Every year we get a new Commander Class Transformers figure and these are usually highly anticipated by the fans. Likewise, as the rate of live-action movie releases has slowed and the 40th anniversary of the franchise grows ever closer, we have been getting more SS86 toys, giving us screen accurate tfigures of characters from the 1986 The Transformers: The Movie.
Well the Commander Class and the Studio Series have finally met, and how appropriate with everyones favorite City Commander! Thus we have Commander Class Studio Series 86 Ultra Magnus – lets take a look!
Robot Mode
Hiya! Remember me? I got to be the leader for all of 80 minutes!
What struck me first about this figure is the size. Depending on what you need him for he is either too big or too small. For instance for a Commander-Class figure he is much smaller than the likes of Jetfire, making you feel somewhat ripped off, given the significant price tagged attached.
Magnus doesnt want to apper racist, but deep down he’s nervous about the much larger black guy standing next to him
Likewise for a SS86 figure he is too big, the likes of SS Blurr and Kup should come up to his chest, not his waist.
Kup doesn’t want to apper racist, but deep down he’s worried about the much larger guy dressed like Uncle Sam next to him
Size aside this is a pretty impressive figure. The articulation is excellent, having ankle-tilts, head tilt, knee and waist movement – perhaps the only letdown is the arm movement is somewhat hampered by his massive chest. Overall he is a very bulky figure, with his upper body so broad it does not reflect full screen accuracy, but I still quite like the look of him.
‘And you’ll die trying, just like Megatron’
A neat feature is that you can make the chest spring open in order to recreate the scene where he inserts the Matrix of Leadership.
Don’t get too comfy Matrix, you wont be staying long
Vehicle Mode
A very faithful representation of the characters altmode, extremely reminiscent of both the original toy and the cartoon. He is large enough you can fit four of the smaller Deluxe vehicles on his trailer and the ramps at the back lower down to permit loading.
Insert obligatory ‘enter me from the rear’ jokeI can take four at once
Once again, you may feel a little cheated by the size. Commander class Motormaster is not much shorter than him in vehicle mode, yet is an incredibly solid figure whereas Ultra Magnus is mostly space.
However Magnus on the whole scales quite well, not only with Deluxes but with Kingdom Rodimus, so you are able to recreate those few scenes from S3 of the G1 cartoon where they drive side by side.
Unless you rip my ears off, this is the only detachment you will get.
Unlike many Ultra Magnus figures in recent years, this figure is not a partsformer. This has its pros and cons. Some of the Cons are that you cannot easily recreate the scene where he gets blown to bits on Junkion, and there is no inner white robot to replicate the original toy. Yes, the cab can detach, but does not create an albino Optimus.
The major pro for me is though this has lead to a far more detailed toy with a very good level of transformation – not too easy yet not that hard you get frustrated. Plus the bonus of there being minimal parts to loose.
Worth Getting?
One of these Magnus’ is not like the other one…. oh wait
The majority of Commander Class figures I have picked up in sales so have been discounted. Given how much smaller Magnus is than most of them I wish I had done the same here so I could feel like I was getting my full moneys worth. As well as the size I was disappointed with the lack of a ‘blow-up’ feature, and though it did not worry me personally, other fans may be put off by there being no inner robot. However these detractors aside this is an extremely well made and fun figure who looks great in both modes and has an enjoyable transformation sequence. Recommended if you can find him a bit cheaper than the current price.
Did you pick up SS86 Ultra Magnus? What did you think of him? Pop it in the comments section below!
In an exclusive to The Big DJ Trev Show on KRR.fm, for the first time on Australian Radio, we are proud to present Ravage – the newest album from Cybertronic Spree.
For anyone unfamiliar with the band, Cybertronic Spree released their first album in 2019; Transformers 1986, containing covers from soundtrack of that cult-classic The Transformers: The Movie. Known to perform live in excellently crafted costumes of beloved Transformers characters such as Hot Rod, Unicron, Shockwave and Soundwave, the band had found a successful niche within the pop-culture world.
Ravage is a collection of new original music by the band, with heavy 80’s influences. However don’t let me spoil it for you – why not take the opportunity to listen for yourself!
Tune in to The Big DJ Trev Show from 6 to 9pm AEST on Thursday October 5th to hear the album played for the first time on Australian Radio!
For those in Central West NSW, tune into to 98.7fm. For everyone else around the world go online to KRRfm.org.au. To celebrate the new album Ravage, not only we will be playing tracks from this new album, but having a Transformers themed night, complete with music from Cybertronic Spree’s first album, as well as music from the live-action movie soundtracks and other Transformer musical releases!
Less than 6 months ago we saw the first two Transformers, Optimus and Megatron, of the Bishōjo line (Japanese term for cute girl). These are a series of statues based off of Shunya Yamashita’s illustrations of various movie, game, and comic characters in the Japanese Bishōjo style.
Well now we have the third offering – Bumblebee. And lets face it, who didn’t see this coming eh? Bumblebee is in everything. I mean, who did you think it was going to be – Blot? Bumblebee continues to bathe in the spotlight in everything Transformers, even if he did take a back seat in Rise of the Beasts. So how does Bumblebee stack up against his predecessors? Lets take a look!
Whereas Prime and Megatron were portrayed as young women, Bumblebee is very much portrayed as a teenage girl, befitting his stature as a younger Autobot as well as being physically smaller than most of his brethren (in G1 anyway).
In ROTB Prime was the worried older brother. Here he is the cool older sister
The colour scheme too is very much a shout out to his G1 incarnation. Yellow dominates the clothing, along with black straps and touches of pale blue (for the windows).
The more you look at this figure, the more nods to Bumblebee’s robot and vehicle modes you notice. These include headlights on the boots, a spare tyre backpack, a V for Volkswagen on the belt and a hoodie which is very indicative of Bumblebee’s robot head.
Headlights on shoesBumblebee Helmet-hoodieV. V is for VolkswagenSpare Tyre backpack (wish mine was in a backpack rather than my gut)
A sticking point for me is the price of this figure. These are static figures with no articulation, but at least Prime and Megatron came with a couple of removable accessories such as face masks and shoulder cannon. Bumblebee comes with no accessories whatsoever. Also Bumblebee is a significantly smaller figure in comparison to the other two. I was therefore disappointed to see that the vast majority of online stores priced this figure the same as its two predecessors. Even $10 or $15 cheaper would have been appreciated.
Smaller, yet just as expensive
Overall, price aside, this is a cute kitschy figure which will look good amongst similar figures on your display shelves. Bishōjo Bumblebeeonce again proves that Transformers can turn into anything, and is much more family friendly than the last time Bumblebee got a human form.
Rise of The Beasts is now finishing up in theatres, the 7th instalment in the live-action Transformers Movie franchise and the 8th Transformers movie overall. More than any other part of Transformers, be it the comics or cartoons or toylines, the movies have divided fans. Many Transformers fans have grown up on the live action movies, or were first attracted to Transformers by it hitting the big screen. Others have lamented films with more humans than robots, convoluted and contradictory storylines, unrecognisable classic characters and even coined the term ‘Bayverse’ – a derogatory term to refer to this part of the franchise as more concerned with big explosions than any form of storytelling.
But love them or loathe them, most fans who has seen all the movies has in their head their own personal list of ‘best to worst’, judging the films by their own personal criteria.
So here is Big Angry Trev’s own list of the Transformers movies, starting with my least liked and working up to Number 1!
Saw this in the cinema, and have watched the Blu Ray a total of twice, both times at the behest of someone else. This is a movie that ran for over 2 ½ hours and may have been better received if they had shaved a lot of that runtime off. Even upon multiple viewings the storyline jumps around too much to coherently follow – first they are hiding out in a junkyard, then they are racing through the streets of London, then they are undersea looking for a tomb and then finally up in the air fighting on broken bits of Cybertron. Throw in a few human storylines, most of which were superfluous, the appearance of Unicron’s horns which were never properly investigated, and Merlin to boot and you had too much going on to properly sit back and enjoy.
The movie did have some positives going for it. The reemergence of Barricade, Welker finally voicing Megatron, Optimus Prime becoming Nemesis Prime and having a smackdown with Bumblebee, finding out what happened to Cybertron after TF3 etc. Also a few good battle scenes; Crosshairs jumping from the back of a stolen Con flyer, deploying parachutes and blasting enemies will always stick in my head as one of the best visuals of the entire series.
But in the end none of this could make up for a French-sounding Hot Rod, Marky-Mark removing his shirt for no reason, Combiners that seemed to flow together instead of actually transforming and a plotline that left you going ‘huh?’.
If only the movie had been as awesome as the toyline!
I feel part of the reason this movie is so disliked by much of the Fandom is that it seemed such a letdown after the relatively well received first movie, and many feared such a sequel would put an end to the live action Transformer flicks altogether. Bay blamed much of the movies faults on the writers strike. Since another strike is currently occuring lets hope it doesn’t adversely affect next years animated Transformers One movie
This was a movie made for 13 year old boys. Considering its Transformers perhaps that should not be too surprising. The crass humour was dialled up big time and for me (as someone who has avoided even learning about Kiss Players) the most cringeworthy thing to ever happen in all of Transformers was watching Wheelie hump Mikalya’s leg. Devastator having testicles, dogs humping other dogs, a fleshy tongue on the end of a metal tendril trying to lick Sam, a sidekick in his underwear demanding toilet paper, a stoned mother and Jetfire farting a parachute – the childish humour seemed to never end. Add to this… urgh… the Twins, the most racially insensitive thing in Transformers since Carbombiya, and this movie felt like it was written by Beavis & Butthead after they discovered pot.
Like TLK, this movie still had some good points. The introduction of The Matrix, the Original Primes, The Fallen and the Pretender concept were welcome parts of Transformers lore to be included into the live action universe. Soundwave becoming a Communications Satellite was a clever idea and him ejecting Ravage in order to infiltrate an installation was very cool. This is also where Soundwave got his tendrils, a concept carried over into TF3, Prime and RID15. The way Devestator combined was dramatically done, even if he subsequently only smashed bricks and sucked sand. Despite only being a byproduct of the movie, it is also worth noting that ROTF brought us one of the best and most expansive toylines of the live action franchise, indeed Bludgeon who wasn’t even in the movie receiving the best toy he has ever had!
But once again despite all the positives, too many negatives were contained in this film to overlook, and thus Revenge of the Fallen comes second last in the Transformers list of fav movies.
Number #6 – Age of Extinction
Grimlock on the big screen baby!
The previous two movies are widely regarded as the worst of the Transformer flicks so I doubt them coming in at numbers 7 & 8 will raise many eyebrows. Likewise I doubt this movie will cause a lot of contention by not being #1. Age of Extinction had a lot going for it, a new human cast (Shiah LeBouf having taken to wearing a paper bag on his head by this point), new robots whilst still retaining a few fan faves that survived the slaughter of DOTM, an interesting plotline and a cool bad guy. Yes, Lockdown (imported from the Animated universe) made a refreshing change; a bounty hunter not involved in the Autobot/Decepticon conflict who could turn his face into a sniper cannon. The Autobots on the run, hiding out from being hunted down by the government was also a nice change of pace from being teamed up with Lennox and his crew. Throw in a few Dinobots, an evil Fraiser and the old trope of Megatron being reborn as Galvatron and you’ve got a winner right?
Well… sorta. In a franchise that often let its movies run too long in order to fit in as many Michael Bay explosions as possible, this one was the longest coming in at a whopping 165 minutes! Even if you are enjoying yourself, that’s too damn long! By the time Lockdown’s ship was using its gravity weapon to suck up boats and building, simply to dump them down again, your average viewer was exhausted. Like TLK, it may have been better received if it had cut at least half an hour of superfluous material. The Dinobots were very cool, but seemed to be more monsters than Dino’s, whilst Hound had transformed from a nature lover to a rotund, gun-toting drill sergeant. The whole storyline of Tessa Yeager was just fricken creepy! All the skimpy outfits and sexual innuendos attached to a 17 year old girl dating a 20 year old was just…. bleegh! Don’t get me wrong, I like looking at pretty girls on a big screen as much as the next guy, but this just made you feel gross, especially that ‘Romeo & Juliet Law’ thing. The Lucas Flannery character stating ‘There goes a couple of dune bugs’ while he leers at other underage girls paled in comparison and that’s saying something. The other negative for die hard fans was Transformium (not to be confused with the fantastic Transformatorium) – we want to see robots cleverly turn into vehicles and back – turning into a bunch of pixels is just cheating.
This was a movie that had more positives than negatives, yet one cant help think that if Cade was bereft of children this movie would have been shorter and less creepy on the whole.
Number #5 – Dark of the Moon
Optimus, save me from another movie like ROTF!
Okey Dokey, now we are getting to the better stuff! DOTM (in my opinion, remember – these are just my opinions. But because they are mine they are fantastic!) brought Transformers back from the depths that ROTF sent it tumbling into, giving us an action-packed and interesting movie full of battling bots destroying everything in their path. No street fight with a dozen bots, no skirmish out in the desert in Qatar – this flick gave us huge battles where Chicago got ripped to shreds as the Bots and Cons went head to head! This movie had a coherent storyline that seemed to stay on track and kept the plot moving forward at a good pace. It was not frantic enough you lost the plot, nor slow enough you got bored. The humans were at least tolerable (for the most part) though that toilet scene was plain weird and Sam’s mother had gone from amusing to disturbing. Optimus having his trailer, the appearance of The Wreckers, buildings toppling over from some giant driller thingie – all pro’s. With the addition of Laserbeak becoming a pink version of Bee so he could kill some kids Dad and you’ve got yourself a bonifide action movie boys and girls!
Was the movie perfect? Oh my no, hence why it sits at No #5. Sam’s as big a loony as ever, jumping around with a Con-watch attached to his wrist. The Autobots are far more brutal than the Decepticons, examples being the Wreckers ripping an enemy limb from limb and Optimus killing both Megs AND Sentinel at the end of the movie, even as the latter asked for mercy. Shockwave is grossly under-utilized for such a major character, and lets all thank the powers that be that they decided to make Wheeljack named Que instead, because he looked like Einstein got reanimated as a robotic skeleton.
Quibbles aside, this was a pretty good movie and if nothing else, acted like TF:TM by killing off a lot of the old bots so we could enjoy some new ones the next time round.
Number #4 – Transformers
Off to finally see some live-action Transformers!
Now, to clarify, I actually like DOTM more than the 2007 Transformers movie. But credit where credit is due, this is the flick that brought the franchise into the world of live-action movies and was successful enough those movies are still being made 16 years later, so ya gotta give it some props.
Yes, this was the movie that had some sections of the fandom crying ‘Michael Bay raped my childhood’ – and what a stupid platitude that was. You still see social media groups today that have vowed after the first live-action movie to never watch another one, or have deemed anything not purely G1 as an abomination. To these people I say: once you’ve closed yourself off to anything new, then stagnate you will, and so will the franchise you apparently love so much.
For me nothing will ever quite match the magic I felt as I watched Blackout transform for the first time. And as for Optimus transforming from Truck to Robot – I had to put a hand over my mouth and stifle a little sob of joy. It may not have been G1 but here was the Transformers finally done in live-action, and they weren’t f’ing it up!
Oh the Geewunner in me decried a lot of the movies aesthetics. Megatron and Starscream were as ugly as sin, Ironhide and Ratchet were the wrong colours and so on. And that’s when they were actually on screen – for a lot of this movie you sat there wondering ‘When are the robots going to come back?’ For a movie called Transformers, they certainly seemed to take a back seat a lot of the time.
The humans? Well besides taking up too much screen time they weren’t too bad. Sam hadn’t gone insane yet and neither had his mother, her short performances being the comedic highlights of the film. Mikayla was quite a strong character for someone who the male audience was supposed to primarily drool over, and Lennox and his team did their best to not be simple jarheads, actually adding to the plot nicely.
So yes, this movie had a lot of faults, but for bringing Transformers into the mainstream and giving the franchise a gigantic shot in the arm which it still benefits from today, Transformers 2007 comes in at Number #4 for me.
This is the movie that so many die hard fans wish that Transformers 2007 had been. First we are treated to a scene with all the bots battling on Cybertron, and they look like themselves again! No weird colour schemes, no faces and bodies so mashed and distorted that once they move you cant tell what part of a bot you are looking at, all those aesthetic quibbles gone. Cybertron looks like Cybertron again too, its not some Hexagonal mesh covered in bots that are the same colour as its surface and it’s not in bits and pieces flying over the Earth either. It was all so beautiful it could bring a tear to the hardest Geewuners optic sensor.
Of course this did not last long and off to Earth they went, but not many of them. Yes, by only having Bumblebee, Shatter and Dropkick on Earth you got to see their characters actually develop, interact with humans, interact with each other – you know, actually act like characters in a movie instead of murderbots.
Charlie Watson remains to this day the most likeable human out of the entire movie franchise. You empathise with her woes and you celebrate her victories. She’s not going nuts, or trying to shag someone, or being overly heroic or sexualised or insane. You hate Tina Lark and laugh when Bumblebee smashes up her car, you root for Memo as he tries to step up to be a hero despite being scared shitless, and manages to show his romantic interest for Charlie without being sleazy.
And how much 80’s nostalgia could they pack in eh! The music, the aesthetics – all spot on. Bumblebee is a Volkswagen Beetle as we always wanted him to be and reprising his role as the sweet best friend of the central human rather than just bashing up Barricade a lot.
There is very little to fault with this movie. Oh sure, Blitzwing looked more like Starscream than the live-action Starscream ever did so the ‘changing bots beyond recognition’ concept from the Bayverse movies hadn’t completely disappeared. It was also confusing to many fans that this was billed as a prequel rather than a reboot, yet it contradicted so much that had come before, such as Bee hitting Earth in 1986 rather than having been around so long he had been battling Nazi’s.
This was a wonderful movie, with a lot of heart and fully deserves it’s place in the Top 3 Transformer movies of all time.
Yes, I have to give it to the latest instalment of the franchise, Rise of the Beasts has been the best live-action movie so far. With far less humans and far more Bots, new factions and – gasp – Unicron himself, we get a fantastic movie with Transformers banding together to save the world itself!
I love Bumblebee, I do. He’s a great character and my son’s favourite. However many of us were suffering from Bumblebee overload. Every movie, every cartoon, every toyline, everything from 2007 onwards he has been front and centre. And sure, it makes sense as he’s the posterbot for the franchise now. But enough was enough, so I was very happy to see Mirage step up to take his place and Bee to be sidelined for much of the adventure.
Was this the Mirage of old. Well, no. In fact when you first see his altmode you think ‘Jazz is back!’ It’s rather odd how much they made his vehicle look like Jazz, though they did give a holographic shout out to his old mode. His invisibility is gone, but his holographic powers from the original tech specs and the Netflicks cartoon are in evidence. For me he was a tad too cheery, a tad too immature and he was able to swap altmodes far too easy – he can have the bulk of a garbage truck but be as small as an exosuit? Transforming seems less special when you make it almost limitless.
Optimus is sounding old and weary. And who can blame him, Cullen is 82 now! The poor old bloke will be on his deathbed and still have a boom hanging over his head so he can voice Prime. One wonders if they cast Prime in the ‘concerned weary leader’ role just to take into account the voice actors age. That said, he still rocks it as he always does and he is respected and loved by beast and bot alike.
Scourge makes a passable bad guy, an amalgamation of his G1 and RID(01) incarnations, being a black truck with his Sweep minions (looking like Frenzy’s cousins). Battletrap is awesome in the battle scenes with those chains of his, it’s only Nightbird that doesn’t add much to the trio. The Maximals Optimus Primal and Airazor get a lot of dialogue and screentime, though fan favourites Cheetor & Rhinox do little indeed. Arcee seems a good mix, looking similar in bot mode to the Bumblebee movie and similar in altmode to her ROTF incarnation. Its just Wheeljack that got fans annoyed, and it turned out there was a lot of noise over a character that barely appeared. And like many fans, I’m remaining hopeful of a Stratosphere action figure.
And perhaps this is why this movie ranks for me as the highest of the live-action movies – I can spend all this time taking about the robot characters. Yes, they were finally characters with dialogue and weren’t one-dimensional killing machines, a precedent set in the Bumblebee movie that was thankfully followed on.
There were a couple of humans too of course, and it was nice to see there wasn’t a romantic/sexual story between them, a refreshing change. They weren’t annoying either. And whilst they got a lot of screen time, perhaps for the first time since the 80’s the robots were truly the stars of a Transformers movie.
And speaking of the 80’s, that leads us to…
Number #1 – The Transformers: The Movie
A movie so good I had to recreate it in action-figure form
C’mon, you all knew this was coming. TF:TM remains the high point for many of a franchise nearly 40 years old. Yes it was a glorified toy commercial. Yes it was designed to kill off as many old characters as possible so that Hasbro could flog the new toys. And yes, it sent many children out of the cinema in tears as they watched their beloved Optimus Prime die.
But it did SO MUCH. And it introduced SO MUCH! A slew of what is considered quintessential to Transformers got it’s start here. The Matrix of Leadership, Megatron becoming Galvatron, Junkions, Quintessons, Sharkticons, Optimus dying (to one day be resurrected) and so on. Hot Rod, Kup, Blurr, Arcee, Ultra Magnus, Cyclonus, Scourge – all these iconic characters got their start here. Not to mention Unicron, perhaps the biggest big bad to ever exist in pop fiction ever! Galactus drains the energy from planets, well our bad guy eats planets and swallows moons whole!
Now this isn’t to say the movie isn’t without flaw, there’s plenty. Two Cyclonus’, a miscoloured Rumble, Snarl appearing and disappearing randomly, characters that die showing up later etc. And though I loved it as a kid, the adult in me cringes a bit watching them having a dance off on Junkion. Hasbro was way too brutal with killing off fan favourite characters, though one could argue this is one of the things that makes the movie so memorable – this was a no-holds barred slaugherfest in places which set it apart from many of the other 80’s toy movies.
But damn, there is a reason they are STILL selling toys based directly on this movie 37 years later, its just too good! It had stellar cast of pop culture icons such as Lenoard Nimoy from Star Trek, Eric Idle from Monty Pythons and a song by Weird Al Yankovic, as well as other big name actors such as Orson Wells himself playing Unicron. It even managed to make Daniel and Wheelie not annoying (if only S3 of the cartoon had managed such a feat).
Space battles, motorcycle chases, Dinobots, Constructicons, a bad guy the size of a fricken world – it’s amazing they could fit all this into such a short movie. Throw in a soundtrack which is so 80’s it makes you want to run to the nearest music store to buy an electric guitar to learn such tasty licks, and you’ve got a movie that is still beloved nearly 4 decades later. Yes, The Transformers: The Movie sits at number #1 as the greatest Transformers movie of all time; it had both the touch and the power. Heck in spots it even dared to be stupid! And one suspects will retain its throne for many years to come, until Galvatron gives it a hint at any rate.
So how would you rate the 8 Transformers movies from worst to best? Similar to myself or completely differently? Pop your list in the comments section below!
Rise of the Beasts, the highly anticipated seventh live action Transformers movie, officially hit cinemas around the world on Friday the 9th of June, 2023 (June 22 in Australia).
A June 22 release for the rest of Australia, but a few of us lucky ducks didn’t have to wait that long
However, as befits a multi-million dollar movie of a beloved toy franchise, Paramount and Hasbro held a Special Preview Screening on Thursday the 8th, and for those notables lucky enough to receive an invitation, what an event it was!
If you are going to see a movie, do it in style!
Here in Sydney Australia, the event was held at the Hoyts Entertainment Quarter, and much excitement was in the air. One could attribute part of this excitement to the fact that due to international date lines, it was the 8th here in Australia before the majority of the world, making this one of the first ever showings of the movie!
Love getting invitied to these special events – thanks Hasbro and Paramount!
The attendee’s were made up of executives from both Hasbro and Paramount, professional movie reviewers and various celebrities such as actors, social media influencers and even cosplayers. Naturally everyone’s favouriteradio star and blogger Big Angry Trev was on hand, much to the excitement of the crowds! Photographers snapped pictures and a film crew was on hand to interview guests.
There were even some extra special guests in the form of some of the movie cast themselves – Bumblebee and Mirage decided to come along to grace their fans with their presence and pose for pics.
MirageBumblebee
Over the course of the year we have seen many Transformers events here in Sydney, such as the Beasts Base Camp at Taronga Park Zoo, and the More than Meets the Eye Exhibition at Kings Comics. What was wonderful to see with all these events, were not only the usual cream of society invited, but also notable members of the Australian Transformers Fandom.
Big Angry Trev & Miguel Maestre at the Beasts Base Camp
In attendance for this Special Preview Screening event were Transformer Exhibitors such as Lisamaree Chiu, Ben Keenan and Michael Vella and Transformer Superfans such as Trent Munn and Dallas Roderick. Yes, the royalty of the Aussie fandom were on hand to strut their stuff and I know all were appreciative of how Hasbro and Paramount have included the fandom in this years movie festivities.
Big Angry Trev and his trusty sidekick Orion posing for photo’s with Superfans Dallas & Trent
Free soft drinks and popcorn was on offer for all attendee’s as they entered the theatre, where individual recliner seats, soft and plush, were on offer to cradle every buttock. And for the very crème de la crème of the attendee’s, Hasbro reserved some very special seats dead centre of the theatre for the optimum viewing experience.
What’s better than attending an exclusive event? Getting VIP seating at the exclusive event!
These Special Preview Screenings were not only held in Sydney, but also Brisbane and Melbourne, making it not only a regional but national event!
The Brisbane event, photo courtesy of M.K Griffin of OzformersThe Melbourne event, courtesy of Jason Murray of TCCA
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts turned out to be a fantastic movie, earning a well deserved round of applause from an appreciative audience. I heartily recommend everyone get out themselves out there to watch this fun and entertaining flick.
Sadly, this event was likely the last event for the Transformers social season this year. Lets hope that the powers that be make the next highly anticipated instalment just as fun!
Were you one of the favoured few to get to attend one of these Special Preview Screening Events? Lets us know in the comments section below!
After a 5 year absence of giant shape changing alien robots in theatres, Transformers Rise of the Beasts has hit cinemas worldwide June 9th. Thanks to the generosity of Hasbro and Paramount Pictures, some of us lucky folk even got to attend Special Preview Showings on Thursday 8th, being able to quench our thirst for Autobot antics a day early.
Even Mirage got invited to his own flick! Love Hasbro & Paramount putting on these special events!
Warning, this is a Movie Review – so SPOILERS!
One of the main complaints of the live action Transformer films is having to wait around for ages to finally see some robots. No such complaint can be made here. One of the main groups of protagonists – The Maximals, and the main antagonists – The Terrorcons and their gigantic master Unicron, are introduced at the outset, setting the stage for much mayhem to come. We are also introduced to the AllsparkMatrixControl PillarSeedStaff of MerlinTranswarp Key, a… glowy thingie… which will be used as an excuse for robots to travel to Earth, trapse all over the globe and fight each other to obtain it.
I can eat whole planets – but can be defeated by the lack of a glowy thing the size of your forearm
And then of course we transfer to the obligatory human characters and their backstories. Firstly Noah Diaz, an ex-solider who is about to embark on a life of crime in order to support his younger brother who, I dunno, has a pain in his hand or something. And Elena Wallace, an undervalued researcher in a museum. So yes, we have humans but good news – there is no romantic subplot! That’s right folks, a live action Transformers movie with no romantic awkwardness between teens or overt sexualization of young women – can I get an amen!
We are never scantiy dressed or sexually attracted to each other – are we sure this is a Transformers movie?
Anyways, these humans need to meet the Transformers for the plot to advance, so Noah tries to steal Mirage, police chase ensues, they escape and we get introduced to the bulk of the Autobot cast. Brooding Optimus & perky Bumblebee, the mainstays of the movie series are on hand with Arcee, returning for her third outing, combining her robot look from the Bumblebee movie with her motorcycle altmode from ROTF. But its Mirage who takes the staring role both in this scene and for much of the movie (oh thank you, thank you Primus for not making yet another movie all about Bumblebee and Optimus again!).
We are fam-i-ly!
Lets take a look at Mirage shall we. Originally in Generation One the character was a blue & white Autobot Warrior, a member of the upper class who wants the war over so as to return to his lavish lifestyle on Cybertron, who could turn into an Indy Racer as well as cloak himself with invisibility.
‘A giant robot race car that can cloak? I rock!’
Here he seems to be a pastiche of other G1 Transformer characters. He has the youthful exuberance of Hot Rod, the altmode of Jazz and the holographic powers of Hound. That said, at least there is some resemblance to previous incarnations there.
‘You are really going to enjoy me’
Mirage also seems to be able to turn into anything. Yes I know that’s the point of Transformers, that they can change their forms, but Mirage can change into most anything on a whim. In short order he transforms into a Porsche, a Lamborghini and an Indy Racer (in an homage to his G1 counterpart). Yup, all cars approximating his mass and size, so what’s the problem? No problem as such yet, but a short time later he transforms into a garbage truck bigger than Prime himself, and near the end an exo-suit for Noah which is not much bigger than the human. By making Mirage seemingly able to be anything, it waters down the specialness of the transforming ability in general.
Wait, wasn’t I like 100 times bigger only an hour ago in the movie?
It isn’t long before, in pursuit of the glowy key thingie, the Autobots meet the Terrorcons, with much fighting and general violence taking place. Thankfully for the franchise it learned from Dropkick and Shatter from the last flick as in a few fleshed out bad guys can prove more interesting than an army of generic ones (don’t worry, that happens later too). Scourge, the Terrorcon leader and main Herald of Unicron, is powerful and commanding enough as the main villain, though can’t be said to be breaking new ground – at least he comes with a couple of deployable Freezer minions. Battletrap is pretty cool, using chains with clamps and wrecking balls on the end in both his modes to hurt his opponents, often using the environment around him to help smash his foes. Nightbird can fly to provide her group air support, she also produces her signature swords near the end of the movie but doesn’t do much with them.
I will use the one ring to rule you all!
The glowy thingie is found, but oh no! It got all broke up and now we need to find the second half! Cue off to Peru, courtesy of Stratosphere, a pretty cool old transport plane character. They meet up with Pablo Wheeljack who has an idea where the second half may be. There we see the Autobots actually using their ‘robots in disguise’ moniker by hiding around the city in vehicle mode while the humans do their thing. Then off to the jungle where the Maximals are hiding out where they are most definitely not robots in disguise. Don’t get me wrong, they look cool. But they are all way bigger than the animals they are supposed to be disguised as (the glowing eyes don’t help much either). Maximals and Autobots team up, get their arses kicked, the glowy thing is put back together and thus the final act is underway. The transwarp portal is opened, allowing Unicron to come and chow down on Earth.
‘Wait, you can tell that I’m not an Earth-gorilla? How?!’
But things don’t happen that fast. Despite the transwarp portal castle thing materializing in seconds, it takes a long time for the portal to open enough for Unicron, so even though Airazor is now dead and Bumblebee near death himself, the remaining bots go to stop the portal opening, Optimus and Noah learning the magic of friendship (or something) and trusting each other. Here we get the big final battle, with all the good guys who survived near dying at some point but never quite managing it, while the bad guys (along with the promised hordes of weaker bad guys to go smashy smashy on) get their comeuppance. Cue some post battle scenes and that’s a wrap folks.
So yes, the plot is very formulaic and nothing you haven’t seen in a hundred other flicks. So is this movie worth watching?
Yes, yes it is! This is actually to my mind the best live action Transformers movie to date, as well as being the most fun! The majority of robots are treated like actual characters, receiving their fair share of screen time and character development, not simply murderbots to show up to kill each other between prolonged human scenes. Speaking of, they finally seem to have struck the right balance for robot-to-human screen time – it’s a Transformers movie with actual Transformers!
We are in the film! We are in the film lots!
The only time I got sick of the squishies was the final battle scene; a huge stunning battle taking place with the Maximals and Autobots fighting the Terrorcons and a legion of their minions while Unicron decends from above, and they halt the action for two full minutes for Noah to have a heart-to-heart with his brother over a walkie-talkie?! Shut the hell up Noah – we want to see the robots fight! This did detract from the exo-suit scene for me, as I was all pissed off with Noah ruining the flow, but thankfully times like this in the movie were rare – no 10 minute scenes of Sam Witwicky having a mental meltdown in class, followed by talking about how a kiss had a deisely tinge to it. The pacing of the movie is spot on, keeping you entertained without things going so fast you don’t know what’s happening, the humour gives you a few genuine laughs without it ever sinking into the gutter, in short this movie seems to have listened to all the fan gripes about the first 5 movies and rectified them, producing a fun and entertaining flick about our favourite giant, shape-changing alien robots!
I give Transformers Rise of the Beasts 9 out of 10 stolen Autobot badges.
You like me, you actually like me
Have you seen this movie? What did you think of it? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
There is only about a month to go until the new Transformers Rise of the Beasts film hits theatres and the hype is building, with everything from toy lines hitting shelves to art exhibitions taking place to celebrate the upcoming flick.
However, it wouldn’t be a Transformers movie without there being something contentious to make the fandom all scream at each other, and in this case it’s the design of Wheeljack.
“Did I do that?’
Wheeljack, the very first Transformer to ever hit screen, was the Autobots mad-scientist, always coming up with whacky inventions and weapons that more often than not backfired. This combined with his distinctive headscuplt, easy-going personality and slick Lancia Stratos Turbo race car alt-mode meant that he was a fan favourite and one of the better known Transformer characters.
Wheeljack nearly appeared in the Dark of the Moon Transformers movie, but the decision was made at the last second to call the character ‘Que’ instead, as an homage to James Bond’s gadget guy. Still, this decision was made so late that some toys and in the associated video game the character was still called Wheeljack.
‘Hey, it could be worse – I could look like this in the new movie!’
Wheeljack made his proper live-movie appearance in the Bumblebee Movie. Whilst he had but a single line, he could be seen battling on Cybertron at the start of the flick and was instantly recognisable. Despite being on screen for a very short amount of time, he received a very cool Studio Series figure which had an altmode of a Cybertronian HoverCar, instead of the Cybertronian HoverVan mode he had in the G1 cartoon.
In the upcoming Rise of the Beasts movie, a sequel to the Bumblebee flick, Wheeljack has completely changed from the previous film, with a completely different robot mode and altmode to any he has sported before. Some fans are really not happy, with other fans really not happy that those fans are not happy.
So where does my opinion lie in all this? Well let me tell you:
“Don’t be a slave to G1, don’t be a sook – characters change!”
This is the argument that a lot of fans are giving to those that don’t like the look of the new Wheeljack. And I think they’ve got the argument slightly wrong. I believe it’s not that people are annoyed that this incarnation of Wheeljack in not a carbon copy of his G1 incarnation, it’s that he’s not really recognisable as Wheeljack at all.
VW fans however are gonna be psyched!
People, for the most part unless they are the most staunch geewunners (which do sadly exist), don’t mind some changes to characters, as long as they retain some key essence of the original. It keeps the characters fresh and interesting. Fans had no issue with Wheeljack being a Wrecker with a rebellious personality in Prime (2010). Wheeljack having a country accent and a mouth in Cyberverse (2018) and the new Earthspark (2022) cartoon have also been received without complaint. Despite some changes these incarnations were still instantly recognisable as Wheeljack, due to either their physical appearance and/or personality. This incarnation doesn’t look, act or sound like Wheeljack (that we’ve seen thus far – who knows what may happen in the film). So I completely understand why some fans are going ‘Why not just make it a new character instead of completely changing an old one?’.
These WERE the droids you were hoping for
To use an example from a different pop-culture franchise – it’s like Batman; there are dozens of different iterations of Batman with varying costumes and personalities, but you can generally pick up a comic or see a movie and still go ‘yep – that’s Batman’.
All slightly different in looks and personality – but all still definetly Batman.
No one is demanding that every Batman look like Adam West, they just want it to still be recognisable as the character. If they did a comic where Batman was actually a 6’10” Slavic insurance-claims adjuster who lives in Brisbane, and at night throws rubber ducks at criminals whilst making poultry-puns, people would be like ‘WTF? That’s not Batman!’
If we were to use a Transformers character such as Grimlock, we see the pattern repeated. He is usually a grey Cybertronian T-Rex with a rebellious attitude. But we have seen different versions of him over the years. In the Alternators toyline he turned into a Ford Mustang, in Titanium a Cybertronian tank, in Rescue Bots Academy a Dino-cycle, in Age of Extinction a Gigantic Rex-Dragon. In the RID15 Cartoon he was back to being a Cybertronian T-Rex again, but now green with a teddy-bear like head and a goofy personality.
All slightly different in looks, personality and altmodes, but all still Grimlock.
Each of these differed greatly from the core G1 character, but there was still enough recognisable elements that you could look and go ‘yup – that’s Grimlock’.
‘There have been different Wheeljacks before – they reuse names all the time, get over it!’
Armada Wheeljack
Yes, lots of characters got their names reused in Beast Wars, then again in early 00’s in shows like RID & Armada, but those were generally exceptions where they just randomly used names in order to keep the trademark. Wheeljack in Armada was a bitter Autobot that swapped allegiance, and besides a car altmode had nothing to do with the original. Similarly Grimlock, whom we were discussing earlier, turned into a excavator in RID and had zero connection to the original character. So the precedents are there.
One of these Grim’s is not like the other ones…
That being said, Hasbro has taken a far more uniform approach to their characters in the modern era and, outside of the Movieverse, these aberrations have happened very little over the last 15 or so years.
So am I going to boycott the movie because Wheeljack is essentially unrecognisable? No – I’m still looking forward to it! And for all I know I might really like the character on the big screen and go out and buy the SS figure of him. But do I understand why some fans have a beef with how he is being portrayed – yes I do.
Causing more mixed feelings in fandom than a female Ghostbuster
So my 2-cents are: if you don’t like how you think the ROTB Wheeljack looks/acts/sounds – go watch the movie next month and see if he grows on you. Heck, he might be good enough that he earns a right to simply share the name, like G1 and Beast Wars Inferno do.
To those who have a problem with others disappointment in what the character looks like so far, give’em a break eh – it can be a bit heartbreaking to see a character you’ve loved for years changed beyond recognition for no obviously discernable reason. But yes, when you’ve read the 50th‘they’ve destroyed the character!’ rant, I can understand how your patience would wane.
For the past 6 weeks the fabulous More than Meets the Eye Exhibition has been on show at Kings Comics in Sydney. This has consisted of original Transformers artworks by recognized modern artists, as well as toy displays by prominent Australian collectors, showcasing Transformers merchandise from the past 25 years.
I was lucky enough to be invited to the VIP Opening Night of the exhibition and while there, along with Eddie Zammit – the curator of the exhibition, and Toy Exhibitor Lisamree Chiu, I was interviewed by the lads from Each To Their Own in their That Figures! series of videos. Check out their video below:
You can find more video’s by these talented guys at @EachToTheirOwn – make sure to check them out! And speaking of checking things out, make sure you get down to Kings Comics to see the Exhibition by Radio Velvet before it finishes up at the end of April!
The new Transformers: Rise of the Beasts movie is less than two months away, and figures are already turning up on shelves in anticipation of the latest instalment of the franchise.
When I attended the Beasts Base Camp experience at Taronga Zoo I was lucky enough to be given a gift bag by Hasbrothat contained, amongst other things, a Studio Series Airazor. Then when attending the MTMTE Exhibitionat Kings Comics my son was lucky enough to receive the same! So being the first foray for both of us into the new movies toyline, thought it only fitting that we give you our thoughts on the figure.
Robot Mode
Given that Airazor has not, as of the writing of this post, had her robot mode shown in any footage, it is hard to give a proper account of how screen accurate the figure is. It is certainly a nice looking figure, with an avian-like head, consistent colour-scheme, good proportions and decent articulation. The wings give a cape-like appearance and the missiles on the arms lend that combative look of an alien robot about to enter the fray. The face is not particularly feminine, but then very few Airazor figures in the past have had one either so one could say its true to form. The feet should be turned so that the smaller talons face the front, but I personally think she looks that bit cooler and more bestial with the larger facing forward.
Falcon Mode
The figure really shines here. A beautiful wingspan that can be adapted to a number of different configurations and poses. A sufficiently detailed head and claws really give that metallic-bird appearance, with this Airazor not having an organic outer form like previous iterations of the character. Looking from below she doesn’t look great, but then to be honest most real life birds don’t from that angle either (I raise ducksand chickens – trust me on this) so I personally find it forgivable. The only main detractor is that the outer wings unclip very easily. They can be clipped back on with similar ease so it’s a mild irritation at best.
Worth Getting?
Studio Series rarely lets us down in terms of screen-accurate & highly detailed figures, and has not disappointed once again. The figure boasts a lot of detail, though more detail in the Transformation would have been nice, you definitely don’t need the instructions for this gal. The figure shares much of its engineering with Kingdom Airazor so anyone who has that figure will know largely what to expect.
If you are into Beast Wars characters, or are looking to pick up toy representations of characters from the upcoming movie, then Studio Series Airazor fits the bill nicely and I welcome her as the first Maximal to enter my Studio Series collection.
Got something to say about this figure? Pop it in the comments section below!
Transformers can transform into most anything right? That’s what makes them Transformers. Over the years we’ve seen them turn into everything from toasters into entire cities.
There is also a history of Transformers turning into humans. Whether that’s having their consciousness put into a human clone like way back in the Generation 1 cartoon, to Pretenders – human on the outside but robots on the inside – like Alice from Revenge of the Fallen.
Bishōjo is a Japanese term for cute girl. Cute being the operative word rather than sexy. This term and indeed anime genre has spawned a statuette toyline called Bishoujo, a series of statues based off of Shunya Yamashita’s illustrations of various movie, game, and comic characters in the Japanese Bishōjo style. This series has contained characters ranging from fighting games to DC characters to even My Little Pony!
So ever wonder what Optimus Prime and Megatron would look like if they transformed into cute girls? Well lets find out!
Optimus Prime
There is a lot of details within this statuette that call back to Optimus Prime’s robot mode. The hair is styled in such a way to harken to Optimus’ antenna ears, the eyes are blue like his optics and there are even goggles on top. Most of the references to robot Optimus are in the clothing and accessories. The majority of the clothing is coloured to reperesent the robot mode colours, there are wheels attached to the boots, she has the Matrix on a necklace around her neck (stealing Galvatron’s look are we Optimus?) and even carries a briefcase indicative of Optimus’ trailer in truck mode.
A nice touch is that you can remove the face and replace it with one that has Optimus’ faceplate. This will appeal to some while others will find it offputting. Either way it means Optimus while in cute-girl mode is still COVID-safe!
Megatron
Like Optimus, there are many details in the Megatron figure that are call outs to the robot form. The hair frames the head like Megatron’s helmet, the eyes are red, the expression is aloof and irritated and the colour scheme of the clothing references Megatrons robot mode, from the grey top to the black skirt to the red on the inside of the trenchcoat.
A dominating part of this figure is the Fusion Cannon. They have made it so ludicrously big that Megatron’s cute girl form carries it akin to how one would carry a rocket launcher, rather than it being attached to the forearm.
The Packaging
These are figures that very few will be keeping MISB. The packaging is such that besides the face you cannot make out the figure within. The boxes are still quite nice though and worth keeping if you have the room. Personally I removed the inserts to use as backing displays for the figures.
Worth Getting?
These are not cheap figures, going for about $200au each, so are really only recommended for serious collectors of either the Transformers or Bishoujo toylines. But one cannot deny that they look great, and can certainly add a bit of variety to ones display shelves. Now to await the Bumblebee figure due to be released later this year!
What do you think of these figures? Really cute or just too weird for your tastes? Let us know in the comments section below!
