Dave's Transformers Rant: Air Attack Optimus Primal Well, we've certainly been waiting a while on this one. It was supposed to be the tail end of Beast Machines, and it turns out to be the tail end of Robots in Disguise. CAPSULE Air Attack Optimus Primal: Big. Poseable. Pretty stable, even. Good gimmicks and a decent transformation (if a bit balky in places). Good robot mode, okay beast mode. Might be a bit hard to find, being a TRU exclusive, but it's very much worth the $30 TRU wants for it. Strongly recommended. RANTS Before I actually open the box, I'm going to review what you get with the box closed. The box itself is 14.5" (37cm) tall, 10.5" (27cm) wide and 6" (15cm) deep. The left side shows a picture of beast mode standing up a bit too straight. The back shows both modes and describes some of the gimmicks. The right side promises that the sound gimmick has three modes, for when the figure is standing up (Soaring), lying flat (Fly-By) and upside down (Diving). The techspec is on the bottom. On the front of the box, there's a large window in the plastic so you can push the chest and head sound activation buttons (push in the chest, push down the head), and with a little work you can get at the fingers of the right hand. I do NOT recommend going through the store and manipulating the fingers so that Primal is making a rude gesture. Wait until you get home. When you push in the chest, there's a "taking off" sound followed by about 15 seconds of low thrumming flight noise. A red LED lights up in the chest while the sound is going. During the time the chest light is on, you can push down on the head, triggering a green LED in the forehead and one of three phrases sampled from the Beast Machines cartoon (the shout he makes when he fires his chest beam, "Maximized!" and "The seeds of the future are buried in the past." The last one sounds a bit exasperated, as if he's tired of saying it). Pushing on the head when the chest is not lit up does nothing. Tilting the figure into the Fly-By and Diving positions does not change the sounds made, so I'm thinking there's a button involved. Okay, now to actually open the thing. This is gonna take a while.... Dang, I wish I hadn't packed away my wirecutters. There's a dozen twist ties (mostly very thick ones) securing it to the box. Two more ties hold the arms in position, and then four rubber bands hold the shoulders and hands. Um, and the arms come off pretty easily, which I suppose is part of the reason for all the ties. Anyway, for anyone reading this who doesn't know already, this toy was ready to go over a year ago, but the disappointing sales of Supreme Cheetor kept Hasbro from releasing it. As part of Toys R Us's initiative to give people a reason to shop there despite their higher prices, they arranged to sell it as an exclusive. AUTOBOT: Air Attack Optimus Primal Function: Spirit Guide Altmode: Gorilla Motto: "We will win if we believe in ourselves and our unity!" He is a hero from the future, whose courage, skill and wisdom are needed again, to lead the Autobots in their fight against Megatron and his evil plans for the planet Earth. Wise and strong, Optimus Primal councils Optimus Prime in the ways of defensive combat and serves as custodian of freedom. Helps others find their own strength to keep fighting despite the odds. Brave and intelligent, he believes wholeheartedly in his cause and lights the fires of justice and truth in others. STR 10 INT 10 SPD 9.5 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRB 9.9 SKL 10 Avg 9.9 Two notes. One, if he's from the future, how can he be needed "again"? }-> Second, Primal counsels Prime, not councils. Robot Mode: A foot (31cm) tall and a little under 8" (20cm) wide at the shoulders. And while there's a few differences here and there, this is the robot mode seen on Beast Machines, very well done. Mostly brown and two shades of gold, with clear light brown forearms, salmon pink hands, and some blue and red accents. And a little white plastic here and there. Poseability is very good. The head and waist turn, the his are ball joints with ratchets, the shoulders are also theoretically universal joints (but the armor keeps the arms from moving away from the sides). Ratchety knees and elbows, and the left arm has a ratcheting upper arm swivel just above the elbow (the right arm has a gimmick that prevents this). The wrists swivel, and each of the four fingers has two hinge joints! The thumb is just jointed to flip sides, as with Optimal Optimus. The ankles have a front-back hinge and a side-to-side ratchet hinge that lets him stand with his feet just over 8" apart (center to center) with feet flat on the table. The figure is reasonably stable, considering how topheavy it is. However, the relatively small feet are just big enough to keep him standing if you're careful posing him. The ratchet joints in the legs certainly help with this. And his kneecaps bend a bit to keep covering his knee joints when you stand him in a legs-bent pose. And now the pile of gimmicks. First off, the stuff usable in the box is still usable here. But wait, there's more! If you press a button on the back to release the jets, they flip down and light up, although the blue clear plastic flames don't catch the LEDs very well. This only works after the chest has been pushed, however. If you just leave it alone, the jets will turn off after about 15 seconds. However, if you move the toy around, the jets will keep going as long as the toy is in motion, and the sound will change pitch depending on the position of the toy. This is the "three mode sound" described on the box. When upright the jets have the highest pitch, when upside down the jets are pitched their lowest, and when horizontal it's somewhere in between. The jet sound changes a bit just before cutting out. You can also manually turn off the jets (returning to just the thrumming sound) by pushing the jet button again. Next, Primal has a disc shooter in his abdomen, at the bottom of his rotating chest section. You need thin fingers to easily trigger it when the jets are not deployed, and you can't launch it when the jets are deployed. The disk is clear light blue, about 1.25" (3cm) in diameter. It has an "o ring" outer edge and a small hole through the center, plus an energy burst pattern molded into it. There is only one disc. If the toy is in "power up mode" when you fire, there's an energy blast sound. I found that from a standing position, it fires about 2-3 feet (under a meter) including bounces. Finally, the right arm has a spring in it so that you can pull off the shoulder armor and use it as a handle to cock back the fist and let fly. If you pull it back far enough, Primal will grunt repreatedly until you let go. Although you're supposed to pull it back just enough that the grunt comes when you let go and the fist flies out. But you have to pull back pretty far...I initially thought the gimmick was nonfunctional. And, as with the other sound gimmicks, it only works when the "power up mode" is active, after you push the chest. Some sound priority notes. If the jets are on when you push down the head for a phrase, the jets will turn off during the phrase, but reactivate afterward. However, using the punching gimmick will turn off the jets, period. This is probably because the punch was not intended for use while in robot mode (the jets do not work in beast mode, period). Transformation: Fairly simple, I figured out most of it without the instructions. You rotate the chest section around to swap heads, pull the shoulder armor down onto the forearms, and fold up the legs, twisting out new feet. You also flip the chest light out and turn it around to get a Maximal spark crystal version. There's a hinge in the abdomen area to arch the back for a more realistic gorilla pose, but it takes excessive force to get started (or did in the case of mine, anyway). Once you've done it once, though, it no longer needs excessive force. Then you pick up the arm that fell off. Seriously, the non-punching arm of mine just does not wanna stay on. Wait, think I got it. My best guess is that it was assembled wrong. The arm can fit in two ways. One way it pops in and out very easily, the other way requires excessive force to get it in (and presumably, out). Beast Mode: In proper knucklewalking pose, only 7" (18cm) tall, and even if you stand it up straight it's not as tall as robot mode, having lost half the length of its legs. Poseability is a bit lower, with the legs being only minimally poseable (hips and a little in the feet) and the forearm armor keeping the elbows from bending. Sadly, while the forearm armor looks "show accurate," the arms can't rotate to actually have the armor on the front of the arms, it's just on the sides. The head turns some, the launcher turning with it. Overall, it looks decent, except for the forearm problem and the massively thick kibble legs. And he looks like he's wearing an Elizabethan neck ruff, thanks to the white plastic of the launcher at his neck. It's Sir Optimus Primal of the Queen's Court! And he has a red (well, salmon pink) butt. Toyfare is gonna have a field day with that. Gimmicks are a bit restricted in this mode. When powered up, you can push down the head to get two new phrases ("RAAAAAAGH!" and "Optimus, Maximize!"). No jet sounds available in this mode. The head does light up, thanks to a triple plug under the gorilla chin that connects it into the power source (the head folds up in robot mode). The disc launcher will fire (as I discovered, firing it at my own face, sigh) in this mode, although it dislodges the head a bit. However, while the jets don't light up or make sounds in this mode, they will still deploy...as a sort of catapault! Okay, it's a really weak catapault, and its positioning is guaranteed to inspire more dooky-flinging jokes from Toyfare, but it can hurl light objects forward and down to smack anyone standing in front of Primal. The reason the force is low is that the speaker and its electronics are in the jetpack unit, so it's kinda heavy for the springs to be swinging. Overall: Okay, not the most awesome perfect Transformer ever, but it's definitely a very good one, and shows what can be done with the Supreme size. If this had come out first, the price point might not have been abandoned. I still think Laser Prime is a slightly better toy overall (and, had Scourge been released with all the promised electronics, it would perhaps even have been better), but SuPrimal is definitely worth the money. Especially since it's being sold for only $30, not $40. Dave Van Domelen, will be taking SuPrimal in the car with him to Kansas rather than giving it to the movers on Sunday....