Dave's Transformers Animated Rant: Activators Wave 1 Bumblebee Bulkhead Starscream Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFA/Basic1 This'll be a mixed-packaging review. I got Bulkhead and Starscream at TRU in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada) while there on business, but they didn't have Bumblebee. So Bumblebee will be in U.S. packaging. Activators are the new Scout class, apparently, although a bit smaller than previous Scouts. They feature pushbutton auto-transform, hence "Activators". You activate them. Also, expect to see a kitbash from me at some point of the female Starscream from a spare Activators Starscream. :) CAPSULES Bumblebee: Okay vehicle mode, transformation about as good as you can expect within the gimmick, somewhat lacking robot mode. Mildly recommended. $7.96 at Wal-Mart. [Later note, since a few people have asked: I prefer the Deluxe version to this, but if color mismatch really bugs you, this might be better for you if you get only one. Or wait for the Elite Guard recolor.] Bulkhead: Vehicle mode suffers from "don't look at the back" issues, simple transformation to robot but a bit tricky back to vehicle (not conceptually, you just need to learn how to peg things), robot mode has significant problems. Very mildly recommended. $9.99Cn at TRU. Starscream: Pretty good if somewhat unstable vehicle mode, reasonably involved transformation, very nice robot mode. Best of the bunch, but that's not just damning with faint praise. Recommended. $9.99Cn at TRU. RANTS Concept: The idea of some sort of auto-transform gimmick is hardly new to the Basic price point (Beast Wars started off with it, in fact), although we haven't seen it in a while. These toys tend to be on the small side for Basics, though, AND on the expensive side, suggesting that Hasbro's using Activators as the vanguard for their new price increases (which will see the other size classes bumping up as well by Fall, if not late Summer 2008). The gist of things for Activators is that you press a red button in vehicle mode, and the toy springs open at least most of the way to robot mode. Then you just have to fiddle with some bits (straighten limbs, fold toes, that sort of thing) to get the rest of the way. Transforming back to vehicle mode is a little trickier, but the toys still barely qualify for the Level 2 conversion difficulty. Packaging: The Canadian version is stuck with trilingual packaging, which means they can't have as much text as the U.S. version, since it has to be repeated. They also all share a single backing card, with individual stuff limited to the blister-front insert and the paperwork. The cardback has the same basic jagged shape as the Deluxe cards, 8.25" (21cm) tall and 7.5" (19cm) deep. The blister is not shaped the same as the Deluxes' blisters, though. The right side has rounded top and bottom edges and a recessed front right bottom corner so that there's a ribbon-like shape along the bottom and a circular indent (with triangular point-at-it section) on the upper right front. The left side slopes so that it's visible from the front. The blister is the full card width in the back, but only 6" (15cm) wide in the front. It has a non-constant height, 5.25" (13.5cm) on the left side and 4.75" (12cm) tall on the right. The depth is 2.5" (6.5cm). The blister inserts have character art on the left side, name and faction along the bottom front and a photo of vehicle mode on the upper right. There's a call-out of "Spring-loaded vehicle to robot change!" and its translation into Spanish and French in the lower right. The left side has the faction symbol in silvery white on red (either faction) and the official website (with a warning that the site is in English). Legalese on the bottom, as usual. The top of the cardfront has the TFA logo, although "Animated" is joined by "Anime'" and "Animado". A new Activators logo is on the right side of the top, and there's the conversion difficulty box (with Spanish and French), with a "Quick Conversion" level 2. All the Canadian cardbacks show the three toys in robot mode, with their names, logos and "Collect them all!" in three languages. No techspecs. The backgrounds of both front and back have faded future-Detroit scenery. The backs of the instruction sheets are full color mini-posters with photos of the toy in both modes, some call-outs and a bio note, all text being in English, Spanish and French. The few words on the instructions side are also trilingual. No "Galactic Powers and Abilities", though, and there's no function or motto (so I'll copy in the info from other versions of the toy). The instructions themselves are fairly standard, red and black for Autobots or purple and black for Decepticons. The U.S. packaging is pretty much the same, except no Spanish or French, and the cardbacks have the stuff that's found on the Canadian instruction sheet backs. The bottom of the blister insert has the co-sells of the other two in the wave. Sadly, the U.S. instructions are single-sided. There's no catalog packed in. There's also still no motto or function on the U.S. packaging. AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Altmode: Sports Car Function: AUTOBOT SPEEDSTER Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Classic, Movie Previous Mold Use: None Callouts: "Button activates quick conversion!" "Press here!" "Spring-Loaded vehicle to robot change!" Motto: "Enough talk. It's time for action!" BUMBLEBEE is te speedster on the AUTOBOT team. He's always ready for action and revving to go! Together with his best friend, the human girl Sari, he never goes long without getting into some kind of trouble. Luckily he's smart and fast enough to get himself and Sari out of almost any situation! And yes, there's already a head-remold Cliffjumper version of this mold in the works. Packaging: Five twist-ties hold the robot mode into the blister, but you don't really need to undo the ones around the arms. The photo on the cardback shows him with arms "undeployed" so it looks like he has a broken forearm. Robot Mode: 4" (10cm) tall, making it more to scale with the other Deluxes for those who care more deeply about such things. (IMO, to get a the best to-scale lineup of the core crew, go with Activators BB, Leader Bulkhead, Voyager Prime, Deluxe Prowl and Ratchet). In terms of paint applications, he's got a few more than a Legends-class toy would, but he's still fairly simplified. At least his chest stripe is on the correct side (since his roof becomes his chest, no fake roof here). He's supposed to be smirking, but has more of a sour expression. As if he's not too happy with his current body. ;) Because of the transformation, his torso has a sort of clamshell deal going on, with the halves of the vehicle roof folded around a structural core. That core is black plastic, as are the shoulders, upper arms, upper forearms (there's a weird jointing thing going on), pelvis, thighs and wheels. Everything else is a bright yellow plastic. There's no lightpiping on this toy, or in the line in general. On the plus side, that means no weird color mismatches on the yellow. The police light on his chest is painted red (a common element in the line, all transformation buttons are red). The face, shin tops and right-side-of-chest Autobot symbol are silver. His eyes are a light blue paint with high UV glow. There's a black border around his face and around his eyes. The rest of the paint is mainly relevant to vehicle mode, so I'll discuss it there. The hands are molded into the door panels, as flat palms, and look kinda bad. Granted, there's not a lot of room for them, but it might have looked better to just mold his stingers there instead if he's not going to have functional hands anyway. He has fairly bulky shoulder assemblies due to the autotransform gimmick. The head is on a ball joint, but the waist can't turn. Ball joint shoulders, swivels right below each shoulder, hinge elbows, and hinge joints for transformation at the midpoint of each forearm. The door panels keep the elbows from being able to bend more than about 45 degrees away from straight. Ball joint hips, thigh swivels, hinge knees, and some useful articulation from the transformation hinges on the ankles. The knees can bend about 60 degrees. He can sort of maybe pull off the "lie down on his back and roll on his wheels" trick seen in the cartoon, although his backpack gets in the way and it doesn't look pretty in any case. Transformation: To vehicle mode, point the toes and clip the feet together, then fold the arms so that the door panels fit together hand hold the arms out to the sides as if he were trying to flap his arms and fly. Grasp the bottoms of the front and back of the torso clamshell and pull apart until the two halves click together. From there it's just a matter of getting the other parts locked together. Vehicle Mode: 3.25" (8.5cm) long and roughly the same proportions as the Deluxe version. The panel lines don't quite match where the doors' borders should be on the sides, though, with the door handle cut in half by a panel line. Also, the rear corners have big black hinges sticking out for transformation. Other than the black wheels and the black hinge stuff at the back corners and rear bumper, it's all yellow plastic. The windows (all of them) are painted metallic blue. A matte black paint is used for the stripe along the driver's side of the hood and roof. The taillights are red, same gloss paint as the police light on top. The front grille is also painted matte black and has no texturing. The headlights are painted white, and stand out a little better than on the Deluxe. The hubcaps are silver, and the Autobot symbol is now on the roof. The license plate area is not painted (other than part of the black stripe covering it). The toy rolls reasonably well on its 18mm diameter wheels (which suggest that if the full sized car has 18cm radius wheels like many cars of that style, it's 1:20 scale). Overall: Decent vehicle mode, although it suffers from Legends-scale ugly joint syndrome. The robot mode is okay, but the arms really hurt it. AUTOBOT: BULKHEAD Altmode: Armored Truck Previous Name Use: Energon Previous Mold Use: None Callouts: Same as on Bumblebee, plus in French and Spanish. Motto: "I kind of broke this thing. And those things. And that pile of stuff over there. Sorry." BULKHEAD is the biggest and strongest of the AUTOBOTS. Unfortunately for the other AUTOBOTS, nearby buildings, vehicles and machinery, he's also the clumsiest. He means well, and most of the time his wrecking balls smash the right thing. He's just as strong-willed as he is powerful too, and he never gives up when presented with a challenge. BULKHEAD est le plus grand et le plus fort des AUTOBOTS. Malheureusement pour les autres AUTOBOTS, pour les edifices, vehicules et installations des alentours, il est aussi le plus maladroit. Il veut bien faire, et la plupart dup temps ses boulets de demolition fracassent leur cible. Le hic c'est qu'il est aussi zele gue son corps est puissant, mais a part ca, il ne baisse jamais les bras devant un defi. BULKHEAD es el mas grande y fuerte de los AUTOBOTS. Desafortunadamente para los otros AUTOBOTS, para los edificios, vehiculos y maquinaria cercana, es tambien el mas torpe. Quiere hacer las cosas bien, y la mayoria de las veces su bola demoledora aplasta su objectivo. El asunto es que el es tan afanoso como fuerte, pero aparte de eso, nunca se abandona la lucha cuando se presenta un desafio. Apologies for lack of diacriticals and cedillas and the like. And Bulkhead is certainly a luchador. :) Packaging: Five twist-ties hold the robot mode in place, but you really only need to remove three (legs, shoulders). Robot Mode: Well, appropriately enough he suffers from Bulkhead Syndrome in this size too, being only 3" (7.5cm) tall at the head, thanks to being so wide. Has a lot of spare panels and gaps that hurt the overall appearance. The backpack kibble also make it hard to stand him up without having to lean him way forward. The hand claws are open, no wrecking ball molded into either. The four real wheels and some gearing inside his shoulders are made of black plastic, otherwise it's all olive drab. The face is painted silver with bright blue eyes that glow reasonably strongly under UV. There's black borders around his eyes and stripes on the top of his head, and black lines around his forearms. The thighs are painted a sort of pale goldish silver. All other paint apps are mainly relevant to his vehicle mode (the front end of which forms his torso front), and will be discussed there. The head turns on a highly restricted ball joint, the waist is fixed. Shoulders, elbows and hips are fairly stiff ball joints. No knees, and while the toes can point down in the Don Martin style, this is rarely useful. Transformation: You need to align the arms just right on pegs on the vehicle side panels and point the toes down. Then just pull the bottom of the chest up and everything folds inside (although you may have trouble getting everything moving right without popping apart). To go to robot mode, just press the lightbar's center and flatten the feet, then pose the arms as you will. Vehicle Mode: A chunky little "chibi" version of the SWAT vehicle 3" (7.5cm) long if you count the toes hanging out the back, 2" (5cm) tall and 2.25" (5.5cm) wide. It more or less looks like 1:72 (Hot Wheels) scale. The middle pair of wheels is only molded, and is raised up significantly to avoid dragging. From the front or sides it looks okay, but as soon as you can see the rear the robot limbs sticking out tend to ruin the overall appearance. The main clever thing they do, though, is turn the side panel gears into rotary cannons by simply molding the exposed part of the gear head as a cluster of five barrels. The cannon barrels and real wheels are black plastic, otherwise olive green. The middle of the lightbar is painted red, a sort of inverted look (the side pieces should be red and the middle not-red), because the middle is the Activator button. Silver Autobot symbol above the black vision slit, and the stars on the sides are molded in addition to being painted silver. The area around the headlights is also matte black, and so are the false wheels (which would look a little better with some silver on the hubcaps to match the pins on the real wheels). The headlights are painted yellow, and the front grille area is metallic purple-brown. The side panels don't really lock in place (there's some tabs on them to keep the legs from rising too far, but no linking), so they tend to splay a bit, especially if you're trying to get the toy to roll along on the four real wheels. Despite all of this, sadly, the vehicle mode is the better-looking of the two. Overall: Well, they did try, and I liked how they managed to get some use out of the big ugly hinges, but this isn't really a design that works well so small. And given that it really doesn't stand well in robot mode is a significant minus...for something this small I'd almost rather have a non-transforming die-cast car version. DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM Altmode: Fighter Jet Function: Air Warrior Supreme Previous Name Use: G1, G2, MW, Universe, Armada, Energon, Cybertron, Classic, Movie Previous Mold Use: None Callouts: Same as Bulkhead Motto: "Power is its own justification." Sneaky, mean and ambitious would be a bad combination of personality traits in anyone, but in a giant robot warrior bent on conquering the universe, they're the worst. STARSCREAM loves power for its own sake, and will blast anyone who gets in his way. There's no reason he does all the awful stuff he does, except that he thinks he's so much better than everyone. Sournois, mechant et ambitieux sont des traits de personnalite qui, reunis, forment une combinaison quon ne voudrait voir chez personne, mais dans un guerrier robot geant wui veut conquerir l'universe, c'est la pire des combinaisons. STARSCREAM aime le pourvoir, qu'il utilise a ses fins personnelles, et c'est pourquoi il ecrasera tous ceux qui s'interposeront sur sa route. Il n'y a pas d'autres raisons a tous les degats qu'il fait autour de lui, si ce n'est de penser qu'il est tellement mieux que cous les autres. Ser malo y ambicioso es una combinacion de rasgos que forman una personalidad que nadie quisiera ver en otros, per en un guerrero robot gigante que quiere conquistar el universo, es lo peor. STARSCREAM ama el poder que usa para sus fines personales, y es pore eso que aplastara a todos aquellos que se interpongan en su camino. No hay otra razon a todo ese desastre que esta haciendo a su alrededor, se no fuera porque que es mucho mejor que todos los demas. I'll say right now that this is the only first wave Activator that really interests me. The other two are "nice try" efforts on an effectively new scale between the old Basic scale and the Legends scale, but Starscream REALLY works. As others have commented, it's as if they designed this one first, and then tried to scale it up to Voyager. Packaging: Four twist-ties secure the robot mode. The package photos perform some significant "Photoshop Shining" on the red parts, making them look much more metallic. Robot Mode: 4" (10cm) tall, well-proportioned (compared to the cartoon model, that is...he still has an insane chin), and really only missing the back fins. Only a little transformation kibble, and a really good paint match the one place where it's necessary. The head, forearms, shin fronts (landing gear) and feet are black plastic (oddly, the head is two pieces screwed together, rather than glued together, perhaps to allow for bolting on different faces?). The rest of the toy is a sort of slate blue. The main paint color is a faintly metallic dark red found on the shoulderpads, chest, wing stripes and tail section stripes. The face is silver with the mouth molded deep enough to look black from shadows (but it's still all silver), and the eyes are a red paint that glows strongly under UV. The cockpit is orange (strong UV glow here too) with black borders. The claws are painted slate blue in a VERY good match, to the point that the UV response is almost identical as well. Other colors to be discussed under vehicle mode. The head is on a ball joint, although it's attached a little weirdly and can't simply turn. The waist doesn't turn. Ball joint shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. The feet fold open, but don't have much in the way of useful articulation. The shoulderpads are clipped on a la the Iron Man movie figures, to avoid getting in the way of range of motion so much, and the forearm cannons are on swivels. Transformation: Point the toes, bend the knees backwards as far as they'll go, flip the shoulderpads down (this step isn't made clear in the instructions, but you can see it if you look carefully) and then fold him backwards at the waist. A series of gears causes the nosecone to deploy on its own, a very clever bit. The boots loosely peg against the wing chunk, and the tail bits need to be folded into place. While it's not in the instructions or any package photos, it's clearly intended that you rotate the guns to point forward. Hitting the red button transforms it most of the way in one frenzy of activity. Then it's just a matter of positioning the legs, shoulderpads and guns, and maybe pulling the head forward. Vehicle Mode: Well, the robot arms are pretty obvious as undercarriage garbage, and the hips are thrust down to form the front end support. Otherwise, it looks about right, despite the smaller size. 4.5" (11.5cm) long, wingspan of 4" (10cm). In addition to the parts already mentioned, the nosecone is made of black plastic. The top set of intakes are painted black, the activator button is painted bright red (different from the darker metallic red of the rest of the toy), and there's gold Decepticon symbols printed on the tops of the wings. These are the movie-style symbols, with four-sided eyes. Landing struts fold down from the robot shins for a nice three-point support. No other "articulation" to speak of. Overall: While it's a bit disappointing to see the Basic class downsized and upcosted, this toy shows that the new size can still give us some good toys. While not without flaws, it's definitely worth getting. Dave Van Domelen, off to start hacking up a Starscream to make Shescream.