And the great journey of cataloging my collection continues!
In the 2nd installment of the Unicron Trilogy we got the Energon series. This saw a rise of 2-bot combination and the return of some classic characters such as Scorponok and Omega Supreme. Best of all, we got our first official Quintesson figure!
Transformer Energon Autobot Figures
*Item #ENA001: Transformers Energon Autobot Optimus Prime
(Reference: Photo #P00188)
*Item #ENA002: Transformers Energon Autobot Optimus Prime (Costco Exclusive)
(Reference: Photo #P00189)
*Item #ENA003: Transformers Energon Autobot Hot Shot
Rise of The Beasts is now finishing up in theatres, the 7th instalment in the live-action Transformers Movie franchise and the 8th Transformers movie overall. More than any other part of Transformers, be it the comics or cartoons or toylines, the movies have divided fans. Many Transformers fans have grown up on the live action movies, or were first attracted to Transformers by it hitting the big screen. Others have lamented films with more humans than robots, convoluted and contradictory storylines, unrecognisable classic characters and even coined the term ‘Bayverse’ – a derogatory term to refer to this part of the franchise as more concerned with big explosions than any form of storytelling.
But love them or loathe them, most fans who has seen all the movies has in their head their own personal list of ‘best to worst’, judging the films by their own personal criteria.
Saw this in the cinema, and have watched the Blu Ray a total of twice, both times at the behest of someone else. This is a movie that ran for over 2 ½ hours and may have been better received if they had shaved a lot of that runtime off. Even upon multiple viewings the storyline jumps around too much to coherently follow – first they are hiding out in a junkyard, then they are racing through the streets of London, then they are undersea looking for a tomb and then finally up in the air fighting on broken bits of Cybertron. Throw in a few human storylines, most of which were superfluous, the appearance of Unicron’s horns which were never properly investigated, and Merlin to boot and you had too much going on to properly sit back and enjoy.
The movie did have some positives going for it. The reemergence of Barricade, Welker finally voicing Megatron, Optimus Prime becoming Nemesis Prime and having a smackdown with Bumblebee, finding out what happened to Cybertron after TF3 etc. Also a few good battle scenes; Crosshairs jumping from the back of a stolen Con flyer, deploying parachutes and blasting enemies will always stick in my head as one of the best visuals of the entire series.
But in the end none of this could make up for a French-sounding Hot Rod, Marky-Mark removing his shirt for no reason, Combiners that seemed to flow together instead of actually transforming and a plotline that left you going ‘huh?’.
If only the movie had been as awesome as the toyline!
I feel part of the reason this movie is so disliked by much of the Fandom is that it seemed such a letdown after the relatively well received first movie, and many feared such a sequel would put an end to the live action Transformer flicks altogether. Bay blamed much of the movies faults on the writers strike. Since another strike is currently occuring lets hope it doesn’t adversely affect next years animated Transformers One movie
This was a movie made for 13 year old boys. Considering its Transformers perhaps that should not be too surprising. The crass humour was dialled up big time and for me (as someone who has avoided even learning about Kiss Players) the most cringeworthy thing to ever happen in all of Transformers was watching Wheelie hump Mikalya’s leg. Devastator having testicles, dogs humping other dogs, a fleshy tongue on the end of a metal tendril trying to lick Sam, a sidekick in his underwear demanding toilet paper, a stoned mother and Jetfire farting a parachute – the childish humour seemed to never end. Add to this… urgh… the Twins, the most racially insensitive thing in Transformers since Carbombiya, and this movie felt like it was written by Beavis & Butthead after they discovered pot.
Like TLK, this movie still had some good points. The introduction of The Matrix, the Original Primes, The Fallen and the Pretender concept were welcome parts of Transformers lore to be included into the live action universe. Soundwave becoming a Communications Satellite was a clever idea and him ejecting Ravage in order to infiltrate an installation was very cool. This is also where Soundwave got his tendrils, a concept carried over into TF3, Prime and RID15. The way Devestator combined was dramatically done, even if he subsequently only smashed bricks and sucked sand. Despite only being a byproduct of the movie, it is also worth noting that ROTF brought us one of the best and most expansive toylines of the live action franchise, indeed Bludgeon who wasn’t even in the movie receiving the best toy he has ever had!
But once again despite all the positives, too many negatives were contained in this film to overlook, and thus Revenge of the Fallen comes second last in the Transformers list of fav movies.
Number #6 – Age of Extinction
Grimlock on the big screen baby!
The previous two movies are widely regarded as the worst of the Transformer flicks so I doubt them coming in at numbers 7 & 8 will raise many eyebrows. Likewise I doubt this movie will cause a lot of contention by not being #1. Age of Extinction had a lot going for it, a new human cast (Shiah LeBouf having taken to wearing a paper bag on his head by this point), new robots whilst still retaining a few fan faves that survived the slaughter of DOTM, an interesting plotline and a cool bad guy. Yes, Lockdown (imported from the Animated universe) made a refreshing change; a bounty hunter not involved in the Autobot/Decepticon conflict who could turn his face into a sniper cannon. The Autobots on the run, hiding out from being hunted down by the government was also a nice change of pace from being teamed up with Lennox and his crew. Throw in a few Dinobots, an evil Fraiser and the old trope of Megatron being reborn as Galvatron and you’ve got a winner right?
Well… sorta. In a franchise that often let its movies run too long in order to fit in as many Michael Bay explosions as possible, this one was the longest coming in at a whopping 165 minutes! Even if you are enjoying yourself, that’s too damn long! By the time Lockdown’s ship was using its gravity weapon to suck up boats and building, simply to dump them down again, your average viewer was exhausted. Like TLK, it may have been better received if it had cut at least half an hour of superfluous material. The Dinobots were very cool, but seemed to be more monsters than Dino’s, whilst Hound had transformed from a nature lover to a rotund, gun-toting drill sergeant. The whole storyline of Tessa Yeager was just fricken creepy! All the skimpy outfits and sexual innuendos attached to a 17 year old girl dating a 20 year old was just…. bleegh! Don’t get me wrong, I like looking at pretty girls on a big screen as much as the next guy, but this just made you feel gross, especially that ‘Romeo & Juliet Law’ thing. The Lucas Flannery character stating ‘There goes a couple of dune bugs’ while he leers at other underage girls paled in comparison and that’s saying something. The other negative for die hard fans was Transformium (not to be confused with the fantastic Transformatorium) – we want to see robots cleverly turn into vehicles and back – turning into a bunch of pixels is just cheating.
This was a movie that had more positives than negatives, yet one cant help think that if Cade was bereft of children this movie would have been shorter and less creepy on the whole.
Number #5 – Dark of the Moon
Optimus, save me from another movie like ROTF!
Okey Dokey, now we are getting to the better stuff! DOTM (in my opinion, remember – these are just my opinions. But because they are mine they are fantastic!) brought Transformers back from the depths that ROTF sent it tumbling into, giving us an action-packed and interesting movie full of battling bots destroying everything in their path. No street fight with a dozen bots, no skirmish out in the desert in Qatar – this flick gave us huge battles where Chicago got ripped to shreds as the Bots and Cons went head to head! This movie had a coherent storyline that seemed to stay on track and kept the plot moving forward at a good pace. It was not frantic enough you lost the plot, nor slow enough you got bored. The humans were at least tolerable (for the most part) though that toilet scene was plain weird and Sam’s mother had gone from amusing to disturbing. Optimus having his trailer, the appearance of The Wreckers, buildings toppling over from some giant driller thingie – all pro’s. With the addition of Laserbeak becoming a pink version of Bee so he could kill some kids Dad and you’ve got yourself a bonifide action movie boys and girls!
Was the movie perfect? Oh my no, hence why it sits at No #5. Sam’s as big a loony as ever, jumping around with a Con-watch attached to his wrist. The Autobots are far more brutal than the Decepticons, examples being the Wreckers ripping an enemy limb from limb and Optimus killing both Megs AND Sentinel at the end of the movie, even as the latter asked for mercy. Shockwave is grossly under-utilized for such a major character, and lets all thank the powers that be that they decided to make Wheeljack named Que instead, because he looked like Einstein got reanimated as a robotic skeleton.
Quibbles aside, this was a pretty good movie and if nothing else, acted like TF:TM by killing off a lot of the old bots so we could enjoy some new ones the next time round.
Number #4 – Transformers
Off to finally see some live-action Transformers!
Now, to clarify, I actually like DOTM more than the 2007 Transformers movie. But credit where credit is due, this is the flick that brought the franchise into the world of live-action movies and was successful enough those movies are still being made 16 years later, so ya gotta give it some props.
Yes, this was the movie that had some sections of the fandom crying ‘Michael Bay raped my childhood’ – and what a stupid platitude that was. You still see social media groups today that have vowed after the first live-action movie to never watch another one, or have deemed anything not purely G1 as an abomination. To these people I say: once you’ve closed yourself off to anything new, then stagnate you will, and so will the franchise you apparently love so much.
For me nothing will ever quite match the magic I felt as I watched Blackout transform for the first time. And as for Optimus transforming from Truck to Robot – I had to put a hand over my mouth and stifle a little sob of joy. It may not have been G1 but here was the Transformers finally done in live-action, and they weren’t f’ing it up!
Oh the Geewunner in me decried a lot of the movies aesthetics. Megatron and Starscream were as ugly as sin, Ironhide and Ratchet were the wrong colours and so on. And that’s when they were actually on screen – for a lot of this movie you sat there wondering ‘When are the robots going to come back?’ For a movie called Transformers, they certainly seemed to take a back seat a lot of the time.
The humans? Well besides taking up too much screen time they weren’t too bad. Sam hadn’t gone insane yet and neither had his mother, her short performances being the comedic highlights of the film. Mikayla was quite a strong character for someone who the male audience was supposed to primarily drool over, and Lennox and his team did their best to not be simple jarheads, actually adding to the plot nicely.
So yes, this movie had a lot of faults, but for bringing Transformers into the mainstream and giving the franchise a gigantic shot in the arm which it still benefits from today, Transformers 2007 comes in at Number #4 for me.
This is the movie that so many die hard fans wish that Transformers 2007 had been. First we are treated to a scene with all the bots battling on Cybertron, and they look like themselves again! No weird colour schemes, no faces and bodies so mashed and distorted that once they move you cant tell what part of a bot you are looking at, all those aesthetic quibbles gone. Cybertron looks like Cybertron again too, its not some Hexagonal mesh covered in bots that are the same colour as its surface and it’s not in bits and pieces flying over the Earth either. It was all so beautiful it could bring a tear to the hardest Geewuners optic sensor.
Of course this did not last long and off to Earth they went, but not many of them. Yes, by only having Bumblebee, Shatter and Dropkick on Earth you got to see their characters actually develop, interact with humans, interact with each other – you know, actually act like characters in a movie instead of murderbots.
Charlie Watson remains to this day the most likeable human out of the entire movie franchise. You empathise with her woes and you celebrate her victories. She’s not going nuts, or trying to shag someone, or being overly heroic or sexualised or insane. You hate Tina Lark and laugh when Bumblebee smashes up her car, you root for Memo as he tries to step up to be a hero despite being scared shitless, and manages to show his romantic interest for Charlie without being sleazy.
And how much 80’s nostalgia could they pack in eh! The music, the aesthetics – all spot on. Bumblebee is a Volkswagen Beetle as we always wanted him to be and reprising his role as the sweet best friend of the central human rather than just bashing up Barricade a lot.
There is very little to fault with this movie. Oh sure, Blitzwing looked more like Starscream than the live-action Starscream ever did so the ‘changing bots beyond recognition’ concept from the Bayverse movies hadn’t completely disappeared. It was also confusing to many fans that this was billed as a prequel rather than a reboot, yet it contradicted so much that had come before, such as Bee hitting Earth in 1986 rather than having been around so long he had been battling Nazi’s.
This was a wonderful movie, with a lot of heart and fully deserves it’s place in the Top 3 Transformer movies of all time.
Yes, I have to give it to the latest instalment of the franchise, Rise of the Beasts has been the best live-action movie so far. With far less humans and far more Bots, new factions and – gasp – Unicron himself, we get a fantastic movie with Transformers banding together to save the world itself!
I love Bumblebee, I do. He’s a great character and my son’s favourite. However many of us were suffering from Bumblebee overload. Every movie, every cartoon, every toyline, everything from 2007 onwards he has been front and centre. And sure, it makes sense as he’s the posterbot for the franchise now. But enough was enough, so I was very happy to see Mirage step up to take his place and Bee to be sidelined for much of the adventure.
Was this the Mirage of old. Well, no. In fact when you first see his altmode you think ‘Jazz is back!’ It’s rather odd how much they made his vehicle look like Jazz, though they did give a holographic shout out to his old mode. His invisibility is gone, but his holographic powers from the original tech specs and the Netflicks cartoon are in evidence. For me he was a tad too cheery, a tad too immature and he was able to swap altmodes far too easy – he can have the bulk of a garbage truck but be as small as an exosuit? Transforming seems less special when you make it almost limitless.
Optimus is sounding old and weary. And who can blame him, Cullen is 82 now! The poor old bloke will be on his deathbed and still have a boom hanging over his head so he can voice Prime. One wonders if they cast Prime in the ‘concerned weary leader’ role just to take into account the voice actors age. That said, he still rocks it as he always does and he is respected and loved by beast and bot alike.
Scourge makes a passable bad guy, an amalgamation of his G1 and RID(01) incarnations, being a black truck with his Sweep minions (looking like Frenzy’s cousins). Battletrap is awesome in the battle scenes with those chains of his, it’s only Nightbird that doesn’t add much to the trio. The Maximals Optimus Primal and Airazor get a lot of dialogue and screentime, though fan favourites Cheetor & Rhinox do little indeed. Arcee seems a good mix, looking similar in bot mode to the Bumblebee movie and similar in altmode to her ROTF incarnation. Its just Wheeljack that got fans annoyed, and it turned out there was a lot of noise over a character that barely appeared. And like many fans, I’m remaining hopeful of a Stratosphere action figure.
And perhaps this is why this movie ranks for me as the highest of the live-action movies – I can spend all this time taking about the robot characters. Yes, they were finally characters with dialogue and weren’t one-dimensional killing machines, a precedent set in the Bumblebee movie that was thankfully followed on.
There were a couple of humans too of course, and it was nice to see there wasn’t a romantic/sexual story between them, a refreshing change. They weren’t annoying either. And whilst they got a lot of screen time, perhaps for the first time since the 80’s the robots were truly the stars of a Transformers movie.
And speaking of the 80’s, that leads us to…
Number #1 – The Transformers: The Movie
A movie so good I had to recreate it in action-figure form
C’mon, you all knew this was coming. TF:TM remains the high point for many of a franchise nearly 40 years old. Yes it was a glorified toy commercial. Yes it was designed to kill off as many old characters as possible so that Hasbro could flog the new toys. And yes, it sent many children out of the cinema in tears as they watched their beloved Optimus Prime die.
But it did SO MUCH. And it introduced SO MUCH! A slew of what is considered quintessential to Transformers got it’s start here. The Matrix of Leadership, Megatron becoming Galvatron, Junkions, Quintessons, Sharkticons, Optimus dying (to one day be resurrected) and so on. Hot Rod, Kup, Blurr, Arcee, Ultra Magnus, Cyclonus, Scourge – all these iconic characters got their start here. Not to mention Unicron, perhaps the biggest big bad to ever exist in pop fiction ever! Galactus drains the energy from planets, well our bad guy eats planets and swallows moons whole!
Now this isn’t to say the movie isn’t without flaw, there’s plenty. Two Cyclonus’, a miscoloured Rumble, Snarl appearing and disappearing randomly, characters that die showing up later etc. And though I loved it as a kid, the adult in me cringes a bit watching them having a dance off on Junkion. Hasbro was way too brutal with killing off fan favourite characters, though one could argue this is one of the things that makes the movie so memorable – this was a no-holds barred slaugherfest in places which set it apart from many of the other 80’s toy movies.
But damn, there is a reason they are STILL selling toys based directly on this movie 37 years later, its just too good! It had stellar cast of pop culture icons such as Lenoard Nimoy from Star Trek, Eric Idle from Monty Pythons and a song by Weird Al Yankovic, as well as other big name actors such as Orson Wells himself playing Unicron. It even managed to make Daniel and Wheelie not annoying (if only S3 of the cartoon had managed such a feat).
Space battles, motorcycle chases, Dinobots, Constructicons, a bad guy the size of a fricken world – it’s amazing they could fit all this into such a short movie. Throw in a soundtrack which is so 80’s it makes you want to run to the nearest music store to buy an electric guitar to learn such tasty licks, and you’ve got a movie that is still beloved nearly 4 decades later. Yes, The Transformers: The Movie sits at number #1 as the greatest Transformers movie of all time; it had both the touch and the power. Heck in spots it even dared to be stupid! And one suspects will retain its throne for many years to come, until Galvatron gives it a hint at any rate.
So how would you rate the 8 Transformers movies from worst to best? Similar to myself or completely differently? Pop your list in the comments section below!
After a 5 year absence of giant shape changing alien robots in theatres, Transformers Rise of the Beasts has hit cinemas worldwide June 9th. Thanks to the generosity of Hasbro and Paramount Pictures, some of us lucky folk even got to attend Special Preview Showings on Thursday 8th, being able to quench our thirst for Autobot antics a day early.
Even Mirage got invited to his own flick! Love Hasbro & Paramount putting on these special events!
Warning, this is a Movie Review – so SPOILERS!
One of the main complaints of the live action Transformer films is having to wait around for ages to finally see some robots. No such complaint can be made here. One of the main groups of protagonists – The Maximals, and the main antagonists – The Terrorcons and their gigantic master Unicron, are introduced at the outset, setting the stage for much mayhem to come. We are also introduced to the AllsparkMatrixControl PillarSeedStaff of MerlinTranswarp Key, a… glowy thingie… which will be used as an excuse for robots to travel to Earth, trapse all over the globe and fight each other to obtain it.
I can eat whole planets – but can be defeated by the lack of a glowy thing the size of your forearm
And then of course we transfer to the obligatory human characters and their backstories. Firstly Noah Diaz, an ex-solider who is about to embark on a life of crime in order to support his younger brother who, I dunno, has a pain in his hand or something. And Elena Wallace, an undervalued researcher in a museum. So yes, we have humans but good news – there is no romantic subplot! That’s right folks, a live action Transformers movie with no romantic awkwardness between teens or overt sexualization of young women – can I get an amen!
We are never scantiy dressed or sexually attracted to each other – are we sure this is a Transformers movie?
Anyways, these humans need to meet the Transformers for the plot to advance, so Noah tries to steal Mirage, police chase ensues, they escape and we get introduced to the bulk of the Autobot cast. Brooding Optimus & perky Bumblebee, the mainstays of the movie series are on hand with Arcee, returning for her third outing, combining her robot look from the Bumblebee movie with her motorcycle altmode from ROTF. But its Mirage who takes the staring role both in this scene and for much of the movie (oh thank you, thank you Primus for not making yet another movie all about Bumblebee and Optimus again!).
We are fam-i-ly!
Lets take a look at Mirage shall we. Originally in Generation One the character was a blue & white Autobot Warrior, a member of the upper class who wants the war over so as to return to his lavish lifestyle on Cybertron, who could turn into an Indy Racer as well as cloak himself with invisibility.
‘A giant robot race car that can cloak? I rock!’
Here he seems to be a pastiche of other G1 Transformer characters. He has the youthful exuberance of Hot Rod, the altmode of Jazz and the holographic powers of Hound. That said, at least there is some resemblance to previous incarnations there.
‘You are really going to enjoy me’
Mirage also seems to be able to turn into anything. Yes I know that’s the point of Transformers, that they can change their forms, but Mirage can change into most anything on a whim. In short order he transforms into a Porsche, a Lamborghini and an Indy Racer (in an homage to his G1 counterpart). Yup, all cars approximating his mass and size, so what’s the problem? No problem as such yet, but a short time later he transforms into a garbage truck bigger than Prime himself, and near the end an exo-suit for Noah which is not much bigger than the human. By making Mirage seemingly able to be anything, it waters down the specialness of the transforming ability in general.
Wait, wasn’t I like 100 times bigger only an hour ago in the movie?
It isn’t long before, in pursuit of the glowy key thingie, the Autobots meet the Terrorcons, with much fighting and general violence taking place. Thankfully for the franchise it learned from Dropkick and Shatter from the last flick as in a few fleshed out bad guys can prove more interesting than an army of generic ones (don’t worry, that happens later too). Scourge, the Terrorcon leader and main Herald of Unicron, is powerful and commanding enough as the main villain, though can’t be said to be breaking new ground – at least he comes with a couple of deployable Freezer minions. Battletrap is pretty cool, using chains with clamps and wrecking balls on the end in both his modes to hurt his opponents, often using the environment around him to help smash his foes. Nightbird can fly to provide her group air support, she also produces her signature swords near the end of the movie but doesn’t do much with them.
I will use the one ring to rule you all!
The glowy thingie is found, but oh no! It got all broke up and now we need to find the second half! Cue off to Peru, courtesy of Stratosphere, a pretty cool old transport plane character. They meet up with Pablo Wheeljack who has an idea where the second half may be. There we see the Autobots actually using their ‘robots in disguise’ moniker by hiding around the city in vehicle mode while the humans do their thing. Then off to the jungle where the Maximals are hiding out where they are most definitely not robots in disguise. Don’t get me wrong, they look cool. But they are all way bigger than the animals they are supposed to be disguised as (the glowing eyes don’t help much either). Maximals and Autobots team up, get their arses kicked, the glowy thing is put back together and thus the final act is underway. The transwarp portal is opened, allowing Unicron to come and chow down on Earth.
‘Wait, you can tell that I’m not an Earth-gorilla? How?!’
But things don’t happen that fast. Despite the transwarp portal castle thing materializing in seconds, it takes a long time for the portal to open enough for Unicron, so even though Airazor is now dead and Bumblebee near death himself, the remaining bots go to stop the portal opening, Optimus and Noah learning the magic of friendship (or something) and trusting each other. Here we get the big final battle, with all the good guys who survived near dying at some point but never quite managing it, while the bad guys (along with the promised hordes of weaker bad guys to go smashy smashy on) get their comeuppance. Cue some post battle scenes and that’s a wrap folks.
So yes, the plot is very formulaic and nothing you haven’t seen in a hundred other flicks. So is this movie worth watching?
Yes, yes it is! This is actually to my mind the best live action Transformers movie to date, as well as being the most fun! The majority of robots are treated like actual characters, receiving their fair share of screen time and character development, not simply murderbots to show up to kill each other between prolonged human scenes. Speaking of, they finally seem to have struck the right balance for robot-to-human screen time – it’s a Transformers movie with actual Transformers!
We are in the film! We are in the film lots!
The only time I got sick of the squishies was the final battle scene; a huge stunning battle taking place with the Maximals and Autobots fighting the Terrorcons and a legion of their minions while Unicron decends from above, and they halt the action for two full minutes for Noah to have a heart-to-heart with his brother over a walkie-talkie?! Shut the hell up Noah – we want to see the robots fight! This did detract from the exo-suit scene for me, as I was all pissed off with Noah ruining the flow, but thankfully times like this in the movie were rare – no 10 minute scenes of Sam Witwicky having a mental meltdown in class, followed by talking about how a kiss had a deisely tinge to it. The pacing of the movie is spot on, keeping you entertained without things going so fast you don’t know what’s happening, the humour gives you a few genuine laughs without it ever sinking into the gutter, in short this movie seems to have listened to all the fan gripes about the first 5 movies and rectified them, producing a fun and entertaining flick about our favourite giant, shape-changing alien robots!
I give Transformers Rise of the Beasts 9 out of 10 stolen Autobot badges.
You like me, you actually like me
Have you seen this movie? What did you think of it? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
And so it begins, the great cataloging for my personal and ever expanding Transformers Collection!
And what better place to start than where the whole shebang kicked off – G1! Listed sequentially, and with accompanying photographs, here is the G1 Decepticon toys I have amassed over the last 35+ years.
Transformers Generation One Decepticon Collection
(Note: All figures in photographs listed from Top Left to Bottom Right)
During the Combiner Wars toyline, many G1 fans were screaming for the line to be widened to include the creature themed gestalt groups. Well with Predaking on the way and the latest offerings available now, Power of the Primes has come through on this score. And in Wave 2 of POTP we get to see a group that was last featured in the Predacons Rising line – the Terrorcons*
(Note: There were already zombie robots called Terrocons in that line so the actual Terrorcons were referred to as ‘Predacons’ – confusing eh!)
Today we will be looking at the two first Terrorcons to be released – Rippersnapper and the Terrorcon Leader – Hun-Gurrr.
Rippersnapper
Robot Mode
“With this face and shoulder guns I’m sure to come first in the ‘Crankcase Lookalike Competition’!”
The colours are quite strong here and I like the fact that he can either have his guns mounted on his back or hold them as hand weapons. Besides that there is nothing really inspiring about the figure, since he is yet another retool of the much used CW limb mould so looks very much like every other bot. You can place his shield on his chest, but frankly that looks stupid.
Battle Mode
Land-Shark-Monster Mode
“Overbite and I go to support groups together”
A very nice update of what was a weird toy back in G1 and never made much sense. I really like the silver on his teeth that makes them stand out. His legs are moveable and do provide some poseability . As long as not looked at directly from the back, his shield actually adds some colour and bulk that works for him with the guns attached. I have no idea why his teeny bio on the back of the card refers to him as a ‘Ground Attack Specialist’ since he is supposed to be mainly a shark, albeit a bipedal one.
Battle Mode
Hun-Gurrr
Robot Mode
“If being a Terrorcon doesn’t work out, I’m going to become a ballerina”
Like the G1 toy, the robot mode suffers from being a bit bland without a great deal to recommend it. Don’t get me wrong, the proportions are fine and the colour scheme is, well, G1 accurate, but he just isn’t very striking. The arms are a bit bulky but not overly so and can have Abominus’ feet attached to them to provide arm cannons. Legs, arms and head can all be moved about with ease to put him in a variety of poses on his rather comically dainty feet.
Battle Mode
Two-Headed Dragon Mode
FREAK-ING COOL!
Wow – this is where he shines! It’s like he magically bulks up, looks like he could almost be Leader-Class rather than Voyager-Class. His necks are HUGE but can be moved about to a variety of poses and given the joints just behind the heads and at the base of the necks Hun-Gurrr can be made to take on most any pose you like! There are only two things that detract from this mode: the chest armour for Abominus is on his undercarriage and given its strong pink colour is very visible from the sides. The other is that while his back legs are big and chunky, his forelegs are tiny! They really don’t look like they belong on the same creature. The Feet/Cannons can be put on his thighs for extra firepower and look ok but not fantastic there. Despite these few quibbles, I am extremely pleased with his beast mode in general.
Battle Mode
Abominus
“‘Told ya we shouldn’t have given the other three the evening off!”
Sadly the pattern continues of them spreading Combiner Group characters over a couple of waves in order to keep you coming back to the toy isle in your local store, so so far I have only been able to make his head and arm. I’d say he is shaping up to look quite good when finished. I am extremely disappointed that the Takara Tomy versions of the Terrorcons are going to be identical to the Hasbro versions (much like Trypticon was). Part of the appeal of the Unite Warriors line was it was in many ways subtly different to Combiner Wars so you didn’t feel ripped off buying a second lot in order to have both the Gestalt and the Individual Bots for your display. One can only hope a slightly altered gift set of all 5 characters comes out one day down the line.
Fake Rubsigns
LIES!
I got such a delighted surprise when I looked upon the bonce of Rippersnapper to see a rubsign there! But very soon it became apparent it wasn’t real. I call this a tease rather than a nostalgic nod to the Cons of yesteryear.
Overall
While the robot modes are not particularly inspiring, I really dig their monster modes and if you are a G1 fanatic then it will be hard to bypass these two characters, certainly worth picking up!
Got anything to add? Would love to read it in the comments section below!
