Beast Machines Blast Punch Optimus Primal
Well, unless you completly avoided the show, you know that the large majority of Beast Machines
toys were not show accurate. It's been said to death, but it's really that the show wasn't toy
accurate (since the toys are made first), but anyway, one of the major toys that got a good deal of
complaints was Optimus Prime who pretty much looked nothing like he did on the show.
Enter: Blast Punch Optimus Primal, the answer to a series full of show characters adapted to
look better from toys that may or may not have looked fine already (Tankor, Jetstorm, the list
goes on). I saw BPOP last week in a Toy Works, but I opted to pick up Tankor instead. Of course
I was back there this week with my eight bucks (actually, I only paid five for Tankor...) and
left with a shiny new Punchmonkey.
Optimus is mega sized, though he's not quite as big as Rattrap or Cheetor, though he stands
quite tall over Megatron (as most other Beast Machines toys do). He comes in beast mode and
looks pretty similar to how he did on the show. Large, hulking arms, big hump back and all that.
Press a little blue button on his head and he bears his teeth for all to see. His eyes have no
pupils though. Hmm, weird.
Ah, and of course there's the blast punch, which is where he gets his name (duh). It's quite
simple, but pretty cool. What you do to work it is move his left shoulderpad (the one on your right)
up and down a few times then press the button on his arm. His little (or big, actually) wrist guard
rotates until it hits a button on his wrist which triggers the whole blast punch mechanism. His
hand shoots out a bit (maybe half an inch) and if you loaded his missile that'll fire too.
Transformation is pretty easy, just straighten him up, swap heads and do some magic with his
fingers and toes and badda boom, it's Primal. The mold is a dead on representation of the show
Primal, though the colors are a bit weird. Last I remembered, Punchmonkey wasn't orange. In fact,
he's a lot of orange in this toy, but not so much in the show as far as I remember. Ah well, as it
goes I guess that's the price you pay for having him look just like he did in the show.
Any problems? Of course. First off Punchmonkey is very limited in his poseability. If you thought
the first Beast Machines Optimus has bad elbow joints (in beast mode anyway), you ain't seen nothing
yet. BPOP has absolutly no articulation in his left arm and very limited movement in his right one. On
top of that his legs are attached to his hips by very limited ball and socket joints and his
knees are overly rigid, so posing him is pretty limited in that sense. He does have a swivel joint
on his hips, which is good, if not overly useful. His head also swivles, but it's really tight and
the end result isn't worth it.
So, the end result would be an ehish sort of toy. I paid $8 for mine (with discount), and maybe
that's worth it, but I'm not sure (maybe if I'd kept it mint in box it would have been better). The
only thing BPOP really has going for him aside from show accuracy (something very few BM toys can
claim) is his relative rareity since he was released so late in the Beast Machines lineup. If you happen
to find one for a decent price (I wouldn't pay more than $10 for one), then pick it up, but only if
you really like Optimus Primal or want a show-accurate toy. Otherwise I'd pass on this one.
