So I went overboard and bought a Leader Class Optimus Prime along with the previously reviewed Bumblebee.
Package views.
Character biography and the arbitrary stats sheet.
Optimus Prime removed from his package. He seems to be surrounded by a gigantic ancient Chinese bamboo scroll with Sanskrit-like characters interspersed with the occasional Autobots or Decepticons emblem. I love how Sanskrit (or Sanskrit-like characters) make things look more badass by empowering them with mystical awesome. Various body parts are restrained by elastic bands.
Front view. It is roughly 25 cm tall.
Rear view with fancily-folded kibble.
The toy has no proper Automorph gimmicks. To make up for it, it has introduced the Mech Alive gimmick which animates certain parts. Also, this toy comes with lights and sounds. In this case, pressing the tab above the waist makes the gears inside the truck cab move and animates the truck cab panels. Sadly, the gears skip a little on one side. The head tilts up as you press the tab down, lights flash and the speaker inside the stomach says, “I am Optimus Prime.”
After countless attempts at trying to snap a picture of the blinking LEDs, I finally succeeded. I love the light-up eyes although they could be brighter.
Vehicle mode. Transforming the toy took a while as the manual did not provide clear directions on how to do so. The smoke stacks are made of soft plastic so that little kids won’t go instantly blind when they poke their eyes with them.
Rear view. In vehicle mode, there is a button at the bottom left of the back of the truck cab which plays tinny truck engine sounds that go on if you keep holding it. The back trailer hook is actually a pin that presses a switch at the last step of transformation into robot mode and activates the classic Transformers transforming sound. I can’t spell it but I’m sure you know how it sounds like.
On to articulation. The head only rotates sideways roughly 30 degrees to either side as the truck cab panels get in the way. I’m surprised the light-up head even rotates. The shoulder and elbow joints are ratchet joints. The arms and hands rotate along their axes. Too bad the hands do not have articulated fingers the 2007 movie version had.
Each arm houses a blade which is spring-activated by pressing the gray button on the inside of the forearm. Unfortunately, the truck panels block the blade and I have to flex them a little bit to make them stay folded.
This toy does not have a waist joint. The hip and knee joints are ratchet joints to hold up the weight of the toy. The knees bend 90 degrees. It has ball joints for the ankles to keep the feet planted on the ground.
The large ball joints pop off the feet without much force.
I can’t think of any nice action poses. I’m broke now.
Bay doesn
[...] an unrelated note, I noticed that someone on Craigslist linked to my review of Optimus Prime. I never expected such a plain nondescript review to be linked to. There are so many more famous [...]