Dave's Jada Transformers Rant: RC Optimus Prime

Optimus Prime Converting R/C (semitractor)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/Jada2

I decided that this would be my stupid birthday gift to myself in a
summer where my "serious" gift to myself was about four grand in deferred
home improvement. This isn't the $700+ R/C "Robosen" Optimus Prime that gets
oohed and aahed over on social media, though. This is Jada's much cheaper
alternative.

CAPSULE

$70 at Target (I ordered it online, but later saw it on the shelf).

Capsule: It's a total brick, but there's some fun to be had with the
remote control stuff. If you can put up with random Optimus lines coming
from various parts of your home, gradeschool kids would probably enjoy it
enough to justify the price tag. For an adult collector, the main benefit is
that it can reduce one's desire to buy the much more expensive Robosen.

RANT

Packaging: This is in an open-faced box so that people can press on the
grille to activate the voice and light gimmick. The box is 14.5" (37cm)
tall, 11.25" (29cm) wide, and 8" (20cm) deep. The front and top are mostly
open. Be sure to look before buying! The control is strapped onto a
cardstock backing, but I was able to pull it off without cutting the strap.
Getting the robot out does require cutting some pretty thick rattan strings
and undoing screws on the underside, though, plus it would be realllly
obvious.
In general, the trade dress is neo-G1, with the gridlines and so forth.
The front has a sort of U-shaped border. Starting at the upper left and
going around counter-clockwise, there's the Jada logo, a callout "CONVERTS
BETWEEN ROBOT AND TRUCK!", a lenticular motion piece showing the
transformation (lower left corner), the nameplate, G1 package art of robot
mode (lower right), the big TRY ME callout, and then the Transformers logo.
The top border is blank black except for the Transformers logo. The left
panel has photos of transformation (robot, two transitional stages, vehicle).
The left side has insets showing off the light-up eyes, light-up headlights,
and full function R/C. The bottom has the usual legalese plus assurance that
all the needed batteries are included.
On the back is the G1 box back art (the weird "Optimus Prime has slitted
eyes and an Autobot symbol on his fist" one), pictures of both modes,
bragging that up to 10 vehicles can be operated at once as the controls
auto-pair, reassurance that batteries are included, and the fact that it's
2.4GHz for control.
The inner tray is G1-style gray square gridlines against a background
that's red on the bottom half and black on top with a fairly small region of
fade. The upper body is held to a plastic blister by two thick rattan
strings around the biceps and a rubber band around the neck. Like a lot of
Jada stuff the underside is secured by screw-in disks. Rather than needing a
screwdriver, the disks are scored so that you can fold up flaps and grip
those to turn them.

Voice Clips: I think they sampled these from various episodes, and I
suppose if I cared enough I'd track down which episode each line came from.
But TFWiki exists, and will probably do that eventually if they haven't
already.
When it's still in the box, it brings up a different clip with every
press of the abdomen button. The eyes flash blue along with the words, and
if the headlights were off they also turn on for the duration of the clip and
a little after that. If they were already on, the headlights stay on
steadily, though.
"Don't let the Decepticons win this race!"
"Let's roll!"
"Activate!"
"Megatron must be stopped...no matter the cost."
"Greetings, friend. I am Optimus Prime."
"I've returned...more POWERFUL than ever."

It's either random, or the repeat pattern is fairly long, but there only
seem to be those six phrases while it's in the box. When turned on, the same
phrases show up in robot mode, whether triggered by the abdomen button or the
remote control. There are no new voice clips or sounds in vehicle mode, and
there's no engine sound while it's moving.

Control: Small and blocky but modeled on standard game controllers.
There's a tab to remove to engage the batteries. The left D-pad controls
forwards and backwards, the right one controls turning right and left.
(Technically D-pads have four directions, and these are molded to look kinda
like they do, but each only controls two directions.) The left shoulder
button is labeled "CONVERT" and the right is labeled "AUDIO". It's 4" (10cm)
wide, 3.5" (9cm) tall, and 1.25" (3cm) thick, mostly black plastic but with
red plastic for the buttons and a few decorative bits. The front has a
sticker over the octagonal D-pads with the G1 logo and grid background.
With the main toy switched to off, the controller does nothing, but the
abdomen button still works. When turning the toy on, you have to press any
button on the controller within 15 seconds to pair it. It needs to re-pair
every time you turn the main figure on.
Pressing CONVERT when in robot mode has it say "Let's Roll!" and then
auto-transform while making the G1 transformation sound effect. When in
vehicle mode, pressing it has him say "Activate" and autotransform while
making the sound effect. The AUDIO button randomly picks from the previously
mentioned phrases regardless of which mode it's in.
In a major missed opportunity, they did not provide any way for the
controller to peg onto the toy in either mode. There's some decorative tabs
and holes on the controller, plus the loops that were used to secure it
(badly) into the package, but none of them can find a mate on either robot or
truck mode.

Robot Mode: In robot mode, it's a somewhat blocky and short-armed but
otherwise pretty G1-accurate Optimus Prime. The feet are long and thin
because they have the "real" front wheels under the toes, and there's floppy
flaps for the shins. The arms are akimbo and permanently bent 90 degrees at
the elbows, with open hands able to hold 12-13mm pegs. The front wheels
under the torso and the upper pair on the boots are really loose and floppy
and really just decorative...in either mode, it's really smaller unseen
wheels that support the front end (which cases problems in vehicle mode).
13.5" (34cm) tall in the usual colors plus chrome. The head, fists, and
boots are dark blue plastic. Most of the torso and the arms are bright red
plastic. The bumper, grille, boot fuel tanks, long smokestacks, trailer
hitch, and wheel hubs are chromed plastic. The pelvis, thighs, shin flaps,
and some internal struts are light gray plastic. The drive wheels are
rubberized plastic, the other four wheels are black plastic. The little
support wheels hidden on the undersides of the toes and between the heels are
light gray. There's clear yellow plastic in the headlights and clear blue in
the eyes, with appropriate LED colors involved. The blue LEDs are actually
in the collarbone area, pointed at a lightpiping arrangement under and inside
the head. However, the spring keeping the head up doesn't always do its job,
resulting in blue shining directly into Prime's face as if he's telling
campfire stories. Pushing the chest down a bit fixes this, gotta expect a
little looseness in a "cheap" autotransformer like this.
There's silver paint (kinda dull next to the chrome) on the faceplate
and upper face, helmet tablet, chest stripe (and it continues on the arms),
and the area around the headlights. The foglamps are orange, the windows are
light blue, and there's white outline Autobot symbols on the outer faces of
the shoulders.
No articulation, all the joints are for the auto-transformation. You
can't even turn the head, and adding that joint wouldn't interfere with
anything.
When turned on, all the lights flash for several seconds, during which
time you need to pair the remote. I can just see someone getting each of
their kids one of these and then they try to steal control of a sibling's
copy. The eyes turn off after pairing, but the headlights either stay on as
long as the toy is on, or there's a very long idle-out.
It moves along a flat surface, be it smooth or a low-pile carpet,
reasonably quickly. The eye lights turn on while it moves and stay on for a
while after. The shins sort of pop out a bit while moving in an attempt to
make it look like he's walking, I guess, with the upper set of wheels moving
with them.
Unfortunately, the tiny wheels on the toes mean that it can't get over
even small rises if they're too abrupt (like the threshold between two rooms
in my house). It doesn't take much for the drive wheels to be lifted off the
surface entirely, or for the front wheels to just refuse to lift up over a
low obstacle. Additionally, even on an ideal surface, the turning radius
while moving forwards or backwards is pretty bad, you need to stop, turn,
then move again.
And therein lies a problem with something called moment of inertia.
Y'see, they didn't bother putting in a gear shifting system that changes
how much torque the motor supplies when turning based on modes, but a
vertical humanoid shape is MUCH easier to turn (lower moment of inertia) than
a low truck shape with most of its mass out ahead of the two drive wheels.
So, in order for the truck to turn reasonably well, the robot does not so
much turn as whirl. Like, tornado spin attack. It's rather hard to actually
guide the robot around as a result, since you either get super slow turning
while it moves or game spinner random direction if you stop before hitting
the turn button.