Dave's Movie Transformers Rant: Voyager Wave 5 Evac First Strike Optimus Prime (not reviewed) Offroad Ironhide (not reviewed) Incinerator Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Voyager5 Another wave with no totally new molds. Evac is a minor retool of Blackout, while Prime and Ironhide are straight recolors. Prime is a G1-style recolor, and Ironhide gets the blue color scheme he sometimes gets as a Spychanger (plus some mud detailing). http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Voyager1 - Blackout and Ironhide http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/VoyagerT1 - Optimus Prime I don't plan to get the Ironhide and Prime recolors. I only got Evac because it got some remolding. Update 2/9/08: A running change to Wave 5 brings in the new mold Incinerator. I'll be updating this file with a review over the next few days, in case you stumble across it and wonder why there's a partial review sitting there. CAPSULES Evac: The original of this mold was only mildly recommended. This is an improvement in most ways. Recommended if you don't have Blackout yet, mildly recommended even if you do. $19.99 at Target. Incinerator: Very good vehicle mode, simple but not boring transformation, excellent robot mode, nifty gimmick. A little hurt by the garish AllSpark Blue, but still Strongly Recommended. $19.76 at Wal-Mart. RANT Packaging: Standard Voyager shape, but they've added the AllSpark Power bright blue and white circuit detailing and the images of the AllSpark both behind the toy in the box and on the back. The cosells are split up, with Prime on the back, then Ironhide and not-yet-out new mold Incinerator (V-22 Osprey more or less, dunno if they licensed) on the bottom. Incinerator's box has First Strike Optimus Prime on the back, Landmine and Autobot Camshaft on the bottom. Oh, and Incinerator is not licensed. As usual, the function and motto are my creation. AUTOBOT: EVAC Function: Rescue Specialist Altmode: Sikorsky Pave Low Licensor: Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation Previous Name Use: Cybertron Previous Mold Use: Movie (with mods) Package Call-Outs: "Raft converts to hand blaster!" "Spinning blade!" "Raft drops from cargo door!" Motto: "If you think I'm letting you die just because you're the enemy, then you don't know me very well." When EVAC received the transmission from OPTIMUS PRIME inviting the surviving AUTOBOTS to Earth, he knew he was needed there immediately. The final battle against MEGATRON could only have resulted in massive damage to the world, which meant that his skills would be critical. As a rescue specialist, EVAC has spent his life traveling from one disaster zone to the next, protecting and saving those he could. He is totally fearless, willing to risk anything to help his fellow sentient creatures. STR 7 INT 8 SPD 7 END 9 RNK 5 COUR 10 FRB 5 SKL 8 Avg 7.375 I will note here that they didn't go with the Cybertron Evac colors. Rather, they went with the 1-2-3 Transformers "Charlie Chopper" scheme. :) It's also worth noting that they didn't recycle Cybertron Evac's techspec stats. Packaging Notes: Comes with the same catalog as the first wave of AllSpark Power Deluxes, but folded to have Ultimate Bumblebee on the front. Two twist-ties go all the way through to hold the vehicle mode to the blister tray, but another tie holds the front trio of rotor blades to just the blister. However, if you undo the main two, you can just slide the vehicle out without needing to mess with the third tie. The raft is held in by just the blister shape. There's four rubber bands holding things together, and two of them either have to be cut off or you need to partially transform the toy to get them off. Color Swaps: Blackout's so monochrome (okay, there's three colors of plastic, I'm speaking metaphorically) that he has a lot of mold sprues that share colors. As a result, it's easier to just list where the colors are on Evac specifically than it would be to try to say things like "black becomes dark gray". I'll list by robot mode, since it's easier to label things. Most of the rotor weapon shaft is orange plastic, with black for the front bit, and dark gray for the hub and blades, tail included. The plunger on it is black, as are the cage trigger and the spinning connector for Scorponok's linkup gimmick. Orange plastic is also used on the shoulders, upper arms, forearms, backs of the boots, back panel, the panels that fold to the wrists, and the pieces that connect the shoulder missile racks to the turbine intakes. White is used on the shoulder panels (the ones that become side bits of the helicopter), thighs, part of the boot backs and much of the shins. The torso pieces and the folding panels for the torso are black plastic. Black is also used for various interior joints, the missile racks and the tips of the turbine intakes. A softer black plastic is used on the missiles themselves. A medium-dark gray plastic is used on the wheels, fists, head, refueling probe, pontoons, pelvis, kneecaps, shin guards, toes, heels and hip flaps. Paint Apps: Probably the only bad paint app is the attempt to cover the front end of the helicopter with orange paint, it's not laid thickly enough on the underlying black plastic to look right. The windows are metallic light blue, and the radome is painted dark gray. On either side of the tail is printed the registry number "EV1015-07" (gee, I wonder what day the design was finalized?). Otherwise, all the paints are reserved for robot mode. AllSpark blue is used extensively, on the chest, pelvsis, biceps, thighs and the sides of the knees. The top of the head is painted orange (a better match here) with white "chinstraps". There's a white "home plate" shape painted on the chest with a small black Autobot symbol printed on it. Yellow and black hazard stripes are painted on the shoulders. Where Blackout was a dull slate gray blob, Evac is a riot of orange, white and blue. The details stand out better, but it doesn't look ugly to me, which is always a risk when you use so many bright colors. Remolds: The head is entirely new, molded to look like a helicopter pilot's helmet, with light blue lightpiping on goggle eyes. The hands are actually the same design as Blackout's, but molded to be closed more for a better grip (necessary to let him hold the raft-gun). And, of course, Scorponok is replaced by a raft. Rescue Raft: The core piece of the raft is gray plastic that's painted almost entirely bright orange with some bright blue bits on the underside. It has soft darker gray plastic pieces for a shelter tent on the top and pontoons on the bottom. It's 35mm long and 27mm wide, a slightly smooshed octagonal shape. It's not difficult to remove the tent or the pontoons. There's a handle on a hinge sticking out the back of the tent. Flipping the raft over and bending the handle down turns it into a gun. Twin machinegun barrels are mounted between the pontoons. The AllSpark blue paint on the underside is between and around the barrels. It makes for a somewhat awkward looking machine pistol weapon. Other Comments: They did NOT remove the ability to link up with Deluxe Scorponok. That's by no means a given, seeing as how they remolded Screen Battles Barricade to trap the Frenzy inside it. Also, I don't know if it's just that I got "broken in" on Blackout or if they fixed some of the engineering issues here, but I was a lot less annoyed by Evac than by Blackout. Overall: Definitely better than Blackout. I prefer the bright colors over the gray blob, the new head is a huge improvement over Blackout's "spiky explosion" look, and the hands can hold things. The raft isn't as nifty as Scorponok, but it makes sense on a rescue redeco. DECEPTICON: INCINERATOR Function: Interrogation Altmode: V-22 Osprey (unlicensed "almost but not quite") Licensor: None Previous Name Use: Armada Previous Mold Use: None. Package Call-Outs: "Spinning battle blades!" "Pull back to spin rotors!" Motto: "Your first mistake was assuming that I want that information so badly that I can't risk killing you." Since the end of the war and the destruction of MEGATRON, more and more individual DECEPTICONS have been appearing on Earth chasing rumors that their leader still lives. Most choose to remain hidden from the AUTOBOTS who have stayed behind to defend the world, but not INCINERATOR. He's actively hunting AllSpark enhanced AUTOBOTS, reasoning that one of them must know where MEGATRON is. When he catches an AUTOBOT, INCINERATOR takes him on a little ride, swooping and diving dangerously, hovering over canyons and volcanoes, and generally terrifying whatever informaiton he can out of his victim. When he's done, he just finds the deepest hole he can and drops his helpless victim in. STR 7 INT 5 SPD 7 END 8 RNK 4 COUR 9 FRB 9 SKL 4 Avg 6.625 Looks like Incinerator dislikes recolors, and seeks to drop them in volcanoes. :) Oh, and the Armada use of this name was Blurr's Mini-Con partner. Neither vehicle mode really fits the name. As an aside, the Japanese AllSpark Power toys come with a little rubbery AllSpark. Even Incinerator, who can't hold it, as he has no hands. Heh. Packaging notes: This comes with the latest catalog, which is a mix of movie line Transformers, Animated Transformers, and Iron Man movie toys. The cover has Nightwatch Leader Optimus Prime. Inside are Incinerator, Landmine, Cyber Slammer Jazz, the AllSpark Blaster Nerf gun, Screen Battles Capture of Bumblebee, and the AllSpark Legends Jazz/Bonecrusher set for the movie toys. Animated gets one page, with Voyager Earth Mode Prime, Deluxe Bumblebee, and the two-pack with Prime vs. Megatron. The back two pages (it's a smaller catalog) show some roleplay toys (including an Iron Man helmet), three of the 6" figures, and a 12" Iron Man figure. Looks promising. Annoying twist-tie tricks are back. There's only two through the cardboard that hold in the vehicle mode, but then two more that hold it just to the blister tray, so you have to cut the tape and remove the blister from the backing. One more tie holds a shell down over the two rotors. There are no rubber bands, however. To judge by the artwork of the head shot on the box, Incinerator is related to Tom Servo. He also has rather prominent cheeks that look like eyeballs (the figure has a visor eyeslit, which doesn't look as eye-like on the mugshot). Vehicle Mode: First, of course, snap the rotors on. They're packaged separately to avoid damage, but they're not really meant to come off of the toy otherwise. They don't snap on "permanently" of course, for safety reasons, but they're pretty secure. 8.25" (21cm) long, a maximum span of 11.5" (29.5cm). This makes it roughly 1:83 scale. It's more or less a V-22 Osprey VTOL tiltrotor transport. The lower fuselage, wings and engines are made from dark gray plastic, the tail and upper fuselage are light gray plastic. There's also a sort of radar discus thing on top near the rear of the fuselage made of light gray plastic. The rotors are black plastic, the cockpit window section is clear colorless plastic. There's some AllSpark Blue plastic on connector bits, inside the cockpit and on the radar dish strut. There's also some metallic purple plastic visible under the wings and on the fuselage bottom, these are all robot bits. There's a dark gray paint on the wing roots and tail leading edges that's too dark to match the dark gray plastic, and a light gray paint on the wings and cockpit that's too dark to match the light gray plastic. Oops. the overall effect is a sort of weak "dazzle" camoflage pattern in grays. Some of this dark gray is also used to paint backwards pointing arrows on the cockpit sides, presumably a "don't stand in front of the whirling blades of doom" warning arrow deal. The only other obvious paint in this mode is a triangle of AllSpark Blue paint on the radar dish, to indicate its use as the gimmick-triggering lever. Less obvious is the paint on the middle of his wingroot with the Decepticon symbol flanked by some "wing" stripes in a slightly metallic dark gray paint that almost blends into the dark gray paint otherwise in that area. Small landing gear wheels pull out in a tricycle pattern, although the nose wheel is actually in two pieces (one on each leg), and can be tricky to fully deploy if you don't have long and strong nails (or a pry tool). The rotors do tilt through the full range of motion an Osprey should have, plus a little more. As you rotate them, the rotors spin a little, thanks to the gears inside. :) And now for the gearing. The main gimmick of this toy is that if you pull back on the radar dish, the rotors spin. They stop as soon as you finish pulling back, rather than free-spinning. On the other hand, the gears remain engaged in both modes, in all positions, a fairly impressive bit of engineering that is not often used on Transformers. All in all, this is a pretty fun Osprey toy even without the transformation bit. Only a little robot kibble, and it holds together very well. As alluded to above, it's not exactly an Osprey. The biggest differences are: 1) There's no radar disc on the tail section of the V-22 (although I suppose there might be an AWACS-like variant). 2) The tail section is shaped somewhat differently on the real V-22. 3) Incinerator's engines are upside down. On purpose, not as an assembly error. On the V-22, the intake notch is on the bottom side, on Incinerator it's on the top. Due to the gearing, this is not a trivial swap if you want to make it more Osprey-accurate, plus doing the swap would leave an obvious screw on top. Anyway, like Landmine and Stockade, this is one of many toys based on a vehicle seen in the movie, but not licensed. So they kind of have to make some changes. Transformation: Pretty simple. Bend the winglets down, this unpegs them and separates the underbody of the fuselage. Some of the underside pieces fold down and around to make the boots, the cockpit pulls down to become the chest, and the winglets with rotors become the arms. Going back to vehicle mode requires a certain amount of massaging of the tabs and slots of the legs as they snap back together into the underside of the fuselage, but once you get it right once, it's not too hard or frustrating. Automorph: When the cockpit is pulled down and pressed into place as the chest, the underside pushes up through and engages levers that split the cockpit windows, spreading them apart into the sides of the chest. Also, the pelvis piece springs forward automatically when the vehicle bits are moved out of the way of it. Robot Mode: 6.5" (17cm) tall, rather than hands he has his engines on the ends of his arms. Rather than add robot kibble to the vehicle mode, they don't bother giving him even a molded hand on each motor. He has really big feet, letting him stand stably without needing to use his tail as a tripod leg. His head is light gray plastic with clear colorless lightpiping. The inner parts of his chest, his shoulders, part of his elbow joints, and his heels are AllSpark Blue plastic. His upper arms, insides of forearms, pelvis and thighs are a dark metallic purple plastic. The cockpit window halves are on his chest, and al of the light gray bits from vehicle mode form a backpack and tail. His forearms, "hands" and boots are dark gray plastic. His head is also attached to a piece of dark gray plastic. The obligatory AllSpark Blue paint can be found on the upper arms, head, thighs and the everted body panels of his boots. There's dark gray paint on the sides of the face, with black for the middle part and a black Decepticon symbol printed on the forehead. Poseability is very good. The head is on a slightly limited ball joint. The waist doesn't turn, due to the way it snaps together for transformation. The shoulders are universal joints, with "shrug back" extra joints from transformation. There's upper arm swivels, hinge elbows and universal joint wrists...all of which continue the gearing internally, so it's very sturdy and the blades rotate when you pose the arms. They don't cheap out on the legs, though, with soft-ratcheting universal joint hips, swivels above the knees, stiff hinge knees, hinge ankles, and a longways rotation joint on the toes. He's such a dynamic figure that he really shouldn't be crammed on a shelf cheek-to-jowl with other figures, he needs space to flex. Might be one to hang from the ceiling via a string threaded through his backpack. :) Oh, and the rotor spin gimmick works just fine in this mode too. As long as you don't pose him so he'd slice himself, that is. That'd be a little too "Number One Fan". Overall: The garish AllSpark Blue and somewhat odd metallic purple count against this toy, but that merely brings it down to "almost perfect". One of the best Voyagers ever. Dave Van Domelen, officially out of space to put movie TFs. Gonna have to give up on leaving Classics out if he's gonna get more movie toys.