Transformers Prime: First Edition

(or: Why I Spend Too Much on Plastic)

It has been quite a while since I last got on here to do a post that wasn't me making excuses for not posting. That ends today.

There isn't much better than taking a taboo topic, throwing my opinion at it, and providing some photos. Of course, any lengthy discussion on the economics and oft cruel realities of the American children's toy industry will be avoided altogether, simply because I've already gone into that. What I'll really be ranting about are the First Edition figures of Optimus Prime, Cliffjumper, and Bumblebee, along with an explanation of why they are so much better than their mainline counterparts. To begin our exploration, let's pause for a moment for our sponsor, Energizer:

Because throwing something with a Decepticon logo into your battery package will get me to buy it

To begin with, let's take a look at Transformers Prime: First Edition Cliffjumper, since he dies first and all that. This toy is gorgeous. The proportions are right, it actually transforms (more on that later), the face is decently expressive, the red looks nice, the alt mode is cool, and I could go on for awhile. This is a toy you would want to own.

This is not. This is his retarded cousin, whom I can only assume in this instance would be named Dwayne. Of course, this is really from the Transformers Prime: Robots in Disguise line, which I will not call Robots in Disguise for the remainder of this blog entry because that's blasphemy. The reasons that this thing sucks can be summed up in two ways, first, a picture:

The mainline Cliffjumper is on the left, the First Edition on the right. See how the one on the right looks like it transformed somewhat intelligently and wasn't a mess of panel forming? How it doesn't have awful looking open space everywhere? That's why the First Edition is better. For more information on why the mainline version sucks, I recommend Tabiturf's comprehensive Youtube review, because why repeat something that someone else has already said.

Next, we'll move on to Transformers Prime: First Edition Bumblebee.

Yes, the arms have some flaws and yes, it's another damn Bumblebee toy. Something happened though when I first got this guy way back in early November - I transformed it back and forth repeatedly for a couple days. Remember kids, being fun to transform can make or break a design in my book.

Here's the mainline version, and while it isn't necessarily awful, when you put it next to the First Edition one, it is very awful. I can sum up pretty easily why this is. Let's check the face/chest areas of both.

Expressive, clean, well painted, and good color contrast to boot.

Simple, a bit messy, minimal design, and a head so ugly that my camera absolutely refused to focus for this shot after dozens of attempts at adjusting lighting/etc. This is all discounting the fact that the head is on a freaking gear that won't let the head sit normally. Plastic on plastic gears are only a better idea than one thing, that being plastic on metal gears.

... Not what I was referring to, but thanks anyways Keroroscream.

There's one more Transformers Prime: First Edition toy to explore and compare for now, because the mainline Bulkhead and Arcee aren't out yet, and the two Megatrons aren't even the same size class.

Mmm, now there's an Optimus Prime toy. Tall, bold, imposing, and looking like a leader.

Although the mainline one isn't really that much worse, right?

Compared to Cliffjumper and Bumbleebee, Optimus seems to have had the least amount of crap engineering by the mainline team.

I can't say that I mind how this gun looks when the Mechtech button is pressed. But why, why, why the hell must I hold it down? I didn't mind that so much with the smaller Dark of the Moon toys, at least their weapons still looked like weapons when not "activated", but this?

What is that? It looks like he attached a semi broken PC tower to his arm. Horrendous. There's another way I can compare these two.

Transformers Prime: First Edition Optimus Prime looks like a badass, a robot that could go in and do some damage to his enemies.

Yes.

The mainline Prime, on a shelf with no human assistance, really just sort of looks like he'd be laughed at by Real Gear Robots.

With his mighty clear blue brick of doom, and his mighty gray stick of power... uh... no.

To conclude, it really is too bad to see the dichotomy between what is capable versus what we'll get as a mass release. I understand completely wanting to not alienate your target market by making simpler, smaller toys to keep down price points, but I can still be a little bit sad about it. That's really all I have to say about that.