Dave's Star Wars Transformers Rant: Wave 5 Mace Windu to Jedi Starfighter (Not Reviewed) Clone Pilot to Republic Gunship Saesee Tiin to Jedi Delta-7 Starfighter Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/SW/Standard5 Also shipping with this wave are the Darth Vader to TIE Advanced and Emperor Palpatine to Imperial Shuttle. Wave 4 was all recolors/remolds, so I didn't buy any. Mace Windu is a purple-trim recolor and head remold of Obi-Wan, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/SW/Standard1. [Update 4/30/07: JediTricks pointed out a few things I missed.] CAPSULES Mace Windu: Well, it's a decent mold, although this is the fourth iteration (Obi-Wan, Anakin, Darth Vader, Mace). While it's a decent enough mold for the first attempts, it's kinda lame by now, and even Mace Windu can't infuse it with enough life to capture my interest. $14.99 at Target. Clone Pilot: Nifty vehicle mode, interesting transformation, rather "close but no cigar" robot mode in so many ways. Disappointing in that it could have been so much better with some small changes. Mildly recommended. $14.99 at Target. Saesee Tiin: Very nice vehicle mode, good transformation, decent robot mode. But still plagued by many of the design flaws that should have been hammered out by wave three, not still kicking around in wave five. Recommended. $14.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: During wave 4, the packaging changed slightly. Instead of being vaguely keystone-shaped, the cardback is now parallel on the vertical sides, albeit with a few odd notches that make the taped-down tabs in back a bit more complicated. The spin disks are still there, as are the H-shaped rubber band holders. The techspecs were gone by wave 3, and they haven't come back. Co-sells show the following minus whatever the toy itself is: Clone Pilot, Darth Vader (wave 1), Mace Windu, Saesee Tinn, Emperor Palpatine. There's some subtle 30th anniversary stuff on the cardback. CLONE PILOT * Converts from Republic Gunship mode to mech mode! * 2 launching missiles! * Includes Clone Pilot figure! The Republic gunship sweeps across Geonosis, blasting the Separatist forces with a barrage of missiles! The clone pilot lands in the middle of a fierce battle between droids and clone troopers, and converts the gunship into a heavily armed ground fighter that goes straight for droids! No mention of either the Force or morphing tech. It's become so humdrum and everyday, I guess. ;) Comes with a 30th anniversary catalog, which is all Star Wars stuff, with the Wave 4 SWTFs shown (Jango and original Anakin reissued, Vader-head Jedi Starfighter and tiger striped ARC-170 recolor). Three H-connectors, plus two more bands around the missiles and two holding the missile launchers on. Another band and H-connector that's not immediately obvious keeps the top of the hull together. Pilot Figure: All white plastic, 31mm tall, standard jointing. The feet are joined together by a thin flat, which as usual isn't big enough to really let it stand. Yellow and red detailing on the helmet, black paint elsewhere. Vehicle Mode: This is the troop transport first seen in Episode 2 (see http://www.starwars.com/databank/vehicle/republicgunship/ for stats), in the bog standard color scheme of light gray (almost white) plastic with barn red, pale gold and cool light gray accents here and there, plus some bits of black. Small missiles are molded on the undersides of the wings and painted gunmetal gray. The standard color scheme suggests we'll get a repaint with nose-art as seen in the Clone Wars cartoon. None of the plastics or paints glow particularly under UV. 7.25" (18.5cm) wingspan. 6.25" (16cm) long if you only count the solid parts, 7" (18cm) if you count the gun barrels on front and back. The scale is a bit wonky, though, with the pilot figure being about twice as tall as he should be if he were to be to scale with the vehicle (the ball gunner spheres make that abundantly clear). The official length of the vehicle is 17.4m, so this is about 1/100 scale as a vehicle, while the pilots are about 1/60 scale. The front cannons are on ball joints with a limited cone of motion, but the soft plastic makes it a bit inobvious. The rear cannon is immobile, but bendable. The ball turrets on either side of the deployment door are on gray arms that have ball joints at their roots and side to side hinges where they connect to the spheres (which are clear colorless plastic with white paint). The balls don't stay well in the sockets, though, and are kinda hard to get back in. The automated ball turrets in the wings spin freely and are a kinda neat feature. The main missile-launching guns on top are weakly pegged in place, and lifting the wings even a little pops them off...really my only substantial complaint about the vehicle mode. While the cockpit is shaped as a two-seater, it really only holds one. However, as befits the toy's role as a troop transport, it has a really nifty feature I don't recall seeing on any other SW TFs...tabs in the troop compartment for sliding the foot-connectors under. Robed figures like most Jedi don't benefit from this, but the Clone Pilot can be set in one of these slots with a little effort (it basically clips over the flat bit between the feet). The rear hatch doesn't open, but the robot legs don't take the whole space up, and you can cram support gear in there or something if you have leftover Warhammer 40K bits. :) Other than the tendency for the missile launchers to pop off, this mode is pretty solid and stable, as is usually the case with an SWTF. Transformation: Remove guns, fold wings up. Flip up rear side panels, now you can unfold the whole middle part and pop the legs out from the rear. The head is under a panel in the top middle, and the front bottom splits into arms, with the front cannons becoming wrist guns. The rear cannon just gets squashed up between panels, though, which could cause problems for long term robot mode storage. [Not in the instructions, but the rear cannon can be popped off and then put back on the outside, avoiding squishage.] Robot Mode: Very reminiscent of the ARC-170 Clone Pilot, in that he has big wings and backpack, but narrow hips. The torso's also a bit long. Unfortunately, there's no way to store the guns on the body other than having them held in the hands, since the hands don't hold 'em very well. 6.75" (17cm) tall with a 7.75" (19.5cm) wingspan. The wrist guns are a nice idea, but don't point all the way forward. The ball turrets hang off the shoulders like weird epaulets or spare heads. At least the heel spurs stabilize the figure against its huge backpack. The head turns but the waist is fixed. The shoulders can lift to the sides and twist a bit on their long axis, but cannot be raised forward. There's upper arm swivels (pegs, really, which pop off easily during transformation if you're not careful enough) and hinge elbows. The wrists just have an up and down transformation hinge. The hips are universal joints, there's swivels above the knees, and the knees are double ratcheting hinges so they can bend all the way double for transformation. The ankles are forward and back hinges, with a second hinge that just wiggles a little. The heel spurs are on hinges, but it's not really a useful joint. [I didn't even notice these myself, but the wing ball turrets have holes in them, and you can plug the guns into them. It's floppy and loose, but it IS storage other than the hands, and firmer than the hands to boot. Also, the pilot seat can be tilted in this mode to make the pilot face forward better.] Overall: The vehicle mode is particularly nifty, if out of scale, but the robot mode is kinda disappointing. So many things about it could have been so much better with just a little effort, though (more range of motion on the wrist guns, better peg fitting for the guns, a place to put the guns other than the hands, etc). So, while my initial impressions were very positive, the bloom comes off this rose pretty quickly. SAESEE TIIN * Converts from Delta-7 Starfighter mode to mech mode! * 2 launching lightsaber projectiles! * Includes Saesee Tiin figure! Jedi Master Saesee Tiin flies his customized starfighter to his homeworld, which is under attack by Separatist forces. Tiin's sleek fighter soon blasts the enemy vessels into retreat. Landing on the planet, he converts his fighter into a robotic Jedi warrior to strike down an army of battle droids that have landed there! Saesee Tiin is one of those "pulled letters out of a hat" names attached to a character who got fewer lines than some clone troopers, but at least it's not Yet Another Anakin. Note also that he does not use the Force to transform his fighter. Same catalog as the Clone Pilot. 3 H-connectors and bands, plus one each around the two lightsabers. The lower half of the drive section ring is just held in with the blister. One rubber band keeps the thrusters together. Pilot Figure: In Jedi robes, the figure is made of brown plastic and is 31mm tall. The face is painted cream colored, while the flesh areas are an orange-brown shade and the bottom of the figure is painted light gray. Saesee Tiin has downward-curving horns. He doesn't really lock into the cockpit, suggesting it may actually have been designed around a different figure. Or that they just didn't care. ;) [Later note: JT points out that if you take advantage of the tiltable pilot seat, you can get the pilot locked in better.] http://www.starwars.com/databank/character/saeseetiin/index.html for more on this guy. He's officially 188cm tall, making the figure 1/61 scale. Vehicle Mode: This is the starfighter type seen in Episode 2, rather than another recolor of the Episode 3 "turning into a TIE Fighter" style, and comes complete with the lightspeed drive ring. Starwars.com lumps both models together, http://www.starwars.com/databank/starship/delta7/index.html has both the Delta-7 and the Eta-2 (the one we've seen four versions of in this line). 7.5" (19cm) long and 3.75" (9.5cm) wide on just the ship, with the stardrive ring at 5.5" (14cm) wide and 4.25" (11cm) tall. That puts it at abotu 1/72 scale, much closer to the pilot figure's scale. The main color is a yellowish orange, with cream paint down the centerline, plus details in red, black and light brown. The cockpit canopy is colorless clear, while the thrusters and front landing gear are gunmetal gray plastic. The astromech-let is painted yellow and silver. Landing gear pads fold down from the underside, and the front one is pretty nifty in how it moves, although you need longer fingernails than mine to get it to work reliably. The underside is fairly sleek, although the robot arms are a bit loose in their slots and the hands kinda obvious. Otherwise, it's pretty solid in this mode. The stardrive ring is the accessory that brings what is otherwise a Deluxe-size mold up to $15 bulk. And while it'd kinda lame in robot mode, it's a very nice touch for vehicle mode. The nose of the starfighter just plugs into a slot, and voila, hyper engines tacked on. The lightsaber launchers are also part of the ring, with the usual "hilts are missiles and blades are the thrust trail" trick. Transformation: The front end rotates on its long axis after being freed to do so by popping the winglots away. This diamond-shaped piece is basically the legs wrapped around a lozenge. The wing sides and this lozenge clip together to make a backpack, although the instructions are a tad vague on the matter. The drive ring detaches and becomes a backpack. Half the ring pulls off and reattaches like a sort of tail, as the central core rotates to bring the connectors to bear on the back of the robot mode. The instructions are vague on this point, and actually contradict themselves at least once (the top half of the ring is left on at the end, but the bottom half is left on in the rest of the instructions). While it's possible to get both halves to stay on the drive section, you really need to use one half as a tail to get the robot to stand up. Robot Mode: As with almost every SWTF other than the Falcon duo, it's spindly and has narrow hips. But the proportions are generally good, and when fully assembled the backpack looks decent. 6.25" (16cm) tall at the head, and the only real proportion issue is the lack of a neck. The stardrive engines form missile launchers flanking him on either side, and the arms are almost flexible enough to let him grab the hilts of his sabers while they're loaded. Amusingly, the "mutant head" idea is back, with a helmet front that swings back and away to reveal a robotic version of Saesee's head. The head and waist turn. The shoulders are sorta universal...the swivel part only swings back for transformation or forward about 45 degrees before running into blocking parts. There's a ratcheting upper arm swivel, and the elbows are very stiff double hinges that allow the arms to bend to 45 from bent-double. The wrists are very limited ball joints, really just swivels. The right hand has two fingers pointed in a Jedi "these are not the droids you're looking for" gesture, amusingly. The hands aren't as pathetic as many SW TF hands, but could still be better. The hips are universal joints, and there's ratcheting swivels above each knee. Knees only bend about 45 degrees total, limiting the range of stances (the wing kibble on the sides limits it some as well). The ankles are theoretically universal plus side to side hinges, but are very limited by the built-up parts around the joint. Also, trying to force the foot too much just makes it pop off on a peg, for a "falling-apart zombie Saesee" effect. The figure is VERY back-heavy, and the fact that the toes don't bend up from flat to let it lean forward a bit doesn't help. It pretty much has to use the tail on its backpack as a third leg. Overall: This would have been a really good wave one or two design, but by now I really do expect better. The spindly robots, ugly hands and weirdly limited ranges of motion are the kind of thing that should have been worked out by wave five. One of the best Star Wars TFs to date, but that does fall under the category of damning with faint praise. Dave Van Domelen, hoping Darth Vader as Death Star doesn't have loads of little "they should've fixed that" issues.