Unlike the other toys in the first two waves of the Beast Wars 10th Anniversary toyline, 10th Anniversary Optimus Primal is a brand new mold with an interesting history. According to the Transformers toy designers, the mold was originally designed to be used in the mainline, Cybertron, as a new "Jungle Planet" version of Optimus Prime, and the design eventually wound up as a homage to Optimus Primal, but not the actual character. Well, then came along the idea for the Beast Wars 10th Anniversary toyline, and Hasbro decided to release the mold in the 10th Anniversary line first in colors that were close to the original Optimus Primal's. In fact, with the exception of a few minor liberties taken with the hoverboard colors, and the placement of some of the colors, the main scheme is spot-on Optimus Primal, with the exact shade of each color being used again for this toy. It's pretty cool, and despite the toy's obvious differences from the initial version of Optimus Primal, it makes the homages even more obvious. (The red toes I could've done without, though, those look a tad gaudy.) I also am not too fond of the fact his upper and lower robot legs (or gorilla arms) are half gray and half either black of white. It's a rather abrupt transition between the two colors on those parts, and keeping the upper legs a solid white and the lower legs a solid black would've worked better, in my view. One other oddity is that Primal's Maximal symbol is, of all things, painted on the left side of his rear end, which is rather odd...
    Optimus Primal's beast mode definitely has the Cybertron aesthetic, with a very techno-organic feel. The mold detailing is magnificent, with fur, technorganic "muscle", and tubing covering every square centimeter of Primal's body. In this way, this version of Primal is kind of an amalagamation of his original form, his Beast Machines form, and his Transmetal form (because of the hoverboard). There are two minor beefs I have with said detailing, though-- for one, Primal's gorilla face looks just plain ugly. The eyes look a little TOO old and battle-weary, and he has a pig snout. The gorilla chest is also very muscular and flat-chested, which is odd considering how otherwise accurate the proportions are to a real gorilla. There are no real robot extras to speak of in this mode, though the back end of the butt isn't quite as solid-looking as I'd like-- if you'll excuse the wording, there's a pretty obvious hole back there. One other, minor thing about Primal's gorilla mode is that his front hands aren't articulated at all. I realize that they become the robot mode feet, but even a little thumb articulation would've been appreciated, and there's nothing inherent in the transformation that would have prevented such movement. Primal has pretty standard articulation for a gorilla in this mode-- he can move at the shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and his four fingers on each of his face feet can move as one while the side toe can move by itself on a ball joint. Primal's accessory is a big ol' hoverboard for him to surf on in gorilla mode, though it should be noted that he can ONLY surf on it in gorilla mode-- the pegs on the top of the board only fit into holes in his gorilla feet, while his robot feet have no such holes, which is a bit of a bummer considering that he can't really face towards the front of the board in his gorilla form with both feet planted on the board. The hoverboard itself contains Optimus' Cyber Key gimmick, since he was designed as a Cybertron toy first, remember. Insert his key into a slot at the back of the board, and part of the board slides out and back, revealing a trigger for a missile launcher at the front of the board!
    Even though his beast mode is pretty good, Primal's robot mode is where the toy really shines. His proportions are perfect, his gorilla kibble is all tucked behind his head and out of the way, and he has very good articulation that carries over from the beast mode, with the addition of head movement as well-- heck, because his thumbs are on a ball joint, he's the only Transformer mold to date that can give a thumbs up! The detailing on his chest has the same general design as his original form, but with a bit of a technorganic flair added. His head design is also great, with the standard "flipped-down faceplate" design Primal's original form had, but his head's a bit bulkier and a bit more technorganicky. I also noticed that he has his old-fashioined jet pack design molded into his upper back in this mode-- a great nod to his original and Beast Machines forms! His chest does stick out just a tad too much from the rest of his body, however, so it looks a little odd if you look at him from a side view. His hoverboard-turned-weapon accessory is rather cumbersome in this mode as well-- he can hold it, but it's nearly as big as he is, and he has a hard time staying balanced with that big thing hoisted over his shoulder.

    Primal comes with a miniature replica of the Maximal's ship, the Axalon. It's very detailed, and spot-on when compared to the show, but it's just one solid piece of plastic without any features, not even a landing gear. So, though it does have some "geeky fan" value, it doesn't really have any playability. Primal also comes with a mini-sized version of IDW's Beast Wars #1 comic in its entirety, but if you already have the first comic it's useless, and you'd have to buy the other three comics in the miniseries to complete the story anyways.
    10th Anniversary Optimus Primal is a great mold-- he's been scorned by a large portion of the fandom for some reason, but I can't find out why for the life of me. He's one of the most underrated toys of the year, as both of his modes are great, though he's not completely flawless. The extras that Primal comes with are rather weak and it's questionable whether they're worth the five extra bucks you have to pay to get the 10th Anniversary version over the differently-colored Cybertron version. If you're a HUGE Beast Wars fan and absolutely MUST have Primal in his show-accurate colors and a miniature Axalon, than this version of the mold is highly recommended. If not, you might want to go for the Cybertron version instead, which is $5 cheaper.

Review by Beastbot

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