Review - Dirge (2009) / ROTF, NEST

Revenge of the Fallen Dirge

I've avoided most of the Revenge of the Fallen toys like the plague after I ended up selling most of my toys from the first film. I've bought a couple of RotF toys and regretted it, especially the Leader Optimus & Jetfire. When Dirge ended up hard to get in the UK, I looked at the toy, thought it was quite interesting and snagged him when he was cheap ($13.99) at Big Bad Toy Store.

Dirge looks like a Harrier Jump Jet, albeit with the wings mounted slightly further back and an odd X shaped tail fin arrangement. As befits a jet named after the original Decepticon Jet Dirge he's a dark blue jet with gold edging. He's got a clear cockpit canopy which folds forward. A black landing gear folds down from under the nose, while two smaller gold (fixed) wheels fold down from the body where the wings meet it. Under each wing is a missile launcher, similar to those found on the original Decepticon Jets moulded in dark blue plastic with a black trigger & neck ring. It fires a gold missile with a fin sticking out of each side of the nose.

Transform: Fold the landing gear up and remove the missile launcher. Push down on each wing to pop them off of the engines and away from the body. Pull the engines away from the nose. Fold the engines down under the jet so the rear of each jet comes together to form the waist. Turn each engine round 90 degrees so the inside of each intake faces each other. Swing the engines back 180 degrees under the jet so the air intakes face backwards. Fold the waist and legs 90 degrees forward locking into place. Pull the tail back 90 degrees. Rotate the nose of the jet 90 degrees relative to the waist. Fold the fake cockpit canopy up onto the robot's chest. Fold the top of the jet back 180 degrees and then fold the rear half forward over the front half to form a shield. Fold the arm out that it's attached to and point it upright. Fold the cockpit down 90 degrees. Open the canopy, fold his right hand out and close the canopy. Raise his right arm upwards. Slide the frame on his back up, raising the fake air intakes and head. Close the head halves together. Fold the real air intakes down under the legs to form the feet. Rotate each foot 180 degrees and bend forward. Fold each wing down behind the lower leg with the peg hole for the missile launcher facing forward and the wing tips pointing down to the sides. Fold the sides of the tail out and fold up against the body clipping into the back. Fold the arms down. Peg a launcher into the upper arm on his left and the elbow on the right.

That's quite a complex and innovative transformation. It's worth getting one of these just to try that out.

Dirge's robot mode evokes Dirge the original Dirge without being a direct reproduction. He's mainly coloured the same dark blue as before, with gold forearms, hands and upper legs while his chest, head, upper arms and knee & elbow joints are black plastic. We have a cone shaped head like the cartoon & comic model for the original,complete with lightpiped eyes this time. The head is framed by rectangular air intakes. We have a cockpit canopy on the chest, albeit not the actual one which resides on his right arm with the rest of the nose. He's got cogs on his chest mirroring the boxes found on the original jets, which have the landing wheel inside them on the Classic version. In a completely silly touch the wheel spins whenever the arm on that side is turned at the shoulder. As well as this each arm turns at the bicep and bends at the elbow. The hips are universal joints with a thigh swivel just bellow it. He's got a double bending knee and a bending & rotating ankles. Finally the head turns. So packed with articulation.

To my mind Autobots are meant to be cars, and Decepticons Jets. While I already have a pretty good Dirge in the Generations version, a different style of jet is always welcome in my Decepticon army. A decent amount of articulation doesn't hurt it either. Well worth a look, but if you have trouble finding him or worry about the clash with an existing character and want a different style of jet you might want to see bellow....

Dirge was released in the USA in early 2010. The wave he was in was not distributed in the UK.

Hunt For The Decepticons Jetblade

Dirge receives a repaint in the early stages of the Hunt for the Decepticons line. For once he's not using any existing Decepticon jet colours so we get a completely new character here. The dark blue of the jet becomes an off white, with the canopy becoming a clear purple.

However transforming the toy makes the grey fade into the background a bit with the chest, head and missile launcher rings becoming bright purple while all the gold becomes pale blue as do the shoulders pads, previously dark blue which, if we followed the recolouring elsewhere, aught to be grey. The cogs on the chest are now silver which makes the spinning action more prominent.

Jetblade is a fantastic repaint of an already good toy. You need to pick one up. As of now he's just starting to show up in the UK.