Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant TRU Exclusive Thundercracker (retool of TLK Nitro) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/VThundercracker Possibly the last TRU exclusive ever, it's a bit of a weird choice, and I'd think it was a "predeco" for Starscream...except that a Starscream was released as one of the regular Studio Series Voyagers in the first wave. https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFLK/VNitro - Nitro review CAPSULE $30 price, I got it when the discount level had hit 15%. Leftover stock already spoken for by an online retailer, so you still have a chance if your local TRU never got any (or you read this review after TRU shuts down). Thundercracker: Original mold was mildly recommended. All of its virtues and flaws persist. The color scheme generally looks good, save for a weird bit of gray in the wings. Mildly recommended. RANT General Line Info: So, the Studio Series is basically "Generations for movie characters." The packaging identifies which movie and what scene the character comes from, so the trade dress is slightly different depending on which movie is involved. Most of the toys seem to be redecos or moderate retools, as Thundercracker is, but there are a few entirely new molds. Whether these were commissioned for Studio Series, or stuff that was designed years ago but never made it to shelves is not something I know at this point. For instance, the Deluxe Stinger may well have been designed for 2014's Age of Extinction, but it never made it to production back then. All of the toys are boxed, and follow the same basic pattern as the packaging I describe below. The first wave of Deluxes (which I'll review not too long after this toy) are numbers 01 through 04, the non-exclusive Voyagers (Optimus Prime and Starscream, which I don't plan to buy) are 05 and 06, and the two Leaders (new spiky Grimlock, new Blackout, might get and review Blackout) are 07 and 08. Thundercracker is 09. The prominent numbering does suggest this line is aimed more at collectors, in the same way Generations is. They do seem to be trying to imply that these are all improvements in some fashion, a more upscale assortment of toys, but that's not really any more true than it was for "Premier" toys from the Last Knight lines. Packaging: Similar to the box design for Power of the Primes, including the dominant black background, but the accent color on borders is bright blue rather than purple or red. All of the first wave toys, regardless of faction, use bright blue. In addition to the standard Transformers logo up the right side of the box front, there's also a specific movie logo in the lower right of the front, on the front edge of the box top, and on the upper right of the box back. In this case, it's Dark of the Moon, which is as good a place to hide a character as any, since it was full of hard to follow horde scenes both in the flashback stuff and the climax. Painted style art of the robot mode is in the lower left of the box front (with the number, 09 in this case, in the lower right corner of the art), zoomed in on when seen on the right side and left side. The bottom edge of the front has the faction and name in the now-usual font, white on black. The upper right has both the Takara-Tomy logo and the Generations "lurking Autobot symbol" logo. So, I guess it technically really IS Generations, but I've already split the Generations stuff, might as well keep Studio Series as its own thing. :) Thundercracker has a foil "TRU Exclusive" sticker on the upper left corner of the window. The left-as-you-face-the-box-front side has the Studio Series logo along the rear edge and the toy number quite large at the top. The right side, in addition to a more complete look at the character art, has a cutout window that reveals an Autobot symbol. This is weird, but I checked the Deluxes I bought and the Decepticons in that line also have Autobot symbols in that location. At the bottom of this side is the "Transformers Authentic" logo. On the back, the background is mostly a red monochrome version of the backdrop image from inside, with photos of the toy in both modes. There's also an inset of the included backdrop and stage. In the upper left is "BIG SCREEN INSPIRED Scale, Detail, Backdrop" in four languages. The upper right has the movie logo, the character name, and then the relevant scene in four languages. The lower right has a bio note in four languages...brief, but more than the epithets the Last Knight toys had to make do with. The non-exclusive ones also have cosells of the rest of their wave under the backdrop inset (i.e. Deluxe 02 has 01, 03, 04 shown). Below that is the usual legalese, and the bottom panel is also just legalese. Inside the box, the robot is attached to a plastic tray via "sock ties" and occasional rubber bands. Instead of cardstock, the backing tray is thin corrugated cardboard. This wasn't enough to prevent rough handling from punching a dent through the outer box and the backdrop on the one I got, but it's hard to fault TRU employees for no longer really giving a slag about careful shelf-stocking. The backdrop image uses the back and sides, it's folded over on the sides but the extra space is just package trade dress stuff rather than extending the scenery. The platform is only four-sided (no back or bottom), and is a couple of centimeters tall (proportional to the box size). I dunno if I'll bother keeping the backdrops, my usual display style is too densely packed for the backdrops to fit. The instructions are folded up behind the backdrop, no bag. Also no trading cards, unlike "real" Generations. :) DECEPTICON: THUNDERCRACKER Assortment: 09 Altmode: Fighter Jet Transformation Difficulty: 35 steps Previous Name Use: Yes Previous Mold Use: TFLK Movie: Dark of the Moon Scene: Chicago Aerial Offensive THUNDERCRACKER tears through the skies above Chicago, relishing the destruction he rains down on the AUTOBOTS. Packaging: 7 ties on the robot, plus a rubber band to keep the head on. One tie each on the missile racks. The backdrop is of an aerial combat, lots of missiles and explosions and a few intact jets in the mix. The ground is not visible at all, so it could be pretty much any airspace on a cloudy day. It's a tight fit thanks to the backpack, but Thundercracker can stand on the base. The box photos show a significantly lighter blue than the toy actually has. Color Swaps: This is tricky, because Nitro had several sprues of light gray, and they didn't all get turned into the same color...plus one of the colors is a dark blue that's hard to tell from black without shining a flashlight on it. As near as I can tell, though, all the parts that are black plastic on Nitro are black plastic on Thundercracker, the smoky clear plastic becomes faintly yellowish smoky clear plastic (the photo on the package has them very vibrantly yellow), and about half of the light gray parts are replaced by dark blue. The chestplate is definitely black, but pretty sure the shins are blue plastic rather than black painted blue. The fake thruster backpack tips are black plastic...and continue to be almost impossible to NOT pop off during transformation. Those little panels that fold out to form the leading edges of the wings closest to the fuselage are actually blue plastic, but painted medium gray so well that I had to do some covert scraping to be sure they weren't gray plastic. The shoulderpads and forearm/fist parts also appear to be black plastic, as is the gun housing, but the shield parts are dark blue plastic. Paint Apps: In robot mode, the chest is mostly painted medium gray, as are the intakes of the backpack boosters. There's some yellow details down the center of the chest. There's red "INTAKE" on each of the top scoops on the thighs, with red V's around the words. The gun housing is painted dark blue, the nosecone tip halves are painted black. In vehicle mode, the wings have red and silver lines in the classic G1 wing pattern, and black Decepticon symbols that are hard to see under normal lighting. The tail surfaces have red and silver lightning bolts. The gray bits make no real sense, leaving them blue and adding stripes would have worked a lot better. It's almost as if they accidentally put a Starscream deco on those pieces. Mold Changes and Other Notes: There's a new head, which is a movie-style Starscream head with too many eyes and a generally insectile look to it. As with Nitro, it's just a removable head, it doesn't transform. (I've ordered a G1 Thundercracker faceplate from Prize Inside on Shapeways, and will use an extra Fangry to create a proper Titan Master head for this toy later. The cockpit can still hold regular Titan Masters as pilots, so all the more reason to make this) The head is all black plastic with medium gray on the face, red eyes, and silver fangs. Still at least has much of a hassle to transform to jet mode as Nitro, if not moreso. I was kinda hoping that some of the tolerance issues would have been fixed for a store exclusive update, but nope. Transforming a toy smaller than a Titan should not be tiring, but my hands and arms hurt from the excessive force I kept having to apply. Overall: It's a nice LOOKING mold in both modes, I just wish it weren't such a literal pain to transform. Dave Van Domelen, forgot to sign off on this one originally. Here's the new head: http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/StudioTC1.JPG http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/StudioTC2.JPG http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/StudioTC3.JPG