Masterpiece Movie Series MPM-9 Jazz

Jazz really must be the unluckiest character from the live action movie series. Fans expectations (mine included) were rocked by his choice of alternate mode - the Pontiac Solstic being a far cry from the Martini Racing-sponsored Porsche 935/76 of Generation 1, albeit for obvious legal reasons... He was introduced as a super-cool robot whose transformation looked like breakdancing, his movements were showy yet precise... but he barely had any dialogue, amassed just five minutes of screentime in a movie that exceeded two hours runtime, and was unceremoniously ripped in half during the final battle - a fact which received only a perfunctory acknowledgement from Optimus Prime.

Making matters worse for Jazz, all his toys - up until the 2010 Human Alliance figure - were basically shit. The original Deluxe class toy was poorly proportioned, yet it got about a billion reuses - including an insipid G1 repaint - alongside its battle-damaged variant, while the Legends class toy had the vehicle's front duplicated on its roof. The head sculpt of every single one of them seemed to have been either based on early, pre-production artwork, or just plain wrong, with the HA figure - which, let us not forget, was released as part of the second movie's toyline - being the first to get the details right.

But even that wasn't entirely right - just for starters, the arms were essentially reversed, while the legs were too long and very awkward-looking compared to the elegant CGI. So when a Masterpiece interpretation of Jazz was revealed, I hoped to finally add a decent representation of the on-screen character to my collection. Photos, videos and reviews from other collectors seemed roundly positive, so I ordered him late last year.

Let's find out what a twelve year wait yields for one on the more forgettable characters from the first movie.

Binaltech BT16 Skids

Here's another fine example of how I've made a mess of things by blogging about later iteration of a figure before the original... Skids was one of the final handful of Binaltech figures, but he came out only very slightly earlier than the last of the Binaltech Asterisk spin-offs, Broadblast, made from the same mold. Nevertheless, I seem to recall I acquired Broadblast much later than Skids, simply because I was following the main Binaltech line with more interest than Asterisk.

Skids was yet another G1 toy that I wasn't able to acquire back in the day, instead picking up the Toys'R'Us exclusive Commemorative Series re-release when it appeared almost 20 years later in 2004. While I was surprised that such a neglected G1 character was chosen to appear in the Binaltech line, the bigger surprise was the choice of vehicle...

Universe 'War of the Waves' Air Raid vs. Storm Surge

Hot on the heels of Energon Skyblast, we have a carded pair of vaguely movie-related Unicron Trilogy repaints, one of which is a Skyblast repaint!

War of the Waves was apparently a Black Friday exclusive at Walmart in the US, which would most likely have made it an Asda exclusive here... But I've never been a regular patron of Asda, and didn't exactly scour their toy shelves at the best of times. If it didn't come from Toys'R'Us, it was more likely acquired at Sainsbury's or Tesco, neither of which have consistently stocked any US store exclusives. In fact, the only one I remember even seeing in any supermarket was the Walmart exclusive racing repaint of Sidearm Sideswipe, which was a Sainsbury's exclusive over here.

I'd also assumed, based on the 'digital camouflage' paint job on Air Raid and the Sector 7 insignias stamped onto both toys, that this was a movie-related two-pack, but the instruction leaflet - shared between both figures in the pack - clearly labels it as being part of the Universe line... which both was and wasn't an extension of the movie line...

So, let's take a look at this curious, cross-generational two-pack.

Energon Skyblast

Here we have another of those instances where I genuinely don't recall when, where or indeed why I bought a figure. Aside from Arcee, none of the smaller Energon/Superlink figures were of a great deal of interest to me, at least until the Collectors' club re-used them either for BotCon or Club store exclusives, and even most of those weren't actually compelling enough to buy once I'd got my hands on a more readily-available version of the mold.

This one, perhaps, had the dubious benefit of being a fairly blatant G1 Jetfire homage, as well as seeming to complement the Energon version of Jetfire. But is a colourscheme that's as nostalgic as it is complementary to a contemporary enough to make a toy interesting in and of itself?

Studio Series #65 Blitzwing

Probably the one clip from the trailer for Travis Knight's Bumblebee solo movie that got the most attention and generated the most excitement was the transformation of a jet into a red and grey Seeker-style robot that many people conjectured would be Starscream. Knight himself dashed such hopes when questioned, announcing that this robot was named 'Blitzwing' - a great nod to another G1 character, but not necessarily the most appropriate name, given that he didn't also turn into a tank. Then again, he was only on screen for about five minutes before getting blown up so, in the grand scheme of things, I don't think that's particularly significant. I mean, chances are, the name was one of several put forward by Hasbro, and no-one really put that much thought into the selection.

Given the small cast of robot characters in the movie, it's no surprise that they'd all be added to the Studio Series roster, with Bumblebee, Dropkick and Shatter each receiving two releases within the line (and even more for Bumblebee, if you include the special boxed sets). Blitzwing is the last of these, and only the second Voyager class figure from the film, the first (naturally) having been Optimus Prime - another character who probably only had about five minutes of total screen time.

With such a small role in the movie, one could be forgiven for having low expectations of the Blitzwing toy, but just being a Voyager - considering the more prominent Decepticons each became a pair of Deluxes - was a strong positive in my books... So let's take a look.

A Horrifying Thought

Earlier today, I watched a certain YouTuber's review of the upcoming War for Cybertron: Kingdom Blackarachnia figure, in which he mentioned that the Beast Wars characters will be appearing in the eventual third and final chapter of the mind-numbingly bad Netflix series.

I don't know why that hadn't occurred to me beforehand - perhaps I'd subconsciously blocked the deeper ramifications from my mind - but, the moment he said it, I had a terrible realisation... It's going to be shit.

Robots in Disguise Side Burn

The last of the three RiD Car Brothers is, for the most part, my least favourite... in many ways, his one redeeming feature is the vehicle he transforms into, though the paint job - much like that of his brothers - comes a close second. It was, I think, Side Burn that looked most awkward, least like what I thought of as a traditional TransFormers toy, when I first glimpsed the trio in the window of Harrow's Computer Exchange many years ago.

Nevertheless, and despite the fact that I've only seen a couple of episodes of the TV show, on a random charity shop DVD purchase gifted to me by a friend, I did end up buying all three when I'd later developed a new appreciation of their unique stylings... And so it's about time I dealt with this one.