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Dave's Transformers Age of the Primes Rant: 2025 Titan Class

The Thirteen Star Optimus Prime (truck/base)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/AoP/StarConvoy

This is Star Convoy redone for modern times and renamed Star Optimus Prime. However, I spent decades thinking of the character as Star Convoy,
and it's not worth the hassle of trying to retrain my brain or do a big
search and replace when I'm done, so expect to see it called Star Convoy in this review.
Note, after years of the Titan Class price point drifting upwards from $150 where it started to $200 where it's been the last few years, they've
reset it to $150, but also shrunk everything. So, like I saw with the Age of the Primes Red Alert, we've got a sort of shrinkflation here, with a $150 toy in 2025 being rather smaller than a $150 toy in 2015.
Of course, for "only" $150, you can't expect too much quality control,
and most copies seem to have an assembly error in which the chest windows
were inserted incorrectly. Parts of the chest need to be unscrewed so that this can be fixed (amusingly, the first notice I saw of this was not in English, and the machine translation said you needed to "armpit the screw"). I'll talk about that more and maybe have some picture links later.


CAPSULE

$150 price point.

The Thirteen Star Optimus Prime: Hm. This is one of those toys where almost everyone who was going to buy it got theirs within a few days of mine arriving. If you're one of the handful who was still on the fence about getting this, it's a decent update of an obscure classic toy that most of us are unlikely to see up close much less own. The problems it has don't seem
to require serious kitbashing skills to deal with (I provide a solution to
the assembly error in the review below). Mildly recommended if you weren't already sold on it.


RANT

Historical Notes: Okay, most of you reading this already know most or
all of the follow, but with Hasbro going deep cut for this year's Titan, it's worth taking the time to sketch out the history.
Unlike the U.S. markets, which stopped getting any new animated Transformers content after the Rebirth miniseries, Takara put out several
more seasons, with their own divergent continuity (among other things, the
1986 movie didn't come out in Japan until much later, so they had to come up with new reasons for certain characters being dead). The toy lines were a
mix of the U.S. release toys and a varying number of exclusive molds (some totally new, some bits of Diaclone that were passed over in 1984-5, some retools like Twincast and Soundblaster). One notable difference was that Optimus Prime was named Convoy, because that was the toy's name in Diaclone. Convoy got killed off in the first Japanese-exclusive season, and never appeared again except perhaps in flashbacks or the like. And it wasn't like modern times, where we get half a dozen new Optimus Prime toys a year, there was a gap before the next Optimus toy came out...and in Japan he was
presented as a new character who just happened to look kind of like the
dearly departed Convoy. So, Transformers 2010 killed Convoy, then no Convoy
at all in Headmasters, Masterforce, Victory, or the one direct to video
episode of Transformers Zone. Zone was a mix of the first year of Micromasters, some new big molds like Dai Atlas, and redecos or retools of older big toys (e.g. Metrotitan from Metroplex). They notably did not work Actionmasters into the line, so they didn't have to explain another Convoy (Actionmaster Optimus Prime's truck did get reused in a Microman revival, though).
Thus, the year after Zone, when it was time to market the second year of Micromasters, there was very little media support. No cartoon, little if any manga. How were they going to sell people on this line? Well, they called
it Return of Convoy, and anchored it with Star Convoy. Just as Zone had
leaned into the Micromasters with the new big toys having Micromaster base modes, Star Convoy (and his buddies Sky Garry and Grandus) also had base
modes. They got little numbered trucks that served to store and launch Micromasters as well as hooking up to Micromaster ramps. Teased, but never produced, was the new Super Megatron who would also return to menace Star Convoy at the behest of Dark Nova, and the first of the Micromaster six-combiners SixLiner was produced (the following year would get SixTrain, SixTurbo, SixWing, and SixBuilder, the last gasp of new Japanese G1 Transformers, most of which have shown up as knockoff sets at places like Tuesday Morning and Big Lots back when those stores still existed).
I wouldn't mind a Leader Class Sky Garry at some point, but I dunno how they could make a Grandus that didn't suck. He was a box with arms and a
head, more of a Megazord Carrier than a Transformer.

Packaging: Noticeably smaller than previous Titan Class boxes, at 17" (43cm) wide, 13" (33cm) tall, and 4.5" (11.5cm) deep. The front is dominated by art with the upper torso and head of the robot mode, with the left hand holding up an orb with a six-pointed star made from six diamond shapes. Blue mist conceals everything below the chest, and in the mist behind Star Optimus Prime are the busts or mere heads of other Primes. From left to right are Solus Prime, Alchemist Prime (this version does not look like Maccadam),
Vector Prime, Prima Prime, Megatronus, and Onyx Prime. In the foreground on the left is the battle station mode with Hot Rod manning a cannon, while the right side shows vehicle mode flanked by Hot Rod in vehicle mode. (Original Star Convoy was the only way to get the original Micromaster Hot Rod.) Big logo along the bottom, and the six diamonds as a star are Star Optimus
Prime's personal symbol (there's Autobot symbols on his shoulders as well).
The upper left cartouche with transformation steps shows 30 steps from robot
to truck (using the generic semitractor based on G1 Optimus Prime), and 36
from truck to base (using a cannon turret to represent that).
The left side has art of robot mode reaching towards the camera and a repeat of the logo and nameplate along the bottom. The right side has the rightmost slice of the Primes statue gallery (no chance of assembling the
whole thing at this size!), with Liege Maximo, Megatronus, and Star Optimus Prime. The top has the entire gallery, though, which is nice. Oddly, the statue is of Powermaster Optimus Prime, not of Star Optimus Prime. The
bottom panel is mostly blank, just a little legalese.
The back has a starry blue-gradient sky background with renders of the toys within. Upper left robot mode, lower left truck mode. Inset circles to the right of robot mode show Hot Rod inside the robot mode's chest, and the robot holding its rifle (the main picture has an energy sword). Lower right has the base mode, which appears faithful to the original in that it's kinda bad. The upper right has "Micromaster Autobot Hot Rod" (4 steps transformation) and MT-13 (NOT MS-13!). The various Micromaster-launcher trucks I mentioned earlier each had a number on them, and I guess Star
Convoy's was 13 (Sky Garry's was zero, at least on the knockoff). MT for Micromaster Trailer, I presume. Vehicle mode Hot Rod can fit inside MT-13,
and robot mode can use the trailer as the core of a battle platform. The pictures make it clear that while there is some Siege ramp compatibility in
the base mode, MT-13 does not have ramp connectors, something that the
original transport vans did have. Oh, and in the very bottom left corner is the Zodiac Orb which has the Star Optimus symbol. Zodiac Energon was the
plot device of Transformers Zone, I guess they kept it for the story of
Return of Convoy? Still, it's not yet another Matrix, which is nice. (The label is in Cybertronian glyphs, but everything else has its names in plain English.)
Inside is a corrugated cardboard tray with the robot mode strapped down and a folded over cardboard sheet flap helping protect it from damage during shipping. The robot takes up the right side 2/3 of the box, with a plastic blister attached to the chest with a rubber band for extra protection.
Another rubber band goes around the hips to keep the flaps down. There's rattan strings across the shins and each forearm, plus double plastic ties across the thighs and waist. A big rigid plastic Fire Blast is held own with two ties to the right of the feet, and the rifle is held by two ties to the right of the left arm. A taped shut box in the lower right holds the tread units (yeah, Star Convoy's a sort of halftrack) that snap onto the backs of
the boots. Another box on the middle right has bags full of small guns, Fire Blasts (one Omega Supreme shaped set, one pair of Jetfire blasts), plus the Zodiac Orb and something that looks like a bullet made of clear blue plastic (Sapphire Bullet, Bullet of Pure Love?). I'll describe it better later. Finally, the upper right has vehicle mode Micromaster Hot Rod (more of a smallish Core Class) strapped down with two ties on top of a folded in edge. Under that is taped a bag with MT-13 in it.
About a quarter of the instructions sheet is just attching all the bits and bobs to the robot to complete it (and storing MT-13 inside one leg). I can't find any mention of the Sapphire Bullet in the instructions, and the instructions have the energy sword using the big blue Fire Blast rather than the Omega Supreme set shown on the box back. I have been informed that the Sapphire Bullet is supposed to represent G1 package art that showed the rifle firing bullets. It snaps into a cap in the right side at the top of the
"ammo box" part, but it does not fit into the barrel as a Fire Blast.
Carefully looking at the inset with the rifle on the back of the box does
show it in that side socket...on the right side of the rifle, and every
picture of the rifle in the instructions show the left side.

Armpit The Screws: Yeah, I'm not letting go of that bit of Facebook translation. There's a couple of posts on the red frame of the chest that
need to go into sockets on the window insert, but they may have not been properly seated before the screws were inserted (everyone who's mentioned checking has found this problem). While it might be possible to just shove them into place, I REALLY don't recommend doing that with a $150 toy.
Instead, remove the top screw and loosen the other two a lot, which will give you the wiggle room to reseat the window. You could remove all the screws entirely, but that increases the chances of losing one. Here are some
pictures with arrows and numbers and stuff.
https://www.dvandom.com/images/StarConvoyFix1.JPG
https://www.dvandom.com/images/StarConvoyFix2.JPG
(In the process of doing this, I discovered that the golden chest crest
is clear blue plastic.)


THE THIRTEEN: STAR OPTIMUS PRIME
Altmodes: Tractor-trailer, Base
Transformation Difficulty: 30 steps (robot to vehicle), 36 steps (vehicle to
base)
Previous Name Use: None
Previous Mold Use: None
Origin Universe: Japanese G1

Robot Mode: Note, the helmet antennae take a LOT of force to attach properly, but the point seems to be that they're not supposed to come off
when you're done, they were only left off to avoid breakage during shipping. So, this is a big-booted Optimus Prime (to the point that from the side it really looks like he's standing in a much larger robot's boots), following
the usual pattern pretty closely except for the unique chest (reminiscent of Animated Optimus Prime, in fact) with a star-like crest over and between the windows, the bigger spikes on the helmet, and the shoulder cannons. The shoulder cannons really make a big difference, without them the figure looks just too bottom-heavy and kind of dull. The cannons angled up to the sides
add just enough flair to the top, though. Also, this Optimus has a
sergeant's hashes on the shoulders below the Autobot symbols...he works for a living, Private. This may have been part of the inspiration of the Elite
Guard symbol in Animated (Autobot symbol superimposed on sergeant hashes),
come to think of it.
At 16" (41cm) tall, it's the shortest humanoid Titan, but not by a whole lot...Predaking used its budget on combination parts rather than pure bulk.
I suppose Trypticon is shorter if you go for a more modern T.rex pose, but in tail-dragger pose it's taller than Predaking (who is 17"/43cm tall at the head). Standard Optimus Prime colors, but with a bit more black. Red
plastic makes up most of the torso and arms, plus the hip joints, knee joints and some hinges on the sides of the boots. The chest windows are clear blue plastic, as is the chest crest (it's entirely painted over), and there's some not very effective clear blue lightpiping. The Zodiac Orb and the big Fire Blast are also made of this. Light gray plastic is used for the forehead crest, panels on the upper back, side hip flaps and the inside of the front pelvis flap, thighs, panels on the outer faces of the boots, fists, and the sword hilt. Black plastic is used for the shoulder cannons, pelvis front, forearm wheels, rifle, front/upper part of smaller gun, part of the treads on the backs of the boots, and the toes. The rest of each boot is darkish blue plastic, which is also used for most of the head, a bar on the butt, and the back part of the smaller gun. (MT-13 is entirely black plastic except for a light gray back door, Micromaster Hot Rod is all red plastic except for black wheels.)
A darkish silver paint is used on the faceplate and the area around the eyes, the forehead tablet, small vent details on the sides of the helmet, top of the torso, the fake-bumper and grille parts of the abdomen, bits of actual bumper on the wrists, and the six pointed star shape on the Zodiac Orb. The kneecaps are painted yellow as is the center of the helmet crest. The fake headlights on the abdomen and the actual headlights on the wrists are
slightly metallic pale gold, while there's matte black around each of the headlights. The windows on the forearms are metallic light blue, as are stripes along the sides of the boots. The fronts of the shoulders have white outline Autobot symbols over triple chevrons in yellow with black outlines.
The neck turns on a swivel and there's a hinge to tip it forwards for
base mode, so he can look down a bit before it starts being weird. 24-click ratcheting waist swivel. The shoulders are ratcheting universal joints, with five clicks lifting to the sides (seems to be another 24-click circle, they just can't lift all the way) and 24 clicks to a full rotation swiveling. The bicep swivels are smooth, the elbows ratcheting hinges that bend both directions (six clicks either way) since they need to bend backwards for vehicle mode. The wrists are smooth swivels, and the fingers are on a shared hinge at the first knuckle. The front and side armor skirt flaps are on
smooth hinges. The hips are universal ratcheting joints on 36-point circles either way, but the knees run into the front skirt after 8 clicks of lifting forwards. Smooth upper thigh swivels, ratcheting hinge knees (seems to be a 36-point ratchet, can only go six clicks or 60 degrees). The feet have
smooth instep hinges and the toes can point down on transformation hinges.
The soles of the feet can open up, which is an easier way to access storage
if you're just cramming Fire Blasts and other loose stuff inside, but you do have to open up the shins properly to get MT-13 in and out. You CAN open the sole of the boot holding MT-13 and then open up the back of MT-13 to put Hot Rod in or out.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs whether or not the fingers are closed,
there's 5mm sockets on the tops of the shoulders intended for turrets. If
you fold down the blue bar on the butt it reveals a 5mm peg on the bar and socket on the butt. There's a not very useful 5mm socket on the back of the right boot (a base mode thing), and that's it for 5mm stuff. Kinda disappointing, given that the outer faces of the forearms are hidden in
vehicle mode they could've been given some 5mm sockets. Now...3mm studs? There's a truly insane number. Near the top of each hip flap there's two of them. There's six on each gray side panel of the boots, and six more on the front of each boot on the outer part. That's 24 just on the boots, some of which are clearly meant to be Robotech-style Itari Circus missile cloud launchers. There's even more panels on the boots that don't have 3mm studs. This does seem more intended for vehicle mode, though. (They're mostly not
in useful places in base mode.)
MT-13 is a vaguely sci-fi transport van or semitractor, with molded non-rolling wheels under the cab and two pairs of rolling wheels on either
side near the front and back. 5.25" (13cm) long in truck configuration, with metallic light blue paint on the windows, red painted stripes on the sides
with silver hexagons in the center of each side. Inside each hexagon is an Autobot symbol (red on white) over three chevrons. On the top are a 5mm
socket in front and in back. On the sides, even with the top sockets, are either a 5mm peg or a 5mm socket (right side has peg in front, left has socket). The bottom of the rear door has a 3mm socket next to a 3mm peg,
which makes me think they might have plans for another MT, so they can
connect back to back. The side peg-and-slot is used for base mode, but also could let multiple MT's connect in a row. The roof of the cab has a 5mm peg, which is used for its base mode, with the cab itself attached to the back by two shallow 5mm pegs. Remove the cab and fold out twin gunbarrels to make
the cab a turret that goes on either front or back (with the unfolded smaller gun, below, going on the other socket if you want this to be an independent mini-platform). Folding the rear ramp down does not give a Siege connector, there's no real attempt to make this one ramp-compatible. Inside is enough room for Micromaster Hot Rod in vehicle mode, but the Kingdom/Legacy Core Hot Rod will also fit. There is no launch mechanism, unlike the G1 versions.
MT-13 plugs into either hollow boot, and requires rather a lot of force to
get fully secure or to remove. You can store Micromaster Hot Rod inside
while storing MT-13 as well, which is good since Hot Rod can't actually store inside the chest.
Okay, having written all that about MT-13, I dug out my Cybertron 0 launcher from the knockoff Sky Garry. It has the side pegs and sockets, and also has the peg and tab at the base of the door, so that detail of MT-13 may have been purely source fidelity rather than any plan to release more MTs. Cybertron 0's springs are pretty dead, assuming they ever worked, so it
doesn't really launch so much as gently shove, but an Earthrise-style Micromaster car can fit inside. Cybertron 0 has a G1 Micromaster ramp attachment point at the front of the roof, but not the back, and not on its ramp. No rolling wheels or separability, only 3.75" (9.5cm) long.
The rifle has some elements of the classic Optimus Prime rifle, but with
a sort of revolved cylinder ahead of the main grip, and an ammo box out front of that, so I guess it can choose from the magazine or the cylinder. A pair
of very small barrels are on top of the ammo box behind the main barrel, possibly laser aiming aids. The right side of the ammo box has a slot, into which you're supposed to put the Sapphire Bullet mentioned up in the
packaging part (G1 package art showed the rifle firing shells). 6.25" (16cm) long and all black except for the Sapphire Bullet. It doesn't rely solely on the kinda short 5mm peg to stay in the fist, there's also a rectangular tab behind that that goes into the stress slot of the fist's swivel. There's
also a 7mm peg an inch further ahead that's used for vehicle mode
attachment. The main barrel aperture holds 5mm pegs but has rifling details
so only round enough pegs will work (5mm by 2mm rectangular pegs might not
hold well).
The smaller gun is a bit awkward, because it's supposed to unfold into a tower gun for base mode. The front part, which becomes the top part in tower mode, has two barrels ending in 3mm studs, flanked by radar "ears"
reminiscent of a Star Destroyer bridge. The back is the bottom of the tower, made of blue plastic. It has a 5mm grip at the back, and another 5mm peg on top that is the way the tower mode connects. The very base has an 8mm peg
that goes into the roof of the vehicle mode. Folded up, it's a little over
3" (8cm) long and a little over 2" (5.5cm) tall. Unfolded, it's 3" (7.5cm) tall not counting the peg on the bottom. The tips of the barrels are rounded off, which means Fire Blasts with a shallow socket might not stay on very
well.
The sword hilt is a single piece of light gray plastic that serves a
bunch of purposes, but is mostly meant to turn Fire Blasts into energy sword blades. It has a short 5mm grip and a 5mm socket on top of the roughly cylindrical housing. The crossguard is shaped like the Matrix handles, and looking down the barrel of the hilt is more patterning evocative of the
Matrix housing. The whole thing is 30mm long. On the side of the crosspiece is a 5mm socket, and opposite it is a 5mm peg. At the top of the housing on the sides are 3mm sockets, which I suppose can be useful with all the 3mm
studs on the boots. In addition to being a sword hilt, it is shown in the instructions as a way to connect the main rifle and the small gun into a
bigger but kinda stupid-looking weapon. The hilt just on top of the small
gun lets the big Fire Blast mount on top of the small gun.
The shoulder turrets are roughly hemispherical with two barrels joined together for part of their length, and attach via 5mm pegs on the bottom.
2.25" (5.5cm) long, with 3mm stud barrel tips. The barrels are too close together to dual-mount any of the included Fire Blasts (some of the really skinny ones, like Rung's, can do it though). The barrels are on a hinge to
go from horizontal to elevated 70 degrees.
One set of Fire Blasts is the Omega Supreme set (https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/OmegaSupreme) in orange rubbery
plastic with a pearlescent coating. The other is the Jetfire set (https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/Commander1) in rubbery clear yellow plastic, also with the pearly coating. The only new Fire Blast is made of rigid clear blue plastic 4.75" (12cm) long. It has a flared base after the
5mm peg, then a sort of projecting fireball effect. The instructions have
this one used as the sword blade, while the box render uses the Omega Supreme set (albeit as if made from clear rigid orange plastic).
The Zodiac Orb is a clear sphere 14mm in diameter with a short 5mm peg
on the bottom. It's meant to be stored inside the torso, but can also be
held in either hand, mounted on the side of the sword hilt, or I suppose put into the main rifle barrel. Not sure shooting the Zodiac Orb at someone is a good idea, but it might be a Final Boss Beater move.

Storage of accessories: Most of the accessories can be stored in robot mode, with varying degrees of stability. Whichever boot doesn't have MT-13 holds the hilt securely, and you can pack the Fire Blasts and small gun in there as well, but they'll rattle around. There's nowhere to store the main rifle, though. While the Zodiac Orb is shown in the intructions just
socketed bare inside the torso, it works a lot better if you mount it on the sword hilt instead, which puts it more centered in the chest.

Transformation to Vehicle: Pretty straightforwards except for a couple bits with panels turning the upper body into the cab, plus you need to fold down the front of the pelvis skirt before snapping the boots together. It really didn't feel like 30 steps, to be honest. While some folding panels on the sides help some, it still basically look like the tractor is towing legs
on a flatbed.

Vehicle Mode: Okay, so in the few ads I saw for this (in the TV Magazine issue I foolishly disposed of at some point) the implication was that the original was meant to be a space truck, a cross between a big rig and a space battleship, hence things like the ship-style turrets from the shoulders that end up on the front roof here. The cab part has eight wheels (two in front
and two in back on each side), while the trailer part has treads, so it's a halftrack space truck. Yeah, I don't think they had a really solid concept here, they just tacked on things that they hoped kids would find cool. (The treads might've been battery-powered like on Dai Atlas? I'm trying to resist the temptation to crib from TFWiki this time around.) The usual stripes
along the sides of the trailer part don't quite line up, and they zag down rather than up at the back. The unavoidable dark blue of the shins dominates the back end, despite the gray panels on the sides, making it look like a three-stage vehicle rather than a tractor and trailer. Of course, the whole thing lacks articulation, because putting a joint between the tractor and the trailer would require the waist bend sideways and there'd need to be a gap between cab and trailer. They decided to stick with a single piece for the battleship theme. Note, Hot Rod in vehicle mode can drive under the middle
of the vehicle mode, but if he's not careful the treads will crush him.
About 17.5" (45cm) long, with the cab mostly red, the middle third
mostly gray, and the back third mostly dark blue with some gray. Other than the black wheels and the light gray grille, the cab section is all red
plastic. The top and bottom of the rear half of the trailer, plus the
treads, are dark blue plastic. The rear trailer doors and the toes
overhanging them are black plastic. The rest of the trailer is silvery light gray plastic.
Not much paint that wasn't already visible in robot mode, although the windows and headlights on the forearms are now properly assembled for the
cab. There's the blue triple stripe along the sides, with a red on white Autobot symbol printed neat the back on each side. The yellow kneecaps are just sort of there.
The truly unreasonable number of 3mm studs on the robot legs are now spread out a little, with the six on each side being closer to the middle
now, while the two on each kneecap and the four on each shin molded into what look like missile-cover panels point upwards. If you fold down one of the
rear doors, there's a Siege ramp connector at the end. The shoulder 5mm sockets are now on the roof of the cab, but still meant for the turrets. There's four screw holes on the roof, but they're a little wider than 5mm. Inside the folded open pelvis armor is a 7mm socket for placing the main
rifle, and there's an 8mm socket in between the shins on top for the folded
up smaller blaster. There is a 5mm socket on top between the toes, but
neither gun can fit in there. The 5mm sockets on the sides of the treads are still technically accessible, but very close to the surface so not as useful
as in robot mode. There's a fold down bar on the underside (the robot butt) which reveals a 5mm socket if you want to try balancing the space truck on a 5mm peg flight stand.

Transformation to Base Mode: Okay, the instructions start from truck
mode, but since the top of the base is just the robot torso with the chest opened and the head tilted forwards, it's just as easy to start from robot mode. The main thing is unfolding the legs to form one wing of the base and removing the tread pieces to make the flooring of the other wing. The tread pieces really only connect to the base via a single 5mm peg on that strut
that folds down from the robot butt, which means that MT-13's connection is only the second weakest.

Base Mode: It really looks like someone killed Optimus Prime and then mounted the upper half of his corpse on a base built from his trailer bits. Nothing in particular is done with the robot arms, which are expected to just hold weapons as if in robot mode, and this gets in the way of the one action gimmick this mode has...fortunately the elbows bend backwards, so you can get the left arm out of the way of the rotating turret without making the
shoulder turrets swing out of the way too. The tread pieces wing of the base can just be sent off on its own, of course.
With all the ramps down and MT-13 attached in front as per the instructions, the footprint of the base mode is about 18.5" (47cm) wide and 14.5" (37cm) front to back, with the central torso tower being 7.5" (19cm) tall. Mostly the same colors as robot mode, although blue gets more
prominent on the left wing (facing you) while the folded open tread pieces
have more gray visible and some black and blue plastic under the parts that folded out.
An alternate build turns the torso to face the legs, and then attach the treat unit's ramps to the ramps on the soles of the feet, which requires a little wiggling but is doable. The treads themselves act as a shield for whoever's operating the rotating cannon, and it's a lot more stable even if
it doesn't match the original toy. This configuration is 20" (51cm) long and 14.5" (37cm) wide, same height as standard.
http://www.dvandom.com/images/SOPbase2.JPG for some pictures, with the base manned by an embarrassment of Hot Rods.
Either way, there's only a couple of 5mm sockets other than hands or shoulders (one between the legs, one in the rotating platform that's spoken
for by the unfolded small gun, and two inside each leg from the storage stuff but you can mount some stuff there I guess). On the tread unit, there's a circle with a 4mm stud (SIGH...incompatible with everything, just a tiny handle) that lets you turn it and make the 5mm socket in the middle of the platform turn, to spin the unfolded cannon around. Unfortunately, there's no handles on the turret or any other way to secure Micromaster Hot Rod (or any other figure) to the spinning part or to the platform behind it, so using the rotation gimmick will just knock over whoever's manning the gun.
As base modes go, it feels obligatory. Yes, Zodiac Energy gives you a base mode, but that sort of thing seems to work better when you don't worry about articulation.

Overall: Decent robot mode and vehicle mode, the base mode is kinda meh with one fidget gimmick.


AUTOBOT: MICROMASTER HOT ROD
Altmode: Super Car
Transformation Difficulty: 4 steps
Previous Name Use: None with Micromaster in the name, a lot otherwise.
Previous Mold Use: None
Origin Universe: Japanese G1

Robot Mode: Slightly taller than the Kingdom/Legacy Core Class Hot Rod, but clearly cheaper. However, they do seem to have been faithfully copying
how the original Micromaster transformed, including the spoiler wings on the shins (https://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/microhotrod.JPG is my painted knockoff of the original...actual loose Micromaster Hot Rods were already going for around a hundred bucks at BotCon 95!). There's some hollow bits in the shin spoilers, and they did a bit to fold panels inside the feet so that they're
not just L-footprinted, but it's otherwise a pretty faithful upscale (and joint-add) of the original Micromaster. No sideways ankle joints, though, so the feet are molded to be flat only when the legs are the right distance
apart.
3.5" (9cm) tall at the head, 3.75" (9.5cm) tall at the shouldertops, in mostly red and yellow. The little wheels on the shoulder and boots are black plastic, otherwise it's all red plastic. Silver paint on the face, forehead tablet, arm exhaust pipes, boot exhaust pipes, and the engine block behind
the head. The chest is painted metallic coppery gold with a printed yellow- with-black-outline flamewings thing with a red-on-white Autobot symbol in the center. The thighs and spoilers are painted a slightly pearly yellow, and
the headlights on the abdomen are yellow-orange. The eyes are the same metallic blue as the windows on the backpack and boots.
No neck or waist articulation. The shoulders, elbows, and hips are ball joints, while the knees are hinges. There's transformation hinges at the
toes that let the panels inside the feet fold down, and this can be used to stabilize some action poses. The fists can hold 3mm pegs, a pity nothing packaged with this toy has useful 3mm pegs (I suppose you can try having him hang onto the hip plates? Doesn't really work well).

Transformation: Flip the chest up, point the foot panels down and fold
the knees double, then tab the arms against the sides. Like I said earlier, it's a Micromaster transformation.

Altmode: About as long as Kingdom Hot Rod, and the spoiler is about as wide, but the rest of the body is significantly wider. The wheels are absolutely tiny (about 9mm diameter), even smaller proportionally than on the original G1 Hot Rod. Much wider full-length fenders, a significantly shorter hood and longer roof with a larger engine.
3" (7.5cm) long and mostly red with yellow, silver, and accents. Other than the black wheels, it's all red plastic, and pretty much all the paint
was already visible in robot mode, parts are just connected differently. The ends of the exhaust pipes are not painted, so it looks bad from behind. Painting in the hollows on top of the spoiler might have helped with the
gappy appearance there too, you'd think part of a $150 toy could afford a couple of small gap-filler pieces. Anyway, rolls okay on the tiny wheels,
and the fists are visible from the underside if you want to use one for a flight base.
It can sort of store in the robot chest in this mode if you fold the
hood down first. This is basically the only way I can find to close the
chest with this figure inside of it, but if you really want to store Hot Rod inside Star Optimus Prime it's best to just put the vehicle mode inside MT-13 and then MT-13 inside one of the boots. The robot can only sit inside the chest if it's left open.

Overall: I suspect that if they were still trying to make the Core Class on its own, this is about the level we'd be getting, but a lot of the simplicity can be adequately explained by trying to be faithful to the
late-G1 toy.


Set Overall: A complete original Star Convoy would definitely be more
than $150 if you could find one, and it wouldn't have as much play value as this version (it was as much of a brick as this initially looks to be). Unfortunately, being so faithful to the original means it still has some of
the flaws of that toy. And let's face it, a lot of base modes are not that good, they can't all be Omega Supreme or even Metroplex.


Dave Van Domelen, now to go to the other end of the spectrum and look at the Zuru blind-capsules.




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