Dave's Transformers EarthSpark Rant: Deluxe Wave 1

Bumblebee (Sportscar)
Megatron (Cargo Plane)
Terran Twitch (Cybertronian Drone)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/ES/Deluxe1

Build-A-Figure (BAF) is back with EarthSpark's Deluxes, with pieces for
Mandroid included across the seven figures of the first three waves. This
wave comes with the Cybertronian right arm (Bumblebee), organic left arm
(Megatron), and tech vest (Twitch). He gets a Cybertronian left arm in wave
2, he's been replacing his organic bits with stolen Cybertronian parts, you
see.

CAPSULE

$20 price point. For all three, some attempts at new engineering ideas
don't work as well as I'd like.

Bumblebee: Decent robot mode, vehicle mode has some gaps and odd
projections, and transformation tends to pop the feet off. Mildly
recommended.

Megatron: The vehicle mode proportions suffer horribly from the desire
to get proper robot proportions, but then the robot mode suffers from loose
wing panels on the forearms. Very mildly recommended.

Terran Twitch: It has one glaring engineering problem on top of the
shared issues, but I definitely like it overall despite that. Recommended.

RANTS

Packaging: The same basic trade dress and shape as the Spin Changers,
but smaller, and with a purple cardboard hang tab. 7.5" (19cm) tall, 5.5"
(14cm) wide, and 2.5" (6cm) deep. The front has a small open window with a
render of the character on the non-window part. There's a mostly grayed out
BAF call-out in the lower right, showing in color which part is included.
The left panel has the group picture seen in other EarthSpark packaging,
while the right panel has a render of Dr. Meridian aka Mandroid in his
two-cyber-arms form. On the back, renders of the two modes take up the top
half, legalese the bottom half, and in a pinched band in between they show
the BAF call-out in full color at the left, and a key to which part goes with
what figure, thereby telling us what waves 2 and 3 will be. (Optimus Prime
and Shockwave in wave 2, Grimlock and Nightshade in wave 3.) There's a bit
of Cybertronian computer display stuff in the lower right of the pane that
has the renders, with "ORMERS" and "EA" on the sides of the hexagon that are
visible, plus numerical call-outs of 5 and 4 on the left and an M on top.
The inside tray is the same as the one for Spin Changers, with "EARTH SPARK"
in Cybertronian glyphs at the top. The figures are bound to the tray with
colored rattan strings (twisted rather than tied), while the accessories and
Mandroid parts are in a little "footlocker" at the bottom and wrapped in the
Autobot symbol tissue paper used for the Spin Changers.
As with Maccadam, I'll wait until I have all the parts and review
Mandroid in with Wave 3. I will say that the ball joints on the arms are
slightly under 5mm so they can be stuck into 5mm sockets or used as
bludgeoning weapons.

The Plastic: One of the cliches of Bitter Older Fans lately is claiming
that Hasbro has switched from "the good plastic" to "this cheap stuff." This
whole wave just reinforces that sort of attitude, because DAMN the plastic
feels like it's too thin and too brittle and it's going to shatter the
instant I force it just a tiny bit too hard.
But so far, nothing has broken. I suspect that this is actually a
pretty high quality plastic with good shatter resistance, possibly picked so
that they could go with thinner walls without sacrificing strength. But it
definitely *feels* cheaper.
It doesn't help that they seem to be trying some new design tricks here
on the ball joints, which makes them a lot stiffer and hard to move just a
little, as if they were polyhedral or something. If you look closely at the
ball parts of the joints, you can see that they're textured...and that some
of them are slowly shredding their sockets. Oops. (Twitch's ducted fan
struts are clearly picking up bits of red plastic from their sockets.)

AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE
Assortment: F6732
Altmode: Sportscar
Transformation Difficulty: 21 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
GHOST Affiliated: No

Packaging: Three yellow strings hold the robot onto the tray, the taped
up tissue holds Mandroid's right arm and Bumblebee's stinger weapon.

Robot Mode: Your basic sports car Bumblebee with front fender
shoulderpads and door wings, although unlike a lot of door wings these are
attached to the shoulderpads rather than to the torso. While this does
simplify things in several ways, it also means that moving the arms too much
makes the wings point in weird directions. He has the neo-G1 horned helmet
head, but with smaller eyes and wider cheekpieces than the Cyberverse
version. As with a lot of car Transformers, he has a fake car roof on his
chest, although unlike most instances this uses clear plastic for the
windshield.
5" (12cm) tall at the head, can be a little higher up at the wing tops,
in the usual Bumblebee colors. Dark gunmetal plastic is used for the neck,
fists, upper arms, knees, ankles, shoulder struts, back of the torso/pelvis,
and some struts inside the backpack of folded up vehicle shell bits. Black
plastic is used for the wheels and thighs. The front of the torso (including
pelvis( is a single piece of smoky clear plastic, and each wing is also smoky
clear plastic (some of the backpack is as well). The head, shoulderpads,
forearms, most of each boot and most of the backpack are golden yellow
plastic.
There's golden yellow paint (okay match to the plastic) on most of the
torso front and most of each wing front, leaving the windows and fake
windshield unpainted. Dark gunmetal paint is used on the waist and the car
grille bits on the shoulderpads. The face is silcer, with light blue eyes
(light blue is also used for the headlights and fog lamps on the
shoulderpads). The taillights on the kneecaps are painted red. There's
gloss black paint on the toes and on the rally stripes of the chest. A red
on white Autobot symbol is printed on the sternum.
The neck is a restricted ball joint atop a post that has no root joint,
there's no waist joint. The shoulders are roughened ball joints on the ends
of shrugging struts, the upper arms are attached inside the shoulderpads via
swivels, and the elbows are smooth ball joints. The wrists have hinges for
transformation, but this does allow a little more range of motion for holding
two-handed weapons. The hips are roughened ball joints, there's swivels
right above each hinge knee. The ankles have a strut that's hinged at their
tops and have roughened ball joints where they connect to the feet. The
wings are hinged on the backs of the shoulderpads.
The hands can hold 5mm pegs, and there's a 3mm socket in one of the
panels of the backpack, added because the backpack panels cover up the butt.
(This socket is covered up in vehicle mode.) There's no sockets on the soles
of the feet. While probably not intentional, the hubs of the wheels on the
shoulderpads are also 3mm sockets.
The stinger weapon is a single piece of golden yellow plastic designed
to fit over either fist and make it look like the forearm transformed into a
weapon. It has a silver aperture end, and light blue on a detail that looks
like a visor or windshield. It's 1.5" (3.5cm) long, and slightly asymmetric.
It attaches via a 5mm peg on the inside, plus has two slim tabs on the sides
for storage. The stinger weapon can store on the back, but on mine the fit
is pretty loose. The slots are only on three sides each, so the tabs are
basically pinching into the slots rather than being held in by friction all
the way around. The weapon is not designed to accept any sort of Fire Blast,
the aperture is flat and rectangular.

Transformation: What threw me here was that while it was mostly standard
car transformation with the roof and center hood folded up as a backpack, the
back end of the car has a gap in it, about an inch (2.5cm) wide and half as
much deep. I suppose someone could make a gap-filler to cover it up, not
that I expect much interest in producing mods for a "kiddie line" toy.
It's a little difficult getting everything lined up properly,
particularly getting the forearms all the way into the underside of the hood
and the backs of the doors pegged into the soles of the feet.
You get three choices of where to store the stinger weapon, although the
backmost one is the one in the instructions, plus it fits more flush on where
there isn't a rear window than on the roof or hood. It does end up looking
like a helmet sitting on top of the car, though.
Getting the feet transformed in either direction is difficult on mine,
since the hinges at the tops of the ankles are strong and the ball and socket
joints are...less strong. So the foot will pop off before the strut moves.

Vehicle Mode: The rear third is noticeably wider and thicker than the
version seen in the Spin Changer, with the soles of the robot feet forming
intake vents for a rear-mounted engine. It's otherwise basically the
semi-futuristic sports car of the type Bumblebee's been getting lately.
About 4.75" (12cm) long in the usual Bumblebee colors. The wheels are
black plastic, the roof/windshield piece and the doors are clear smoky
plastic, otherwise everything visible in this mode is golden yellow plastic.
The roof and non-window parts of the doors are painted golden yellow, not a
terrible match for the plastic but slightly lighter and glossier. There's
black rally stripes on the hood and roof, which continue onto the back where
they're covered by the stinger gun. The headlights and foglamps are light
blue, the taillights are red. The grille in front is dark gunmetal. A red
Autobot symbol is printed on the roof inside a yellow space.
Once I got the forearms all the way in, I found it rolls well on the
snap-on wheels. There's no connection points other than the parallel slots
on top for the stinger weapon.