I'm honestly surprised
it's taken this long to get a Legends class G1-inspired Starscream mold,
given the repaint potential of him. Anyways, in vehicle mode Starscream
looks decent enough-- for a Legend. The proportions are actually quite
good, with the wings being a TAD small proportionally, but that's it. The
mold detailing is great, with all the little paneling on his wings and
such you'd expect from a jet. His color scheme is typical Starscream, being
mostly a light milky gray with some red and blue highlights. The light
milky gray I've always thought was rather blah, but the dark blue and red
do look nice contrasting against it (though the red could stand to be a
shade or two darker). The gold cockpit is also a nice shade of the color.
My main complaint about this mode is the robot legs, which stick out pretty
blatantly from underneath the wings, and actually poke out in front of
them a bit in an unsightly manner. Because of this, it's also not really
feasible for him to have tiny landing gear, either. (On a lesser note,
if you look at the jet mode from the underside, his robot face is right
there underneath the nose cone. But since you usually don't look at him
from that angle, that's a small quibble at best.) Because he's from the
"Reveal the Shield" subline, Starscream has a small rub symbol on his right
wing that you can rub to reveal that he's-- surprise!-- a Decepticon.
Starscream's transformation
to his robot mode is relatively complicated for a Legend, and the unorthodox
method of transforming leaves some "cheats", like a fake cockpit-chest
and the way his rear wings fold onto his lower legs. His null ray guns
are formed from slits of the middle of his jet mode, though, which is rather
ingenious. His main wings do stick up a bit TOO much from behind his shoulders,
though-- I know G1 Starscream's always had his wings behind his shoulders,
but these are closer to his main body and higher up, making them a bit
more of an eyesore as opposed to merely complementing the mode. His nosecone
also just hangs behind his head like on the G1
toy, though SLIGHTLY less conspiciously. The sculpting on his face
for such a small scale is great, as is the detailing on his chest- the
sculpting on the rest of his robot bits is a bit overly simplistic though,
I have to say. Starscream's articulation is roughly average for a Legends
class toy-- he can move at the shoulders, slightly side-to-side at the
neck, and at the knees and hips (the latter only side-to-side, sadly).
"Reveal the Shield"
Legends Starscream seems to try to be a bit overly complex for a such a
small toy, and likely suffers from a few more minor kibble problems than
if they would've gone for a more straightforward transformation. The wings
in his robot mode and leg undercarriage in his vehicle mode are slight
eyesores, but for such a cheap price they're not a huge deal overall. His
color scheme is accurate to Starscream, but still kinda boring-- thus although
it's an above-average Legends class mold, I'd recommend this version the
least out of the releases of the mold.
Review by Beastbot
*In 2012, this toy was re-released in Generations packaging at discount outlets like Dollar Stores. The colors and paint apps are the same as on this initial version, but with the "Reveal the Shield" sticker removed on the wings and Decepticon symbols painted on in its place. Also, the Generations version came with two additional null ray weapons with hands molded to be able to hold them. Even though it's odd to have a Starscream toy with FOUR null rays, it's more (free) weaponry,, which is why I rate that release slightly higher than the one reviewed.