Dave's Transformers Legacy United Rant: Voyager Wave 8 (United 1)

Animated Universe Optimus Prime (Semitractor)

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

Transformers Animated had a VERY stylized look that resulted in some
rather odd toys, well outside the aesthetic and mechanical boundaries that
Legacy has been setting. As we saw with Prowl, they toned the style way back
while keeping just enough to make it clear these were the same characters,
just through a G1-ish filter. (This also let them recycle the molds for
non-TF:A characters, like Chromia.)

CAPSULE

$35 price point.

Animated Universe Optimus Prime: Good robot mode, although the feet have
issues. Interesting if somewhat fraught with joint popping transformation,
surprisingly show-accurate vehicle mode. I had some bad quality control on
mine, though. Recommended.

RANT

Packaging: Same as Thundertron, and the character art is strongly in the
regular Legacy style, faux-paint and all. He has the other half of this
year's diptych to go with Thundertron, convenient. Now I just need to
remember to cut them out before I throw out the rest of each box.

AUTOBOT: ANIMATED UNIVERSE OPTIMUS PRIME
Assortment: F8542
Altmode: Stylized Semitractor
Transformation Difficulty: 25 steps
Previous Name Use: None with the full epithet
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Autobot Squad Leader
Origin Universe: Animated

Packaging: Two double-ties criss-crossing the chest, a double-tie on
each forearm, a single tie across the upper shins and a double-tie across the
lower boots. The lightbar and axe are each held into the lower left by
single ties. The lightbar may simply be separate for "thickness of box"
reasons, as the instructions don't have it move around or get used as a
shield. You can, however, put it on either forearm as a shield if you want.
The instructions show him holding the extended axe in both hands, but this is
kind of a cheat, as the very tip barely gets into the off hand.
The box back render shows a little bit of silver around the thruster
nozzle of his axe, paint absent from the actual toy.

Robot Mode: Like the Animated Universe Prowl, they did make design
concessions to bring this more in line with the overall Legacy/
Generations/Neo-G1 aesthetic, mostly in terms of having thicker limbs in
places where the TF:A model went super skinny, as well as the usual "greeble
it up" addition of fine details that would make cel animation cost-
prohibitive on a TV budget. Still, it's recognizably the more stylized
Optimus Prime, with a helmet that's vaguely like a batting helmet, Popeye
forearms, and fewer right angles than most Legacy designs. One quibble I
have is that the blue they chose is kinda light and desaturated, which makes
me wonder if the designers were watching a video rip that had the gamma set
wrong. They did get around the "this transformation can't actually happen
without the forearms completely vanishing" issue by having the top and inner
faces of the forearms blue, but the outer and bottom faces that are visible
in vehicle mode are in red with black and silver paint. The molded windows
on the outer faces of both upper arms and forearms are also a departure from
the sleekly abstracted robot mode of the cartoon. Still, given what they had
to do back in the day to get more show-accurate robot modes, it's a
reasonable "cheat" here.
6.75" (17.5cm) tall in a slightly desaturated red, silvery gray, gloss
black, and desaturated medium blue that's lighter than the animation model
usually showed. The light blue plastic is used for the head, fists, inner
faces of the forearms, pelvis, and the boots/feet except for the wheels on
them. Those wheels and the inner abdomen core are black plastic. Dull red
plastic is used for most of the chestplate, the backplate, the outer shell of
each shoulder, the biceps, and the other three sides of each forearm that
aren't blue plastic. The torso core, shoulder joints, shoulder cores, elbow
joints, thighs, and axe handle are slightly silvery medium gray plastic.
Clear colorless plastic (with various clear paints) is used for the chest
windows, axe head, and lightbar.
Despite being clear plastic, the chest windows are painted gloss black.
The paint isn't so thick that light can't get through at all, but the only
time you're really going to see through them even a little bit is during
transformation when the chest panel is folded open. There's also gloss black
on the chest headlight framing area, lower chest, cab stripes on the arms,
and outlines on the face and eyes. The edges of the helmet, including the
nosepiece (this is an open-faceplate design) are painted dark silver, which
is also found on the non-edge part of the axe blade, leaving open the energy
lines. Dark silver is also found on the chest and arms in truck cab
details. The eyes are painted bright blue and the face light blue, with
bright yellow on the chest headlights and the pelvis detailing. A white
outline Autobot symbol is on the left shoulder front. The core of the axe
head is painted a somewhat brighter red than the plastic, and this is also
used on the center of the lightbar. The axe blade, energy lines, and
thruster are painted clear blue. The left side of the lightbar is painted
clear red, the right side is clear blue. In both the axe head and lightbar
cases, the attachment 5mm pegs are left unpainted.
The neck is a ball and socket joint at the top (socket in the head) and
a forwards/backwards hinge at the bottom, although this is mostly for
transformation and doesn't add significantly to the range of motion. The
waist is a snap-in swivel, but due to mold flash on mine it would snap itself
OUT if I rotated it too much. This went beyond the usual line of plastic
where the mold halves met, there was a noticeable lump on one of the disks
that I had to cut off before the figure could turn at the waist without
bisecting itself. Hinge and swivel shoulders that are susceptible to the
same problem as the waist (but mine were just rough to turn and didn't pop
out), bicep swivels (one of which did pop out once but not afterwards, so
possibly just not properly assembled), double hinge elbows. The wrists are
technically ball and socket joints, but restricted to just swivel motion.
The extra degree of freedom is for transformation. Hinge and swivel pinned
hips, upper thigh swivels, hinge knees, instep hinge ankles for flat-feet
posing. There's other hinges in the ankles, but they're purely for
transformation and too loose to support stances. The feet are short enough
that you have to be careful with the knee bend lest the figure fall over
forwards. The knees can bend backwards just a little bit, to evoke the kind
of stance seen in TF:A character models, but the feet don't play along.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, there's additional 5mm sockets on the outer
forearms just behind the wrist joints, and another set on the outer faces of
the shoulderpads. There's 5mm sockets on the outer faces of the upper boots,
and in the centers of all four wheels that are on the boots (not terribly
useful, since they spin). There's a 5mm socket under each heel. The back is
where it gets kinda weird. There's a 5mm socket and a 6mm by 2mm slot on the
back for holding the lightbar. However, there's also a pair of 5mm sockets
on the back that are covered up by the lightbar while not beig used by it.
The axe has an extendable handle, most of the haft is less than 5mm wide
but there's two sections that are 5mm in diameter, allowing it to be held
firmly either in collapsed mode (4.75"/12cm) or extended mode (7"/18cm). In
principle this allows a firm two-handed grip as well, but the figure can't
cross its arms well enough for that no matter what the box render implies.
The upper haft is significantly thicker and has a 5mm peg on either side for
storage or a variant 2-handed grip. Both haft pieces are light gray
plastic. The head is clear plastic with paint, with a large-bladed energy
bit and a thruster nozzle back. The thruster nozzle is a 5mm socket, so
certain Fire Blasts can be used there, and there's a 5mm socket on the left
side of the part where the haft goes through the head.
The lightbar is a single piece of clear colorless plastic painted as
described above, 3cm long by 4cm wide (1.25" by 1.75" give or take). It has
a 5mm peg and a 6mm wide tab on the bottom for connecting to the back, and a
5mm socket on top so you can store the axe on top of it in robot mode. While
the forearm lacks a 6mm slot, the Popeye Arms shape lets the lightbar attach
very nicely as a buckler. It can also go on the shoulder, but doesn't look
as good there.

Speculation: So, why have those two extra sockets on the back that are
totally blocked by but not needed by the lightbar? Thanks to the socket on
top of the lightbar, you can store the axe on his back without removing the
lightbar, so what's the purpose? My guess is that they are planning ahead
for a "jetpack and Magnus Hammer" retool, probably sold at Leader price point
or maybe part of some exclusive pack. I've seen no indication that this will
happen, and it could simply be thinking ahead in case they got the expansion
approved later. The triangle of 5mm sockets really does say to me that they
wanted the option for a larger accessory than could be held on by a single
peg and a rectangular tab, as holds on the lightbar. Similarly, while they
might just be a case of adding structural integrity with as little mass as
possible, the rectangular sockets on the soles of the feet (which end up in a
trailer hitch position) could be for holding the Magnus Hammer. Adding a
full trailer to this mold would be Commander Class territory, though, and
Magmatron has that slot filled for 2024.