When Capt--HAWKEYE throws his mighty shie--ARROW.
The last of two scheduled Transformers Animated toys are hitting Toys “R” Uses now. (In the states, anyway.) There are a few others that Hasbro let us know might happen, but we don’t know anything about their release, so these might as well be the last two.
One of them is the awesome Rodimus Prime. (Well, Rodimus Minor, if you go by his packaging. Hasbro thought there were too many Primes in the toyline, and he’s definitely Rodimus Prime in the fiction.) I wasn’t super-anticipating his toy versus the others. I mean, he looked awesome, but I was looking forward more to the upgrades of existing characters because I am a retarded doofus like that. I like characters, and Rodimus didn’t do very much. What he did was mostly awesome, but it was within the span of a few minutes. The most noteworthy thing is that he’s voiced by Judd Nelson again, the voice of Hot Rod/Rodimus from the 1986 movie. (Nelson was too rich for the third season’s blood, and they got the talented Dick Gautier to replace him.)
If you're gonna ride, ride in style.
But, let me tell you, this toy is pretty damn neat. And, after riding the crest of my recent Hot Rod character model nerdgasm over-analyzation, it was good mental timing. Remember how I was going on about how Hot Rod is pink? Well, this toy still isn’t pink (though the Japanese release is metallic purple), but it’s definitely more purple than Hot Rod or Rodimus toys usually are. The photos show him next to the Challenge at Cybertron Rodimus I recently got, which is a very vibrant watermelon red, which does make Rodimus look purpler. I also compared him to the darker red of the original Classics Rodimus, just to see if he was indeed purpler, and he is. Not quite as much to be as accurate as I was pining for previously, but definitely an improvent.
Blackout's not so big! He's just standing on a riser!
Animated Rodimus also transforms differently from every other Hot Rod toy. His arms are formed from the back of the vehicle rather than tucking under either side of the hood. This frees up his legs to be relatively kibbleless, and those tuck up underneath the car. It’s a welcome diversion from the usual approach.
The only annoying part of the transformation is entirely my own fault — I always forget to flip the hot rod engine panel over to the Autobot symbol side during transformation, and I never realize my mistake until I get to the point where I have to take everything apart again to give it room to rotate.
I guess another annoying part is how rough it is to get the crossbow plugged into the top of the roof of the vehicle. There’s not much clearance for the back ends of the missiles, and since the connection is pretty shallow, you’re more often than not likely to shoot missiles everywhere rather than attach anything.
That said, he’s pretty, dynamic, and fun to play with. If you spot him, I’d recommend picking him up. He shows what wonders Hasbro and Takara were able to do in translating the Animated aesthetic into plastic form, especially after much practice.
*sigh* Well, guess it’s time to keep hitting TRU once a week for the next 3-4 months to find this baby like I did Animated Arcee.
Ironhide is shortpacked this time, so Rodimus is more plentiful.
I’m worried that my Ratchet mountain will keep this wave out of my TRU, but I hold out hope that I can find him and Ironhide before too long!
I like that when you compare the two, the Transformers Animated Rodimus has a head that is actually proportional to the rest of his body.
Hrum…what’s the look on Rodimus’s face? He appears to be either sticking his tongue out or having a stroke in this picture, and clearly neither of them is right…
That aside, he’s a nice looking little toy. (Although if they didn’t want to call him Prime – kinda silly, given it’s Animated, but, whatev – why they didn’t just call him Rodimus, I don’t know.)
“they got the talented Dick Gautier to replace him”
That sounds either like sarcasm, or that Gautier is reading this blog and you don’t want to offend him.
I loved Gautier’s Rodimus. His dead-pan fatalist humour was great. “You have two options: suffocate, or smother” is a hilarious, especially for an 80s children’s cartoon.
I meant what I said! He was the friggin’ SOGMASTER, dude!
Rodimus points: To get his chest to lock down, the key is that his windshield attaches to tabs on the back of his neck.
Also, when going to robot mode, you can flip over the symbol last.
Are people having trouble getting his chest to lock down? Because that step was pretty obvious to me.
And you can’t flip over the symbol last, since folding his wheels into there is another step, and they completely cover the panel.
Really? I can flip the symbol with the wheels folded. Yep, symbol’s flippin like mad. Flip flip.
… the last step in the instructions is to flip the symbol.
And yeah, I hear people complaining about his chest being all floppy.
He’s vaguely a Hawkeye homage, so that means I must own him.
Huh. Animated Rodimus’ got some twiggy legs (but bulked up arms and some strange scowl) compared to his CoC self.
…is he on the juice again?
A grand number of the Animated characters seem to have that same physical build. That is one of my problems with Animated Optimus.
But… but… Creators, cover up your bumper man! Some people can see into you muffler. It’s embarrassing!
http://quizilla.teennick.com/quizzes/278266/transformers-generation-one-personality-test
Buh. I meant this one:
http://www.liquidgeneration.com/Media/Games/The_Ultimate_Transformers_Quiz/
I can’t be the only person that, at a glance, thought we were looking at an Animated Dinobot here. Maybe I just have him on the brain.
Oh god I want Animated Blackout so bad, too bad the only ones my Toys R Us’ have are Cybertron Ratchet.
As far as we know at the moment, Blackout’s only going to be available from Japan.
Aw nerts, my dreams are shattered
Where did you find Rodimus in Columbus? Were there any left?
We found them at Sawmill on Friday. There weren’t any left.
Is something wrong with my eyes? I totally don’t see him as purple.
Since our TRU never got Arcee and Ratchet (they were holding out until they sold those last two Oil Slicks) I was shocked as heck to find all four of the exclusives today. I think Rodimus is probably the best mold of the 3, but that may be my love of the character as I rather prefer him to Opie. That said, the shiny face and expression thereon DO feel a little off.