Perceptor doesn't come with any handheld weapons, but thankfully he can borrow his old one.
Unlike Wreck-Gar, Lugnut, and Kup, Perceptor doesn’t happen to be in my Hall of Awesome. I mean, I like Perceptor well enough, I guess, but he’s always just kind of there, y’know? Being a scientist. Being a buzzkill. Being a favorite subject of slashfic, apparently. (Slashfic writers love their repressed nerds.) Besides, I think I got all of the “How I Feel About Perceptor” out of my system when I talked about his Toys”R”Us reissue a while back.
But right at the beginning, let’s get this out of the way: Perceptor’s a bit of a shellformer.
If you’ve got Perceptor’s legs, you’ve got 75% of his vehicle mode. It all wads up in there, the entire back half of his truck mode. During transformation from robot to truck, you unfold all these panels and treads and assemble the back half of the truck. Next you wad up his robot mode inside this truck shell you’ve created, and seal it off with the truck hood that’s on his back. It is not terribly compelling, and it can be very frustrating at times. It’s not, like, Side Burn level or anything, but it’s just not my favorite transformation style.
Something old, something new, something borrowed from someone blue.
But on the positive side, I think I am positively in love with his robot mode. I’m not sure exactly what it is that does it for me. Maybe it’s his lankiness. I’ve always thought Perceptor should be more lanky. I mean, he’s a nerd, right? He shouldn’t be the same pile of rectangles that everyone else is. I love how his forearms taper organically. Maybe what’s happening is that his more angular shape puts me in mind of his All Hail Megatron redesign appearances in IDW comics, particularly his role in Last Stand of the Wreckers, which anyone who reads this blog regularly should know that I have a boner for. The shape of the chromed piece on his chest definitely calls out to his design in that series, though I don’t know if this specific call-back was intentional, or whether it was merely a side-effect of Hasbro’s intentions of retooling Perceptor as Reflector. Reflector’s chest is shaped like this, after all.
(It is because of his design’s similarity to LSotW Perceptor that I am happy to lend him Blurr‘s sniper rifle.)
Wonder which vehicle gets worse mileage.
Back to Perceptor’s chromed chestpiece. Yes, Perceptor has chromed parts, which is eyebrow-raising for a mainline Hasbro product. It just doesn’t happen that often. I guess someone at Hasbro thought it was important? Me, I can take it or leave it, in theory, but I do kind of think it makes him stand out a bit too much from his peers. Plus, well, you know how much I like the C joint system, with the clips? The dials on Perceptor’s wrists have C joint rungs sculpted into them. Two per. Sweet, right? No, because the vacuum-metalized coating makes these rungs too thick to work with the clips.
It took me a while to notice this, and at first I was wondering why Perceptor felt so, well, gimmickless, compared to the rest of his contemporaries. He doesn’t have a handweapon, only the truck-lights-become-his-shoulder-cannon thing. (I’m not sure how the cannon’s crosshairs helps, what with it being set behind his head.) I kept thinking I must be missing something crucial. But no, it’s just that his compatibility with the rest of his wave is hindered by his chrome. Kinda annoying.
I do like his choice of altmode. Frankly, I never liked the microscope. He didn’t even ever look like a microscope so much as a robot folded into something that sort of looked like a microscope, if you were mostly blind. So I’m happy that Hasbro remembered Perceptor’s third mode, his mobile tank/cannon/thingy, and ran with that instead. Yay, half-track SUV!
Anyway, his chest opens up, the end.
TFSource.com is considering sponsoring Shortpacked! in the future, so in a practice flexing of my web-muscle, here’s a link to their RtS Perceptor order page. He’s (of course) sold out at the moment, though, so maybe a link to the Japanese United version would also be prudent?
Hi, never really posted here before, but I just read over your review of Generations Perceptor. I don’t actually own one yet, but I remember watching in a video review of him sometime ago that he was designed so he can actually hold the weapons that the reissue TRU Perceptor came with. I am not sure if this is true, but I recall seeing it demonstrated in that review, though since I don’t own one I haven’t tested it out yet. Anyway, just some food for through.
You can see Perceptor holding original Perceptor’s weapon in the very first image of this review. The gun has a 5mm peg, which has been standard on most Transformers for quite a while:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/5mm_post
I love the robot mode, but the alt-mode completely mystifies me. What… is it? Do half-track SUVs even exist? Why would they? What does it have to do with being a scientist? I get the homage in it, but it’s a weak one, and it lacks any other value that I can see. I understand if Hasbro wants to specifically avoid the Real Gear Robots idea for this line, and honestly I prefer not having to think about the “mass shifting” or whatever, but this answer seems nonsensical to me.
One idea that I think would make more sense is a standard van (such as field scientists use all the time) that has a “research station” third mode a la the new Human Alliance toys. It could be completely made-up and clip-system-implements-tastic, and I’d be happy. As for the second-character retool, I could see Ratchet, if Hasbro would be interested in doing him again so soon. Obviously I’m just spinning my wheels here; what’s done is done. And I really want to like this toy… but unless I can find some kind of explanation for what it turns into, I’m going to pass.
Or you could just leave it in robotmode and keep telling yourself it turns into a microscope.
Or pretend it’s a dimension-hopping Animated Perceptor: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:PerceptorAnimated-altmode.jpg
See? That fold-out rear portion! That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Derek Wyatt’s got my back here.
Half-track SUV makes sense as a scientist if the person in question is a paleontologist or something… a scientist who needs heavy-duty support equipment for fieldwork.
…unfortunately Perceptor isn’t that kind of scientist.
Perceptor doesn’t happen to be in my Hall of Awesome
He may not be in the Hall of Awesome, but Perceptor IS a Tour Guide to the Wall of Fame.
If it doesn’t turn into a working microscope what’s the point of a new Perceptor figure? I suppose you’ve got to have him around if you’re going to re-enact Prime’s death, but beyond that was anyone really attached to this character?
Really, I just don’t see why this toy was made at all. When you’re remaking something, isn’t it generally a good idea to at least try not to throw out the one thing that made the original memorable in the first place?
I disagree. See it’s not like Perceptor ever transformed much in fiction. He really just hung around in bot mode and acted like a cross between C3PO and Reed Richards. This toy can do that perfectly. Microscope would have been cooler IMO, but this still gets the basic job done.
Perceptor is a very, very, very popular character. He’s just not a favorite character of mine.
More importantly, Perceptor is the favorite character of Hideaki Yoke, the guy who designed the original toy for Microman, and who still works on Transformers today.
WFC Soundwave head and gun, NOW! You still have your dremel right?