Dave's Transformers Collaborative Rant: Stranger Things X Transformers

Code Red (Pizza Van/Volkswagen Vanagon)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Collab/CodeRed

Disclaimer, I have never watched Stranger Things. And this one has a
pretty serious Licensing Tax (both Stranger Things and Volkswagen, although I
suspect the VW one is a tiny portion of this), running $45 shelf price. I
got it for about $30 on sale, though, which is a bit more reasonable.
The assumption everyone has is that this is a retool of Siege Ironhide,
but is it? Nope. The lower legs transform similarly, but it goes from a van
smaller than Ironhide to a robot much taller than Ironhide. Here's a
comparison pic: http://www.dvandom.com/images/CodeRedIronhide.JPG .

CAPSULE

$45 shelf price, Target exclusive.

Code Red: Decent vehicle mode, transformation that is similar to Siege
Ironhide's while being otherwise distinct, and a robot mode that is...not
worth it. To add insult, the accessories mostly rely on 2x6mm tabs, but
there's plenty of transformation-securing tabs that could have been
compatible with this but inexplicably are not. Unless you're really a
Stranger Things fan and want this for the novelty, pass. Even at steep
discount I feel I didn't get my money's worth.

RANT

Packaging: So, the idea here is to look like a pizza box. Of course,
it's rather thick for a pizza box unless you're doing some serious deep
dish. It's 8" (20cm) square and 2.5" (6.5cm) deep. The front uses the
Surfer Boy Pizza deco but with the Transformers logo down the right edge in
creepy red outline on black. The upper right has the Collaborative logo,
with Demogorgon as the left side logo. The lower left has a fake menu/coupon
sticker showing the renders of both modes, and the telephone number and
address for Surfer Boy Pizza. Oddly, it's a 775 area code, which did not
exist in the time period of Stranger Things. Ah, a little googling shows the
number is a show-related bit of promotion. The top of the coupon also has
Cybertronian reading, "DELIVERED HOT TO YOUR DOOR".
The left side of the box is a more traditional render of robot mode with
the various logos. The right side is blank black except for a Netflix logo,
"Who's watching?" and Code Red's face as the user icon. The back has full
sized renders of both modes over a faux-80s palm tree sunset sort of
background, with Code Red's name in Cybertronian. There's a small VW
licensing bit in the lower right. The top is blank white, the bottom is a
pizza box "list of ingredients" with Pineapple checked off, and "+JALAPENO"
scrawled under it. The customer is Code Red.
The outer box is a slipcase, sliding it off reveals a standard pizza box
lid, albeit with the Stranger Things logo at the top. The bottom of the box
is blank except for the Stranger Things logo and a reference code. Opening
it up reveals printed grease stains on the inside of the lid and an inner
tray with a pizza printed on it (it does indeed have pineapple and jalapeno).
Removing it shows a pizza crust and more grease. Vehicle mode is wrapped up
in kinda parchment-like paper with "kiddie drawing" versions of various
characters from the show. The pizza restaurant roof sign is attached to the
vehicle mode in the package. An Autobot symbol tissue paper binds up the
accessories (axe, mace, fireball, and pizza box) in one edge of the inner
tray. While it's not mentioned in the instructions, part of the inner tray
can be detached to wear as blinder shades, which are apparently also a thing
from the show (11 wore them for the Vecna fight, according to more googling).

AUTOBOT: CODE RED
Collaboration: Stranger Things
Assortment: F7139
Altmode: Pizza Van
Transformation Difficulty: 16 steps
Previous Name Use: None
Previous Mold Use: None

Packaged in vehicle mode, details above.

Altmode: This is a licensed VW Vanagon microbus with a pizza place sign
on the roof and various pizza place logos on the sides and front. It's worth
noting that there's no place to store the weapons inside, they just take
advantage of non-standard rectangular tabs and slots to attach onto the
hinges between the middle side panels and the rear side panels. You can
reduce the kibble load on the sides by opening up the sign into gun mode so
the pizza box can go inside and the blast effect can go on the front,
otherwise it's an unwieldy clump of tabbed together pieces on either side.
4.75" (12cm) long, making it 1:38 scale. The body is mainly light
yellow and the windows are turquoise blue. Most of the shell is light yellow
(almost cream colored), but the windshield piece and the middle side window
panel pieces are clear turquoise blue plastic. There's some metalswirled
gray hinge pieces on the sides of the roof and above the rear bumper (where a
license plate would normally go). The wheels are unpainted black plastic,
and the roof sign is light gray.
There's light yellow paint on the non-window parts of the clear plastic
panels, so-so match to the plastic. The windows molded on the yellow plastic
are painted turqoise, including the rear windows which have a lot of seams to
work around so there's four distinct paint applications involved. The front
and rear bumpers, grille, windshield wipers, and rear corner vents are
painted gloss black. The turn signals (front and rear sides) and taillights
are painted gloss red. The headlights are painted the same turquoise as the
windows. The side windows and the molded VW symbol on the front grille are
painted silver. There's a lot of dark red printed text, with "Surfer Boy
pizza" on the front below the wipers and above the grille, while the sides
have "pizza" over each front wheel and "Surfer Boy" on the side panel
rearward of the front doors. So, on the driver's side it reads more like
"pizza Surfer Boy". Below the Surfer Boy on the sides is in smaller mostly
black text, "DELIVERED HOT TO YOUR DOOR" with "HOT" in larger letters and
red. On the back, above the headlights, are the Volkswagen logo and name on
the left, and "VANAGON" on the right. The molded VW logo on the back is
picked out in black printing as well. The sides of the roof sign are painted
dark red with a thin unpainted border, and then "Surfer Boy" in white
semi-cursive font over larger yellow "pizza" on both sides. If you open it
up as a gun, the tech details inside are painted gloss black save for the 3mm
peg muzzle. The wheels are molded with hubcaps, so silver paint on them
would not be unwelcome, but it's something the owner will need to add
themselves.
The axe and mace are made of clear turquoise plastic with gloss black
painted handles, the fire blast is also rigid clear turquoise plastic but
mostly covered in opaque golden yellow paint with the light yellow at the
very tip. The pizza box is light gray plastic with the pizza box imagery
printed in dark red on the top. More description of their dimensions and
connectors in robot mode below.
There's a rectangular socket on the roof with a sunken bit for the
not-used 5mm peg of the sign, so that the sign goes in and can't rotate. The
side hinges have narrow slots in them which are primarily "everything has to
be somewhat hollow" slots, but they're used to attach the accessories as
mentioned above. No other intentional connectors, but the hinge holes on the
underside of the rear bumper are 3mm if you want an excuse to let the Vanagon
catch air on a flight base.
No articulation or opening doors. It rolls well on the pinned wheels.

Transformation: There's certainly similarities to Ironhide's engineering
beyond the shins, but no more than is inevitable for "boxy van to robot".
You're supposed to start with the side panels, but on mine they stay put way
too well and I need to loosen them by cracking open the rear roof first.
Probably the most difficult part is getting the tabs on the shoulder roots
into slots in the windshield/chest piece, it can take a bit more force than I
like to use when clear plastic is involved. You also need to be careful that
the collar area is aligned properly, if its tabs are above the chest rim they
can't be snapped back below it after you get the shoulders in place.
Oh, one significant engineering difference on the boots is that while
the hinges are also snap-on like Ironhide's, they're a lot more solidly
connected and do not have the snap-OFF tendencies Ironhide and his moldmates
have.
Going back to vehicle mode is fairly easy, although the rear roof
segments need to be slid around the tab at the back of the main roof before
pushing them together.

Robot Mode: This almost feels like a knockoff, in that the proportions
are all skewed and the lower torso is just a super narrow pelvis and that's
it (really needed a pelvis skirt piece or something to cover that up). It's
as if they had a requirement to make this as tall as possible in robot mode,
so strung some bits out. That, or they didn't expect anyone to ever open the
mint packaging so why worry about what the thing that will be eternally in
vehicle mode in a ball of parchment looks like? Sigh. Anyway, the head is
molded kind of like a sports helmet of some sort, with a boom microphone
extending from the right earcup.
6.5" (16.5cm) tall, which is in Voyager range, but about a sixth of that
is "too much leg." I mean, above the waist it's basically a Deluxe, putting
me in mind of the Energon combiners you'd get when you stuck a Deluxe on top
of a Voyager. A lot of light gray and some black and medium gray join the
color scheme in this mode. The head is completely made of clear turquoise
plastic with only the goggles left unpainted (so, no...they forgot to put a
lightpiping gap in the back of the helmet). Light gray for the upper arms,
forearms, and thighs. Medium gray for the shoulder roots, shoulder joints,
elbow joints, ankle joints, and collar/neck root. The fists, abdomen,
pelvis, and hip joints are black plastic.
The only new paint for this mode is on the head, which is mostly silver
with gunmetal on the face, earcups, and boom mike.
The neck is a ball joint with the socket inside the head, the waist is a
smooth swivel but can only turn a little bit before you have to untab the
backplate. Pinned universal joint shoulders, swivels above hinge elbows,
ball joint wrists that are mostly limited to swiveling except for the stowing
direction. The window panels on the back are hinged, so you have a little
variety in how you want them to be posed. Pinned universal joint hips, upper
thigh swivels right below them, hinge knees that bend up to 90 degrees, and
ankle hinges to keep the feet flat.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, and that's basically it for standard
connectors. There's rectangular 2mm by 6mm slots on the upper shoulders, the
inner faces of the "wings," and on either side near the head of each weapon.
The 2x6 slots from vehicle mode are also accessible in this mode, if a little
blocked. Yeah, so they made up an entirely new connector type just for this
toy. All the weapons have 2x6 mm tabs on them somewhere, and the pizza box
has a 2x6 mm slot on its back. What makes this INFURIATING is that there's
so many other tabs and slots on the robot that are incompatible with this
bespoke system! The tabs on the forearms are a little too wide, the tabs on
the thighs are a little too long. There's no real reason those tabs and
slots had to be incompatible, they just didn't THINK about it.
When opened up into gun mode, the roof sign is 2.75" (7cm) long. It has
a 5mm peg that's barely long enough to let it be held by the robot's fists,
and 2x6mm tabs sticking out on either side above that which go into the upper
shoulder slots. There's not quite enough clearance to let them go onto the
wing slots. I suppose you could mount it on the outer face of a boot, but
that looks worse than the shoulder mount, and the shoulder mount is no
prize. The muzzle of the gun is a 3mm stud, designed to hold the Fire Blast
effect. The Fire Blast is meant to be a fireball, it's 1.75" (4.5cm) long
and has hollowed out sides rather than being a nice rounded fireball. The
paint on it is opaque and is golden yellow in the middle and light yellow at
the front, with a blend. Too bad they couldn't spring for a sprue gating
that would have let this just be made of clear yellow plastic. It connects
via a 3mm socket at the end, but the socket is inside a 5mm peg so this can
be used as a weird club.
The axe and club are both about 2.25" (5.5 to 6cm) long, with the club
being a little longer because it has a 3mm stud at top and bottom while the
axe has a 3mm socket on the bottom and 3mm stud on top. Thus, you can
combine them into a single larger weapon if you want, or place the Fire Blast
onto the top of either weapon, or give the sign-gun an axe for a bayonet.
Each has 2x6 mm tabs on both sides at the base of the weapon head. The axe
has 2x6 slots on either side near the top of the haft, so there's weirder
ways you could connect the two weapons if you really wanted to.
The pizza box is 19mm by 19mm by 5.5mm, and in robot mode it really just
exists to be an ammo box for the sign-gun. The 2x6 mm slot on its underside
is really just for half-assed vehicle mode storage.