Clockwise from top right: Sideswipe, Breakdown, Red Alert, Sunstreaker, and Counterpunch
I’d meant to gab on about Generations Red Alert back on Monday night along with that week’s Toy News International strip, but the Mike statues done shown up on my porch and Red got knocked back.
(Only a handful of Mike statues remain!)
As the TNI strip mentions, there’s a lotta versions of this mold right now. I own five, but there are about four more between Japanese versions of three of these guys and an additional (super super rare) G2 version of Sideswipe. It’s not the greatest mold, but it isn’t terrible. How is it that the toys that get redecoed the most are the ones that are actually pretty mediocre? The original Seeker mold, the Classics Seeker mold, Dinobot… (SHUT UP SHUT UP DINOBOT IS AWESOME)
As I’ve mentioned previously, no matter how terrible the toy, the more versions of one toy I accumulate, the more desirable extra versions become. It’s absolutely nuts. Maybe it’s like mob mentality, how people get dumber in groups. Well, these large groups make me dumber!
Of course fire chiefs drive around in lamborghinis. Why do you ask?
Red Alert himself isn’t a bad version of the mold. If I had to rank him by prettiness compared to the others, he’d probably rank a distant second after Breakdown. Breakdown’s color scheme has no equal, so that’s just not terribly fair, but them’s the breaks, Red. The way the white and gray and sharp red play off each other is striking, just enough to edge him out over his primary color brothers.
As for the tooling itself, he’s probably second-to-worst, just ahead of Tiny Head McGee, aka Mr. Punch/Counterpunch. Why? Well, because of the light bar on the roof, you can’t mount his engine thingy on his back in robot mode anymore. In addition, the holes on his shoulders are no longer large enough for him to peg his weapon into. So Red Alert’s forced into having to wrap the engine thingy around the gun and peg the whole thing into his wrist… which is an incredibly unstable arrangement even before we realize that this larger gun configuration conflicts with his forearm kibble.
So that’s annoying.
Beast Machines Deluxe Jetstorm was redecoed quite a few times, and it was an awesome mould.
Still, the general idea is sound.
The mediocreness is probably why these figures get so many remolds: easier to rework a fairly generic toy than a super recognisable one.
Regarding the engine thing – I don’t know why Hasbro keeps including that Sunstreaker-specific accessory for every version of this mold they release.
I agree, as Sunstreaker is the only version of the mold I actually cared about it for. Not to complain about an extra accessory but I have no use for the engines included with the other guys.
The funny things is Henkei Alert could mount the engine in robot mode if he wanted yet Generations Red Alert can’t due to the different placements of the light bar.
Sideswipe’s techspec bio claim of having a rocket pack is finally actually true, and you’re complaining?
Does Red Alert finally have his own instructions, or is he the latest victim of Sunstructions for Sideswipes?
Oh gaw-, that Dinobot mold. I love Dinobot with a blazing passion, but I was pretty happy when they finally released a new mold instead of recoloring the old one. Everytime someone switched the one on my DVD shelf to dino mode I had to switch it back because the way it looked bothered me so much.
Okay, I’m a huge whore for the Classics/Generations/Whatevs Seeker mold, so when I saw we were getting more Seeker love with the coneheads I did a little shuffle on the toy aisle at work. Then looked around self-consciously. Then did it again.
I may have even “Wooo!”‘d.
Arrrrgh. I’ve been looking and looking for this Red Alert. Apparently there is a forcefield in effect around my city for 40 miles, because Red Alerts have been spotted just outside that distance for weeks, but nothing has shown up around here. >:(
I already have the Henkei one, but Red Alert is my favorite character, so of course I have to get him. And stealth force Inferno.
If you don’t rotate the doors on the arms (leave them pointed down and back from his hand), it shouldn’t be in the way of the “giant gun” set-up.