Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Voyager Wave 2

Dinobot ("Velociraptor")

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/VDinobot

While certainly a major character in Beast Wars, they've really only
tried one new mold since the Transmetal II, and that was the pretty bad
Universe 2 Dinobot. Meanwhile, the other Axalon core crew got decent updates
and even (in the case of Cheetor) cross-continuity versions. Ah well. As
happened to the original BW mold, there will be a head-swapped white retool
of this new mold as BW Grimlock.

CAPSULE

$30 price point.

Dinobot: Pretty good robot mode, complex transformation that somehow
still ends up with a beast mode no better than the 1990s Deluxe, maybe a
little worse in some ways. Mildly recommended, recommended if you care more
about robot mode than altmode.

RANT

Packaging: Same as other Kingdom Voyagers. The box art and package
renders show the dino mode as a "flapper" rather than a "clapper" in terms of
hand orientation. Note, he has Predacon symbols on the packaging because in
the Fate cards he only sometimes becomes a Maximal.

PREDACON: DINOBOT
Assortment: WFC-K18
Altmode: "Velociraptor"
Transformation Difficulty: 28 steps
Previous Name Use: BW, BWX, Uni2
Previous Mold Use: None

Packaging: Six ties hold the robot to the cardboard tray, and the two
tail weapons are tied down next to each other on the left panel by two ties.

Robot Mode: Pretty good at capturing the animation model, although
there's a few places where they had to compromise to make the dino mode less
awkwardly colored (such as the relative lack of metallic bits on the thighs,
or painted details on the feet), but they otherwise did a decent job. They
even managed to fake up the smooshed dino head on the chest by adding extra
panels on either side of the real dino head. There's only a bit of backpack
going on, the root of the tail flanked by some panels that end up on the dino
thighs. (And yes, you can attach the tail weapon to the stump of the tail.)
Significantly taller than Optimus Primal at 6.75" (17cm) in mostly brown
and coppery-gold with a few other colors. Most of the toy is a slightly
grayish brown plastic. Coppery golden plastic is used for the head,
shoulders, hips, boots, heels, sword, and a hinge strut inside the backpack
kibble.
Light taupe paint is applied a bit unevenly, such as on the kneecaps and
the outer faces of the upper boots but not the inner faces. The fake beast
eyes are light taupe, as is the butt. The codpiece is painted bronze, and
the rib details are also bronze (the rib-like details on the thighs and boots
are not painted bronze). There's a strip of coppery gold paint on the fronts
and backs of the thighs. Bright blue paint is on the face and the sides of
the abdomen. The eyes are red, and there's black paint on the eyebrow crest
and stripes on the helmet. The blade of the sword is painted metallic
purple.
The neck is a ball joint with decent range of motion, the waist is a
swivel that at least on mine wiggles back and forth a bit. Universal joint
shoulders, swivels above the biceps, hinge elbows, swivels at the base of the
wrists and hinges at the hand end of the wrist area. The finger-claw chunks
are hinged to close around things. Universal joint hips, very stiff swivels
just below that, very stiff hinge knees, dual hinged ankles, plus the toes
and heels are hinged independently for transformation.
The palms have 5mm sockets, as do the undersides of the heels. There's
5mm sockets on the outer faces of the knees. The underside of the backpack
has both a 5mm socket (for attaching the tail, it has a slot in one side so
that the peg-and-tab on the tail base can only go in one way) and a 3mm
socket for flight/ jump bases.
As with the original toy, the tail splits into two accessories, a sword
and a "shield". Unlike the original toy, the shield doesn't spin, it's just
the dino tail split open so it can be held like a shield or a weird blade in
the palm of one hand. The shield is made of three pieces of grayish brown
(dark taupe, I guess) plastic, two half-tail pieces hinged to the core.
Fully open it's 6.5" (16.5cm) long, and has a 5mm peg in the back of the
center and a slotted 5mm socket on the front where the sword goes for dino
mode. The sword is 3.5" (9cm) long with a short hilt that has a tab on the
side, and the blade looks more like the rotating pieces version of the
animation model than the original toy's. I suppose the sword could be
snapped into the hand of a 5mm grip 3/4 circle open hand in some cases, but
the hilt is otherwise designed to NOT fit into a 5mm socket. Instead, it is
designed to be held via a 5mm rounded rectangular tab on the side of the
hilt. The claws can be closed pretty snugly around the hilt of the sword,
but can't close much on the shield without popping it out of the socket.

Transformation: To sum it up, this has a lot of tabs and slots and
almost none of them stay put. The final result is full of gaps and seams and
stuff not quite staying where it's supposed to go...but friction keeps
everything sort of together anyway. The super tight leg joints definitely
help there.
While you'd think that it'd be pretty basic, with the robot arms
becoming the dino legs, the robot legs forming the underside of the dinosaur,
the dino head coming out of the robot chest...but it's a lot more
complicated. The fake dino head sides of the robot chest become the backs of
the dino thighs, and there;s a lot of twisting of pieces in the process. The
whole dino butt area is a mess of "we couldn't find a place for it" pieces,
including the head only mostly hiding inside the tail. The dino forelimbs at
least are pretty straightforwards, but getting the dino head all the way out
was one of those "is it about to break" moments.
Getting the tail cracked back open is difficult, unless you have strong
nails or a knife. Otherwise, transforming back to robot mode is a LOT easier
than going to dino mode.

Altmode: Okay, it's a "velociraptor" with robot lags hanging on the
belly, a really straight tail, and wrists that can only be "flappers" (at
least the Amber Series raptor mold can turn the hands to "clappers" pose).
Also, round pupils instead of cats-eye slits. Basically, show accurate to
the extent that they could, plus the BW-era concessions to the transformation
(robot legs, straight tail). Even leaving aside how the Amber Series mold
has a longer whip-like tail, this is slightly smaller overall, looking like
maybe a juvenile version of Blue.
9.25" (23.5cm) from snout to tail tip, the top of the head is about 5"
(12.5cm) from the tabletop. Most of the non-brown colors are sort of hidden
in this more, although more of the robot legs are visible than I'd like. The
very tip of the tail is still metallic purple. Almost all of the actual dino
parts are brown plastic. The light taupe paint is on the belly (well, what
little there is), stripes on the sides and hips, as well as the face. The
eyes are light taupe with black pupils, the teeth are white, the tongue is
red.
Articulation isn't great. I mean, the legs retain all the robot arm
joints from elbows on down, but the transformation leaves the hips stuck in
one position so the rest of the joints are mostly moot. The jaw is hinged...
technically the head is as well but if you bend it down a big gap opens up.
At least the forelimbs are good. Pinned universal joint shoulders, hinge
elbows, ball joint wrists...but. The joint is actually short of the molded
wrists that are permanently bent.
The 5mm sockets on the sides of the robot knees are accessible ahead of
the dino thighs, and the robot palm sockets are on the undersides of the
feet. No new sockets or connections.

Overall: Pretty good robot mode, lots of steps involved to get a dino
mode that isn't much better than the original Deluxe toy's. Your mileage may
vary based on your priorities for a toy, but it left me kinda lukewarm.

Dave Van Domelen, in a reviewing race against time, the container ships
with wave 3 will be landing any day now....

On Thursday, June 24, 2021 at 11:37:34 PM UTC-5, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
> Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Voyager Wave 2
>
> Dinobot ("Velociraptor")
>
> Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/VDinobot
>
> While certainly a major character in Beast Wars, they've really only
> tried one new mold since the Transmetal II, and that was the pretty bad
> Universe 2 Dinobot. Meanwhile, the other Axalon core crew got decent updates
> and even (in the case of Cheetor) cross-continuity versions. Ah well. As
> happened to the original BW mold, there will be a head-swapped white retool
> of this new mold as BW Grimlock.
>
>
> CAPSULE
>
> $30 price point.
>
> Dinobot: Pretty good robot mode, complex transformation that somehow
> still ends up with a beast mode no better than the 1990s Deluxe, maybe a
> little worse in some ways. Mildly recommended, recommended if you care more
> about robot mode than altmode.
>
>
> RANT
>
> Packaging: Same as other Kingdom Voyagers. The box art and package
> renders show the dino mode as a "flapper" rather than a "clapper" in terms of
> hand orientation. Note, he has Predacon symbols on the packaging because in
> the Fate cards he only sometimes becomes a Maximal.
>
>
> PREDACON: DINOBOT
> Assortment: WFC-K18
> Altmode: "Velociraptor"
> Transformation Difficulty: 28 steps
> Previous Name Use: BW, BWX, Uni2
> Previous Mold Use: None
>
> Packaging: Six ties hold the robot to the cardboard tray, and the two
> tail weapons are tied down next to each other on the left panel by two ties.
>
> Robot Mode: Pretty good at capturing the animation model, although
> there's a few places where they had to compromise to make the dino mode less
> awkwardly colored (such as the relative lack of metallic bits on the thighs,
> or painted details on the feet), but they otherwise did a decent job. They
> even managed to fake up the smooshed dino head on the chest by adding extra
> panels on either side of the real dino head. There's only a bit of backpack
> going on, the root of the tail flanked by some panels that end up on the dino
> thighs. (And yes, you can attach the tail weapon to the stump of the tail.)
> Significantly taller than Optimus Primal at 6.75" (17cm) in mostly brown
> and coppery-gold with a few other colors. Most of the toy is a slightly
> grayish brown plastic. Coppery golden plastic is used for the head,
> shoulders, hips, boots, heels, sword, and a hinge strut inside the backpack
> kibble.
> Light taupe paint is applied a bit unevenly, such as on the kneecaps and
> the outer faces of the upper boots but not the inner faces. The fake beast
> eyes are light taupe, as is the butt. The codpiece is painted bronze, and
> the rib details are also bronze (the rib-like details on the thighs and boots
> are not painted bronze). There's a strip of coppery gold paint on the fronts
> and backs of the thighs. Bright blue paint is on the face and the sides of
> the abdomen. The eyes are red, and there's black paint on the eyebrow crest
> and stripes on the helmet. The blade of the sword is painted metallic
> purple.
> The neck is a ball joint with decent range of motion, the waist is a
> swivel that at least on mine wiggles back and forth a bit. Universal joint
> shoulders, swivels above the biceps, hinge elbows, swivels at the base of the
> wrists and hinges at the hand end of the wrist area. The finger-claw chunks
> are hinged to close around things. Universal joint hips, very stiff swivels
> just below that, very stiff hinge knees, dual hinged ankles, plus the toes
> and heels are hinged independently for transformation.
> The palms have 5mm sockets, as do the undersides of the heels. There's
> 5mm sockets on the outer faces of the knees. The underside of the backpack
> has both a 5mm socket (for attaching the tail, it has a slot in one side so
> that the peg-and-tab on the tail base can only go in one way) and a 3mm
> socket for flight/ jump bases.
> As with the original toy, the tail splits into two accessories, a sword
> and a "shield". Unlike the original toy, the shield doesn't spin, it's just
> the dino tail split open so it can be held like a shield or a weird blade in
> the palm of one hand. The shield is made of three pieces of grayish brown
> (dark taupe, I guess) plastic, two half-tail pieces hinged to the core.
> Fully open it's 6.5" (16.5cm) long, and has a 5mm peg in the back of the
> center and a slotted 5mm socket on the front where the sword goes for dino
> mode. The sword is 3.5" (9cm) long with a short hilt that has a tab on the
> side, and the blade looks more like the rotating pieces version of the
> animation model than the original toy's. I suppose the sword could be
> snapped into the hand of a 5mm grip 3/4 circle open hand in some cases, but
> the hilt is otherwise designed to NOT fit into a 5mm socket. Instead, it is
> designed to be held via a 5mm rounded rectangular tab on the side of the
> hilt. The claws can be closed pretty snugly around the hilt of the sword,
> but can't close much on the shield without popping it out of the socket.
>
> Transformation: To sum it up, this has a lot of tabs and slots and
> almost none of them stay put. The final result is full of gaps and seams and
> stuff not quite staying where it's supposed to go...but friction keeps
> everything sort of together anyway. The super tight leg joints definitely
> help there.
> While you'd think that it'd be pretty basic, with the robot arms
> becoming the dino legs, the robot legs forming the underside of the dinosaur,
> the dino head coming out of the robot chest...but it's a lot more
> complicated. The fake dino head sides of the robot chest become the backs of
> the dino thighs, and there;s a lot of twisting of pieces in the process. The
> whole dino butt area is a mess of "we couldn't find a place for it" pieces,
> including the head only mostly hiding inside the tail. The dino forelimbs at
> least are pretty straightforwards, but getting the dino head all the way out
> was one of those "is it about to break" moments.
> Getting the tail cracked back open is difficult, unless you have strong
> nails or a knife. Otherwise, transforming back to robot mode is a LOT easier
> than going to dino mode.
>
> Altmode: Okay, it's a "velociraptor" with robot lags hanging on the
> belly, a really straight tail, and wrists that can only be "flappers" (at
> least the Amber Series raptor mold can turn the hands to "clappers" pose).
> Also, round pupils instead of cats-eye slits. Basically, show accurate to
> the extent that they could, plus the BW-era concessions to the transformation
> (robot legs, straight tail). Even leaving aside how the Amber Series mold
> has a longer whip-like tail, this is slightly smaller overall, looking like
> maybe a juvenile version of Blue.
> 9.25" (23.5cm) from snout to tail tip, the top of the head is about 5"
> (12.5cm) from the tabletop. Most of the non-brown colors are sort of hidden
> in this more, although more of the robot legs are visible than I'd like. The
> very tip of the tail is still metallic purple. Almost all of the actual dino
> parts are brown plastic. The light taupe paint is on the belly (well, what
> little there is), stripes on the sides and hips, as well as the face. The
> eyes are light taupe with black pupils, the teeth are white, the tongue is
> red.
> Articulation isn't great. I mean, the legs retain all the robot arm
> joints from elbows on down, but the transformation leaves the hips stuck in
> one position so the rest of the joints are mostly moot. The jaw is hinged...
> technically the head is as well but if you bend it down a big gap opens up.
> At least the forelimbs are good. Pinned universal joint shoulders, hinge
> elbows, ball joint wrists...but. The joint is actually short of the molded
> wrists that are permanently bent.
> The 5mm sockets on the sides of the robot knees are accessible ahead of
> the dino thighs, and the robot palm sockets are on the undersides of the
> feet. No new sockets or connections.
>
> Overall: Pretty good robot mode, lots of steps involved to get a dino
> mode that isn't much better than the original Deluxe toy's. Your mileage may
> vary based on your priorities for a toy, but it left me kinda lukewarm.
>
>
> Dave Van Domelen, in a reviewing race against time, the container ships
> with wave 3 will be landing any day now....
I didn't have much in the way of gaps in dino mode. It took some massaging and really getting the robot leg flaps inside the dino back, but a lot tabs together quite seamlessly if you're willing to fight for a bit.

On Friday, June 25, 2021 at 12:37:34 AM UTC-4, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
> Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Voyager Wave 2
>
> Dinobot ("Velociraptor")
>
> Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/VDinobot
>
> While certainly a major character in Beast Wars, they've really only
> tried one new mold since the Transmetal II, and that was the pretty bad
> Universe 2 Dinobot. Meanwhile, the other Axalon core crew got decent updates
> and even (in the case of Cheetor) cross-continuity versions. Ah well. As
> happened to the original BW mold, there will be a head-swapped white retool
> of this new mold as BW Grimlock.
>
>
> CAPSULE
>
> $30 price point.
>
> Dinobot: Pretty good robot mode, complex transformation that somehow
> still ends up with a beast mode no better than the 1990s Deluxe, maybe a
> little worse in some ways. Mildly recommended, recommended if you care more
> about robot mode than altmode.
>
>
> RANT
>
> Packaging: Same as other Kingdom Voyagers. The box art and package
> renders show the dino mode as a "flapper" rather than a "clapper" in terms of
> hand orientation. Note, he has Predacon symbols on the packaging because in
> the Fate cards he only sometimes becomes a Maximal.
>
>
> PREDACON: DINOBOT
> Assortment: WFC-K18
> Altmode: "Velociraptor"
> Transformation Difficulty: 28 steps
> Previous Name Use: BW, BWX, Uni2
> Previous Mold Use: None
>
> Packaging: Six ties hold the robot to the cardboard tray, and the two
> tail weapons are tied down next to each other on the left panel by two ties.
>
> Robot Mode: Pretty good at capturing the animation model, although
> there's a few places where they had to compromise to make the dino mode less
> awkwardly colored (such as the relative lack of metallic bits on the thighs,
> or painted details on the feet), but they otherwise did a decent job. They
> even managed to fake up the smooshed dino head on the chest by adding extra
> panels on either side of the real dino head. There's only a bit of backpack
> going on, the root of the tail flanked by some panels that end up on the dino
> thighs. (And yes, you can attach the tail weapon to the stump of the tail.)
> Significantly taller than Optimus Primal at 6.75" (17cm) in mostly brown
> and coppery-gold with a few other colors. Most of the toy is a slightly
> grayish brown plastic. Coppery golden plastic is used for the head,
> shoulders, hips, boots, heels, sword, and a hinge strut inside the backpack
> kibble.
> Light taupe paint is applied a bit unevenly, such as on the kneecaps and
> the outer faces of the upper boots but not the inner faces. The fake beast
> eyes are light taupe, as is the butt. The codpiece is painted bronze, and
> the rib details are also bronze (the rib-like details on the thighs and boots
> are not painted bronze). There's a strip of coppery gold paint on the fronts
> and backs of the thighs. Bright blue paint is on the face and the sides of
> the abdomen. The eyes are red, and there's black paint on the eyebrow crest
> and stripes on the helmet. The blade of the sword is painted metallic
> purple.
> The neck is a ball joint with decent range of motion, the waist is a
> swivel that at least on mine wiggles back and forth a bit. Universal joint
> shoulders, swivels above the biceps, hinge elbows, swivels at the base of the
> wrists and hinges at the hand end of the wrist area. The finger-claw chunks
> are hinged to close around things. Universal joint hips, very stiff swivels
> just below that, very stiff hinge knees, dual hinged ankles, plus the toes
> and heels are hinged independently for transformation.
> The palms have 5mm sockets, as do the undersides of the heels. There's
> 5mm sockets on the outer faces of the knees. The underside of the backpack
> has both a 5mm socket (for attaching the tail, it has a slot in one side so
> that the peg-and-tab on the tail base can only go in one way) and a 3mm
> socket for flight/ jump bases.
> As with the original toy, the tail splits into two accessories, a sword
> and a "shield". Unlike the original toy, the shield doesn't spin, it's just
> the dino tail split open so it can be held like a shield or a weird blade in
> the palm of one hand. The shield is made of three pieces of grayish brown
> (dark taupe, I guess) plastic, two half-tail pieces hinged to the core.
> Fully open it's 6.5" (16.5cm) long, and has a 5mm peg in the back of the
> center and a slotted 5mm socket on the front where the sword goes for dino
> mode. The sword is 3.5" (9cm) long with a short hilt that has a tab on the
> side, and the blade looks more like the rotating pieces version of the
> animation model than the original toy's. I suppose the sword could be
> snapped into the hand of a 5mm grip 3/4 circle open hand in some cases, but
> the hilt is otherwise designed to NOT fit into a 5mm socket. Instead, it is
> designed to be held via a 5mm rounded rectangular tab on the side of the
> hilt. The claws can be closed pretty snugly around the hilt of the sword,
> but can't close much on the shield without popping it out of the socket.
>
> Transformation: To sum it up, this has a lot of tabs and slots and
> almost none of them stay put. The final result is full of gaps and seams and
> stuff not quite staying where it's supposed to go...but friction keeps
> everything sort of together anyway. The super tight leg joints definitely
> help there.
> While you'd think that it'd be pretty basic, with the robot arms
> becoming the dino legs, the robot legs forming the underside of the dinosaur,
> the dino head coming out of the robot chest...but it's a lot more
> complicated. The fake dino head sides of the robot chest become the backs of
> the dino thighs, and there;s a lot of twisting of pieces in the process. The
> whole dino butt area is a mess of "we couldn't find a place for it" pieces,
> including the head only mostly hiding inside the tail. The dino forelimbs at
> least are pretty straightforwards, but getting the dino head all the way out
> was one of those "is it about to break" moments.
> Getting the tail cracked back open is difficult, unless you have strong
> nails or a knife. Otherwise, transforming back to robot mode is a LOT easier
> than going to dino mode.
>
> Altmode: Okay, it's a "velociraptor" with robot lags hanging on the
> belly, a really straight tail, and wrists that can only be "flappers" (at
> least the Amber Series raptor mold can turn the hands to "clappers" pose).
> Also, round pupils instead of cats-eye slits. Basically, show accurate to
> the extent that they could, plus the BW-era concessions to the transformation
> (robot legs, straight tail). Even leaving aside how the Amber Series mold
> has a longer whip-like tail, this is slightly smaller overall, looking like
> maybe a juvenile version of Blue.
> 9.25" (23.5cm) from snout to tail tip, the top of the head is about 5"
> (12.5cm) from the tabletop. Most of the non-brown colors are sort of hidden
> in this more, although more of the robot legs are visible than I'd like. The
> very tip of the tail is still metallic purple. Almost all of the actual dino
> parts are brown plastic. The light taupe paint is on the belly (well, what
> little there is), stripes on the sides and hips, as well as the face. The
> eyes are light taupe with black pupils, the teeth are white, the tongue is
> red.
> Articulation isn't great. I mean, the legs retain all the robot arm
> joints from elbows on down, but the transformation leaves the hips stuck in
> one position so the rest of the joints are mostly moot. The jaw is hinged...
> technically the head is as well but if you bend it down a big gap opens up.
> At least the forelimbs are good. Pinned universal joint shoulders, hinge
> elbows, ball joint wrists...but. The joint is actually short of the molded
> wrists that are permanently bent.
> The 5mm sockets on the sides of the robot knees are accessible ahead of
> the dino thighs, and the robot palm sockets are on the undersides of the
> feet. No new sockets or connections.
>
> Overall: Pretty good robot mode, lots of steps involved to get a dino
> mode that isn't much better than the original Deluxe toy's. Your mileage may
> vary based on your priorities for a toy, but it left me kinda lukewarm.
>
>
> Dave Van Domelen, in a reviewing race against time, the container ships
> with wave 3 will be landing any day now....

Dropped him on carpet in dino mode.
End of the tailsword snapped off.
Can't believe a children's toy could be so fragile.
Cancelled all my remaining Kingdom beast preorders.
Still looks decent in robot mode though!