Post by Philip Ayres on Apr 30, 2013 10:37:11 GMT
Legion Smokescreen
Smokescreen's for a convoluted history in the Prime toyline: he first appeared as Arms Micron Smokescreen, a remould of Knockout in Japan. There was no western release of the deluxe toy neither was there a repaint/mould of Legend Knockout. A new mould was used for Beast Hunters Deluxe Smokescreen and his legion version also gained a brand new mould.
Now it's a bit hard to review Legion cars. They all do the same thing over and over again. But Smokescreen's different versions have some fun and have some innovations in them. But the problem with the name Smokescreen is it is an established on in Transformers and one that says Blue & Red Fairlady Z rally car, though over the years it's also been used for a Decepticon Jet and an an orange Autobot crane as well as lots of homages to the original version. But even so a grey car doesn't scream Smokescreen at me, in fact it more says Bluestreak one of the other Fairlady-Z variants. There's some blue stripe, and a blue & red chequered flag pattern on the door complete with the original Smokescreen's number 38 so it's obvious they're aiming at the original somehow. The car has three 3mm holes for Cyberverse weapons: one in the middle of it's roof and one behind each door. He comes with the chain bolter gun, which has a serrated blade bayonet attached to it. It's got a 3mm peg to act as it's handle, another sticking out of the rear of the gun, one on the top and a fourth out of the side along with a 3mm peg hole on the opposing side of the gun and another at the end of the barrel. Since the barrel is hexagonal sticking a round hole in the middle of it does make it rather Shockwave like!
Transformation: fold the rear of the car down, under the car and out the front to form the legs. Fold down the very rear to form the feet. Fold the sides of the car down. Fold the doors forward. Fold the shoulders under the doors and clip onto the ledge that runs under the bottom. Fold the arms down to the sides. Fold the roof of the car back to form the robot's back and click the sides of the front into place on it.
No Legend or Legion toy has had fold out doors before in robot mode! Prowl and Jazz both have doors sticking straight back as part of the bonnet mold. OK, yes the shoulders aren't moored to the body, but hang from the doors, but they're a much better version non attached shoulders than others I've seen. He gets 3mm hands in this mode and his car mounted ports have ended up on the side of each ankle and on his back. There's ball joints on the hips and shoulders plus bending ankles as part of the transformation.
Big points for the doors, that's an innovation. The colour is nothing a repaint can't fix in the future.
Smokescreen shipped in Beast Hunters Cyberverse Legion Wave 1 along with Bumblebee, Twinstrike and Airachnid.
Skyclaw Smokescreen
Almost immediately Smokescreen was re-released as a pack in with the Skyclaw vehicle. This version swaps the grey plastic for bright blue with yellow stripes in car mode and a number 7 on the door. It's an obvious homage to Alternators/Binaltech Smokescreen using the numbering on the Japanese variant deco that never made it onto the western version.
And it looks superb! Potentially a good Smokescreen substitute in a Generation 1 Legends line up.
Legion Prowl
You do one car with a Fairlady-Z name on then Transformers fans almost expect it to be repainted as the others! Sure enough the Legion Smokescreen gets turned into Prowl by making the grey plastic white and adding some black deco print.
The really interesting bit here is Prowl's lightbar. He's a policecar so he has to have one. What Hasbro have done is mould the piece with a 3mm peg on the bottom and attached it to the peg hole on the roof. Brilliantly simple, I can see this idea being used again, especially if there's a Legion Sideswipe/Red Alert in the works. The light bar can be removed if you want to mount a weapon on the roof instead and can be added to other weapons or even other Legions to turn them into emergency vehicles. Oddly the red/white/blue stripes on it exactly match the stripe spacing on the original Legion Smokescreen's roof!
Prowl comes with a different weapon to Smokescreen: he has the Cyberverse hammer here comically christened "The Justice Hammer". Class.
The lightbar worked for me, simple but effective. Loved the name for the weapon.
Transformers GO EG Smokescreen
The TakaraTomy Transformers Go EG Smokescreen swaps the grey of the original for a pure white. Nice idea but it makes him too easily confused with Prowl and makes me suspect Japan won't get that toy.
Future Repaints
Blue & Red. It makes sense and we have money for you Hasbro. Ditto Silver, with a Black painted bonnet roof as Bluestreak.
Smokescreen's for a convoluted history in the Prime toyline: he first appeared as Arms Micron Smokescreen, a remould of Knockout in Japan. There was no western release of the deluxe toy neither was there a repaint/mould of Legend Knockout. A new mould was used for Beast Hunters Deluxe Smokescreen and his legion version also gained a brand new mould.
Now it's a bit hard to review Legion cars. They all do the same thing over and over again. But Smokescreen's different versions have some fun and have some innovations in them. But the problem with the name Smokescreen is it is an established on in Transformers and one that says Blue & Red Fairlady Z rally car, though over the years it's also been used for a Decepticon Jet and an an orange Autobot crane as well as lots of homages to the original version. But even so a grey car doesn't scream Smokescreen at me, in fact it more says Bluestreak one of the other Fairlady-Z variants. There's some blue stripe, and a blue & red chequered flag pattern on the door complete with the original Smokescreen's number 38 so it's obvious they're aiming at the original somehow. The car has three 3mm holes for Cyberverse weapons: one in the middle of it's roof and one behind each door. He comes with the chain bolter gun, which has a serrated blade bayonet attached to it. It's got a 3mm peg to act as it's handle, another sticking out of the rear of the gun, one on the top and a fourth out of the side along with a 3mm peg hole on the opposing side of the gun and another at the end of the barrel. Since the barrel is hexagonal sticking a round hole in the middle of it does make it rather Shockwave like!
Transformation: fold the rear of the car down, under the car and out the front to form the legs. Fold down the very rear to form the feet. Fold the sides of the car down. Fold the doors forward. Fold the shoulders under the doors and clip onto the ledge that runs under the bottom. Fold the arms down to the sides. Fold the roof of the car back to form the robot's back and click the sides of the front into place on it.
No Legend or Legion toy has had fold out doors before in robot mode! Prowl and Jazz both have doors sticking straight back as part of the bonnet mold. OK, yes the shoulders aren't moored to the body, but hang from the doors, but they're a much better version non attached shoulders than others I've seen. He gets 3mm hands in this mode and his car mounted ports have ended up on the side of each ankle and on his back. There's ball joints on the hips and shoulders plus bending ankles as part of the transformation.
Big points for the doors, that's an innovation. The colour is nothing a repaint can't fix in the future.
Smokescreen shipped in Beast Hunters Cyberverse Legion Wave 1 along with Bumblebee, Twinstrike and Airachnid.
Skyclaw Smokescreen
Almost immediately Smokescreen was re-released as a pack in with the Skyclaw vehicle. This version swaps the grey plastic for bright blue with yellow stripes in car mode and a number 7 on the door. It's an obvious homage to Alternators/Binaltech Smokescreen using the numbering on the Japanese variant deco that never made it onto the western version.
And it looks superb! Potentially a good Smokescreen substitute in a Generation 1 Legends line up.
Legion Prowl
You do one car with a Fairlady-Z name on then Transformers fans almost expect it to be repainted as the others! Sure enough the Legion Smokescreen gets turned into Prowl by making the grey plastic white and adding some black deco print.
The really interesting bit here is Prowl's lightbar. He's a policecar so he has to have one. What Hasbro have done is mould the piece with a 3mm peg on the bottom and attached it to the peg hole on the roof. Brilliantly simple, I can see this idea being used again, especially if there's a Legion Sideswipe/Red Alert in the works. The light bar can be removed if you want to mount a weapon on the roof instead and can be added to other weapons or even other Legions to turn them into emergency vehicles. Oddly the red/white/blue stripes on it exactly match the stripe spacing on the original Legion Smokescreen's roof!
Prowl comes with a different weapon to Smokescreen: he has the Cyberverse hammer here comically christened "The Justice Hammer". Class.
The lightbar worked for me, simple but effective. Loved the name for the weapon.
Transformers GO EG Smokescreen
The TakaraTomy Transformers Go EG Smokescreen swaps the grey of the original for a pure white. Nice idea but it makes him too easily confused with Prowl and makes me suspect Japan won't get that toy.
Future Repaints
Blue & Red. It makes sense and we have money for you Hasbro. Ditto Silver, with a Black painted bonnet roof as Bluestreak.