- Ben Watson
With a newly revealed Amazon exclusive Nemesis Prime coming from Power of The Primes, I felt it high time to finally throw the notes at the one figure that's been pushing my buttons more than any other in the line and... It's just another Optimus Prime...
Entering the Power of The Primes line in its first wave of Leader Class figures, (because what's a wave one without an Optimus?) Prime not only provides a suitably scaled Autobot leader to those looking for that sort of thing, he also figureheads the pricepoint's new gimmick. Your Leader money doesn't just get you a Big Optimus, but a not-exactly-small Orion Pax too! Behold the new "Evolution" feature! Arguably making more sense within the conceptual confines of the concurrent Rodimus Prime, this figure is at its core an illustration of a single story beat. That of the humble librarian/dock worker/cop Orion receiving the power of the Matrix, getting his swole on and stepping out of the subsequent light show as the most perfectly shaped G1 Optimus you've ever seen. But does all that work for the gimmick of a toy you'll be repeating ad infinitum? Hold on, things might get a bit meta in here today...
Before attempting to begin untangling the very odd fictional knot this whole package represents, I can say I adore it. A perfectly sized, perfectly weighty, perfectly styled, perfectly articulated, perfect Optimus Prime. From the front. I won't try to make you think the faults this figure has impact on my love for it but in-keeping with the purpose of this exposition as a review, I will point them out. I couldn't care less that his arms are mostly grey, that his silver hands don't move or his back is a mess. The fact the alt mode is mostly a thin facade full of holes and bloated with extra robot mass is all up there with how his ankles are thin and his thighs are hollow. And there's stickers. Objectively, these are all glaring flaws that shout their presence at you from the screen no doubt. But in hand, it all melts away in the sheer radiance of the physicality of this figure.
Apparently engineered by the designer of the original Star Saber(!), a certain pedigree of experience is instantly noticeable upon handling this Prime. It's sublimely efficient in everything it does, from range of motion in joints, to how each half transforms, to - especially - how the Prime mode comes together. This moment of (I hesitate to say "combination") completion screams "Star Saber". It veritably drips with the ink of that blueprint and somehow feels like an implementation of what the designer may have wanted to accomplish on that historic piece, but also all the refinements to his skills since that day. At its most basic, this figure is a smaller base form which curls up into a cuboid to be slotted into the chest of a larger body made from the surplus alt mode section. Sounds a bit Star Saber, no?
While the action of pushing Optimus' pecs and head into place is supremely satisfying (a spring loaded catch secures the block in place, which is released by a switch on his backside), it's this motion that activates my over-analysis mode. Beyond a conceptual illustration of a single moment in the character's history rendered in a toyetic form, what's going on here? Are we meant to believe Optimus is just a super mode Orion regularly powers up into? Is this where the trailer disappeared to all along? Did we just never see Optimus' base form when he transformed like we never saw Ultra Magnus'? A very cool spin on the design to differentiate an nth Generations Optimus Prime quickly becomes a meta-textual minefield.
It's much more easy to reconcile the fictional portrayal of this dynamic with Rodimus, because really, how long did Hot Rod stay that way? But when considering the cartoon play out of Orion's ultimate fate - a route I'm picking specifically based on the figure's incredibly Floro Dery Sunbow design look - every inch of him was rebuilt into Optimus Prime. Orion Pax essentially died, never to return. Yet here he is every time you want to make Optimus a truck. I dunno man, it's one of those things you can easily think too hard about and that's our modus operandi here at the Refined Robot Co. I'm trying to unpack my deeper confusion at this feature but really it's best to just sit back and enjoy playing with this figure because above all, it is fun in a way that makes me feel incredibly... serene.
Punching straight to the heart of it, this is the only Optimus Prime I own with this particular set of iconic details. To me, it glows with the rightness of Don Figueroa's Dreamwave design. The only thing that comes close is MP-10, which I do own in the Year of The Horse version but y'know, it's gold and that... For a lot of people I can see this figure representing a kind of budget MP-10, a regular retail mass market Masterpiece Optimus. It's undeniable that it sings from the same hymn sheet as that figure but honestly, I think it improves upon its styling. That headsculpt is thrillingly perfect. The proportions are the exact kind of Action Hero fit. The fists, while immobile are sculpted in that power stance curl. Elbows and knees bend beyond ninety degrees. Ankles are afforded insane range to keep any pose stable. The whole figure feels more fluid than MP-10 or any of Hasui's recent designs. A hole in his back even allows the core of the Matrix to pipe light while in his chest! And that's just the Optimus mode.
Disemboweling Prime leaves you with his entire body minus head and Matrix cavity and Orion in some kind of robot fetal position. It's this chunk that forms the truck's cab, eschewing giving Orion an alt mode we never actually saw in the cartoon. As a robot he is particularly toon smooth, bearing a look that - quite honestly - I detest on screen. But here the robot feels really cool? Excellently articulated and full of presence he's certainly a hero robot. I especially love how his hip skirt pieces rotate with his hips rather than just folding upwards like on so many figures. A rote piece of Masterpiece level design we've seen many times that feels incredibly cumbersome in light of this piece of engineering. Overall, Orion Pax is a triumph simply due to the fact that by all rights, he should be one of the lamest Transformers figures ever, but he most certainly is not.
All in all, Power of The Primes Optimus Prime feels like a truly definitive stab at the character in the Generations line-up. It may not make the killing strike but you've got to be made of stone to not have it draw blood. The most G1 feeling robot mode the line has ever produced at the perfect scale with a Matrix, an alt mode made up of cab and trailer and a bonus Orion Pax mode. Of course tiny points along the way allow Optimus to interact with the line's wider gimmickry but all this is truly negligible compared to the execution of the gimmick that sits at the core of this figure. Like some singularity it pulls you in past the event horizon where you could put it down and won't let you go. ...Or maybe this analogy would better suit the dark heart of the coming Nemesis repaint which I can already say without a shadow of a doubt will be one of the best mainline releases of the year. This Optimus is just... Prime.
Follow Ben on Twitter @Waspshot23
- Dorian MacQuarrie
You are never going to finish your collection. Or at least, Takara will do their darndest to prevent it.
Okay, maybe that should be "you are never going to be finished with collecting"?
With the recent talk (legitimate or otherwise) of a 35th Anniversary Optimus Prime on the horizon, aka MP Optimus Prime 3.0, Takara have once again moved the goal posts. Just when you felt your collection was headed towards completion, they've rebooted things and given us a new aesthetic to buy into. I think it was inevitable we would eventually see a more cartoon styled MP Prime to go along with their wonderful Megatron and other such cartoon focused releases. Some are expecting this to be a complete relaunch of the Masterpiece line and honestly, I wouldn't mind. Seeing the recent reveal of MP Prowl with animation accurate bright blue windows did cause me to vomit a little; a styles clash if there ever was one. But a brand new, cartoon accurate Prowl on the other hand? I'd be keen on that. In my Sunstreaker review I floated the idea of Takara releasing a new Sideswipe to better match his golden brother. This is something I think we will definitely see in the coming years as Takara try to change the direction of their product to keep us digging into our wallets to buy more and more toy robots.
Be it the pressures of business or an insidious plan to keep collectors on tenterhooks, rarely does a line reach full completion. Rarely do we have the entire cast of a show or every iteration of a toy we were hoping to buy, and even with something as grand as Takara's Masterpiece line, it was always going to be the same. Once the heavy hitters are released it's time to move on to another project and release those same big name characters in ever new and updated versions. Call it the fetishisation of Generation 1 and the seeming inability for companies and collectors alike to explore new and different ideas or just call it good business sense, one way or the other, you're never going to have that complete collection of Masterpiece styled bots. Of course in this instance "complete" depends on your personal definition. Complete might mean a certain core cast or sub-group of Transformers and not necessarily every single release or member of a team. But for those who seek to have a complete Season 1-2 cast of G1 Transformers, your time is running out and it might be Takara who decide when things change. I'm sure this will leave a large enough gap for a multitude of Third Party companies to step in and complete those missing figures but regardless of how much noise a group of collectors make, I doubt it would still be financially viable once a new Masterpiece styled line is fully underway, building off the back of seminal releases such as Inferno, Sunstreaker or the aforementioned Megatron.
We have of course seen this before. As new lines roll out, new aesthetics take over and lines can remain incomplete. Generation 1 gave way to Beast Wars, which in turn gave way to Car Robots/RiD and so on and so forth. It's easier to accept when it's off the back of a cartoon. It feels more self contained and expected. Look to the Generations line though and see how with every iteration of that particular line, Classics, Universe 2.0 and Generations itself, the goal posts were ever changing and from one wave to the next we started to drift away from aesthetics laid down in the early waves. Again, this was probably easier to accept as a Generations shelf can accommodate a varying degree of different aesthetics and toy lines given the nature of the Transformers brand and the world it presents.
Masterpiece on the other hand, the seemingly iconic representations of these characters? When that changes, it's more difficult to accept. I have written time and again about the diverging aesthetics of the line. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker encapsulate this perfectly and never was there a bigger red flag (or yellow in this case) that the line was going to change, restart, reboot, call it what you want, but the goal posts would be moved. Takara will usher in a whole new set of cartoon accurate MP toys and not just current moulds with ghastly blue windows but brand new versions of Sideswipe, Prowl, Starscream etc. It's bound to happen. It must happen. It's not in Takara's interest to allow us as collectors to finish up and complete a line. Sure, plenty of us will just find something else to collect but that might be a product from a different company altogether. Takara have captured the adult collector market as never before but with no other core product in their repertoire to keep those same adult collectors engaged, they'll just need to start all over again but in a new and interesting way.
And on that grim note, keep it #Refined
Follow Dorian on Twitter @Vigadeath
- mantis nine nines
Recently I purchased a Maketoys Cupola (the KO Data Clerk version to be accurate) and it got me thinking about what it is that defines a “Masterpiece” Transformer. Not because it is a 3P design, and not because it is a KO, but because it is 1:24 scale. Too big for most collectors to fit in with their MP Datsuns and the like, but perfect for my needs.
For more years than many reading this have been alive, I have collected cars, models, and whatever else I can find in the 1:24 scale. And since 2003, this included Transformers. The original Masterpiece Prime may appear to be an outdated relic these days, but it’s impossible to overstate what a leap forward MP-01 represented for the TF fandom. Full of die-cast, packed with features and gimmicks, and designed to represent the ideal vision of the character, this was a new standard for what a Transformer toy could be. It was also an almost spot-on 1:24 COE truck. I loved it. It sold like hotcakes, and thus began the cycle of excellence that leads us back to the present day. And what a present! Transformers are getting the royal treatment, with loving care lavished upon us loyal Transfans.
The first attempt at a True collector-focused line began with MP-01 and the Binaltech/Alternators. These figures gave us what we were sure we wanted at the time: G1 characters with highly detailed car modes and a large degree of articulation. For years collectors kitbashed and customised figures to be as G1 accurate as possible, and represent as many characters as possible. I remember buying a red KO Hound Hummer with the intention of creating a “perfect” Ironhide. At the time I would have never thought a TF collector could do any better, and I was not alone. Little could I know that the 1:24 scale boom would be short-lived.
Classics was only intended to fill in for a year while Hasbro awaited the dawn of the Bayverse, but it ignited the fandom’s passion like no other. Trading accurate car modes and gimmicks for tighter engineering and more solid robot modes, the fandom seemed to suddenly realise that no, THIS was what they wanted all along.In fact I remember reading forum posts where people stated as much in almost those exact words. Fans wanted anything and everything they could get in this new style. Such was the hunger for Classics that Hasbro alone could not keep up. It was at this time that FansProject went from making gun and matrix upgrades for Alternators Prime and got the ball rolling full speed with City Commander. Hasbro continued to crank out molds as well, and fans were sure that collectors could not do any better.
When the announcement came that a new Masterpiece Prime was being created, much of the fandom were uncertain why. Others were upset that the “final” pressing of MP-01 had just been released, and here we were with a blatant cash grab. Little could we know just how correct this was. Since 2011 Transformers collectors have ridden an unprecedented wave of product aimed at making sure every character, no matter how obscure, is represented on their MP shelf. And yes, once again we are certain that what we have is EXACTLY what we want.
So where do we go from here? As you may have surmised, I believe that what was old is new again. Big bots are back baby, and 1:24 is the future. MPP-10 remains a curiosity for many, but as Wei-Jiang, Robot Hero, and KBB continue to upscale and enhance bots, and third parties like Toyworld continue with their larger than MP scale offerings we creep ever closer to full circle on What Fans Want.
It's not just size either. With Takara delivering all the cartoon accuracy we could ask for, a lane is left open for a shift back to vehicle accuracy. Not at the sake of good looking bots, but in spite of them. Given the brilliant engineering we see from all comers these days I'm sure there's someone capable of making both bot and car perfect. A perfect Prowl that also has a detailed interior? Yes please!
Perhaps one day this post will seem prophetic and perhaps not. Maybe the whole thing will collapse. All I can say for certain is that whatever the Absolute Ultimate Version is today will be obsolete tomorrow. Or not. Sometimes you just have to be patient for the future to catch up to the past.
Until next time, keep it #Refined
Follow Dan on Twitter @mantisninenines
