 - Starscream (originally Neutral, and the new scheme isn't really an improvement) Everyone else in this wave is a new mold. And now I'm not the only person with a Concept Camaro Legends-class Bumblebee. :) (Kitbashed one a while back from a spare 70s Camaro.) Note that Legends tend to get underrepresented in larger stores, because they're not as good an investment in terms of peg space for the stores. The stores most likely to have them, unfortunately, are places like K-Mart ($6.29) or Walgreens ($6.99) where the prices are significantly higher. But keep an eye on the endcaps, Walmart has some of those side-hangers in some stores to hold the Legends. [Later note: here's some paint touchups: http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/rotfleg1a.JPG http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/rotfleg1b.JPG http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/rotfleg1c.JPG http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/rotfleg1d.JPG ] CAPSULES Bumblebee: Uninspired but serviceable. At least the vehicle mode looks decent. Mildly recommended. $4.97 at Walmart. Jetfire: Better translation of the SR-71 vehicle mode than I expected at this scale, clever transformation, decent robot mode. Recommended. $4.97 at Walmart. Autobot Springer: It looks nice in both modes and has a good transformation, but it's pretty brickish. Mildly recommended. $4.97 at Walmart. Optimus Prime: Better than the previous mold in some ways, not as good in others, and it would have worked better if cast in blue plastic rather than gray. It might be worth waiting to see if the redeco is better, but still mildly recommended. $4.97 at Walmart. Megatron: The tank mode is pretty good, albeit with some stability issues on the turret. Elegant transformation, kinda weak robot mode. Mildly recommended. $4.97 at Walmart. Sideswipe: Good vehicle mode, so-so transformation, so-so robot mode. Fake foot-wheels really needed some paint to stand out. Mildly recommended. $4.97 at Walmart. RANTS Packaging: Pretty much just a Legends-sized version of the Scout packaging (http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Scout1), but the blister inserts are smaller and just have name/faction/symbol on the front (and no glue problems). Legends gets its own ancient Cybertronian glyph, of course. The back has name, faction and techspec numbers in the upper right, photos in the upper left, and tiny instructions along the bottom. The altmode is named, and licensing established where relevant, but there's no bio note or other information. Notable is that Jetfire is packaged as a Decepticon in all respects. I'm not going to write bios for these guys, but I'll make up functions and mottos (which may or may not match the ones I give to other versions of the characters, when they get multiple molds). [Later note: The catalog that came with the Wave 2 Deluxes gives official functions for several characters, which I have added in brackets.] AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Altmode: Concept Camaro Licensor: GM Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Universe, Classic, Universe2, Movie1, TF:A Previous Mold Use: None Function: Bodyguard [Scout/Protector of Sam] Motto: "We bring you the hits." STR 6 INT 8 SPD 6 END 5 RNK 5 COUR 10 FRB 3 SKL 9 Avg 6.5 Twist-ties: 2 Vehicle Mode: After getting multiple versions of the 1970s Camaro mold last time around, we finally get a Concept Camaro version in Legends size. And I got pretty close with my kitbash of a couple years back, although I didn't modify the tail end any. 3" (7.5cm) long, a little shorter than the 70s Camaro mold. The usual yellow with black stripes and metallic blue windows. The wheels are made of black plastic, otherwise the car is made from a metalflake golden yellow plastic. Black stripes on hood and trunk, plus black in the front grille bits. The windows are all painted metallic medium blue, and the Chevy logo molded into the front end is painted gold. Reasonably solid in this mode. Transformation: Very similar to the 70s version, but the arms lack hinges. Instead, the side windows stay on the chest piece, and the door pieces become solid arms. The shoulders are on struts that swing up, so the shoulders are actually at the rear of the door. The front wheels stay on the arms. There's pegs to connect the boots together, but they're more in the way of guides than anything else, being too loose to hold the boots together against any significant force. Of course, they don't need to be tight, since pushing the boots up along the thighs locks things down adequately. Robot Mode: 3" (7.5cm) tall, a reasonable simplified version of what the character looks like. The fists are oversized to partially wrap around the wheels, which looks kinda weird, though. The shoulder struts and thighs are black plastic, everything else is vehicle bits. The face is painted silver with medium blue eyes. There's a tiny Autobot symbol printed in red on the forehead, and a silver dot above that. As if deciding that the forehead symbol wasn't enough, another red Autobot symbol is printed on the right boot, just above the wheel. Articulation is so-so, even for a Legends. Ball joint shoulders and hips, that's it. The legs wiggle a little at the knee, but that's not so much a joint as looseness around the transformation slider. Overall: The robot mode isn't any better than the 70s version, but at least the vehicle mode has smooth lines and lacks the awkward ball joint chunks on the sides. Uninspired but serviceable. DECEPTICON: JETFIRE Altmode: SR-71 Blackbird Licensor: Lockheed-Martin Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Armada, Energon, Cybertron, Classics, TF:A Previous Mold Use: None Function: Seeker Motto: "I already told you that! Or was I talking to myself again?" STR 8 INT 8 SPD 9 END 4 RNK 5 COUR 7 FRB 9 SKL 5 Avg 6.875 Twist-ties: 2 Vehicle Mode: Never exceeded in real history as the fastest atmospheric craft ever to see regular operation, it has nonetheless been retired from active service in large part because its mission has been made unnecessary by improvements in satellite surveillance. In other words, a superannuated seeker of truths. Perfect for the movie's take on Jetfire. 3.75" (9.5cm) long with a 3" (8cm) wingspan, it's a bit kibbly but the sleekness of the original is retained better than I expected it might. The real Blackbird isn't as wide, propertionally speaking, but sacrifices need to be made for the robot mode. While the real thing is as black as possible for stealth purposes, this toy is only mostly black. There's a fair amount of gunmetal gray and some red. Most of the actual jet parts are gloss black plastic. The fronts of the engines and the junk under the fuselage are made from a light gunmetal plastic (no metal swirl inclusions). The cockpit is painted gunmetal, and there's red stripes around the cockpit and on the wings. The nosegear won't fold down, but the faux tailfins from the robot mode form a nice three point landing gear replacement, so the toy sits with nose slightly up rather than just skidding on the fuselage kibble. The robot feet stick out the back of the jet engines, the only really awkward bits of kibble. Everything pegs together pretty well. [Later note: there's a peg on top of the fuselage between the wings that doesn't serve a purpose in transformation, but it turns out to fit into the slot on Optimus Prime's back. Apparently an undocumented feature for the combination mode. Maybe there'll be a gift set with both in it that has instructions. It fits nicely as a backpack on Prime's robot mode. Thanks to Patriarch of alt.toys.transformers for pointing this out to me.] Transformation: This is interesting. While the robot's animation model has the tail fins and wingtips sticking up over the shoulders, this toy has the engine chunks turn into legs, with the shins hidden cleverly inside the engines. So a fake topside is molded on the underside. The wings fold upwards to tab-and-slot together and form the abdomen. The main part of the fuselage just turns into a sort of thin cape. Robot Mode: Standing straight up, he's a little over 3" (8cm) tall, but he's not really meant to stand up straight. In fact, he can be hunched over to use his landing gear as a cane, as seen in the movie. In that pose, he's about 2.75" (7cm) tall at the fin on his back, but his head is nearly a centimeter below that. His face is molded to resemble an old knight's helmet with grille over the mouth looking like a beard. The arms, hips and shins are light gunmetal plastic, otherwise it's red. There's 1mm diameter peg holes in the hands, might be able to get some Spychanger guns in there. The feet and the hunchback area behind the head are painted dark gunmetal that's practically just a metallic black, with some more red stripes on the fake winglets and a very faint silver Decepticon symbol right behind the head. The cockpit windows molded into his forehead are painted gunmetal. The shoulders are ball joints, and they're on hinged struts for transformation that make it easier for him to spread his arms apart. The hips are ball joints, but kinda restricted to really only let the leg swing up and down, and you can't spread the legs apart without making the torso split. The knees and high ankles are hinges. The feet aren't quite big enough to allow for good stability, but hunching him over a bit lets you bring the cane into play. Overall: He clearly wants you to get off his lawn. But with Transformers in the movieverse being a LOT younger than in G1 (thousands rather than millions of years old), that does leave room for Transformers that make Kup look like a turbo-revving young punk, and Jetfire does a good job of evoking that. While it's hard to get too enthused about anything in the Legends class when you're as articulation-focused as I am, this is a pretty good one. [Later kitbashing note: black Rit dye will significantly darken the gray plastic, but not turn it totally black. This, I feel, is good enough for most of it, although painting the front of the jet engines black over this might look better.] AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT SPRINGER Altmode: V-22 Osprey (more or less) Licensor: None Previous Name Use: None (Springer alone is G1, Universe2) Previous Mold Use: None Function: Ground Support Motto: "Here comes the rain again!" STR 8 INT 8 SPD 7 END 8 RNK 5 COUR 7 FRB 9 SKL 4 Avg 7 Oddly, as recently as the Universe recolor of Evac, they could just call him Springer. Twist-ties: 3. Packaged with the propellors replacing the hands, but there are actual hands, agreeing with the Robot Heroes figure. Vehicle Mode: Definitely one of the beefier Legends vehicles, this definitely won't fit into my Hot Wheels boxes like most of my Legends. It's sort of a V-22 Osprey, but they didn't license it. As with Incinerator in the last round of toys, they changed a few details here and there so as to not be legally actionable. Not much robot kibble is visible, just the hands hanging down behind the props and the robot feet stuck in back. 3.25" (8.5cm) long, wingspan 3" (7.5cm) without counting the rotors. The engines are set farther forward on the winglets than on a real Osprey, and there's larger wing stubs out past the engines. Olive drab and medium gray with a few accent colors that fit in with a "low profile" mission. As opposed to the "Constructicon Green" on the Robot Heroes version. At least the drab colors distract from some of the poor boundary choices, such as how the wing stubs are gray but the main wings green. The propellers, engines (with wing stubs) and tail are medium gray plastic, otherwise it's olive drab. A little bit where the propeller connects to the engine is also olive. The cockpit windows are painted reddish brown. There's some underwing cylinders (drop tanks?) that have their front face painted brownish orange. The "belly fat" flank areas are painted matte black, and there's some drab blue stripes on either side of the cockpit. An Autobot symbol is printed on the nose in a gunmetal ink that's almost invisible, and the same ink is used to print 5PR1 on the left wing top and N63R on the right. The propellers spin freely. The engines do not rotate up for VTOL mode, although the wrist joints can be used to make the propellers themselves rotate up. They're too far forward of the center of mass to be usable for VTOL, though. Oh, and while the Robot Heroes version has 3-bladed propellers, this version has 4-bladed props. So they gave more props to Springer as a Legends figure. Transformation: Fairly elegant, although you need to do things in the right order. Push down the nose to form the pelvis front. Then press down on the wings to pop them apart and free up the legs to swing down, bringing the head up. You can get a sort of faux-Obsidian mode by just swinging the feet down a bit and not separating the legs. The props go onto the backs of the hands by swinging the hands out at the wrists. Robot Mode: Well, it looks pretty good, even if it's something of a statue. He's got that movie-style "backwards knees" digitigrade thing going on, but his upper body is beefy enough to help him avoid a generally spindly appearance. The hands are in a neutral open position, but he could also probably hold Spychanger guns. 2.75" (7cm) tall at the head, add about a half centimeter for the shoulders. The gray plastic ends up on the forearms and feet, and the thighs are painted matte black to help tie the colors together. The face vaguely resembles a classic Cylon, with red visor, brownish-orange forehead tablet and black face. The Autobot symbol ends up on his groin. Articulation is pretty limited. The arms can flap up and down a little at the shoulders, but that's all the joints there are good for. The elbows default to being bent 90 degrees, and can unbend by maybe 40 degrees. The hips are seriously restricted ball joints mainly useful for spreading the legs apart, and the mold of the feet favors one specific separation. The ankles are hinged for transformation, but it's not a useful joint here. The hands can bend inward at the wrist, letting him deploy the props pointed forward. Overall: Looks good in both modes, has a decent transformation, and might as well not have any non-transformation joints for all the good they do. Good for display, not so much for play. AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME Altmode: Truck Licensor: None Previous Name Use: Yes Previous Mold Use: None Function: Prime [Leader of the Autobots] Motto: "Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing." STR 10 INT 10 SPD 7 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRB 10 SKL 7 Avg 9.5 Twist-ties: 2 Vehicle Mode: Only a tiny bit longer than the previous Legends movie Prime, but the proportions are noticeably different. The nose and main cab are longer, but the sleeper compartment is shortened by enough to almost make up the difference. The fifth wheel deck is a few millimeters longer, and while it has obvious robot fists molded onto it, it generally looks more like a proper truck section. The sides of the sleeper compartment are a bit weird in the new mold, but there's smokestacks on both sides. The "hood ornament" is still there, but smaller than the previous version. Neither is big enough to print a symbol on, of course. The cab is taller and wider in this version, and the nose is also proportionally bigger. It's still not to scale with the cars, but it's a little closer. 2.75" (7cm) long, all six wheels actually roll (unlike the two fake wheels on the previous mold). It's very solidly pegged together. The deco is the usual movie-Prime blue and red with flames and various light gray bits that stand in for silver, but also some silver paint. The wheels and some internal bits are black plastic, otherwise it's all a light to medium gray plastic. The nose and all fenders are painted red, although the fist patterns are left unpainted. Blue flames are printed on the hood and front fenders. The cab section is mostly painted medium blue, no red flames. The windows and sun visor are painted silver, and the borders of the front windows are red. Generally a good paint job, although there's a few bits on the cab that should be blue and are left unpainted, I may fix that while also adding more silver. :) Transformation: The rear section splits apart into arms, and you have to be careful folding the sides of the sleeper part apart or the arms are likely to simply pop off. The transformation joint on the sleeper section sides is stronger than the ball and socket shoulders. The nose end becomes the legs, with the middle part swiveling down to make feet. The rear roof then flips down and the head emerges. The waist actually spins around before pegging into place, so there's a joint there in theory, it's just locked down when properly transformed. There's a number of tabs and slots that make transforming into vehicle mode a little tricky, you have to go in the right order or you'll find tabs that are trapped out of position. Robot Mode: There's no mistaking this for the previous mold in robot mode. The proportions are much closer to human, the shoulders are much smaller, and there's elbow joints. The color gray dominates, because the unpainted sides of many pieces come into view. It might have worked better to mold this in dark blue and paint silver on, rather than molding in gray and painting the blue. Because the cab windows actually become the chest rather than a set of false windows, the figure doesn't capture the movie model of the robot mode as well as the previous Legends figure did. 3" (8cm) tall, although you may choose to leave the feet untransformed (it looks a little weird with them flipped down) in which case he's 2.75" (7cm) tall. In addition to the wheels (two on each arm, one on each boot), the upper arms and pelvis are black plastic. Everything else is gray plastic. The head is painted blue with silver on the battlemask, and the fronts of the boots are also painted blue. There's a small red Autobot symbol printed on the front of the left thigh, like a tattoo or something. The abdomen is painted silver. While not in need of as much paint as the previous mold, I'll probably end up at least touching up the cab exterior to be all blue where it's supposed to be. Trying to paint the shoulders red over black plastic will require to many coats to be practical, I think. Overall: I'm glad they made a new mold, if only because I have multiples of the old one already. :) This is an improvement in some ways, but worse in others. It probably would have worked better cast in dark blue with silver paint, and we may get such a redeco at some point. DECEPTICON: MEGATRON Altmode: Fusion Tank Licensor: None Previous Name Use: Yes Previous Mold Use: None Function: Once And Future Tyrant [Leader of the Decepticons] Motto: "Even in death, there is only one command: mine." STR 10 INT 10 SPD 10 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 9 FRB 10 SKL 9 Avg 9.75 I guess he gets to keep the SPD 10 because he can still access his space fighter mode, even if this toy isn't it. Where Prime got a new mold simply because he's Prime, Megatron has a brand new vehicle mode for this movie, so naturally had to get a new mold. The space fighter mode does seem to at least make a cameo or two if the novel is accurate, though, so we may see a redeco of the old mold at some point. Twist-ties: 2 Vehicle Mode: Megatron continues to care not one whit about disguise, picking a purely functional altmode. This one looks kinda like a Tank Drone from Beast Machines gone all goth and bladey. Not an H-tank, in other words, but with the front treads sticking out beyond the body significantly. I do hope that this isn't the best representation of the vehicle mode for Megatron, as was the case with the space fighter's Legends mold. Mind you, it's a lot easier to make a bulky tank work as a real toy than it is a slender space fighter, so it should work out okay. The main body is 2.25" (6cm) long and 2" (5cm) wide, with the turret and gun together being 2.5" (6.5cm) long. It's set back far enough that it only extends past the main body a little bit in front and back. Like most tanks, it rolls on little wheels hidden inside the treads. Pretty much black and silver, although there's two or three shades of "silver". The robot head is mostly hidden by the turret, but its paint job makes it stand out a little. A paint touchup on the turret would help reduce this effect. The turret/cannon and some of the internal connectors are made of a slightly metallic gray plastic, as are the wheels. Everything else is black plastic. The armor on top is painted silver, while the mechanisms inside the treads are painted a gunmetal that's a good match for the turret plastic. A black Decepticon symbol is printed on the right rear "fender". I'm not sure, but I think some of the seemingly unpainted silver plastic parts are actually painted with the gunmetal paint used on the tread cores, but it could just be a good sheen on the plastic after it popped out of the mold. The turret can elevate to about 20 degrees or depress 10 degrees, but because it's made from connected arms it can't rotate. The barrel can swing back and forth on the elbow joints, but it looks kinda weird. It doesn't hold together as well as I'd like. The main body is firmly pegged together, though. [Later note: Wonkimus Major pointed out to me that there's a face molded on the underside of the robot pelvis, to be facing forward between the treads in vehicle mode. This is probably meant to get it closer to the movie model, but it's kinda creepy for robot mode and I do not plan to paint it. Right now, being all black makes it effectively invisible.] Transformation: The rear treads unpeg and swing forward to become the boots, no need to move the front treads at all. Then split the turret and swing the halves apart to form the arms. Pretty simple, but elegant. Robot Mode: The forearms are each sections of the main gun, the right one longer and more obviously gunlike than the other, but this does make him kinda gimpy. The difference between the "silver" plastic and the silver paint becomes a bit more painfully obvious here, as the torso is pretty much unpainted. 3" (8cm) tall and bowlegged, the color balance isn't all that good here. The legs are too heavily black since the boot fronts are black treads, while the dull silvery color dominates the upper body. Ironcially, the torso is made of black plastic, but painted to match the dull silver plastic very well. The head is painted silver with a black chin/mouth area and a black stripe along the crest, plus red eyes. I think it'd have looked better if they painted the head the same color as the chest, it's brightness just makes the dullness of the torso more obvious. Shoulders and hips are ball joints, although the hips are a little weird. The elbows and knees are hinges. The rear fender pieces peg together to make the back, but it's a loose fit and a tiny peg, so moving the arms tends to pop the back apart. The feet are rather tiny, making it hard to keep him standing. The mold would have hidden a millimeter or so of heel spur well enough, they should've gone with that. Overall: Pretty nice in vehicle mode, decent transform, but a so-so robot mode is hurt by some fairly weak paint work. Probably not in any danger of being the best Megatron mold this time around. Fortunately, it's a fairly simple home paint job to improve. :) AUTOBOT: SIDESWIPE Altmode: Corvette Stingray Concept Licensor: GM Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Alternators, Armada, Universe2 (Side Swipe in RiD) Previous Mold Use: None Function: Close Combat [Warrior] Motto: "Who needs a gun?" STR 8 INT 7 SPD 8 END 6 RNK 5 COUR 7 FRB 3 SKL 9 Avg 6.625 Rank 5 seems to mean "we don't have any idea where this guy fits in the command structure." Twist-ties: 3 Vehicle Mode: In some ways, this is the Jazz of RotF. And in some ways the Legends toy hearkens back to Legends Jazz, but that's mostly an unfair comparison. This Corvette Stingray concept is pretty slick, with no bizarre robot mode chunks on it. Aside from the inevitable seams and a gap in the rear bumper, it's a near-perfect Hot Wheels style representation. It could stand a little more paint, but you could say that about all the Legends. 3" (7.5cm) long and made of silvery gray plastic on the body and black plastic on the wheels. It's a lighter gray than on Megatron, and there's a faint bit of metalflake swirl in it. The headlights are a metallic slate blue, while the windshield blends from medium blue in front to a light blue on the sides. The taillights are painted red, and where a license plate might be there's a black Autobot symbol printed. A fine-point Sharpie worked well in coloring in the grille bits in front while leaving the grid uncolored. It improves the looks of the vehicle mode significantly without really affecting the robot mode. Transformation: The best first step is to pull the sides of the vehicle out as doors. If you stop here, you get a sort of assault mode. After this, the trunk back folds down to become the chest, and then all you have to do is transform the legs without popping them off. This is not easy, especially when returning to vehicle mode. Bits of the front grille flip out as heel spurs. Robot Mode: Sideswipe is a wheel-footed robot in most incarnations, but there's not enough budget in this size class to let his wheels swing around. Instead, there's fake wheels molded on the underside of the front end, a trick that would have worked a LOT better if they'd painted the fake wheels black instead of leaving them unpainted. Additionally, having the hood halves between the legs make it a bit awkward. At least the molding of his battle blades on the insides of the doors works pretty well. 3" (7.5cm) tall, he picks up a bit more black in this mode, but not enough. The thighs are made of black plastic, as are the struts holding the shoulder joints. The face and a couple of details on the abdomen are the same metallic slate blue as the vehicle's headlights, and the colors of the rear of the car work well on the chest. The eyes are the same medium blue as the front end of the windshield. The shoulders and hips are ball joints. The shoulder struts are blocked so that they don't provide any additional articulation. The knees are stiff hinges, but they're located at mid-thigh and don't offer much. Overall: I'm not thrilled with how the legs work, both in transformation and robot mode, but it's otherwise an adequate toy. Dave Van Domelen, at least Ratchet got a new Robot Replica mold, otherwise he'd be all redecos.