So my first Premium Finish toy, I didn't get the Siege Prime, and I didn't get the Bumblebee because I already had those molds, but Studio Bumblebee movie Prime is one I missed, and due to timing and release, he demands $60+ on the secondary market, so I didn't feel too bad paying $42 for this guy now to get a debatably better version.

I'm also skipping PFSS03 Megatron, because it looks almost the same as the regular version, and likely skipping PFWFC-03 Ultra Magnus just because Walmart already gave us a dead magnus and I didn't bother with it then.

PFWFC-04 is Starscream, but didn't everyone hate all the paint on Siege Starscream already? I might get PFSS05 Optimus, as I never got the original version and it goes for $55+ now

He's really cool, in a black box inside a masterpiece style box on a plain cardboard tray tied down with a few plastic ties

He comes with a gun, it's painted a gunmetal gray now, except for the handle and the 2 5mm posts on the sides, which are left unpainted black.He can hold the gun, or he has 2 5mm ports on his back he can stow the gun on in a not perfect but good enough way.

He looks really good. He's packaged in robot mo, and the thing you notice is the silver thighs, the dark grey paint on blue boots, the red arms and shoulders, and the classic Prime face, only darker and a little grittier. his abs have grey plastic and silver and red accent paints, his shoulders have the Autobot insignias and white stripes, and he has blue painted hands. He has a lot of range of motion but his shoulder flaps look strange in some poses, and his forearm kibble can scratch the hip paint if you're not careful. I kinda wish he had tow swivels, his ankles come apart if you try to get his feet too far forwards. The under part of his front window frames have little hinges that fold back the white stripes of his vehicle mode, but with the flaps folded behind the window the windows don't seem to be able to lock in to the chest very well at all, so I just fold them down a little but not back and it seems to hold together better. The flap behind the head looks like it was designed to plug in to the back slot, but there's just no way to line these up properly, at least not without some cosmetic surgery I don't want to do.

The vehicle mode transformation is very similar to Siege and Earthrise prime, the sides of the truck unfold from his forearms, his front wheels are in his lower torso, and in the end you get a snubnose tractor trailer. The gas tanks fold out from his upper legs, and the backs of his shins fold up there, though they didn't mold the underside in there in a way that really took those flaps very well. Hos feet fold up to form the hitch area. My Prime has a tab on thee inside of his right chest window frame that looks quite intentional but has no pocket inside the torso to peg in to, so it looks like at one point the design had tabs and at some point they were removed, so that's another cosmetic change I don't want to make but probably will because it's a bit more serious.

The vehicle rolls pretty well, though the middle wheels don't always.The shin flaps are visible but they still manage to fold up enough to not drag. The front wheels are pinned on and the back wheels are clipped on, but they are all painted to match with silver hubs. He has silver mirrors and a big silver grill and front bumper that were hidden in his back before, he has a thick white stripe on his sides and front, his inner legs fold up to form the back of the cab, and peg pretty well in to the smokestacks, looking really nice but very difficult to open up again for robot mode. The part between his front wheels and gas tanks are just his robot side skirting, and it is a little disappointing it doesn't look like part of a truck.

The instructions say the gun pegs in to the hitch to just have a gun on the hitch, but the ammo clip really prevents this from pointing any way but straight back. Meanwhile there's a big open space between his legs. The gun fits really well between his legs with the barrel sticking out maybe 1cm. The rear shin flaps just hold the 5mm ports up.

Overall it's really good, and I like it much better than the Soundwave from this movie, who still just feels like a Cybertronian slice of bread, and not a spaceship at all. I'm still getting a Ravage to ride the slice of bread like a NyanCat.

I typed this with a cat on my arms, so excuse my typos.

On Monday, April 11, 2022 at 6:41:34 PM UTC-6, Ob1k...@att.net wrote:

> Overall it's really good, and I like it much better than the Soundwave from this movie, who still just feels like a Cybertronian slice of bread, and not a spaceship at all.

I can't believe how popular that Soundwave toy is. He turns into folded-up robot. That's his transformed mode. And yet people are buying it like it's going out of style.

Back to Prime, though, I wasn't familiar with this specific toy so I had to look it up. He looks cool, and I'm glad you like him. It still surprises me a bit that there's such a market for movie toys, especially the older characters. I gave up collecting them around Dark of the Moon when they wouldn't sell us the characters I wanted, and Age of Extinction was just a bunch of the same toys over again and I saw no point to that.

I'm either in, or I'm out. That's how I roll. Which probably means I won't be collecting Rise of the Beasts, because I've been out now for far longer than I've been in.

There's also display considerations. It used to be I could buy a toy and stuff it into a box afterwards. If I'm putting things on display now, though, I have to ask myself if it will go on the display. And if it doesn't get displayed, then do I need to own it? What will I do with it? Put it in a box? These are the questions I'm struggling with right now.

Zob (it always comes back to plastic robots, really)

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
> On Monday, April 11, 2022 at 6:41:34 PM UTC-6, Ob1k...@att.net wrote:
>
>> Overall it's really good, and I like it much better than the Soundwave
>> from this movie, who still just feels like a Cybertronian slice of
>> bread, and not a spaceship at all.
>
> I can't believe how popular that Soundwave toy is. He turns into
> folded-up robot. That's his transformed mode. And yet people are buying
> it like it's going out of style.

And his head sculpt is weird. I get a BW Rampage vibe from him.

That said, if you mistransform him, you can make his “tank” mode a little
better by making a cockpit area, and having the cannon pointing over that.
Then a target master fits nicely inside, piloting Soundwave, who obviously
knows nothing of fighting.

> Back to Prime, though, I wasn't familiar with this specific toy so I had
> to look it up. He looks cool, and I'm glad you like him. It still
> surprises me a bit that there's such a market for movie toys, especially
> the older characters. I gave up collecting them around Dark of the Moon
> when they wouldn't sell us the characters I wanted, and Age of Extinction
> was just a bunch of the same toys over again and I saw no point to that.

It’s a better Optimus, a blend of movie and g1 designs. It’s basically what
people were hoping Movie Optimus would look like before the 2007 movie
design was revealed.

On Saturday, April 16, 2022 at 8:47:00 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
> On Monday, April 11, 2022 at 6:41:34 PM UTC-6, Ob1k...@att.net wrote:
>
> > Overall it's really good, and I like it much better than the Soundwave from this movie, who still just feels like a Cybertronian slice of bread, and not a spaceship at all.
> I can't believe how popular that Soundwave toy is. He turns into folded-up robot. That's his transformed mode. And yet people are buying it like it's going out of style.
>

There are tons of toys others rant and rave about that look like a folded robot to me, it's weird for me to hear someone else point out that something is a folded robot. I felt the same about Siege Soundwave and everyone else was crazy about it. At the very least reissue Netflix Soundwave instead of Siege

> Back to Prime, though, I wasn't familiar with this specific toy so I had to look it up. He looks cool, and I'm glad you like him. It still surprises me a bit that there's such a market for movie toys, especially the older characters. I gave up collecting them around Dark of the Moon when they wouldn't sell us the characters I wanted, and Age of Extinction was just a bunch of the same toys over again and I saw no point to that.
>

Age of Extinction had quite a bit of junk, namely the Optimus, but the Bumblebee movie was a lot more g1 inspired, and had much better characters.

> I'm either in, or I'm out. That's how I roll. Which probably means I won't be collecting Rise of the Beasts, because I've been out now for far longer than I've been in.
>
> There's also display considerations. It used to be I could buy a toy and stuff it into a box afterwards. If I'm putting things on display now, though, I have to ask myself if it will go on the display. And if it doesn't get displayed, then do I need to own it? What will I do with it? Put it in a box? These are the questions I'm struggling with right now.
>
>
> Zob (it always comes back to plastic robots, really)