JH-01 Rescue Pioneer (KO Masterpiece Movie MPM-11 Ratchet)

I've not delved into the Masterpiece lines a great deal, and have been particularly selective with the Masterpiece Movie branch, picking up only those characters whose mainline Deluxe class toys didn't quite deliver what I wanted. Consequently, I've not bothered picking up MPM Optimus Prime, 2007 Camaro Bumblebee or Ironhide, but snapped up Barricade and Jazz pretty swiftly (and MPM VW Bumblebee, but I've since sold him off), and the most recent two - Starscream and Ratchet - were on my want list. Even the MPM Megatron mold piqued my interest, being a surprisingly good, albeit still seriously flawed attempt to turn the bonkers movie CGI into plastic reality. However, the stock Hasbro/Takara Tomy paint jobs on all three of them ended up being utterly dire, making a complete mockery of the 'Masterpiece' concept and making some excellent new molds look cheap and unfinished.

Then, all of a sudden, and with very little fanfare, alongside the KO/upscaled versions of certain Studio Series toys, images emerged of KO versions of Megatron... then Starscream... then - seemingly just days after the official MPM toy was released - Ratchet. More fully painted, more elaborately decorated, more accurate to the movie in both vehicle and robot modes... more, generally. By comparison, what had been a slightly disappointing entry in the Masterpiece Movie line suddenly looked like an unpainted sample, despite being appreciably more expensive.

 

I had not, up until recently, even considered replacing my original movie Ratchet toy but, when something like this exists - at a fraction of the cost of the official Masterpiece - it's not hard to convince oneself to upgrade...

Packaging:

Rescue Pioneer comes packaged in a gorgeous, glossy black box with a textured finish on all sides but the bottom, but is bare of any branding. It features the 'pulse' design from the sides of Ratchet's vehicle mode along with minimal text labelling on both the front and the back. The sides feature only the JH-01 designation and the 'specifications, colours and contents' warning text. All very simple, but it's really only there to contain the toy so, while more elaborate, picture-heavy packaging may have been nice, it's hardly necessary - this does the job it needs to do, and it does it well.

 

Inside is a bit of a different story. The figure and most of its accessories are contained in a slightly flimsy plastic clamshell. No instructions are included (as has been noted in YouTube video reviews) but, on the upside, where many buyers have reported only receiving one of the small, plug-in missile pods, I had two... though one of them was loose, outside the clamshell. Additionally, the two front wing panels which become part of Ratchet's chest, draping across his shoulders, had both popped out of their sockets. Everything else looked great... at least until I got him out of the box.

Vehicle Mode:

I'll get the caveat out of the way first, because that's pretty much the only significant negative thing about this toy, and it's relatively minor. Once I'd transformed him into vehicle mode (with greatful thanks to Emgo316's excellent 'Just Transform It!' video on MPM Ratchet) I noticed that some of the tools mounted on his roof were missing. It's the larger chunk from the lefthand side of the vehicle, featuring a shovel and a sheathed axe... Nothing I particularly miss in vehicle mode, and it won't stand out in robot mode, so I'm probably not even going to contact the seller about it, particularly considering I got both the missile pods. Still, it's a sign that, being a knockoff, quality control at the assembly and packing stage ain't as thorough as it would be on an official release.

Other than that, this is a phenomenal rendition of the modified Hummer H2 Search & Rescue vehicle from the movie. Sure, its got some robot parts hanging off its undercarriage and reducing the toy's ground clearance to the bear minimum, but the level of detail in the paintwork is truly stunning. If I had a general complaint, it's that the paint finish is matte, while the vehicle from the movie was super-glossy, and I'm pretty sure that some of it (the white outline on the red stripe, the red/yellow striping on the doors, the 'FIRE DEPARTMENT' lettering) would be the highly reflective kind often used on emergency vehicles. The most striking difference between this and the official model - aside from a slight difference in the shade of green (or yellow, according to my girlfriend) used throughout - is that there's no visible difference between the paint over the translucent blue windows and the paint over the opaque green plastic parts. I presume this means that a white base coat was used - a small but significant step in quality paintwork.

So, while the official Masterpiece figure is undoubtedly a huge improvement on the 2007 toy, it still looks like a toy, whereas this one - were it not for the transformation seams and the aforementioned robot junk on the undercarriage - might pass for a model vehicle. Even the rear of the vehicle has the windows, striping and lettering of the movie vehicle. All of the indicator lights - front, side and rear - are painted in, while none were on the MPM figure.

That's not to say its build and paint job are perfect, however. Aside from the dull finish, certain elements of the paintwork are either missing or just not entirely accurate. The movie vehicle had the number '681' on its sides, just below the rearmost side lamps, the black paint is supposed to extent from the bottom edge of the side doors, all the way to the back, over the rear wheel wells, with the bar details themselves being gunmetal rather than black. While the lamps and locker handles on each side are painted silver, the door handles and the (slightly fudged) H2 logo on each door are overpainted with green, to match the surrounding area. Also, amusingly, the H2 logo on the left side door is rendered as '2H', suggesting its CAD file is just a mirror of the right side door. More significantly, the 'pulse' design has been shrunk down, likely to ensure its fit within the largest single panel at the rear. The knock-on effect of this is that the 'SEARCH & RESCUE' labelling within the red line and the gold 'FIRE DEPARTMENT' lettering are also a lot smaller than they should have been. This alteration is highlighted by the fact that the red stripe across the rear of the vehicle is wider and higher than the line down the sides, when they're supposed to match. Another missing detail - probably only really apparent because of the missing tools on mine - is that the tool mountings on each side should have been at least painted silver, since they're diamond-textured plates on the real-life vehicle. The panels are slightly raised against the surrounding surface, but there's no texture on either side, and there's a similar omission of texture on the central part of the rear bumper.

The included weapons all mount on Ratchet in his vehicle mode, albeit in about the most conspicuous way imaginable. His gun pegs onto the spare tyre mounted on the roof and the saw clips around the rear bumper. The only accessories that are in any way 'hidden' are the two missile pods, which plug into the insides of the front wheel mountings. Even these are blatantly obvious from the front but then, from that angle, you're also seeing the back of Ratchet's head, so I guess that's swings and roundabouts. Plus, it kind of makes sense for him to have concealed weapons, almost Stealth Force-style, and the other two certainly ain't 'concealed'.

There are a couple of small QC issues, aside from the missing tools, in that the lightbar refuses to peg together (plus, one half on mine appears to be mounted at a slightly different angle to the other) and the separate sections of the roof rack never align properly but, to be perfectly honest, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. One improvement the makers of this KO could have made, but chose not to, would have been replacing the hollow, plastic wheels with proper model vehicle wheels featuring rubber tyres. Had they done that, this might easily have been the best Masterpiece-adjacent figure I own, as far as its vehicle mode is concerned.

Robot Mode:

The lavish paint job continues here and, bar the excessive (albeit very neatly compacted) backpack and the egregious lower leg panels, this thing looks like it popped straight out of the movie. Rather than bare, flat grey/green plastic for the robot parts, almost everything has been lavishly coated with paint, including at least two shades of metallic paint. Many parts which are molded in green plastic on the official toy are here molded in grey so they blend in better in robot mode. The most obvious example of how this benefits the mold are his hands, which now feature applications of green paint on the thumbs (all four of them!) and the middle digit. Furthermore, the areas of unpainted grey plastic on the limbs look better here than on the official toy because they're molded in a darker, almost metallic-looking plastic (which I initially mistook for having been painted!), and feature applications of green paint for the armour and spot applications of black, silver, gunmetal and metallic blue. If that weren't enough, the vehicle mode's 'pulse' striping and red/yellow door strips have been replicated here on the forearms and shoulders, where they're entirely absent on the Hasbro toy. Where the official toy uses grey plastic for the faux-roof rack pipework on his forearms, this model uses black - matching the colour of the vehicle parts they're intended to represent.

In fact, in terms if painted detail, there are only two areas where I think this figure is missing something, and both are the fault of the base mold. With the vehicle panels folded up onto the inner face of his lower legs, there's nowhere to add the fragments of 'FIRE' that appear on the CGI version (though it's worth noting that the makers of this figure actually bothered to add the green paint to the armour strips below the panels, even though they're barely visible), and then the vehicle's side lamp details on the green inner thigh panels are unpainted... but then, the sculpted detail only shows a sort of 'domino' outline, seemingly a misinterpretation of the way the side lamps are split between two red outer parts and the silver/white inner part.

Leaving aside the most obvious deviation from the CGI - the backpack - this Masterpiece version of Ratchet appears to be very finely detailed. There are some smaller concessions to the realities of plastic toys - such as the bullbars remaining unchanged apart from two of the mounted lights shifting upward, the awkward mounting of the vehicle mode's front wings between the chest and the arms, and the weird-looking sections of door hanging off the back of his shoulder armour via a hinge and a rotation joint - but the level of sculpted detail is everything one should expect from a Masterpiece figure. This being a knockoff, it's nice to see the mold has been so cleanly and sharply reproduced, with none of the softening or outright loss of detail that used to plague the KO market. The joints all feel sturdy, the plastic mostly feels like high-quality material, though there are some parts that feel weirdly soft. For example, the stalks on the ball joints for the vehicle's front wings and most sections of the roof rack - even the faux-parts attached to his forearms - are surprisingly bendy (though, now I come to think of it, if Perfect Effect had used rubbery parts for some of the joints on Leonidas, his mane certainly wouldn't have been so fragile). The rig of roof rack parts that brings the floodlights down toward his collar is also a fairly significant change from the CGI but, if anything, I think this figure looks more believable than the CGI as a result of it - it's clearly visible how they got there while, in the movie, visual trickery was used to just 'float' them into place.

As mentioned at the start, my Rescue Pioneer came with both the missile pods the official Ratchet figure has, though these are nicely painted to better fit in with the rest of the product. As expected, they plug into the left forearm only, toward the elbow and either side of the main weapon mount. Since they're simple tabs, they hold fairly securely, but are prone to slipping out if nudged awkwardly. The main event, naturally, is the gun. While it can't transform out of his forearm the way it did in the movie, the way it's been accomplished is a decent compromise. Either hand can be folded down to lay against the wrist, as if for transformation, then the gun slips over the wrist and pegs into the clip about halfway along the forearm. It's a good, secure connection, and the overall effect mimics the weird, droopy look of the CGI, where the forearms - which curve slightly backward from elbow to wrist, such that the hands are mounted at an unusual angle - seems to bend upward into the gun, meaning the elbow has to be slightly more bent, or the arm raised slightly further at the shoulder, to ensure he's aiming straight. The gun itself is beautifully sculpted and, again, gets a simpler, but better paint job than Hasbro's effort, with a few touches of green on the armour panelling and some metallic blue, over the same metallic grey plastic as is used in the body. The weakest weapon in the set is his buzzsaw accessory, because it mounts to his forearm via the same clip as the gun and, while the saw blades themselves are offset from this attachment point, over the hand, the fact that it's mounted on that side of his forearm makes it all but unusable in practical terms. This is one of those situations where the Deluxe class toys did it better, with the Studio Series toy having a socket on the outer side of the forearm, so the buzzsaw mounts as a sort of combination weapon/shield. My main concern with this accessory is that the mounting is relatively thin in places, while the clip in the arm is very tight, so removing it from his arm can be a struggle. When not in use, there's no obvious place to stash Ratchet's missile pods, though there's probably space in the backpack... though whether it's secure or not is not something I'm keen to ascertain. The gun plugs into the same place as in vehicle mode - the spare tyre, now on Ratchet's back. The buzzsaw continues to be the weak link in that, according to TF Wiki, it can be attached via "a hole in his upper back", but the lightbar sections of the roof rack, when folded down, get in the way of this option. Even with them raised up, per the original Masterpiece toy, it's a very fiddly process to attach it, and even moreso to remove it again.

Being a Masterpiece head sculpt, CGI accuracy is only to be expected, and the wierd, intricate, multi-layered design of movie Ratchet's head has been very nicely reproduced. It's also worth noting that the official MP toy gets the paint job wrong on multiple levels. First and foremost, there's far too much green paint, some of which is misapplied quite stupidly (he has a bottom-lip-'stache rather than a green soulpatch, for example), while the metallic paint used was a bright silver. Here, a darker gunmetal paint has been used, which really emphasises the depth and detail of the sculpt. The only applications of green on the face are on the bridge of the nose and the aforementioned soulpatch. The eyes are picked out in the metallic blue and, despite being quite beady, actually look pretty reasonable as a result - no doubt helped by the darker surrounding paintwork. All the paintwork continues around the back of the head, with the collection of green armour panels leading back to the screw hole, just above the line of the collar. As with the official toy, the mouth is articulated, and can open a little way. One oddity of the mouth, though, is that it never really looks properly closed.

Ratchet was, to me, one of the more interesting reinterpretations of a G1 character. Naturally, they went with the all-in-one robot idea, rather than a vehicle that splits into a robot and his mobility scooter (though one can't help but wonder, looking at this figure's massive backpack, if that wouldn't have been the better idea). When the team of Autobots first introduced themselves, I think the two most outstanding transformations were given to Jazz - shifting from Pontiac Solstice to giant alien robot by means of interpretive breakdance - and Ratchet, whose upper body whirled round as it formed. Sure, Optimus Prime was the showstopper, but Jazz and Ratchet had character. It goes without saying that this is the best representation of the movie CGI thusfar because, specific inaccuracies of detail aside, it definitely retains Ratchet's character... not least because the legs, waist, and a chunk of the upper body all have to spin - in one direction or another, relative to the rest - during the process. Flipping the core of the chest round is troublesome because of a very tight rotation joint coupled with some very slim joints behind/below it and the fiddly clearance of the robot's arms and the vehicle's front wings, which need to be navigated around in between the very front of the vehicle and the two hinged parts linking the front of the vehicle to the robot's waist. The legs, by and large, are remarkably similar to those of the 2007 toy, in that they make up the bulk of the vehicle's rear mass, they just do it without sacrificing the angles and details of the robot by way of those intrusive vehicle panels stuck to his lower legs. The arms bunch up and stow in the midsection of vehicle mode in much the same way as the original toy, albeit with slightly less of them hanging down below the rim of the vehicle shell. Even the head is dealt with in much the same way - which is to say, doing very little actual transformation - but lacks the shell covering, which would have been impossible to include along with the other engineering designed for this model. The way the front wheels unpeg and swing around behind the head is simple, yet elegant, and the way the roof rack breaks up and reconfigures for robot mode is inspired, even though it doesn't result in a great fit in vehicle mode. I will admit, however, that I'm surprised that there are no pegs to properly connect some of these parts. The one aspect that doesn't work well is the transformation of the front wings, and part of that is due to the loose fit of the ball joints in their transformation joints. They are exceptionally prone to popping out, and incredibly awkward to peg back in, partly due to the use of soft, rubbery plastic for the ball stalks. Manoeuvring them around his chest and arms is an exercise in frustration and, while there's the option to peg them into his shoulder armour, for best results, they best left to just sit in front of his chest in robot mode. It's quite a strange contrast, considering how well they tab in for vehicle mode, even though they have to be worked in behind the bullbars. The way the entire roof and rear of the vehicle compresses down into a backpack may not be remotely accurate to the CGI, but it works very well, and the results are easily acceptable - and quite reminiscent of TF Prime Ratchet, in a way. Before I had this figure in hand, I was convinced that the two trapezoid panels that plug, sideways, into his 'spine' at the mid-torso must have an alternate configuration that let them sit flush against his sides... Sadly, this is not the case - there's a very clear slot carved out for their edges to peg into - but their impact is nowhere near as conspicuous than I'd feared, especially on this version, where there's some black paint on the forward-facing section. One interesting change versus the official figure is that the roof rack sections attached to the two halves of the lightbar can be angled independently of it, and so can fold down into the backpack in robot mode. Related to this, the lightbar itself is screwed into place here, where I believe it's pinned on the official figure, to make it possible to rotate during transformation. About the only aspects of transformation I had any real difficulty with were the back panel of vehicle mode (which has to peg in at several points while simultaneously slipping under the side panels to clip in elsewhere), the shoulders (the armour panels on which have to be angled just so to peg in for vehicle mode, allowing the door sections to slip into place) and the hinged lower section of the right side door, which has a tendency to pop off its hinge. The whole may not be as elegant or tidy as the likes of Peru Kill, but it's somewhat less fiddly than Dragoon, and I think that's the main advantage of official toys (and their KOs) versus some Third Party offerings.

I continue to be impressed by the level of articulation in Masterpiece figures and, while Ratchet does have some odd limitations in strange places, he is very mobile. Obviously, I can't speak for the official toy, but Rescue Pioneer features lots of sturdy ratchet joints along with a few friction joints, and the die cast metal on his feet does a good job of lowering his centre of gravity. Even so, it takes some doing to get him balanced on one leg because the legs are arranged with the knees slightly flexed even at their maximum extension and the footprint is very slim. The feet are ratcheted for up/down tilt, but the sideways ankle tilt is a friction joint with limited range and the foot itself cannot turn from side to side. The knee can be treated as a double joint, though the lower joint is technically only for transformation. The main joint is quite limited - maybe about 30-40° - but, by unfastening the lower joint from the inside of the shin, this can be extended to somewhere close to 90°, at which point his calves are hitting the backs of his thighs. There's an unrestricted rotation joint just above the knee and, considering the bulk of the upper thigh, the hips have surprising range, kicking forward to about 90°, and only restricted to about 80° backward due to the backpack. The narrow waist means the legs can raise out to the sides by 90° despite the wheels, and the waist itself is unrestricted since it's used in transformation. The upper body is, perhaps, less immediately impressive, but most of the problems stem from the vehicle wing panels getting in the way. Unencumbered of these troublesome parts, the shoulders can rotate a full 360° on a friction joint. The shoulder ratchets are incredibly strong, to the point that the transformation joint they're mounted on tends to flex before the ratchets start clicking, but the joint itself has a range of about 120° outward swing. The shoulder armour can move independently of the shoulder joint, with about 90° range in and of itself. There's an unrestricted rotation joint just above the elbow and, while the elbow itself is limited to about 90° of motion, it looks like more due to the weird shape of the arms. Ratchet's hands are quite strange, in that he has two thumbs per hand, each jointed at the wrist. The fingers are joined together, but feature two 'knuckle' joints, so he can make a decent fist, while the wrist has an unrestricted rotation and just enough bending range to allow it to fold back under the forearm. In and of itself, the movement of the head is restricted by Ratchet's raised collar, but this is also mobile due to transformation, so it will start to turn along with his head as soon as his chin butts up against it. In theory, this offers unrestricted rotation, but I find he tends to clash with the vehicle's windscreen, pegged in just behind. The head can also tilt up slightly, exposing more of his neck and, as previously mentioned, the mouth is able to open slightly. I have to say I found it a little difficult to pose him in a way that pleased my eye, because of the permanent bend to the knees, the weird shape of the arms and, of course, those flippin' vehicle wing panels bridging the gap between his chest and his arms. It might look cool in the CGI, but the only way to make it work on a toy really gets in the way, and has a habit of getting tangled up in the bullbars. As mentioned, they have tabs to allow them to connect securely to the shoulder armour, but I can't seem to get the angles to match and, in any case, that would prevent the arms from moving at the shoulder.

 

The short version of this write-up would be that this is what a Masterpiece should look like. I know the unnamed manufacturers of this are standing on the shoulders of Hasbro/Takara Tomy's design and engineering giants, but Hasbro's miserly paint job utterly ruined MPM-11 for me. This version gives the mold the treatment it deserved, putting the official product to shame while simultaneously proving what a fantastic piece of work it was. The engineering is superb, both modes look excellent, it's both sturdy and well-articulated, with a nice heft to it thanks to a handful of die cast metal parts. Had I not known that this was a knock-off, I'd have had a very hard time forming that conclusion based on the toy alone. Everything about it screams quality... well, almost everything. Aside from the few issues already mentioned, I have noticed quite a bit of mold flashing and plastic burr dotted about the figure. None of it hinders his articulation, none of it affects the quality of the paintwork, and none of it is even particularly apparent if I'm not specifically looking for/at it.

 

This is the sort of product Hasbro could deliver... but they choose not to, normally citing licensing costs and budgetary constraints despite the premium retail price of the Masterpiece line toys. In many ways, I'm surprised that GM even signed off on the perfunctory final paint job on the official Ratchet. It gives many fans the impression that it's all about the profit margins for Hasbro, and I dread to think what their retail markup is considering the night-and-day difference between this knockoff and the official product. I would genuinely like to see the financial breakdown for Hasbro/Takara Tomy producing a Masterpiece toy, and the actual impact of a premium paint job like this one. When the Masterpiece line was first introduced in 2003, the branding meant something, but that's been watered down considerably in the intervening years. When the Masterpiece Movie line emerged, it should have been imperative to make the figures as accurate to the movie GCI as possible, but corners were cut from the very first 'true' release of the line, MPM-3 Bumblebee... And it strikes me that, as "an intellectual properties company that also makes toys", Hasbro should have ensured that all licensing agreements pertaining to the movies included permission to reproduce all vehicle likenesses to a particular level of fidelity based on the pricepoint of the individual figure, and that 'Masterpiece' would mean matching paintwork precisely. While I know it might be prohibitively expensive, it's not impossible to match vehicle paints.

While JH-01 is clearly a knock-off, and wouldn't have existed without the development time and money Hasbro/Takara Tomy put into it, I have few qualms about recommending this version over the official toy... Though that does become a slippery slope. If everyone waits till the knockoffs emerge, the Masterpiece lines will die out... But if the official Masterpiece Movie Ratchet costs £115 and still doesn't live up to what a Masterpiece should be, while this is available for about £40 less, the onus really is on Hasbro to up their game. All of their products have been subject to massive price hikes in recent years (due to oil prices, etc. - they moved their manufacturing out of China, thus avoiding any of the former President's ridiculous tariffs) and the prices of Masterpiece toys have become ridiculous. I paid only £100 for the second Masterpiece Optimus Prime, which is a larger figure and, while perhaps not as intricately engineered, it came with far more accessories, including his trailer. I'd love to pick up some of the Masterpiece Beast Wars figures, but their cost - and reported fragility - is prohibitive. Unless there's a hidden cost to Hasbro in the form of obtaining the rights to reproduce the CGI from the Beast Wars TV show - which I very much doubt - I can't believe vehicle licensing costs are a significant part of the equation for the Masterpiece Movie figures.

I ended up ordering this via Iacon.Store, having just cancelled my preorder with them for TransCraft's Beettle due to all the dire warnings in the fan forums about its fragile joints. Since I've only recently discovered Iacon.Store, this was my first order from them... and what a positive experience it was, too. After about a 4-5 day wait before despatch, his guy arrived far quicker than expected, via Hermes, and I wasn't hit with any additional Customs charging, despite there having been no additional cost for shipping to the UK. One point that really impressed me is that, while the shipping box was a little battered - some of which transferred to the inner box, as may be apparent in the photo at the top of this post - they included 8 plastic reinforcement pieces, one on each corner of the box. If that's their standard practice, I shall be ordering from them again in future, as it helps avoid more significant damage at the hands of some of the less careful couriers out there. They're also super-quick to respond to queries, albeit often in French. Still, Google Translate exists for those who aren't confident in the language - I had to resort to it myself a couple of times, where I wasn't familiar with a particular expression, and to help formulate my replies.