Dark of the Moon Space Case

Ever since the Generation 2 Redux Botcon 2010 set was announced last year I have been on alert for any figures that might fit into the updated G2 category. Obviously Space Case fits since he is a direct homage of the original G2 Cyberjet Space Case. Unfortunately he seems to be the only G2 inspired figure in the entire DOTM line. Also from this point forward I will no longer refer to him as a DOTM figure, but a G2 Redux figure instead since that is what I believe Hasbro had in mind for this guy.

Space Case is a repaint of the Hunt for the Decepticons figure Terradive with a new head mold that evokes the original Cyberjet feeling a little. It is basically just an updated head that makes a little more sense than the original triangular visor that the first figure had. Oddly enough this is the second Cyberjet homage we have gotten in the past few years; Skyjack was the first who himself was a repaint of Generations Silverbolt. If we could just get a good Hooligan it would be enough for a Cyberjet party!

This is a really fun figure overall; one of the best aspects is that he transforms in a way that leaves very little kibble anywhere on the body. I wish all transformations could be this clean. He also has some very interesting engineering in the nosecone which makes for a few cool surprises during the transformation. Lastly, his arms transform in a way that calls back to G2 Smokescreen as well as Energon Starscream.

The Cyberjets were always really fun little toys and I am glad Hasbro hasn't forgotten them even after all these years. I would call this toy absolutely perfect if it weren't for one small detail: THE TATOOS!!! Ah well, maybe I can repaint him.

Cyberjets are back, baby!

With his G2 Counterpart.

The vehicle modes match up almost perfectly.

Animated Blackout! I must have a thing for Helicopters lately...

If you read my post last week on the other Blackout you may have noticed that I have a certain fondness for the character that I can't really explain very well. So I was thrilled when I was able to obtain Animated Blackout here. I was actually planning on purchasing him at Botcon however no one there seemed to have one; at least not that I could find. So as soon as we got back I purchased him online from Japan and he arrived yesterday. True to all the prior Animated figures, Blackout does not disappoint in characterization as well as engineering.

Animated Blackout only appeared in the cartoon in one episode at the beginning of Season 3 as part of Team Chaar (a reference to the planet of the same name in G1). He was described as the biggest Cybertronian ever created before the Omega Project (this is what I love about Animated: it has such a rich backstory for being a brand new continuity. I'll explore this topic further in another post). Unfortunately the toy itself isn't that large. He is only about as tall as a deluxe although he is very wide. His transformation is similar to Lugnut in that the front of the helicopter splits apart to reveal the head and chest. However his toy conveys a certain feeling of massiveness about him. He is definitely not a character you want to take on by yourself if you are an Autobot.

I was so disappointed when Blackout wasn't released in America, the toy is definitely fun and one of the last molds I need for a complete Animated collection. Unfortunately the Animated show and toyline was canceled before he could be released and unlike Rodimus, Ironhide and Arcee he is too large to be a store exclusive. His helicopter mode (which I don't think we actually see on screen) is a very nice homage to Movie Blackout and at the same time does a very nice job of fitting into the Animated universe. This is one of the main travesties of canceling the Animated cartoon too early, it actually made the Movie designs palatable. The Animated Almanac Vol. 2 (available on Amazon) does a great job of demonstrating this fact with all the characters that were being prepped to be added to the show and possibly the toyline. Unfortunately it will never happen.

I don't mind a movie character that looks like this!

With the only other Team Charr member: Oil Slick.

With his movie counterpart (at least one version of him)

Vehicle mode

I like helicopters!

Now all I need to do is find another one and repaint him into Venom.

Dark of the Moon Skyhammer

To round out my "Dark of the Moon" themed week we have the recently released Voyager class Skyhammer. So far this is the only DOTM figure that I have actually been interested in due to his interesting transformation. Most helicopter transformers remove the blades and convert them into swords or fold them together to hang off the figure somewhere. Not this guy. His blades are firmly integrated into the transformation, and it is quite a fun one. He also doesn't necessarily have a 'movie only' look like most of the figures do. He could easily fit into the Cybertron or Energon line. And that is probably where I will put him, since I don't have much space for movie figures. There may be a few other DOTM figures I purchase before they are out of stores, but they will be few and far in between.

This guy has a nice helicopter mode. Very futuristic.

Robot mode.

I would have posed G1 Skyhammer with him for comparison if I weren't  so terrified that I might break the G1 figure by moving him. So, DOTM Skyhammer gets to hog the camera.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Initial Thoughts (spoiler free)

I had the good fortune to see the most recent Transformers movie this morning and I must say I was much more impressed than with the previous two attempts. This movie actually has a coherent story that is adhered to and really focuses a lot more on the Transformers as characters than just the humans. I would say there is much more balance in this film than the others. The 2007 movie was good but it felt like the movie makers were still trying to find their footing and so a lot of things seemed just a little bit off. And of course we all know Revenge of the Fallen was plagued by trying to go bigger and better without a script due to the writer's strike and the film suffered incredibly for it. This movie finally feels like they got it right, at least as close to right as they could get. We get a lot more Transformer characterization and the action sequences are paced much better to avoid overload.

My viewing this morning was in 2D because I find that 3D tends to give me headaches if I try to focus too much and I didn't want to miss any details from the film. So I can't comment on if the 3D helped the story or not. There were a few sequences that I was watching where I was thinking to myself "I wonder why this sequence is so long" or "that's an odd thing to focus on" but after thinking about it I am sure those scenes were there for the 3D effects. That's not to say those scenes were superfluous, it just seemed odd to me. I plan on attempting to see it in 3D in the near future. There are also a bunch of great nods to fans of the franchise and some really obscure references that I was happy to discover. And I was very happy with all of the human performances as well, especially Rosie who played Carly. I really didn't think I would like her, but she has a strong presence and does a much better job than Megan Fox ever did. I really kinda wish they had been using her from the beginning.

There was a scene in the movie that actually gave me chills, and that is the first time that has happened to me watching a Transformers movie. I won't reveal the scene, but I will say it was spectacularly done and stole the show for me personally. So as a hardcore Transformer fan that has been beaten over the head with the "Movie" aesthetic for the past five years I can honestly say this was a fun movie and I would recommend it to all of my friends. There is a very high likelihood that I will be buying this movie when it comes out on blu-ray.

Dark of the Moon Cyberverse Blackout (with Scorponok!)

Okay, this one was a total impulse buy. I had no intention of ever owning this figure, and honestly I'm not even sure I knew it existed. But Blackout is somewhat special to me, as he was the first live action Transformer we got to see when he debuted in the 2007 Movie. Plus, he is a very cool helicopter with a 'minicon' of sorts: Scorponok.

Small TF toys can go one of two ways: really crappy bricks that only move their arms, or great feats of toy engineering. Blackout here is the latter. They did a great job of making the robot fold up into the helicopter, in my opinion better than the original Voyager Class toy from 2007.  And the vehicle mode looks fantastic, very realistic (except for the scorpion hanging off the back of course).

Great vehicle mode, this could be a much larger toy with all the detail that was included.

Blackout and his partner.

Who turns into a Targetmaster! Schweet!

Finally I did notice something about Scorponok. He bears a remarkable resemblance to the Action Master partner Scorpulator that originally came with Devastator. He even transforms the same! This is the first Action Master nod I've seen in the movie line, but because I'm not very familiar with it I'm sure I've overlooked some other glaring example. It's a fun little tribute though.

Scorpion modes

Targetmaster modes

I've been doing my best to resist buying any other DOTM toys because I know I'll be sick of them in a few weeks. But I'll be seeing the movie tomorrow morning and I know my resolve will be tested because I am sure I'll want to go out and buy every figure I see on the screen. But no...I have more self control than that. At least I think I do.

MPM-01 Movie Masterpiece Starscream

Since Transformers: Dark of the Moon is released in a few days I thought I would celebrate by posting only about the Movie Era this week. I am not a big fan of the recent Transformer movies. I was on board back in 2007 when the first one came out but ever since then my interest has been slowly waning. Of course it didn't help that "Revenge of the Fallen" was a complete stinker. To this day it is the only video media related to Transformers that I refuse to purchase. I'm not a fan of the character aesthetic and I don't find the designs visually appealing. However every once in a while a figure comes along that is so good I can't pass it up. This is why I only have a select few "Movie Era" toys. One of these figures is Movie Masterpiece Starscream.

2007 Voyager Starscream

Starscream has always been my favorite character ever since I started watching Transformers way back in 1985. Of course I was very excited to hear he would be in the movie franchise and that he would be represented by an F-22 Raptor. That was a big deal back in 2006. However once the character designs were released I was less than thrilled. But I went ahead and bought the toy anyway. Unfortunately the design was pretty bad. He looked okay in robot mode but he was way too thick in vehicle mode; too many parts on the underneath and not very aerodynamic. I grew up on vehicle modes being dead accurate so that is what I often look for in my figures. Recently it hasn't been such a large issue because Hasbro would make up vehicles for figures rather than attempt to pay for the designs. Of course that changed with Alternators and the subsequent movie figures. So in my mind, 2007 Voyager class Starscream failed big time.

When 2009 rolled around and the figures for Revenge of the Fallen were released, a new Voyager class Starscream was released, this time with a much more accurate vehicle mode. At least, the shape was a lot more accurate. To my chagrin the 2009 Starscream was released covered in Cybertronian "Tribal Tattoos". I never thought this was a good idea; the entire point of the Transformers is to be "in disguise" and hide in plain sight. How can one do that covered in weird alien tattoos?!?! Anyway I was impressed with the engineering of this figure and so I promptly sold off my 2007 Starscream (along with a lot of other 2007 movie figures). But again as time went on I found myself liking the figure less and less. He started to look like a large triangle and I really hated those tattoos. But there was hope. I had heard of a Leader class Starscream on the horizon, but probably at least a year away. It promised to be the 'Ultimate Movie Starscream".

HFTD Starscream.

Fast forward to 2010 and Hunt for the Decepticons Leader Starscream was released. And guess what; those damn tattoos were still there. Other than that one issue this looked like a great representation of movie Starscream. In the end it was TakaraTomy who came to my rescue. They released the HFTD Starscream in vehicle accurate colors as part of their Masterpiece line. Does this figure really qualify as a Masterpiece? That is up for contention and I don't really care myself. Now you may ask yourself, why would I pay nearly double the price of a figure for nothing other than a paint deco? Because I really, really hate those tattoos and that is all there is to it. I would rather spend the money and have a better representation than look at those tattoos any longer. Although now that people are finding HFTD Starscream at TJ Maxx for around $20, it does give me slight pause. But I am happy with my purchase. Sure the vehicle mode isn't perfect and is slightly kibbly on the underside, but it is leaps and bounds better than 2007 Starscream and the robot mode is just about perfect!

Confirmed by a friend of mine who works on an Air Force base: Accurate.

Significantly less kibble than the 2007 version.

A lot less triangle-y than the 2009 version.

As you can see here. (Stupid Tattoos)

With his counterpart: G1 Masterpiece Starscream.

Hopefully this will be the last Movie Starscream I have to buy. Fortunately I found him at a good price and didn't have to ship him from Japan, so I'm pretty happy with the deal. And he does look really good on the shelf. I can honestly say this was the only Movie figure I had been excited about in a really long time and I am glad to add him to my collection.

See also:

The Masterpiece Starscream Saga

Dark of the Moon toys Street Date today! A lesson learned...

I guess if you are a fan of the movie toys today is a great day for you since it is the street date for all DOTM toys in the United States. If the movies aren't your thing then today is just another day. For me it is the latter; I've learned my lesson. In 2007 when the first Transformers movie was about to come out I had a very specific plan as to what I was going to do. The toys for that movie were to be released in early June. I had actually planned to take the day off from work, and hit six or seven different stores to get all the figures I wanted. I also had saved up quite a lot of money so I could get everything on the release date. Back then the movie universe was just another aspect of Transformers that I planned to collect just because it was Transformers. It didn't really matter whether I actually liked the toys or the designs.

However all that changed as more and more movie toys were released. I believe it was sometime around January or February of the following year that I realized I didn't actually want all these things coming out. I was just buying them because they were new Transformers toys. They really all started to look the same after a while and I had no desire to keep collecting them. This wasn't the first time in my collecting experience where I stopped buying new figures due to lack of desire. The first time was in 1999 with Beast Machines. I bought about five or six figures from Beast Machines until I couldn't make myself buy anymore. But that is another story.

So between 2008 and 2009 I got rid of many of the movie toys I had accumulated. I really only kept figures of characters that were in the actual movie. Then Revenge of the Fallen toys were released and I lapsed. I didn't make the elaborate plans like I had for the first movie, but I did end up going out on the day they were released and picking up ten or twelve figures. During that time I was in the process of moving so I actually didn't get to open them for a few days. Once I finally did I ended up transforming them once and putting them on the shelves. And never touched them again. Not long after that I actually went to see the disaster that was Revenge of the Fallen and was quite dismayed. (To this day it is the only Transformer media that I do not own and have no desire to ever own). I realized after that I didn't really like any movie toys or the movie aesthetic at all. So again I went through a toy purge and got rid of almost all my movie toys. The only ones I actually kept were figures that spoke to me for other reasons. I kept ROTF Leader Prime because he is an amazing feat of engineering, and I kept the original movie Brawl for the same reason. I also kept the twins' Ice Cream truck because my wife likes it so much. And finally I kept the Legend version of Devastator because it represents what Hasbro/Takara could have done with the large Devastator had they really tried.

So to recap I have learned my lesson time and time again. This year I have absolutely no plans at all to purchase any Dark of the Moon toys; in fact only one figure from the entire line has looked interesting to me and that is because he is a homage to a G2 figure. So thank you movie toys, you've made me realize that I don't have to own every transformers figure that ever comes out, because many of them suck in the end.