Thundercracker
(Cybertron)
Thundercracker's vehicle
mode is a realistic jet. His vehicle mode looks very nice, and is virtually
flawless; the only robot extras at the top of the robot legs, which are
a little visible on the sides of the underbelly, but the small front wings
help to cover this up some and it's a very, very minor complaint, as the
legs fit in with the overall shape of the vehicle anyways. He could use
a bit more mold detailing on the top, but the great-looking orange wash
apps used on his wings help bring out most of the details on him while
make it look like he's humming with power at the same time. He has four
missiles affixed to the bottoms of his wings, and though they don't fire,
they're a nice detail and give him some extra firepower. Some other nice
little details are the transparent cockpit with a seat and control panel
molded inside it, and the retractable landing gear. The overall color scheme
of gray, silver, and blue (with a bit of orange for accent coloration)
is very good, too, and gives the toy very much of a realistic jet feel
(in all but the orange wash on the wings), while still giving him a color
scheme resembling that of G1 Thundercracker.
His Key Gimmick is also rather cool in this mode-- insert it into his back
section and the middle part of Thundercracker's backside springs up, revealing
a missile launcher! It's well-hidden, and a great idea.
Thundercracker's robot
mode is where it all falls apart, sadly. There is very little that's good
about this mode, so I suppose I'll get that out of the way first. His color
scheme is still good. He's reasonably stable. The idea of opening up his
legs and switching out the turbines for feet during transformation is an
original spin on an otherwise "been there, done that" transformation. His
articulation is also rather good-- he can move at the head, shoulders (at
two points), elbows (at two points on the gun-arm), the hips (at two points),
and the knees. However, that's about it. For one, his legs are downright
awful-- they're far too skinny, they just out from the sides of what should
be Thundercracker's stomach, and the feet are laughably small, even if
they do keep him stable because he's not back heavy. The sculpting on his
head is also off a little-- his mouth puffs out a big from his eyes and
nose, making him look kinda chubby when that clearly wasn't the intention.
The arms also simply do NOT connect to the main body at the shoulders--
the shoulder panels don't have any pegs at all to connect to. This has
two effects; first, the missile-launcher arm swings down and out from the
body far too easily; and second, the normal arm sits out a centimeter or
two from the main body, which looks a little odd. The Key Gimmick is also
absolutely useless in this mode; all it does is open up the missile launcher-arm,
making the upper piece floppy because it's on a spring, and you can fire
the missile without using the key in this mode anyways!
Thundercracker has a
great vehicle mode, but his robot mode is rather bad, bordering on awful.
My least favorite of the Wave 1 Cybertron figures.
Review by Beastbot