Dave's War Planets Rant:

     Beast Planet (aka Unicron's Kid Brother)

CAPSULE

     Impressively large toy with some good gimmicks, but not as many little
things as I think it should have for its size (like tanks and stuff).  Good
color scheme.  Does nicely eat other planets.  Recommended.  $25 at Toys R Us.

RANT

     One thing that bothered me about this toy when I saw it in the store was
the totally opaque box it came in, so that all I had to go on in my judgement
was the pictures on the outside of the box.  And given the discrepancy
between the prototypes and the final product in some of the other planets, I
didn't snatch this one up as soon as I saw it (I waited until I got a cash
influx).
     Closed Planet: Very nice.  All black with some tech-type detailing in
raised patterns on parts of the surface.  About ten inches (25cm) in diameter
and reasonably sturdy in closed form.  The mouth opens and shuts with the aid
of a slide-button on the outside, and does so with an ominous CLACK, rather
solid-feeling for a shell of rigid plastic.  Once batteries are added, you
get a nice red glow from inside the planet when you click the switch,
although I have yet to try it out in a darkened room for full effect.  The
claw extends several inches outside the mouth and does a pretty good job of
holding the smaller planets, not tipping over even with the claw fully
extended and the grabbed planet being full of its gear, partly due to the
oval-shaped stand at the bottom of the planet.
     Open Planet: Two panels flip down as launch platforms, a back panel
rises up as the command center and the back half of the very top separates
into a very smooth (it's hard to pick up on its smooth surface) ship.  With
everything open, the light-up interior is even more pronounced.  There's also
a flip-door jail in the part of the top that doesn't separate, and a command
deck for the Dark Lord to stand in.  Near as I can figure, he's supposed to
straddle the ball in the middle, otherwise he falls over.  There's pivoting
(nonfiring) guns attached to the interior structure, although most of their
arcs of fire are blocked by the exterior structure.  Finally, there's a piece
inside which looks suspiciously like a speaker, along with holes in the
exterior which also look suspiciously like they're for a speaker, but there's
no speaker.  Perhaps initial plans had the Beast Planet making a variety of
ominous sounds or speeches.  But I can't find any way to make it do so now (I
think it's linked to the opening mouth) and the directions don't mention
sounds. 
     Vehicles: There's two, six if you count the ship-missiles.  The
semi-disc ship, which fires a razor missile, and a "People Eater" thing (no,
it's not purple, except for a stripe on the back) which is sort of lame, you
just skid it along and hope figures fall into the mouth instead of being
scooped aside.  This toy really could have used a couple more ground
vehicles, there's certainly room for them (although no special storage area
for the People Eater).
     Missiles: One interesting trick done with all the missiles on the Beast
Planet is that there's an orange dot on each missile and on each launcher,
and you load the missile by lining up the dots.  This is useful since there's
so much black involved and it can be hard to see where the tabs and slots
fit.  The disc-ship fires a crescent-headed missile a few feet through the
air, or skids it a couple of meters along the ground (which seems to be the
general idea, actually).  The flip-down panels each have one missile turrent
and two forward-facing ship catapaults.  The purple and orange missiles
(don't laugh, they're a LOT easier to find than black missiles would be) are
kinda wimpy and the ship-missiles are VERY wimpy, but firing a piece across
the office to lose it isn't one of my goals anyway.  Unfortunately, the ships
and missiles can't stay in their launchers when stowing, so they have to
rattle around loose.
     Figures: No big-guy drones, all of the figures are thin and humanoid,
and all have the poseable arms and legs.  There's ten Soldiers with gun, six
Commanders with staves (all 16 of these made of softer plastic) and one Dark
Lord, made from the same mold as the Commanders but out of the rigid black
plastic of the ship, and he's got a clip-on cape.  Thing is, given all the
figures, there's not a whole lot of places on the planet for them to go.
There's no room for them to man the guns, not much room on the command deck,
you can put a few on the interior floor when the claw's extended and the rest
go in jail, I guess.  }->
     
     Okay, so where's the Shadowraiders?  They're mentioned in the
instructions for the smaller planets, and I figured they'd be included with
the Beast Planet, but they aren't.  I didn't see any when I looked at the
Remora Planet in the store, are the Shadowraiders a supplemental toy that
will come out later on, or some kinda premium packaged with the CDROM?  If
anything, the "nipples" on top of the other planets hinder the grabbing claw,
so why add them?

     Overall: The toy certainly could have had more stuff in it, but the
stuff it did have is pretty good.  And like the other planets, when you have
everything stowed you can't really open it up without losing some of the
effect.  If you have the space to spare, it's worth the $25...it can even eat
some of your Transformers.

     Dave Van Domelen, reminded of the mouth of one of the Grittites in the
Scud comic when he looks at the Beast Planet....