Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant: Wave 21

#103 Rhinox (RotB, Rhino)

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

Not to be confused with the regular movie line Voyager Rhinox, which was
pretty good but clearly still built with the standard design elements of the
other RotB Deluxes and Voyagers that are outside the Autobot Alliance
subline.

CAPSULE

$35-36 price point.

#103 Rhinox: Some part-popping issues during transformation, and a lot
of paint used to achieve a very bland overall look, but it's a decent design
and quite distinct from the other RotB Voyager Rhinox. Pity he was just
moving scenery and not a character in the movie. Recommended, but probably
just pick one of the two Voyager Rhinoxes, don't get both.

RANT

Packaging: Standard Studio Series Voyager window box without plastic,
using screen-render style art of the beast mode on the front and right sides
and robot mode on the left side. The left side has an Autobot symbol in the
cut-out bit, but the nameplate has a Maximal symbol.

MAXIMAL: RHINOX
Assortment: #103
Altmode: Rhino
Transformation Difficulty: 29 steps
Previous Name Use: BW, BWX, Armada, Gen:T30, RotB
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: RotB
Scene: Peruvian Jungle Discovery

RHINOX charges onto the scene to protect the MAXIMAL lair from
intruders.

In the movie, he's basically a seat-filler. No real personality beyond
"he's a rhino." Mind you, none of the Maximals get MUCH in this movie,
rarely if ever transforming to robot mode and only Primal and Airazor have
enough lines to establish any characterization.

Packaging: Five plastic ties hold the robot to the inner tray. The
hammer is held very very loosely by a loop of the tray corner...it stays put
perfectly well when the tray is in the box, but when you remove the tray
there's a decent chance the hammer will stay in the box.
The backdrop is the entryway to the underground temple complex where the
macguffin is stored, rather than the Peruvian jungle. The instructions have
bright blue as their accent color.

Robot Mode: This is very easy to distinguish from the non-Studio
Voyager, and not just because the proportions are different. Where that was
more of a light tan, this is mostly cool light gray with bronze accents.
Still a pretty dull color scheme, and missing most of the green that helped
the original BW version pop, but at least there's no confusing the two.
Okay, technically the eyes are green, but they're narrow slits and the
painted parts are deeply set back behind thick eyelids, to the point I needed
to use a flashlight to confirm that the eyes were painted at all. Flanking
the head are bits that I guess are supposed to look like the halves of his
main horn from beast mode, but they're not actually visible in beast mode nor
is the real horn visible in this mode. The figure has a sort of an armor
skirt thing going on, with a panel hanging down in the middle plus hide-
patterned narrowed panels attached to the front of the hips by the pin joints
of the hips, able to swing outwards a bit (and made of rubbery plastic).
6.5" (16.5cm) tall and reasonably bulky, if more in a "guy wearing
oversized football pads" way than "strongman" bulky. Most of the plastic is
a medium gray. A slightly darker gray is used for the elbow joints, hammer
haft, and the rhino tail, while a nearly gunmetal plastic is used for the
forearms, shoulder roots, fake horns, some hinges inside the backpack, ankle
joints, and most of the thigh/knee area (the actual hips are still the
lighter medium gray). Note that it's hard to be sure on some of these which
of the gray shades they are, and there might also be batch variation to
consider. The armor skirt bits attached to the thighs are rubbery gunmetal
gray plastic.
The main paint that stands out in this mode is copper, which is on the
collarbone area, abs, and front skirt. The upper arms are dipped in copper,
and it's airbrushed onto the outer faces of the forearms. There's also
silver paint on the head crest, around the eyes, on the six conical spikes of
the hammer, and airbrushed onto the shoulderpads and shin fronts. The deeply
sunken eyes seem to be metallic yellow-green. So, it's not that this toy is
super light on paint, just that the paint goes towards reducing contrast
rather than increasing it, more about shiny vs. less shiny. You have to be
looking at the right angle, but there's a silver Maximal symbol printed on
the sternum, and I think there's supposed to be some silver airbrushing on
the pecs but it's hard to tell from just being glossy finish on the plastic.
The neck appears to be a restricted ball joint, mine is really stiff and
might have some mold flash issues. The waist is a swivel. The shoulders are
a bit weird, they're hinge-and-swivel universal joints, but the part that
connects directly to the torso via swivel is extended and has two hinges, one
pinned for the upper arm and a snap-on hinge 3/4" (17mm) above it for the
shoulderpad. In order to lift the arm all the way out to the side, you need
to lift the shoulderpad first, or it'll pop off. Swivels just above the
hinge elbows, and swivel wrists. The hips are pinned universal joints, with
the rubbery skirt bits sharing the pin. There's upper thigh swivels that are
restricted by Bayshards. The knees are double hinges but can still only bend
about 90 degrees due to bulk (the top hinge is more for bending backwards in
rhino mode). The ankles are crossed hinges and fairly stiff. This is good
for maintaining a pose, but you have to basically grab the foot and moosh it
flat to get the ankl joints in the right positions.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, there's a 5mm socket in the center of the
upper back (the hammer can stow there if transformed to rocket launcher
mode), and a 5mm socket in the sole of each foot. There's a 3mm socket in
the back of the pelvis.
The hammer is molded to look like it's supposed to be part of the beast
mode, with rhino hide texture on top, tech on bottom. There's molded
(immovable) springs between the spiked face of the hammer and the rest of the
hammer head, what could in a pinch pass for a rocket boost aperture in back.
The face has six conical spikes that are meant to look like warheads when you
mount this on beast mode. The haft is mostly narrower than 5mm, only
thickening to that wide above the midpoint, so a single-handed grip is
reasonably choked up. The haft folds back and pegs in place to make the
weapon look like a six-shot rocket launcher with a bumpy tail or something,
and it folds a 5mm peg out the bottom. Rhinox is not flexible enough to
manage a two-handed grip on the hammer, and the forearms are too bulky to
really hold it as a rocket launcher in this mode.

Transformation: I really only needed the instructions to confirm that
the somewhat half-assed belly configuration I ended up with was the correct
one. However, SOOOO many pieces popped off during my attempts at
transformation, if you don't already know how far each piece moves and when,
you're liable to be chasing panels and armor bits. The hammer folds where
the head meets to haft, but it doesn't store inside the beast mode despite
all the gaps, it just sits on top of the back as a sort of missile launcher
with a stick hanging out the back.
Note, as much as the robot legs look like they're supposed to unfold and
reconfigure, they just bend and swivel, the various Bayformery gaps and
shards are purely ornamental.
Going back to robot mode, the shoulderpads popped off almost
immediately...I can see how it's possible to get the arms transformed without
that happening, but it's tricky. Also, a very important "order of
operations" step is to lift the buttflap up and out on its strut before
trying anything else with the torso, or the backplate won't be able to move
enough to let you store the rhino head.

Beast Mode: Unlike other recent Rhinoxes (Rhinoces?) this has a separate
and fairly long tail. It has generally decent proportions, although the hind
legs project backwards a little too much and the front feet are comically
tiny compared to the rear ones. There's a general feel of gaps and corrosion
that plays into the live action's penchant for robot modes being piles of
metal scrap loosely held together, just now translated to a beast mode. In
terms of color, it's even more aggressively bland than robot mode, especially
from the side where the bits of copper are mostly out of view. As with the
robot, the eyes are painted metallic yellow-green, but you have to look
really closely to tell.
About 8" (20cm) from horn to tail tip and 4" (10cm) high at the back
hump (the hammer on top rises up higher, of course), almost entirely medium
gray with some darker gunmetal gray and barely perceptible metallic yellow
green eyes. Most of the exposed body is medium gray plastic, with some of
the darker gray plastic visible on the rear hips, the neck, the lower front
legs, the main horn, and the tail. The horn and rear hips are significantly
darker than the other dark gray bits, but the horn isn't as rubbery as the
bits that were on the front of the thighs in robot mode. There's airbrushed
gunmetal on the front shoulders, airbrushed copper on the fronts of the lower
front legs, and pained gunmetal on the sides of the face. A little of the
copper-dipped biceps is still visible in this mode. The eyes are painted
metallic yellow-green. There's no Maximal symbol anywhere.
Not a lot of articulation. The head can tilt up a little on a hinge,
and the lower jaw can flip open. The legs can wiggle a bit, and the front
ankles can turn. The tail is hinged but can only fold upwards, it can't be
bent downward to hang loosely. The main horn is not supposed to move in this
mode, but the beast head doesn't snap shut very well and the lightest tap on
the horn can make the head start to open up. There's a 5mm socket on the top
of the back hump for the weapon to go into, and the rear feet have accessible
5mm sockets on their soles, that's basically it for connections.