Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant: Voyager Wave 12

#72 Starscream (Cybertronian Jet)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/VStarscream

Wave 12 is just this, with Studio '86 Hot Rod filling out the case. Far
from the first Voyager Starscream in Studio Series, but it's the first one
that's not based on the 2007-9 design, and therefore the first one I bought.
:)
It's worth noting that while reasonably faithful to Starscream's brief
appearance in 2018's Bumblebee, poor lighting and rapid motion tended to
obscure just how questionable the design was for vehicle mode, leading many
(myself included) to think that early pictures of this toy were badly
mistransformed. Sadly, they were not mistransformed. An unreasonable amount
of robot mode stuff is just crammed in behind the weapon strut.

Why did I buy this? Because Studio Series Voyagers have generally been
good, and this is the first toy of a totally new Starscream design (even if
it reuses significant engineering from Blitzwing), so I figured I'd take the
risk. To be honest, I lost almost all of my enthusiasm for reviewing this
after transforming it once, and barely powered through the rest of the
review.

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/VBlitzwing - Blitzwing mold,
but note that none of the pieces are exactly the same between the two. Just
a lot of pieces that are kinda similar and some engineering that's the same
(such as how the arms are connected, the way the torso is structured, some
common motifs). As such, it's a new mold and will be reviewed as such.

CAPSULE

$30 price point.

#72 Starscream: It's pretty bad. The robot mode is okay (about as good
as the Blitzwing robot mode), transformation is super fiddly and the vehicle
mode a hot mess...and that's assuming you get a good one that doesn't fall
apart in several places like mine does. While Blitzwing was mildly
recommended, this one is a mild recommendation to avoid.

RANT

Packaging: Standard Studio Series Voyager box, with the Bumblebee movie
logo in various places.

DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM
Assortment: #72
Altmode: Cybertronian Jet
Transformation Difficulty: 31 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: Bumblebee
Scene: Cybertron Falls

STARSCREAM and the SEEKERS destroy the AUTOBOT launchpad on CYBERTRON in
an effort to prevent their escape.

Packaging: Seven ties on the robot, one on the main gun. A plastic
shield is held over the chest by one of the ties. The wings are a bit folded
forwards to fit in the tray, and need to go one notch back for proper robot
mode (the instructions do have a short bit pointing this out). The wingtips
are not held on very strongly, and while they didn't pop off during
extraction from the package, one did so very soon after.
The backdrop is the same Cybertronian cityscape used for B-127's box,
with an elevated roadway overhead and a sky full of stars.

Robot Mode: The head and torso most obviously resemble the Blitzwing
mold, but a lot of the rest is very different, from little things like the
hands not being hinged (since Starscream doesn't need to be able to strangle
Bumblebee) to big ones like the new thrusters on the legs. Ultimately, if
there's any parts exactly like Blitzwing's, they're little stuff like struts
(and even the ones that flank the cockpit in this mode are not quite the same
as the ones on Blitzwing). They do definitely share a design philosophy,
though, making Blitzwing more of a Seeker than a Triple-Changer. A lot of
the general shapes are the same, such as the (fake) intake vents as
shoulderpads, the (fake) landing gear wheels on the toes, the (real) cockpit
on the abdomen, and so forth. The thrusters on the boots give it a vaguely
Mobile Suit feel (Rick Doms and the like).
6.75" (17cm) tall at the head, but the upturned wingtips rise to a
height of 8" (20cm). Other than some dark silver bits on the forearms and
thighs, it's pretty much the standard Starscream G1 colors. Darkish blue
plastic is used for the forearms, shins, and main rifle. Black-ish plastic
is used for the null ray cannons, the neck area, struts on the abdomen, hip
joints, hands, and ankle joints. Bright red plastic is used on the torso
sides (including the fake intakes flanking the head), pelvis front, and
thighs. The canopy on the torso front is rubbery clear amber plastic. The
rest of the toy is light ghost gray plastic, including the head (which is
entirely painted over).
The head is painted gloss black with silver face (still pretty
Bayformery) and red eyes. There's also black paint in the intake shapes on
the pecs and shoulder fronts, and on the boot thrusters. Dark silver on the
inner forearms, thigh fronts, and the shoulder scoops. The wingtips have the
classic red and white stripes, while the leading edge of the main wing is
just red. There's purple Decepticon symbols on the backs of the wings (tops
in vehicle mode). The collar area has a fake cockpit front painted in yellow
with medium-light gray borders, while the actual cockpit window has the same
medium-like gray borders. There's some blue paint (good match to the
plastic) on the toes, and red stripes just above the elbows.
The head and waist are swivels, although the waist is limited by the
fact that the pelvis front is attached to the abdomen. The shoulderpads turn
on swivels, and the upper arms are hinged to the shoulderpads to lift up to
the sides. Upper bicep swivels, hinge elbows, and the wrists are hinged to
fold down for transformation. Universal joint hips, "internal bones" thigh
swivels, hinge knees, and sideways hinges on the ankles. The ankles also
have forwards-backwards hinges, but the boot kibble blocks these for the most
part, they're really just for transformation. The wings have soft-ratcheting
hinges at the roots, so there's really only a couple of stable positions, and
only one of them looks good. The wingtips are on snap-in swivels.
(Poor molding on my copy has resulted in a wingtip piece that simply
won't stay on. Even after removing some mold flash, it didn't really snap
into place. A little carving and warping helped a little, but it still
doesn't snap all the way.)
The hands hold 5mm pegs, there's 5mm sockets in the wings, and while
there's no 3mm socket on the pelvis there's one on each wing near the front
of the wing root. Since there's no 3mm peg weapons in Studio Series these
are probably a substitute location for flight stands (although Kingdom
Megatron tank's pistol could go in one). Note, the hands are partially open,
so they look like he's really only holding things with his thumbs, probably
best that his own main gun covers the relevant hand entirely. (There's
already 3P kits that include replacement hands, they're held in with screws
rather than rivets so they're swappable.)
The null ray cannons are mirror images of each other, 2.5" (6cm) long
and made of black plastic. The muzzle tips are not only not 3mm studs,
they're weird irregular quadrilateral prisms. They have very short 5mm pegs
that can be held a little awkwardly in the hands, plus rectangular tabs (2mm
by 6.5mm) used in vehicle mode. They do not go anywhere on the arms or
shoulders, though. So just wings, one way or another.
The main gun is a sort of pod with a main barrel and a pair of rockets
flanking it, in blue plastic with black paint on the business end. 3.25"
(8cm) long total. It seems intended as an "arm turns into cannon" deal, but
doesn't hold very well in that role. If they'd put a 5mm socket on the inner
face of the forearm so that you could fold the hand away and cover the silver
part of the forearm with the gun, that might look better. There's a 5mm peg
inside the cowling, a 3mm socket on the outside of the cowling, and two other
connections purely for vehicle mode: a square hole roughly at the middle, and
two shallow rectangular slots that go onto tabs on the elbows to help
stabilize things. Thing is, near as I can tell, those elbow tabs don't
really lock in place or even really FIT, they're just guide points.

Undocumented features: The strut that holds the main gun in vehicle mode
can be pulled out through the back and the gun attached to it for storage.
When the wingtips pop off, you can have the figure hold them in its hands
along the lines of Armada Starscream, if a bit shorter (twin shortswords
rather than a longsword, I guess).

Transformation: Well, I was able to figure it out without the
instructions, just from looking at the back of the box, but it's not what I'd
call intuitive. A HUGE amount of robot kibble just sort of sits under the
fuselage. The only clever bit is how the tail fin is folded up behind one
boot, everything else ranges from simple and boring to frustrating and
boring.
One odd bit is that the fake landing gear on the torso don't actualy
fold out as landing gear. Rather, for jet mode they tuck away mostly out of
sight, and have to be pulled back out for robot mode (the package renders
show it tucked away in robot mode, but they are sticking out in the packaged
toy). It looks like they took the functional struts on Blitzwing and just
tweaked them slightly, rather than removing them entirely.

On Monday, July 19, 2021 at 12:38:22 AM UTC-4, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
> Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant: Voyager Wave 12
>
> #72 Starscream (Cybertronian Jet)
>
> Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/VStarscream
>
> Wave 12 is just this, with Studio '86 Hot Rod filling out the case. Far
> from the first Voyager Starscream in Studio Series, but it's the first one
> that's not based on the 2007-9 design, and therefore the first one I bought.
> :)
> It's worth noting that while reasonably faithful to Starscream's brief
> appearance in 2018's Bumblebee, poor lighting and rapid motion tended to
> obscure just how questionable the design was for vehicle mode, leading many
> (myself included) to think that early pictures of this toy were badly
> mistransformed. Sadly, they were not mistransformed. An unreasonable amount
> of robot mode stuff is just crammed in behind the weapon strut.
>
> Why did I buy this? Because Studio Series Voyagers have generally been
> good, and this is the first toy of a totally new Starscream design (even if
> it reuses significant engineering from Blitzwing), so I figured I'd take the
> risk. To be honest, I lost almost all of my enthusiasm for reviewing this
> after transforming it once, and barely powered through the rest of the
> review.
>
> https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/VBlitzwing - Blitzwing mold,
> but note that none of the pieces are exactly the same between the two. Just
> a lot of pieces that are kinda similar and some engineering that's the same
> (such as how the arms are connected, the way the torso is structured, some
> common motifs). As such, it's a new mold and will be reviewed as such.
>
>
> CAPSULE
>
> $30 price point.
>
> #72 Starscream: It's pretty bad. The robot mode is okay (about as good
> as the Blitzwing robot mode), transformation is super fiddly and the vehicle
> mode a hot mess...and that's assuming you get a good one that doesn't fall
> apart in several places like mine does. While Blitzwing was mildly
> recommended, this one is a mild recommendation to avoid.
>
>
> RANT
>
> Packaging: Standard Studio Series Voyager box, with the Bumblebee movie
> logo in various places.
>
>
> DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM
> Assortment: #72
> Altmode: Cybertronian Jet
> Transformation Difficulty: 31 steps
> Previous Name Use: Yes
> Previous Mold Use: None
> Movie: Bumblebee
> Scene: Cybertron Falls
>
> STARSCREAM and the SEEKERS destroy the AUTOBOT launchpad on CYBERTRON in
> an effort to prevent their escape.
>
> Packaging: Seven ties on the robot, one on the main gun. A plastic
> shield is held over the chest by one of the ties. The wings are a bit folded
> forwards to fit in the tray, and need to go one notch back for proper robot
> mode (the instructions do have a short bit pointing this out). The wingtips
> are not held on very strongly, and while they didn't pop off during
> extraction from the package, one did so very soon after.
> The backdrop is the same Cybertronian cityscape used for B-127's box,
> with an elevated roadway overhead and a sky full of stars.
>
> Robot Mode: The head and torso most obviously resemble the Blitzwing
> mold, but a lot of the rest is very different, from little things like the
> hands not being hinged (since Starscream doesn't need to be able to strangle
> Bumblebee) to big ones like the new thrusters on the legs. Ultimately, if
> there's any parts exactly like Blitzwing's, they're little stuff like struts
> (and even the ones that flank the cockpit in this mode are not quite the same
> as the ones on Blitzwing). They do definitely share a design philosophy,
> though, making Blitzwing more of a Seeker than a Triple-Changer. A lot of
> the general shapes are the same, such as the (fake) intake vents as
> shoulderpads, the (fake) landing gear wheels on the toes, the (real) cockpit
> on the abdomen, and so forth. The thrusters on the boots give it a vaguely
> Mobile Suit feel (Rick Doms and the like).
> 6.75" (17cm) tall at the head, but the upturned wingtips rise to a
> height of 8" (20cm). Other than some dark silver bits on the forearms and
> thighs, it's pretty much the standard Starscream G1 colors. Darkish blue
> plastic is used for the forearms, shins, and main rifle. Black-ish plastic
> is used for the null ray cannons, the neck area, struts on the abdomen, hip
> joints, hands, and ankle joints. Bright red plastic is used on the torso
> sides (including the fake intakes flanking the head), pelvis front, and
> thighs. The canopy on the torso front is rubbery clear amber plastic. The
> rest of the toy is light ghost gray plastic, including the head (which is
> entirely painted over).
> The head is painted gloss black with silver face (still pretty
> Bayformery) and red eyes. There's also black paint in the intake shapes on
> the pecs and shoulder fronts, and on the boot thrusters. Dark silver on the
> inner forearms, thigh fronts, and the shoulder scoops. The wingtips have the
> classic red and white stripes, while the leading edge of the main wing is
> just red. There's purple Decepticon symbols on the backs of the wings (tops
> in vehicle mode). The collar area has a fake cockpit front painted in yellow
> with medium-light gray borders, while the actual cockpit window has the same
> medium-like gray borders. There's some blue paint (good match to the
> plastic) on the toes, and red stripes just above the elbows.
> The head and waist are swivels, although the waist is limited by the
> fact that the pelvis front is attached to the abdomen. The shoulderpads turn
> on swivels, and the upper arms are hinged to the shoulderpads to lift up to
> the sides. Upper bicep swivels, hinge elbows, and the wrists are hinged to
> fold down for transformation. Universal joint hips, "internal bones" thigh
> swivels, hinge knees, and sideways hinges on the ankles. The ankles also
> have forwards-backwards hinges, but the boot kibble blocks these for the most
> part, they're really just for transformation. The wings have soft-ratcheting
> hinges at the roots, so there's really only a couple of stable positions, and
> only one of them looks good. The wingtips are on snap-in swivels.
> (Poor molding on my copy has resulted in a wingtip piece that simply
> won't stay on. Even after removing some mold flash, it didn't really snap
> into place. A little carving and warping helped a little, but it still
> doesn't snap all the way.)
> The hands hold 5mm pegs, there's 5mm sockets in the wings, and while
> there's no 3mm socket on the pelvis there's one on each wing near the front
> of the wing root. Since there's no 3mm peg weapons in Studio Series these
> are probably a substitute location for flight stands (although Kingdom
> Megatron tank's pistol could go in one). Note, the hands are partially open,
> so they look like he's really only holding things with his thumbs, probably
> best that his own main gun covers the relevant hand entirely. (There's
> already 3P kits that include replacement hands, they're held in with screws
> rather than rivets so they're swappable.)
> The null ray cannons are mirror images of each other, 2.5" (6cm) long
> and made of black plastic. The muzzle tips are not only not 3mm studs,
> they're weird irregular quadrilateral prisms. They have very short 5mm pegs
> that can be held a little awkwardly in the hands, plus rectangular tabs (2mm
> by 6.5mm) used in vehicle mode. They do not go anywhere on the arms or
> shoulders, though. So just wings, one way or another.
> The main gun is a sort of pod with a main barrel and a pair of rockets
> flanking it, in blue plastic with black paint on the business end. 3.25"
> (8cm) long total. It seems intended as an "arm turns into cannon" deal, but
> doesn't hold very well in that role. If they'd put a 5mm socket on the inner
> face of the forearm so that you could fold the hand away and cover the silver
> part of the forearm with the gun, that might look better. There's a 5mm peg
> inside the cowling, a 3mm socket on the outside of the cowling, and two other
> connections purely for vehicle mode: a square hole roughly at the middle, and
> two shallow rectangular slots that go onto tabs on the elbows to help
> stabilize things. Thing is, near as I can tell, those elbow tabs don't
> really lock in place or even really FIT, they're just guide points.
>
> Undocumented features: The strut that holds the main gun in vehicle mode
> can be pulled out through the back and the gun attached to it for storage..
> When the wingtips pop off, you can have the figure hold them in its hands
> along the lines of Armada Starscream, if a bit shorter (twin shortswords
> rather than a longsword, I guess).
>
> Transformation: Well, I was able to figure it out without the
> instructions, just from looking at the back of the box, but it's not what I'd
> call intuitive. A HUGE amount of robot kibble just sort of sits under the
> fuselage. The only clever bit is how the tail fin is folded up behind one
> boot, everything else ranges from simple and boring to frustrating and
> boring.
> One odd bit is that the fake landing gear on the torso don't actualy
> fold out as landing gear. Rather, for jet mode they tuck away mostly out of
> sight, and have to be pulled back out for robot mode (the package renders
> show it tucked away in robot mode, but they are sticking out in the packaged
> toy). It looks like they took the functional struts on Blitzwing and just
> tweaked them slightly, rather than removing them entirely.
>
> Vehicle Mode: It's...different? Also, it's crap. Even if all the parts
> stayed snapped together properly, there's just way too much robot stuff
> tucked on the underside. It feels like they just gave up. "Well, it's
> supposed to have a cannon on a strut on the underside, just hide all the
> extra bits behind the strut." The main thrusters point about 20 degrees up,
> the pointy nose has the top half removed to show a small gun that can't
> actually fire over the top of the nose. Blitzwing's not-F4 was decent, it's
> as if every piece of engineering they changed for this toy made it worse, to
> the point that they'd have been far better off starting from scratch. You'd
> need to remove about a quarter of the mass of the toy to give it the proper
> lines of the movie's model.
> Value judgements aside for the moment, if you ignore the huge chunk of
> robot hanging under the fuselage, it's a decent adaptation of the BB movie's
> take on the Tetrajet concept. Main wings angled downward to the point that
> they're about level with the main gun (so it can rest on a sort of tripod
> arrangement), a shorter vertical tail in back, a very pointy nose and a
> cloudy cockpit. If you ignore the robot heels sticking out the back (a
> problem Blitzwing had too), it's 7.5" (19cm) long, the heels add about
> another inch. The wingspan is about 7.25" (18cm) although you can straighten
> out the wings to be more horizontal and get closer to 8" (20cm). The needle
> nose is rubbery plastic painted dark blue (okay match to the plastic) with a
> light gray core that has a gun molded on it. The tail is all dark blue
> plastic with a white stripe near the leading edge. Pretty much everything
> else is visible in robot mode.
> The null ray cannons connect via tabs and slots in this mode rather than
> using the 5mm sockets, which gets them pointed a bit better. The main gun is
> connected (not well enough given that the gun is one of the tripod legs) via
> a nonstandard rectangular peg. The 5mm sockets under the wings are still
> accessible, though. The 3mm socket on the main gun seems intended for use
> with flight bases, but there's no way the jet won't just fall off if you try
> that, the connection between the main gun and the strut is not very firm
> (even with the elbow tabs, it just doesn't stay in place well). No flight
> base sockets on the main toy, although the robot hands are exposed and could
> potentially be used for a base with 5mm pegs. There's 3mm sockets on the
> wing roots. The wings have hinged roots, and the strut that holds the main
> gun technically has a hinge as well, although it's not too useful. The
> cockpit doesn't really open, but it's soft plastic only secured by a shaft at
> its center, so you can peel up the edges if you want.
> Aside from the wing that falls off on mine and the fact the main gun is
> a bit loose, it's reasonably solid considering how many compromises were made
> in this retool. The elaborate panels that cover the top of the fuselage
> don't really stay together, but they're not structurally important.
>
> Overall: Even if I'd gotten a one with better quality control, I don't
> think I'd be too enthused by this mold, and I'm definitely not picking up the
> Thrust redeco. The robot mode is okay, but transformation is a massive
> hassle for a highly questionable outcome.
>
>
> Dave Van Domelen, finished this review on his 51st birthday.

On Sunday, July 18, 2021 at 11:38:22 PM UTC-5, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
> Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant: Voyager Wave 12
>
> #72 Starscream (Cybertronian Jet)
>
> Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/VStarscream
>
> Wave 12 is just this, with Studio '86 Hot Rod filling out the case. Far
> from the first Voyager Starscream in Studio Series, but it's the first one
> that's not based on the 2007-9 design, and therefore the first one I bought.
> :)
> It's worth noting that while reasonably faithful to Starscream's brief
> appearance in 2018's Bumblebee, poor lighting and rapid motion tended to
> obscure just how questionable the design was for vehicle mode, leading many
> (myself included) to think that early pictures of this toy were badly
> mistransformed. Sadly, they were not mistransformed. An unreasonable amount
> of robot mode stuff is just crammed in behind the weapon strut.
>
> Why did I buy this? Because Studio Series Voyagers have generally been
> good, and this is the first toy of a totally new Starscream design (even if
> it reuses significant engineering from Blitzwing), so I figured I'd take the
> risk. To be honest, I lost almost all of my enthusiasm for reviewing this
> after transforming it once, and barely powered through the rest of the
> review.
>
> https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/VBlitzwing - Blitzwing mold,
> but note that none of the pieces are exactly the same between the two. Just
> a lot of pieces that are kinda similar and some engineering that's the same
> (such as how the arms are connected, the way the torso is structured, some
> common motifs). As such, it's a new mold and will be reviewed as such.
>
>
> CAPSULE
>
> $30 price point.
>
> #72 Starscream: It's pretty bad. The robot mode is okay (about as good
> as the Blitzwing robot mode), transformation is super fiddly and the vehicle
> mode a hot mess...and that's assuming you get a good one that doesn't fall
> apart in several places like mine does. While Blitzwing was mildly
> recommended, this one is a mild recommendation to avoid.
>
>
> RANT
>
> Packaging: Standard Studio Series Voyager box, with the Bumblebee movie
> logo in various places.
>
>
> DECEPTICON: STARSCREAM
> Assortment: #72
> Altmode: Cybertronian Jet
> Transformation Difficulty: 31 steps
> Previous Name Use: Yes
> Previous Mold Use: None
> Movie: Bumblebee
> Scene: Cybertron Falls
>
> STARSCREAM and the SEEKERS destroy the AUTOBOT launchpad on CYBERTRON in
> an effort to prevent their escape.
>
> Packaging: Seven ties on the robot, one on the main gun. A plastic
> shield is held over the chest by one of the ties. The wings are a bit folded
> forwards to fit in the tray, and need to go one notch back for proper robot
> mode (the instructions do have a short bit pointing this out). The wingtips
> are not held on very strongly, and while they didn't pop off during
> extraction from the package, one did so very soon after.
> The backdrop is the same Cybertronian cityscape used for B-127's box,
> with an elevated roadway overhead and a sky full of stars.
>
> Robot Mode: The head and torso most obviously resemble the Blitzwing
> mold, but a lot of the rest is very different, from little things like the
> hands not being hinged (since Starscream doesn't need to be able to strangle
> Bumblebee) to big ones like the new thrusters on the legs. Ultimately, if
> there's any parts exactly like Blitzwing's, they're little stuff like struts
> (and even the ones that flank the cockpit in this mode are not quite the same
> as the ones on Blitzwing). They do definitely share a design philosophy,
> though, making Blitzwing more of a Seeker than a Triple-Changer. A lot of
> the general shapes are the same, such as the (fake) intake vents as
> shoulderpads, the (fake) landing gear wheels on the toes, the (real) cockpit
> on the abdomen, and so forth. The thrusters on the boots give it a vaguely
> Mobile Suit feel (Rick Doms and the like).
> 6.75" (17cm) tall at the head, but the upturned wingtips rise to a
> height of 8" (20cm). Other than some dark silver bits on the forearms and
> thighs, it's pretty much the standard Starscream G1 colors. Darkish blue
> plastic is used for the forearms, shins, and main rifle. Black-ish plastic
> is used for the null ray cannons, the neck area, struts on the abdomen, hip
> joints, hands, and ankle joints. Bright red plastic is used on the torso
> sides (including the fake intakes flanking the head), pelvis front, and
> thighs. The canopy on the torso front is rubbery clear amber plastic. The
> rest of the toy is light ghost gray plastic, including the head (which is
> entirely painted over).
> The head is painted gloss black with silver face (still pretty
> Bayformery) and red eyes. There's also black paint in the intake shapes on
> the pecs and shoulder fronts, and on the boot thrusters. Dark silver on the
> inner forearms, thigh fronts, and the shoulder scoops. The wingtips have the
> classic red and white stripes, while the leading edge of the main wing is
> just red. There's purple Decepticon symbols on the backs of the wings (tops
> in vehicle mode). The collar area has a fake cockpit front painted in yellow
> with medium-light gray borders, while the actual cockpit window has the same
> medium-like gray borders. There's some blue paint (good match to the
> plastic) on the toes, and red stripes just above the elbows.
> The head and waist are swivels, although the waist is limited by the
> fact that the pelvis front is attached to the abdomen. The shoulderpads turn
> on swivels, and the upper arms are hinged to the shoulderpads to lift up to
> the sides. Upper bicep swivels, hinge elbows, and the wrists are hinged to
> fold down for transformation. Universal joint hips, "internal bones" thigh
> swivels, hinge knees, and sideways hinges on the ankles. The ankles also
> have forwards-backwards hinges, but the boot kibble blocks these for the most
> part, they're really just for transformation. The wings have soft-ratcheting
> hinges at the roots, so there's really only a couple of stable positions, and
> only one of them looks good. The wingtips are on snap-in swivels.
> (Poor molding on my copy has resulted in a wingtip piece that simply
> won't stay on. Even after removing some mold flash, it didn't really snap
> into place. A little carving and warping helped a little, but it still
> doesn't snap all the way.)
> The hands hold 5mm pegs, there's 5mm sockets in the wings, and while
> there's no 3mm socket on the pelvis there's one on each wing near the front
> of the wing root. Since there's no 3mm peg weapons in Studio Series these
> are probably a substitute location for flight stands (although Kingdom
> Megatron tank's pistol could go in one). Note, the hands are partially open,
> so they look like he's really only holding things with his thumbs, probably
> best that his own main gun covers the relevant hand entirely. (There's
> already 3P kits that include replacement hands, they're held in with screws
> rather than rivets so they're swappable.)
> The null ray cannons are mirror images of each other, 2.5" (6cm) long
> and made of black plastic. The muzzle tips are not only not 3mm studs,
> they're weird irregular quadrilateral prisms. They have very short 5mm pegs
> that can be held a little awkwardly in the hands, plus rectangular tabs (2mm
> by 6.5mm) used in vehicle mode. They do not go anywhere on the arms or
> shoulders, though. So just wings, one way or another.
> The main gun is a sort of pod with a main barrel and a pair of rockets
> flanking it, in blue plastic with black paint on the business end. 3.25"
> (8cm) long total. It seems intended as an "arm turns into cannon" deal, but
> doesn't hold very well in that role. If they'd put a 5mm socket on the inner
> face of the forearm so that you could fold the hand away and cover the silver
> part of the forearm with the gun, that might look better. There's a 5mm peg
> inside the cowling, a 3mm socket on the outside of the cowling, and two other
> connections purely for vehicle mode: a square hole roughly at the middle, and
> two shallow rectangular slots that go onto tabs on the elbows to help
> stabilize things. Thing is, near as I can tell, those elbow tabs don't
> really lock in place or even really FIT, they're just guide points.
>
> Undocumented features: The strut that holds the main gun in vehicle mode
> can be pulled out through the back and the gun attached to it for storage.
> When the wingtips pop off, you can have the figure hold them in its hands
> along the lines of Armada Starscream, if a bit shorter (twin shortswords
> rather than a longsword, I guess).
>
> Transformation: Well, I was able to figure it out without the
> instructions, just from looking at the back of the box, but it's not what I'd
> call intuitive. A HUGE amount of robot kibble just sort of sits under the
> fuselage. The only clever bit is how the tail fin is folded up behind one
> boot, everything else ranges from simple and boring to frustrating and
> boring.
> One odd bit is that the fake landing gear on the torso don't actualy
> fold out as landing gear. Rather, for jet mode they tuck away mostly out of
> sight, and have to be pulled back out for robot mode (the package renders
> show it tucked away in robot mode, but they are sticking out in the packaged
> toy). It looks like they took the functional struts on Blitzwing and just
> tweaked them slightly, rather than removing them entirely.
>
> Vehicle Mode: It's...different? Also, it's crap. Even if all the parts
> stayed snapped together properly, there's just way too much robot stuff
> tucked on the underside. It feels like they just gave up. "Well, it's
> supposed to have a cannon on a strut on the underside, just hide all the
> extra bits behind the strut." The main thrusters point about 20 degrees up,
> the pointy nose has the top half removed to show a small gun that can't
> actually fire over the top of the nose. Blitzwing's not-F4 was decent, it's
> as if every piece of engineering they changed for this toy made it worse, to
> the point that they'd have been far better off starting from scratch. You'd
> need to remove about a quarter of the mass of the toy to give it the proper
> lines of the movie's model.
> Value judgements aside for the moment, if you ignore the huge chunk of
> robot hanging under the fuselage, it's a decent adaptation of the BB movie's
> take on the Tetrajet concept. Main wings angled downward to the point that
> they're about level with the main gun (so it can rest on a sort of tripod
> arrangement), a shorter vertical tail in back, a very pointy nose and a
> cloudy cockpit. If you ignore the robot heels sticking out the back (a
> problem Blitzwing had too), it's 7.5" (19cm) long, the heels add about
> another inch. The wingspan is about 7.25" (18cm) although you can straighten
> out the wings to be more horizontal and get closer to 8" (20cm). The needle
> nose is rubbery plastic painted dark blue (okay match to the plastic) with a
> light gray core that has a gun molded on it. The tail is all dark blue
> plastic with a white stripe near the leading edge. Pretty much everything
> else is visible in robot mode.
> The null ray cannons connect via tabs and slots in this mode rather than
> using the 5mm sockets, which gets them pointed a bit better. The main gun is
> connected (not well enough given that the gun is one of the tripod legs) via
> a nonstandard rectangular peg. The 5mm sockets under the wings are still
> accessible, though. The 3mm socket on the main gun seems intended for use
> with flight bases, but there's no way the jet won't just fall off if you try
> that, the connection between the main gun and the strut is not very firm
> (even with the elbow tabs, it just doesn't stay in place well). No flight
> base sockets on the main toy, although the robot hands are exposed and could
> potentially be used for a base with 5mm pegs. There's 3mm sockets on the
> wing roots. The wings have hinged roots, and the strut that holds the main
> gun technically has a hinge as well, although it's not too useful. The
> cockpit doesn't really open, but it's soft plastic only secured by a shaft at
> its center, so you can peel up the edges if you want.
> Aside from the wing that falls off on mine and the fact the main gun is
> a bit loose, it's reasonably solid considering how many compromises were made
> in this retool. The elaborate panels that cover the top of the fuselage
> don't really stay together, but they're not structurally important.
>
> Overall: Even if I'd gotten a one with better quality control, I don't
> think I'd be too enthused by this mold, and I'm definitely not picking up the
> Thrust redeco. The robot mode is okay, but transformation is a massive
> hassle for a highly questionable outcome.
>

Dave Van Domelen <dvandom@eyrie.org> wrote:
> Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant: Voyager Wave 12
>
> #72 Starscream (Cybertronian Jet)
>
> Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/VStarscream
>
> Wave 12 is just this, with Studio '86 Hot Rod filling out the case. Far
> from the first Voyager Starscream in Studio Series, but it's the first one
> that's not based on the 2007-9 design, and therefore the first one I bought.
> :)

The first Studio Series Starscream was really nice — probably the best
version of that character other than the ROTF Leader toy. Cribs a lot from
the DOTM Deluxe design, but with enough space and budget to make it work
better.

> It's worth noting that while reasonably faithful to Starscream's brief
> appearance in 2018's Bumblebee, poor lighting and rapid motion tended to
> obscure just how questionable the design was for vehicle mode, leading many
> (myself included) to think that early pictures of this toy were badly
> mistransformed. Sadly, they were not mistransformed. An unreasonable amount
> of robot mode stuff is just crammed in behind the weapon strut.
>
> Why did I buy this? Because Studio Series Voyagers have generally been
> good, and this is the first toy of a totally new Starscream design (even if
> it reuses significant engineering from Blitzwing), so I figured I'd take the
> risk. To be honest, I lost almost all of my enthusiasm for reviewing this
> after transforming it once, and barely powered through the rest of the
> review.
>

This Starscream, however, sucks.

I was also fooled into buying it by the general quality of the Studio
Series Voyagers, and the novelty.