(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 Generations Leader Jetfire. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Generations Leader Jetfire here.)

    I'm pretty sure you know the drill by now; Thundercracker is a redeco on Starscream in dark blue, silv-- wait, what? Thundercracker is a remold of Jetfire and came out before Starscream? Well, that's a first. Anyways, as far as coloration goes, this version of Thundercracker is very much by-the-book when it comes to matching the general coloration of his recent toys. Dark blue and black dominate his color scheme, with some dyanmic red-and-silver stripes on his wings in vehicle mode (with the tailfins black) while his chest and waist in robot mode have a good amount of silver on them as well. The jet cockpit is also a transparent light yellowish-orange, as it's traditionally been. The one thing here that's "out of the normal" in terms of Thundercracker's color scheme is that the plastic used for most of his gray parts is a really nice, semi-metallic shade of the color-- one that I really wish was used on many, many more TFs, as it actually kinda looks like metal. There is a touch of that blah light milky gray plastic too, but it's used for small little connector parts, like the hips and the missile for his gun. Because of the transformation, Thundercracker does have a weakness in robot mode that most of his other toys of recent don't though, and that's that there's just too much unpainted dark blue in his robot mode. This is because only the UNDERSIDE of the wings are visible in this mode, and they're unpainted. They really should've offset this with some sort of paint apps up there, or compressed Thundercracker's wings more in robot mode so he didn't have so much dark blue visible around his head and shoulders.
    The more interesting thing about Thundercracker this time around than his color scheme is the remolding done when compared to Jetfire. The robot chest is different, now a more close approximation of the traditional Seeker "cockpit chest", though his is entirely fake (and the fake cockpit is painted orange as opposed to the transparent orange on the actual one). There's also a new headsculpt, as you'd expect, which nails the G1 seeker look pretty well but with a bigger "helmet" and smaller vents than are traditionally used on G1-esque Seeker heads. He's also got a rather neutral expression on his face, rather than the usual Starscream smirk that comes with usually being a repaint of ol' Screamer. The headsculpt works pretty nicely, overall, though the new chest does look a bit overly/obviously fake. The main wings have also been changed, to be more swept back than Jetfire's (and they can't rotate back-and-forth like Jetfire's either-- they're fixed). The large top engines from Jetfire have also been completely removed (though the clips that connect them on the top of the jet mode are still there), and they've been "replaced" with two blaster accessories for Thundercracker's forearms, to fit in with the traditional Seeker look. All that said, in general it's not a good tradeoff between Jetfire and Thundercracker-- Thundercracker's hollow blaster accessories are nowhere near the same size and mass as Jetfire's big dual engine piece, and the new headsculpt doesn't have a cool slip-over helmet like Jetfire did-- not to mention there's no chrome on Thundercracker (though some may certainly see the latter as a positive).
    Combiner Wars Leader Thundercracker is a pretty decent redeco, with some inventive remolding done and some pretty nice color choices made, even if they are pretty much by-the-book colors for Thundercracker by this point. The remolding done is largely nice, but leaves Thundercracker with considerably less mass than Jetfire, but at the same price-- and Leaders were already starting to feel a bit light for the pricepoint. Add in a robot mode that has large unpainted swaths of dark blue plastic, and although he's an okay toy by himself, he's largely unneeded, given howmany G1-esque Thundercracker redecos have been released in the last few years. A mild recommendation if A. You want a big G1-esque Thundercracker, but B. Don't want to pay as much money as the Masterpiece version costs. Otherwise, skip.

Review by Beastbot

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