Few Generations toys exemplify this better than Generations Kup, which finally gave the old Cybertronian warhorse from the 1986 animated movie a proper, contemporary Earth mode. Naturally it was a pickup truck... but really not the sort of thing I'd have expected. He'd also developed the 'Sergeant' prefix on his name, likely for trademark reasons, which would carry forward to the TF Prime figure (itself a sort of 'pre-paint' of a design intended to represent Ironhide).
There are some characters that shouldn't be altered too far from their original designs, but is Kup one of them?
Vehicle Mode:
Considering that just about every other version of Kup has been a futuristic/Cybertronian pickup truck, following the example of the original by not really having a functional bed at the back, it's nice to see this version of Kup turn into a halfway decent and quite real-looking pickup. There are several extremely cool features to this vehicle mode. First and foremost, the vehicle looks very much like a 21st century take on a classic (1940s-1950s) pickup - hints of the classic curves, but with the contemporary bulk - as if GMC had been asked to make a Topkick as if it had been designed in the 1950s, but for a movie set in the 21st Century. It's very much the best of both worlds... and I don't even like pickup trucks normally.
Secondly, it's one of the few TransFormers pickups with an actual bed, featuring both raised walls and a functional tailgate. This alone instantly makes Generations Kup cooler than just about any other pickup truck the toyline has ever released. Thinking about it, the only other figures I can remember having these two obvious features are the Binaltech/Alternators Dodge Ram variants. Every version of movie Ironhide I can think of cheated by adding the flatbed cover, and the TF Prime version just had robot junk occupying the space.
The paint job is fairly simple and minimal - only the outer sections of the front and rear bumper (where it reaches the wheel wells) are painted flat grey, with the central secations being bare teal plastic. Indicator lights are painted in orange on the front bumper, but there's no paint of any kind behind the colourless, transparent plastic of the rear indicator lights, while the headlights appear to have a backing of silver paint. The front grille and its frame are painted silver, and the truck bed - despite ending up as the soles fo the robot's feet - is painted with a slightly darker shade of teal. Other than that, the wing mirrors are painted grey and there's an Autobot insignia on the bonnet, so there's nothing fancy about the paint job. Considering the type of vehicle, I'm surprised the hubcaps weren't painted... though I'd also have been happy white sidewalls on the tyres, for a proper retro feel.
Another super cool feature is the option to attach his musket to the underside of the vehicle as a second exhaust pipe. There's one already there as permanent sculpted detail, but the other side simply features a channel through which the musket's barrel can be passed, while the stock plugs into a peg about a third of the way down the underside of the vehicle to secure it in place. As an alternative, the weapon is equipped with a C-clip, and the cab's roof features two attachment points. Due to the length of the grip, the gun has to be switched onto its side if you want it pointed forward, but the clip is on the end of a ball joint, so there's plenty of range.
Robot Mode:
Through no fault of his own, Kup does end up looking rather grey in robot mode. The combination of the teal plastic - which is actually quite a nice colour for him - along with grey paint and plastic, and an overall lack of paint applications conspires to blend what little colour there is and dull it all down.
It's a shame because he's a really cleverly-designed figure, with the front of the car reconfigured into a torso featuring the car's front wings as large, curved armour panels over the shoulders and down the sides of the chest, and the central section designed to closely resemble G1 Kup's animation model. Much as I like it, it also seems a little out-of-place considering the new look on the rest of the robot. It seems unnecessary to make it so slavishly G1-style when just about every other aspect of the figure is something new and unique. Particularly the upper section, where there's a faux windscreen in colourless, transparent plastic, above a band of metallic cyan paint (representing what was theoretically the windscreen on the G1 toy), and the waistband with its trapezoid raised central detail. Not to say it's bad, just a missed opportunity, even though it makes Generations Kup instantly recognisable. I can't decide which I find most incongruous - the faked, G1-style central chest, or the actual vehicle mode parts over the shoulders... but it's probably the former. At the waist, there appears to be a representation of the vehicle mode's grille, albeit unpainted and very much squared-off. I think it would have looked better painted silver, though that would emphasise how out-of-place the upper chest section is, considering it refers to details of the G1 toy's vehicle mode.
Most of the other paintwork is incidental - the forearms are painted the same darker teal as the soles of his feet and helmet, the belt is painted grey, the feet silver, and there are blocks of orange on the wrists, 'belt buckle' and on the shins. Considering this is one of those figures where the cab is made up of opaque plastic for the framework and transparent plastic for the windows, rather than a single piece of transparent plastic with the framework painted out, Kup ends up looking underpainted versus many other figures.
The included musket is far more musket-like than the G1 toy's weapon, and even looks suitably retro to better suit the figure who wields it. With a 5mm peg as its handle, it will fit into either fist, and he can even (just about) wield it with the spare hand supporting the barrel, though he has to be aiming to one side to accomplish this. It's a nicely detailed weapon, almost resembling something from the Star Wars toyline more than TransFormers, and the socket for the C-clip's ball joint is cleverly disguised as an ammo clip. There's even a sculpted trigger and trigger guard, though it's all filled in for stability. When not in use, the C-clip can be used to holster the weapon on Kup's back and, thanks to the ball joint, it can be mounted there however you like - either straight down or at an angle.
The head sculpt is neither G1 nor IDW-style - not the super-exaggerated Nick Roche style from the Spotlight, at least. There are certain indications that it's aiming in the ballpark of Last Stand of the Wreckers, published the year before, in that the sunken jowls have little ridges inside them. The face is gaunt and a little skeletal, with huge bags under the eyes and an open-mouthed, slightly angry expression. Pretty much all he's missing from the IDW version is the cy-gar that supposedly keeps him sane after the events in his Spotlight comic (and there's a Third Party replacement head which remedies that). The eyes are light-piped, but it's colourless transparent plastic painted over with a translucent blue that's a little too opaque to be truly effective. The helmet is a nice update on the G1 version and, again, very IDW-styled so, overall, it's a very well-designed head... just a little severe. and let down by a poor choice in translucent plastic - I honestly can't see why they didn't make it all translucent blue as that would have worked equally well (if not better) on the vehicle mode's windows.
Kup's transformation would actually be quite straightforward, but for the inclusion of a couple of spring-loaded parts (the truck's front wings) and a few fiddly panels sections. The front wings surround a portion of the torso that has to be rotated 180° in between them, and the part that holds them apart in vehicle mode is pretty much the last thing to move into place, so the wings have to be held apart manually during that rotation. Additionally, the side door panels, which end up on his arms, tab in to three separate sections in vehicle mode, and getting them all aligned nicely can be a pain. Meanwhile, for robot mode, they're supposed to be rotated 180°, but this leaves the longer section sticking out well beyond his hand and getting in the way of his wrist rotation. It's an ostruction even in its vehicle mode configuration, so the only advantages to the 'proper' orientation are that the shorter end doesn't clash with the wheels on his shoulders and the C-clip points are on the top of his forearm rather than the bottom. The transforation of the legs is fairly simple, but I'm still impressed by the way the truck bed and tailgate become his feet... even if that does leave a vast chasm in his shins because the back of the cab only fills half the space. Probably my least favourite aspects of this figure are the way the front wheels end up hanging off his shoulders, and the backpack never quite feels as though it's in the right place - it looks like it should go lower, but I don't feel like testing the hinge mountings in the transparent plastic inside the cab. On the upside, G1 Kup ended up with a similar hollow backpack, so it could be argued that it improves his resemblance.
All things considered, Generations Kup should be one of the better articulated figures in the line. He's one of the few with ankle tilt and, other than that, his legs are about average except that there's virtually no limit to the backward swing because Kup has one of the smallest butt-plates I've seen and no vehicle mode parts hanging that low. Additionally, his large footprint and ankle tilts make him very stable in a variety of poses, even standing on one leg. He has no waist articulation, at least partly due to the spring-loaded sections which hinge from his 'belt', but the arms are a mass of hinges and mushroom pegs. The elbows are particularly impressive, as they're double joints, but the hinge on the forearm actually allows it to bend inward, across the chest, rather than allowing the elbow to bend more than 90°. The only things that might limit the arms are the wheel hanging off the back of each shoulder and the transformation tabs on the forearm panels. Since the wheels are themselves on arms, and hinged at either end, they can be moved out of the way to achieve the desired arm position in almost every case, but the tabs on the car doors get in the way of their own rotation and affect the range of the elbow unless the forearm is bent inward slightly. The head is on a ball joint with only two hinderances to its movement - the protruding chin (angling the head down slightly allows even that to pass the collar pieces either isde of the head) and the backpack's transformation hinge... which is already well beyond anything like the natural range of motion for a human head. My one gripe with his articulation is that bending his knees is very likely to partially transform him, as the lower leg will move but the knee/shin plate will stay put unless it's held in place, because it doesn't actually clip together anywhere.
Kup is an odd figure. Technically, he's very good, if perhaps a little overengineered. Transformation isn't as fun as it could be due to the spring-loaded front wings and the arm panels, but I certainly wouldn't say he's one of the worst Deluxes I've handled. His feet seem clownishly large thanks, partly, due to the hole in the lower part of the shin, and the mass of panels on the top half of the robot is a little distracting. I don't think I'd ever consider this figure to be one of my favourites, even from its own portion of the Generations line, because it's so fussy, but it's clearly been designed by someone who liked Kup, or at least had enough respect for the character to blend a new, appropriately retro vehicle mode with a strong homage to the animation model in robot mode, and the head sculpt is excellent.
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