Studio Series is a line that I wish I were more excited about. I just really don’t have a need or interest in updated versions of most of the Movie Transformers. I had heard a lot of good things about Jazz, and the only other version of Jazz was the one from the first movie, which wasn’t a bad toy but not super great. After finding him on sale, I decided to go ahead and pick him up, though I was a little worried about his size.
The size of this figure is definitely the most noticeable thing. Jazz is one tiny toy. Part of this stems from the push for robot mode scale that I mentioned in the Studio Series Blackout review. He sort of feels like a not so great value next to other figures, especially with the price bump. He includes a pretty large weapon, but it doesn’t really make up for the lack of plastic. Granted, there’s more to a transformer than how much material it’s made of. Jazz makes up for his lack of size a bit with his very nice looking shinny paint job. He also has a pretty neat transformation.
His robot mode is small, his car mode feels absolutely tiny. It helps a bit that the Pontiac Solstice he is based on is a fairly small car, but it is barely larger than a basic scaled Transform. Even as a small car, it looks out of place next to other deluxe sized Transformers, including previous Movie based characters. It looks really nice at least. On a related note as well, getting things to all mesh together can be a little tricky, there is a peg on the underside of the roof that needs to be pegged in first before almost any other step. Going back to robot mode has a few little quirks, the head is a pain to pull up out of it’s little hole. I do really like how the chest transforms however, the way the whole thing rolls over and clips upside down is really neat and not something that has been done in Transformers that I recall. The front of the car also pops out to flip over which works to really make the chest look similar but different than the front of the car. It’s a nice little touch.
There is also this really need trick with his gun. It’s not as original of an idea as the chest, but the gun can be held by a standard 5mm peg fist, or the fist can be folded in and the gun attached to the end of his arm. It replicates the way the guns in the movies would sort of transform out of the robot arm. The clip isn’t super strong though, so it tends to fall off if bumped the wrong direction. It’s also nice to have a movie Jazz with real arms, and not the weird hollow arms the original had.
Overall, despite the size problem, Studio Series Jazz is a pretty nice figure. He’s visually interesting in both modes, partly from his nice coat of paint. The transformation does some neat tricks. The robot is pretty nicely pose able, he has some really good ankle tilt joints that aren’t even part of the transformation. He’s definitely a good update for the old Jazz and pretty nice on his own.
