I was in my local Target, failing to buy anything I went in for because they have put most of the store behind plexiglass, and I saw Studio Series 106 Optimus Primal -- a toy that I had pretty much assumed I would never see. And he wasn't even behind glass.

So, I did what anyone would do, and shoplifted him.

(Fun fact: Target is filled with cameras, and they use facial recognition software to identify shoplifters, but they do not stop or prosecute until someone has stolen enough to make it a felony, and a bit more just in case some of their evidence gets thrown out in court or isn't clear enough. They probably mean this as a way of ensuring that there consequences, but it means that they have given everyone at least $750 of free merchandise, so long as you take it -- just go through self checkout and ring up something else)

(I don't make the rules, I just report them. What you do with this is up to you. If we are living in an enshittified dystopian hellscape, it is worth knowing the rules.)

A few notes.

While the Japanese Ultimate Optimus Primal borrows heavily from the original BW Ultra for its transformation scheme, 106 borrows from Transmetal Optimus Primal -- swing the backpack over the head to reval the other chest, do a head swap, pop open forearms to switch hands, and fiddle with the legs to add shins. Each step is different from TMOP, but the basics are there.

Paint choices are far better than UOP -- there is a much bigger difference between the plastic and the primary paint color, so he doesn't read as a solid dark figure. UOP has a lot of paint, but so much of it is a very dark gunmetal that it blends into the black plastic. 106 also has a lot of medium gray plastic along with the almost-black, so there's a lot more visual contrast. 106 has a lot of weathered paint applications, so he looks a lot dirtier than UOP.

There's a lot more molded detail than UOP. I love UOP, but he really feels like he should be redecoed as a BM Optimus Primal because everything is so smooth and stylized. There's both a lot more molded fur and a lot more molded movieverse mechanical bits and shards. This feels like a ROTB toy. UOP weirdly feels like it should be a Black Panther toy.

Head sculpt uses a BW mouth slit, and has painted eyebrows and crest. There are lines cut vertically in the mask that pick up light and shadow -- I initially thought it was more weathering, but that's just shadows. Really nice. UOP in contrast has a more simple face mask, and weirdly sad eyes -- sad like he's depressed, not sad like they just didn't turn out well.

And 106 just looks evil. While UOP has enough very classic hero proportions and details that he reads as good (except for the thighs, which remind of of something on the original BW Ultra Megatron, as the molded fur is subtle enough that it looks like the wrinkled reptile skin), there is nothing on 106 that takes away from the "black and gray with shards of metal must be evil." If you wanted a Nemesis Optimus Primal for some reason, this would be where to start.

(Would ROTB have been a better movie if the Maximals were villains -- like the Silver Surfer to Unicron as Galacticus? It would have at least changed the story from being a McGuffin hunt, even if it was character assassination on our Maximal friends. Primal believing humanity will kill themselves anyway so what's the big deal he's sparing some other world, Prime teaching him that humans have value... ok, I can't see movie Prime doing that)

Nothing falls off during transformation. This shouldn't be notable, but it is these days.

Articulation is very good, including a beast mouth. The robot head is on a restricted ball joint, and the thigh swivels are a bit more restricted than we have come to expect. There are butterfly joints for beast mode, and reverse butterfly joints for robot mode. He has a mid-foot joint for transformation that allows him to do more dynamic poses in robot mode where his weight would be on the toes of his rear leg. He could also do my physical therapy exercises.

He's tiny. Slightly shorter than the ReActivate Optimus Prime or Thundertron. I know that the current Leaders are Voyagers with a few extras, but he really comes across as small. There are a lot of moving parts on this toy, however, with a lot of metal pins and screws, so I can see how it works out with labor costs, but it's weird that he was on the shelf next to Studio Series Snarl for the same price. He is at least a really well done toy.

Comparing him to Thundertron, it's almost comical that for every part of Thundertron's robot mode, 106 uses roughly twice as many pieces. He does not come across as cheap in any way.

He comes with two swords, an axe and a couple lengths of chain. Some of those are accessories for another toy, but honestly he looks good with an axe.

Swords and axe have 2mm pegs to fit on ports on the hips for storage, as well as tabs that fit into slots on the back for over the shoulder storage. It bothers me that the tabs are on the handle below the cutting edge on the scimitar, so if Primal were to reach over his shoulder and pull out his weapon it would be upside down.

Every joint in the chain has a metal pin. Unfortunately, the end pieces have bulbous parts about 2mm up, which means that even though the ends are 5mm wide, they cannot be easily held by standard 5mm fists, so gifting them to another toy as whips is a little more fragile than I would like -- had that worked, these might have been the first Transformers chain weapons that I really liked.

Overall, this is a really good toy. A bit pricey, but still really good. I'm not sure he is better than UOP, or worse -- they each make an entirely different set of trade offs, and it's kind of wild that they represent the same character.

(I wonder if that $750 theft limit includes sales tax...)

Best preface to a review ever.