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 This was largely because of the absolute travesty of simplistic and outdated engineering that was the Siege version and its hopelessly lazy Earthrise retool.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...

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...

TransFormers: Prime Ratchet

While TransFormers: Prime owed a significant aesthetic debt to the live action movies, it owed at least as much to the previous TV series, TransFormers Animated, both in terms of its character setup (few Autobots against a legion of enemies, both Cybertronian and human) and the specifics of its cast. Optimus Prime is a given in any toyline - thanks to the lessons Hasbro learned with the 1986 animated movie - and Bumblebee has become a staple character in recent years by becoming the new Hot Rod, but it's still quite rare for other G1 characters to resurface in any recognisable form.

Ratchet's persona in TFAnimated was that of a traumatised war veteran, haunted an encounter with Lockdown, an irascible but reliable medic/engineer who gradually softened over the course of the series. TFPrime's Ratchet... was much the same, but didn't become appreciably friendlier as time went on. He was sometimes reckless (experimenting with synthetic Energon using himself as the guineapig) and proved himself in battle on several occasions, but, with the exception of a couple of spotlight episodes, he was mostly a support character, remaining in the Autobots' base rather than getting involved in their missions. Nevertheless, he was a brilliant character, voiced by the inimitable Jeffrey Combs, so even the briefest appearance in an episode was often a highlight.

Does the toy follow suit?

TransFormers Animated Ratchet

The character of Ratchet, having been all but ignored since Generation 1, went through a series of rather massive changes (not to say transformations) when he turned up again in the live action movie series and in TransFormers Animated. While one seemed to be attempting a take on the 'party bot' persona hinted at in the G1 toy's bio, the other went completely the other way, turning him into a grizzled, curmudgeonly war veteran medic for an inexperienced team of Autobots whose primary function was maintenance.

The result was surprisingly effective, given TFA's heavily stylised look, and Ratchet was one of the best developed characters, gradually learning to soften his approach, as we learnt about the events - and the failures on his part - that shaped him.

TransFormers (Movie) Rescue Ratchet

Sometimes, dear reader, I suspect I let my repaint-purchasing OCD carry me a little too far. I noted in my write-up of the standard movie Ratchet that I hadn't felt the need to replace it with any of the repaints or Deluxe class remakes, but this wasn't - strictly speaking - a replacement. It was... supplementing the original? Complementing it?

Whatever, Hasbro decided to release a G1-inspired repaint of movie Ratchet as an actual ambulance, rather than a Fire Rescue vehicle, without remolding anything. Can that even work? And why is he 'Rescue Ratchet' as an ambulance, when he was originally a Fire Rescue vehicle?

All these questions, and more (maybe) are answered within...

TransFormers (Movie) Ratchet

Of all the things that had 'fans' in uproar about the first Michael Bay-directed Transformers movie, Ratchet's appearance was probably the daftest. G1 Ratchet was, of course, an ambulance made out of the Nissan Cherry Vanette mold (aka Diaclone's Onebox Vanette... Although, bizarrely, the toy appears to have been based on a vehicle that didn't see the light of day until several years after G1 made its debut, let alone Diaclone!), and was one of the most ridiculed models in the line - he had no head, barely had arms, and was a terrible 'robot' sat upon a mobile 'repair bay'. Rather than sticking with the ambulance theme, Movie Ratchet becomes a rescue vehicle for the Fire Service. A strange choice, to be sure...