Drag
Strip (Botcon 2011 Exclusive)
(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 Arcee. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Animated Arcee here.)
Drag Strip here, although
an homage to her G1 self in many respects just like her other fellow Animated
Stunticons, has a bit more of a drastic change; for one thing, this version's
female. Part of the decision to tweak the "sex" of the character for this
universe's version likely had to do with wanting to use four different
deluxe sportscar molds from the Animated line for the set, but I have to
say they pulled it off here quite well. She has G1 Drag Strip's colors--
yellow and black are her primary colors, along with several nice fuchsia
and yellow lines running down her form. The paint apps are scattered quite
well across the toy so that no one section is simply a big block of color--
definitely a good thing, as I'm personally not usually a fan of yellow
as a main color. She also has the pale blue face that G1 Drag Strip has,
which helps to add a bit more color to the robot mode (along with a few
isolated silver paint apps). That said, even with the different colors
her head still looks too much like Arcee's-- it doesn't make the transition
to a new character as well as Dead End's does. Still, what really impresses
me about this toy is that the stripes in robot mode, combined with the
colors and swords, make her a pretty obvious and deliberate "Kill Bill"
homage. That turns what would normally be an okay G1 homage into a brilliant
double-homage, and is what really makes me like this toy.
No mold changes have
been made to Drag Strip.
Animated Drag Strip
is certainly more different from her G1 counterpart than the other Stunticons,
but this certainly isn't a bad thing in her case-- the well-done paint
apps and overall look that gives a nod to "Kill Bill" is ingenious and
quite well-done, to the point where I'd recommend this over the original
Animated Arcee, despite my general dislike of the color yellow.
Review by Beastbot