Thundercracker
(DotM)
(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 the DotM deluxe Starscream toy. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the DotM deluxe Starscream toy here.)
It's pretty much a given
that any Starscream mold will eventually be repainted into one his similarly-colored
Seeker partners, and that's true of the DotM deluxe mold as well. If you're
at all familiar with Thundercracker, you know generally what to expect
from this redeco; he's mostly dark blue and light gray/silver, with some
black visible in robot mode and some light red highlights, particularly
the stripes on his wings in vehicle mode. What I do like about the silver
and light red paint stripes on his wings this time around are they aren't
just simple lines; they're a bit more fragmented and "tech-looking", and
just generally are more visually interesting (though on a lesser note I
wish the lines were on both sides of his upper tailfins, and not just the
topside). The light milky gray plastic on this toy is a bit of a "dirtier",
browner shade than on most movie toys. Now, I'm not a fan of light gray
plastic all that much, but adding brown to the mix just makes it look uglier,
in my opinion-- a "straighter" light gray would have been preferable in
my eyes. However, Thundercracker's got quite a few silver paint apps, which
drastically lessens the amount of light gray and thus makes him look considerably
better than he otherwise would have. He's also got a transparent yellow
cockpit, which contrasts nicely against the quite dark shade of blue he
has and goes well with the metallic greenish gold paint used most prominently
on his blade. I think that the metallic gold paint would've looked a bit
better without the green, but it still looks pretty nice overall.
The core mold of Thundercracker
doesn't have any changes compared to Starscream, including the lack of
a new head sculpt like his first Movie
toy had. This, to me at least, is a positive; that weird G1/Movie hybrid
headsculpt looked terrible in my eyes, so him sharing a head with ol 'Screamer
is just fine by me. Thundercracker still keeps the non-retractable half
of Starscream's blade weapon, but for his Mechtech weapon he gains a blue
version of Roadbuster's chainsaw weapon
instead. It's a cool nifty little thing in and of itself, but it makes
his half-blade look a bit... incomplete without its "partner weapon".
DotM Thundercracker
is a superb redeco of an already superb mold, largely using the best shades
of Thundercracker's main colors and upping the ante even further with some
more interesting, varied stripes on the wings. A highly recommended purchase,
even if you already own the Starscream version of this mold; it's that
good.
Review by Beastbot