Post by Philip Ayres on Dec 7, 2017 14:52:33 GMT
Generations Power of the Primes Swoop
The UK's relationship with Swoop is long and mainly defined by us not getting him. In 1985 we got four Dinobots: Grimlock, Slag, Sludge & Snarl, toys which really boosted the Transformers line. But when we read he comic and saw the cartoon, and we did get the first season of the cartoon in chunks on breakfast television, there was a 5th Dinobot! To this day nobody is 100% clear why we didn't - the usual safety test rumours abound. We missed out on him in Classics in 1990/1991 (Grimlock, Sludge and Snarl) and again for G2 (Grimlock, Slag & Snarl). We didn't get his RiD or Energon versions either, and to add insult to injury his fellow Energon Dinobot Grimlock was reissued for the 2014 movie and he wasn't! By that time we'd had the Animated Swoop and Legion Strafe, a blue repaint of Beast Hunter Legions Windrazor itself a new version of Terrorcon Cutthroat, which as you'll see will turn out to be quite amusing. But none of these really fit with the original Dinobots or work on your shelves of Classic toys.
Power of the Primes Swoop was leaked With the rest of the first four waves of deluxes and three waves of everything else in July 2017. Like the other Dinobots he wasn't shown at SDCC 2017 instead making his début at the first Hascon later that year and immediately there was some trouble. Swoop was shown as being red on the leaks, matching the other Dinobots and the original Transformers toy. His official images show him as red but when they were shown at Hascon he appeared in silhouette and then was shown in the display cases as blue. The blue/red Swoop debate has gone on for a long while: As I said the original Transformers toy was red but it's Diaclone predecessor was blue and for some reason those colours were used on the Transformers cartoon, making the Diaclone toy highly desirable to Transformer fans. Indeed his recent Movie version was also blue. So I can understand the desire to do Swoop as blue but feel that the cartoon adherents at Takara will make their version blue so the Hasbro version should have been red! HASBRO! Make a red Swoop too!
Swoop's robot mode is mainly silvery grey, no chromed wings this time, with as we've said a blue chest that looks a little on the thin side. Upper limbs, waist and heads are black plastic, with the back of the head painted red. Oddly the hip pieces are silver grey and not black, like the rest of his legs and his waist, giving him a slightly odd looking appearance there. The head looks very similar to that on the Ptero Titanmaster about a year previously.
Articulation: Bending knees, thigh swivels, ball jointed hips, rotating waist - odd choice that because it's effectively immobilised by the pteranodon's beak passing over the waist joint, being recessed into the body & tabbed into place, ball jointed head, ball jointed shoulders, bicep swivels & bending elbows. The wings are pinned to the body at the top: they pivot upwards and ratchet at 4 positions from straight out to the sides to resting against his neck frame not quite pointing straight up. A couple of centimetres out from there is a joint that lets the wings fold back & forth: with the wings straight out to the sides this is straight down the wing. A couple of centimetres further out from that is another pivot for the outer portion of the wing.
Swoop comes with just one obvious weapon: a clear plastic sword painted red. This has the standard 5mm peg so he can hold it but also a 3mm peg for storage and in this mode he has 3mm peg holes in his backside, presumably for a flight stand, and two on his belt, which result in a slightly odd mounting angle to make it fit. In addition to his 5mm peg hole hands he has 5mm peg holes on the outer face of each lower arm, a little inconvenient for storing his sword: was he meant to, or will the Takara version, come with his twin missile launchers too?
Swoop comes with one of the Dinobot's Primemaster armour pieces. In robot mode the thumbs on each side fold under the weapon and tabs on the thumbs allow it to attach to the side of the beak. The clear cover on the front of the armour removes, becoming an odd square hand gun for him to hold, revealing a space for a Primemaster to recess into to power Swoop up. After some trouble attaching the armour the connection is holding far better than I expected: pulling up on it causes the beak to raise and not the armour to pop off like I expected!
Transformation: remove the armour and sword. Fold the hands into the wrists. Rotate the arm 90° out at the bicep so the peg holes on the forearms face back. Bring the arms in towards the side of the body, bending slightly at the elbow, and tab into place on the sides of the waist. Fold his feet down & back 90° and tab the legs together. Raise the wings up one ratchet click so the crossbars on the flat wide T shaped slots are horizontal. Fold the legs onto the back tabbing into the wings. Fold the pteranodon legs & feet off the robot upper legs, now the pteranodon's back, and tab them onto the upper robot legs, now under the pteranodon. Fold the beak up off the chest in front of the robot's face.
As initially transformed Swoop is in a standing position and he holds this pose perfectly well. But I think most people associate HIS pteranodon with being in a flatter flying position and the toy can do that too: Fold the head up 90° via a joint at the back of the neck, fold the feet up and lie him on his chest, job done. It's a grey robotic pteranodon and it looks pretty good. As we've seen the head moves up & down but the jaw can also open, the wings can pivot up & down, albeit not where they meet the body nor parallel to it, and the outer parts move forward and back. He's covered in Titanmaster/Primemaster pegs: two on the first wing section near the hinge and two on each piece of robot leg forming the back: on on each leg is close to the break between the parts and together they form a pair the right distance apart to fit each hole on each of the same Titanmaster's foot.
Weapon's storage is a bit poor: peg in under the beak or the holes in his robot waist. It does just about fit between the robot legs but that's neither secure or intentional. I'm seeing no exposed 5mm sockets in this mode for potential Takara or third party missile launchers either. The Primemaster armour can store on the pteranodon's back: tabs sticking match slots in the underside of the armour.
With the exception of the missing weapons and poor sword storage in pteranodon mode this is almost exactly what I'd expect a Blue Generations Swoop with no additional gimmicks to be like. Since it also functions as a Combiner limb, I think we can say Hasbro did a good job here.
Arm Mode: From pteranodon mode, fold the entire head down 180° in front of the robot's chest. Fold the dinosaur legs onto the back of the pteranodon and then fold the robot legs out from the back of the dinobird and, keeping the legs tabbed together, fold the feet down. Fold the Combiner Wars connector out of his back. Straighten the wings on the back so the sides are flush with the connector then fold forwards tabbing into the sides of his shoulder. Fold the outer section of the wings down. Untab the robot's forearms from the waist then rotate the waist 90° to allow the leg joints to provide arm movement. Plug the Prime armour into his feet as a hand.
I always pictured the thinner smaller Swoop as an arm rather than a leg on a Dinobot combiner and he seems to adapt to that role well. The only surprise is he retains his wings: like Divebomb on Predaking I'd picture them ending up on the Dino combiner's back.
Leg Mode: from arm mode rotate the waist back, tab the forearms back into place and straighten the robot's legs. Remove the robot hands, and untab the wings, purely so they're out of the way. Unused so far, Swoop's legs have a concealed joint in them, similar to those found in the Combiner Wars toys, to shorten the robot legs. It's VERY stiff on my copy of the toy so I'm needing to start it going by passing something down between the hinge and the side of the leg. Swing the lower legs up so they cover the upper legs and tab together. Insert the peg on one of Grimlock's Prime armour pieces into the peg hole on his feet.
It's a functional leg mode, surprisingly square and blocky considering where it's come from. It'd work as a leg on a Dino combiner but I'm convinced Sludge, Slug & Snarl will make better bulkier legs.
Since the toy worked for me by itself and worked as both combiner limbs, I'm going to chalk this one up as a big win for Swoop. Well done Hasbro!
Generations Power of the Primes Cutthroat
Terrorcon Cutthroat and Dinobot Swoop have always been vaguely similar: Cutthroat's one and only new version Beast Hunter Legions Windrazor was repainted in blue as Legion Strafe, a new small Swoop. So when he was revealed at NYCC 2017 it was no real suprise to find Cutthroat reusing Swoop's general design and in particular his arms, waist and upper legs.
Future Repaints
HASBRO! Make a red Swoop too! Cutthroat's toy reveal at NYCC 2017 shows him using a different head to the normal square Terrorcon head seen on his original toy and his official images. The head used looks terribly like the one on Pretender Monster Wildfly/Dinoforce Yokuryu, leading to speculation of either Monstructor or Dinoking being done in Power of the Primes.
The UK's relationship with Swoop is long and mainly defined by us not getting him. In 1985 we got four Dinobots: Grimlock, Slag, Sludge & Snarl, toys which really boosted the Transformers line. But when we read he comic and saw the cartoon, and we did get the first season of the cartoon in chunks on breakfast television, there was a 5th Dinobot! To this day nobody is 100% clear why we didn't - the usual safety test rumours abound. We missed out on him in Classics in 1990/1991 (Grimlock, Sludge and Snarl) and again for G2 (Grimlock, Slag & Snarl). We didn't get his RiD or Energon versions either, and to add insult to injury his fellow Energon Dinobot Grimlock was reissued for the 2014 movie and he wasn't! By that time we'd had the Animated Swoop and Legion Strafe, a blue repaint of Beast Hunter Legions Windrazor itself a new version of Terrorcon Cutthroat, which as you'll see will turn out to be quite amusing. But none of these really fit with the original Dinobots or work on your shelves of Classic toys.
Power of the Primes Swoop was leaked With the rest of the first four waves of deluxes and three waves of everything else in July 2017. Like the other Dinobots he wasn't shown at SDCC 2017 instead making his début at the first Hascon later that year and immediately there was some trouble. Swoop was shown as being red on the leaks, matching the other Dinobots and the original Transformers toy. His official images show him as red but when they were shown at Hascon he appeared in silhouette and then was shown in the display cases as blue. The blue/red Swoop debate has gone on for a long while: As I said the original Transformers toy was red but it's Diaclone predecessor was blue and for some reason those colours were used on the Transformers cartoon, making the Diaclone toy highly desirable to Transformer fans. Indeed his recent Movie version was also blue. So I can understand the desire to do Swoop as blue but feel that the cartoon adherents at Takara will make their version blue so the Hasbro version should have been red! HASBRO! Make a red Swoop too!
Swoop's robot mode is mainly silvery grey, no chromed wings this time, with as we've said a blue chest that looks a little on the thin side. Upper limbs, waist and heads are black plastic, with the back of the head painted red. Oddly the hip pieces are silver grey and not black, like the rest of his legs and his waist, giving him a slightly odd looking appearance there. The head looks very similar to that on the Ptero Titanmaster about a year previously.
Articulation: Bending knees, thigh swivels, ball jointed hips, rotating waist - odd choice that because it's effectively immobilised by the pteranodon's beak passing over the waist joint, being recessed into the body & tabbed into place, ball jointed head, ball jointed shoulders, bicep swivels & bending elbows. The wings are pinned to the body at the top: they pivot upwards and ratchet at 4 positions from straight out to the sides to resting against his neck frame not quite pointing straight up. A couple of centimetres out from there is a joint that lets the wings fold back & forth: with the wings straight out to the sides this is straight down the wing. A couple of centimetres further out from that is another pivot for the outer portion of the wing.
Swoop comes with just one obvious weapon: a clear plastic sword painted red. This has the standard 5mm peg so he can hold it but also a 3mm peg for storage and in this mode he has 3mm peg holes in his backside, presumably for a flight stand, and two on his belt, which result in a slightly odd mounting angle to make it fit. In addition to his 5mm peg hole hands he has 5mm peg holes on the outer face of each lower arm, a little inconvenient for storing his sword: was he meant to, or will the Takara version, come with his twin missile launchers too?
Swoop comes with one of the Dinobot's Primemaster armour pieces. In robot mode the thumbs on each side fold under the weapon and tabs on the thumbs allow it to attach to the side of the beak. The clear cover on the front of the armour removes, becoming an odd square hand gun for him to hold, revealing a space for a Primemaster to recess into to power Swoop up. After some trouble attaching the armour the connection is holding far better than I expected: pulling up on it causes the beak to raise and not the armour to pop off like I expected!
Transformation: remove the armour and sword. Fold the hands into the wrists. Rotate the arm 90° out at the bicep so the peg holes on the forearms face back. Bring the arms in towards the side of the body, bending slightly at the elbow, and tab into place on the sides of the waist. Fold his feet down & back 90° and tab the legs together. Raise the wings up one ratchet click so the crossbars on the flat wide T shaped slots are horizontal. Fold the legs onto the back tabbing into the wings. Fold the pteranodon legs & feet off the robot upper legs, now the pteranodon's back, and tab them onto the upper robot legs, now under the pteranodon. Fold the beak up off the chest in front of the robot's face.
As initially transformed Swoop is in a standing position and he holds this pose perfectly well. But I think most people associate HIS pteranodon with being in a flatter flying position and the toy can do that too: Fold the head up 90° via a joint at the back of the neck, fold the feet up and lie him on his chest, job done. It's a grey robotic pteranodon and it looks pretty good. As we've seen the head moves up & down but the jaw can also open, the wings can pivot up & down, albeit not where they meet the body nor parallel to it, and the outer parts move forward and back. He's covered in Titanmaster/Primemaster pegs: two on the first wing section near the hinge and two on each piece of robot leg forming the back: on on each leg is close to the break between the parts and together they form a pair the right distance apart to fit each hole on each of the same Titanmaster's foot.
Weapon's storage is a bit poor: peg in under the beak or the holes in his robot waist. It does just about fit between the robot legs but that's neither secure or intentional. I'm seeing no exposed 5mm sockets in this mode for potential Takara or third party missile launchers either. The Primemaster armour can store on the pteranodon's back: tabs sticking match slots in the underside of the armour.
With the exception of the missing weapons and poor sword storage in pteranodon mode this is almost exactly what I'd expect a Blue Generations Swoop with no additional gimmicks to be like. Since it also functions as a Combiner limb, I think we can say Hasbro did a good job here.
Arm Mode: From pteranodon mode, fold the entire head down 180° in front of the robot's chest. Fold the dinosaur legs onto the back of the pteranodon and then fold the robot legs out from the back of the dinobird and, keeping the legs tabbed together, fold the feet down. Fold the Combiner Wars connector out of his back. Straighten the wings on the back so the sides are flush with the connector then fold forwards tabbing into the sides of his shoulder. Fold the outer section of the wings down. Untab the robot's forearms from the waist then rotate the waist 90° to allow the leg joints to provide arm movement. Plug the Prime armour into his feet as a hand.
I always pictured the thinner smaller Swoop as an arm rather than a leg on a Dinobot combiner and he seems to adapt to that role well. The only surprise is he retains his wings: like Divebomb on Predaking I'd picture them ending up on the Dino combiner's back.
Leg Mode: from arm mode rotate the waist back, tab the forearms back into place and straighten the robot's legs. Remove the robot hands, and untab the wings, purely so they're out of the way. Unused so far, Swoop's legs have a concealed joint in them, similar to those found in the Combiner Wars toys, to shorten the robot legs. It's VERY stiff on my copy of the toy so I'm needing to start it going by passing something down between the hinge and the side of the leg. Swing the lower legs up so they cover the upper legs and tab together. Insert the peg on one of Grimlock's Prime armour pieces into the peg hole on his feet.
It's a functional leg mode, surprisingly square and blocky considering where it's come from. It'd work as a leg on a Dino combiner but I'm convinced Sludge, Slug & Snarl will make better bulkier legs.
Since the toy worked for me by itself and worked as both combiner limbs, I'm going to chalk this one up as a big win for Swoop. Well done Hasbro!
Generations Power of the Primes Cutthroat
Terrorcon Cutthroat and Dinobot Swoop have always been vaguely similar: Cutthroat's one and only new version Beast Hunter Legions Windrazor was repainted in blue as Legion Strafe, a new small Swoop. So when he was revealed at NYCC 2017 it was no real suprise to find Cutthroat reusing Swoop's general design and in particular his arms, waist and upper legs.
Future Repaints
HASBRO! Make a red Swoop too! Cutthroat's toy reveal at NYCC 2017 shows him using a different head to the normal square Terrorcon head seen on his original toy and his official images. The head used looks terribly like the one on Pretender Monster Wildfly/Dinoforce Yokuryu, leading to speculation of either Monstructor or Dinoking being done in Power of the Primes.
