Due to distribution issues, I never did get my hands on the original DotM Deluxe class toy, and ended up skipping on the Human Alliance figure because they all got downsized for the third movie, and Soundwave's robot mode proportions were bonkers. I did eventually pick up the repaint of the original Deluxe, Darkside Soundwave, from Takara Tomy's Movie Advanced line at one of the London Comic Cons, but he lacked the original's Mech Tech weapons and his robot mode is a bit lankier and slimmer than the CGI character from the movie.
The Studio Series version came along with a more accurate-looking robot mode and a fully silver-painted Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and, given the secondary market cost of the previous versions now, he seemed like the best option... at least until a Masterpiece version - either official or Third Party - arrives.
Vehicle Mode:
Mercedes used to make some quite strikingly ugly cars, in my opinion. They all tended to appear boxy, like bland knock-offs of smarter, more refined vehicles. The vehicle used for movie Soundwave's inevitable
The entire car body is painted silver - almost a surprise, considering both the original DotM Deluxe and Human Alliance figures used bare grey plastic instead. The extent of the paintwork doesn't exaggerate the transformation seams - it's a thorough coating rather than an external spray job - but it doesn't really help disguise them either, and there are certain points on this toy where I feel the designers and/or engineers could have done a far better job of keeping the transformations seams together with the lines of the real-life car. The most obvious seam is that of the boot, since the part connected to the rear windscreen doesn't really peg down very tightly, and doesn't sit flush with the sides of the vehicle as they wrap around the back.
Aside from the silver paint, the only other decoration is a weird, greenish cream colour painted over the headlights, black for the main grille at the front, and dashes of red for the tail lights... though their distinctive black frames have been omitted. Additionally the smaller sections of grill on the front, back, sides and bonnet haven't been painted black, so he looks a little unfinished. Even having the hubcaps painted - something frequently omitted these days - doesn't really help. It's no surprise that the indicators sculpted into the wing mirrors aren't painted in, but it's weird to see that the indicators that sit just ahead of the front wheels aren't even there as sculpted detail. Other details, potentially easier to overlook, like the disc brakes and windscreen wipers, are faithfully recreated, and all of the car's badges are present as sculpted detail, though the small badge at the very front of the bonnet is represented as a very small and subtle bump that barely registers without any additional highlighting.
The windows - and, consequently, parts of the roof, boot and doors - are molded in clear, colourless plastic, which leaves all the internal robot parts visible. While I like windows on TransFormers toys to be at least translucent, there are instances where the concealment of robot parts should take precedence, and Soundwave is very much one of those. The tops of the thighs directly infringe on the windscreen, since their own silver paint is just as visible as that of the car's roof, while his backside and thighs occupy the remaining space behind the windscreen. Various leg parts are visible through all the other windows and, while all this is nothing really new - even within Studio Series specifically - it adds to the untidiness and lack of polish on this figure. I'd almost have preferred the plastic to have been left unpainted and grey if it meant some of the finer details could be painted in.
The small, rubbery Laserbeak figure is accommodated in this mode by a small slot at the back of the roof, into which his knee tab can be inserted. It's not the most elegant or effective solution, and I'm not entirely sure why it was deemed necessary for his minion to interact with vehicle mode at all... But I suppose it's fairly cool that an in-scale representation of Laserbeak can be made to look as if he's flying low over Soundwave's roof as he drives along...
Robot Mode:
Two of the many inconsistencies in the Michael Bay movies were Soundwave's appearance and behaviour... even though he appeared in just two of the films, and only briefly in the first of them. He went from being a satellite, orbiting Earth, observing the planet and facilitating communications between the Decepticons, to being one of the ground troops, with no explanation for the transition. I didn't mind the change, since he seemed a little wasted in Revenge of the Fallen, and the design for his robot appearance in Dark of the Moon - which appeared quite some time ahead of the film's release thanks to the videogame tie-in - looked pretty awesome.
Large, powerfully-built, and unmistakeably bearing the Mercedes logo in the middle of his chest, the ground-based version of movie Soundwave was at least fairly distinct from the legions of cut-and-pasted, generic bare-metal robo-skeletons that teleported in from the moon for DotM's big battle, but there was little to link him to the G1 character - or any other incarnation of Soundwave, for that matter. In terms of his overall look, Studio Series has more or less done him justice. Where the original figure was quite lanky, this one is short and stocky. Where the original had comparatively small feet, this one has ginormous hooves. The torso is made up of the vehicle mode's actual front plugged into the waist/hip section which was contained behind the windscreen in vehicle mode, where the original did a weird swap between actual vehicle parts and faked vehicle parts. The upshot of that specific point is that Studio Series Soundwave's chest has the required width, features his pectoral 'speakers', and has the shards overlapping the top of the chest, but it loses out on the bumper sections compressing in over the car's front grille. It looks surprisingly good, all things considered, but there's clearly something missing there. Both versions of the toy have the car's front wheels over the shoulders, behind his head, but they're rather tidier here. Both also feature large amounts of the car's bonnet, windscreens, roof and boot folded up on the back, but it's slightly better compressed here, with the boot actually tabbing in to the bonnet on the underside, rather than hanging down below his knees.
Aside from lack of faithfulness to the CGI in the chest, the rest of the sculpted detail is fairly good, with a mix of light and dark plastics uses on the arms and legs, but paint has been comparatively sparingly applied to robot mode. The thighs have a good covering of silver paint on their outer armour plates, with bare dark grey plastic visible on the insides, while all the tech detailing of the shins, feet, waist/groin and upper arms is unpainted. All the plastics used have some kind of metallic/pearlescent swirling, so they look vaguely metallic, but a few more touches of silver would have improved things dramatically - particularly with all the intricate detailing of his belly.
The most interesting factor of the design revealed in the game was the array of glowing disks on his body and forearms - surely some sort of acoustic weapon which would be used to dramatic effect in the movie? Sadly not... Aside from sparking menacingly when he first revealed himself to Sam and Carly, they seemed to be entirely cosmetic, and the only weapon he used was an oversized handgun. All the discs are present as sculpted detail on the forearms, but only those on the outer faces of his arms are painted, and then only in silver, because they're on parts which have been painted thoroughly for vehicle mode. The two discs on the front faces of his forearms are unpainted dark grey plastic, and either some metallic blue or some AllSpark Blue would have brought them to life a little more effectively.
Surprisingly, considering most of the Deluxe class figures have had at least one weapon accessory, and disappointingly reminiscent of Movie Advenced Darkside Soundwave being released without the original version's Mech Tech cannon, Laserbeak is the one and only accessory included with the Studio Series figure. He can perch on either of Soundwave's forearms via a very loosely c-clip compatible bar (literally - a c-clip accessory from a Generations figure circa 2010 will fit around the bar and just about hold onto it, but the diameter of the bar here is smaller than that of the clip)... and that's about it. Good as he might look, he's a singularly useless accessory to the main figure.
Soundwave's head changed quite considerably between Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon, losing the visor and replacing his weird mandibles with something approaching a defined - albeit a vicious and somewhat skeletal-looking - mouth. This toy does a reasonable job of replicating the CGI from DotM, but the figure as a whole is far too small for any of the finer details to really make any sense. Making matters worse, the front half of the head was molded in the same metallic grey rubber as Laserbeak - most likely to avoid the risk of his antennae breaking during transformation - and the face has been darkened with an application of gunmetal paint, with the eyes picked out with little dots of red. The CGI face didn't really fit Soundwave but, to be honest, this toy's weirdly pitted, stubby-nosed mug reminds me of Karg from the 1980s live action Masters of the Universe movie. It's a fine example of the CGI artists putting way too much detail into a face that's traditionally as neutral and featureless as possible, leading to a distorted mess of a toy.
Laserbeak:
As small, rubbery accessory figures go, Laserbeak is - in some ways, at least - an improvement on the likes of the Brains and Wheelie mini-figures included with Studio Series Shockwave. The level of detail is pretty phenomenal, with his segmented wings, neck and tail, and even the blades in his turbines all clearly sculpted. The neck and tail are sculpted with a curve to give the illusion of movement, but there are no actual joints. Finer details on the head are somewhat fudged and, to my eyes, he looks more like a sphinx cat without the ears than any kind of mechanical bird.
The material used is a sort of metallic grey rubber that catches the light exceptionally well on the wings, but not so well where there's a lot of detail. The only paintwork here is the blobs of red on his head to indicate Laserbeak's bulbous optics. I wouldn't have expected much more, even given the surprisingly good paintwork on the smaller rubber figures packaged with Shockwave, but it's disappoiting that he didn't get a black wash to make him look less rubbery.
His guns are just about present as two prongs extending forward from the collar area but, being such slim parts cast in rubber, they're inclined to end up warped - mine bend slightly up and inward, toward the neck.
Since he needs to attach to Soundwave in both his robot and vehicle modes, there's a small tab on the front of his knees to plug into Soundwave's car roof, while the feet incorporate c-clips to grasp the rods on his wrists. The hips have a range of well over 90° to facilitate attaching to either mode, but the legs are also molded in the soft rubber, with the connecting nubs inclined to work their way out of the sockets on the main body. They don't seem to pop off without being pulled with some force but, as the nubs work loose, they cause the legs to warp outward at the hips, leading to unsightly gaps.
One of the drawbacks of the Dark of the Moon version of Soundwave was its overly fussy transformation, with most of the sides of the car ending up wrapped around the lower leg to form the sole of the foot, and a somewhat overcomplicated transformation of the arms. In some respects, SS Soundwave's arms are fairly similar in the way they transform, but are made up using the majority of the vehicle's side panels, making for a simpler transformation, but a less tidy-looking end result. The doors wrap around the forearms and peg in at the wrist once the hands are folded out, leaving the wing mirrors sticking out from the elbows. The car panels on the shoulders are far better handled than on the DotM toy, but it's still not entirely clear what their optimal or intended position is. The wheels peg in more securely than on the DotM toy, though I do find that one of them is more reluctant to peg in due to the way the joint is organised. Essentially, the wheels clip into place at the front of the car, and their clips also provide the sockets for the pegs on Soundwave's shoulders... but, on mine, the left wheel tends to pop out slightly rather than fitting around the shoulder peg as intended. The legs feature a rudimentary form of Automorph in that, as the rearmost halves of the car are rotated into place, the feet automatically click into the appropriate position. This works perfectly when going from vehicle to robot, but the feet tab into their robot mode position a little too securely, and have to be manually untabbed for transforming back into vehicle mode. The most troublesome aspect of the transformation is the outer sections of the car's front end, which transform between vehicle and robot mode configurations via ball joints, and there's barely enough clearance to rotate them round. Bumping into one of the tabs - either the larger one that secures the pieces in vehicle mode or the smaller one that just about keeps them in place for robot mode - will invariably be enough to pop the ball joint apart, but it is easy enough to reconnect. As with the car versions of Shatter and Dropkick, Soundwave's head is mounted on the underside of a section of bonnet that must be flipped over, but it moves more smoothly on this figure than on either of the other two.
Despite his shorter stature, the articulation available on this version of Soundwave is far superior to the DotM version. The rotation of the arm around the shoulder is completely unhindered by the car parts behind the head, though the side panel acting as shoulder armour can start to clash if hinged back up toward its vehicle mode position. Also, the right shoulder on mine has a couple of stopping points due to mold flashing on the mushroom peg. Bicep swivel is unrestricted, though the elbow range is a touch under 90° because the arm can't quite straighten thanks to the large tab on the back. The wrists only move for transformation, and their movement is restricted once the door panel is pegged in. Soundwave has no waist articulation, just like his predecessor, but his legs are less restricted by the car shell parts hanging off his back, both because they fold up more efficiently and because the main chunk is hinged to be able to move out of the way. Thus, the hips have a potential swing range of about 180°, and are able to swing well over 90° forward before they have to be swung outward slightly to clear his torso. Outward swing in and of itself is seriously restricted by the thigh armour, which extends upward from the hip, but the swivel joint allows it to be twisted back behind the torso details. Even so, it barely makes 45°. The knees bend to more or less 90°, but there's no additional articulation in the feet. The biggest disappointment is that the head, while mounted on a ball joint, is severly restricted in its turn range, caused equally by protrusions from the underside of the chin, the squared-off back to his neck and the raised collar parts surrounding the head. Even raising his chin doesn't improve the turn range by much - the best you can get is about 45°. This is all the more strange because the ball joint his head is mounted on is, itself, mounted on a hinge that allows his head to shift forward and back, partly for transformation, and he's able to tilt his head back until his antennae clash with the wheels.
In terms of accuracy to the CGI, Studio Series Soundwave is far better than the Dark of the Moon version, despite the missing parts on the chest. The full coating of silver paint for the vehicle mode means its presentations is infinitely better than the original DotM toy, though not without its own shortcomings in details like the vents and tail lights... however, it's not as striking as the Movie Advanced/Darkside version. Similarly, the overall look of robot mode is vastly better than the skinny, lanky DotM toy, but the lack of detail paint - particularly on the arm-mounted discs - lets it down. Neither are perfect in terms of articulation, but Studio Series Soundwave feels more stable and requires less fiddling to get a decent pose due to the simplified arms and reduced interference from vehicle shell parts. My main gripe with this one is the head sculpt. While no doubt accurate to the CGI from Dark of the Moon, within the limitations of the rubber used to mold it, it's pretty hideous, feeling more like a humanoid take on Ratbat than Soundwave. Were it not for the fact that the DotM toy's head is mounted on a mushroom peg rather than a ball joint, I'd be tempted to replace the head with the silver-painted, visored head from the original DotM toy... Except he was part of the final, cancelled waves and has consequently become ridiculously hard to find and overpriced on the secondary market.
Darkside Soundwave is reasonably easy to find on the secondary market but, while I was lucky enough to pick him up for only £30, he now goes for anything between £60 and £190, depending on the vendor. This one, being newer, is currently cheaper, more accurate, and the Laserbeak accessory makes it a far better deal, even though a gun of some sort would have been preferable.
On another note, I don't know how Studio Series works compared to previous movie toylines, in terms of reuse as alternate characters, but I'd happily pick up another version of this mold - with a new head sculpt, a different accessory/minion, and a cherry red paint job - as a Movie-style Blaster, as had been planned for the Dark of the Moon toy. Considering Stinger was turned into KSI Sentry and Lockdown was turned into Shadow Raider (not to mention TLK Nitro becoming SS Thundercracker) there is, I suppose, a slim chance that this repaint concept might return in Studio Series.
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