From Newsgroup: alt.toys.transformers

Dave's Transformers Big Figs Rant

Big-Figs Optimus Prime

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Misc/BigFigOP

GAH, I was almost done writing this review when a crash wiped it and the autosave.

Okay, redoing this offline and pasting it into Eyrie, which seems to be having broken pipe issues tonight.

When this first showed up on Target.com, it was Coming Soon, so I set a watch on it. I got the "it's in stock" alert and put it in my cart, hit checkout, and...too late, so sad. Back on the watchlist. Pops up again,
this time gone before I even go to the site. The third time it came up, I finally got it...I suspect there might not have been an actual restock, just scalper types returning extras a couple of times.

Will there be more in this line? Maybe. Will I buy any? Eh, depends
on which ones they do, but my space for stuff this big is limited.
Definitely gonna pass on any Bumblebee. And despite their presence on the package, I kinda doubt they'll do any Seekers in this line, the wings would
be too big to fit in the box, even detached.


CAPSULE

$35 at Target.com, no sightings in person yet.

Big-Figs Optimus Prime: Solidly made, the lack of hip joints is a bit annoying (why knees if no hips?), but I was impressed by how they got away
with no or almost no paint while still having all the right colors.
Recommended if you can find the room for it.


RANT

This kind of reminds me of the rotocast Shogun Warriors toys of my
youth, if without the firing missiles. Oh, I never had any of those, my
family wasn't well-off enough, but one of the other kids in the neighborhood had Mazinger and Godzilla. This toy is larger than those, but I'm larger
than I was then as well, and it "feels" about as big.

Packaging: This is an open-face topless tray style with
trapezoidal sides, as often seen with the "kiddie" lines, although those usually have the cardback taller than the toy, and this does not. 21" (54cm) tall in back, 8.25" (21cm) tall in front, 14.75" (37.5cm) wide, and 8" (20cm) deep. The underside and bottom border are very dark blue, while the interior is a "tech walls" pattern in various blue shades. It's made of folded over heavy corrugated cardboard, although despite this sturdy design mine was
pretty crumpled in shipping. I expect "mint in package" collectors will find this toy disappointing.
The front panel has the Big-Figs logo, Optimus Prime's name, and
the ShuShu Papa logo (that's the licensee) in white along the bottom. The
rest of the front is a battle scene with Autobots on the left and Decepticons on the right, Optimus and Megatron in the middle about to punch each other under a Transformers the Movie logo that mostly covers up a planet-mode Unicron. In the distance on the left are Jazz, Bumblebee, and Arcee in front of the Ark, while the right side has Shockwave (who seems to be shooting at Starscream), jet mode Starscream, and robot mode Thundercracker (also aiming
at Starscream...yeah, they just sort of pasted in art provided with the
license package) in front of the Nemesis, although it's mostly blocked by a 40th Anniversary logo. The right and left sides have full figure art of Optimus Prime running away from Unicron in planet mode, who seems to be
taking a bite out of whatever planet Optimus is standing on. The back has a render of the toy in front of a sunrise, calling out the ten points of articulation, plus another copy of the TFtM logo and a very small "Licensed
by Hasbro" in the lower right corner. The underside only has the UPC and
"Made in China."
I didn't completely dismantle the box, but there doesn't seem to be anything inside, not that this toy needs instructions or a safety sheet
behind "don't hit your brother with this." The figure is held in by thick plastic straps at the wrists and ankles, it's possible to cut them without opening up the sides and front of the box, but awkward. While the soles of
the feet suggest an initial plan to use a sort of keyhole fastener on the
feet, they didn't go ahead with that (possibly due to the feet being damaged
by stress when they tested this).


AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME
Altmode: None
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: No
Movie: TFtM

So, the selling point on this toy is size. Prior to this, my biggest Optimus Prime was the Rescue Bots toy that doubled as a storage case, and
this is significantly taller, to the point it can't go on the shelf next to
my Rescue Bots Optimus...or even on my Titan shelf. There isn't enough room until the ceiling! I did find a lower shelf for it, but there's not a lot
more room there for any other Big-Figs.
It looks like the animation model, although it's inconsistent about
"white for silver" versus "light gray for silver" and the eyes are a bit
dull. While you can tell it's hollow inside, there's none of the usual
"don't look at it from that angle" hollowness that plagues a lot of Hasbro's designs, really only the pelvis skirt has that problem. It is indeed the promised 30" (76cm) tall, and a hefty but lighter-than-it-looks 5.3 pounds (2.4kg).
It's notable that this uses no or almost no paint, instead using
plastics as inlays or backfills to get all the colors except the chest
windows and maybe the eyes. All the plastic is slightly flexible, to avoid
any issues with brittle plastic shattering when the toy falls off a shelf or gets used to hit a sibling. Red plastic is used for the bulk of the torso, upper arms, and forearms. White plastic is used for the pelvis and thighs, plus as an inlay to make the Autobot symbols (white on red, no border) on the shoulder fronts. Somewhat bright medium blue plastic is used for the helmet, fists, underside and back of the pelvis, and boots. Slightly metallic light gray is used for the smokestacks and the fuel tanks on the sides of the
boots. Non-metallic lighter gray plastic is used for the faceplate, helmet crest, abdomen grill and the stripes on either side of it, and the tips of
the toes. The ||> patterns on the forearms, the roof lights atop the chest, and the patterns on the pelvis front are bright yellow plastic either glued
in as inlays or screwed on from behind. The windshield wipers are black plastic. The eyes are either a dull light blue, or maybe painted that way
over light gray. The chest windows seem to be stickers in bright light blue with cel-style white streaks to look shiny.
Rather than more expensive ratchets, this toy stiffens up most of the joints by using black rubber gaskets. There's definitely gaskets on the
neck, shoulders, wrists, and two in each knee. Probably a gasket in the
waist, but I can't see into it. The elbows do not have gaskets, but they
don't have to hold much load. The neck, waist, shoulders, and wrists are swivels, while the elbows and knees are hinges. There is no hip
articulation, although adding that would've also required pelvis skirt hinges and probably a lot of gaskets, so I can see why they skipped it. Still,
knees with no hips is kinda pointless. The knees do not bend far enough to
let the figure kneel without falling over. Speaking of falling over, while standing normally it has to be pushed pretty far to topple, so no worries
about it falling down just from someone walking by or a mild earthquake.
The fists can hold 20mm pegs, I suppose that makes this whole thing a
7.5" Voyager scaled up by a factor of four? The smokestacks have a diameter
of 14mm at the tops, a little bigger than scaled-up 3mm rods. There's keyhole-ish holes in the soles of the feet (shaped like =O=) as mentioned in packaging notes.

Overall: An interesting novelty, and cheaper than a Voyager these days, but unless you have a lot of room it's not something I'd suggest collecting a full line of (assuming there's more than this). Still, if you can find it
and you have the room, it's worth picking up.


Dave Van Domelen, now to decide what from the large To Be Reviewed pile
to do next.

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