Beast Wars Transmetal 2 Optimus Minor
Optimus Minor has been the butt of many jokes and ridicule among the Transformer fan universe
(because, face it, we're in our own universe, heh). Just check out the majority of these
threads on ATT
(I did a search for Optimus Minor) and you will get a good idea of what folks think of him.
Frankly, I don't see it. I mean, given it's not the most perfect toy, but it's an excellent
TM2 basic (better than the other one I own, Scarem), especially in terms of poseability. In beast
mode, Op Minor is a monkey, as you'd expect from his name (the tech specs explain he's the result of
Megatron's cloning experiments). He's a silly looking monkey, mainly because his head is set too
far forward and gives off the appearence of being a hood rather than a monkey (you can see the
robot mouth under it) head. Still, that aside, he has some amazing poseability. You can stand him
on one hand (or one foot) and do all sorts of crazy stuff with him. His legs have four points of
articulation each and his arms have three, four if you count his somewhat limited shoulder joints.
Granted the little monkey isn't the most stable thing known to man. There's little holding
his gold chest piece in aside from fate, and his monkey head is held in place by friction and luck,
but I've seen a lot worse (TM2 Scourge made it a lot easier to be considered a stable toy).
Transformation is simple, though there's a hard part that will probably frustrate you to no
end. His legs and arms switch roles (similar to the original BM Primal's do), and his monkey
head splits in half to reveal his robot head. Easier said then done. The beast head halvs are
on two very limited ball joints (putting them on ball joints attached to a hinge would have made
this a lot easier) which make it very easy to pop off the head sides. Actually, it may just be
easier to pop them off and reattach them the right way. Wrong, but easier.
Robot mode is similar to beast mode, though that was expected. I mean, how many ways are there
to make a monkey turn into a robot, eh? Unless you want to introduce dump trucks full of kibble, it's
easier to do this or something similar. Robot mode does have an oddity to it. His forearms and
hands split apart. It's not necessary to the transformation to do this, but it does make for
an extra joint in his elbow, though now he has kibble in the form of half his arm hanging from
his elbow. Yes, Op Minor has four arms. You don't need to do this, obviously, it's just
that the extra joint is nice to have since the ball joint that was his knee in beast mode is now
limited due to its position.
All in all, Optimus Minor was worth the $3 I spent on him ($4 for you regular non-KB employee
discount getters), though I'd probably not venture to go too much higher as he's still a basic, and
not worth the seven bucks BBTS wants.
Plus you can still find him in a lot of KBs (and maybe a TRU or two) as we get new stuff very late or
it sits in the warehouse for a year or more before it finally gets sent to the store. Yes folks,
Optimus Minor rocks, I don't care what you say.
