Given that the Cybertron sequence in Travis Knight's Bumblebee-centric live action movie was comparatively short, it's spawned an awful lot of products... from the high-spec action figures created by 3A to the Studio Series toy made for the Cybertronian form of Cliffjumper, based on the briefly-glimpsed vehicle mode of B-127 himself, even though he was on screen for only about a minute. There have even been hints of Third Party offerings of some of the character seen in this sequence, so it clearly fired the imagination of many in the movie's audience.
Probably the highlight of this new take on the TransFormers' homeworld was the striking appearance of the Seekers. Taking its cue from the cartoon, there was a veritable rainbow legion of them, almost all of whom were nameless cannon-fodder. Even so, they were exceptionally well-designed: instantly recogniseable, even when in motion, and given an excellent new take on what has been an absolute millstone since the cartoon's pilot episode first aired, the Tetrajet.
And, of course, Hasbro are canny enough to know that making a toy of this design would be a worthwhile endeavour, not least because of its repaint potential. Since Starscream is the only named Seeker to have appeared in any of the movies, it seems only natural that he should be released as the first iteration of the Knightverse Tetrajet.
What I liked about this design from the Bumblebee movie is that it's only loosely a Tetrajet in the traditional sense. It looks more like something from one of those 80s/90s side-scrolling shoot-'em-up arcade games, and there's a striking similarity to Lord British from Konami's iconic Gradius series, even down to the colourscheme. It's a very convincing sci-fi jet because it has so many design cues from real-world jets, but with the sorts of twist we're already accustomed to seeing.
Distribution of colour generally is a little lacklustre, with robot mode's bare red plastic thighs and crotch box plainly visible on the sides and top of the fuselage, respectively. The former really should have been more of the off white plastic with a few applications of red where needed for robot mode (and therefore largely disguised in this mode) while the latter wouldn't be so easily concealed. The base of the tail is molded in blue plastic, but its tip is painted, with the white stripe applied over the top, and continuing into the base on both sides with the smallest, most unnecessary-looking trapezoid of paint I've ever seen. It doesn't even go all the way to the base of the fin, stopping abruptly and for no readily apparent reason about a half centimetre above it. The wings feature red striping on the leading edges, but it's separated between the two sections of wing, while the CGI suggests that the unpainted midsection, with its front and rear protrusions, should have been wholly painted red. Blue only appears on the undercarriage, the tailfin and the tip of the nose, so it looks kind of like the decision was made to meet the minimum requirements for the figure's colourscheme to evoke 'Starscream' using as little paint as possible, rather than making the most of the sculpt in this mode.
The nose is not particularly accurate to the CGI except for its weird cutaway section revealing what may be another weapon. It all looks too long, the cutaway is actually too small and the fact that the blue section is just a rubber sheath slipped over the off-white plastic means it's prone to popping off in some circumstances (largely thanks to the very strong connection where the nose pegs in just in front of the cockpit). The shape and style of the cockpit canopy appear to be overly terrestrial and too curvy, considering they looked pretty angular, at least in the robot mode CGI. The main canopy section is molded in more rubbery plastic and, while there's grey linework painted over the frame, the smaller windows on either side of the canopy have been overpainted in grey rather than picked out as additional windows.
From the rear, the robot's entire upper body is fully exposed, with the entire faux-cockpit/collar section simply folded back between the boosters but, worse than that, so little of it appears to fit together properly. There's an appreciable gap between the off-white booster sections and the underlying red framework because the part that becomes the inner face of the robot's lower leg requires that space for the tailfin to fold flush against one of the legs, which doesn't feel like a particularly rational trade-off to me.
The underside and rear of the jet are substantially less successful and less screen-accurate, in that - as is so often the case with TransFormers jets - both have been bulked up considerably to accommodate robot parts that couldn't be stashed anywhere else. The shells of the boosters have been flattened on their outer faces for no obvious reason, while the boosters themselves are angled upward in service of their position in robot mode. Alongside that, and quite bafflingly, the feet are only partially folded into the gaping chasm between the legs, leaving the heel spurs sticking out of the back of the jet. It's another aspect of the toy that looks OK from the sides, but ridiculous from any other angle. Where the CGI has just a single vertical fin with a gun mounted on the end, this toy has most of the robot's upper body folded into a bulky undercarriage which then accommodates his rather oversized main gun. The gun isn't a structural requirement of Starscream's jet mode, and it doesn't even blend in that well due to the jumble of colours in the undercarriage, but it does complete the look of the vehicle.
Aside from this gun, Starscream comes with two weapon accessories which are tabbed into the underside of the wings. In jet mode, they use angled, rectangular tabs to make them hang vertically rather than laying flush against the wing and, aside from looking upside-down due to the larger part of the tips being at the bottom (which is, at least, accurate to the concept art), my only real complaint is that they're molded in black plastic, which looks very awkward against the off-white of the wings. I could understand the gun barrels being black, with the main body of the gun matching the colour of the wings, but the only accessory to get any paintwork is the larger gun.
Overall, I'd like to say this isn't a bad translation of the movie's CGI into three dimensional plastic, but that's exactly what it is... In some respects, it's close... but it feels like a few more months in development might have cleaned it up considerably.
Robot Mode:
Much as I like the design for Starscream in the original trilogy of live action TransFormers movies for its fantastically and unapologetically alien appearance, I have to admit there's something almost reassuringly familiar about this take on the character. There are sufficient cues from G1, yet he looks convincingly robotic - like something that might exist in the real world, somewhere, rather than just in a cartoon. Even just having the character-appropriate colourscheme makes a massive difference, and having the general distribution of that colour broadly match both the G1 toy and animation model means that, unlike the Bayverse version, this character is instantly recognisable as Starscream. Of course, it's a little disappointing that so many of the iconic physical characteristics are completely faked parts which have no real bearing on his jet mode beyond being a convenient place to mount the wings, for example.
The resemblance to SS Blitzwing is absolutely uncanny given now little they actually have in common. Starscream's feet appear to contain the same faux-landing gear details at the toe, but they're trimmed by a wraparound panel of armour which obscures the sculpted wheels. The legs are entirely unique, despite some similarities in the sculpted detail on the inner faces of the lower legs. The pelvis appears similar, but has greater range of movement and his crotch box unique. Aside from the obvious differences in the outer parts of the torso, the central section - from the belly up to the head - is all new parts with unique details, able to move in its own ways. His arms appear superficially similar, but have lost the shoulder fins and double-jointed elbows, but gained fold-away hands in place of the earlier toy's removeable ones, and all the components are unique to this mold. The wings are the most obvious difference, in terms of both look and function, but the hollower face of Starscream's wings is on show in robot mode and, despite some quite clever engineering for their transformation, additional ugly gaps have been introduced. The wings even feature similar - and largely redundant - accessories to be pegged into different places between the toy's two forms... And yet I'm not sure if the designers' efforts are to be lauded or rebuked because that very similarity is responsible for all the shortcomings of jet mode.
Additionally, this figure is far too lanky in comparison to the CGI: the hips appear too low, the legs too long, and either the arms are mounted too low on the torso or the chest vent sections are too high, or at too shallow a downward angle versus the surrounding parts. There's very much a sense of it being close, but not quite right. The way the lower part of the torso attempts to emulate the 'piston' arms that transfer Blitzwings upper torso section from vehicle mode to robot mode position feels almost redundant and perfunctory, but these parts flanking the cockpit on the belly are a defined part of this body-type from the movie. I feel they should have been molded in either the off-white or the red plastic rather than black, since they and the hands are the sole uses of black plastic except on joints (hips and ankles) and the weapons mounted on the wings, and the CGI clearly indicates the off-white would have been the ideal choice. Then again, according to the CGI in the movie, his crotch box should have been grey with a touch of red trim at the top...
Which brings us to the overall colourscheme and paint job... and it really feels as though this was based more on G1 Starscream than the movie CGI, because the distribution of colour is only broadly correct, very much oversimplified, and generally a bit too bright. The blanket gunmetal paintwork on the fronts of the thighs should really have matched the off-white plastic instead, and need not have been so extensive had that piece been molded in the right colour of plastic in the first place. The armour panels on the sides are left bare, when they should probably have been painted much like Blitzwing's, and the whole shin is bare blue plastic with the exception of that tiny trapezoid of white near the tops. The arms don't look quite so bad at first, but just a quick look at the CGI reveals the absence of a white (or red, depending on the image you compare to) stripe across the blue, outer part of the forearm, and that the large, flat plate leading back to each elbow should have been off-white. Further blanket coverage in gunmetal paint has been applied to the tech detail on the inner faces of the forearms, and that does look pretty good... but might also benefit by a bit more variety - even a dark wash, just to make it look less clean and uniform. The upper arms should have had some grey paint on the biceps as well as the band of red and, most surprising, there should possibly have been Decepticon insignias on at least one of his shoulders.
Then there's the fact that the rearmost sections of the plates poking out from between the faux-nose and his chest vents should have been grey, while the transforming part the shoulders are actually mounted out should have been red. The faux-nose section is molded in the off-white plastic, which is fair enough, but while the frame of the faux-cockpit canopy section and the patch of nose in front have been painted grey, the smaller section protruding in front of it, which should have been even darker, has been left bare. The faux-windows are painted a bright, sunshine yellow that looks like something from a cheap knockoff, but at least the shape of it appears to be correct. The protrusions from the backs of his shoulders are clearly based on G1 rather than the CGI, as the sculpted detail just has blanket coverage in gunmetal rather than just a painted frame and, ideally, black on the recessed detailing.
Starscream's weapons are a little bit of a mockery in robot mode. The two smaller ones simply trade one mounting for another, just a little further in toward the body, flattening them against the wings. They can be pegged into his fists, but they're still mounted sideways, and so look a bit daft. The socket on the right wing of mine is very loose, and doesn't hold the weapon particularly well. It doesn't slip out of its own accord, but it certainly doesn't take much jostling. Call me a rabid GeeWunner, but I think they missed a trick by not adding 5mm ports either on the bicep or the elbow, for the original Seeker look for these guns - it might not be true to the movie, but it'd make much more sense. The main weapon is completely stupid, though. Where Blitzwing's mounted via a tab into a slot on the forearm and was supported by a 5mm peg held by the hands, the only connection point on Starscream is the hand... but the peg isn't long enough for it to mount straight. Pushing it in all the way causes the hand to droop, but the hand won't hold it securely if it's only pushed in enough to lie flush with the forearm. Add to that, the fact that its overall size has been increased versus Blitzwing, and you have an oversized weapon that mounts too far forward on the forearm. The business end is painted a very dark, almost brownish-grey, and all the sculpted details are fairly similar to Blitzwing's gun, but with the disadvantage that it doesn't look particularly good on either arm due to its size and position. All the more daft, there's no storage for it in robot mode unless you count folding out the 'wing' that it pegs into in jet mode, now on his back. It does attach there, certainly, but then either the gun barrel or the curved plate of the rear section pokes up behind the robot's head, depending on which way round it's fitted.
And, on the subject of the head, I have to say I'm very disappointed in this one. I don't know if it's just the relative size, or simply that I don't much like the Knightverse Seeker head design, but certainly the face is an ugly jumble that's really not helped by its coating of silver paint. There's just too much going on there, and the metallic look just adds to the confusion. Had the face been a little larger within the head, perhaps it might have looked better, but the angle of the face, and particularly the protruding chin, almost makes it look as if it's halfway toward transforming into Blitzwing's battlemasked look. The eyes seem too small, just a couple of angled slits of red that barely have any visual impact. The sculpted detail of the helmet is nice enough - consistent with, but distinct enough from Blitzwing - but the glossy black paint disguises or confuses the details, depending on how it catches the light.
Considering the strong similarity between this figure and Blitzwing in robot mode, it's surprising to see how little they have in common in terms of their parts and transformation... In fact, all things considered, I don't think there's a single step in common. Rather then unfurling entirely, the lower legs merely accommodate the jet mode's tailfin along with a set of filler panels to partially conceal the legs - or, more accurately, the space between them. The feet swing up into the voids left behind, yet still stick out the back quite a way. I feel this could have been fixed by having them either swing down onto the underside, or an additional joint above the ankle could have allowed them to fold fully inside the leg. Alternatively, just making them look like afterburners would have been a better option, since the CGI shows these jets have larger afterburners, lower down versus the tail fin and facing straight backward. The existing afterburners - really only required for decoration on robot mode - could then have been stowed inside the legs and deployed or stowed as required during transformation. The wings on my copy are a source of some frustration, because the rotation joint on one wingtip (left in robot mode, right in jet mode) is very prone to popping off at the slightest provocation, and the frontmost points of the wings get in the way of the legs during transformation. I'm quite impressed by the way the frontmost part of the lower 'wing' splits apart to allow the nose to swing round and form the inner core of the robot's body, but the fake nose section that the head is mounted on feels like a horrible waste and a lazy fix, even though it's not substantially different from Blitzwing - it's just not dealt with as elegantly. Probably the fussiest aspects of transformation are the piston/arm things on either side of the belly, which are quite hard to deploy in robot mode, and the sections of fuselage that fold up behind the robot's shins. The way them compress and unfurl might be quite clever, but they don't peg into the thighs at all securely, and getting the two sides to stay clipped together can be a bit of a chore.
One strange aspect is that the instruction leaflet suggests the arms should tab together in vehicle mode... but, while the left arm has the appropriate slot, the tab is absent from the right arm. Based on the photos and videos I've seen, this appears to be common to all copies rather than a molding glitch on mine, like the weapon port on the right wing. To be honest, while the arms might have worked better had they tabbed together for vehicle mode, it's certainly not a problem that they don't as there's barely any clearance around them anyway. There's a strong likelihood this change was made to the mold after the instructions were completed, and no-one thought to make the amendment.
On the upside, while this figure certainly has its shortcomings, articulation is not one of them - he even compares favourably to Blitzwing in that respect, despite the reduced joint count in the arms. The feet can tilt backward slightly, as well as inward, giving him a more stable footprint in a slightly greater variety of poses. Had their forward tilt not been blocked by the base of the lower leg, the improvement would have been even more pronounced. His knees bend just a hair over 90°, and the rotation joint is at the top of the hip rather than just above the knee. The forward/backward range of the hips is limited by the points of the wings, drooping down behind the thighs, and is only a little more than 90° as a result, while the outward movement is just a touch under 90° due to the bulk of the upper thigh clashing with the bottom of the torso. However, where Blitzwing's waist articulation appeared to be inaccessible, Starscream's works perfectly, and is limited only by the transformation hinge for the jet's nose, which hangs down just behind his backside. Starscream's shoulders can rotate a full 360° as long as the arms are kept out of the way of the wings, they raise 90° out to the sides, bicep rotation is unrestricted and the single-jointed elbow can bed to about 140°. The wrists only really move for transformation, or by necessity, to get the gun to fit properly into the hands, and are molded in quite a loose pose. While the movement of the wings is technically transformation rather than articulation, they are hinged to flare out, and the wingtips can be rotated so that they point up (like the Knightverse Seekers) or down (like the Knightverse Coneheads), but they can't be angled back any further. For me, the big disappointment is the head, which is mounted on a ball joint, but only able to rotate at a weird angle due to the orientation of the stalk. This really should have been a little longer, not only to allow a bit more movement, but to prevent the head popping off the ball joint when rotated past a certain point.
The strange thing about this toy - and perhaps it's a symptom of a wider burnout in my TransFormers collecting - but I went into it full of enthusiasm, but my abiding impression of the toy in-hand is very much at the "meh" end of the spectrum. I've had the toy close to my desk, and have basically been staring at this draft post, struggling for more than a month to work up the enthusiasm to write about it, when things like Rescue Pioneer and even the Peru Kill upgrade set got dealt within a couple of days of their arrival. Studio Series Blitzwing was deeply flawed in jet mode, but it's a very impressive TransFormers toy that looked pretty damned good in robot mode. This toy never quite seems to exceed the sum of its flaws... and it's made me feel quite wary of picking up any of the (almost) inevitable repaints. Whether I do or not will likely depend on the quality of the paint job... and considering the vast difference between TLK Nitro and SS Thundercracker, the odds are that subsequent repaints will be better decorated. As it stands, I think this incarnation of Starscream could have been improved by using a darker red plastic and a much darker translucent plastic for the cockpit canopy, with a matching paint for the faux-canopy parts in front of the head - something more like Blitzwing, on both counts, would have been adequate.
With Blitzwing, I was tempted to break out my paintbrushes to spruce him up a bit... that almost feels like a requirement with Starscream. Coupled with a transformation that's not nearly as fun as Blitzwing's, I don't feel that this Bumblebee movie Cybertron form Starscream is really worth recommending, certainly not at the current £33 UK pricepoint for a Studio Series Voyager, except as a project for budding customisers. In spite of all its flaws, Blitzwing remains the better-designed, more fun toy while, in a lot of ways, all Starscream really has going for him is my nostalgic connection to 80s/90s side-scrolling shoot-'em-ups.
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