...So what on Earth possessed me to buy this?
Vehicle Mode:
Well, it certainly wasn't the vehicle mode which, aside from a slightly lighter, more turquoise plastic for his windows, is identical to the original mass release. It's a reasonable representation of the Pontiac Solstice, given the size, and I'm sure that Hasbro/Takara were contractually obliged to present the vehicle mode as pristine, regardless of the state of the robot... I mean, look at the movie: the robots could be scratched up and dented in battle, but the moment they transformed, they looked fresh from the body shop, with a full shine and wax job.
Robot Mode:
Broadly speaking this is also identical to the original, just with lots of broken and melted bits. They did a reasonably job of trying to make it look as though the inner workings of the robot had been exposed (read: lots of black paint broken up by 'AllSpark Blue' details) but, since the head sculpt was never particularly accurate, the mangling they gave his face doesn't register as well as it might. They actually went so far as to remold the visor, which shows up at some angles... but the light-piping disguises it.
It's rather sad that the transformation joint which flips his legs down under his stubby torso wasn't modified to allow that authentic movie "You want a piece of me?"/"No... I want TWO!" experience, but leaving it unpegged and lying Jazz on his back gives an adequate representation of his demise.
So, amusingly, the one thing that encouraged me to shell out for a second iteration of one of the least impressive movie toys is the one thing not on show in this post: the gun, a bizarre mixture of the movie character's shielded cannon and a sort of rifle never before seen, depending on which way up it's mounted, and whether or not the rifle end is folded out. For more pictures of the weapon (not to mention further complaints about the model in general), take a look at the original movie Jazz post.
In many ways, it was quite canny of Hasbro to package the semi-authentic weapon with a toy that might otherwise have been a serious shelfwarmer: a below-average toy of an underutilised, undercharacterised character who died badly, which would only be picked up by people who, like me, wanted something better than the weird lance packaged with the original iteration. By the same token, it's something of a surprise that they bothered making a Human Alliance version... but it's good that they did, as it's everything the two Deluxes weren't.
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