Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant: Core Wave 5

Arcee (Motorcycle)
Terrorcon Freezer (Gun)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/Core5

As usual with Core class, there's no numbers on the boxes.

CAPSULES

$10-12 price point (I got mine on Pulse for $12).

Arcee: Good motorcycle mode, decent robot mode with a lot of "don't look
at it from the side" kibble, and a bit of a design issue with the elbows that
amounts to an accidental "thunderbolt fist" launch gimmick. At the low end
of Recommended, as it's possible I just got a really bad example.

Terrorcon Freezer: Sort of a Battle Master although despite having three
weapon modes they all look like 2007 movie Frenzy doing yoga. Significant
issues with both loose joints and popping-off joints. Mildly recommended.

RANTS

Packaging: Same open-window hang tag boxes as previous waves, with
reduced information on the box compared to larger sizes. Both have the
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts logo on the front, top, and back. However,
it's otherwise Studio Series trade dress, none of the random Meso-American
stuff seen on main line RotB toys.

AUTOBOT: ARCEE
Assortment: F7228
Altmode: Motorcycle
Transformation Difficulty: 11 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: Rise of the Beasts
Scene: (None listed, but she's shown on a highway curve)

Packaging: Because Arcee is one of those motorcycle-formers that keeps
wheel halves behind her heels, her lower body is turned sideways to fit in
the box. Four rattan strings tied or twisted through holes in the backdrop
hold the robot in place, while a tissue bundle containing her front wheel and
her weapon is taped to the backdrop. (Oddly, two strings are knotted and two
are twisted.)
The backdrop is full of holes, so not really reusable, but it shows a
tight corner on a two lane hillside or mountainside road (likely the one seen
in the trailers where she and Wheeljack are in a chase scene). The
instructions have four steps for properly assembling the robot mode, since
it's not just that the lower body is turned sideways. While she can
technically hold her front wheel in her hand as a weird weapon, the
instructions do not suggest doing so.

Robot Mode: As long as you look at her from directly in front, it's a
pretty good petite femmebot with the G1-style "Leia Buns" helmet and some
Bayformery excessive panel lines on her face. No lipstick, and the torso is
inspired by the front end of her motorcycle mode. Of course, from pretty
much any other angle it's really clear she's wearing the windshield and front
wheel as a backpack, and the rear wheel is split in half and jammed against
the backs of the boots. Now, that last bit is a fairly common motorcycle
Transformer trick, but they usually do at least a halfway decent job of
integrating the wheels into the boots. Here, they just sit in back, bigger
than the rest of each boot even though her lower legs otherwise look like
seriously flared bell bottoms swept backwards by the wind.
3.5" (9cm) tall in mostly red and white with some black, pink, and some
accent colors. The wheels on back and split on the boots are black plastic,
as is her small hand-morph gun. Red plastic is used for the neck, the
shoulder roots, the forearms/fists, the pelvis, the hip struts, and the
knees. The rest is white plastic.
Her face is painted light pink with bright blue eyes, and most of each
upper arm is also painted light pink. The front and outer faces of the
thighs and the outer faces of the boots are painted red (good match to the
plastic). The torso front has very dark gray at the collar (abbreviated fake
windshield), metallic gunmetal on her headlights, bright red in a sort of
low-rise bikini top under the headlights, and dark gray vent and tech
greebles of the abdomen. No Autobot symbol that I could find.
The top of the neck is a ball joint, with the bottom of the neck being a
transformation hinge (it is snapped securely into place in robot mode). The
waist turns, although the cycle front backpack is attached to the butt and
doesn't turn with the upper body. The shoulders are ball joints and the
struts are hinged at the top to let the arms lift up even more (as well as
for transformation). Ball joint elbows, no wrist articulation. Ball joint
hips, and the knees are double hinges but the lower hinge bends backwards for
transformation. No ankle joints, but the rear wheel halves can swing down a
bit on their transformation hinges. Note, on mine there's some serious mold
flash on the elbow joints, but even after carving the excess off the joint is
very prone to popping off due to how the arms are shaped for vehicle mode
purposes.
While the hands are posed in a slightly open position as if ready to
pull a trigger, the 3mm sockets in each hand are all the way around, making
it look like she's holding onto some short tubes. The front wheel is
attached to the windshield piece via a 3mm peg and socket, if you put the
wheel in her hand the gun's peg is just barely long enough to let it store on
the backpack.
Her weapon is molded to look vaguely like part of an engine block, I
think, with the two barrel openings closed off and looking like valves rather
than muzzles. Like many movieverse guns, it's designed to fully cover her
hand and make it look like she transformed her arm into a gun. It's only
1.5cm long.
You can transform the legs into cycle configuration to get a unicycler
mode that homages the RotF/DotM version, although she doesn't come with a
stand to support this. If you completely collapse the legs into cowling it
doesn't look too weirdly disproportionate and stands about 4.25" (11cm)
tall. Well, "stands" may be too strong a term.
As a compromise between walking and unicycling, you can just fold the
wheel halves down in back until they touch the surface and the feet only
touch at the toes, for a weird rollerblading sort of look.

Transformation: To start with, push the head forwards until the entire
spine folds down...this is one of those "Are you sure it's not about to
break?" deals. Then the arms lift up over the head and tab together to form
the seat and rear bit, with the back being the gas tank. Rotate the waist
180 degrees and swing the front wheel assembly between the legs and as far
forwards as it'll go. The legs collapse on those double knee hinges into the
side cowlings and the wheel halves connect via the usual-for-motorcycles
annoying "get the tabs into the holes in black plastic" style. A tab on top
of the fender goes into a slot in the underside of the seat, which takes a
bit of force. The tab actually has little hooks at the end, so you're meant
to slide the forearms together around it...and you definitely need to slide
them off when transforming back to robot mode, or the forearms will come off
at the elbows instead of the fender coming out of the forearms. This is
tricky, since the forearms are also locked together by a hooked tab, so
there's a bit of a Catch-22 involved in going back to robot mode. Now you
shall witness its dismemberment, I guess.

Vehicle Mode: Pretty impressive in its lack of robot kibble, there's
really just the fists sticking out the back end. The gun becomes a
kickstand, sort of, but if you push it all the way into place it doesn't
really help the cycle stand up, you need to just barely get it seated in the
slots. Anyway, it's your basic street racer sort of motorcycle, unlicensed
but similar to the Ducati 916 (which I guess was only licensed for the
on-screen part and not for toys). One odd bit is that they molded handlebars
in the position where the 916 has its front turn signals. Like, very clear
brake grips and everything.
3.5" (9cm) long, which puts it at about 1:22 to 1:24 scale (based purely
on wheelbase it's almost 1:25), so if anything she's likely oversized next to
the vehicle modes of Bumblebee or Wheeljack. A 3" well-articulated figure
could try to ride it, but there's not a lot in that size. Red is more
prominent in the color scheme than it was in robot mode. The gas tank, which
was partially covered in robot mode, is painted mostly red with a pink strip
down the middle. The screw hole has a sort of gas cap detailing molded
around the edges, and painted silver. (Sadly, the screw hole is not 5mm.)
The windshield is black (well, very dark gray), the headlights are silver and
there's red around the sides and bottom around the headlights, mirroring the
pattern of the robot chest. The wheel spokes, hubs, and brake disks are
painted gold, and a spot of gold paint also ended up on the rear tire of mine
(not a paint defect that can be spotted in-package).
The wheels roll decently, although it tips over pretty much
automatically if not supported. The front wheel can turn since it's pegged
in place, but the handlebars don't turn with it. The mushroom pegs that hold
the rear wheel halves in place have holes in their centers that are slightly
bigger than 3mm, and the hands are hard to get at with their tops on the
underside of the rear bit. All told, no useful connections in this mode.