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Transformatorium, Transformer Toy Reviews

Toy Review – MB-20 Nemesis Prime

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Over the 5 live-action Transformer movies we’ve had our share of traditional bad guys (Megatron, Galvatron etc) as well as a Prime gone bad with Sentinel Prime in DOTM.  In The Last Knight we get to see a Prime go bad again with Optimus siding with Quintessa as Nemesis Prime.

Like a lot of the characters from TLK, Nemesis Prime hasn’t gotten a general toy release, putting him alongside many of the other on-screen robots we have been screaming for a figure of.  Luckily Takara Tomy has come to the rescue with MB-20 Nemesis Prime.

Nemesis Prime is a redeco of the TT exclusive Calibur Prime which itself was an extensive (and much needed) retool of Armor Knight Optimus Prime.  He comes in a gorgeous box – I was so impressed when I received this in the mail I nearly decided to leave him MISB, but the desire to play was too much!

 

Truck Mode

Essentially unchanged from the past two incarnations.  However in deference to the fact he is a darker character as Nemesis rather than Optimus, the paint job had been made more subdued with the red and blue being darker hues.  I think this actually works to make the chrome to be found on various parts of the truck pop more.  It’s a lovely looking truck, being a big solid size with excellent dimensions.

 

Robot Mode

Whereas AK Optimus had a big, ungainly backpack, Calibur Prime had this convert into a huge shield which was a massive improvement.  This has been carried over for Nemesis Prime, where the main change from Calibur is again the colour scheme with the reds and blues more subdued and the axe and shield have been given a purple tinge instead of orange.  Speaking of purple, the eyes are now purple like in the movie, and in certain lights they look absolutely fantastic!  Once again, we are looking at good proportions on the toy and it’s an excellent representation of the onscreen character.

 

The Head

As well as the new purple eyes, Optimus Nemesis is sporting the big red streak on his face to show his allegiance to Quintessa.  Both versions of the face (which can be rotated for either mask or non-mask) have this.  I thought maybe it would have been good for one version to not have the streak so you could show him changing from Optimus to Nemesis and back, but it’s a minor quibble.

 

Transformation

It’s at the level I quite like, as in its far more complicated than a couple of quick movements, but you don’t have to take 20 minutes out of your day to get it done.  The only thing I found was the head, the instructions assumed you had played with previous versions of the toy so did not say that you had to press the chest to make his bonce pop up – I had to look it up online. The back of the truck turning into the shield is very well done.

 

Overall

There have been very few official Quintesson-aligned toys over the years, far too few.  So when the likes of Infernocus and Nemesis Prime came up for grabs I was all over it!  It you have the previous versions of this toy mould you probably don’t need Nemesis, but if this is your first time encountering it or you want a representation of the on screen character, then I heartily recommend giving MB-20 Nemesis Prime a go.

 

Got something to say about this figure?  Would love to read it in the comments section below!

 

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Transformatorium, Transformer Toy Reviews

Toy Review – The Last Knight Infernocus

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The Quintessons have been a part of Transformers lore since the much-beloved 1986 animated movie.  They went on to feature heavily in season 3 of the G1 cartoon as well as make appearances in the Marvel, Dreamwave and IDW comics.  In non-print media the only outings we have seen for these multi-tentacled menaces have been the character Alpha Q in the Energon cartoon and a passing reference by Swindle in the Animated cartoon.  Therefore I was very happy to see them crop up in the live-action movie series.

I may be small but I tote a big gestalt!

In the 2017 movie The Last Knight, we are introduced to one of the Transformers creators – Quintessa, who has herself a big beefy enforcer named Infernocus.  Later in the movie we see that Infernocus is actually a combiner – made up of 6 identical Infernicons.  Thankfully, unlike many characters, Infernocus has been blessed with an actual toy so today we will be looking at the The Last Knight Infernocus figure.

Unlike the movie, where there are six identical Infernicons that make up this gestalt, the toy is made up by five different figures.  Four of these are recolours of toys from the Beast Hunters Terrorcon Predacon team that make up Abominus.  Each of these figures has remained essentially the same, except for a uniform black & red paintjob and the removal of their individual weapons.

Rupture

Thrash

Gorge

Glug

These reworked figures serve reasonably well in their new roles as Infernicons, though with the exception of their colour schemes they do not particularly resemble their counterparts from the live action movie. However an added bonus to them is that unlike the movie they actually have alt-modes – monstrous beasts that adds a lot of extra play value to the set.

 

Skulk

The torso component character from the Terrorcon Predacon set – Hun-Gurrr – has been replaced by a brand new figure  Skulk.  Unlike the limb component characters, Skulk does not have an alt-mode.  This is in my opinion is forgivable.  Hun-Gurrr, the previous torso character of the set, was the same size as the limb characters which made Abominus look rather silly.  Skulk is over twice the size of Hun-Gurrr and adds much needed bulk to the set, making their combined form of Infernocus approximate in size to Voyager-class figures.  On his own Skulk looks pretty cool and works quite well as a representation of Infernocus on his own when put alongside smaller figures, especially his master – Quintessa.

 

Quintessa

Quintessa herself is a very small translucent figure and is the only toy representation of this major character from the live action movie.  She has nice little details but when I ordered this set I didn’t realise quite how small she was.  Make sure you put her somewhere safe as the potential to lose her is extreme!

 

Transformation

The  individual figures are relatively simplistic.  Combining the Infernicons into Infernocus is quite fiddly.  Due to the colour schemes of all 5 figures being so uniform black it can be hard to ascertain which piece you are putting where.  Also the set does not lend itself to the relatively simplistic combinations from sets like from Combiner Wars such as Computron and Sky Reign.  Don’t get me wrong – you wont have an aneurism of frustration here but at the same time it can be fiddly.

 

Overall

This is actually quite a nice figure and I am very pleased with it.  Unlike the Terrorcon Predacon combiner from Beast Hunters I will be keeping Infernocus in his combined mode.  Given the sparsity of official Quintesson-affiliated figures from the toyline over the past 31 years I’m very glad to add him to my collection.

 

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Random Reviews, Transformatorium

Movie Review – Transformers: The Last Knight

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Here we are – the fifth installment of the live-action Transformers movie franchise.

These movies have caused a lot of debate over the years.  Many of the critics and your more traditional Transformer fans have hated them – citing such things as poor plots, juvenile jokes and lack of characterization.  However the general public has loved them – all four previous movies still remaining in the top 100 highest grossing movies of all time.

So will Transformers: The Last Knight fare any better than the previous four with the die-hards?  Let’s find out!

Oh, and SPOILER ALERT!  This is a movie review – so if you haven’t seen the flick yet and don’t want to know what happens, read no further (but please do come back after watching I implore you).

 

This movie picks up not long after the events of Transformers 4, and unlike that movie brings back a lot of what happened in Transformers 3 as well.  The Transformers are still all hated and hunted by the human governments, yet they keep arriving.  Most of the Autobots are living in a junkyard which they periodically leave as they try to find more of their lost brethren with the help of Cade.  Megatron (Galvatron being just a phase he was going through) is enacting plans with the help of his henchman Barricade and Optimus Prime is off in space trying to find the creators of his race so he can put the smack down.  Oh, and the new plot has flashbacks of Merlin dealing with a bunch of Cybertronian knights that can combine into a 3-headed space dragon – now there is a twist that not a lot of movies can boast eh!

The first half of this movie advances these plot lines.  Megatron does a hostage swap of some humans in order to get some of his captured crew back from the military.  Cade and the Autobots hiding out unwillingly adopt a 14 year old orphan girl and Optimus lands on Cybertron to meet Quintessa, his creator.  Soon conflict (and Bayesque explosions) come into play.  Megatron (tracked by the military) finds the Autobots and has a scrap, most of his henchmen we had only just met being killed in the process.  Quintessa brainwashes Optimus into becoming Nemesis Prime and sets the broken planet of Cybertron (which got royally f’ed up at the end of TF3 by a spacebridge explosion) on a course to Earth to siphon its energy to make the metallic husk pull itself back together.  We also get introduced to two new plot lines: The first is that Anthony Hopkins rocks and has a bunch of old Autobots at his disposal (including a quite psychotic character named Cogman) and is trying to figure out the whole Merlin angle.  The second is that, like the TFPrime cartoon, Earth actually is Unicron and he is extending his horns out through various parts of the planet!

Phew – that’s a lot going on eh?

To prevent this they…..

…you know what, bugger it – if I list the 8 millions plot twists this review is going to become a novel!  Chances are if you are reading this you have seen the movie and know what happens!  So how about I save us all a bit of time and go on a few pro’s and cons eh?

PRO’S

*Lots of explosions

*Tons of action

*Nice boobs for the boys, nice ab’s for the girls

*Anthony Hopkins was awesome

*Cogman was funny

*A good variety of different robots

*Great fight scenes

*Expanded the movie lore

*Genuinely funny moments

*At least some characterization of Decepticons

*The action was not too close up and frenzied so you could actually tell what was going on most of the time

*Cullen and Welker reprised their roles as Optimus and Megatron respectively

*A Transformer clock killed Hitler

*Autobots, Decepticons, Quintessons, Combiners, Cybertron and Unicron!

 

CON’S (no, not those Cons)

*Bumblebee coming apart and coming back together contradicted a lot of TF deaths from the previous movies

*So many Transformers didn’t actually transform!  Grimlock, Slag Slug, the baby Dino’s, Cogman, Wheelie, Sqweeks,  whoever the female submarine was etc.  It was like reading an IDW comic!

*A lot of the Transformers that did transform never did it on screen, such as Optimus himself.

*Contradictions in plot

*Too much human focus

*Hot Rod is french?!

 

So overall, is this movie worth watching?  Well I’d have to say yes.  All the people that complain about the Transformer movies would do well to remember that these flicks are based on a cartoon from the 80’s about shape-changing alien robots fighting a civil war.  It’s not supposed to move you and make you cry – it’s supposed to entertain you!  In that regard Transformers: The Last Knight certainly delivers the goods!  It (like all the others) is a long movie but I can’t say there was any point where I was bored and frankly I found the whole movie quite fun!  It’s not a movie you are supposed to take too seriously and I think some of the critics and die-hard fans need to remember that sometimes.  Overall I’d say that this was not as good as TF1, about on par or slightly better than 3 & 4 and much better than 2.  I had a great time watching it with a half dozen mates and I can’t wait to see what happens with the Unicron angle in number 6!

 

This movie gets 4 out of 5 energon cubes.

Got something to say about the movie?  Would love to read it in the comments section below!