Optimus Prime

Review by NekroDave

Much like previous Super Shoguns, Optimus Prime was teased long before it was officially available for order. People started to think ever actually having it in their hands was a pipedream. When it finally arrived, it was more like a nightmare. Let's dive in and start with the basics.

By now you know the drill with the packaging. You're going to get a large shipping box, a brown cardboard outer box and a full color glossy inner box. 

Notice that the box no longer lists a number in a series like the Star Wars Super Shoguns did. You do still get Shogun Warriors inspired text on the side of the box.

All good so far, even if these extra large boxes for modern jumbos are starting to take up way too much space. They take up about twice as much space as your average vintage jumbo. 

Once out of the box, Prime looks pretty good at a glance. He's got that classic upright stance of vintage jumbos and the sculpt is pretty nice.

At least, I think it looks fine. Some people were underwhelmed by the sculpt, suggesting that it looks like a scaled up ReAction figure. But ReAction figures are based on how toys looked in the 1970s and so are these jumbos. You're mileage may vary, but it works for me. 

Admittedly, some of the colors do fall flat. The face in particular comes off as a little bland. 

Most of the toy is classic polyethylene with some painted areas. Polyethylene is notoriouslly resistant to paint so I have some concerns about how well those areas will hold up. There is already some scuffing on the back of mine right out of the box.

Those windshield stickers on the chest come pre-applied. The sticker for the waist does not. In fact, you get two different ones you can choose from. One is just the grill like you would expect to see on a normal Optimus Prime toy, while the other has writing that is more evocative of vintage jumbo machinders. As I'm a jumbo guy more than a Transformers guy, I chose to go with the classic name across the waist. 

So here's where I'll start to point out the problems. That sticker? Yeah, it doesn't really fit. Or stick well for that matter. That part where the grill is is too wide to fit comfortably in the crevice where it goes. So it needs to bend which looks bad. Then when it inevitably starts to peel up, it's hard to get some extra adhesive in there to hold it back down. Same thing with the sides. I stuck them on, only to come back to it a couple hours later and they had lifted up. I had to spray some adhesive on it to get it to stay down. For a $350 toy, I shouldn't have to do that. 

But that's execution, what about design? Well, the name on the sticker says "Cybertron", not "Optimus Prime". That seems dumb to me. I've been told that it's technically correct, but I don't really care. It should say Optimus Prime. The toy was sold as Optimus Prime, it says Optimus Prime on the box, the waist sticker should also say Optimus Prime. So there's another two cents on top of the $350 I already paid.

I applied my sticker before deciding to write this review but here's how the other one looks, still on the sheet.

Cybertron, I mean Optimus Prime, comes with a blaster that he can hold in his right hand. The blaster itself is rather bland looking, with not much detail. That doesn't bother me that much because again I prefer that old school simplicity. But many old school jumbos have a missile firing feature and this blaster not shooting anything feels like a glaring, obvious oversight. I mean, how cool would it have been if the smokestacks on his shoulders could come off and be fired from the blaster? With some modern jumbos, figuring out how to store missiles that don't really belong on the character can be a challenge but this one was RIGHT THERE. Opportunity missed.

As I said, Prime holds the gun in his right hand. There is an opening for the handle in his fist and thankfully, this time there is no trigger finger like on the Stormtrooper and Shadowtrooper. It looks a little awkward and I worry about the fist being made out of two pieces for some reason, but I guess it's not too bad.

But are you noticing anything amiss in those last two pictures? Yeah, on my specimen at least, the wrist isn't strong enough to hold the gun in anything other than a perfectly balanced upright position. Move it even a little and this happens. 

So on someone's recommendation, I decided to wrap a thin elastic band around the wrist to help stablize it. But for a $350 toy, I shouldn't have to do that. 

The other fist launches via a button on the top of the arm. 

There are wheels on the bottom of the feet.

Possibly the coolest and most character appropriate gimmick promoted on this toy was that the chest opens up to reveal the Matrix of Leadership.

It would have been cool if it were removable, but it's not.

I worded my description of this carefully to indicate that it was cool when it was promoted. When it arrived though... not so much. The doors do not stay closed! There is no mechanism to allow them to latch together. Nothing. No clip. No latch. No magnet. No tab. Nothing. So simply tilting the toy forward a little bit lets the doors just flop open, whether you want them to or not. It's incredibly frustrating. I took to folding a couple of small pieces of paper to just enough thickness to help them stay in place by friction. But for a $350 toy, I shouldn't have to do that. 

I just want my jumbos to look good on a shelf and this will do that. I like Transformers, but I'm not super passionate about them. The price was high for what you get but luckily I'm in a place where I can handle it. But if you're a budget collector who loves Optimus Prime and wanted to actually play with this thing, you'd be right to be furious about shelling out the cash for this. Optimus Prime deserves better and so do the fans.