Pre-ordered this guy as soon as he was available back in August 2021, and FedEx just dropped him off today. Does it seem like we wait a lot longer for toys now after pre-ordering than we used to? Or am I imagining things? Anyway, I arguably didn't need another Earthrise Starscream, but the new deco and extra goodies were really appealing to me. (I'm sure Hasbro loves consumers like me.)

Hasbro has been gradually transitioning towards using little or no plastic in their Transformers packaging. I'm still not quite used to it. Normally, we'd see Starscream in a window box, but this time the artwork covers the entire front of the package. It actually kind of reminds me of some of the toys for G1, since not everything had a window box (Omega Supreme, Metroplex, Sixshot, and various Micromasters and Action Masters, among others, did not). The artwork showcases Starscream being flanked by Thrust and Ramjet (Astrotrain would make more sense here, since he was the one who actually crowned Starscream; maybe Hasbro felt like Siege/Earthrise was too long ago to feature him).

The text blurb on the back of the box amuses me terribly. "STARSCREAM holds a coronation asserting his rise as king of the DECEPTICONS, until a newly reformatted MEGATRON, called GALVATRON, disrupts the proceedings and ruins his big day." Now that's the understatement of the year! Were they worried about a thirty-six year old spoiler, or were they worried that nobody would want a toy of Starscream if he was about to be dead soon?

Since they didn't really need to make the toy presentable, Starscream is tied down to the inner cardboard tray rather unceremoniously (heh) along with his throne. Hey, wait a minute. Hasbro totally used a plastic baggie for all his accessories. I thought they weren't doing that. I feel betrayed now! The cape is accessible once you rip open the horrible, evil plastic baggie, but all the other parts are wrapped up in tissue paper.

The deco has changed slightly, but it's almost imperceptible. There are squares on his knee armor that were painted for the Earthrise toy, but they're unpainted on the newer Studio Series release. Arguably the biggest change, as far as robot mode is concerned, is the different hands. They're articulated now, with four fingers that move in tandem, so he can make grand sweeping gestures as he says things like, "My fellow Decepticons, as your new leader, I hereby decree that every Wednesday will be Pretzel Day!" (Yes, as it turns out, that's what he was actually going to say before Galvatron interrupted him. Who knew?)

In jet mode, the colors have been tweaked a bit as well. The most noticeable changes are the removal of the red and white stripes on the blue vertical stabilizer fins, and the addition of the gunmetal squares on the top of the fuselage. It's all in service of making him slightly more cartoon accurate than he was before. I'm divided, because if they'd made more changes, he'd probably be a lot less accurate, but I'd also feel less like I was buying the same toy twice. I'm not really sure what would have satisfied me. Doing a version in 1984 toy colors would have been kind of neat, with a darker blue for the gauntlets and rudders, but then I would have complained about its inauthenticity to The Transformers: the Movie.

So, in addition to Starscream's regular null rays, he's got a different pair of coronation arm guns, two shoulder pads, a crown, and a cape. The crown just slips over the top of his head, and the shoulder armor plugs into the holes on the sides of his arms. Now he can't wear his arm guns since the holes are being occupied, so that's where the second pair of null rays comes in. They have pegs much higher up on the gun, and are meant to plug into two swing-down flaps attached to the shoulder pads, so he can still have both his shoulder armor and weapons. It's a decent fix for an unusual problem. The new guns are also blue plastic that are painted grey in their entirety, oddly enough. (The crown is also blue plastic that's painted gold.)

The cape plugs into the C.O.M.B.A.T. port on his back, and it has two hinges on it so it can unfurl a bit, sort of like the cape for the Masterpiece toy from 2012. The cape is a very light purple, almost pink. The cape on the Masterpice version is darker, and I think is color-matched to the animation more accurately. But, this looks fine.

Starscream didn't sit in any throne during his coronation scene, so this is arguably a hypothetical accessory. But, it matches the design of the command chair from the bridge of the Nemesis in "More Than Meets the Eye" part 1, so it's definitely a Decepticon chair. It's a gorgeous deep purple, is made of two pieces of plastic attached with two screws (so it has some hollow parts, but not a lot), and is emblazoned with a Decepticon badge. Starscream fits okay in it, but the jet nosecone poking out of his back precludes him from sliding back into it very far. I'm sure lots of other toys will fit in it nicely. It almost seems like an accessory meant more for Megatron.

All of Starscream's extra parts will plug into the back of the throne. The crown, the shoulder pads, both sets of null rays, and even the cape can be stored in various peg-holes. There's even a smaller peg-hole and a rectangular slot that go unused, and I'm not sure what their intended purpose was.. Maybe he was meant to come with a blast effect, and that was supposed to plug into the smaller hole?

Last year, Studio Series was all about celebrating the 35th anniversary of The Transformers: the Movie, and honestly this was probably Starscream's crowning achievement (heh again) so it makes sense to commemorate this moment of his career. In some ways it would have made more sense to offer these extras as an add-on kit for Earthrise Starscream, but there's no way that the third-party guys, or Hasbro for that matter, would have sold it all to us for only $20. So, I guess fifty bucks for a Voyager-class toy and a bunch of really cool accessories is a good deal.

Zob (also got Black Zarak from FedEx today, but not sure if I want to open him before the move, open him after the move, or not open him at all and just sell him off)