Dave's Studio Series Rant: Leader Class wave 13

#106 Optimus Primal (Gorilla)

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

Now, I don't get a lot of Studio Leaders, mostly because I think they go
overboard with fiddly bits and cross the line from complex into frustrating.
In fact, prior to this three of the four Studio Series Leaders that I have
reviewed were 1986 movie Dinobots (Snarl has yet to show up in any stores
here and is total scalper bait online where it isn't simply sold out), and
the fourth I didn't like at all. I don't have much hope for Scourge, and
since Leaders boxes are windowless I can't even say, "I'll decide when I see
it in person." But pictures of this toy looked decent, especially people
getting it early (despite its February 2024 release date, Hasbro Pulse did
have an early release of a Japanese deco for $60, the most obvious difference
being energy glow patterns painted on the swords, and probably darker overall
colors, but one can only tell so much from online pics) and filling social
media galleries with artfully staged poses. So, once I basically gave up on
finding much locally and started buying more online, I grabbed it from Pulse.

CAPSULE

$55 on Hasbro Pulse. $60 for the Takara deco, when it's sporadically
available.

#106 Optimus Primal: The gorilla mode (aka "almost all of his screen
time in the movie) is a bit wonky, the transformation has several places that
are kinda unforgiving, but the robot mode is great. Plus he comes with
several accessories that can be given to other figures. Recommended.

RANT

Packaging: The same sort of windowless box that Studio Leaders have been
coming in for a while, without the faction symbol window on the left side.
The front has gorilla mode in a CG render that does not appear to be lifted
from movie assets, instead it looks more like they took the toy render and
(badly) added fur and some other details to make it look less toyetic. The
left panel has a closeup of the gorilla head, while the right has the robot
mode in similar "slightly better than toy render" style. The back shows
renders of the toy in both modes and a bunch of weapons and accessories,
including the plot device key thing from the movie.
Since there's no window, the inner tray is just plain brown corrugated
cardboard, but there is a scene backdrop. Like Rhinox, the instructions have
a bright slightly greenish blue as the accent color.

MAXIMAL: OPTIMUS PRIMAL
Assortment: #106
Altmode: Gorilla
Transformation Difficulty: 34 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: RotB
Scene: Peruvian Jungle Discovery

OPTIMUS PRIMAL and the MAXIMALS guard a piece of the Transwarp Key from
unwelcome visitors.

Packaging: Four twisted-end rattan strings hold the gorilla mode onto
the tray. The two swords are held in by corner folds in the lower left and
right corners, the axe (which the box back shows the beast mode holding) is
held by a corner flap in the upper right. The chain that connects the swords
and the Transwarp Key are bundled up in tissue and taped in the upper left
corner.
The backdrop is the same generic stream-in-a-forest scene used by
Airazor and Cheetor, supposedly the location where the Maximals got the drop
on the Autobots in the movie.
The instructions show several ways to use and combine the various
weapons in both modes (including a suggestion to use the chain halves as two
short whips), along with storage locations for everything except the Key. If
it's not in Primal's hand, he doesn't have it.

Beast Mode: He's packaged this way, so I'll start with it. You can tell
even from the "best angle shot" box back render that the standard knuckle-
walking pose doesn't really work here, and the instructions just give him and
having him standing fully upright. The weird way the robot legs collapse
down to make the rear beast legs doesn't quite let them assume a position
where the feet can be flat on the surface while the fists are even touching
the same plane. Folding open the knuckle joints helps a little. That said,
the feet are angled just a little so the figure can't really stand up
straight that well either, more of an "about to fall over" lean forwards.
Basially, the Bravo Class Authentics Optimus Primal's gorilla mode does the
gorilla stance about as well for a tenth the price. The bipedal stance
Primal mostly used in the 90s cartoon is not possible without messing up the
legs a lot, too many bits get in each others' way and the feet simply can't
fold down enough.
Aside from articulation issues that I'll get back to, the color scheme
is far more of a "black and silver" than most of the toys, which tended to be
gray-brown and blue, or the version seen on screen that was more of a black
and dark metal with low contrast. While the only "color" is the metallic
yellow-green of the eyes, the contrast is a lot higher than on Rhinox, and
the result is much less bland than some RotB toys.
In the quadrupedal stance, the back is about 4" (10cm) from the
tabletop, and the colors are mainly black and shades of gray with varying
degrees of shiny/metallic finish. A somewhat shiny medium-light gray plastic
is used for the lower jaw, neck collar area, inner shoulders, most of the
biceps (there's a black panel over the fronts), forearm cores, fists, part of
the spine, some of the interior torso, hips, feet, and robot feet just sort
of hanging off the back. This is also used for the various accessories with
the exception of the black plastic used on the swords. Black plastic is used
for everything else, including panels on the upper arms, forearm fronts, and
backs.
The eyes, just the tiny pinhead sized centers, are painted metallic
yellowish green. There's extensive warm gunmetal on the top of the back,
much of the face, around the pecs and under the ribs. It meshes well with
the gray plastic. The abdomen is also warm gunmetal in a printed "newsprint"
sort of pattern that fades into dots leaving strips of the abdomen black as
if the metal was scraped off or something. The borders of the forearms
plates are painted gunmetal as well, although the result looks closer to
silver for some reason...maybe just paint thickness differences. Some bits
on the backs of the thighs also have the printed gunmetal with scraped off
parts effect. A silver Maximal symbol is printed on the center of the collar
front. No other paint (or color, really) on the gorilla mode.
The neck is a ball joint mostly restricted by the collar, so it can tilt
a bit to either side and look up and down, but looking down too much (as
you'd need for a bipedal stance reveals a big gap in back. The waist joint
is totally locked down in this mode. The shoulders are hinge and swivel
universal joints with separately hinged shoulderpad flaps. There's upper arm
swivels, inward-bending elbows, swivel wrists, and the hands have two
mitten-hinge joints each so that two fingers at a time can move. Not that
you can do much with the arms since at least one has to remain on the surface
to support the figure, and has to be bent awkwardly inward to do that. The
hips are technically hinge and swivel universal joints, but they can't do
much thanks to all the robot kibble piled up on the legs. The feet are on
transformation hinges that can wiggle a little. As noted above, the legs
lack the range to let the figure stand up on its hind legs without just
falling over.
The hands can hold 5mm pegs if you open the fingers out enough, but
fully closed they block 5mm pegs from entry without being tight enough for
3mm rods. There's rectangular slots on the back for holding the swords, a
rounded and too short 3mm peg on the small of the back that's theoretically
for chain storage, and a 3mm socket on each hip.

If the figure feels a little small for a Leader, they do try to make up
for it with a bunch of accessories: swords, chain, axe, and the Transwarp
Key.
The main weapons that are truly his are the swords. An homage to the
curved swords of the original Ultra Class Optimus Primal, but rendered
monochrome to fit the motif here. Near mirror images of each other, they're
4" (10cm) long with the hilt and inner side of the crosspiece being made of
warm medium gray plastic, while the rest is black plastic. The hilt piece is
pinned in place rather than glued, possibly in order to make REALLY sure that
it passes any drop tests. The blade part is painted silver, no other paint.
The hilt is a 5mm rod, ending in either a 3mm socket (left hand sword) or a
3mm peg (right hand sword). This lets them combine into a double blade 8"
(20cm) long that looks vaguely like an archer's bow if you point the blades
the same way, or a bladed propellor if you don't. The inner face of the
crosspiece includes a 3mm peg, and the front of the crosspiece has a
rectangular (well, trapezoidal) tab that goes into one of the slots on the
upper back of either mode. Interestingly, the instructions never show the
swords going on the hips, that's exclusively for the axe. But they do fit
there, and it's clearly the main purpose of the side pegs. When stored on
the back, the hilts are meant to evoke the pop-out shoulder cannons of the
1997 Primal.
The axe is a bit of a headscratcher, since it's not something Primal
tends to use, but see below for the likely reasons. Like the swords, this is
made of two pieces pinned together. The lower part of the haft is the same
sort of medium warm gray plastic as the hilts of the swords, while the upper
part and the blades are about the same color but a more rigid plastic. The
whole thing is 3.25" (8cm) long. The bottom of the haft ends in a 3mm peg,
so it can go on the end of the chain or combine with one of the swords for a
lirpa or something. Most of the lower part of the haft is narrower than 5mm,
just the top bit is 5mm in diameter, which lets a figure hold it in a
somewhat more natural position. There's also a 3mm peg on the left side of
the middle of the haft, and the back of the same part of the axe has one of
the trapezoidal pegs used for storing the swords on the figure's back. The
instructions only show the axe being stored on the hip, though, never the
back. When stored on the back it looks a bit like a machine gun with the axe
blade being the magazine. There is no paint on the axe.
The chain is made of two identical pieces each made up of five sections
connected by pinned hinges. Each piece is 4" (10cm) long, made of medium
warm gray plastic, with detailing that looks like rectangular chain links
that are so snug that even if the segments weren't solid chunks, they'd
barely wiggle. The four hinges in each alternate directions by 90 degrees,
and each segment has the same length from hinge to hinge. The two end
segments are a little longer because one end terminates in a very short 5mm
peg with a 3mm stud while the other ends in a very short 5mm peg with a 3mm
socket. Some figures can probably hold the chain just by jamming one end
into a fist, but it's more designed to be held by a figure with working
fingers that can open up to shove the middle of a segment into the hand. In
addition to the terminal peg and socket, the molded non-joint cylinder at
either end also has 3mm sockets on both sides where the pin would otherwise
go through, so in theory the chain can attach to anything with a 3mm stud.
In practice, these sockets are a bit tight...if you can cram the peg or stud
in all the way it holds well, but it's hard to do that when also trying to
maneuver around other bits of the toy. The swords and axe can be connected
to the ends of the chain for a sort of manriki-gusari weapon. By connecting
the endcap pegs and sockets, you can make a rectangle (or more generally a
parallelogram) from both chains together, and it's possible to connect them
to the side sockets too and make an awkward loop. The chain is also stiff-
jointed enough that you can use the 3mm pegs on the sides of the swords to
make a sort of battle fork weapon with both blades at one end of the chain.
Because this is still theoretically happening in the timeline that
eventually reaches Revenge of the Fallen, the plot device of Rise of the
Beasts couldn't be the Matrix, but that doesn't stop them from using a
similar aesthetic for the Transwarp Key. Where the movie Matrix was a
spindle curved into a long s, the Key is just a spindle, pointy at the ends
and not terribly wide in the middle. It's a single piece of plastic 1.5"
(4cm) long and 9mm wide at its thickest. It's completely covered in silver
paint and then has orange faintly metallic paint over the crystal bits inside
the housing. Since the orange paint sucks and I'm going to repaint it
anyway, I scraped some off to reveal it's black plastic. It's tapered all
the way, so it can't be held firmly in a 5mm socket fist, although Primal's
articulated fingers in both modes help get a slightly better grip on it.
Given how it's meant to be the macguffin that keeps changing hands, the fact
none of the toys can hold it firmly is appropriate.
http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/NoahBAT5.JPG shows what the Key looks
like after I did some repainting of the orange.
One thing to understand about the weapons and accessories is that to at
least some extent this is a slightly under-budget Leader so they were able to
slip a few extra bits in to bring it up to full cost, and he can share the
accessories around. The axe is reportedly meant for Optimus Prime (the
non-Studio RotB Voyager Optimus lacks any rectangular sockets to hold the
axe's on-Primal's-back tab, but the axe can store on Prime's butt...the axe
may have been intended for Prime but the details suit Primal), the Transwarp
Key is basically a "someone gotta have the plot device" accessory, and the
chains...well, according to TFWiki the chains were part of an early design
and actually showed up in a trailer, but they didn't make the cut in the
final movie. The fact that the instructions for chain storage seem to think
the chain segments are a lot shorter than they really are (I could in no way
get them to store as shown in the instructions) only heightens the feeling
that they're meant for someone else entirely. A lot of people have given the
chain to Voyager Battletrap, who can definitely get a better use out of it.