Man, I’m intimidated by writing this thing about Masterpiece Rodimus Prime. He’s a Masterpiece, as just noted like five words ago, and so there’s a lot of stuff going on with him.
Let’s start at the beginning. Masterpiece Rodimus Prime was first released over in Japan, where he had a billion more paint apps and he came with the trailer to make Rodimus Prime’s altmode. That version transforms into Hot Rod’s robot mode, Hot Rod’s car mode, Rodimus Prime’s robot mode, and Rodimus Prime’s truck mode. It cost $250. It was kind of a lot, but it was a big trailer, I guess. I was happy not to buy it.
Our version drops the trailer. And so you get Hot Rod and Rodimus Prime’s robot modes, but only Hot Rod’s car mode. Really, I don’t feel like I’m missing much. You don’t really transform Hot Rod’s car mode into Rodimus Prime’s truck mode so much as you put the trailer around the whole thing like a shell. There’s not much of Hot Rod’s car mode visible. The car just fills in the bottom, supplying wheels and the spoiler. Meh, I say.
And so I’m happy to get the American version for $60. Yeah, it’s missing one of its four modes, but that mode was formed dumbly and I’m not a huge Rodimus Prime fan anyway. No, I’m in this for the idea of having a huge Hot Rod toy. Back in the 2000s, Hot Rod starred in some BotCon fiction set during the Beast Era as one of the leaders of the Wreckers. And since Maximals and Predacons are tiny dudes compared to Autobots and Decepticons, Hot Rod was a giant among them. However, his original toy was not very large, and was in fact smaller than most of the Maximal and Predacon toys. This was annoying. WELL NO MORE. I now have a huge Hot Rod to put with my Beast Era Wreckers. And because Hasbro is clairvoyant about my desires, they even decoed the domestic version to look like Hot Rod’s toy, instead of like Hot Rod’s animation model like the Japanese version.
Also, because Hasbro knows I love Targetmasters, only the domestic version of Masterpiece Rodimus Prime comes with a new Masterpiece version of his Targetmaster partner. His name used to be Firebolt, which apparently Hasbro’s lost the trademark to, so now he’s “Offshoot.” Whatevs. He’s a Masterpiece Nebulan, which is awesome, because now the ranks of the Masterpiece toys are Optimus Prime, Starscream and his redecoes, Megatron, Grimlock, Hot Rod, and… this Nebulan guy. Ha ha ha ha.
Hot Rod is not fun to get into vehicle mode. Some Masterpiece toys aren’t so bad about this. Prime, Grimlock, maybe Starscream it’s been so long… but Hot Rod is just difficult enough to drive me wild. It always starts out easy, and as I start plugging along, I start to think maybe I’ve finally learned how to get him back and forth easy-cheesy and then BAM I hit his legs and I get things as far as they’ll go and I have a car mode that’s bent at the middle like it melted in the sun. And I’m sure I’m doing something really tiny and trivial incorrectly, but do I really care? I’ll just put him back in robot mode. It’s not worth the effort to dissect the process.
Which is part of the reason I applied his shoulder stickers. They’re intended to be optional, because putting his original-toy-accurate shoulder stickers on his shoulders means there’s shoulder stickers on his car mode. But I’m not ever gonna keep him in car mode. I’m really not. He’s gonna stand at the back of my Wreckers display, looking rightfully huge. So there you go.
Getting Hot Rod into Rodimus mode is very easy. You open up the head and swap faces, and then you finagle his hips down a notch, making him taller. Oh, and you can spread his spoiler out wider, but that’s kind of an imperceptible change anyway. …Oh, right, and his two Hot Rod guns combine to form his Rodimus Prime rifle. That’s pretty great. Almost forgot.
He comes with two Matrixes. (Matrices?) One is small enough that it can fit into his chest. It is ridiculously tiny. The other Matrix, another accessory that’s exclusive to the American release, is one that’s scaled large enough for him to hold. It opens, which is neat. (It’s not the same as Masterpiece Optimus Prime’s, which also opened. This appears to be original tooling.)
Hot Rod also has flip-down binocular shades, a wielding torch hand-replacement and a buzzsaw hand replacement, all things which Hot Rod used in the 1986 animated film. Those I’m not terribly excited about, but I guess it’s nice they exist.
The Japanese release of this toy had the trailer, but apparently it also had a bunch of engineering and quality control problems. Those have been fixed, so I’m told, for this American release. They’ve also been fixed for the Japanese versions going forward, I think, so, uh, if you get a Japanese version, make sure you get a new one.
Man, where’d I put my Wreckers symbol Reprolabels…
Fun fact – they lost the trademark for Firebolt to Harry Potter.
So you can blame the uptick in witchcraft and occultist worshipping.
Oh no, my preacher was right!
I think Hot Rod was the last Transformer I bought back in the 80′s. I thought it was interesting how they suddenly stopped making them look like “real” cars.
I’ll have you know that Hot Rod is exactly how cars will totally look like in 2005.
On getting the car mode right: I had the same problem. For me, I wasn’t folding the ankle joints correctly. Somewhere out there (I saw it on tfw2005) there’s a picture of his underside in car mode, and you can see how close his feet are to his head (they should be almost touching). Once you get that lined up, and fold his palms flat against his wrists, everything should fold together much better.
It’s not really the replacing part so much as the causing the death of bit that really makes me hate him.
Surprised you didn’t complain about the inner arm bit that has to be popped into place if you move the arm. Something I find insanely annoying myself.
I feel even worse about it, after I found out that this is the one thing the Japanese mold does better, as it’s something of a solid piece that moves with the arm. Supposedly, as I don’t own that version either.
You must learn to forgive!
Oddly, the spoiler is supposed to be wider for Hot Rod. I think the pushing it in is to make Rodimus seem taller. A bit. Sort of.
I quite like him. He’s a bit fiddly, I agree, but I think less so than the Seekers. The only masterpiece that’s easy to transform is Grimlock, and that’s because he’s virtually a copy of the original toy just made bigger and awesome. And yeah, the Japanese version doesn’t transform into his winnebago mode so much as drive backwards into it, which is far too close to cheating in my book.
I still have to pick this up but I’m going to go insane when I get the new MP Optimus next year and put these two together. I’m planning to have a display up of the MP’s, Classics Op and Protector Rodimus and the Revolvtech Optimus and Rodimus shaking hands in front of the Diamond Select Matrix of Leadership!
(As a cheat I will be using the clasping hands from Magnus for the Revolvtechs.)
Maybe AMERICANS hated Rodimus for replacing Optimus, but considering this Headmasters DVD collection I got for my birthday, it seems that the Japanese loved the shit out of him. They wasted no time offing Optimus (sorry, Convoy) a second time, practically minutes after his revival in RoOP.
Wait, so what I infer from your post about not caring about certain accessories is that you aren’t all that fond of the 86′ movie?
I picked this up as well and the only thing that bothers me is that weird elbow flap, I really feel it’s going to break off.
Not really a fan, no.
Huh, I had never realized that and I’ve been reading shortpacked! and your Tf reviews and what not for a long time now. What about it bothers you? As a massive fan (despite the flaws) of the film I’m curious.
Great idea about MP Hot Rod with the Beast era Wreckers.
Hadn’t thought about that, and own the Japanese version for months now.
-airfox
My only issue with the US version is the recoloring. The Takara version’s color scheme and paint all look much, much better, but I’ll admit to being biased toward the cartoon colors over the original toy colors. Maybe I’ll grab the US version and try painting it myself…
but… i LIKE rodimus prime…
Man, I never hated Hot Rod when I was a kid(and I’m still fine with him today). Maybe I just wasn’t as critical minded as other kids who watched the movie back in the day, but I just don’t think I ever really bore him a grudge for his involvement in Prime’s death, or taking his place.
I’m glad they fixed the problems that led me to sell my Japanese MP Rodimus. Maybe I’ll try to track down the US version for my Church of Rodimus.
I can understand you not having a Botcon Cyclonus, but I’m surprised Universe Skywarp isn’t in that Wreckers picture.
Wait, so I’m looking at the Hot Rod/Rodimus toy list, wasn’t there a target master Hot Rod? I’d swear I remember my brother having one. This is going to almost bother me. Almost.
It’s on the list. Third toy listed.
(I assume you’re talking about the toy list on TFwiki.)
huh. I see that toy, but…that is not the toy I remember. Shit is that at my parent’s house, my basement or my brother’s garage. There may be a missing-link Hot Rod toy out there. Cause that target master Hot Rod does not look like what I remember. If I find it, and it proves to not be that toy, I will take pictures, shitty pictures, with my phone, cause it is the only digital camera I own(sorry I like my 35mm even though I have to special order film).
You forgot MP Ultra Magnus, and the little Dr. Arkeville that comes w/ Starscream and his group.