Post by Philip Ayres on Dec 9, 2017 11:39:41 GMT
Part 1: a provisional part 2 looking at the combined mode will follow later but I'm expecting a guest and need lunch and a rest before they get here!
Generations Power of the Primes Grimlock
Grimlock is the only Dinobot to have been done previously in Hasbro's Generations ranges. In fact he's been done twice: In the second Classics wave as a deluxe that I have all sorts of issues with THE LOWER LEGS ARE THE WRONG WAY UP AND SHOULD BE WIDER AT THE BOTTOM and as a Fall of Cybertron Voyager which makes for a better Grimlock than the Classics toy. His head was also mode last year as Titanmaster Clobber and along the way there's been various other versions in various other lines. The problem is few of them compare well to the original or his Masterpiece, effectively the original upscaled with added articulation which is what I think fans really want with their Classics toys.
Grimlock comes boxed in robot mode, with a pair of Prime Armours and his Enigma of Combination.
The Enigma is a non transforming block of plastic roughly the same size and shape as a Titanmaster's head mode. It has a blank head sticking out the bottom, and tab sticking out the back the same size and shape as a Titanmaster heel spur. You can attach it to Titans Return toys as a static forward facing head. Grimlock's is silver with a red dot in the middle. I'm not that impressed with it to be honest. Although I don't think the Primemaster robots are as good as the Titanmasters some value would have been added to this by making it transform into a miniature robot even if they had to recycle the body!
The Enigma, or a Primemaster or a Titanmaster can fit in the slot on Grimlock's Prime armour: the cover guns from the deluxe Prime Armours can too but lacking the heel spur they won't secure. There's a 5mm peg hole underneath the Prime Armour, another towards the back of the top and one on the rear plus a 5mm peg on a side to side ratcheting pivot. The name suggests they're designed to be used as armour but all they do is sit there looking bulky. The ones on Starscream can at least be used with his weapons but these are all the weapons Grimlock has!
For the purposes of this review I want to start with the Dinosaur mode: bring the legs together and fold the tail tip down behind it. Split the chest in two straight down the middle then fold each half out to the sides, down and then back together round the upper legs: tabs on the side of the legs lock onto slots on the inside of the chest halves. Fold the hands into the forearms and the "wings" closed round the exposed body spine. Fold the dinosaur head over the robot head.
Modern dinosaur theory suggest Tyrannosaurus Rex had a horizontal body, and this Grimlock can achieve that pose just fine. But I'm a traditionalist and want my Grimlock in a more upright Godzilla pose and he can do the too by rotting the legs back a couple of ratchet clicks and bending the tail back at the robot knees by the same amount.
From the front, the T-Rex mode looks like a slightly wider version of the original Grimlock, with the head being a highlight. His jaw opens, his tiny dinosaur arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and his legs turn at the hip & bend at the knees. The hips also bend to the sides but that was no use here. Early pictures were at pins to hide the rear of the toy, prompting fear of a square tail end. It's not, there's a distinct point to it but only after a distinct jump down from the blocky section of his legs that makes up most of the tail. It could have been worse, but it could have been so much better with a more smoothly sloping tail. A pair of Titanmaster pegs can be found on the base of the tail and another pair is on a panel halfway up his back. The back of the dinosaur body is a bit of mess with lots of red, gold, black and silver grey parts mixed together. On his gold neck there's a slot, used to secure the neck in other modes. Here it's exposed and it's exactly the right size for a Titanmaster heel spur to fit in, enabling a Titanmaster to ride him. This can be also used to store his Enigma of Combination in Dinosaur mode. The mouth opens and there's a designed slot for the Enigma there too but since Enigmas have the same tab as a Titanmaster heel spur you can stick disembodied Titanmaster Heads in hi mouth as if he's just ripped them off a body. The only place you can really mount the Prime Armour in this mode is the side of the legs, which makes him look very wide indeed!
Returning to robot mode is easy enough, with the possible exception of pulling out the fists - there;s a groove on the back of the hand you can get a finger nail into though. Be careful when joining the chest halves up though and don't rely on the small pegs at the front to hold it together: the black body core has a tab on each side at the back which needs to sit in a slot on the body halves. A good tight connection there now will save you some grief later in combined mode.
Grimlock's robot mode is undeniably Grimlock, but it's a case of having got the basics right but a lot of the detail could be better. The head is fabulous, they've nailed his vaguely Prime-like black head with red visor down to a tee. I'd had plans to see if a 3p could come up with a way of integrating Titanmaster Clobber but I much prefer this head sculpt. The head is on a ball joint.
The look of the chest is a bit odd: they've gone for the clear plastic with gold paint underlay used for parts where the original Dinobots were chrome under clear plastic. Grimlock's chest was straight gold chrome however and the clear plastic gives it an strange colour. It also means his chest panel, previously clearly defined as the only bit of the chest which was clear plastic over chrome, blends into the rest of the chest. Perhaps they might have used a darker background here rather than the gold paint, to make it stand out more? There's a clearly discernible line down the front of his chest, used in the transformation when the chest splits in two. I can see it's function but not sure I can see why they've done it that way instead of having the chest fold down to the front as a solid unit. I'm guessing it's to be different for difference sake but it's unsightly here and can cause problems in his torso mode. There's also two odd looking vertical slots on his chest which are used in combined mode but they impact the look here.
The arms are generally really good too: they look good from the front, though from the back there's a little bit of bulk behind the forearms, which is used to house the Combiner Wars sockets for the combined form's arms. The shoulders turn and swing out to the sides, he's got a bicep swivel and double bending elbow. 5mm peg hole hands allow him to hold his Prime Armour as weapons, via their 5mm peg, there's another 5mm peg hole on the outside of the wrist to mount them on there, and a 5mm peg too if you want the gap facing out. If I'm picky I'd say I'd like 5mm peg holes on his shoulders like the FOC version does. The problem here is the Prime armour are his only weapons: Starscream also has his null rays which can be hand held, plugged into his arm and plugged into his Prime Armour. Grimlock has nothing: no Galaxial Rocket Launcher, no Twin "Stunner" Lasers, no Energo Sword. Nothing! Even the Fall of Cybertron Voyager did better than that, having a sword. The temptation is to steal that sword and get hold of another ArtTek Rex Blaster but I think the unstated insinuation here is that you're meant to use the Primemasters Decoy suits other mode as his weapons. Cloucburst/Micronus twin Gatling gun would be a possible substitute for his twin gun, but they're in red so Cloudburst's probable repaint/remould as Waverider , accidentally revealed through the cancelled Grand Pretender shell, would work better. But the problem here is Grimlock's sword and twin gun are so iconic that something looks missing when they're not there!
His waist is picked out in red, looks good and rotates where the wide belt piece meets the thinner groin. I'd have cast the D shaped hip pieces that turn at the waist and the legs swing out to the sides on in black rather than red so they blended in with the upper legs. Similarly the knees, with a low thigh swivel at the top and a bending joint at the bottom, are also red where they would have blended in better as black. Since the patchwork quilt that was Titan's Return Hardhead's upper legs I'm getting quite picky about hips, thighs and knees all being the same colour!
Then there's the lower legs..... Well they got the colour right. From the front they're straight up and down, no spreading to the sides and only a poorly defined foot at the bottom. It spreads a little to the back, the only area where most Grimlock legs are reasonably flat! Not only are the lower legs the wrong shape they're also too short. In a straight standing pose the top of POTP Grimlock's head is level with the line above the chest box on FOC Grimlock, who is a full inch taller. Although the upper legs could be a bit longer most of this difference comes from the lower legs which are far far too short. Looking straight at the toy the proportions between his top and bottom half look very strange: It almost seems like he has a Deluxe's legs on a Voyager's body! Since the legs also caused problems as the tail in T-Rex mode this is an all round design fail and in my opinion they should have stuck to the fold the lower legs over the upper legs approach that worked for the original and the Masterpiece. I know *why* it's been done like this, in order to accommodate the very visible Combiner Wars sockets in the sides of the ankles but there's two or three examples here of Grimlock also being a combiner core that have seemingly harmed the Voyager figure, which is a shame because Power of the Primes Swoop and Slug re great and hide their Combiner role REALLY well.
In both modes it looks more like the original Grimlock than any other mainline non Masterpiece Grimlock toy, but still falls short on the details. The legs needed to be bigger and better and it needed weapons. The Grimlock design is iconic and they got it so right the first time that any messing with it is obvious and none of the messing here is for the better. Yes it gives him a new function but this is the first really good go at a Generations G1 Grimlock for a few years and you can't help feel that it falls slightly short of the mark.
For Volcanicus see tmukhub.proboards.com/post/302813/thread
Generations Power of the Primes Grimlock
Grimlock is the only Dinobot to have been done previously in Hasbro's Generations ranges. In fact he's been done twice: In the second Classics wave as a deluxe that I have all sorts of issues with THE LOWER LEGS ARE THE WRONG WAY UP AND SHOULD BE WIDER AT THE BOTTOM and as a Fall of Cybertron Voyager which makes for a better Grimlock than the Classics toy. His head was also mode last year as Titanmaster Clobber and along the way there's been various other versions in various other lines. The problem is few of them compare well to the original or his Masterpiece, effectively the original upscaled with added articulation which is what I think fans really want with their Classics toys.
Grimlock comes boxed in robot mode, with a pair of Prime Armours and his Enigma of Combination.
The Enigma is a non transforming block of plastic roughly the same size and shape as a Titanmaster's head mode. It has a blank head sticking out the bottom, and tab sticking out the back the same size and shape as a Titanmaster heel spur. You can attach it to Titans Return toys as a static forward facing head. Grimlock's is silver with a red dot in the middle. I'm not that impressed with it to be honest. Although I don't think the Primemaster robots are as good as the Titanmasters some value would have been added to this by making it transform into a miniature robot even if they had to recycle the body!
The Enigma, or a Primemaster or a Titanmaster can fit in the slot on Grimlock's Prime armour: the cover guns from the deluxe Prime Armours can too but lacking the heel spur they won't secure. There's a 5mm peg hole underneath the Prime Armour, another towards the back of the top and one on the rear plus a 5mm peg on a side to side ratcheting pivot. The name suggests they're designed to be used as armour but all they do is sit there looking bulky. The ones on Starscream can at least be used with his weapons but these are all the weapons Grimlock has!
For the purposes of this review I want to start with the Dinosaur mode: bring the legs together and fold the tail tip down behind it. Split the chest in two straight down the middle then fold each half out to the sides, down and then back together round the upper legs: tabs on the side of the legs lock onto slots on the inside of the chest halves. Fold the hands into the forearms and the "wings" closed round the exposed body spine. Fold the dinosaur head over the robot head.
Modern dinosaur theory suggest Tyrannosaurus Rex had a horizontal body, and this Grimlock can achieve that pose just fine. But I'm a traditionalist and want my Grimlock in a more upright Godzilla pose and he can do the too by rotting the legs back a couple of ratchet clicks and bending the tail back at the robot knees by the same amount.
From the front, the T-Rex mode looks like a slightly wider version of the original Grimlock, with the head being a highlight. His jaw opens, his tiny dinosaur arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and his legs turn at the hip & bend at the knees. The hips also bend to the sides but that was no use here. Early pictures were at pins to hide the rear of the toy, prompting fear of a square tail end. It's not, there's a distinct point to it but only after a distinct jump down from the blocky section of his legs that makes up most of the tail. It could have been worse, but it could have been so much better with a more smoothly sloping tail. A pair of Titanmaster pegs can be found on the base of the tail and another pair is on a panel halfway up his back. The back of the dinosaur body is a bit of mess with lots of red, gold, black and silver grey parts mixed together. On his gold neck there's a slot, used to secure the neck in other modes. Here it's exposed and it's exactly the right size for a Titanmaster heel spur to fit in, enabling a Titanmaster to ride him. This can be also used to store his Enigma of Combination in Dinosaur mode. The mouth opens and there's a designed slot for the Enigma there too but since Enigmas have the same tab as a Titanmaster heel spur you can stick disembodied Titanmaster Heads in hi mouth as if he's just ripped them off a body. The only place you can really mount the Prime Armour in this mode is the side of the legs, which makes him look very wide indeed!
Returning to robot mode is easy enough, with the possible exception of pulling out the fists - there;s a groove on the back of the hand you can get a finger nail into though. Be careful when joining the chest halves up though and don't rely on the small pegs at the front to hold it together: the black body core has a tab on each side at the back which needs to sit in a slot on the body halves. A good tight connection there now will save you some grief later in combined mode.
Grimlock's robot mode is undeniably Grimlock, but it's a case of having got the basics right but a lot of the detail could be better. The head is fabulous, they've nailed his vaguely Prime-like black head with red visor down to a tee. I'd had plans to see if a 3p could come up with a way of integrating Titanmaster Clobber but I much prefer this head sculpt. The head is on a ball joint.
The look of the chest is a bit odd: they've gone for the clear plastic with gold paint underlay used for parts where the original Dinobots were chrome under clear plastic. Grimlock's chest was straight gold chrome however and the clear plastic gives it an strange colour. It also means his chest panel, previously clearly defined as the only bit of the chest which was clear plastic over chrome, blends into the rest of the chest. Perhaps they might have used a darker background here rather than the gold paint, to make it stand out more? There's a clearly discernible line down the front of his chest, used in the transformation when the chest splits in two. I can see it's function but not sure I can see why they've done it that way instead of having the chest fold down to the front as a solid unit. I'm guessing it's to be different for difference sake but it's unsightly here and can cause problems in his torso mode. There's also two odd looking vertical slots on his chest which are used in combined mode but they impact the look here.
The arms are generally really good too: they look good from the front, though from the back there's a little bit of bulk behind the forearms, which is used to house the Combiner Wars sockets for the combined form's arms. The shoulders turn and swing out to the sides, he's got a bicep swivel and double bending elbow. 5mm peg hole hands allow him to hold his Prime Armour as weapons, via their 5mm peg, there's another 5mm peg hole on the outside of the wrist to mount them on there, and a 5mm peg too if you want the gap facing out. If I'm picky I'd say I'd like 5mm peg holes on his shoulders like the FOC version does. The problem here is the Prime armour are his only weapons: Starscream also has his null rays which can be hand held, plugged into his arm and plugged into his Prime Armour. Grimlock has nothing: no Galaxial Rocket Launcher, no Twin "Stunner" Lasers, no Energo Sword. Nothing! Even the Fall of Cybertron Voyager did better than that, having a sword. The temptation is to steal that sword and get hold of another ArtTek Rex Blaster but I think the unstated insinuation here is that you're meant to use the Primemasters Decoy suits other mode as his weapons. Cloucburst/Micronus twin Gatling gun would be a possible substitute for his twin gun, but they're in red so Cloudburst's probable repaint/remould as Waverider , accidentally revealed through the cancelled Grand Pretender shell, would work better. But the problem here is Grimlock's sword and twin gun are so iconic that something looks missing when they're not there!
His waist is picked out in red, looks good and rotates where the wide belt piece meets the thinner groin. I'd have cast the D shaped hip pieces that turn at the waist and the legs swing out to the sides on in black rather than red so they blended in with the upper legs. Similarly the knees, with a low thigh swivel at the top and a bending joint at the bottom, are also red where they would have blended in better as black. Since the patchwork quilt that was Titan's Return Hardhead's upper legs I'm getting quite picky about hips, thighs and knees all being the same colour!
Then there's the lower legs..... Well they got the colour right. From the front they're straight up and down, no spreading to the sides and only a poorly defined foot at the bottom. It spreads a little to the back, the only area where most Grimlock legs are reasonably flat! Not only are the lower legs the wrong shape they're also too short. In a straight standing pose the top of POTP Grimlock's head is level with the line above the chest box on FOC Grimlock, who is a full inch taller. Although the upper legs could be a bit longer most of this difference comes from the lower legs which are far far too short. Looking straight at the toy the proportions between his top and bottom half look very strange: It almost seems like he has a Deluxe's legs on a Voyager's body! Since the legs also caused problems as the tail in T-Rex mode this is an all round design fail and in my opinion they should have stuck to the fold the lower legs over the upper legs approach that worked for the original and the Masterpiece. I know *why* it's been done like this, in order to accommodate the very visible Combiner Wars sockets in the sides of the ankles but there's two or three examples here of Grimlock also being a combiner core that have seemingly harmed the Voyager figure, which is a shame because Power of the Primes Swoop and Slug re great and hide their Combiner role REALLY well.
In both modes it looks more like the original Grimlock than any other mainline non Masterpiece Grimlock toy, but still falls short on the details. The legs needed to be bigger and better and it needed weapons. The Grimlock design is iconic and they got it so right the first time that any messing with it is obvious and none of the messing here is for the better. Yes it gives him a new function but this is the first really good go at a Generations G1 Grimlock for a few years and you can't help feel that it falls slightly short of the mark.
For Volcanicus see tmukhub.proboards.com/post/302813/thread
