Unique Toys R-09 Red Destroyer

The moment I learned that Unique Toys were planning to develop Stinger for their line of Masterpiece-analogues, my curiosity was piqued. After all, this was a nonentity who dissolved into a flying cloud of metal cubes rather than transforming. When the first grey prototype images appeared, I was instantly hooked. My experience with Unique Toys products thusfar has been uniformly positive: their engineering has always been clever without being overly complex and their QC has yet to disappoint. However, in terms of screen-accuracy, particularly on their head sculpts, they've never been 100% on the mark, which resulted in some of their more recent figures later being 'fixed' by cheaper knockoffs.

Their strategy for this figure was to cut down on paint applications to reduce the retail price as far as they could, in the hope that people would buy the original rather than wait for a KO, and they teased the release of a Camaro Bumblebee with much the same robot mode as additional motivation - the suggestion being that the reception of Red Destroyer will determine whether the yellow Camaro goes into production. Their paintwork has almost always been considered lacking by fans and, coupled with the eyewatering prices of some figures and inaccuracies in their sculpts, they've given the KO merchants ample room to make improvements in the past. Dialling things back even further seems like the worst decision to me. As it turned out, they revealed images of the Camaro remix within a month of Red Destroyer shipping.

But let's see how Red Destroyer stands as his own product, before anyone has the opportunity to reverse engineer it and produce a cheaper option.

MetaGate G-01 Haiku

I have quite a few excellent Third Party figures in my collection now, with an increasing number based on movie characters, and in a loosely Masterpiece-adjacent scale. Considering the couple of Hasbro-produced, Deluxe class figures of Age of Extinction Drift that I own are less than stellar, the announcement of a Third Party MP-analogue version certainly piqued my interest... And the fact that it was to be a triple-changer, taking both his Bugatti Veyron and futuristic helicopter modes into account, seemed like a tall order.

Add to that, the creators, MetaGate, were previously unheard of, and suddenly launching themselves toward an eager - and frequently highly critical - fandom with such an ambitious debut project. There have been rumours - as there were with DX9's La Hire - that Unique Toys have had a hand in this figure's creation but, so far, there appears to be little or no concrete evidence of that.

However, it quickly became a figure I was intent on acquiring, and the recent sale of my Game Boy Color game collection gave me just enough breathing room in my finances to risk taking a punt on a stunning-looking figure from an untested company. I preordered from Iacon.Store at the start of September, and it arrived a little over three weeks later... so, let's take a look at MetaGate's inaugural offering, and see how it compares to the output of some of the more established Third Party figures.

Studio Series #45 Drift (Helicopter)

Drift's sudden and unexpected appearance in Age of Extinction had at least a modicum of fanfare because Paramount had somehow convinced Ken Watanabe to lend his voice to the character. He ended up with little to do, as the scripts still gave the majority of the dialogue to the human characters - pretty much all he did was spout some haiku, argue with Crosshairs and Hound, and fawn over Optimus Prime.

The big surprise was that, during a couple of sequences of the movie, he transformed not into his much-publicised Bugatti Veyron vehicle mode, but a sci-fi (possibly even Cybertronian) helicopter. It wasn't mentioned, let alone referenced as being unusual in any way, it was just another throwaway bit of CGI trickery in a movie series that had already stopped giving a damn about consistency.

Hasbro's response was to release a separate One Step Changer for each vehicle mode, and repaint Dark of the Moon Skyhammer as a Voyager class companion to their Deluxe class Veyron Drift. I don't think anyone actually expected to see a Triple-Changer movie Drift toy, but none of the available options really looked a great deal like what was (briefly glimpsed) on screen...

Cue Studio Series, with a new take on helicopter Drift, derived from the (not especially well-received) helicopter Dropkick mold...

Studio Series #17 Shadow Raider

And here we have another fine example of a toy I wasn't intended to buy until I bought it, the orange repaint of Lockdown.

The very idea of it struck me as a very cynical cash-grab - not just on Hasbro's part, because orange was the signature colour selected by Lamborghini for the Aventador. Thus, we have this so-called 'Shadow Raider' - a non-character retconned into Age of Extinction as one of Lockdown's crew... Literally the only draw here (unless you're a big fan of orange) is a new head sculpt and one of Lockdown's missing weapons... though, sadly, not the massive head-gun that the original AoE toyline figure had. Neither of these really warranted forking out another £20+ in my opinion.

But, in a fit of caprice, I picked him up anyway... Seriously, sometimes I don't understand myself. But let's have a look...

Studio Series #23 KSI Sentry

The trials and tribulations I had over Studio Series Thundercracker seem insignificant compared to the trouble I had obtaining KSI Sentry. Ostensibly part of the fourth wave of Deluxe class toys - along with Dropkick (from the Bumblebee movie) in his helicopter form, he was on my must-buy list from the start because it seemed unlikely the SS Stinger/Pagani Huayra mold would ever get re-used as a proper character.

However, just to make life interesting, I've yet to see a single one 'in the wild', despite having seen Dropkick appear both online and in one bricks-and-mortar shop (though that was Forbidden Planet in London, so shouldn't really count). Again, I resorted to eBay and, again, thankfully didn't have to pay too much over the odds to get him - in fact, were it not for the shipping fee, he would have been slightly cheaper than at UK retail.

But was it worth the hassle?

Studio Series #11 Lockdown

It should be noted, first of all, that I did not dislike the Age of Extiction toyline's Lockdown toy. Prewarned that it was a bit rubbish, I bought it with suitably low expections and found it to be a competent toy with a fun transformation and a rather cool head-gun accessory... However, recognising that it was a poor representation of the character from the movie, I was quick to buy Unique Toys' Masterpiece-scale interpretation, Peru Kill, long before Studio Series Lockdown was announced.

So when the photos of Hasbro's entirely new take on the nonpartisan bounty hunter surfaced, I was impressed but, initially, not that interested... We all know how these things go, with my collecting habits, and I ended up ordering him almost as soon as he became available. How many Lockdowns does one collector need?

Studio Series #07 Grimlock

Yes, yes, the Eternal Despiser of Dinobots has picked up another Dinobot toy and - hypocrisy piled upon hypocrisy - it's a live action movie Dinobot at that. Here's the thing, though: similar to The Last Knight's Megatron, movie Grimlock's design isn't inherently bad generally... it's only inherently bad within the context of TransFormers. If someone had come up with a property in which robotic dinosaurs evolved the ability to transform into humanoid 'knights' in an attempt to combat a bunch of robotic 'knights' that transform into spacecraft, with AOE Grimlock and TLK Megatron being their leaders, I might be tempted to give it a look... it's just not right for TransFormers, in my opinion. Plus, given the way the movie Dinobots and TLK Megatron look, I'd struggle to decide who the good guys were supposed to be...

Which brings us to the Studio Series, where Hasbro are taking the opportunity to release whole new molds of 'popular' characters from throughout the live action movie franchise, and one of the first Leader class figures to be released is Age of Extinction Grimlock. Roundly received as looking far more accurate to the CGI and with an appropriately subdued paint job, rather than the garish copper, silver/grey and black of the versions released in the AoE toyline, I'm still not entirely sure why I caved in and bought him... But let's have a look and see if we can figure it out.

Unique Toys R-01 Peru Kill

Lockdown was an interesting addition to the fourth live action TransFormers movie, Age of Extinction, and potentially a clever addition to the franchise. Sadly, 'clever' is not a word that can be associated with the live action movies made thusfar under the auspices of Paramount and Michael Bay. In typical Hollywood fashion, he was killed off in the climactic battle of that movie, having very graphically killed off one of the Autobots from the first three movies right near the start (and several others off-screen, it's strongly implied).

There was a Deluxe class Lockdown released as part of Hasbro's mercifully brief Age of Extinction toyline, but it was one of the worst-received figures that year - short, blocky, weirdly-proportioned, and molded in entirely the wrong colours of plastic, about the only thing right about it was the way the face-cannon worked. Even so, and perhaps because I already had low expectations when I picked him up, I quite liked it. It wasn't perfect, but the transformation was reasonably clever, even if the results weren't quite right.

While Hasbro are due to release their Studio Series remake of AoE Lockdown pretty soon, Unique Toys have beaten them to the punch with a larger - essentially Masterpiece-scale - interpretation of this underutilised yet impressive character, under the baffling name of 'Peru Kill'.

Studio Series #02 Stinger

The toylines accompanying the last couple of movies have been pretty perfunctory. From the very first movie, the toys arrived long before the films but, initially, carried on for quite some time afterward as well, with Hasbro winding down other toylines to ensure everyone was focussed on buying the movie toys. Dark of the Moon showed a marked departure from the strategy, with the toyline reaching a premature end before several of the toys had reached the market.

Takara Tomy filled in some of the gaps later on, releasing Wheeljack in Asian territories only, and creating Movie Advanced versions of some of the stragglers, including a repaint of Deluxe class Soundwave and an attempt at Dino from Dark of the Moon, based on the Revenge of the Fallen Sideways mold.

While the AoE toyline was still in full swing, Hasbro teased the existance of a unique mold for Stinger - the KSI drone created as a 'better-looking' Bumblebee analogue - but the line was halted before any images of the mold emerged, and Takara Tomy's version was just a repaint of AoE Bumblebee.

I'd given up all hope of a unique Stinger toy, and had been looking into acquiring the Takara Tomy version... until a new Stinger toy - with a whole new mold - was revealed as part of Hasbro's Studio Series line. Could this be the mythical toy that was made for the AoE toyline?

KuBianBao Deformation Detective

Knockoff merchants have long been know to upsize existing toys in an attempt to make their luridly coloured, poor quality plastic and simplified mechanics less of an issue - bigger toy meaning greater value for money, and all that. In more recent years, though, many knockoff merchants have developed the audacity to knock off official products - and, occasionally, Third Party products - without simplifying the engineering at all... and one or two have even had the bare-faced cheek to improve upon the original.

One such manufacturer is KuBianBao, whose Deformation brand has knocked off and enlarged both Age of Extinction and Combiner Wars figures (though not, as yet, any of the gestalts). There seems to be a competition going on between KuBianBao and WeiJiang over the size of their oversize figures and the extras they come with. While WJ have produced the ultimate movie Optimus Prime figure, KBB's take on Hound seemed to be a more appropriate size versus some of the genuine figures and comes with a knock off of Doctor Wu's Mercenary kit.

WeiJiang 'Deformation Era' M01 OP Commander

It's very rare, when looking at photos of TransFormers toys, that I start to wonder if I'm looking at something that actually transforms, or a detailed action figure made to resemble a TransFormers toy. I remember being completely blown away by the first images of RotF Leader class Prime, and wondering how such an amazing robot could possibly condense down into a believable truck mode but, in retrospect, there were plenty of obvious visual cues.

For all its detail, and as amazing as it is for the size, AoE Evasion Mode Prime also leaves one in no doubt that it's a transforming toy simply because Hasbro's budget didn't allow for the toy's strengths to properly shine through. It's potential didn't go unnoticed, however, and dodgy knockoff company WeiJiang have taken my favourite interpretation of movie Optimus Prime, increased its size, improved its build quality, improved its paint job... and added some die-cast metal for good measure.

Can it possibly be as good as it appears to be? Is it truly...

Age of Extinction/Generations Drift

Drift has a curious history. The original character was created by IDW writer Shane McCarthy, who apparently felt that a certain element of character was lacking from the existing lineup. Like Beast Wars Dinobot, he was a Decepticon-turned-Autobot with a strong sense of honour and a large sword. Riding on Dinobot's coat tails, McCarthy's Drift apparently proved so popular that Hasbro created a toy based on the character and then, all of a sudden, Drift was announced as a character in Age of Extinction. The design looked daft - someone clearly took the samurai motif a little too far and a little too seriously - but he was to be voiced by Ken Watanabe, so surely movie Drift would turn out to be awesome?

As it turned out, Drift was another toe-curling stereotype, along the lines of the twins from Revenge of the Fallen, speaking in haiku and, without explanation, suddenly transforming into a Cybertronian helicopter as well as using a terrestrial disguise, introducing the audience to the concept of Triple Changers in a slightly more overt way than the likes of RotF Mixmaster... But, hey, whoever said the live action movies were internally consistent or coherent?

MCM London Comic Con 2015 Haul

Just a quick post - I was hoping to do some photography today (once I'd done the dishes - Real Life FTW!) but the weather has turned rather grey - to list the things I did and didn't get at the MCM London Comic Con yesterday. I'd taken the day off work especially for the event as my best friend told me Fridays are calmer than the weekends (probably because many folks are at work), which made it seem the best opportunity to introduce my girlfriend to the wonders of full-size conventions, after taking her to Hyper Japan towards the end of last year.

The MCMLCC tends to be very variable when it comes to availability of TransFormers. Some have been brilliant, some have been terrible... this one was not bad. There were plenty of Combiner Wars toys from the waves that involved Superion, Menasor and the CW form of Optimus Prime, but that didn't make for any complete combiners (that I was interested in, at least). I'd mostly planned on skipping everything until Defensor, but have recently decided than Superion actually looks OK, so one of my first purchases was CW Silverbolt. Along with him, picked up FansProjects' Function-X2 Quadruple-U (aka Weirdwolf). I'd been considering this model since it was first announced, but never felt strongly enough about it to order it online... So basically, that was a couple of impulse buys.

Next up was Age of Extinction Drift. I had been considering ordering the Premium version (available on its own via eBay) because that is truer to the character's appearance in the movie but, having not done so for however long it's been available now, I just caved in and bought the basic version. Further up the list of things I actually definitely wanted to buy was any version of the Deluxe class Soundwave from Dark of the Moon and, as luck would have it, the same stall had one left... the Age of Extinction re-release as 'Darkside Soundwave').

Other than that, my money went on a couple of new Genki Gear t-shirts, a portable speaker thing that works by attaching itself to things that can carry sound by vibration (examples on the stand included a large polystyrene container, which offered excellent sound!), a small print of a Japanese painting/poem, a 4-pack of Flying Cauldron 'Butterscotch Beer' (actually labelled 'Butterscotch Cream Soda' in smaller print, because it's non-alcoholic), a 10-minute massage, the complete series of Cowboy Beebop on DVD, a CD from the crew behind Weebl's Stuff and some food.

Things I didn't buy included lots of other Combiner Wars stuff (including no less than 2 heavily overpriced Leader class Megatrons), Generations Doubledealer, Brainstorm, Roadbuster and Whirl, the Play Arts Kai Catwoman, Variant Batgirl and Wonder Woman, Kotobukiya's Bishoujo Batwoman, a whole bunch of Gundam model kits, and The Eyes of Bayonetta 2 artbook. Some of this I'll probably buy online - PAK V-Batgirl I've already ordered - because either it was sold out by the time I got back to the stand, I couldn't find the stand again or just forgot to go back... By the end of the day, we were all pretty tired... and this was the first time I'd ever stayed at one of these events much beyond lunchtime.

Age of Extinction/Generations Lockdown

I'm not sure exactly when I became aware that Lockdown was a character in Age of Extinction, or that he was the robot whose head 'grows' a massive great face-cannon, but he was one of the few interesting elements of the movie. Neither Autobot nor Decepticon, Lockdown, much like his TransFormers Animated progenitor, is a freelance peacekeeping agent bounty hunter who, for reasons revealed only quite late in the film, has come to Earth and allied himself with a group of humans (echoing some aspects of Dark of the Moon).

While I'd originally intended to hold out for the Japanese version of this toy, despite the additional cost, I ended up buying the Hasbro US version in Forbidden Planet while on an evening out with my girlfriend, simply because I'd heard it was terrible enough that even the import version wasn't going to be any good, and this one was convenient... Plus, by the looks of things, Lockdown and other later-wave figures may not appear in UK Toys'R'Us stores...

Age of Extinction/Generations Hound

When Hound was first announced as a new character in the fourth live action TransFormers movie, lots of people - optimistically/foolishly - hoped that, finally, Michael Bay would be giving us a beloved G1 character the way he was meant to be. When photos of a military truck - an Oshkosh Medium Defense Tactical vehicle, no less - were leaked, those folks were naturally disappointed... until they twigged that 'Hound' was probably referencing another, more recent addition to the Autobot ranks, from the likes of TransFormers: Animated and TransFormers: Prime, rather than the Earth-loving scout of old.

John Goodman's performance as the voice of Hound was entirely predictable - merely a reworking of just about every other military character he's ever played - yet he became one of the few likeable characters in the movie (robot or human). But how well does this translate into a Voyager class figure?

Age of Extinction/Generations Bumblebee Evolution 2-Pack

One of these days, I'm going to make the decision to never, ever buy another Bumblebee toy. In the meantime, I may just dial it down and try to be discerning in my purchases, perhaps limiting it to one per movie/toyline, and waiting to see which one is best. Today is clearly not that day, as I have picked up the Age of Extinction version of Bumblebee in its 'Evolution' 2-pack, which purports to give us a 'classic' Bumblebee along with this super-new 2014 Concept Camaro update.

As you might expect from the TransFormers brand, all is not as it seems... But is that always a good thing?

The 'Stink' in Age of Extinction

So, obviously, I've seen the new movie... and the title should suggest I wasn't keen on it. I've read lots of reviews and opinions about the latest entry in the TransFormers franchise, and it seems strangely less divided and more resoundingly positive than the preceding three, despite being - in my humble opinion - one of the worst films I've ever paid to see... and not just because of the Dinobots.

I have to admit first of all that I tend to agree with most of the positive comments people have made about it (more screentime for the robots, more character development for the robots (if you can call it that), and a clearer sense of purpose to most of the characters, both human and robot... In fact, I'd say the human element is far better, generally, in Age of Extinction, than in any of the previous films... But is that enough?

(Some spoilerish bits ahead...)

It Happened! (Sorta)

Well, someone on the interwebs clearly had the same idea as me.


Personally, I think he went a little overboard on the yellow on his torso, legs and arms... he looks distinctly waspish (as opposed to Wasp-ish)... and I'm not sure the Dark of the Moon Roadbuster head is entirely the right choice, but I honestly can't think of a better suggestion.

And, as a proof of concept, it's excellent.

Age of Extinction/Generations Evasion Mode Optimus Prime

While I liked the Leader class Optimus Prime toys from the first movie and raved about the almost unbelievably good update for Revenge of the Fallen, both toys suffered in a small way from the inclusion of electronics. These added to the weight of the figures and caused the occasional balance issue. The Voyagers, meanwhile, often ended up with a truck nose backpack and lacked a lot of the detail of the larger format toys.

What I wanted, ideally, was a Leader class figure without the gimmicks, so the space thereby made available could improve both the detail of the model and the 'accuracy' (meaning complexity) of the transformation. While Hasbro will never have the common sense to design TransFormers according to my whims, are they at least going to compromise?

Content Update

New photos added to the Dark of the Moon Mechtech Megatron post... Why might that be?

"Here's a hint!"