The 2012 Prime: Robots in Disguise Thundertron toy
While the opening salvo of Legacy United is full of interesting and refreshing choices, Thundertron is one of the more surprising. He was a curiosity in the mass market Prime toyline of 2012, a seemingly toy-first voyager with no fictional appearances. It wasn't until this year that I learned that this chap had a novel appearance and was being positioned for an antagonist role on screen, at least until Beast hunters happened. I may have to do a deeper dive into Prime and the Aligned continuity at some point. Because, much like the Holy Roman Empire, the Aligned Continuity was neither of those things. But for now let me end this paragraph with a one sentence summary of Thundertron and his appeal. He's a cat pirate robot.
I mean, I could just end the article there. Cat. Pirate. Robot. The appeal should be self -evident. But no, I just going to waffle on like I usually do. OK, so, the robot mode, like the toy in general, is a reinterpretation of the original Prime release rather than a 1 to 1 revamp. The difference is mainly in the shoulder pads and the type of cat he is now, but otherwise it's very faithful to the spirit of that old voyager. The robot mode is predominately blue and white, the overall form being evocative of olde worlde, age of sail clothing. Think of the cat head as a puffy shirt, the skirt armour as part of a long coat, and his head having some sorta sailor's hat built in, and you'll see where I'm coming from. The most piratey bits of him are of course, the beard, the cutlass, and, what was it? Oh yes. THE PEG LEG! Rarely has an on the job maiming been so important to a stereotype. Why hasn't he fixed this? He's a robot, spare parts must be an option, or the Lockdown Method for Self-improvement. Maybe he can't. A closer look at the sculpt reveals chips, scratches and holes which have been left unpainted and subtle. It's a good effort, gives him a bit of faded grandeur without hitting you over the head with it like Siege often did. The closer look also reveals hollow areas in each limb which is much less good. Aside from being scenes a faire, the presence of the peg leg does however prompt a discussion about posability and balance. Fortunately, they got this right; Thundertron is not appreciably more difficult to stand than any other Transformer, and there's a plan b if a joint is too loose, the spare foot/boot/dancing-shoe. Outside of combiner wars, I admit that this is fairly unusual accessory, which goes on to form a matching blue cage guard for his cutlass. Posability otherwise is acceptable but not first class for a legacy release. All major joints are represented, plus or minus a foot, including concealed waist, ball jointed skirt armour, and pretty good shoulders despite those big shoulder pads. The wrists and neck however could have had a bit more motion. 5mm port functionality is there, but with the foot ports being committed for common sense reasons. His cutlass meanwhile uses a tab to slot into his coattails, and interestingly, his right shoulder. There's a rumour going around that Thundertron is getting some kind of leader class re-release, and those slots might play into that in a Coronation Starscream sort of way, but it's unknown at time of writing. Otherwise an extremely characterful robot mode, if gappy.
Achieving his lion/fur-baby form is another point of interest, as Thundertron goes from ship's captain to a Zoids-style ship's cat. The original toy had a possibly unique transformation where the largely decorative front legs were formed from shoulder kibble, a trait the new toy also has, but with a new spin. Here the entirety of the leg is stored in each shoulder pad, granting improved articulation over the original, if not hugely spectacular posability overall. These legs also tend towards the decorative, as the instructions direct you to peg these into the main body at the elbows, but you don't have to. Leaving them unpegged allows you to make use of transformation joints for better posing. The conversion is atypical in some other ways too, the back legs taking me by surprise, but it's got the same basic problem as the robot form: gaps. The hollow areas in the legs are still a thing, with the main body looking incomplete from several angles. Thundertron doesn't have an organic beast mode, and therefore a few hinges or seams aren't a deal breaker, but this is unflattering. Otherwise, we don't see any major visual change from the robot mode, just with those pirate aspects remixed and downplayed. The wear and tear of the robot mode is even less overt here, most notable on the back, near his faction badge. It's an attractive blue and white, with gold highlights, the overall shape of it having animalistic feel. In terms of play value, we have an opening mouth, a few 5mm ports, and storage for the sword on the back. As mentioned, posability sorta depends how you approach those front legs, but otherwise have just enough to make you wish there was more. I was pleased to note during photography that it can balance on the back legs alone, but a little in the neck would have been lovely. Certainly not a bad altmode, far from it, but one that feels a touch secondary to the robot mode.
All things considered, I'd compare Thundertron to Jhiaxus in terms of overall vibe and design approach. It's a fundamentally unexpected toy of an obscure character, and a massive breath of fresh air, that does well in robot form, but less well in altmode. Thundertron is more consist in both modes, in that the beast mode actually looks like something, but the hollow parts aren't a plus. He's definitely charming as is, but if the rumoured re-release addresses that weakness? Let's just say that this toy will likely be downgraded to "Something that exists".
No comments:
Post a Comment