I balked at the price of this set when it first came out, which was the main reason I didn't buy it. Earlier this month, my wife felt bad that she hadn't found anything for me for Christmas, so I ended up buying this so she'd have something to gift to me. (It retailed for around $170, but I got it on sale from Amazon for around $135, a price that stung a bit less.) I'm glad I changed my mind, since I think this was probably the coolest gift I opened yesterday.

I'm not what you would call a LEGO afficionado. I owned some sets when I was a small child, and I bought some of the early licensed Star Wars sets at the turn of the century (including some really cool Technic sets), and I helped my son build various Marvel superhero sets about ten years ago, and that's pretty much the sum total of my LEGO experience. I don't have the knowledge to be able to say with certainty whether any parts were made specifically for this set, or in which sets the various parts originally appeared..

So the story goes that Hasbro approached LEGO with the idea of designing a licensed Transformers brand LEGO kit, and Joe Kyde (who once worked on the Transformers brand for Hasbro) is credited with designing the set. Previously, we've had the occasional Hasbro foray into building sets like Built to Rule or KRE-O, and there have been many fans who have created unofficial LEGO representations of Transformers characters, but this is the first officially licensed set.

The set consists of 1508 pieces and is recommended for ages 18 and up. It took me many hours to build. So many hours. Granted, it was Christmas Day so there was lots of other stuff going on, and I occasionally had to stop to try to help my son clear a level in the Cuphead game for Nintendo Switch or help my daughter sync her earbuds to her laptop, but when I wasn't doing that, I was building. My fingertips hurt by the end. So many tiny pieces. The instructions document 403 separate assembly steps and by the time I got to about step 370, I just wanted to be done with life. It was intense..

The build was also weird, containing a number of tan-colored parts and light blue colored parts, despite Optimus not needing these colors. They're invisible when the set is fully assembled, so I suppose they were just included for visual appeal while building, so the entire set isn't just a sea of red and blue parts. Some details (robot eyes, forehead, triangles on his wrists) are achieved with factory paint while others (upper legs, truck bumper) are consumer stickers.

So the completed build results in a G1-styled Optimus Prime robot that's about 14" tall. He holds together well, using ratcheting joints for his shoulders and elbows and legs, though the connection point for his upper chest and mid-torso is required to hold a lot of weight and it likes to pop loose sometimes. He is articulated at the shoulders and elbows and hips and ankles and head, and his hands enjoy limited articulation (the thumbs move, and the fingers move in unison). There is a ball joint for the knees, but they don't actually bend. They just swivel. There are alternate builds available online that show how you can add more parts to give him working knees.. (That's the great thing about LEGO—if you don't like the final design, just change it.) I love how his helmet antennas can pivot out slightly!

He comes with various signature accessories—an energon cube (translucent pink with opaque top and bottom), his orange axe (made of some see-through and some opaque parts), his rocket pack (with omni-directional thrusters), and his laser rifle (it technically plugs into his forearm, but creates the illusion he's holding it with his hand). The chest opens and there is a little LEGO Matrix of Leadership inside. There is also a collector placard so you can display his name next to him on a shelf or whatnot.

Also, the instructions call for the stickers on the front of his upper legs to be placed upside-down. It's not readily intuitive which way is up, so I don't blame them for getting it wrong. Also, the parts can be easily flipped around.

The dimensions and proportions of the robot head are a little off. The eyes seem too close together, and the relationship between the eyes and the mask seems strained—they're just slightly too far apart. Of course, it's hard to manipulate proportions too much at this scale. Also, the shoulders have twin Autobot tampographs, but I would have preferred to see an extra shoulder armor piece thrown in with no Autobot symbol on it, for those who prefer the one-symbol look.

The model can be transformed to truck mode without requiring disassembly. It transforms in a similar fashion to the Robosen electronic toy currently on the market. The waist swings around, the legs snap together, the feet tuck away, the head folds back, and the arms tuck in. The laser rifle can tuck between the legs when he's in truck mode.

The truck cab transformation is roughly five inches in height and around nine inches in length. Technically there is a little bit of disassembly involved, since you can swap the robot-mode pelvis piece with the yellow sticker for a piece with a different sticker for truck mode. There is also an alternate build available online where you can create a double-sided front bumper, with one of these plates on each side, and can flip the bumper around as needed. You can't do this without extra parts, though.

As an action figure, he does leave something to be desired. He's very heavy, and his lack of working knees is a hindrance to his poseability. But, as a buildable LEGO set and as a LEGO representation of an existing Transformers character, he's quite exceptional.

If they do any more characters in the series, I'd love to see Starscream or Bumblebee. Both have fairly simple transformations that probably wouldn't be impossible to translate to brick format. I'd love to see Megatron, too, but they'd probably have to make him a tank or something because it's highly unlikely we'd ever get the gun version of him.

As a fan, I'm so accustomed to buying pre-built toys right out of the package, so to spend so many hours assembling this set was certainly a different experience for me. But, overall I quite enjoyed it.

Zob (this kind of makes me want to get that cool R2-D2 set I missed out on a few years back)

On Monday, December 26, 2022 at 8:08:43 AM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
> It took me many hours to build. So many hours. Granted, it was Christmas Day so there was lots of other stuff going on, and I occasionally had to stop to try to help my son clear a level in the Cuphead game for Nintendo Switch or help my daughter sync her earbuds to her laptop, but when I wasn't doing that, I was building. My fingertips hurt by the end. So many tiny pieces. The instructions document 403 separate assembly steps and by the time I got to about step 370, I just wanted to be done with life. It was intense..

It's a huge chore to build anything with a large number of parts and a high degree of symmetry. It's tough enough building one arm or leg with a billion pieces, then you gotta do it all over again. I build Gundam models occasionally and I did that Windblade model kit a few months back and those are kinda fun. But Legos is just seventh circle of model hell. Building the same stuff twice. At the end of it you either really love or hate Optimus' majestic robotic thighs.

> The build was also weird, containing a number of tan-colored parts and light blue colored parts, despite Optimus not needing these colors. They're invisible when the set is fully assembled, so I suppose they were just included for visual appeal while building, so the entire set isn't just a sea of red and blue parts.

Yeah that Flame Toys Windblade was like that. Some beautiful colors and details on parts I'll never see again that got shrouded up by outer armor. I wonder why they go through all the extra expense to do that.