Dave's Long-Awaited Transformer Review Unicron with Dead End I was lucky enough to have a new Target opening just as Unicron was coming out, so I snagged on on opening day (along with waaaaay too many other toys). I'll be writing this review in pieces, probably over several days, so there might be inconsistencies from section to section. CAPSULE Unicron: Very imposing robot mode, decent transformation with only some kibble issues, decent planet mode, good Mini-Con. And it's slaggin' UNICRON. Strongly recommended. $49.99 at Target. RANT Packaging: The box is huge: 16" (40cm) tall, 14" (36cm) wide, 9" (25cm) deep. The top half of the front and front half of the top are plastic window, I guess they didn't want a window any bigger lest it hurt the structural integrity. Unicron is packaged in robot mode, HEAVILY twist-tied to a plastic tray that wraps around on three sides. He's posed with Dead End (in planetoid mode) grasped in his left hand, and his right arm raised slightly, hand in a fist. His wing pieces are taped to the bottom of the box, and some of his planet shell bits are twist-tied down in a corner of the bottom. The bottom half of the front of the box has a Dreamwave drawing of Unicron on the left, and a picture of planet mode on the right. The coloration and labeling is, of course, of the Unicron Battles type. The packaging is trilingual. The top of the box repeats the robot mode art on the right, reaching into the windowed area with his glowing right hand. The Unicron Battles logo is on the left. The art on the bottom is the same, although without the window. The side of the box that is on the right from the viewer's point of view shows off various Unicron gimmicks: chest missile triggered by the Dark Sabre (Mini-Con version, not roleplay), Dead End in both modes, leg-mounted missiles triggered by Mini-Con, Mini-Con traps in the legs, and the glowing right hand and eyes. The other side of the box has the Unicron Battles storyline in three languages and co-sell pictures for Powerlinx Optimus Prime, Tidal Wave and Overload. The back of the box is sideways (landscape rather than portrait), with a life-sized picture of Unicron's upper half and an inset of planet mode with 24 Mini-Cons attached around his rings. A bag with instructions, comic and sticker is taped to the back of the inner cardboard. 2 twist-ties hold the wing/ring pieces, one holds the bag with the extra planet shell bits, missiles and a few other loose bits. Another thirteen or so hold Unicron into the packaging. A rubber band holds his right hand closed, and a plastic shell is rubber banded around the left hand to keep Dead End in place. Another two twist-ties and some plastic shell pieces protect the skirt armor (although this didn't keep the screw on one piece from stripping, I had to glue the front and back together to keep it from falling off). A cardboard shim keeps the right hand from lighting up in the package and there's another inside each shoulder, probably to keep the latches from being damaged. And now I end phase 1 of my writing so that I can spend half an hour freeing Unicron from his twist-tie hell. Back! Spent a while messing around with Unicron, making some modifications as necessary, and even reading the rest of the instructions. PRIMAL BEING: UNICRON Function: Bringer of Chaos Alt mode: Planet Mini-Con Partner: Dead End Motto: "For a time I considered sparing your wretched little planet..." The TRANSFORMERS learn that UNICRON, a planet-sized robot thought to be only a legend, is making his way towards Cybertron, bent on its destruction. To defend their homeworld, the AUTOBOT and DECEPTICON armies form an unlikely battle alliance, with OPTIMUS PRIME and MEGATRON as their leaders. True to his nature, the power-hungry MEGATRON secretly plans to claim UNICRON'S sinister power for himself. Can OPTIMUS PRIME stop this terrifying menace, or will the evil MEGATRON get his way? Okay, no actual techspec or bio (and techspec numbers would be pretty meaningless), but I used the sidepanel backstory blurb in place of a bio. Robot Mode: Okay, here's the vital statistics. 14" (36cm) tall at the top of the head, 15.5" (39cm) tall if you go to the top of his horns or wings. Wingspan maxes out at about 19" (49cm). While not quite as tall as Hauler-Bot, he's significantly heavier, weighing in at 3.25 lbs (1.46kg). The colors are mainly golden yellow (two slightly different shades thereof) and gray, with many purple bits and clear light gray and clear light purple parts (with red and purple paint on them in places). There's also a few very dark gray bits in various joints. The missiles in his boot launchers are yellow, and his chest missile is yellow and dark gray. He has the proper red windows on his belly, although the rest of that piece is clear instead of opaque. Mine has a chip of paint missing on the helmet. [Later note: As implied by the absence of mention above, there are no faction symbols on Unicron, or on his trading sticker.] From top down, here's the joints. The wings have multiple hinges for transformation into the ring, but only two each that are meaningful for posing in robot mode. These tend to be loose and allow the wings to droop, but this is a result of mold release oil still being on the pieces. Once I washed the wings (which are removable) in soap and water, they stayed in place reasonably well. It also helps to leave off the planet surface shell pieces, as they pull the wings down. Hooking the lower branch of each wing over a shoulder protrusion is a good way to keep the wings from flopping over. The head does turn, but it takes a fair amount of effort to get it to ratchet around. It also tilts back for transformation, allowing Unicron to look up a little before it looks like he's being beheaded. His horns twist around for transformation, so you can "style" his "hair" as it were. When you lift up his chin, you may notice two metal rods on springs. These are not pushbuttons, the springs are just to make sure the rods always stay in good contact with some plates underneath so that the eyes light up when you launch the chest missile. You can also get the eyes to light up by putting a conductor (paperclip, whatever) across the two pegs. The larger horns on the shoulders are on springs, but can be placed in a few stable positions, as well as turn if you'd rather they blend in with the direction of the wing curvature. The shoulders have strong ratchets in both rotary and lifting directions, for universal jointing. The front and back plates of the shoulders are made of rubbery plastic, presumably because there's a significant risk of snapping during transformation or even when the figure falls over. There are upper arm swivels, ratcheting elbows and turning wrists. Each hand has 9 hinge joints. One at the base of the thumb that has its pin along the direction of the arm (so it can swing in to "oppose", but can't flex), and two hinges on each finger (the final joint is fixed, as with Air Attack Optimus Primal). So this is the second Transformer capable of making rude gestures. The two hands are mirror images of each other in terms of mold, but the right hand is clear with a red LED inside it. The hands can grab onto most Mini-Cons, but not all, since the thumb cannot unflex. The waist turns, the hips are universal ratchets. The armor skirt pieces are hinged to get out of the way when the legs move. The knees ratchet, and there's a ratcheting swivel below the knees so that the feet can be pointed in other directions. The feet are somewhat articulated claws with very long heel spurs, but you have to be careful posing them. They're ratcheting, but only so strong. Lean Unicron too much and it's an unstoppable crash. The missile launchers on the lower legs ratchet around to aim. The toy has two light-up gimmicks, but no sound gimmicks. Pressing a button on top of the head or launching the chest missile (more on that later) will cause the eyes to light up and flash 8 times. Launching the missile only does this if Unicron is facing straight ahead, otherwise those pegs on the underside of his head aren't touching the contacts. Pressing in on the right hand causes its LED to light up 8 times as well. Unicron has three live hardpoints in this mode, although one of them isn't really a PowerLinx hardpoint, since it's too thin to keep a Mini-Con attached. I tried cleaning it off in case it was just another case of mold release oil, but it is indeed too small. I speak in this case of the peg on his back that activates the chest launcher. To my relief, you do NOT have to use the Star Saber or Dark Saber to activate this, and PowerLinx connector will do the trick (or a pen tip, twist-tie end, etc). Once activated, the chest opens and the launcher moves forward with spring-loaded geared action (like the action of the old Starcom toys or one or two of the Triggerbots/ Cons). Once it reaches full extension, it fires its big missile, which unfolds into a sort of flying three-pronged claw. The range is pretty respectable, considering it fires straight out and is a big missile (2.75" (7cm) long, and before it unfolds it has a diameter of 0.75" (2cm)). They land about half a meter away, but keep bouncing out to about a meter. The other live hardpoints are on the boot-mounted launchers. Placing a Mini-Con on the hardpoint and moving the hardpoint forward will ripple-fire the three missiles (if you're really careful, you can get them to fire one at a time, but normally they're nearly simultaneous). These missiles are just under 3" long (7cm long) and yellow. Range is about a meter, although you can get misfires dribbling out only a few inches. There's a load of dead hardpoints, of course. 24 on the wings, although putting any Mini-Cons on these in robot mode will make the wings sag. Each shoulder has a hardpoint on a turntable that swivels relatively freely to accomodate different underside connector points. Also, if you store the right fist, the stump has two dead hardpoints on it. Aside from hardpoints, there's five other places to keep Mini-Cons. The first two are the hands, of course. The boots both open up in front (with a bit of excessive force or really strong fingernails) to reveal storage areas for two more Mini-Cons (a couple more if they're really small and friendly). Be careful, though, they hold on with pegs rather than pins, so you can end up pulling a door off. Finally, if you pull down the skirt armor, you can open up the abdomen and store a Mini-Con behind the clear window it forms. "Get in mah belly!" Also, I suppose you might be able to cram one or two of the smaller Mini-Cons into the chest cavity next to the missile launcher. Transformation is relatively simple, all things considered. It can even be done without removing any bits if you're really careful, but given the weight of the toy and the stiffness of some of the ratchets, you're usually going to knock a wing piece or planet shell off. It's best to start by pulling the shoulders down and folding the arms to plug together at the wrist (after stowing the hands, of course). Then fold the legs up around the back and stow the head. Finally put the surface shell pieces into place. Getting the forearm panels closed over the stored hands can be tricky, it's easier if you leave the hands not *quite* all the way into the forearms. The instructions suggest removing the surface shell pieces and adding them back on at the end, and this is indeed easier. So I intentionally didn't do so once, just to see if it could be done. }-> (It can, but it's not easy.) Finally, the rings are NOT symmetric, you have to put them together the right way. Planet Mode: Well, there's lots of exposed robot kibble, but it does bear a reasonably good resemblance to the movie planet. Much more of the surface is now clear purple plastic than in robot mode, which is one of the points of dissimilarity between this and the movie. Although, for all I know, Unicron in Armada will be more purple. It's hard to pick a good place to measure the size of the planet, but it's got a diameter of 7"-8" (17-20cm). The ring is an ellipse, with major axis diameter of 12" (31cm) and minor axis diameter of 11" (28cm). The major axis is along the plane of the chelicerae (fancy term for the big claws on either side of a mouth on insects, as opposed to manibles, which are the mouthparts). The clear purple surface pieces "above" the mouth don't hold together as well as I'd like, but they do look pretty nifty. There's a spherical divot in the shell right above the mouth, where the Mini-Con Dead End sits on a dead hard point that's a little too small to hold him firmly. The live hardpoints on the triple-missile launchers remain accessible, and the missiles now fire in the direction that the mouth faces. Plus, of course, the 24 dead hardpoints on the ring (which are a little big, I hadda use a lot of force to jam Mini-Cons onto them). This adds up to the 27 Mini-Cons the package proclaims Unicron can hold. Of course, if you use his stomach and leg storage ports before transformation, that brings you up to at least 30. There's one more gimmick in this mode. If you push the chelicarae together, tabs are pushed that make Unicron's jagged mouthparts gnash together. There's a spiraling darkness behind the teeth rather than a hole through which you could feed an unlucky (and skinny) Mini-Con. Neither light-up gimmick can be accessed in this mode. Unicron.com has a new accessory pack that's a clear plastic stand for displaying Unicron in planet mode, facing forward. Otherwise, it's only stable facing upward. In case anyone remembers War Planets, the Beast Planet toy is about as big as Unicron's planet mode, minus the ring. It has a bigger mouth, but doesn't turn into a robot. }-> Overall: Hey, it's Unicron. There's a few problems here and there, but most of them can be fixed or worked around, and he has less flaws as a result of sheer size than you'd expect. He doesn't look exactly like the one from the movie, but he's surprisingly close and has a coolness all his own. Maybe not the best Transformer ever, but a very good one. Mini-Con: Dead End is a tiny battle moon in dark charcoal, bright yellow and silver. The connector is on the underside, and there is no Mini-Con symbol. The only other Mini-Cons to lack symbols are Rook and Crosswise, further suggesting that these are not "real" Mini-Cons, but rather constructs of Unicron's. Or perhaps he created all the Mini-Cons, but only the ones that broke free of his will picked up the faction symbol? Planetoid Mode: 1.25" (3.5cm) in diameter, a little moon to Unicron's planet. He has a silver gun that can elevate nearly 180 degrees. His equator is a smooth-turning joint, so you can attach him snugly to a hardpoint and still swivel the gun around to bear on targets (unnecessary in his loose firing pit on Unicron's surface). Transformation: Slightly better than that of Eggbot, an old spherical toy that got recycled into the Beast Wars II line in Japan. It's pretty quick if you start with the two hemispheres lined up correctly, just pull everything apart and twist it. }-> Robot Mode: 2.25" (5.5cm) tall, and the charcoal and yellow bits balance MUCH better in this mode than in planetoid mode. The face is vaguely Shockwave-ish, and the head does not seem to turn. Measuring the other poseability is a bit difficult, since there's a lot of weird jointing that's more for transformation than posing, but the total number of joints is high. Shoulders, elbows (sorta), restricted ball hips, hinge knees, movable toes. The left hand has the gun permanently attached, the right hand has a peg hole that can hold Thrust's guns if you make them detachable. Or Inferno's launcher from Thrust, which is already detachable. Overall: Nice little Mini-Con. Looks a little weird in planetoid mode due to the color choices, but it's appealing to an old War Planets fan like me. Set overall: Booyah. Worth the $50 price tag, and worth the long wait. Infinitely better than the original Unicron toy that was never made, and I'd say it's even better than the BWNeo Unicron that made it to gray prototype stage. Not a perfect toy, but few are. Dave Van Domelen, all caught up for now, but still need to find Overload, Tidal Wave and maybe Skywarp to finish out the new molds....