A little while ago, I was alerted by ViceGripX to a restock of this item on the Walmart web site. I had placed a pre-order at the end of last year, only for Walmart to cancel the order for some reason as the shipping date approached. I really wasn't looking forward to paying aftermarket prices for this guy, so I was glad that he was made available again.

Doing redeco versions of G1 toys in cartoon deco as opposed to the classic toy colors was a stroke of genius, and it's the reason that I'm buying these toys yet again, despite already owning G1 vintage originals and Takara reissues in many cases. The disparity between the original toys and the animation colors has always bugged me a bit, and some of you may know I even took to a few of my G1 toys with model paints in an effort to "correct" their appearance. This version of Soundwave is very close to what I attempted to do to mine, all those years ago, but I can transform this one without worrying about the paint coming off!

Like the Blaster retro reissue, the box for Soundwave includes the "40 Years of Transformers" logo created for the brand's anniversary. The box art shows Laserbeak in the spot next to Soundwave's shoulder that was previously reserved for Buzzsaw (who tends to be the pack-in toy in most cases) as well as Ravage down by his feet. It's the original 1984 box art, but it's been digitally color-corrected to reflect the new colors on the toys, so now Soundwave's box art has red eyes, Rumble is no longer visible in his cassette door window, and none of the factory- or consumer-applied stickers are in evidence. It's more accurate advertising for what's in the box, so it made sense to make those changes. Certainly more accurate than featuring the G1 box art on the packaging for the Titans Return reissues, that's for sure!

The tech specs for the three characters are highly truncated, due in part to the fact that they crammed in different versions in five different languages. Soundwave's also contains a spelling error, in which he's described as an "opprtunist" [sic].

The mold is the modified version where the cassette door hinge is connected to the tape deck buttons, and it's the edition that can only hold one cassette instead of two. However, despite this mold being over 40 years old, it's in fine shape, and all the joints are tight. You don't see too many vintage Soundwave toys that can stand up straight without flopping over at the knees, but this reissue stands proud and tall.

Soundwave himself is cast in a brighter shade of blue than we've ever gotten before, and I love how vibrant it is. The silver parts (forearms, upper legs, etc.) and vac-metal parts (eject button, cassette player buttons) are all now a uniform light grey plastic, closely matching the G1 animation colors. His die-cast metal toes have been painted a medium grey color, and the stripes around his cassette door are a bright yellow. It's honestly the most beautiful this mold has ever looked.

This version of the toy doesn't have stickers, but there were still some paint applications required to give him the right color mapping. He's got the all-important red stripes around his wrists, the red stripes on his shoulder cannon and handheld gun, and he also got some yellow-painted vents on his knees, all in service of replicating his animated look. The large Decepticon symbol on his chest is tampographed, and the cassette door itself is a translucent blue. Putting tapes inside his chest kind of disrupts the blue, though. I wonder if painting the window opaque, like they did with the windshields on the "Autobots Stand United" 5-pack, might have been a better idea.

The only paint application I would have liked to see, which they didn't do, is to paint part of the hinge where the lower arm meets the upper arm, so that the bicep piece could be a uniform blue color. One odd paint choice they made was to color the eight individual circles on the front of his shoulder cannon. They're painted red on this version, and that was never the case with the G1 toy or the cartoon. It's actually an artifact of the original 1984 box art, where these circles are illustrated as tiny pointed missiles. I've also seen these parts painted on some knockoff versions of Soundwave. It's an interesting choice, to be sure.

Cassette player mode uses paint to recreate the blue stripes on either of his legs that were previously factory-applied stickers, and while he loses some detail as a result (the low battery "light" or the arrows pointing to the record and stop buttons) he still has the sliding on/off switch and volume knob. The guns still stow in his backpack where they serve as "AA" batteries for his cassette player mode.

Ravage is very pretty. He's a dark shade of grey, not quite jet black, which matches his animated look. In cassette mode, he's missing all the painted detail on his obverse side, which is unusual, but it's authentic to how he was drawn on the show. His cassette window is painted grey, as are his lower legs. In his animal form, the guns are a painted metallic silver rather than chrome, and he has a painted Decepticon symbol on his left shoulder. They redid the paint application for his eyes, which are now red and a triangle shape, which brings him a bit closer to his cartoon design. I didn't think I would care much about cartoon versions of the animal cassettes, but they actually did a great job on Ravage and I really, really like him.

Laserbeak uses stickers to achieve his animated look, but they're not the same as the stickers on any of the G1 versions or reissues. His observe side has a plain grey sticker for his lower body and plain red stickers for the feet and wing hinges, with sideways Decepticon symbols on the sides of the feet. The grey always represented the silver sticker on the G1 toy, but it's done here in such a way that actually captures his animated look, which has never been done before on the G1 toy. It reads clearly as cartoon Laserbeak in a way that no version of the toy ever has.

Transforming him reveals a surprise, because his eyes have been completely redone. They're in a different spot on the head now, much higher up on either side, rather in the recessed area in the center of the head. It's a very different look, and it shocked me a little at first! It was very clearly done deliberately, but it's so "wrong" that I'm not sure if I like it yet or not. The beak is unpainted, and retains the same square hook-shape as always. If they've given him a nose job, he could have benefitted from a more cartoon-like, sharpened beak.

Laserbeak has the same not-quite-black plastic as Ravage. The top of his body is the same die-cast metal as before, painted red. The tops of his wings eschew the elaborate detailed circuitry and components for a more austere sticker design featuring silver with two plain red panels, and Decepticon symbols in the center of each wing. He doesn't wear the sticker on the top of his head any longer. His guns are painted metallic silver, like the ones for Ravage. They are the modified guns with the much shorter gun barrels, which makes them less fragile but a little less impressive.

Wow. So, I love Soundwave anyway, but this release makes him even more amazing. Producing the G1 toys in cartoon colors brings them to life in ways that I thought were only possible with fan customization and Testors brand model paints. I'm really quite pleased with him, overall.

I wonder how many more of these they could conceivably do? Optimus Prime seems like an obvious choice, one which I think would be a good move during this, the 40th anniversary of the brand. I guess we have to ignore characters whose production molds are lost or destroyed, even though you could make the argument that cartoon Dinobots would be a great idea (blue Swoop, baby!). They could probably get away with doing the Constructicons. I think Jazz would sell if they produced one with minimalist paint operations and cast his robot parts in an off-black color. Astrotrain would be a great idea, since it would be close enough to the very expensive eHobby "anime" edition. Ultra Magnus and Galvatron would both benefit enormously from being produced in their cartoon color schemes. So would Kup. Man, Kup is such an obvious choice. He should have been, like, the first one they did.

Well, anyway. I really do wonder how many more of these are planned. Something tells me there are fewer ahead of us than behind us. But, maybe I'll be proven wrong!

Zob (a cartoon version of G1 Wheeljack would be dead sexy, too, but again, you'd need a working production mold for that, so...)

Great review, Zob! And, knowing how important fidelity to the cartoon is to you, it is gratifying to see that this Soundwave was so well-received.

Curious: does the plastic and metal itself feel different? I ask because I have seen other folks asserting that the weight itself feels “less than” - that these Movie reissues in general feel “cheaper” - and am curious for your thoughts. Or, have the materials themselves simply changed over the years?

Thanks again, Zob, for the great review!

Joseph

Great review as always Zob, and love the positivity as always JB.

I'm also curious as to the quality. I've got the Retro Hound and Hot Rod, and my opinions are mixed.
Hound's fantastic, although I have nothing to compare him to. Hot Rod is markedly inferior in quality to the previous reissue, both in terms of plastic and assembly (torso keeps popping out).

Dammit, Zob, stop posting glowing reviews for toys of characters I'm writing about. Never once have I felt the slightest desire for a Soundwave toy and suddenly I'm all... "Huh." And checking if he's available for the UK. (He is. This is terrible.)

Velvet Glove (for the record you're currently banned from reviewing G1 cartoon faithful versions of the Constructicons; Or I can just finish this story and get it out of my system.)

JosephBardsley wrote:

> Curious: does the plastic and metal itself feel different? I ask because I have seen other folks asserting that the weight itself feels “less than” - that these Movie reissues in general feel “cheaper” - and am curious for your thoughts. Or, have the materials themselves simply changed over the years?

1980's plastics were a little more dense, but they were more rigid and tended to snap under pressure. Modern plastics are more resilient and can bend a bit without breaking, and that's due in part to the tiny, microscopic air bubbles mixed into the plastic. So, I would say that modern plastics are more spongy and probably weight very slightly less as a result, but not so much that it would be detectable by human hands.

However, in the interest of science! I dug out my digital scale, and while a vintage 1984 G1 Soundwave (without weapons) weighs 186.67 ounces, the retro reissue actually weighs slightly more, at 188.71 grams. I think this can be explained by the extra thickness of the tape deck buttons, which are protruding significantly from the pelvis. So, the reissue is actually heavier, by about two paper clips!

I don't think he feels cheap, personally. I've handled a lot of knockoffs over the years made of low-quality plastic, but this doesn't feel like that to me.

Zob (the retro reissue has much tighter joints than my floppy vintage G1 unit, which I like)

> Zob (the retro reissue has much tighter joints than my floppy vintage G1 unit...)

*snip*

There's medication for that, you know...

Thanks again, Zob, for procuring and sending this guy my way, as well. It means a lot, and is truly appreciated!

JB