(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to Animated Blurr. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Animated Blurr here.)

    Cheetor is a rather inventive remold of the Animated Blurr toy, both in terms of taking an appropriate alt mode for a former- (or, in this universe's case, never-) cheetah 'bot, and in terms of being a slight nod to the never-released Transtech Cheetor toy, which had a similar alt mode and hollow wheel-feet. As those of you who have been reading my reviews for a while know, I'm not particularly fond of the color yellow in large amounts-- but of course, on Cheetor here, it's the only really acceptable color. The black windows, wheels, and spots contrast quite well with the yellow, and the transparent green headlights and chainsaw weapon help to both vary the colors up and provide a slight nod to his various Beast Machines toys. The bits of red and silver on the wheels look particularly good-- almost TRON-like, really. In robot mode the bits of orange help add yet another highlighting color to his form, and again call back to his Beast Machines color scheme in terms of its general placement. That said, I'm not fond of Cheetor's spots being so... organic-looking. It just goes a BIT too far beyond my ability to suspend my disbelief, given he's never been a beast in this continuity. The original call was for him to have more hexagonal spots, which I think would've worked much better, but it didn't look the people who were in charge of the deco for this toy agreed.
    Cheetor has a new headsculpt, but unfortunately, it's rather botched. All of the details are there that both pay homage to his various forms-- the large circle behind his jaw hearkens back to his Beast Machines form, the slight goatee to his later Beast Wars forms, and his three-pronged headcrest to all of his Beast Wars forms-- but they're been laid out in such a manner that it looks like Cheetor's sculpt has been "smeared back" from the front, with his eyes being too far back on each side. His middle headcrest also looks a little "limp", particularly in vehicle mode where it's supposed to be an antennae. The whole sculpt just generally looks ugly, which is a real shame given how nice his concept art looks.
    Animated Cheetor is a pretty inspired remold, but the botched headsculpt-- combined with the prevalance of yellow, a color I'm not fond of (regardless of how well it fits the character)-- have me recommending Blurr over this more expensive exclusive version, unless you're a huge Cheetor fan.

Review by Beastbot

Back to BotCon/OTFCC Exclusives Index