Tag Archives: Ozformers

Transformer Toy Reviews

Classic Toy Reviews – Generations and Timelines Wasp/Thrustinator

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These are reviews from threads I originated on the Ozformers site back when these toys were released.  Enjoy!

Note: For Multiverse galleries of these characters see HERE!

Name: WASPINATOR
Series – Generations
Sub-line – Thrilling 30
Wave: Wave 1 – 2014
Size/class – Deluxe
New/remould/redeco – New
Released here – Not yet
Approximate Retail Price – $28Aus
Approximate Size – 14cm
Allegiance – Predacon
Alt-mode – Wasp
Main Features/Gimmicks – Design based on IDW design
Main Colours – Green, Yellow, Brown
Main Accessories – IDW exclusive comic, Stinger Gun
Robot Mode
*Quite good looking, faithful to both Beast Wars and the IDW incarnations. He has good articulation and the light piping works really well with his huge optics.

Wasp mode

*To my mind the wasp mode here is better than both the Beast Wars and the Animated versions of the character. Very compact, very well coloured and very well balanced. The flapping wings are a nice touch that add a lot of play value.

Transformation

This transformation would be far easier if the instructions were REMOTELY USEFUL! I was able to figure him out because, well, if I can’t after 30 years of collecting I should hand in my Autobrand right now. But I wouldn’t give this to a little kid or a novice who would try to go soely by the instructions because Waspy would be flung out the window after 10 minutes. Once you’ve done it though, it takes about 15 seconds to transform him back

Worth getting?
*For me, as more of a G1 than BW fan (technically the same universe I know), the only BW characters (besides the odd Robot Hero) I’ve bothered to collect over the years have been Depthcharge’s and Waspinator‘s so I was happy to grab this guy to add to the collection. I’ll be bypassing the new Rhinox & Rattrap figures altogether. But if you are a big Beast Wars fan I’d say this is the figure to get for the new year. Oh, and the free comic is a nice bonus too

Name: Thrustinator
Series – Timelines
Sub-line – TFSS
Size/class – Deluxe
New/remould/redeco – Extensive remold of Dirgegun
Wave – 2
Released here – n/a
Approximate Retail Price – $46.50
Approximate Size – 14cm
Allegiance – Predacon
Alt-mode – Techno-mutated Wasp thingie
Main Features/Gimmicks – Head can become purple stinger shooter
Main Colours – purple, green, yellow, grey
Main Accessories – One missile launcher, 2 missilesRobot Mode

They had to completely use their imaginations here since it’s never been properly on screen, but in the end I suppose it was heavily influenced by what went where from his alt-mode and Dirgegun where apparently the mold came from. Hideous but kinda interesting. I always have a soft spot for any robot that isn’t perfectly symmetrical. A cool concept is that you can retract his head and put a big missile launching stinger in it’s place, which also gives him a totally purple head which is a shout out to the cartoon.

Wasp…. thingie


Bloody hideous! But whereas in the cartoon he was just a Wasp with BM Thrusts head (which I’ve included an image of here), they’ve taken the meld to the nth degree here so well done them for putting a bit of imagination into it. Having different parts of Waspinators alt-modes body and head mutated and deformed in Thrusts colours is – while garish – a kinda cool concept. That said, it’s still the ugliest thing I’ve seen since the Fuzors.

Transformation
Takes about 13 seconds to turn him from Wasp to Bot. No challenge to be found here



Overall
Well, probably my least favorite in the latest subscription service figures for me as it’s a character I care little about and I very vaguely remember showing up briefly in the final episode of BM. Nevertheless, a very interesting looking figure and creatively designed toy. If you are a massive Beast Machines fan (are there any ) and not a member of the TFSS then wait till it turns up cheap on the secondary market.

I hope you enjoyed these classic reviews from years gone by.  Got anything to add?  Say it in the comments section below!

 

Transformatorium

Ozformer Member of the Year – Acceptance Speech

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(For those not familiar with the Ozformers website, some of the guys on there and I had been running a joke campaign, parodying the US election, for me to become Member of the Year.  Well I actually won!  So to continue the parody here is my acceptance speech, very reminiscent of one spoken by a certain new world leader)

Looks like General Patton, sounds like Donald Trump

Thank you. Thank you very much, everyone.

I’ve just received a call from Site-Administrator Griffin.

He congratulated us — it’s about us — on our victory, and I congratulated him on a very, very hard-fought campaign. I mean, Griffin has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe him a major debt of gratitude for his service to our website. I mean that very sincerely.

Now it’s time for Ozformers to bind the wounds of division; have to get together. To all Trevolutionaries and Griffincrats and Paulbotents across this fanbase, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people. It’s time. I pledge to every user of our land that I will be Member-of-the-year for all Ozformerians, and this is so important to me.

For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people (Trent) I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great website.

As I’ve said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign, but rather an incredible and great movement made up of several hard-working men (Sinnertwin, Starscream77, Jetfire_in_the_Sky and Mythirax) who love their website and want a better, brighter future for themselves and for their families.

It’s a movement comprised of Ozformerians from all gestalt-groups, generations and allegiances who want and expect our website to serve the people, and serve the people it will.

We are going to fix our inner sections and rebuild our threads, reviews, discussions and news stories. We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put several of our people to work as we rebuild it.

We have a great fansite plan. We will double our growth and have the strongest user-base anywhere in the world. At the same time, we will get along with all other fanbases willing to get along with us. We expect to have great, great relationships. No dream is too big, no challenge is too great.

Nothing we want for our future is beyond our reach. Ozformers will no longer settle for anything less than the best.

We must reclaim our fansites destiny and dream big and bold and daring. We have to do that. We’re going to dream of things for our website and beautiful things and successful things once again.

I want to tell the world community that while we will always put Ozformers interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone — all people and all other fansites. We will seek common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict.

And I can only say that while the campaign is over, our work on this movement is now really just beginning.

We’re going to get to work immediately for the Ozformer users. It’s been an amazing year-long period. And I love this fanbase.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

 

(You can read my first bid for the title HERE) 

Transformatorium

The big push for the Decagon!

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Note: For those Blog readers who are unaware, Ozformers is the Australian site for Transformer Fans and is actually the longest running such site in the world!  I’ve been peddling my entertaining brand of bullshit on there for many’s a year and it was in part the enjoyment I experienced writing on there that made me start my own blog.  Every year they have a vote for the Ozformer member of the year (which always ends up being the website owner Griffin) but some fellow site users have been campaigning on my behalf for the last twelve months.  The following is me trying to give them value for their humorous perseverance.

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Offices of Big Transformer Trev, candidate for Ozformer Member of the Year

My fellow Ozformer members,

while I have been busy with other matters of state it seems the pro/con Trev debate has heated up in my absence.  So let me now as your candidate address the issue that concern you, the public, whom I am here to serve.

 

*The Current Incumbent:   Now Griffin is indeed the owner, administrator and general Grand Poobah of Ozformers.  There is not a member here that does not acknowledge this or is not grateful to him for providing this wonderful site for us all to enjoy.  But ask yourselves, on top of the myriad of time-consuming responsibilities he already has, is it fair to once again heap the duties associated with being Ozformer Member of the Year on his already overburdened shoulders?  I think not.  Let the poor fellow get on with what he does best and let someone handle all the public appearances, kissing babies, wining and dining foreign toy dignitaries etc that the winner of the Ozzies is expected to do.

*Why a new representative?  Well for a start, if you vote me in you will be getting a celebrity to be the face of Ozformers.  Remember, look in the background of any Australian-made, Melbourne-based tv cop show from the late 90’s (Blue Heelers, Halifax FP, Stingers, Good Guys Bad Guys etc) and you will see me milling around in the background as an extra.  Star power or what! Frankly if it wasn’t for my well-known hatred of Reality TV I’m sure I’d have been asked to appear on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! by now.  And of course most recently I’m known in print, television and social media as the guy who photographed a dead snake. 

 

BTT’s POLICIES

Sensible policies for a happier future

*By the year 2020 no child will be living without Transformer toys

*There will be two Stunticons in every garage

*Full series Box Sets of Rescue Bots to be produced by Madman Entertainment

*Once a year on the solstice all Ozformers will come together on my farm to build a giant straw effigy of Michael Bay, which we will then set alight while we chant and dance naked around it under the moon

Policies from my failed attempt to become PM:

*I will make Hasbro and Takara release ALL Transformer related products in Australia.

*No GST on imported goods!  This is a SHAMEFUL policy that both sides of parliament are currently trying to enact!  They say it’s so that you will buy locally instead of buying your goods from overseas via the internet, but what if…

-A: You live in a rural area where you cannot purchase the items you require at your local store?  Most Aussie companies charge ruinous postal fees to send you an item, you often pay more in postage to get something from Melbourne than from the other side of the globe!  Last I checked, my little bush town doesn’t have any of the big chains I can go to and get anything I require.

-B: They don’t make and/or sell the item you want in Australia at all?  For those with their eye a Carnifex figure, I don’t think you’ll be buying one at your local K-Mart.  There are many products that are sold nowhere in this wide brown land of ours, its not a matter of not wanting to shop locally – we can’t! 

 

ENDORSEMENTS

So the choice is clear my Ozformer Brethren (and Sistren of course).  Vote #1 Big Transformer Trev this Ozformer awards.  Sure I might be not the most obvious candidate, or the most fragrant, or the most sane if it comes to that.  But just listen to these uncoerced endorsements from  fellow Ozformer members:

SINNERTWIN

Sensible, Mature, Responsible… These aren’t words that anyone can use to describe Trev, and nobody should. That would be lying, and lying is bad for the soul.

Don’t lie to yourselves. Vote 1. Vote Trev.

BTT 2016. 

 

STARSCREAM77

The following has been authorised and paid for by the BTT416 Campaign:

In Trev We Trust

Not just a throw away line but a creed we as the followers of the great man, BTT, choose to live our life by. If ever we have doubts in life we ask ourselves ‘what would Trev do?’ and the correct answer presents itself.

If we do not do the moral and ethical must that is vote BTT for 2016 then I question the entire fibre of life itself!

Yours faithfully

SS77

 

JETFIRE_IN_THE_SKY

 “Anyone who doesn’t vote for BTT is a cheese eating surrender monkey”

 

And of course MYTHIRAX whose myriad of fantastic pro-Trev fan art can be viewed HERE!

 

I look forward to your vote this January.