You know what? Another Thursday Transformers bonus article!
So, last year, I was at the Brum Toy Fair, enjoying the company of the people I was with, and spending money. I spotted today's subject on discount, and felt tempted. This was a mould I'd completely missed out on during the chaos of Earthrise. I did some more browsing, and made a shocking discovery, loose examples of Hoist and Trailbreaker, the mass market releases, were going for equal or greater money. At that point, the random Diaclone-inspired repaint from a premium imprint seemed like the obvious choice. I'd just pretend that it was "faded comic colours Trailbreaker", or maybe the Shattered Glass version, and I'm sure you'd come to the same conclusion in similar circumstances. Something making that easier is simply that Breaker isn’t a character with any real history, even by the standards of Diaclone tribute toys. This is the first Transformers toy with this name, and his only fictional appearance is to be named-checked as somebody whom died off-page in a comic. Possibly the only trivia of note is the "DK-3" prefix on his name, a reference to Diakron, which was Takara trying to release Diaclone stuff in Western markets mere months before Transformers got going. As such, I’m gonna be spending a lot of time referring to the other uses of the mould, and how they came to effect this one.
The robot form is undoubtedly good, if merely Trailbreaker in blue. This is because the original Diaclone toys in this case were simple, one colour, variants of each-other and Hasbro haven't done anything to mix up the formula here. As Trailbreaker is therefore so evident in the toy, this prompts a discussion of character models. So, what often happened with the original Transformers is that their appearance in animation and comics was often wildly different from the toys they were meant to be. When the 1985 toys came out though, something odd occurred. The new character models were often a fair bit closer to the toys, but also retools of the 1984 cast. So while the toys might be near identical, fictionally they definitely weren't. This was weird. Trailbreaker and Hoist were a good example of this, and reimaginings since have had to tread the needle between these conflicting depictions while still being able to release them as the same basic toy. What seems to have gone down with this Earthrise mould is that the designers favoured Hoist, and treated Trailbreaker as the secondary retool. This has the ever-so-slight downside of Trailbreaker having Hoist's "friend-shaped" proportions rather than a heroic build. And, let's be real here, Earthrise was going hard on the whole cartoon accuracy shtick, so this choice was a self-defeating one.
That doesn't really matter as far as Breaker is concerned, he's a blank slate, but I offer the above as context and explanation. Breaker is a big chap, being a head taller and visibly wider than a deluxe of similar vintage. He’s not quite voyager sized, but definitely is edging that way. His gut-to-biceps ratio makes him look more fat than muscular, and in all fairness this is a bit of welcome variation. Not every Transformer needs the mechanical equivalent of washboard abs The blue is very attractive, with vibrant silver and red in the mix. There is a certain degree of overt hollowness at play though, something not uncommon for his vintage, definitely on the notable side here. It's where the impression of size comes from while still being a deluxe. Functionally, he's got a lot of the good stuff, Legacy standard articulation and the 5mm ports are plentiful. Due to a transformation quirk he technically has two sets of knees, which is useful, although the shoulder gubbins do limit the neck. His gun completely covers his fist, giving a nice gunarm, and you can untab part of the backpack to use as a shield. Certainly not a bad robot mode, with both presence and play features.
Breaker's altmode is a made-up and blocky camper van, one not dissimilar to the Toyota 4WD High-Lux of the original toy. That backend area is the main area of functional difference between the Hoist and Trailbreaker iterations of this mould, with Breaker obviously using the latter. Like all good remoulds, this does change the character of the vehicle, although this does end up benefiting the robot mode more. Breaker does not feature compatibility with the short-lived airlock system, but he can instead have his gun on top like an actual turret. As opposed to just plonking what is obviously a rifle on the vehicle for storage, or otherwise stowing it. Earthrise toys dialled the 5mm port thing back a touch, so having the turret option is welcome. You can also fudge it between the front wheels, if that’s your thing. The overall appearance of the van tends towards realism, but not from all angles. The dark colour palette helps a lot with the serious vehicle bits, but there's a lot of robot on the underside in contrasting bright colours. The hands are very obvious and ground clearance is minimal at best. On the plus side, translucent windows and headlights. Well, I say its a plus, I have a doubt. There is substantial use of translucent plastic in the chest area, which becomes the front of the van mode. I assume this is where they made up the difference for the toy's larger footprint, as opposed being to more selective in the use of such plastic. Or just simply just casting the whole bit in matching blue and just painting the damn windows. It's a breakage concern as the wheels connect to directly to that famously brittle plastic, and these wheels attach via mushroom peg. Of course translucent plastic isn’t an inherent negative, and this toy certainly does not have colour matching issues, so your mileage may vary. It could be fine. Then again, if you're a toy designer, and you're gonna do the entire front end in the stuff, only the paint it? I'd say you were probably doing things the wrong way around, and I hope you've taken preventative measures.
While Breaker is clearly something that exists, I want to like it more than I do. As a repaint of a mould I missed out on, Breaker does have value. And he is a nice blue. The base toy meanwhile seems to suffer with some unforced errors. I wonder if Hoist was somebody's pet project, because the mould is too specific to him, and, sorry to bang on about it, the use of translucent plastic like this is something they know not to do. I certainly feel I got my money’s worth, don't get me wrong, but if you just want a boxy carformer, or merely a Diaclone tribute, there’s other options. I mean, there's another Selects version of this mould on the way now, and, as near as I can tell, they've removed translucent plastic completely for that.
No comments:
Post a Comment