Generations Power of the Primes Starscream
The Decepticon planes were first done as Voyager toys in Armada, when the size was introduced and that line did their versions of the full 1984 trio of Starscream, Skywarp & Thundercracker. Starscream became a Deluxe in Energon, a Voyager again in Galaxy Force which was supersized for Cybertron, before returning to being a Deluxe in Classics, which was repainted into all the other 1984 & 1985 jets during Universe and Generations. By that time they'd been Voyagers in the the Movies, Animated and Prime. Generations then did them as everything but Voyagers: Their Fall of Cybertron versions were deluxe, their Thrilling 30 versions were far too small as Legends and then in Combiner Wars they were far too big as Leaders! A couple of Voyager fighter jets in Titans Return, Broadside & Blitzwing proved the concept of Voyager jets, and as a bonus gave us Titanmaster pilots sitting in the cockpit, but the 1984 trio were ignored during that line.Starscream was first shown at San Diego Comicon 2017's Collectors Preview Breakfast and was immediately derided by certain fans for it's odd proportions. Then some of the pictures revealed Combiner Wars connectors in his boots which led to speculation of what his Combined mode looked like. We saw an illustration quite quickly on the side of his box but we had to wait until for a video review before we saw it in the plastic, Hasbro proving surprisingly secretive about the combining function in Power of the Primes.
Out of the box Starscream comes with two rather spindly null rays, which are far less bulky than the Classics missile launching versions, a shocking pink Enigma of Combination and a pair of Voyager Prime Armours/combiner feet. Starscream's Prime Armour is a different shape to Grimlock's and is also slightly different functionally: there's no hole on the underside replaced by a fold down handle which lets them be held as weapons a lot better. The hole in the rear end can have the null rays inserted into them as launcher and missile, but now the combined unit looks too big for his arms!
The initial opinions are right about Starscream: both his forearms and lower legs look far too big for the rest of him, but he is recognisably Starscream with all the grey, red and blue in vaguely the right places. The blue is particularly dark, almost Optimus Prime legs blue, but that's reasonably close to the original toy. I think because of the size of the forearms, and it extends back from the gloves over the elbow, there is an awful lot of it. The feet look a bit too big on the legs, totally the wrong shape and are made even worse by having a sticker plonked over the top of them obscuring some of the moulded detail and looking a mess because they're not on a flat surface. Those stickers may have to go. The ones on the knees work better but again bits of them are on moulded detail. The ones on the air intakes by his head are best but those areas inside the intakes I'd have painted black! The chest design, very similar to the Legend and Leader, is Starscream down to having a cockpit canopy in the middle. Unfortunately it's a fake again and not the jet's cockpit. I can just about see the owl face visible in previous versions in it!
Articulation: head and shoulders turn, arms raise to the sides at the shoulders, bicep swivels, bending elbows. No waist swivel. Hips turn and the legs move to the sides at the hip. Thigh swivels and the knees bend. The knees are quite clever: they're held in place on the inner side of the leg by a panel that fold up beside them with a peg on the top that fits into the leg. I do worry that that might wear over time though. Already giving me trouble in this mode are the jet's wings, which are mounted on Starscream's back and which turn in the middle for Transformation. There's a peg that should hold them in place in this mode but it doesn't. At all. Then there's the wings themselves, covered in silver stickers which as, you've guessed it, obscuring moulded detail. They're all peeling slightly at the edges already, I'm so tempted to pull them off!
Transformation: Rotate the wings on the back 180°. Fold down the panel holding the knee in place and collapse the upper legs into the lower legs, which tab together. Fold the feet up. Straighten the arms to the side and tab into the lower legs. Fold the jet nose off his back and into place over the head. Fold the panels beside the nose down and peg into the air intakes. Fold the wings out, tabbing onto the robot's lower arms. Mount the null rays either on the side of the arms or under the wings. Fold down the landing gear under his nose. Fold down the tail wings.
Yeah, that was simple, but not fun. Getting everything lined up right takes some effort. The plane design is vaguely McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle but only very vaguely. The top looks a mess from panel lines, most misaligned, and peeling stickers. I'm tempted to pull them as I said but I like the Autobot kill heads, the D-22 designation, referring to his original Japanese ID number, the "Ghost Attack" reference to his cartoon season 3 and Beast Wars existence, and the amusing "No Step" marking right next to a Titanmaster footpeg! There's three footpegs per wing: one on the outer edge, one near the engines and one near where the wings meets the body. The final two protrude through holes in the stickers as does a slot, used in the combined mode. I'll be interested to see what Starscream looks like without the stickers. I'd hoped Takara would produce this for me but their their near identical Power of the Primes Wave 1 toys have poured some cold water on that idea.
So yeah, both jet and robot could be better. Will the combined mode redeem the toy?
Fold the landing gear under the nose and fold the tailfins up. Fold the robot arms down & forward 180° at the shoulder. Swing each arm in 90° at the bicep so the large outer plate is facing the same way as the top of the jet. Lift these plates up. Fold the hands back 180° into the forearms exposing Combiner Wars sockets in their place. Fold the panels down, but further up the arms than they say previously, locking the Combiner Wars sockets in place. Look at the underside of the jet with the rear at the top. Separate the rear of the jets/robot lower legs and swing each half out to the sides at a 45° angle: effectively you've spread the legs at the hips and rotated at the thighs. Bring the lower legs together to form a V shape between them: a tab behind on knee will slide into a slot behind the other and the point of the V should be above the waist. The tab needs to be slid in from the side, it won't click in on my copy, but that does mean the connection is surprisingly secure. Fold the wings up so the nose wings tab into them and then fold the outer half of the wings back down. Fold the red panels along the rear of the nose so they tab onto the tail wings. Open the fake cockpit chest: in it is the combined robot's head looking out the through the Voyager robot's back with the top of it's head at the top of the Voyager robot body. Swing the head out and fold it into position between the V so it's looking out over the back of the robot's nose. Push down on the back of the blue neck panel and fold the head into the body cavity. Put the null rays wherever you want, I favour the sides of the Voyager robot arms still, now the Combined Robot's upper legs.
As yet Starscream doesn't have his own complete team. His instructions show him with the wave 1 deluxe, his boxart with Dreadwind and a Terrorcon with the rest obscured. Either way it looks like Dreadwind should be with him and if Dreadwing should then so should his twin Darkwing/Blackwing. Several theories exist as to the identity of the rest of this team. One says they don't exist, and you use whatever toy you want. Another says it's Thundercracker & Skywarp, using Combiner Wars Skydive with the Decepticon jet head seen on his Ghost Starscream repaint. A third says the team is completed with Dreadwing & Darkwing's own Japanese repaints Buster & Hydra. I'd be happy with either of the last two as it would give me my much longed for Decepticon Jet Combiner All bar one of the all jet combiners have been Autobot, mainly versions of Superion. The exception is Micromaster Destron Sixwing, who I thought would make a great repaint of Combiner Wars Superion.
So in order to form my combiner, which I'm christening Emperor Starscream, due to the Movie crown on the combined mode head, I'm using Dreadwind as one arm with TFSS 5.0 Shattered Glass Starscream, standing in for Power of the Primes Blackwing until wave 2's release, as the other arm. The legs are formed from Botcon Terrorsaur & TFSS 5.0 Fractyl.
What's surprising me about Starscream is quite how strong and stable he is structurally! I'd half expected him to be a bit of a floppy mess to be honest! Almost all this down to the tab holding the two lower legs together: I think it and it's slot are slightly wider at the top than the bottom, which is why it needs to be slide in from the side and not pushed in. Indeed pushing the tab into the slot like you normally do would probably wear the connection down somewhat making it less stable, and there's a nagging worry in the back of my mind that this might happen anyway. But for now it's rock solid, unlike the chest armour made from the jet's nose, back and wings. This locks onto the body courtesy of two tabs on the wings which the tops of the air intakes fold over. The connection, like when the structure was on the back of the Voyager robot, isn't great. Maybe if the moving post in the middle had pulled out & in and had a larger circle at the top of it's peg but with inserts in it so it could only sit in two positions? That idea has been used in Transformers before.
In many ways the torso design reminds me of Superion with Silverbolt's arms acting as the combined robot's upper legs. The head with a crown resembles the Galvatronus combined mode of Silverbolt's remould Cyclonus: that always looked a bit odd as Galvatron and I wonder if it was meant to be Starscream but the Hasbro designer got confused as to which henchman was possessed by Starscream's ghost in season 3 of the cartoon? We half expected Cyclonus to get a Starscream recolour, and some good repaints are out there, but it never happened. But Starscream finally has his combined form now and on the whole it's rather good. The head is slightly annoying me: it's just sitting there between the Voyager robot's lower legs, suspended in mid air on it's hinge: you feel like it should recess into or connect to the chest armour in front, which in turn would stabilise that piece somewhat. The chest armour itself gives the entire combiner torso something of a Movie Starscream look.
Yes there's no real weapon for the combined mode again here: the null rays for the Voyager look too small. The Primemasters should provide one but somehow neither of the Decepticon ones revealed so far, both melee weapons rather than guns, suit him. He can use his Enigma of Combination in this mode: twin doors in the nose just behind the cockpit open to hold it. I feel this could maybe have been done better using the cockpit itself and providing a space for a Primemaster to ride in the jet mode. We've had one wrestling match with the little doors and a pair of pliers already trying to reattach them when they came off!
If you're looking at Starscream, as a Voyager toy then the robot has odd proportioned limbs with a loose back and the plane is difficult to line the parts up properly plus is covered in stickers which look like they might peel off any second! But, wobbly chest plate aside, the Torso mode, which is really what I was buying this toy for, is great!
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