Sentinel
Prime (Animated)
Sentinel Prime's vehicle
mode is a plow truck. The proportions are decent for an Animated toy, though
he's one of the more exaggerated figures with a rather stubby-looking alt
mode-- and rather small for his size class, as well. Scale issues aside,
most of Sentinels' other properties in this mode are just fine. Like most
Animated toys, he doesn't have a lot of mold detailing, but it's used where
it counts, lkike on his front grill, and his paint detailing, while also
not great, is adequate. There aren't any particularly large areas of blue
plastic that aren't broken by paint or another color of plastic. His overall
color scheme is also quite nice-- dark blue and orange go very well together,
and the gray and black serve as nice neutral colors. I also like how the
black used for the windows is just SLIGHTLY translucent, but not transparent
enough where you actually see the robot parts inside. Sentinel's plow can
move slightly to the left-and-right, but you can't detach it. You CAN detach
the lance/shield combo perched on the topside of the truck, which is a
bit of an eyesore considering how obviously it doesn't fit in with its
surrounding parts. Unfortunately, there's no other place to store it on
the toy. There aren't really any robot mode extras in this mode, though
from a rear view it looks like both of the rear wheels are connected to
make one really long wheel (and they almost are), which obviously looks
odd.
Sentinel Prime's robot
mode is still decent enough, but it's definitely the weaker of his two
modes. The main thing that bothers me about him are his legs. Yes, his
character design in the show gives him legs that are a little short proportionally,
but they're a little TOO short on the toy. Also, the lower legs are merely
sculpted into parts of the vehicle mode, making it look like he has pretty
big feet when his show model actually doesn't. His articulation is also
very below-par for an Animated toy-- he can move at the neck (at two points),
shoulders (at three points), elbows, hips (at two points), and the knees.
Given that he only has front-to-back movement at the elbows and knees,
this makes his movement unusually restrictive for a mainline Animated figure.
The sides of the vehicle mode on the back of his lower arms also don't
look all that hot either, and the plow halves on his shouulders don't really
encompass his shoulders like they do in the show, and instead just look
like they're in the way. However, that's not to say there isn't some pretty
cool things to appreciate about this mode. For one, Sentinel has a mighty
fine lance and shield combo that can be held in his hands, and more decent
handheld weapons is definitely something the Animated line could do with.
I also like some of the detailing, particularly the slight smirk and huge
chin on Sentinel's face-- his head design is really nice, and evocative
of the character. His wide chest with the fake truck grill also adds to
his look, as well. In addition, he doesn't really have any kibble hanging
off of his back, and all four of his wheels fold together to form his shoulders
in a rather ingenious manner, again giving him the wide-shoulders, "heroic"
physique that exemplifies part of his character.
Sentinel Prime is one
of the weaker mainline Animated figures, though that's more of a praise
of the overall quality of mainline Animated than a put-down regarding this
toy. His vehicle mode is great, though "midget-y", and his robot mode has
some nice parts but tends to suffer a bit from some odd proportions and
relatively little articulation. So he's an okay Autobot, but not the best--
hey, this toy IS perfectly fitting for Sentinel Prime!
Review by Beastbot