Dave's RotF Rant: Robot Replicas Wave 1 Optimus Prime (89874) Starscream (89877) Ironhide (91797) Autobot Ratchet (91798) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/RR1 All new molds, they've ditched the pseudo-Revoltech jointing. It's worth noting that none of these characters is available in a regular Deluxe version, just Legends and Voyager on up. Oh, there's FAB versions out there, and Gravity Bots, but for something with reasonable articulation you need to either go up to Voyager or buy a Robot Replica. Reasonably clever of them (although wave 2 includes at least two figures that have Deluxe versions). [Later note: Ratchet's getting a deluxe, although it's not exactly the same design, it's a non-ambulance Hummvee. At the time the RR came out, though, the only otber ratchets in stores were redecos.] CAPSULES Optimus Prime: Very accurate mold, good paint job and articulation. Maybe not as good as other action figures at this price point (i.e. the DC Universe Blue Beetle or the new Halo figures), but pretty good. Recommended. $12.88 at Walmart. Starscream: In this case, the accuracy of the mold isn't an unalloyed good, as it leads to a figure that can barely stand up. It's also on the deliberately ugly side. Mildly recommended. $12.88 at Walmart. Ironhide: Chunky and squat, which both looks good on him and hampers articulation. Some gratuitous paint apps try to compensate for the otherwise unrelenting black in this design, so it looks a little more cartoony than it should. Recommended, but I can't really quantify why I like it more than Starscream. Maybe it's the attitude. $12.88 at Walmart. Autobot Ratchet: Accurate, well-articulated, stable, generally a good sculpt. My favorite of the set, edging out Prime by a little bit. Recommended. $12.88 at Walmart. RANTS Packaging: Very similar to the 2007 Robot Replicas, although the blisters have the cut-out triangles on the sides like other RotF blisters. The front of the blister is rounded, so you can't easily stack them. The blister is glued all the way around, no tape. The cardfronts are CG art of the characters against a battle backdrop (the climactic fight in Egypt this time), with the character name in silver ink along the right side. So it's trivial to separate these out from the regular Deluxes and the Fast Action Battlers. The cardback has a faded version of the front's backdrop, with the faction symbol in the upper right, the bio note along the upper left, a photo of the toy in the middle, and the other three as cosells along the bottom. They all have the call-out "Fully Poseab;le and Movie Accurate!" The blister insert has the same Cybetronian glyph as the regular Deluxes on the left, the logo and "Robot Replicas" on the front, and on the right the blurb, "Fully poseable and accurate to the finest detail, ROBOT REPLICAS bring TRANSFORMERS to life like never before." Well, like never before 2007, anyway. :) There's no licensor information for the vehicle modes anywhere on the package, just Hasbro and Paramount. There's no twist-ties, the blisters are molded to hold the figures in place on their own. Unlike the 2007 Robot Replicas, there's no swappable accessories, yet the price still bumped up to the $13 point. So, if you thought the 2007 versions weren't really worth it, these will be a hard sell. Common Elements: While they don't all have exactly the same articulation, there's a number of points they tend to share in common. The neck is a ball joint, although it may be restricted to swiveling. There's a softly ratcheting ball joint between the chest and abdomen that lets the upper body turn and lean. There's a ball joint between the central chest and the right and left chest sections, plus ratcheting universal joints at the actual shoulders. This lets the figure move more naturally, with the torso deforming to match the movement of the arms, a very nice touch. Mind you, the actual shoulder joints are sometimes a bit odd, being more like an upper arm swivel with a hinge below it than a true universal joint in two cases (Ironhide and Ratchet), so the arms can lift forward or to the sides, but you have to adjust the direction first. The elbows are ratcheting hinges at a right angle to the direction of the shoulder hinges. The forearms are attached to the elbows by a ball and socket that is restricted to the point of really just being a swivel. No separate wrist joints. There's no waist joint, that articulation being handled by the mid-torso joint. The hips are ratcheting universal joints. None of the figures have thigh swivels. The knees vary from figure to figure, as do the ankles. Aside from Ironhide, they all have one hand transformed into weapon mode. Since Ironhide's weapons are forearm mounted, he has no need of such transformations. I suspect the original design had these as swappable pieces as with the original Robot Replicas, although Ironhide doesn't really have or need swapping. Plastic ranges from soft to mushy, no real change from the previous versions. AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME OPTIMUS PRIME knew that the destruction of MEGATRON was only the beginning of the end of the long, long war he had fought. Hundreds of DECEPTICONS remained alive to threaten the safety of the galaxy. So he continues to train, continues to see that his weapons are as powerful as he can make them, because he knows that one day, he will be called upon to again defend Earth against the evil of the DECEPTICONS. While I normally have no objection to blatantly splitting infinitives, "he will be called upon to again defend" is really clunky. Dimensions: 5" (13cm) tall, 2.75" (7cm) across at the shoudlers, 2.6oz (76g). The feet are 1.5" (4cm) long and 0.75" (2cm) wide. In case you're wondering why I'm bothering to weigh these, back in the first set they seemed to be more concerned about using the same amount of plastic in each figure than with making them to scale with each other, or even a consistent height. Sculpt: Comparing this to the poster I have of movie Prime, I agree that this is about as movie-accurate as you can get without having paper-thin bits hanging off everywhere (and without making it a statue, some details are sacrificed to allow range of motion). His right arm is in sword mode, although this is the thinnest I can recall ever seeing his blade. It's more like a scalpel than a sword in shape. Plastics: The forearms are bright red plastic, the three torso pieces (right, left, center) and the pelvis are slightly shiny gray plastic, and everything else is dark blue plastic that glows bright blue under UV. Paint Applications: Pretty good, although there's a number of missing details such as the flames on the shoulderpads. The dark blue paint on the back, torso flanks, "belt" and some forearm details is a good match for the blue plastic under normal light, but it doesn't glow under UV. There's good bright red paint on the chest plus flames on the boots and back. Silver is extensively used as an accent, plus on the face, feet and fist, as well as the non-heated parts of the sword structure. His eyes are light blue, but the chest windows are medium metallic blue. The sword blade is orange and yellow, with the edge of the blade being yellow. There's a few gold details about the torso and hips. The tires are painted matte black with silver hubs. It's worth noting that they don't skimp on the paint on the back side. There's just as much detail visible from behind as from the front, unlike a lot of toys. Articulation: His forearm ball joints have a bit more play in them than most, maybe ten degrees off the centerline in all directions. His knees are soft-ratcheting hinges, and his ankles are ball joints with a good amount of clearance (resulting in the feet being fairly far off-model on the tops). His true shoulder joints have the swivel horizontal, so he does not get an effective upper arm swivel, which makes the play in his forearms more important. However, it does mean his shoulders move in the most normal way of the four. His hips are a bit blocked by the details molded on top of them. Overall: It does what it sets out to do. And if it could stand a few more paint apps, it's still pretty close to movie-accurate without those. I wish he could swap out the sword with a regular hand, but understand the reasoning behind removing the accessories. DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM There are many among the DECEPTICONS who believe that STARSCREAM is every bit as dangerous as MEGATRON, and with good reason. The DECEPTICON ace has been with MEGATRON from the very beginning, and lists just as many famous and powerful AUTOBOTS among his defeated opponents. No robot, no matter how powerful, can hope to beat him in the air. even on the ground his power is legendary. His armored face shelters eyes that constantly scan for any advantage, and a mind that is always plotting. Dimensions: Height depends on how straight you make the legs, but is about 5.25" (13.5cm). The shoulders are 4.5" (11cm) wide, the feet are a puny 1" (2.5cm) long and 0.5" (1.3cm) wide. 4.1oz (116g). Sculpt: Starscream got surprisingly little love in the first movie's merchandising, so I don't have a lot of good CG model pictures to compare to (the action pose on the packaging obscures a lot of details), but the toy matches what I have pretty well...including, unfortunately, the spiky messes that are his feet. The right arm is normal and has a rotary cannon molded into it, but it's that sort of molding where the barrel is connected to the arm by a big chunk of plastic rather than being separate (and hence bendable). The left arm ends in a weird weapon I don't recognize, but which probably appeared for an eyeblink in the movie. I haven't seen it in any static images so far, nor is it on the CG model used for the Robot Replica package itself. It looks like ha modded a toaster to fire energy or something. Plastics: The forearms, feet and pelvis are made of a medium cool gray, maybe 60% gray. The rest is a 30% warm gray. It may just be different levels of remaining mold release oil, but the chest flank plastic feels slicker than some of the other light gray pieces. Paint Applications: The darker gray plastic of the arms and feet appears to have been painted over almost entirely with a slightly metallic sheen, a paint not used on the pelvis piece. Looking inside the sockets on the arms has me convinced that it's not a third plastic color. A light gray paint with a very good match to the plastic is used on much of the right forearm, and the fronts of the "shins" (actually the tarsals, part of the feet, as he's digitigrade or "chicken legged"). A very light metallic blue is used on the chest and pelvis details, with a metallic turquoise on the back of the head and the tops of the thrusters. Gold paint is used on small accents on the face, chest and pelvis, plus parts of the thighs and the bottoms of the backpack thrusters. There's a few bits of gold on the arms and lower legs as well. The cockpit is a deep gold, almost bronze. There's bits of red on the crooks of the elbows and the eyes are red. The toaster weapon has some light blue on the "slices". Finally, a medium gray paint is used extensively for Starscream's tattoo patterns, as well as vents on the backs of his thighs and the recessed bits on his thrusters. Articulation: Like Prime, he has his shoulder swivels horizontal. Unlike Prime, his pectoral chunks are HUGE, and they're also a bit blocked by his wings, but not as much as you'd think. He has about as much play in his forearm ball joints as Prime does. As mentioned above, Starscream is digitigrade, which means his true ankle joint looks like a backwards knee, and he really stands on his tiptoes. Knees and true ankles are soft- ratcheting hinges, while the false ankles are ball joints. Between his digitigrade stance and his huge torso, there aren't a lot of poses he can stand in without toppling over. Overall: Well, you can't really fault the designers here, they did the best job they could with a fairly non-toyetic character model. AUTOBOT: IRONHIDE There's a thrill IRONHIDE gets when his targeting systems register a lock. Nothing matches it. He can feel his systems surge as he zeroes the target, checks his range, and fires. The world seems to slow down when he goes into battle. Plasma bursts scream away from him at half speed, leaving a shimmering trail of superheated air behind them. Incoming lasers slow to a crawl. Though he honestly does look forward to the end of the war, part of him hopes he never runs out of DECEPTICONS to hunt. Dimensions: A squat and powerful 4.75" (12cm) tall and 3" (7.5cm) wide at the shoulders, he weighs 4.25oz (120g). His huge feet are 2" (5cm) long and 1.5" (3.5cm) wide...even pushed all the way together, he's as wide at the feet as at the shoulders. Sculpt: It's accurate, but the placement of joints on the upper body means that most poses will result in his hood halves being WAY out of position and his front wheels replacing them as his pecs. His weapons are fairly low-detail compared to the computer models, too. Given that the combined cannon mode seems only to have existed on the toy, I'm not sure if they even considered an arm-swap for him to get the full length weapon. Plastics: Black. None more black. Oh, and his "big toe" on each foot is a srtiking example of how plastic thickness can affect strength. The feet seem nicely rigid except for those toes, which are really bendy. Paint Applications: A medium gray (about 60%) on his weapons and seemingly random other places around the body and face. Of course, Ironhide's character model is dreadfully black, so they probably threw in "wrong" gray parts just to break it up a little. Gold is the second most common paint color, appearing on his left weapon, his knuckles and various little accents here and there. The barrels of the weapons and his eyes are light blue. The turn signals on his shoulders are orange with a strong UV glow. He actually has a split "GMC" on the license plate halves on his shoulderpads, making this the only one of the four that might have a good reason to list the licensor on the package. The bumper halves are silver, but for some odd reason the headlights are gunmetal. Ther's metallic blue accents on both arms, the belt and the left weapon, and a red panel on the right weapon. There's some medium blue paint details on the top of his back, plus a few gold and gray bits on the back. The wheel hubs are unpainted, but would be dark gray if painted anyway, to judge from the CG model. Articulation: His shoulder swivels point more down than out, but his shoulderpads have more than enough range of motion to compensate for this, if you're willing to go off-model on the chest. The arms default to being bent 90 degrees, and can only unbend about two thirds of the way to straight between the hinges and the ball joints. The knees are single soft-ratcheting hinges, but there's so much stuff on the legs that there's not a lot of range of motion. Ball joint ankles and really big feet allow good stability in the limited range of poses Ironhide can manage. Overall: Articulation is more limited than on the others, but he's able to assume most of the poses that suit the character, so it's okay. Being all black does make a lot of detail vanish into the shadows, but he's a glossy black and good lighting will bring out most of the details. AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT RATCHET AUTOBOT RATCHET has devoted his existence to the study of life in all its forms. The simple fact of life is, to his mind, the greatest testament to the majesty of the universe. He often finds himself entranced by the primitive wriggling of an amoeba, or the complex interaction of gears in his own hands. It is his love for life that led him to commit himself to its defense. Life is simply too beautiful to allow MEGATRON to wast it through his tyrannical excesses. Dude, have you ever looked at your hands? I mean, REALLY looked at your hands? Whooooa.... Dimensions: 4.75" (12cm) tall, 2.75" (7.5cm) across at the shoulders, weighing in at 2.75oz (78g). Feet are 1.5" (4cm) long and 0.75" (2cm) wide. Sculpt: It's accurate as far as I can tell, but feels too thin, somehow. I guess I'm influenced by the fact that most of the other Ratchet toys are a lot beefier, because they can't make all the vehicle parts magically vanish like Bay does in the movie. The right arm ends in a weapon that's a lot like the roleplay blaster sold late in the 2007 toy line, but not exactly like. A pair of rotary cannons are molded onto the left forearm, but they suffer from the same problem as Starscream's cannon, with several barrels being more like slabs. He wears his spare tire like a fanny pack. Unlike the other three, his chest is solid, with the flank pieces turned into big shoulderpads. Plastics: The torso, pelvis, head, upper arms and the ball joint of the ankles are made of gunmetal metallic plastic. The shoulderpads, forearms, thighs, knees, shins and feet are a greenish yellow (chartreuse) color a little yellower than Constructicon Green. Paint Applications: Lots of black all over the place, and gunmetal paint (good plastic match) on the gun and various mechanical details. There's chartreuse paint on the head, belt, and various panels on the torso and upper arms. The various lights are painted a lighter chartreuse (as in, more pastel, not more yellow) that glows white under UV. This is odd, since they're normally blue or silver. The eyes and the tip of the gun are bright light blue. There's red stripes on the shoulderpads and forearms. The tires are black with silver hubs, and the left forearm cannons are silver. The letters "CIAE" or possibly a truncated "CIAB" is printed in yellow-orange on the inside of his right lower leg. Many of the gunmetal parts have a black ink wash on them. Articulation: Since his torso flanks are moved out to be shoulderpads, the universal joint between shoulderpad and upper arm is mainly meant to let the arms swivel or move out to the side. The shoulderpad bits tend to knock against the head, though. The knees are double hinged and can fold to about 45 degrees acute. The ankles are ball joints with plenty of play to them. However, the ball joints on the forearms are strictly swivels. Probably the best "traditional" articulation of the lot, at the cost of losing the torso flexibility. Overall: Since they've made it clear that we're unlikely to get a new transforming Ratchet mold (redecos already out in the Legends, FAB and Voyager classes suggest not even a retool is coming our way), this is really the only new Ratchet of substance I expect we'll get. Oh, there could be a Gravity Bot or something, but those stink. It looks pretty good, poses well, and is stable thanks to large feet. My favorite of the wave. Dave Van Domelen, figures he'll hit FABs next, having gotten one from each of the first two waves.