Studio Series #59 Shatter (Jet)

(Femme-Bot Friday #73)

There really wasn't much good to say about the first version of Shatter to appear within the Studio Series toyline. Vehicle mode was OK, but transformation was not much fun due to several parts tending to fall off, and the robot mode was littered with clashing panels that restricted its articulation.

However, since she and Dropkick adopted two vehicle modes in the Bumblebee solo movie, and Dropkick turned up as Studio Series #22 in helicopter form, then #46 in car form, it seemed likely that Shatter's abysmal #40 car mode would eventually be followed by a jet form... And since the second Dropkick toy was much better than the first, it didn't seem like too much to hope for that the second Shatter toy would also supersede the first.

I mean, surely, Hasbro couldn't cock up the same character twice..?

Vehicle Mode:
The toy version of jet Shatter isn't perfectly accurate to the Harrier in the movie - it features embellishments such as additional mini-wings sprouting from the intake covers, modifications to the wingtips and cockpit canopy, along with a number of compromises toward the rear to accommodate the mass required for all the robot parts. The unfortunate side effect of the latter is that the robot's legs are left pretty much out in the open at the back, with her feet hanging down from the tail. These feature additional embellishments of their own, in the form of a pair of directable afterburners mounted below the stabiliser wings. These can be angled straight downward, to mimic the Harrier's VTOL thrusters, though the area where these thrusters would be on an actual Harrier are marked only by a slight blemish on each side of the jet, below the front of the wings. In most respects, though, this is a competent and comparatively tidy version of the Harrier, and an excellent example of a TransFormers jet toy that hasn't ended up with the entire robot hanging off the undercarriage. There's even a retractable landing wheel below the cockpit, with fixed, molded wheels below the red parts of the midsection. This, again, isn't true to the real-life jet, which has its rear landing wheels joined together, stowed in the body of the jet, with additional stabiliser wheels on long rods deployed from the wings.

There's plenty of panel lining and rivet detail, the flaps are appropriately curved rather than only being indicated by line work, the intakes are very nicely detailed and the cockpit features the requisite chair. The canopy, while neither the right shape nor in entirely the right position relative to the wings, has had its frame painted black so it stands out nicely and looks that little bit more authetic. The majority of the jet is molded in a dark grey plastic with a metallic swirl, and so looks quite authetic. As TransFormers jets go, it even looks pretty decent from below, despite the fact that the robot's legs and arms become clearly discernible at the back.

There's not a great deal of paint on this toy - the nosecone has been painted matte black to match its black plastic tip, and there's a black strip running down the wings, flanked by strips of red... but the colours on the wings don't quite match the matte black plastic ahead of the wings or the blank paint on red plastic behind the wings. The red plastic in particular, being far richer, makes the paint look almost pale by comparison. Shatter's jet mode wasn't shown clearly enough, for long enough to get an idea of the extent of its paint job, but I got the impression that the undersides of her wings were at least partly red, and it seems strange than the red and black stripe down the top ends so abruptly at the transformation seam to the tail section. Additionally, the absence of any paint on the metallic grey tail fin or the black stabiliser wings makes the jet look unfinished. If nothing else, the intakes should have featured touches of red around the rim, since it's clearly visible on the robot's CGI in the movie.

Shatter is packaged with two weapons - identical but for one being the mirror image of the other - which can mount below the wings. This method is not strictly accurate to the Harrier, which has its missile mountings hanging quite a way down from the wings. Additionally, Shatter's weapons are guns of some sort rather than missiles, so they wouldn't be on the wings anyway. In the movie, Shatter deployed some sort of mini-Gatling gun from the underside of her jet mode, but there are no suitable sockets to replicate that effect on this toy.

I reckon this version of Studio Series Shatter will probably become listed as one of the best TransFormer jets of all time - it may not be perfect, and it certainly takes some liberties from its source, but it's very well designed. Aside from the lack of paint, I think my only complaint would be the floppiness of the stabiliser wings at the back - they need to flip up for transformation, but they're jointed in such a way that they can flip up or down from their ideal position, and the joints are quite loose, with a lot of travel around each of the intended stopping points.


Robot Mode:
The thing about the original (car form) toy of Shatter was that, in static photos - even in person, when I first saw the toy in a display cabinet at the winter 2018 MCM London Comic Con - she looked great. Sure, it was obvious even then that she had a few car panels packed onto her back and legs, but the toy appeared to be on a par with existing releases, and got me quite excited about picking her up... only for the finished toy to end up a floppy mess that barely looked good in static photos. Thankfully, this version is massive improvement, even if it does come with rather more vehicle parts just hanging off its back - specifically, the jet's wings and intakes (more-or-less true to the CGI) as well as the nose, cockpit and all (which is certainly not CGI-accurate).

The main figure, compared to the original, is nothing short of stunning. The level of detail is noticeably finer, significantly more accurate and, despite the fact that almost every detail is faked, it feels is if less of her has been cheated because of the clever way her transformation works.  The upper torso is a brilliant rendition of her car form chest, slightly angled with the supercharger shifted front and centre and the roof lights angled up and back across her shoulders, while the lower torso tapers nicely and even features the jet's front landing wheel as sculpted detail on the lower belly (where the real one is plugged into the base of her spine). Paintwork is limited to the upper half, with the roof lights and the internal mechanical details below picked out with silver paint, while the faux car front appears to be framed with silver paint, with the headlights and supercharger intake being a slightly darker gunmetal. The lower part of the torso - where the hips concertina together with the upper body - is all molded in a dark gunmetal plastic which holds the detail very well. It's an exceptionally three-dimensional bit of sculpting, too, giving the impression of many levels of overlapping armour and interior detail, and doing a far better job even than the metallic-painted, dedicated detail plate of the previous version, despite having to incorporate hinges.

Like the car version, Jet mode Shatter's arms are only marginally involved in her transformation, so there's a fair bit of sculpted detail, and the shoulder chunks in particular get a far more accurate sculpt and paint job than the other version allowed, even featuring the petrol caps and upper bicep details picked out in gunmetal paint, though the black stripe is absent. The forearms end up a little weird, with gaping holes, visible on the insides, making it look as if her mechanical 'bones' are on show and, while much of the mechanical detail is painted over with gunmetal, the fingers and the elements of car mode's black paintwork in the armour have not been applied. The legs, meanwhile, are a triumph of interlocked plastic parts and a few touches of paint, with the inner thigh molded in the gunmetal plastic, the outer armour plate in red, and the knee vent painted silver, while the lower leg is all molded in the gunmetal plastic, with silver paint all over the shins and red on the calf armour plates. Whoever designed and planned Shatter's paint job did an excellent job, such that the missing paint details aren't as outstandingly obvious, and most of the omissions are easily forgivable with the level of sculpted detail present on the toy.

Shatter's two weapons peg into her fists, covering her forearms, rather than plugging into the outsides (and insides) of her forearms like those of the previous version. They're also asymmetrically molded this time, fitting most comfortably with the longer side to the outside of Shatter's arms. Both are molded in the gunmetal plastic, and reflect much the same attention to detail as the robot's torso, albeit without any paintwork - which does seem to be pretty much par for the course with Studio Series. The guns appear to more closely resemble the weapon Shatter deployed when she and Dropkick first caught up with Bumblebee, which makes the design of the weapons included with the previous version all the more confusing. It's possible that Shatter had two different weapons, since she appears to fire a missile during the climactic battle, but this accessory seems to be the more accurate of the two styles overall.

The head sculpt uses Shatter's bare face rather than the barely-used battlemask option, so she looks far closer to the on-screen character in that respect as well. The detail is sharp and intricate, with all the little parts that made up movie Shatter's not fully humanoid, yet still super-expressive robotic face. In retrospect, it kind of reminds me of the way some of the earlier IDW comics decided to draw G1 characters in the wake of the original live action movie - humanoid-styled, but made up of lots of little interlocking parts rather than smooth, seemingly elastic metal, and in some cases quite horrific-looking. It's not pretty, by a long shot, but it worked well on-screen, and both Shatter and Dropkick were easily recognisable by their faces - much unlike the recycled insectoid faces of many of the robots from the Michael Bay movies. Her antenna is present, and there's a bit more metallic paint around the sides of her head than on the battlemasked version.


Switching Shatter between her two modes is a far more enjoyable experience than it was with her first Deluxe class toy. Nothing pops off, everything seems to connect together nicely, it's not overcomplicated. The first few times I transformed her, I have to admit that I had some trouble getting her jet intakes to clip fully into place in jet mode, as they required quite a bit of force. The tail sections feel a little floppy and are occasionally somewhat reluctant to move due to the softness of the plastic and the awkwardly curved channel they have to move through within the robot's calves. However, it's quite impressive how the protrusions from the backs of her feet are designed to fit around the tail sections, softly holding them in place. Given the number of parts that have to move through areas initially occupied by other parts - particularly the arms versus the wings and jet intakes - it's all surprisingly easy and fluid as long as everything is done in the right order. The wings, intakes and the entire nose section of the jet end up just hanging off her back and, while those first two are technically screen-accurate, they're of a much lower profile in the movie. The jet's nose sticking out at an angle seems hugely wasteful, but I like the way the landing wheel is repurposed as a tab, plugging into the small of her back and securing the backpack in place, along with a loose connection between the flipped-up tip of the jet nose, and a panel folded out and over from behind the cockpit. I think my only gripe would be that there's nothing behind the head to keep it upright in robot mode once it's deployed and, while the ball joint isn't loose by any stretch of the imagination, it's all to easy to knock her head back down accidentally.

Considering this version of Shatter has an even more prominent, panel-tastic backpack, she's far better articulated - largely because the backpack stands quite a way back from any of her limbs, and the limbs themselves don't have any large panels attached to them to hinder their movement. In fact, the only limbs with any significant jet parts hanging off are the legs, where the jet's tail halves act as large heel spurs, barely visible from the front. The backpack does limit the range of the arms' swing around the shoulders but, because the intakes themselves are hinged for transformation, they are able to move partly out of the way as the arms are swung backward, leaving a range of approximately 270°, along with outward swing of 90°. The bicep swivel is unrestricted and the elbows bend the standard 90°, but there's no wrist articulation as the hands are molded in as part of the same chunk of plastic that forms part of the top surface of the jet, between the wings and the tail section. The hips are fairly restricted ball joints allowing precious little swivel in and of themselves, but there's a rotation joint just above the knee to take care of that. The hips can swing to the sides with an overall range of about 90°, but some of that range is for bringing the legs together for jet mode. The legs are also slightly bowed and the feet sculpted at an angle giving her a standing stance where her feet are more or less in line with her shoulder mass. The knees have only the regulation 90° bend, with the hinge at the back leaving an unsightly gap on the front of the leg. The feet can detach from the jet tail to offer a little ankle articulation, and the joint is actually tight enough to support her to a degree, but it does look a little weird and leaves the tail section loose. While there's no waist articulation due to the way the torso concertinas together and the way the backpack attaches, the chest can still rotate a little on its transformation joint, for much the same effect. The arms can swing forward just over 180° and backward at least 45° before they clash with the jet intakes, but those can be hinged up to give a little extra range, if necessary. The head is mounted on a ball joint, but it's pretty much right at the front of the head, below the chin, and Shatter's collar gets in the way just as much here as it did on the car version, if not more. Due to transformation, her head can tilt right back, sinking into the shoulder as the joint is embedded in the chest rather than coming up from it. Compared to the previous version, this figure is so much more dynamic and poseable. There are no problems with loose joints - if anything, the ball joints in the shoulders and hips are a little too tight - and she's quite capable of holding a range of poses. The angle of her footprint means her legs have to be spread quite wide for stability, and standing on one leg is basically out of the question without support, so she can't quite be posed mid-brawl with SS Bumblebee without leaning her on something.

To say this is an improvement on the car mode Shatter figure would be an understatement. In spite of the massively oversized backpack - which is at least truer to the CGI than that of the previous toy - the toy transforms from a well-designed jet mode into a more accurate rendition of the robot, which is then a far more successful action figure in every respect. As with a lot of the Studio Series figures, there's a distinct lack of paintwork on the details but, even on that score, it's leagues better than the car version. That most if not all of the robot detail is faked can be easily forgiven considering how little of the actual car detail was used by the toy of the car version of Shatter and, given that the CGI really cheated to get a robot that transformed into both a car and a jet - not to mention her unseen, original Cybertronian vehicle mode - the compromises made on this toy are perfectly judged, in my opinion.

While it seems unlikely that this figure would get a repaint, the vehicle mode seems ideal for a Femme-Bot version of the G1 Aerialbot Slingshot, though it would need quite a few retooled parts to remove the need to give the impression of the additional car mode required for Shatter.

Bonus GERWALK Mode:
Since it's almost a requirement these days to have a fan transformation that turns a jet into something akin to a GERWALK from the Macross series, I figured I'd have a go with Shatter... and it's actually surprisingly easy, since the robot is basically built around the centre of the jet - the arms and legs fold down from the back (the latter can function the right way round as well, I just went for Macross-style bird legs for authenticity) and the robot's chest can remain directly behind the nose section, the headlights working surprisingly well, poking out either side, while the jet intakes and wings are raised slightly to give the arms a little more room to manoeuvre.