Dave's Transformers Legacy Rant - Origin Series

Origin Autobot Jazz (Cybertronian vehicle)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/OriginJazz

A followup to the Buzzworthy Bumblebee line's Origin Bumblebee, this
"Jazzworthy Jazz" is a G1 Jazz that turns into his Cybertronian altmode as
seen in one scene in the very first G1 cartoon episode. (Technically
Soundwave beat both of them to the punch, with Siege Soundwave having an
official if hidden lamppost mode.) Siege is probably as close as we're going
to get to "Tetrajets" from Cybertron, and disk-shaped Buzzsaw/Laserbeak don't
seem to fit into Target's preferred price points for the Buzzworthy toys, but
there's still Wheeljack's hovervan to do if Target wants to extend the line.

CAPSULE

$25 from HasbroPulse (long since sold out), about the same if you can
find it on shelves at Target (also sold out most places).

Origin Autobot Jazz: The transformation has some irritating panel
fitting issues, but otherwise a surprisingly good job at getting a robot
that looks reasonably like G1 Jazz turning into something recognizably like
Jazz's original Cybertronian form. Recommended.

RANT

Packaging: It's in the Buzzworthy trade dress, but as a variant on the
second year Legacy: Evolution packaging style, with that line's logo. Due to
the lack of plastic on the window, the red paint on Jazz's chest has a
tendency to get worn in shipping, mine has a couple of small chips I can
probably fix later.
There is no QR code on the box, but there is an EvoFusion call-out
showing how his grappling hook can be fixed to his rifle instead of replacing
his hand. No QR code on the instructions either (which uses the same
yellow-orange color as other Buzzworthy toys), but Legacy just doesn't seem
to DO the website info for store exclusives in general.

AUTOBOT: ORIGIN AUTOBOT JAZZ
Assortment: F7018
Altmode: Cybertronian Car
Transformation Difficulty: 20 steps
Previous Name Use: None with all those modifiers
Previous Mold Use: None

Lack of QR code means that most of the information is absent.

Packaging: No ties or strings at all, instead the inner tray is folded
over to sandwich the robot in between layers of cardboard. The accessories
are wrapped up in tissue and taped inside the sandwich. So, other than the
accessories, the packaging is easily reusable for storage or transport.

Robot Mode: Yeah, he has a fake pseudo-Porsche chest and generally looks
like a no-chrome version of the G1 toy wearing a big backpack, but while they
created Cybertronian-only vehicle modes of a few characters in the original
cartoon, they didn't really bother to make a distinct robot mode. When
Cybertronian Jazz transformed, he looked the same as he would look on Earth
after being reformatted. So they captured this pretty well, just with
animation gray instead of chrome. They even reproduced the slots in the
abdomen that the G1 toy needed for transformation struts to fit in.
5" (12.5cm) tall in mostly black, white, and gray, with some blue and
red accents. The fake car front chest is clear light blue plastic, as is the
roof of vehicle mode that's on the backpack. The forearms, the rest of the
backpack, the thighs, the outer and rear faces of the lower legs, and the
non-toe parts of the feet are white plastic. Everything else is black
plastic.
Oddly, while the rest of the silver parts are animation gray, the face
is painted silver with a gloss medium blue visor. There's a wide gloss blue
stripe down the sternum. The chest piece is mostly painted white, leaving
only the headlights unpainted, with a prone-to-damage red strip along the
bottom edge. A no-outline red Autobot symbol is printed in the middle of the
sternum stripe. There more gloss blue on the vehicle mode bits visible from
the sides and behind. The abdomen front is painted gloss light gray, as are
the shins and the outer edges of the toes. The toes are otherwise dipped in
a medium gray paint. The non-window parts of the car roof on the backpack
are painted gloss white that doesn't really match the white plastic.
The neck is a ball joint with decent up and down range in addition to
the swiveling, the waist is a smooth swivel. The shoulders and hips are
pinned universal joints (swivels with lift-up hinges). There's bicep
swivels, and the wrists are hinged to bend inwards for transformation. You
can stow a fist in order to attach the grappling hook accessory (also seen in
MtMtE, if not during a Cybertron-set scene, IIRC). There's upper thigh
swivels, hinge knees, and those inset hinges that let the feet stay flat when
the figure is in a wide stance.
There's 5mm sockets in the fists, the outer faces of the shoulders, one
in the middle of the back, and one on the sole of each foot. There's a
reasonably accessible 3mm socket in the back of the pelvis.
The rifle is based on his G1 pistol/rifle and is 2" (5cm) long with a
long tapered barrel that ends in a 3mm stud, a single piece of black plastic.
It has a 5mm regular grip, and a 5mm peg on the right side of the gun next to
the main grip. The grappling hook is two pieces of black plastic, molded as
sort of a winch (no cable threading molded) and a 3-pronged hook. The winch
has a 5mm peg for plugging into the wrist socket, and a 5mm socket for the
hook. The hook has a 5mm peg. Both of the pegs have 3mm sockets in their
tips, so you can mount the entire thing on the tip of Jazz's rifle, or just
the hook.

Transformation: Some of the panel massaging required excessive force,
especially the roof piece. The clear outer shell of the backpack folds down
on a strut and snaps into place against the inner shell (which is the hood
section). The chest folds up to cover the face and reveal a 5mm socket for
storing the grapple and winch piece (one prong pointing head-ward if you want
there to be room for the arms). Open up the boots, fold out the doors,
and then collapse the thighs into the boots...if you do it in another order
there isn't enough clearance. Technically the forearms need to be rotated so
that slots on them go into tabs on the kneecaps, but they don't really hold
well enough to be worth the hassle. The rest is basically squeezing to get
all the roof and door panels snapped together.
Getting back to robot mode practically requires a knife or something.
The door hinges are more likely to come undone than the tabs holding them to
the front fender pieces, and the roof tabs are no easier going than coming.

Altmode: In the cartoon, Jazz was a hovercar, and they sort of fake that
by having the robot arms act as a "please ignore me" stand. The proprortions
int he cartoon had a much bigger spoiler and smaller chassis, but they got a
decent compromise here between show-accuracy and "actually can turn into a
robot with reasonable proportions" shape. The general impression is that the
front grille is an air intake and the whole thing is a big jet engine with
spoiler in the back to keep it from leaving the road entirely. In fact, it
almost looks like a one-person stunt plane that lost its wings. It wouldn't
be too hard to design wings that use the arm sockets as attachment points.
A little over 4.5" (11.5cm) long in mostly white and medium blue. The
roof/windows piece is clear light blue plastic with ill-matching white paint,
the rest of the vehicle shell is white plastic save for the rear bumper
(which is the robot toes). The front grille is painted silver, with gloss
medium blue around the front end and then in another wide band around the
back just behind the seam with the roof piece. A fairly large Autobot symbol
printed in red is on the hood just ahead of the windshield (it's hidden
inside the backpack in robot mode).
No intentional articulation, although the doors can in principle be
opened with "suicide door" hinges at the back, and the robot toes can be
folded down for no useful purpose. There's a 5mm socket in the center of the
roof, and two in the rear bumper that can be used for rifle storage or for
thrust-style Fire Blasts. (The instructions don't show the rifle stored back
there, but its side peg means it can store in back.) The shoulder and wrist
stump 5mm sockets are accessible on the underside for use with flight stands,
and some thrust-style Fire Blasts can even go into the wrist sockets in this
mode.

Overall: The panel issues make transformation something of a hassle, but
they did a good job getting something that at least mostly resembled the
animation model and could still turn into a passable Jazz robot mode. Of
course, by the time I got to reviewing this it was sold out almost
everywhere, but it's worth a bit of hunting.

Dave Van Domelen, wishes the store exclusives got QR codes or at least
some of the equivalent information printed on the package.