Dave's Transformers Legacy Rant: Core Class Wave 9

Cheetor (Cheetah)

http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/Core9

The rest of the wave is reships. This is Beast Machines Cheetor, but
the name on the package does not include the universe.

CAPSULE

$12 price point.

Cheetor: Pretty good other than some inexplicable tabs and pegs that
interfere with range of motion without adding anything useful, plus the usual
problem of all-yellow-plastic looking kinda washed out and cheap.
Recommended, but you might want to do some modifications.

RANT

Packaging: Same as wave 8. The Beast Machines Maximal symbol is used in
the nameplates, but there isn't a "Beast Universe" label. Granted, Beast
Machines isn't a separate universe from Beast Wars, and Beast Wars is the
default Cheetor universe for purposes of Legacy...not that there's been a lot
of main Beast Wars toys in Legacy, most of them got done in Kingdom. Beast
Wars Universe Silverbolt needs to specify the universe since Silverbolt is
also a G1 character with a relatively recent toy. Beast Wars Universe
Tigerhawk and Beast Wars Universe Magmatron would argue for Cheetor deserving
a universe designation, though, since there aren't any other Tigerhawks or
Magmatrons. In any case, this isn't enough to point at any "Hasbro is
secretly ashamed of Beast Machines" theory like some have been proposing.
Maybe they're saving Beast Machines revival toys for 2025, since while BMac
dropped in late 1999, it was mostly a 2000 series.

MAXIMAL: CHEETOR
Assortment: F8520
Altmode: Beast Machines style cheetah
Transformation Difficulty: 12 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Origin Universe: Beast Wars

Packaging: Five plastic ties hold the robot to the inner tray, one each
on the crossed swords (when you fold down the inner tray flap, the swords can
just be pulled out without cutting the ties). The right forearm was not
snapped on properly and fell off when I freed the figure from the package,
which was a problem because I cut the ties over a trash can. Had to spend
some time fishing the arm back out.
Inset shows the swords combined into a sort of propeller weapon. The
package art has the beast mode with the swords angled forwards, something the
actual toy cannot do. The instructions now include a little "opening box"
symbol on the part that's for getting the toy from in-box mode to proper
robot mode.

Robot Mode: Yeah, this is definitely the leggy Beast Machines version,
although some of the coloration doesn't really work...I think it's because he
was almost always under deep shadow or harsh lighting in the cartoon, plus he
had a lot more spots than even the relatively generous paint budget on this
toy can manage. I suppose a brown ink wash would go a long way here,
though.
The actual height depends on how you pose the legs, since they're
supposed to be seriously bent even at rest, but you can straighten them to
get a stilt-like effect. Also, storing the swords on the shoulders as in the
"unboxing" instructions adds a few millimeters. Height to the top of the
head ranges from 3.5" (8.5cm) to 4" (10cm) while still being able to stand.
The main color is bright yellow, with various metallic paints.
There's three kinds of yellow plastic, but I think it's unintentional
batch variation given that the distribution is not symmetric for the lightest
type (it's on one forearm and the opposite beast foreclaw). Except for the
hips being noticeably darker under normal light, the difference is really
only clear under UV light, though.
There's faintly metallic copper on the sword blades, shoulder outside
details, belt, and the tops of the feet. There's dark metallic purple spots
on the chest and the top of the head. A warmer violet paint is used for
spots on the shoulders and thighs, plus the "eyeblack" under his eyes and the
"dark with cut-out highlights" pupils. Metallic green is on the jawline and
the outer pectoral edges. The abdomen muscles have gold paint on them, and
the nose is outlined in black.
The neck is a smooth swivel, the waist technically has a transformation
hinge but it's locked down by the beast head. Ball joint shoulders, elbows,
and hips. Upper thigh swivels, hinge knees and high digitigrade ankles. The
toes are not articulated. At least on my copy, the elbows are really easy to
pop off, especially when trying to peg the arms to the sides for beast
mode...or unpeg them. Or get the swords onto the shoulders. They're not
loose in the floppy sense, they just come apart way too easily.
The fists can hold 3mm pegs, that's it for standard connectors. There's
weird pegs and tabs on the arms and legs to lock the limbs in place in beast
mode. The swords are similar scimitar types with 3mm peg grips and
rectangular tabs for storage in the shoulders. The left sword has two 3mm
pegs on either side of the hilt, while the right sword has a 3mm socket to
let the swords combine into either a wing or a spinning blade (whichever peg
doesn't go into the other sword goes into the hand). Each is 1.75" (4cm)
long and curved.

Transformation: Fold the beast head up off the backpack, fold the beast
paws out from the forearms and snap them into the fists via 3mm pegs. Unfold
the torso so that the tail can be folded out, and then position the limbs to
taste. There's tabs and slots designed to lock all the limbs into a single
position, but it's not a GOOD pose, although it almost shoves the stowed
swords as far forwards as show in the box art. (It's kind of a "calibrating
wigglebutt.exe" prior to a pounce pose.)

Altmode: Okay, a very stylized cheetah with overly long hind legs and
bladed shoulders (even with the swords removed the shoulders have a swoosh to
them). The tail is kinda short, but it does have to hide completely along
the spine of robot mode, so they did what they could. The robot face isn't
really hidden, it just pokes out under the beast neck. The instructions say
to turn the head 180 degrees, but the bicycle helmet style back of the head
pokes out even worse in this mode if you do that.
3" (7.5cm) long from snout to tail tip, and the pegs for the limbs keeps
them inside that range. You don't need to peg any of the limbs, though, and
a longer bodied pose is certainly possible. All the newly visible plastic is
also yellow. The head has metallic violet spots on the neck and forehead,
plus the facial stripes are also metallic violet. The nose and eyes are
black.
All of the arm and leg articulation from robot mode is present, if less
useful. No neck articulation. The tops of the fists are still accessible if
you want to plug the swords into them, but they look better on the shoulders.
If you want to do some customization beyond just a brown wash, I
strongly recommend removing all the lockdown tabs. They get in the way of
beast mode range of motion, and add nothing to the play experience. They
even make it hard to get the swords onto the shoulders in robot mode, since
the arms are forced away from the body.

Overall: A generally good mold with two main drawbacks. One, anything
done in entirely yellow plastic ends up looking cheap in part because mold
detail is washed out. Two, those stupid tabs that get in the way in beast
mode.

Dave Van Domelen, doing Legacy United Deluxe next, but figured this
would be a good quick review after the relative slog of reviewing
Reactivate.