After Christmas, the BOGO Legacy and Studio Series two-packs went from $25 to $17, and today they got bumped down to $7. That works out to be like $3..50 for a Deluxe, which at this point is practically giving them away. My store had a number of them left, and I had previously asked my 15-year-old son if he was interested in any, if I could get them for cheap. He used to collect Transformers heavily a few years ago, as recently as Kingdom, but he's not as into them now. Still, I imagine he will enjoy these.

And because I didn't have him yet, I got the two-pack with Knock-Out, because why the hell not. He's a remold of Studio Series Jazz, but they changed a lot of stuff, didn't change some other stuff, and visually he's a very different toy. I know nothing of the character, and I don't care, so from an engineering standpoint this is just an interesting rejiggering of the Jazz toy. I have other toys in the Jazz family (like Golden Disk Jackpot) so I might as well have this one, too. Selective reasoning is how I sleep at night! (That's actually a lie—I've been getting terrible sleep lately.)

I'm also struck by how many of these toys I paid full price for and didn't have to. I mean, of course I had no way of knowing that they were going to do BOGO packs. But, I just got $200 worth of Transformers for like thirty dollars. The value of goods in this world is completely arbitrary and random. A Deluxe-class toy is only $25 because "they" say so. They could apparently just sell them for pennies, if they wanted to.

I got an extra Tarantulas/Elita set for my 11-year-old daughter, because Elita One is a girlformer (she's More Than Meets the Girl), but she patently rejected it. Didn't want it at all. Sad face.

So in robot mode, some parts are obviously still Jazz parts (the shoulders, midsection and pelvis, lower legs) but a number of parts are new (the head and chest, the upper legs, the forearms, the toes). I'm honestly surprised they went to the trouble to change so much. And yet Bombshell got stuck with Shrapnel legs. Go figure.

He comes with a gun and a weird trident blade thing, which are supposed to connect together. It's mildly silly-looking. I like his color scheme—blood red and black, with some grey, but he doesn't look or feel like G1 Dead End. The pelvis and lower legs are both black plastic, but covered in blood red paint applications.

I already knew how to transform this toy! Because it's the same as Jazz. Literally every step is the same.

Vehicle mode is a sports car I don't instantly recognize, but it has kind an Aston Martin flavor to it. It uses a lot of the same Jazz parts, but lacks the rear spoiler, has a different front bumper and headlights, and sharp raised fenders that give it a classy feel. He does not resemble a recycled Jazz in this mode at all, despite having the same windshield and hood and doors.

The gun mounts to the car mode, the weird trident piece also mounts to the car mode. The gun has a very industrial look to it, like it was cobbled together from old sewage pipes or something.

This is not a terrible toy. It wasn't worth the $25 to me when it first came out, but apparently three dollars and fifty cents is the threshhold at which I find it acceptable to buy toys I don't particularly want. (I had thought perhaps he might end up becoming a parts donor for Jazz, if there were any pieces from him that might improve Jazz, but there's nothing.)

One day, when my kids have children of their own, they can come over and I can give them this robot toy to play with that I literally don't care about in the slightest. If I actually remember that I own it by then.

Zob (was trying to remember the details of something I did when I was 17, and then I realized that was 30 years ago... sigh)

It feels like good deals and discounts have been few and far between since the pandemic, but lo and behold, Walmart came on strong with their two packs and other assorted discounts this holiday season. In this time of rising inflation, it's definitely appreciated. When's the last time they did a two pack like this - the Energon era?

I'm a bit disappointed that there haven't been any two-packs that have called to me. Although, at that price, if it were available here, I wouldn't hesitate.

Zobovor wrote:

> Vehicle mode is a sports car I don't instantly recognize, but it has kind an Aston Martin flavor to it. It uses a lot of the same Jazz parts, but lacks the rear spoiler, has a different front bumper and headlights, and sharp raised fenders that give it a classy feel. He does not resemble a recycled Jazz in this mode at all, despite having the same windshield and hood and doors.

Dig out your Jazz and look again! This is a much more extensive remold than that. Entirely different hood, changes to the doors, and both sections of the roof.

He looks better than Jazz, even if Jazz looks more like the character the toy is a representation of. It's also a lot easier to match maroon plastics and paints than white plastics and paints, apparently, so the vehicle mode looks a lot more cohesive. (TFWiki informs me that Jazz probably has yellowed, so it's possible that the various whites once matched)

It's unfortunate that they didn't do something new with the windshield, as the load bearing thin clear plastic can crack easily on this mold family. Less so with Knock-Out than Jazz, but the design just doesn't work with the materials. Even replacing the clear plastic with solid dark gray or black would have been better. Since Jazz was a 2020 release, and Knock-Out was a 2022 release, I would think they would have had enough time to change the plastics when they saw the complaints about Jazz.

It gets Knock-Out well enough to evoke the character, but not so well that everything that doesn't match looks wrong. He doesn't look like the Prime character so much as he looks like a G1 character based on the same archetype.

I am torn on whether I like the arms better on this version or the TF:Prime toy. The original had the side windows fold into the arms, in a technique that they have been trying to make work since the 2007 movie Jazz (front fenders there), and which never really worked as well as they hoped. But, it's also a very unique look that I don't think was ever used in G1, so seeing it done on a G1 style toy might have been interesting.

> I have other toys in the Jazz family (like Golden Disk Jackpot) so I might as well have this one, too. Selective reasoning is how I sleep at night! (That's actually a lie—I've been getting terrible sleep lately.)

Your sleep is as selective and sporadic as your reasoning. I've always been tempted by Jackpot just for his little blue Pterodon Sights. Way back, when Age of Extinction came out, there was a blue redeco of the BW Terrorsaur mold, which I am weirdly fond of.

On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 2:50:14 AM UTC-7, GustavoWombat wrote:

> Dig out your Jazz and look again! This is a much more extensive remold than that. Entirely different hood, changes to the doors, and both sections of the roof.

Yeah, you're right. Quite a few more differences than I would have expected. If cost-cutting is the goal, I can't imagine they're saving a lot of money when they end up changing the original toy so extensively.

> It gets Knock-Out well enough to evoke the character, but not so well that everything that doesn't match looks wrong. He doesn't look like the Prime character so much as he looks like a G1 character based on the same archetype.

We have the Transformers R.E.D. version of Knock-Out at Walmart, and it doesn't even look like the same guy to me. The styling on the action figure version is very diagonal and angular. Everything jutting out at weird angles.

If they really wanted to reuse Studio Series Jazz, I'm surprised they didn't just give us Stepper/Ricochet and call it good.

Zob (needs a nap)

Zobovor wrote:

> On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 2:50:14 AM UTC-7, GustavoWombat wrote:

>> Dig out your Jazz and look again! This is a much more extensive remold than that. Entirely different hood, changes to the doors, and both sections of the roof.

> Yeah, you're right. Quite a few more differences than I would have expected. If cost-cutting is the goal, I can't imagine they're saving a lot of money when they end up changing the original toy so extensively.

I expect that figuring out the transformation and tolerances is the most expensive part, and this cuts a number of steps out of the process of creating the toy -- even if they are replacing the thigh or forearm, they know that if the new part is the same length as the old one, with the joints in the same spots, that the likelihood of needing revisions from the test shot are a lot lower.

> If they really wanted to reuse Studio Series Jazz, I'm surprised they didn't just give us Stepper/Ricochet and call it good.

That would have been a safer choice. But it wouldn't do anything to gauge the market for TF:Prime-like toys, and the G1-ified approach to characters from other franchises. That knowledge might have been worth more than a mediocre toy in wave 2 hurt.

Did they need to make Arcee, Knock-out and Bulkhead that barely looked like their TF:Prime selves to gauge the market? Eh, not sure they needed all three for that.

>> It gets Knock-Out well enough to evoke the character, but not so well that everything that doesn't match looks wrong. He doesn't look like the Prime character so much as he looks like a G1 character based on the same archetype.

> We have the Transformers R.E.D. version of Knock-Out at Walmart, and it doesn't even look like the same guy to me. The styling on the action figure version is very diagonal and angular. Everything jutting out at weird angles.

Now look at TF:Prime Optimus, Ratchet, or Megatron, and compare to G1 versions -- all are recognizable, but a different iteration of the same guy. Megatron might take more cues from 2007 movie.

I think what they were going for with Knock-out was a G1 interpretation of the character -- the opposite process to going from G1 Optimus to TF:Prime Optimus. And, assuming that was the goal, it was pretty successful. Not as successful as the Reveal The Shield Lugnut from 2010 or so, but decently successful.

Now, whether anyone really wanted the result of that goal... apparently very few did. Which is sort of a shame, as it means we will never get a G1-styled TF:Prime Megatron, which would somehow try to pull the Movie Megatron look into a G1 style, first dragged through TF:Prime. It would have been... probably a disaster.