Transformers

Review – Transformers – Titans Return – Chromedome

Wave 2 of the Titans Returns line wraps up the redesigned versions of the original 7 Headmasters from G1. Today’s review is for Titans Return Chromedome with Stylor. There haven’t been a whole lot of easy to get options for an updated Chromedome since the original Generation One release. There was a repaint of Transformers Prime Wheeljack for the Collectors Club, and at least one 3rd Party figure in Fansproject CODE. He’s a fairly popular character in the IDW comics but he is admittedly kind of a bland design with all of his squareishness and brown shades. It’s understandable that he’s not the first choice for a toy.

If you’re familiar with the previous Transformers line, Combiner Wars, you might look at this figure and see it as a remold of the overused Breakdown/Prowl mold. While Chromedome certainly has a lot of design queues from that figure and a very similar Transformation, he is a very different figure and doesn’t seem to actually share any parts with that older mold. It’s an understandable mistake, but it’s not an accurate one.

The differences are kind of similar to the old complain that Transformers Cybertron Starscream was the same toy as G2 Smokejumper, which share a transformation but are totally different figures. I feel like Hasbro does such a good job of making every transformation unique despite how many Transformers there are, it tends to just stick out on the rare occasion that they reuse a Transformation.

He’s a nice solid toy as well, there have been some budget cuts on the Transformers design process in the last few years (mentioned by the design team) which resulted in a lot of hollowness and weirdness for a few years but it’s starting to really be apparent with this line that the designers have managed to get a good hold on working within these confines. It kind of feels like it’s helped the line as well, we’re starting to get a lot of good designs that still have simpler transformations with less random flippy bits.

The headmaster Stylor is identical to all of the other Headmasters. The fit on the head peg is solid, which tends to be the biggest issue on some of these figures (say hello Scourge). The fit of the smaller robot in Chromedome’s cockpit is nice and solid as well, the cars are particularly great for the little guys to drive around in.

The colors are definitely Chromedome’s colors, but it does make him pretty bland. He’s not a flashy sports car, he’s not a sleek looking car, he’s just a very, brown car. There is a bit of an issue with his hood being a little tricky to get lines up but otherwise it’s an alright design and rolls along easily.

Titans Return Chromedome isn’t an amazing entry to the Transformers line but he’s not a bad one at all either. He’s pretty middle of the road with no major flaws but nothing that makes him stand out.

Review – Transformers – Titans Return – Hardhead

Jan 12th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Of all the Headmasters, Hardhead is one that’s really been hurting for an update for a good while. There was a repaint of the old SWAT truck Onslaught that looks nothing like Hardhead. Not much else other than the original toy. Part of the travesty of his lack of an update is that Hardhead was a major player during the early runs of IDW’s Transformers comics, back during the time they were on Earth. He was one of the core handful of Autobots on earth, though he wasn’t a headmaster in that storyline. That was back before Hasbro constantly made direct nods, or any reference really, to the IDW books. These days the two run together pretty heavily both in general plot and design queues.

We almost got an updated Hardhead a few years ago as a remold of Generations Warpath. Occasionally leaks or mistakes are made, around the time of Generations Warpath, there were instructions being leaked, with alternative heads, one was Warpath as Hardhead. It would have been a pretty good use of the mold too, they have similar vehicle modes and transformations, the turret chest doesn’t quite match but it would have been forgivable.

All that’s moot now though, we have a real update to a pretty popular character. It’s one of the better Titans Returns figures for sure as well. The design is right out of the comic and essentially is an update to the original with modern engineering. Plus he’s a headmaster again.

Part of what makes this figure one of the best is the overall solid playability of both modes. A lot of this comes from the large cannon. It moves up and down, springs up to rotate, in robot mode, it can convert to be a shoulder canon, it’s removable, it opens up and converts into a seat for a Titan Master. It’s even removable to be held or attached in other ways. This seems a bit mundane on paper but it really makes both modes a lot more interesting since it can be adjusted for a lot of variety in poses.

It helps that the robot mode is also really solid despite the simple transformation. He’s well articulated without any major hindering factors. He doesn’t seem to be plagued by any of the looseness issues on joints or the head attachment that other figures in this line seem to have.

It feels a bit like cheating talking about a toy that has no major issues, but sometimes it happens, and Titans Return Hardhead is one of those times. He’s just a good solid figure all around.

Review – Transformers – Titans Return – Skullcruncher (Skullsmasher)

Jan 5th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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For the titans Returns line, Hasbro has opted to revisit the Headmasters gimmick of G1. There are some other nods to the Target Masters and Power Masters, but the actual gimmick is heads that come off and turn into smaller robots that interact with the larger vehicles. In the original run of Headmasters, there were 7 original toys, Skullcruncher, Mindwipe, Weirdwolf, Chromedome, Hardhead, Highbrow and Brainstorm. Thankfully, for the updated designs, they dove right in nd gave us all 7, across the first two haves (one figure being a store exclusive). There are also some other characters who were not originally Headmasters thrown in for filler.

Today I’m going to start off on these original 7 with Skullcruncher. All three of the original Decepticon Headmasters were animals, Skullcruncher being a robotic Crocodile. I wanted to start with Skullcruncher because while he has some neat tricks and a fun design, he’s got a lot of flaws that really make him one of the weaker toys in the line.

I’m going to start with the good points. The crocodile mode is really nicely sized. Granted a chunk of the length is the tail bit which parts forms into a gun, but fully stretched out he is easily 10″ long. There isn’t a ton of leg articulation, though that’s kind of to be expected for a crocodile, his tail and head and flex side to side a bit giving him some expressiveness in beast mode. The mouth of the croc opens up as well.

The Transformation is pretty basic but the neck and shoulders form up in a neat way to form the front croc legs, which earns Skullcruncher a few points for being interesting. Basically the shoulders flip up and land at an angle while the croc head folds over and pegs it all into place.

Unfortunately, he kind of falls apart a bit in robot mode. The basic robot is all right and he has one of the more interesting looking faces on his Titan Master, but his hips are extremely loose. Like, he’s going to just do the splits and fall over loose. I have heard of numerous reports of this issue across the board on this figure so I can’t say my toy is a 1 off problem. The hips have also gotten much looser over time, I can barely keep him standing now where originally it was loose but doable.

Each of these figures has a cockpit for the Titan Master in their vehicle/beast mode as well. Skullcruncher loses out again, for some reason his cockpit uses a flimsy rubbery flap for it’s cover, something none of the other figures (so far) do. The others all have hard plastic. The soft plastic is tricky to get open and is easily, accidentally pushed down into the cavity. I’m not entirely sure why they went with this weird other plastic for the cockpit cover, the location and set up doesn’t have any need for it.

On one last side note, he has a pretty neat Crocodile man mode than can be made halfway through transformation.

All in all, Titans Return Skullcruncher is a nice looking update to an old figure, but it’s a severely flawed toy in a lot of ways that feel like they would have been easily fixable with a bit more design work by Hasbro.

Review – Movie – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Sep 26th, 2009

by Ramen Junkie.

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NOTE: I was originally going to make one long review with a spoiler filled section of bitching following this segment. Unfortunately due to the somewhat random and incoherent nature of the plot, the spoiler filled section became very random and incoherent. In the interest of making some level of observations, I’m going to go with the non spoiler filled section here and sort out the rest later for a second post.

Ok, Revenge of the Fallen. Transformers 2. In case you missed it, my Transformers 1 review can be found here.

This movie is certainly an action flick. Lots of running and shooting and explosions. Still, it’s based on a kid’s property and is made to push toys so there isn’t much blood or gore. Ok, not much blood or HUMAN gore. Several of the robot death scenes are actually kind of gory, particularly the final one. If you’re making your robots fluid and organic, it makes their deaths a bit more organic than say, the Power Rangers get shot and sparks fly.

Also, as I mentioned,t his is a movie based on a kids property so there is of course lots of swearing. I don’t think there were any F-Bombs but there were several “Shits” and a lot of “Asses”. Speaking of Asses. The Transformers Universe is also populated solely by women who are all “The Hotz”. Sam’s college dorm room apparently is on the all hot girls floor because other than his roommate I don’t recall seeing any other males on the floor. Though in a later scene Sam screams like a little girl and then proceeds to get called a girl by Megan “The Fox” Fox. Considering all of the suggested Gay/Bi jokes/overtones concerning Sam’s roommate, it’s likely that they are in fact not in a Coed dorm but simply assumed to be girls and placed appropriately.

Anyway.

This is supposed to be the short non spoiler part. The movie is large and violent and slightly confusing. It has several irritating plot holes. It’s made “for kids” but is not particularly appropriate for them. At the same time it’s slightly embarrassing to watch for anyone who is older than say, 25. Basically, the ideal target for this flick is High School Kids and Frat boys, though there was a surprisingly large number of chicks in the 4 sold out theaters, many of which were NOT “drug along by their boyfriends”. If you loved the first film, you’ll probably like this. The plot continues the first movie’s plot reasonably well, which is a plus. This movie will own the box office even though it’s slightly crummy. I imagine with repeated viewing I’ll grow to hate it as much as I hate it’s predecessor.

If you were hoping for better characterization for the bots you’re going to be massively disappointed. The cons are even MORE confusing in this film as they die and come back to life and all seem to be in 3 or 4 places AT ONCE. Also we see the unexplained return of Blackout (who supposedly is now named Grindor*) and in at least once scene Bonecrusher drives by. If you don’t remember who Bonecrusher and Blackout are then that’s no surprise since Bonecrusher had maybe 60 seconds of screen time and Blackout maybe 5 minutes in the first film.

* According to the toy but never named in the movie

There are plenty of new bots and several returning old bots. The new Autobots include Arcee, Skids, Mudflap, and Sideswipe. Someone told me after the fact that a bot I mistook for Ironhide at the very end of the movie was Jolt though I don’t remember him showing up ANYWHERE else. Skids and Mudflap get a reasonable amount of character, assuming by reasonably you mean “They are black… ish…” though they look very “rednecky”. Arcee and company never say anything and mostly just zip around shooting things. I think Sideways gets one line in the entire film with is one less than Jazz got in the first film.

The Cons, as mentioned get the worse end of the stick. Sideways isn’t named ever and has less screen time than Bonerusher got in the first film (50% of his screen time is shown int he movie’s trailer, the other 50% in the Preview clip we got involving Sideswipe). The Constructicons seem to be everywhere all at once including merged and unmerged. They way over use the whole “falling from space” gimmick which makes it seem like there are even more of them.

Even Bumblebee, who was the costar of the first film does almost nothing here. He drives Sam around, he drives Sam and friends around, he drives Sam’s parents around. Basically he drives people from place to place a lot and stands around in the background. Then there is Optimus Prime, who is supposed to be the leader of the Autobots but spends next to zero time around them. Basically he’s been watching a ton fo Rambo between this and the first movie, he pretty much always fights his battles solo.

The real starring bot of this film is probably Starscream. Starscream gets a lot of fleshing out and Megatron somewhat along side him. Sure, neither are quite exact replicas of their older counterparts but they don’t need to be. I accept that this movie is it’s own deal, I don’t expect everything to be “like it was”. What I do expect is that I should give a crap about these people. Hell even if they blow off the cons I’d love it if the Autobots were more than just a band of Red Shirts.

To wrap this up. This film has me very torn. Is it a “good movie”? It depends on your definition of good. Does good mean a perfect Transformers homage and experience? Then no, this movie sucks. Does good mean intriguing plot and deep characters? Then, once again, no, this movie sucks. Does good mean an action packed popcorn flick that had lots of explosions and shooting? Then yeah, this movie is excellent. Just be sure to screen it before letting your kids watch. If you were offended by things like the Masturbation talk and pissing scene of the first film then don’t bother with this as it contains that and more.

Review – Movie – Transformers

Jul 6th, 2007

by Ramen Junkie.

1 comment

This is where I give my thoughts on the Transformers movie. Instead of regurgitating the same garbage about how great the special effects were and how it’s the “action movie of the year” and all. It’s a bumbling mess of a collection of random bull shit, much like this film franchise.

Yeah, great special effects. Things were integrated pretty seamlessly into the non CGI parts. The problem is that the action is so cluttered and messy you can’t tell what the hell is going on 90% of the time. Robots engage in combat and instead of getting shots of the fight we get a down on the street view of their feet. They roll around doing… something… to each other but we can’t tell what they are doing or who is winning the fight. Seriously, loose about 75% of the shrapnel in the fight scenes.

I did enjoy the film. Mind you. Now, where to start. I’ve made a relatively random list here so I’ll just go with that. This isn’t organized in any particular order and it will contain SPOILERS so don’t read if you care about that sort of thing.

For starters, Bumblebee. He talks through his radio. I read somewhere that part of the reason they couldn’t make him a VW bug was because he’d be considered a rip off of Herbie. I certainly got a very strong Herbie vibe from that Camero before it started doing its Transforming thing. Also, they never explain WHY his voice box doesn’t work, Ratchet just mentions that “He’s been working on it”. The suggestion around the web is that Megatron damaged it but that doesn’t really fit with the plot considering Megs has been frozen on Earth for tens of thousands of years. I’d find it more plausible that he’s been hanging around alone on Earth for so long he’s simply forgotten how to talk.

Also the voice magically becomes repaired at the end of the film. Bumblebee’s had his feet lopped off and gets pointlessly dragged around the city by a chick in a tow truck and suddenly he can talk. I guess Ratchet found time to make repairs that he’s neglected to do for ten thousand plus years while in the middle of a crucial and large scale battle.

Yeah.

Anyway, someone should point out to the writers that Wreckgar is the one who spoke via TV and radio clips, not Bumblebee.

Then there’s Frenzy, probably the bot with the most screen time, second maybe to Bumblebee. I liked him a lot actually. The CD boom box is a good nod towards Soundwave as well. Were those ninja stars he was throwing made out of CDs? Pretty slick there. Still, he wasn’t very menacing. The larger bots can throw tanks and have impenetrable armor. Granted Frenzy is smaller and this likely a bit more delicate in design, but why is it he can’t rip the humans to shreds in seconds just by jumping on him. Particularly while he was fighting with Sam in that field. I guess one could argue that they wanted Sam alive so they could interrogate him but he can still talk with his legs disabled preventing a getaway.

Speaking of Frenzy, the creators of this film claim they didn’t use Soundwave because they didn’t want to use Mass Shifting. That is, where a large bot turns into a small device. Somehow though Frenzy is allowed to not only grow a huge spider body from his disembodied head but then later he can compact that body AND his head down to the size of a cell phone. Don’t even get me started on the Matrix Cube thing. Size of large house down to a one foot cube? And we can’t have Soundwave?

Oh yes, the cube. It’s generally only ever referred to as “The Cube”. This is synonymous with “Random Plot Device”. It’s generic and ends up being very Deus Ex Machina. It’s generally unclear as to what it is, Prime vaguely mentions the Matrix being in his chest, so it’s not that. It’s primary power is to creat advertising from random things. Like turning Mountain Dew machines and Nokias into killer robots and getting a whole slew of Autobots and Decepticons to turn the first 60 minutes of the film into an eBay advertisement.

It’s basically plot device to give the giant robots an excuse to fight. Then, due to some sort of genius I can’t even begin to fathom, it becomes a plot device to allow giant robots to tear apart a city. Let’s see, we’re the military, we need to protect this “The Cube” thing. The Decepticons are attacking our base, the one inside a dam in the middle of nowhere. How shall we handle this situation. I know, let’s put the cube in a sports car with a kid. Then, and this is the bet part, we’ll drive it to the center of a large heavily populated area!

BRILLIANT!

Let’s endanger the lives of millions of innocents! Instead of engaging in combat say, in the middle of the desert! The desert is hot and dry and uncomfortable, the city is full of product placement.

Then, the plan gets even better here. After getting to the city. We’ll make the kids carry the “The Cube” across several city blocks and up into a tall building where helicopters will pick him up and take him away (never mind that two of the Decepticons can fly and will tear and helicopter to shreds in seconds).

Also, while in route to the city, we’ll not question why we’re suddenly being escorted by a hodgepodge of trucks and cars and semis and tanks.

This is where the bulk of the Decepticons show up. Pretty much out of nowhere but as my wife pointed out, they were all military vehicles. The implication was that the were evil and had infiltrated our military a lot without us even knowing. Good theory and I’m going with that. Brawl gets called Devestator for some reason during the one and only mention of who these guys are. When you hear reports that the Decepticons have zero characterization they are not exaggerated. At least the Autobots got ranks and functions and a few lines. Bonecrusher literally appears for the sole purpose of getting killed by Prime (and to sell out of scale toys). That scene in the trailer where he destroys the bus is like 50% of his on screen tine.

Brawl gets a bit more screen time since he gets to be a major player in the city fight that shortly follows. Blackout is about the level as Brawl except all of his good fighting scenes are at the movie’s opening. Barricade actually gets some lines and I’m pretty sure survives for the sequel. Megatron escapes from captivity and jabbers wit Starscream a bit but Megatron’s comments about failure completely without context and is meaningless in the film. I really wanted Starscream to swoop in and screw up Megatron’s attempts to take the cube from Sam on the roof top. I really wanted him to be traitorous, he was right there watching.

sadly, he did nothing.

Instead he just gets saved by Prime from a fall. One thing I’ll never get in movies is how people survive from falling great heights just because they get caught. Guess what, falling 20 stories onto the concrete isn’t going to be much different than falling 10 stories onto the hard metal plates that make up the hand of a giant robot.

As for the Autobots. Their characterization also comes entirely from their introductions with the exception of Bumblebee. Jazz is some sort of hip hop break dancer robot with a lot of bad ass potential who gets killed way to quickly. Ironhide wants to kill everything with his big guns but can’t because “he’s a good guy and good guys don’t kill parents and Chihuahuas. Ratchet is the team’s medic who is apparently completely inept at actually medic-ing anything since he can’t fix Bumblebee’s voice, nor is he around to repair Bumblebee’s detached feet, nor is he capable of repairing Jazz.

I can ALMOST forgive the Jazz thing since Jazz has been ripped in two but Frenzy was able to live on as a head alone so I’m less inclined to go that route.

Bumblebee is a the bumbling but noble screw up that means well.

Prime is a bit of a confusing mess of characterization. On one hand, he’s a pretty smart and rational leader type. He’s powerful and such. On the other hand, he strikes me as a bit of an idiot in one particular scene. That is of course, the backyard scene.

This whole scene was generally lame and seemed way out of place. The Autobots are trying to hide from Sam’s parents. Instead of staying put in the alley, they get impatient and go troop around Sam’s backyard destroying things and causing Sam’s parents to think there are Earthquakes. What was the point of all of this other than the make the Autobots seem like a bunch of impatient children who can’t listen? Why is Sam so concerned about his parents seeing the Autobots? They won’t believe him? And was that stupid Masturbation joke really necessary? Kids are going to see this.

Speaking of kids seeing this. As funny as it was, Bumblebee’s pissing scene was possibly one of the stupidest scenes in movie history. Seriously. You just got through doing jokes about dog pee and leaking lubricant. Do we really need to have a giant robot “pee” on the federal agent? With the camera on the viewpoint of the federal agent? Actually this scene is likely symbolic of the movie’s creators pissing on the audience.

HA HA, WATCH US PISS ON YOU BECAUSE YOU’LL LOVE ANYTHING!