Jurassic Park X TransFormers Tyrannocon Rex (& Autobot JP93)

(Femme-Bot Friday #80)

By and large, the very concept of TransFormers crossovers with other properties is not one that interests me. The pair of Street Fighter II sets won me over because I'm also a Capcom fan, and because it used the Generations Arcee mold - which I was quite keen on - for Chun Li. The movie crossovers - Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Top Gun and Universal Monsters - all looked low-effort and poor-quality.

And, to be perfectly honest, when the Jurassic Park crossover was revealed, I planned on skipping it. Sure, the new paint job for the Kingdom Megatron mold and its new head sculpt looked great, but the transforming Ford Explorer looked like the kind of knockoff toy sold in the London Zoo gift shops. With a price tag in excess of £120, I felt it was more overpriced garbage that I could happily live without, even though the absurdly-named Tyrannocon Rex was billed as a Femme-Bot. If Kingdom Megatron was overpriced at £52, and the equally absurdly-named 'Autobot JP93' (whom I shall henceforth refer to as 'Dickie Attenbot', per my girlfriend's suggestion) is very clearly not Leader class in terms of size or engineering, this boxed set was clearly a rip off, and not worth investing in.

But then I saw an announcement on Reddit that Zavvi had cut over £70 from the price tag, bringing it down to about £51 for the pair... and then saw that Amazon had followed suit... meaning that the cost of the boxed set of two figures was below Kingdom Megatron's RRP. That changed everything...

Studio Series #88 Sideways

The funny thing about the original Revenge of the Fallen Sideways toy was that, in spite of its inaccuracy - both in robot mode and vehicle mode - I enjoyed it so much that I ended up buying its two repaints - Dead End and Movie Advanced Dino - both of which I enjoyed every bit as much as the original.

However, it can't be argued that Sideways wasn't in serious need of a do-over, so the announcement of a Studio Series version was great news. What wasn't so great was that, once again, Audi had declined to grant Hasbro the licence to reproduce their car (one has to wonder why they ever agreed to have one of their vehicles appear in the movie franchise in the first place - what did they think they were getting themselves into?), so he's still not an authetic Audi R8.

Still, with expectations suitably adjusted and allowances made, let's see how the new version of Sideways compares to the version from 2009's Revenge of the Fallen toyline.

Fourteenth Anniversary

I said last year that it seemed as though there was a good chance that the Third Parties were going to become the only worthwhile thing about collecting TransFormers and, in the intervening time - particularly with the disappointingly inconsistent War For Cybertron Trilogy coming to an end, and the introduction of the generally disappointing TransFormers Legacy line - I have yet to see anything that will change my opinion for the better.

At this point, Studio Series is basically carrying the full weight of my expectations as a collector and, while some of the toys released over the last year have been great, there has been a discernible drop in quality in others, both in terms of design and materials. Worse still, with the introduction of Studio Series '86 - effectively a dumping ground for figures they couldn't squeeze into Kingdom - and the addition of Core class to the line, even this flagship brand is beginning to look a little dubious.

I have a set of Third Party figures on order or preorder, but, for one reason or another, none arrived in time to make this list... but hopefully it gives me a head start on next year's.

So, let's get this sad little show on the road...

Studio Series #85 Arcee

(Femme-Bot Friday #79)

Arcee doesn't have the greatest of histories in the live action movie series. Unceremoniously pulled from the first movie, she was pushed back in for the second - albeit in such a way that it wasn't clear whether she was a single consciousness split across three bodies or one of a team of three independent robots with superficially similar designs - only to be (presumably) killed off in the final battle. Fans seem to have been reasonably positive toward the original, unused movie design, but overwhelmingly unfavourable toward the so-called 'wheelsnakes' of Revenge of the Fallen.

She was then absent from subsequent movies, only turning up in the tentative reboot that was the Bumblebee movie, in the all-too-brief opening scene set on Cybertron. Even here, the reception to her design was not consistently positive, with many feeling that, while the overall design looked good enough, the uncanny appearance of her face was off-putting... And, of course, that brief CGI sequence only featured the movie protagonist's vehicle mode, so many were inclined to feel pessimistic about any toys that might come along.

But, when the toy was finally revealed, it looked surprisingly good... from most angles, at least. Let's give it the once-over, and see what we make of it.

TransFormers Legacy Tarantulas

While I've amassed a fair old collection of original Beast Wars toys, Tarantulas is one character of whom I've never owned a single toy. Even the Telemocha re-release didn't grab me... Though that's perhaps more because I just felt the original Beast Wars toy failed to adequately represent either him or Blackarachnia, and the TransMetals upgrade never really appealed to me because I was very late to my appreciation for its ostentatious chrome and gaudy colourschemes. Nowadays, I'd be somewhat keen to get my hands on the TransMetals version, if it weren't for the fact that I'm basically out of space on my single Beast Wars/Machines shelf.

After the third chapter of Hasbro's War for Cybertron Trilogy turned into a haphazard convergence of G1 and Beast Wars, I ended up buying more of the latter selection than the former... But, while two versions of Kingdom Blackarachnia were produced, Tarantulas remained notable by his absence.

But then Legacy arrived, and it wasn't long before Tarantulas was announced. It wouldn't be unreasonable to presume that he'd effectively be Kingdom Tarantulas, rebranded for the newer line... but, to my surprise, that has turned out not to be the case. Come into my parlour, and lets find out what makes this figure something different.

Studio Series #84 Ironhide

The funny thing about Ratchet and Ironhide, these days, is that development of one will always lead to the appearance of the other, even if only one of them is actually present in whatever media might be associated with a given toyline.

The less funny thing is that, like the Seekers, it's becoming increasingly common for the pair to be released according to different strategies - witness the US release of both War for Cybertron Ratchet figures as Walgreens exclusives.

Thankfully, no such problems with the Studio Series interpretations of Cybertronian Ratchet and Ironhide from the 2018 Bumblebee solo movie. Not only did both appear on screen (if only for a couple of seconds apiece), but both have received distributions seemingly unrestrained by any retailer-exclusivity marketing deals. As mentioned in my write-up of Ratchet, my expectations were low, but the toy turned out to be both technically impressive and a more satisfying Cybertronian form than those offered by the War for Cybertron line... So let's take a look at Ironhide and see how much of that carries over to the mold's inevitable second use.

Studio Series #83 Soundwave (& Ravage)

The arrival of a Cybertronian Starscream in the Studio Series toyline, based on the brief appearance of the Seekers and Coneheads in the Bumblebee movie, certainly got people excited for the prospect of more toys based on the robots seen in that short CGI sequence.

From my point of view, while Starscream himself was a huge disappointment - firmly putting me off buying the Thundercracker repaint, even if they do subsequently produce a Skywarp repaint as well - the next round of Cybertronian toys made for a very refreshing change from the ugly, blocky simplicity of the War for Cybertron: Siege line... But that's not to say the Studio Series figures weren't without their controversies.

Because, while a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is pretty much prerequisite when it comes to the concept of alien robots transforming into vehicles - even alien vehicles - some folks felt that Soundwave stretched credulity. But could he truly be the straw that broke the donkey's back?

A Brief Outage...

While working on a couple of upcoming posts this morning, I was a little surprised to see an email, purporting to be from Google's Blogger team, telling me this blog had been removed. According to the email, it had been "flagged for review" because my content had "violated our SPAM policy".

Now, I'm no stranger to spam comments, and I've removed and replaced a couple of posts because they started getting increased volumes of traffic well outside what I would consider believable... I've also previously had a couple of posts flagged and suspended due to some sort of false flag caused (if I remember correctly) by Google's own bots... But the idea that the whole blog could be taken down as spam? That seemed a little far-fetched.

And yet, when I then tried to view the blog itself, I was presented with a message to the effect that the blog could not be found... And then I noticed my current drafts weren't saving... And then I couldn't access the back end of this blog at all.

Naturally, I clicked the link to request a review, and even the web page that initiates the process seemed to give me some cause for optimism... Apparently the very fact that I followed the link went some way toward proving this wasn't a spam blog. However, it said that the review would take place some time in the next two working days. This being a Sunday, it's not normally considered 'a working day'...

Yet, lo and behold, precisely 30 minutes later, I had a new email telling me the blog had been reinstated.

And then it occurred to me: the original email said the TransForm-A-Blog had been "flagged to us for review", the implication being that it had been deliberately flagged by a person. I mean... Wow. Nice.

In other news, I got a lot of photography done today, and got quite a way through several drafts, one of which is now scheduled for late this coming week, another might even go live tomorrow...

For the moment, I'll leave you with a hint about one of the upcoming posts...

...Something I would never have bought were it not for a massive price cut...

New Purchases - AKA A Third Not An Unboxing Post

During some recent tidying, my girlfriend uncovered a box containing my old Nintendo Game Boy Color and the 17 game cartridges I bought for it many, many years ago. I'd pretty much forgotten its existence, since it hadn't seen the light of day in the eight years Courtney has been living with me. I remember bringing it to my flat, but I wouldn't have been able to remember where I'd put it... And, since I've not used it in so long, I figured it was time to sell it all on.

What has this to do with TransFormers? Well, I've bought nothing new since January, and the act of selling those 17 games made for a surprising windfall. As a result, I decided to spend a small part of it on acquiring the handful of toys I'd actually been looking forward to from Hasbro, and take the opportunity to have a more serious look at obtaining a couple of Third Party figures I was starting to think I'd have to miss out on (unless their release conveniently coincided with Christmas).

It also seemed like a good opportunity to try out a couple of new e-retailers I've found - Dinobot Island Toys and Star Action Figures - both of whom have been added to my sidebar's 'Cybertronian Datanet' section for a short while now. They seem to have a good range of stock, all of which is a few quid cheaper than the likes of Hasbro Pulse, Smyths, and some of the other online stores I've used in the past. They also, between them, had everything I wanted to buy, where my regular options were out of stock when I was ready to order.

Of course, my orders went through at precisely the time the CWU (Communication Workers Union) were going on strike, which naturally had an effect on postal services. That said, I put my orders through on 27/8 and 31/8, they were despatched on 30/8 and 1/9, respectively, which is quick service on the part of the two stores, in spite of the Summer Bank Holiday Weekend.

Additionally, both packages arrived in this morning's post, so I'd say that's still pretty good service on the part of the Royal Mail, in spite of any backlog caused by the (very necessary) industrial action.

Full writeups will, of course, be coming... but here are a few pics to tide you over.

Studio Series #82 Ratchet

Of all the figures to come from the Bumblebee movie section of the Studio Series toyline, the one for which my expectations were lowest was the Ratchet/Ironhide mold. This was largely because of the absolute travesty of simplistic and outdated engineering that was the Siege version and its hopelessly lazy Earthrise retool.

Because, let's fact it, if Hasbro were going to get lazy about an established vehicle mode, and leave the robot's blocky Cybertronian feet hanging off the back of an ostensibly terrestrial van, what hope was there for a transforming toy of a character that never had a vehicle mode designed for him, as he only appears very briefly in the movie, and then only in his robot mode?

And yet, sometimes, just sometimes, Hasbro can surprise a jaded old fan like me, and make me believe that perhaps there is some hope for originality of thinking within the brand. Could it be that the Studio Series figure of Ratchet from the Bumblebee movie is one such surprise? Let's take a look...