Masterpiece MP26 Road Rage

(Femme-Bot Friday #58)

I've more or less given up on the Masterpiece line, as it slips ever further down the slipperly slope of 'animation accuracy', but I'm still a huge fan of Generation 1 because of the range of cars it turned into awesome alien robots. While I only had a handful of the Diaclone-derived G1 Autobots at the time, I've filled in a few of the blanks over the years with both Hasbro and Takara/Takara Tomy's reissues, even managing to grab some of the e-HOBBY specials along the way.

One of my particular favourites was the Corvette Stingray and, while I own the Hasbro Commemorative Series version of Tracks, the Femme-Bot repaint released by e-HOBBY was never available at a price I was happy with... The Masterpiece version was available at TFNation this year, and, after much consideration, ended up being my final purchase of the show...

Vehicle Mode:
While I do like the Concept Stingray used for Sideswipe in the live action movies, I don't feel it was the right car for the character, and the colour was hopelessly wrong (not to mention boring - a silver vehicle often makes for a visually uninteresting robot mode). The earlier version of the Stingray (the 1978 model, I believe) is, to this day, a gorgeous automobile, with far more character than many more recent vehicles. The disproportionately long front end reminds me of one of my all-time favourite cars, the Series 1 E-type Jaguar, but this car is slightly more subtle in its curves, and unmistakeably American in its styling.

The first thing that struck me about this model, since it's packaged in vehicle mode, was how small it is. I knew that modern Masterpiece cars were smaller than Binaltech cars, but this thing is only about one third bigger than the G1 toy, and not much larger than a contemporary (non-Studio Series) Deluxe class toy. I may be a little out of touch, but I got back into TransFormers via the Masterpiece line because of MP01 Convoy and MP03 Starscream, so the reduction in size diminished the impact of the figures just as much as the later aesthetic shift.

Aside from the fact that I'm not keen on the direction Masterpiece models have taken more recently, I didn't pick up MP Tracks because I have both the G1 and Binaltech versions of Tracks. Granted, the MP version has a snazzy metallic blue paint job, where this is just a flat - albeit beautifully rich - red, but I really only picked this version up because it's a Femme-Bot, which is hardly going to be apparent in vehicle mode, and the red parts are less prominent in robot mode anyway. Even so, and particularly with this being the second iteration of this mold, it was disappointing to find this one looks appears to have been made using bare red plastic - not even gloss-coated, and nowhere near as shiny as Alien Attack's Firage - and I reckon it would have looked significantly better in a similar colour to Alternity Cliffjumper.

She shares a couple of things with Tracks in terms of her paint job - the flame decal on the bonnet, silver painted hubcaps and (surprisingly) painted tail lights, as well as a coat of paint to highlight the Chevrolet logos on the front and rear of the car. Sadly, both also share omissions, like the side indicators (front and rear are sculpted in, but neither are painted) and the slots for the numberplates are blank - painted black at the front, unpainted at the back - ripe for Reprolabels.

While the vehicle isn't terribly broken up with obvious transformation seams, there are several points where the illusion of this being a model car is broken. The obvious downside to the way these figures are designed, versus Binaltech, is that the inside of the vehicle mode actually looks worse than the G1 toy. The original, being derived from Diaclone, had a hatch in the roof to allow one of the mini figures to be dropped into the cockpit. In much the same place, this one has a rotating panel on the roof - blank on one side, Autobot symbol on the other, for robot mode - but the interior is a nondescript collection of robot mode bits and bobs not even vaguely resembling that of a real car. The bonnet does open - awkwardly, and not actually following all the right seams - to reveal sculpted and painted engine-like detailing, but I'd still say the Binaltech figure was closer to being a Masterpiece than this. There's a transformation seam down both of the doors, millimetres away from the sculpted door edge, which is as ugly as it is unnecessary, but then there's also a massive metal pin head in each of the side windows and a huge gap between the front windscreen and the bonnet. Whether it's the fault of the design or the execution, it doesn't look anywhere near as good as it should.

Straight out of the box, Road Rage has holes in the car door, and two sets of wing mirrors still on their plastic sprues. Mounting the mirrors is easy enough, and they don't seem overly inclined to come out again, but it's nice to have a spare set just in case. What I don't understand is why they're separate to begin with - I see no obvious reason why they couldn't have been made part of the car door panels, unless perhaps they felt leaving the mirrors off by default made it more accurate to the G1 toy?


Flight Mode:
Another throwback to Diaclone, the Tracks mold had a partially-transformed 'flight mode' as a bonus feature. Since this was carried over to MP Tracks, it's naturally available on Road Rage as well... but there's something not quite right about it. Where the G1 toy added his backpack and missile launchers to its flight mode, the MP version has a pair of flip-out fins on the back of the car and, as far as I can see, no effective way of deploying the missiles. Road Rage wasn't packaged with a flight stand either, so I had to borrow one from one of the Iron Factory Femme-Bots to make the most of flight mode in my photos.

What she does have is what's described as a 'Laser Ram' - which plugs into the numberplate slot at the front of the car - and a handgun that plugs into her underside via a secondary peg. The stand can then plug into a socket on the top of the gun, rather than the socket on the inside of the vehicle.

Flight mode wasn't particularly convincing or stable on G1 Tracks... The Masterpiece version fixes exactly half of that, by having the forearms/intakes plug into the sides of the car but, obviously, this comes at the expense of the car mode, which had to have sockets sculpted into both sides, just behind the front wheels. The main downside to this version, for me, is that it can be argued that the robot's backpack and the missile launchers become a visible means of propulsion for the flight mode. Since the backpack has been completely redesigned and can't really be deployed effectively in this mode, it's not clear what keeps this 'flight mode' airborne.


Robot Mode:
Masterpiece Tracks came along back when the Masterpiece aesthetic was still striking a halfway decent balance between updating the toy and matching the animation model, so its robot mode - and, by extension, Road Rage's robot mode - was not an instant turn-off. Most of her parts are reused from Tracks, with the only visual concessions to 'robo-femininity' being redesigned, curvy thighs, a narrower groin area, and the implication of robo-boobs on the white collar section at the top of her chest. To be honest, I think most, if not all of this was entirely unnecessary. While I do like Femme-Bots whose femininity is telegraphed by humanoid proportions, lithe limbs and robo-boobs, G1 Road Rage was identical to G1 Tracks in every detail bar colour, even down to the battlemasked face. I don't think there was any pressing need to adjust any part of this mold to make it appear more 'feminine' and, to be honest, the net result to my eyes is that she appears knock-kneed. I guess I should be thankful they didn't alter the sculpt of the feet and give her fold-out stiletto heels...

Robot mode introduces a lot more variety of colour, starting with white, black and dark blue plastic parts, as well as white, blue and red paintwork on the wings, cuffs, knees, shins and feet. The latter is a selection of applications designed to resemble the stickers on the G1 toy, but simplified to the level of the Tracks animation model from the TV show. There appears to be fewer paint applications on Road Rage than there were on Tracks - for example, none on the black mounting for her backpack rockets, and none on her crotch plate. Her Autobot insignia is set on a black panel on her chest, somewhat reminiscent of the rub signs on some G1 toys.

From the front and - surprisingly - the back, Road Rage looks pretty solid and coherent... but almost any other view makes visible the gaping chasm between the front of her upper body (which is basically all there is of it) and the empty car shell that makes up her backpack. Thus, posing her any any particular way reveals empty spaces in all kinds of awkward places. On the upside, there's a decent amount of sculpted detail on the robot parts - mostly just panel lines, but a few additional features are dotted about - and I particularly like the details on the inner face of the lower legs, which is designed to resemble the look of the box art of the G1 Tracks toy. I feel it could have been made a bit more prominent - a spring-loaded section to bulk out the lower leg, or a slimmer shin plate would have been preferable, but additional paintwork would likely have been sufficient. The feet are even sculpted with the pipework detail that appears on the stickers applied to the G1 toy's feet. Disappointingly, where the paintwork on MP Tracks matches up nicely between the feet and the lower leg, Road Rage has white paint at the bottom of the shin plate, then unpainted red plastic leading down to her foot. The white, both on her shins and her thighs, seems out of place versus the G1 figure, but I wouldn't object to it quite so much if either the white continued right down to the foot, or there was some red at the bottom of the shin plate - I may have to order the Reprolabels set for this one...

One of the things I preferred about MP Road Rage, compared to Tracks, was that she comes packaged with a Masterpiece version of the original G1 toy's handgun, rather than the piddly little pistol derived from Tracks' animation model. It's plain black plastic and doesn't have a great deal more sculpted detail than the G1 version. While it has a grip, it's not designed to peg into the palm of the hand, as with most other Masterpiece weapons, thanks to the side panels which surround the hand. Instead, to ensure its stability in her hands, a peg at the back of the gun tabs into a slot at her wrist. It's not the most solid connection, requiring little by way of pressure to remove it, but at least it doesn't pop out by itself. It restricts her wrist rotation, as the stock sits over the end of her forearm, but the upshot is that it seems designed to look as though it transforms out of her arm. The backpack is G1 levels of wasteful, with a titchy, unpainted black panel intended to represent the massive chunk of extra plastic that the missile launchers attach to on the G1 figure. It features a fair bit of sculpted detail, but it's almost entirely lost to the eye due to its size and the absence of paint. The launchers themselves are almost ridiculously petite and barely register when glancing briefly at the robot - at that size, they may as well be Wi-Fi aerials rather than missile launchers.

The head sculpt follows the example of MP Tracks in that it has a humanoid face rather than a battlemask but, rather than simply re-using Tracks' head in Road Rage's colours, they did at least sculpt an entirely unique head, with a redesigned helmet and a narrower, more overtly feminine face. The overall sculpt is pretty good - the specific details are clearly derived from Tracks, but adapted to suit the character. She's quite pouty, but not excessively so, and they didn't highlight her lips in another paint colour - the whole face is silver, with the eyes picked out in the standard Autobot cyan. The central part of her forehead crest features a dot of red paint to further differentiate her from Tracks, whose crest was plain white.


Twincast Accessory:
Where MP Tracks came with several accessories - not least its own flight stand - Road Rage only has a repaint of the 'Blaster' boombox, as Twincast. It's a small chunk of painted plastic, and not especially impressive in any way... It can tab into a slot on Road Rage's backside but that's the extent of the interaction it offers and, to be perfectly honest, mine went straight back into the box after taking these photos. I wasn't expecting something like a World's Smallest Twincast, but I just don't see the point in this sort of accessory.


I'm in two minds about the engineering behind this figure's transformation. On the one hand, it's a huge advance on the G1 toy in terms of complexity, and yet achieves a visually similar result - which is ideal. The main difference is that the backpack and missile launchers are integrated into the robot rather than being separate attachments, but also I think the way the hands transform out of the forearms is genius and very tidy. On the other hand, many parts of it feel floppy during transformation or don't peg in securely in robot mode (the knees, the backpack... the head). The parts that bug me the most are that the bonnet doesn't sit flush in vehicle mode (the two halves seem warped, such that they'll get close to flush either at the front or by the hinges) and the backpack actually pops off its mushroom peg almost every time I transform her. People have complained about the floppy core joint in FansToys Rouge but, for my money, this is far worse, and the fact that this joint is in between three separate hinges, and placed awkwardly on the robot's back makes it quite difficult to reattach. Additionally, the head is mounted on a ball joint on a small hinged piece that doesn't affix to anything, nor does it have even a soft stopping point to mark its properly deployed position. This, to me, is absolutely unforgivable, and really besmirches the 'Masterpiece' brand. Funnily enough, the way the chest pegs into the shoulders is much the same as on RID2015 Sideswipe, and only barely more effective.

The choices made regarding this mold's joints are just plain bizarre in some places. Elbows and knees are ratcheted - the former a little too stiffly for some of the nearby friction joints, the latter ending up remarkably floppy in between clicks (not to mention leaving the front of the vehicle mode able to tilt independently because it only pegs together at the thighs) - but many of the parts where joints are mounted are so small or thin that friction joints were the only viable option. This naturally means that some of the joints are tighter than others, and I find the right arm on mine is less inclined to hold a post than the right, and freqently starts to sag at the shoulder under the weight of her weapon. The hips are pretty standard, though the upper-thigh rotation joint is extremely stiff on both legs. The feet are side-mounted two separate hinges and have a decent range - limited more by the surrounding leg parts than the joint itself - but there's a large, unsightly gap between the top of the foot and the bottom of the shin, because the foot pegs into position on the outer side of the leg. Looking inside the robot, there's a pinned joint just above the waist rotation joint that looks as though it's intended to give her some ab crunch, but it's really thin and actually not designed to bend at all - the pin is simply fastening two parts together, as far as I can see.

I'm not sure I would have felt better about this if she'd been given more of a G1 toy-accurate head sculpt. Takara Tomy did release a third version of this mold - the Decepticon MP25L Loudpedal - but, while the head sculpt on that is closer to the appearance of the G1 toy, it's as if it's been run through an animation model filter, and really doesn't look much better... But this is simply more evidence that the Masterpiece line - as it is now - simply isn't for me.

Of all my purchases at this year's TFNation, Road Rage is the most disappointing, and particularly sad if this mold is any indication of the state of more recent Masterpiece figures. While writing this post, I actually got my G1 reissue Tracks out of its box to compare the two, and I feel that the Masterpiece has failed to capture a significant proportion of the magic of that - now 38-year-old - toy. It's more complex, but flimsier, better articulated, but fussier and structurally unsound in both modes. I have to confess that part of me was hoping that this purchase would encourage me to buy some of the other Masterpiece toys - particularly the likes of Prowl and Wheeljack, as I'm fond of their vehicle modes as well - but it's actually had the opposite effect. Nice as it is to have another Femme-Bot in my collection, and I do rather like the head sculpt even if I might have preferred something more toy-accurate, the most positive spin I can put on this is that I paid about £10 less than the average cost of the G1 Masterpiece figures. That said, it looks as though that's about par for the course with both MP Tracks and Road Rage, so it wasn't even a special deal.