Darth Robo's Debut!
(Am I back? Maybe...)
The Star Wars Transformer line - an attempt to appeal to two groups of obsessive collectors. Unfortunately, no toys that have been put out for the line look remotely worth buying. Until now.
The Transforming Darth Vader / Death Star. This thing is GREAT - except for one aspect. The toy is huge, comes with a bunch of phrases, lots of pretty lights, decent poseabilty, and little TIE fighters and action figures that look like they're in suspended animation. The kibble on the robot is conspicuous, but not intrusive.
The lightsaber lights up and sound emits from the toy when the saber is pressed into the hand. The black blaster fires a green missile which I lost pretty quickly in my struggles to transform this thing (more on this below).
The lights in the center of the "robot"
Transformation? AAAAARGH!!!!
Okay, let's go into some history. Back in '99, BEAST WARS NEO was out in Japan. Quite a few of these toys were "shellformers" - the shell of an animal wrapped around a robot twisted the right way. The epitome of this was Big Convoy (eventually repainted and sold as Nemesis Prime in the US). When I finally got Nemesis Prime, I transformed the thing into mammoth mode ONCE. It was just too much pain.
The price for Darth's great robot mode is that the panels around him have to fit together into the Death Star "shell" after he's wrapped up. The official planet Transformers, Unicron and Cybertron Primus, had a few "shell" pieces, but for the most part transforming them was just wrapping them up into a ball.
The transformation of the pieces has to be done in a certain order, or you have to go back and redo parts of the Death Star shell, which can undo OTHER pieces you previously transformed. The toy needs LOTS of "massaging" to fit together right. I took two hours to transform this toy the first time, and even then didn't finish one piece.
The full-on Death Star
The main laser of the Death Star lights up and fires a missile, which (as I mentioned) I promptly lost as soon as I opened the package. Small TIE fighters are provided to put into small bays on the DS.
The LED
This thing will cost you a pretty $50 bucks, which tells me this thing will be a shelfwarmer unless they're not producing many of them, which may be the case. Transformers are nuts enough to pay $50 for transforming Uncron and Cybertron toys, but I doubt they care that much about Darth.
I have no idea what Star Wars collectors think - simple action figures are boring to me.
If they buy this thing and try to transform it into the Death Star, they are in for a world of pain. Same for any actual children who get the thing - beware parents, you'll be in for a LOT of frustration helping your kid transform this.
I'm not a huge STAR WARS fan myself. Of course I've seen the movies - the first 3 (IV-VI) were decent and the last (SITH) was tolerable. PHANTOM was awful and I never brought myself to watch CLONES. The original trilogy was a triumph of execution over originality - there's not much wrong with the films; the old cliches are used well, but there's nothing that makes me go WOW.
Classic robot corner? Not really, but I am reminded of Satangorth, the main villain of MEGABEAST HUNTER JUSPION, the 1985 Metal Hero show. While lots of anime and TS villains aped Darth or preceded him (Hakaider, GORANGER's Musha Kamen), Satangorth was the closest justification for a plagiarism lawsuit by Lucasarts.
The main difference between Satangorth and DV? Satangorth was large and in charge (i.e. he was the size of a giant robot), except when he was cringing before pictures of a bluescreened toy Golden Bird "attacking" him.
Final verdict? If you can afford it, get it - the robot mode is fun and looks great on a shelf, and the Death Star mode is nice if you can manage to finally get it transformed. And, of course, you don't lose the ONE pretty light green missile provided with the toy.
(Am I back? Maybe...)
The Star Wars Transformer line - an attempt to appeal to two groups of obsessive collectors. Unfortunately, no toys that have been put out for the line look remotely worth buying. Until now.
The Transforming Darth Vader / Death Star. This thing is GREAT - except for one aspect. The toy is huge, comes with a bunch of phrases, lots of pretty lights, decent poseabilty, and little TIE fighters and action figures that look like they're in suspended animation. The kibble on the robot is conspicuous, but not intrusive.
The lightsaber lights up and sound emits from the toy when the saber is pressed into the hand. The black blaster fires a green missile which I lost pretty quickly in my struggles to transform this thing (more on this below).
The lights in the center of the "robot"
This LED lights up the lightsaber
Posed with saber and very hard-to-see blaster
Posed with saber and very hard-to-see blasterTransformation? AAAAARGH!!!!
Okay, let's go into some history. Back in '99, BEAST WARS NEO was out in Japan. Quite a few of these toys were "shellformers" - the shell of an animal wrapped around a robot twisted the right way. The epitome of this was Big Convoy (eventually repainted and sold as Nemesis Prime in the US). When I finally got Nemesis Prime, I transformed the thing into mammoth mode ONCE. It was just too much pain.
The price for Darth's great robot mode is that the panels around him have to fit together into the Death Star "shell" after he's wrapped up. The official planet Transformers, Unicron and Cybertron Primus, had a few "shell" pieces, but for the most part transforming them was just wrapping them up into a ball.
The transformation of the pieces has to be done in a certain order, or you have to go back and redo parts of the Death Star shell, which can undo OTHER pieces you previously transformed. The toy needs LOTS of "massaging" to fit together right. I took two hours to transform this toy the first time, and even then didn't finish one piece.
The arm armor comes off way too easily, and it's a pain in the neck to put back on.
The full-on Death StarThe main laser of the Death Star lights up and fires a missile, which (as I mentioned) I promptly lost as soon as I opened the package. Small TIE fighters are provided to put into small bays on the DS.
The LED
I have no idea what Star Wars collectors think - simple action figures are boring to me.
If they buy this thing and try to transform it into the Death Star, they are in for a world of pain. Same for any actual children who get the thing - beware parents, you'll be in for a LOT of frustration helping your kid transform this.
I'm not a huge STAR WARS fan myself. Of course I've seen the movies - the first 3 (IV-VI) were decent and the last (SITH) was tolerable. PHANTOM was awful and I never brought myself to watch CLONES. The original trilogy was a triumph of execution over originality - there's not much wrong with the films; the old cliches are used well, but there's nothing that makes me go WOW.
Classic robot corner? Not really, but I am reminded of Satangorth, the main villain of MEGABEAST HUNTER JUSPION, the 1985 Metal Hero show. While lots of anime and TS villains aped Darth or preceded him (Hakaider, GORANGER's Musha Kamen), Satangorth was the closest justification for a plagiarism lawsuit by Lucasarts.
The main difference between Satangorth and DV? Satangorth was large and in charge (i.e. he was the size of a giant robot), except when he was cringing before pictures of a bluescreened toy Golden Bird "attacking" him.
Final verdict? If you can afford it, get it - the robot mode is fun and looks great on a shelf, and the Death Star mode is nice if you can manage to finally get it transformed. And, of course, you don't lose the ONE pretty light green missile provided with the toy.
1 Comments:
i literally just saw the trailer for that movie a couple days ago. so it's already on dvd?
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