Radical Regenerations: Prime Rumble

I normally start a review when I have a spare moment, on a bus, or on lunch hour. Then when I get home, I put the toy to one side of my laptop while I do do internet stuff and play. It can take weeks from initial interest to final drafting, or I can be done in 24 hours because I don't have anything sensible to do with my time. The last thing I do is make my usual attempt at “photography”, where I take it to a good spot in my kitchen and.......

Conservative. Party. CONFERENCE.

Well, I've written a load on on this toy, and I'd rather not ditch all of it. So, I rewrote the introduction, and here it is. I must report however, this did have a small effect on my opinion of the toy. Enjoy.

Vehicle Mode
 Rather than being a little dude whom fits into Soundwave's chest, this Rumble is a small blue car, and a fairly uninteresting one at that. This isn't too much of a departure for Rumble, as he did appear in the Alternators line as a Honda, but the execution here is bad. While there is some attention paid to the front end, some tiny Decepticon badges, and tinted windows, the vehicle appears otherwise unpainted. This isn't actually true, Rumble has loads of paint on him, but its being used to conceal the fact that the entire roof is translucent plastic. Clearly the tightening of toy budgets hit here, but I think we'd would have been better off with ratio reversed, painted windows instead(1). There's also a lot of exposed robot bits on the underside, but you'll forgive me if I put off talking about that just now. Functionally, there's a bit more going on, with two 5mm ports worked in as petrol caps. These allow for the accessories to be mounted on the side, accessories that also needed paint. These do triple duty as pile drivers, guns, and for this mode rocket boosters although a certain degree of imagination is needed here, as they just look like black blocks. That said, 5mm ports do give plenty of options for some Road Warrior action. 

Beyond that, there's not much to say. Switching to robot mode is however very interesting, and while carformers are not my preferred tipple, I'm not aware of one which follows a similar pattern. The front end transforms into the legs, but the back end and roof form the arms, with the flanks and back wheels forming back kibble. There's also a dramatic head reveal. Its a shell-based transformation, and inelegant given how much of the car ends up around the arms and torso, but that strikes me as deliberate intent, rather than incompetence or laziness. They wanted a particular style of robot mode, which I will now talk about. And looking at the image below, you'll easily see how this toy made into my Radical Regenerations format. When his thumbs weren't breaking off.

Robot Mode

Now, the review actually starts. When you get this toy into robot mode, you notice only one thing. Rumble is invoking a very particular design aesthetic, one so distinctive its impossible to see this toy as anything other than a deliberate homage. Yes, this is inspired by the classic 2007 anime Gurren Lagann, and its characteristic “chest face” motif. And its light-piped too. Rumble has two sets of glowing eyes in a good light, though the upper set work best, with both a mouth and a mouth plate at the same time. You can leave the head folded in the chest, and still look him in eye. Here's some art from the series for comparative purposes. Note the attached thumbs.

Copyright: Studio Gainax

See what I mean? Its not necessarily unique to either Gurren Lagann or Rumble, of course. ROTF Bludgeon had a skull chest for example, while Beast Hunters Bludgeon had monster pecs. Nor did Gurren Lagann invent the design element in Super Robot cartoons, that honour probably goes to Gaiking. But the timing and shoulder kibble makes me think Gurren Lagann, and I think its extremely cool looking as a result. At least it balances out the very bland car mode, where the broken thumb doesn't matter.

 

His chest face is so distinctive and overpowering, you forget the other design elements, some callbacks to the original. The back kibble for example has guns sculpted in, regrettably unpainted, but similar to the G1 toy. He has the pile drivers, and the articulation to make make a fine ground-pounding pose. His overall build is quite short for a deluxe, but wide with the arm kibble balancing out the pile drivers. He's not a chest minion anymore, but he's still a short dude. I'm not entirely sure where the head sculpt came from though. There's nothing very Rumble about it, and to muddy the waters further, there was an alternative with an actual mouth(2), but that's not very Rumble either. Neither immediately say Gurren Lagann either, although you could claim the mouthed version is closer to the style than the one we have here. One wonders if designers had something very different in mind for this toy only for it to be re-purposed as a legacy character, or if the designers got a bit of leeway as the character wasn't actually appearing in the cartoon. All I know is, if they'd swapped out that chest face for something closer to a magnetic tape cassette, we wouldn't be here right now. Complaints can however be made about the lower legs, with the calves being a bit ramshackle, preventing a straight stance, and the actual knees being below a set of decorative knees. There's also some questionable colour and material choices; the neck joint is a balljoint in translucent plastic, while the hands are also painted, making chipping a problem. And, I forget if I've mentioned this, his thumb broke off.

Also, if I didn't know better, I'd think his feet were on backwards.

Regardless of what this actually looks like(3), the robot mode has a lot going on. The aforementioned pile drivers have quad gun barrels sculpted in, with a 5mm port on the underside for no obvious reason. This allows Rumble to do some gun fighting poses, and make combi-weapons of a sort. He's also got a total of four 5mm ports, two on the back of his shoulders for storage, and the two petrol caps on his flanks. Articulation is decent, with eighteen points. This is allows for the aforementioned ground-pounding, and I'd like to single out the shoulders as being far more mobile than they have any right being. Its a generously cut balljoint on top of hinge, with rotation at the bicep, so he has great inward motion even if outward motion is blocked by kibble. He can cross his arms, but not demonstrate how big the fish he caught was. The lower body also has a lot in the way of balljoints, but ends up being limited by the sculpt. There is a balljointed waist, but the crotch piece makes it all but useless. There's balljoints in the ankles too, but as mentioned, a perfectly straight stance is impossible. Plus his thumb broke off.

Conclusion

Rumble is a weird toy when you get right down it, and not just for the visual choices. The Prime toyline suffered from budget cuts and misapplied gimmicks, and while there are far worse offenders, Rumble is rough around the edges. I'm no toy accountant, and thus speak from a position of ignorance, but I do feel that ditching the translucent plastic would have been to the toy's net benefit. G1 purist are also not going to be overly keen on this interpretation of the character, even if they go Japanese, because he's some distance from the 80's. That's why he's in this review format, of course, but let's acknowledge some may that downside. But then, that's also a plus, and I'll happily stand up for a transformer that reminds me of one of my favourite animes. The designers clearly wanted to do something different here, and in robot mode it works very well. He's got the pile drivers, he's got the joints to use them, but now he's also a gunfighter with a monster face on his chest. Given how repetitive Prime was after a while, at least until Beast Hunters kicked off, this is a good thing. Its just shame that the car mode is so meh. All things considered, he's worth having, and is very inexpensive on the secondary market. If you want a rough diamond, Rumble is your guy. Assuming his thumbs stay on.

Foot Notes

1. The Japanese versions of the mould sidestep this with stickers as well as paint. Although, they omit the pile drivers for a singular Arms Micron, so some loss of play value there.
2. This was used for both of the Japanese versions.
3. i.e. quite badass.

Radical Regenerations: TF2010 Sea Spray

While I do have a selection of G1 original toys from my younger days, I don't necessarily remember playing with them. I don't know how common that is. I think I was a shelf-stacker and comics nerd from the early days. One toy I do remember is Seaspray, one of the minibots, and at least half of that was due to mine having a minor breakage on one fan. Today, I look at his singular revamp, Sea Spray from the TF2010 line. Let's just say, they changed a few things.

The Context

Transformers was in a bit of an odd place in the 2010/11 period just after Revenge of The Fallen. The latter bits of the ROTF line had seen characters like Bludgeon and Lockdown(1) appear, starting a slow transition from bayverse aesthetics to something more in line with whole Classics/Universe/Generations style. It was a good time, as the brand was awash with movie money and a willingness to experiment. The oft decried over-complexity of ROTF toys also phased out. Into this came Sea Spray, an obvious homage to the G1 minibot of almost the same name, although his exact fictional placement is somewhat confused. Hasbro was been pretty definite that this is Seaspray, note the lack of a space, but his only appearance was in a bayverse comic, and he does have a certain movie styling. As far as this article is concerned, either is good, and I'm sticking with the Sea Spray parsing of the name for convenience.

Hovercraft Mode

Let's acknowledge the first, and biggest difference, his size. Sea Spray is in the tradition of a minibot being bumped to larger size class, something that has affected Bumblebee, Warpath, and most famously Powerglide. G1 purists tend to get worked up about this sort of thing, and its a classic example of how properly borked scale is in transformers. Both the original and today's focus are cargo hovercraft, which can be around 25 metres or so long. Maybe that shouldn't be represented in the same pricepoint as a Volkswagon Beetle? Once you get over that hurdle, you realise that they made full use of the voyager budget to create a good vehicle mode. Of particular note is blue plastic used for the air skirt, its covered in endless tiny wrinkles to look like material under pressure. The colour choices are of course evocative of the G1 version, but they are rationalised, yellow becoming gold and the blue being a darker tone. Just so we don't forget who this is, the words “SEA-S.P.RAY” are decaled in three places, there was a trend towards this back then, and some nice silver picking out details. Its overall shape is different too, the cockpit area being more aggressively designed, hinting at the robot mode, and exposed cargo section. While definitely effective in its use plastic colours and restrained use of paint, its not perfect visually. There's a case of Visible Head Syndrome, you don't want to look at the underside, and my ageing example has developed three different shades of white. What can he do? Well, a not inconsiderable amount. The cargo area can take scout class and smaller toys, featuring a ramp, although its specifically intended for the contemporary Breacher mould(2). This perhaps isn't that exciting on paper, but just use your imagination, and think of amphibious landings. There are rolling wheels, and articulated fan assemblies. I'm slightly disappointed you can't make the fans turn by breathing on them, but OK. In terms of more aggressive features, he's got 2 water effect missile/harpoon launchers, and a set of six rungs for C clip accessories, but they are painted, so maybe take care. There's enough to be going on with here. Then you transform him and things get very interesting.

Robot Mode

Back in Generation 1, Sea Spray was one of the chubby Autobots. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but he seemed to gain a few pounds with his animation model.

Source: TFWiki, Copyright Sunbow and Hasbro etc.

Yeah, there are bulky robots. There are stock robots There are robots whose vehicle modes add mass to what are average proportions. There's robots whom Floro Dery drew. And there's that. The dude is fat. Now look at how this dude turned out.

Dude got buff.

Now, it should be pretty obvious why this is a Radical Regeneration. In addition to being a bodybuilder's “after” photo, this isn't one of those toys that seeks to mimic the look of a toy from thirty years ago. The colours are there, but in different ratios, joined by grey and black. The fans are behind his shoulders, but are less overt, and you can position them out of the way. If anything, the overall appearance, and especially the legs, suggest a bayverse toy, although one of the less busy examples. However, the designers have added in a new design influence that not only fit the character, but hint at his status as an oceanic dork that blows bubbles when he speaks. He's now patterned after a scuba diver, the head very predominately features goggles and a breather mask, but its not just that. Segments of the air skirt have become oxygen tanks, and in something that amuses far, far, FAR, too much, flip-out flippers. This big, muscular dude, whom duel wields harpoon guns, walks about in blue flippers that make an undignified slapping noise as he walks. Its extremely difficult to be badass while scuba diving. Seriously, do an image search on it. But it all works. And it helps that there's a generally level of competency here. He's got 26 points of largely ratchet-based articulation, needing some refinement in the arms, but more than enough for posing. He retains harpoon launchers and C clip functionality, all moving to his arms, where its most useful. As the 5mm ports end up on the forearms, you can actually give him both launchers on the same arm too.

Conclusion

When you get right down it, Sea Spray is a great toy, from one of the better years in the brand. Not perfect, just look at those elbows, but very much all you'd want from a voyager. And the reinterpretation of the character is endlessly interesting to me. Its like he grew up, or in some strange and far flung reality, he was given the Matrix and now leads the Autobots. Maybe they made a checklist of all the essential things about the G1 character, and replaced the word “joke” with “Rob Liefield”. And this, more than anything, silly as it is, makes Sea Spray awesome.

Foot notes

1. Yes, Age of Extinction did not introduce the character. This version was more of a direct port of the Animated version.
2. Whom need not concern us just now, but trust me, he's excellent in his own right.

Radical Regenerations: Age Of Extinction Hound

Amongst my readership, I'd be interested to know what the overall opinion of the Michael Bay films is. There's a tendency for them to be vilified by the fanbase, and almost any film critic you care to name, but they keep making pots of money. Pots, and pots, of money. I mean, Age of Extinction made more money than Guardians of the Galaxy, and the giant metal dinosaurs of the former only goes so far to justify that. Its the sort of thing that makes snobs out of otherwise fair people, as even within the stereotypically low standards of Hollywood blockbuster summer fare, the transformers films aren't very good. I'm fearful of the day the wider public figures that out, for now, they seem to be a consistent money spinner for Hasbro and Paramount, whom have no reason to change. And Bay is back for Transformers 5, yay.

Right, I think that's my bias covered, on with the review.

Image Copright: Paramount Pictures. sourced from the wiki. 

The Context

While the Dinobots were the obvious draw for Age of Extinction (AOE), something which I will give the production staff credit for trying to vary the Autobot cast a bit. Given the preceding movie line was a sea of cars that we'd seen at least twice before, this was welcome. Yes, I will not go so far as to call them “good characters”, what the film did is a can of worms when you get into it, but some of them could justify a two sentence bio. Hound is one of those characters, and probably the most memorable as he was voiced by John Goodman, whom gave a good account of himself, given what he had to work with(1). Hound was of course a version of the G1 character who had been around since episode one, but given certain design elements, its easy to think they were aiming for Animated Bulkhead instead. More obviously though, like his teammates, he was channelling a warrior stereotype, a WW2 vintage soldier, and this probably made him more relatable than most bayformers. Not necessarily a nice or likable person, but by the standards of bayformers he was at least distinctive amongst all the flying metal.

Unfortunately for collectors like myself, AOE was part of a new strategy by Hasbro, which is still evident in today's Robot in Disguise toys. While most dedicated Transformers fans were obsessing over the Thrilling Thirty releases, AOE toys would become something more akin to superhero film merchandise. You know, definitely recognisable as the character, but simple, gimmicky, sometimes not transforming, and not something that compared well to The Dark Of The Moon (DOTM) toys. It was like they were relying on the movie to sell the toys, rather than selling a good transformer. This was partially due to the reduced toy budgets and increased oil costs the brand had struggled with, and what many would consider to be the “proper” transformers ended up under the Generations banner. Which, of course, proved to be a major pain in the bum to acquire in the UK, retail releases being limited and incomplete. I didn't see a voyager Hound in person until January 3^rd of this year, when I immediately brought it because it was discounted. And so, this review.

Robot Mode

Big, green and over-armed, Hound evokes comparisons to both American soldiers and gun enthusiasts. The most interesting and uniquely AOE aspects to the appearance of the toy are the rubber bits, the distinctive beard and ammo belts. There have been bearded cybertronians before, the most famous being the Unicron-affiliated Scourge, but this looks more like hair, as opposed to a beard shaped bit of metal. It makes him look older, but not ancient while the ammo belts make his army connections a bit obvious. His head is clearly wearing a WW2 vintage helmet. The general impression is of an old soldier whom enjoyed his job, or maybe someone whom was in the reserves, rather than active service, and wants to make up for lost time with a metric ton of bullets. This is of course pretty far from G1 Hound, or indeed Bulkhead. G1 Hound was Bumblebee before Bumblebee, and Bulkhead was a gentle giant. I suppose you could make the case the Prime Bulkhead was a gruff ex-Wrecker, but not so much as this. While visually I say its okay/nice for a bayformer, such designs being busy and often very inhuman, we've got a few problems here. The likeness to the film just isn't that good, the colour scheme being much more green for example. While by no means skinny, Hound lacks the gut of his film depiction, a design element that tied him to Bulkhead, and shifts him a bit more G1. This looks like Hound after the diet and work-out regime Mr Incredible planned for him, he's never gonna be lean, but he's back in shape. Not a bad thing, as such, and Hound certainly isn't the only toy to have significant variations, but could be a lot better. This most likely arises from the engineering, which is functional, but the toy is a blatant shellformer(2) with faux kibble feet. The arms have big and unsightly panels on them, with the forearms having an odd curve to facilitate vehicle mode. Also as a sign of his time, there's a fair few hollow bits, including on his main feature, which I will now address.

Hound offers something very Micheal Bay, but I refuse to apologise for enjoying, all the guns. Sorry folks, I rip those films to bits for any number of reasons, but I have a great deal of time for a robot loaded with weapons. He has a total of eight weapons, with a minor combination feature. Hound should really be a member of the Wreckers, and no, not the trio of Stockcars, I mean the proper team of Autobot asskickers. This was something of a theme back in 2014, as we also got Whirl and Roadbuster that year, two other militaristic Autobots with extensive and modular accessories. Hound's accessories are similar, but distinct. He starts out with a triple gatling gun, which by itself would be enough to fill my dakka-dakka requirements, but it goes further. Slightly more restrained are a pair of four-barrelled shotguns, with folding handles. Then we have a pair pistols. Then a pair of smaller, hold-out, pistols. Then a knife painted silver. These can joined together via a a combination of specialised tabs and 3mm ports, giving us some quite ridiculous guns, more importantly, they all stow. At once. In multiple places(3). With some left over, so he take even more guns. Hound keeps his options open, although its not without flaws, arising from the toy's slightly sub-par build quality. The shotguns for example won't stay on, the main weapon actually affects the toy's balance if stowed on the back, and the larger pistols are hollow on one side. Play value is through the roof though, and articulation is on the good side of competent. Its entirely universal joints, and limited by the rubber at the wrist, but there's 24 points there, including a waist. The claim of being a “fat ballerina” is an exaggeration, although not a vast one.

 

Vehicle Mode

Transforming the toy essentially turns the robot inside out, into an Oshkosh Defense FMTV truck, a six wheeled, military cargo hauler. Its this that suggests Animated Bulkhead rather than G1 Hound as a primary inspiration, as he had a six wheeled military altmode too. If you'd wanted to bayformer up G1 hound, he would have been based off a Humvee(4). As it stands this vehicle is not that well-known, but is credible in green. It also confirms to the convention common to all film Autobots, bar the dinos, in that he's licensed car the end of the day. In so far as I can work out, the vehicle isn't intended for frontline combat, there's no weapons, and its main function is to cart stuff about. At least until the guns come into it, anyway, but I do like the look. The cab ends up clearly separated from the cargo, with a spare wheel in-between, and its general blocky shape. Its not perfect though, as with the robot mode, there's some visual problems, and depending on your preference, these may be worse. The robot mode legs for example are easily picked out, and there's some noteworthy seams. Generally speaking, shellformers have more convincing shells. There's a also a mis-allocation of materials in the cab. He does have transparent windows, a luxury it seems these days, but they only reveal a load bearing strut of grey plastic, so they probably shouldn't have bothered. While interesting from an aesthetic perspective, that's why I'm doing this as a “Radical Regeneration”, the engineering ain't too good here. Ground clearance is  also poor, while the lack of paint does tell here.

Fortunately, play features and little design do come along and redeem things a bit. You know those 8 assorted weapons? They all stow, and there's an additional 5mm port on top should you wish to use one on the move. How they stow varies. The tiny pistols remain in the calves, while his main gun unfolds in attempt to replicate some detail form the prop vehicle, with the knife on the underside. The shotguns and larger pistols just mount on the sides. Its not a brilliant mode, but its okay.

 

Conclusion
Hound the toy is as unrefined as Hound the movie star, and in several not good ways. The most obvious one is the engineering, because, as shellformers go, he's not a good one. His modes aren't really separate, with ugliness in both as a result. This also leads to his questionable resemblance to the film. I suppose its possible that this toy was based on an earlier design that changed during production, its been known to happen. But then again, AOE toys in general tended to be simplified and bright versus the film depictions, with even Generations releases following that lead, especially in comparison to DOTM toys. I'd be more inclined to suspect a reduced budget and maybe a lack of care, than anything else. This does however raise an interesting question. Given how horrid/shallow bayformer characters can be, does it actually matter if the toys resemble them closely? Maybe not, but Hound was perhaps the only Autobot I remotely liked in that film, and something a bit closer would have been nice. If I'd splashed out and played scalper prices, I'd be feeling a bit disappointed, so I'm glad I found this for 15 quid. The toy is however made worthwhile by accessories, and solid articulation. I continue to make no apologies for liking a toy with more guns than sense, it makes an otherwise mediocre transformer a lot of fun, and so there's so many display options. Hound was worth getting in hand after such a long wait, but he isn't all he could have been.

Foot notes

1. Although I do remember a report of him only recording his lines a month before release, so he maybe wasn't that closely involved with the project.
2. Although out of basic fairness, the Galvatron of the same wave is a much bigger offender.
3. There's also one on his backside which is either loose, or intended for a figure stand.
4. Probably the same for Prime Bulkhead, too.