Coming out in December 2019, Transformers: Bumblebee is by most metrics the best Transformers film. Yes, including the 1986 one and Bay's first attempt. The reasons for this seem to come in spite of the Hollywood system rather than because of it. Director Travis Knight was much more interested in characters than Bay was, and could still do a quality action scene. Seriously, compare Mikaela Banes and Charlie Watson. Same basic character, just one director clearly isn't leering into the camera. Mind you, reshoots and higher level politics had their influence too. There was a decision made to change the film from a prequel to a soft reboot, prompting the famous sequence on Cybertron. This was pure, targeted, and refined fanservice. Also welcome, to be frank. If the 2007 film had been more like the 2019 one from the start, the franchise might be in a better place. Sadly Travis Knight isn't back for Rise of the Beasts, but let's attempt optimism. Springing fully-formed from those reshoots is today's subject, Brawn, whom is legally distinct from my earlier article, but damn if there wasn't an overlap to work around.
The scene in question
Let us acknowledge the Big Convoy in the room, it's really really daft that this exists in toy form. This is some Star Wars level barrel-scraping, as opposed to doing almost anything else. This version of Brawn had mere seconds of screen time, and didn't manage to anything cool. He only got shot. It's geewunner pandering in the purest sense, possibly more so than the 86 cast getting the Studio Series label. Granted, there comes a point where you run out of big screen characters, and nobody with a functional brain is in a hurry to see Skids & Mudflap again, but retiring the label until the next movie was finished might have been justified. So, my bias clearly stated, I'm not particularly predisposed to go in for this sort of thing, which is why this toy only entered my hands at a discount on an otherwise mediocre day.
So, then, Brawn. Blank slate and apparent shelfwarmer. Not the first movieverse Brawn either. There was a toy-first version from 2010, a shellformer with some clever touches and twin pistols. That’s something that happened a few times actually, where a character gets a toy for one film, but not a screen appearance, only for a later film to override it with a quite radically different take. See Arcee and Lockdown for good examples. This newer Brawn is more of a modernisation and reinterpretation of the G1 version, hitting iconic design elements like the colours, but still having movie verse complexity and mechanical details. He's a tough, stocky little guy in green, mustard and brown. You can see why this guy's name is synonym for physical strength. New elements are however present, like the much-commented-upon Juggernaut helmet and general resemblance to The Doom Slayer. I was personally put in mind of something Gimli Son of Gloin might pilot in The Lord of the Rings, alternate universe, mecha fan fiction you are now imagining. There's some good paint applied too, subtly complimenting the plastic colours. I can't really fault it, although I might spend some time weathering it. Articulation and play value are similarly pleasing; he's got a lot of well-placed joints, a rather big gun, and a drill bit to turn it into a drill spear. These notably use a 3mm peg for storage on the back, a feature that is nice to have, if not super secure. There’s also 5mm ports on the feet, in what seems to be vestigial weaponizer compatibility. So, while I question the reasoning behind this item, if that reasoning was "let's just make a good robot mode, dammit" I'd say they went and did it.
Brawn's vehicle mode is where things get interesting. The vast majority of the reshoot characters didn't have a vehicle mode, which probably presented a challenge to the toy designers, until you remember that Cybertronian altforms generally don't look like anything. In all fairness though, they did a good job. The transformation spins around his back to become a cockpit bubble, inverting the lower legs so the kneecaps wrap around some newly revealed front wheels. There is a fair whack of creativity at play here, so while we must apply a qualifier for it being Cybertronian, honestly? Fair play to 'em. The resulting vehicle looks somewhere between one of those new League of Voltann models and a hypothetical Among Us vehicle expansion. It looks vaguely cute and fast, maybe? It doesn't say "space landrover" and it's not really disguising robot bits either, with the head and feet noticeable. But it has character, as much as the robot mode does. It also has the option to mount the gun up top, and the drill up front as a ramming spike, the latter being a nod towards a scene from the G1 cartoon. With these applied, it looks a bit more Brawny, so the overall effect works. And possibly pierces heaven...
My point? Only that Studio Series Brawn is something that exists. He's probably a lot better than he needed to be, which is odd when you consider he might not have needed to be, full stop. While I knew it would be good blog fodder, I didn't expect to like it as much as I do in person. We’re not talking S rank here, but they didn’t half-arse this, as they so easily could have.
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