More images of the “Ultimate” Optimus Primal toy. Not the animatronic, but the upsized Core Voyager with peg support, extra articulation and fold out weapons. I still see people demeaning this compared to the fiddly mess that the Studio Series Leader is apt to be. I’m a little sad this didn’t get a real domestic release, I could easily see this selling in the $40-45 range. Also, comparison shots with the Core Voyager and Battlemaster iterations of Primal, and a wacky Tomy stop motion add for it
Via Twitter user @Alfes2010 we have our first in-hand images of the new Transformers: Beast Awakening (Rise Of The Beasts) Ultimate Optimus Primal. This figure is a Takara Tomy initiative planned to be part of the Beast Aawakening/Rise Of The Beasts Mainline collection (not to be confused with...
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I thought I'd like this more than I do now, but I guess I'll wait for whatever fiddly mess the Leader turns out to be. This is just too oddly... smooth? to the eye, and I like how the proportions shake out on the upcoming Leader.
I do wonder what the size of the Studio Series Leader will be relative to this, as this seems a bit big.
The stop-motion promos Takara Tomy did for the ROTB line are up there on the list of best things about all this.
Official images are being spread of Beast Combiner Optimus Prime, Weaponizer Arcee, and Beast Changer Scourge. It seems Hasbro is spreading out its last releases for the Rise of the Beast kids line. But, sadly, barring any new announcements or leaks…it seems we’ve seen the extent of the Rise of the Beasts kids product line.
Which I find a bit sad, I think there is still some solid material to mine from the film for a few more releases. The Maximals (outside of the Battlemaster segment) have been really underutilized (just like the movie! HA!), along with the Terrorcons. I could easily see a simplified Freezor in the Battlemaster segment, or as a pack in with a Weaponizer Battletrap. Nightbird and Optimus PrimAl’s sword weapons would be easily integrated into Beast Changers. Mirage is noticeably absent in the Weaponizer and Combiner assortments.
My hope remains that the Transformers One product line shares enough design elements and features to ‘blend” with this line. Despite the many flaws (lack of deco, some compromised designs due to feature requirements), I generally like what Hasbro did here, especially with the Core assortments, the Battlemasters, and the Weaponizers.
The Weaponizer Arcee is interesting, but accomplishes everything by basically wearing the bike bits as a backpack (gonna be unwieldy on a shelf)... makes me appreciate the Core figure a bit more. But it DOES look good enough to get, although I'll likely end up repurposing it as someone else. (I long for the days of everyone getting a different-character "offscreen" redeco.) Certainly one of the better Weaponizers. It helps that I don't have the Cheetor yet.
I'd love to get the Scorponok Weaponizer at some point (it's a Buzzworthy release in the US, right?).
I do wish they'd give Nightbird another go, if only to drop the weird brown plastic and give her more of those awesome metallic pink-purple highlights. As it is, I'd love to get the toy, but I'm on the fence wondering about that redeco possibility or the potential for another release (in Studio Series or as a Weaponizer etc).
Shame the line seems to be winding down already. Really makes you miss the days of subline imprints. I agree that there was a lot of fun to be had here, as leaning into different "beasts as weapons" executions at different price points created a lot of neat design play opportunities. Makes sense they'd scale up the line from what
Bumblebee had (even given both films had Studio Series in the background), being more confident than then about the live-action movies at retail. I dug everything except for the Flex Changers, but I like that they're continuing to experiment.