My reason for not buying standard Ligerjack was mainly that I disliked his colourscheme... so, naturally, when the 'Dark' version was announced, it made it onto my want list immediately.
Beast Mode:
While I wasn't massively interested in the toys based on any of the characters from the planet Animatros - acting as a sort of Beast Wars/Beast Machines homage within the Galaxy Force toyline - I have to admit that I absolutely love the biomechanical aesthetic they used. In many ways, it's an improvement on the look of Beast Machines, while retaining its core concept. It improves on the sculpted detail without resorting to weirdly-placed translucent plastic or lurid colourschemes, and some of the beastformerss were objectively quite well designed, even if they didn't quite light my candle.
Ligerjack certainly looks pretty fearsome in his beast mode, but he's also quite blocky and boxy - particularly the back legs, which have a sort of 'unfinished' look to them, both in terms of their overall shape and the gappiness within the knee. The outer face of the rear thighs are nicely sculpted with a mix of mechanical and organic-looking detail, but the forward and rear faces aren't as interesting and end up basically flat, while the inner face of thigh and the upper/innermost part of the hips feature more of the cable/tube detail present on the torso, just behind the shoulders. By comparison, the lower part of the legs and the feet seem comparatively plain.
The body and head feature more intricate bio-mechanical detail as well as some amazing scupted hair for the silver-painted mane - including a plait running down each side of his chest - which then continues into parts of the shoulders. Unfortunately these areas have not been painted to match, and the plain black plastic masks much of the detail. The bio-mechanical detailing continues down the forelegs, mainly on the inner faces and on the back of the elbow but, again, none of this is highlighted with any paint.
The colourscheme here is very reminiscent of a Nemesis Prime/Scourge from G1-style continuities, albeit with a greater emphasis on grey and silver than black. Metallic cyan - not quite the traditional teal, but close enough - has been used for his claws, leg joints, collar, the fronts of his thighs, his groin and the armour plate on his forehead. Red has been used for his eyes and on the pairs of cords which run over the back of his head from behind the ears, breaking up the silver mane. White paint has been added below the eyes and around the upper lip, providing a nice bit of contrast on the face. Further white paint appears on the front of his chest and the rearmost set of spines down his back, leading to his tail. The weirdest part of the paint job is the curious 'tribal tattoo' design on each shoulder, not only because it's surrounding his Decepticon insignia, but because it's not been painted on using the metallic cyan - it's a paler, flat, more greenish blue.
Ligerjack is one of the lucky ones whose gimmick can be deployed just as effectively, albeit with a slightly different look, in both the alternate mode and the robot mode - each foreleg has a key slot on the outer face which triggers the release of grey claws from his wrists. These claws are one of the holdovers from his original form as Jackshot, who essentially appeared to be Wolverine as a TransFormer. In beast mode, these lay down against his feet, almost making it look as if his feet have been enlarged... except that he has four primary toes (the unpainted 'thumb' folding flush with the soles of his feet from just ahead of the wrist) but only three of these claws. The sculpt is quite reminiscent of the claws on a Predator's gauntlet, though they're far thicker, and there's a bridging piece across all three claws, which incorporates part of the key gimmick's latching mechanism.
Surprisingly, given his size, Dark Ligerjack includes an electronic gimmick, powered by two AAA batteries - though it's nothing special. Pushing down on the armour plate on his forehead causes the mouth to open and the speaker embedded in his left side emits a guttural roar. It's a neat enough feature, but feels a little lacking, and the necessity of a battery compartment leads to a rather unsightly, squared-off underside to the body.
Aside from his claws, Ligerjack's tail will function as a weapon in his robot mode... here, it's just plugged into his rear end and sticks out straight behind him, albeit with a slight curve in place of any articulation.
Robot Mode:
Ligerjack really is not a pretty sight in robot mode. Even with his beast mode's blockiness, there's a certain elegance to it... which is entirely lost once he transforms. The top half is far stronger and more coherent than the bottom, and it's also where most of his bulk is. The ugly, blocky shoulders make a bit more sense with the robot's head rising up between them, while the beast head sticks out of his chest in the grand traditions of many a Beast Wars figure. The back has a massive combiner peg equivalent, used to connect Ligerjack's third form - the so-called 'Savage Claw Mode' - to either Galaxy Convoy or Master Megatron/Galvatron. It's not the worst backpack I've ever seen on a TransFormers toy, but it feels as if there should have been a better way to conceal it, considering the three flaps that covered it in beast mode are now just hanging over Ligerjack's hips and backside.
However, it's what's below these flaps that really lets the figure down - those legs looks as if they belong to an entirely different figure thanks to their bizarre proportions. Considering the way the body narrows, the hips - which looked perfectly alright in beast mode - now look ridiculously bulbous. The boxiness of the upper legs is exaggerated by the way they hang off a nicely tapered torso, the gaping hole at the knees is unsightly, and the miniscule shins run contrary to the brand's usual loose interpretation of humanoid leg proportions. The feet are literally just the beast mode feet, propped up by large slabs of heel hanging off the calves, giving the impression of the world's most awkward looking designer stiletto heels.
Because the upper body is simply the reoriented front half of beast mode, the only new paintwork visible in robot mode is the metallic cyan running down from the waist to the tip of the groin, and the metallic cyan panels just above the knee (though these were only slightly obscured in beast mode, rather than outright hidden, due to the orientation of the legs). The paint work on the upper body was designed to blend reasonably well with the application on the lower body, but the two patches of white now look a little unnecessary. The block applications of metallic cyan above the knee are a poor fit, but I can't imagine any other paint colour there looking any better.
The weapon accessory - beast mode's tail repurposed as a whip/flail-type weapon - is not only extremely dull, but also extremely difficult to pose effectively. Since Ligerjack's hands are also his paws, they don't offer any standard grip, so the tail plugs into the insides of his fingers via either of two smalls peg on the base, which fit into the matching hole inside his little finger. With the socket so near the knuckle joint, and the thumb being straight and rigid, it never really looks as if Ligerjack is holding the tail, and the fact that it has a built-in curve makes it halfway decent as a tail, but impractical for the toy to wield convicingly as a weapon. Thankfully, the claws are vastly more effective and, once deployed, spring forward and move along with the hand as far as their own hinges will allow.
Ligerjack's head sculpt is little more than an upscaled version of Jackshot's, made a little curvier now it's not required to fit within the square cutout of a spare tyre. He still has silver paint over the uncovered area of his face around his mouth - now featuring a pair of large, curved lower cuspids protruding from between his lips - with red paint replacing the translucent red plastic for Jackshot's light-piped eyes, but still set within a mask-like area of unpainted plastic. The helmet now featres a dash of red inside his main forehead crest and, in keeping with the rest of the paint job, the band across his forehead is painted metallic cyan. The vents on either side of his chin have been reduced and flattened out, while the blocky antennae of his former body have been replaced with what appear to be diminutive animal ears, poking up just ahead of his lush, silver pony tail.
Savage Claw Mode:
Because, somehow, that's actually a real thing... despite the removal from the final toy of several aspects that would have made it work - not least the fingers and thumbs. The former have been erased entirely, and no indication of them remains other than the space at the knee that they'd have folded into... but the thumbs would have extended from the domed protrusions from the sides of the robot's knees. What's left is a substantially different configuration which doesn't resemble the CGI version in the slightest, and only barely resembles a (two-taloned) hand if one of the robot's heel spurs is repurposed as a clumsy, stubby thumb.
In the grand tradition of Beast Wars, Ligerjack's transformation is essentially just standing up onto two legs, with the back legs straightening out and deploying heel chunks, while the torso breaks open in the middle and reconfigures via a pair of arms mounted on either side of his belly. The most difficult aspect of it is deploying the robot's head, and that's just because of very stiff joints and extremely solid clips holding it in either position. The way the waist section opens and reconfigures out is fairly novel, but leaves untidy flaps over his hips and backside, though these don't affect his articulation...
...Because, frankly, his articulation is pretty appalling. Sure, the shoulders can rotate a full 360°, his elbows bend about 130°, there's a rotation joint just below the elbow and the hands can sort of grip thanks to hinged knuckles and an independent thumb... but the only outward movement on his arms comes via an ugly hinge in what would be the middle of his bicep. His arms actually have to be hinged outward to clear his hip skirts, so he always has a weird gap in his upper arms. The legs, meanwhile, have great range - about 270° by my guess - swinging forward and back, but there's no rotation at the hip, and they can swing out by only about 15° (a single ratchet click) because the joint is about a third of the way down the thigh. The knees may be able to swing over 180° thanks, equally, to beast mode's attempt at digitigrade legs and the hopelessly botched Savage Claw Mode, but there's a hideous gap visible at all times due to the missing parts. The feet are almost a saving grace, as the toes and heels are independently mobile, and are easily able to support the limited range of poses this figure can adopt, despite the lack of ankle tilt. Probably the worst thing is that the head is barely mobile thanks to the slim channel it sits within. For the most part, his articulation works better in beast mode than in robot mode but, even there, the back legs are hopeless as beast legs - the thighs are too long, the lower legs are way too short, and the legs as a whole completely fail to function as digitigrade legs should.
It's interesting to note - comparing this finished toy to the early design artwork - that not only have the Savage Claw Mode's intended fingers and thumbs been removed, but there are signs of a waist joint as well. Such a joint would have made more sense of his weirdly tall and narrow waist, and the artwork suggests it would have been just below the smaller circular indentation on the front of the point where the reoriented body plugs in, and where the torso just starts to narrow down toward the groin and hip joints. This would not only have improved Ligerjack's poseability (possibly in both modes), but improved the range of motion available to Savage Claw Mode. Additionally, images of the grey prototype it appears that the original, complete design featured additional claws would have been deployed from Ligerjack's shoulders, as extra key-activated features, not to mention a more mechanical chest/belly part which would fold out and conceal the beast face in robot mode.
There's exception to every rule and when it comes to black/dark repaints, Ligerjack is it. The base mold doesn't look half bad in beast mode thanks to some incredible sculpted biomechanical detail, but its robot mode is lacking on many levels. It's bad enough that I'm not even sure the missing parts for the intended Savage Claw Mode would have made him any better. Given I didn't bother with the standard version - either Galaxy Force or Cybertron - and this mold was used, three years later, as a surprisingly effective BotCon Razorclaw, I probably could have passed on this figure... but Galaxy Force just kept enticing me with its dark repaints.
I'd imagine this was a bit more expensive than Hasbro's release (renamed 'Nemesis Breaker' for a bit of brand consistency) because it was an import, which just goes to show how daft my black repaint compulsion can be.
No comments:
Post a Comment