Price: $35 U.S.
 

Autobot Whirl

Allegiance: Autobot
Size: Voyager
Difficulty of Transformation: Medium
Color Scheme: Dark navy blue, pale bluish white, and some black, milky gray, yellow, transparent red, and silver
Rating: 8.7

(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 original Movie Voyager Blackout w/ Scorponok toy. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the original Movie Voyager Blackout w/ Scorponok toy here.)

    Whirl was a blue helicopter in G1, and so this redeco homage here tied back to that original version of him. However, Blackout was already light blue, so making this version of Whirl that same shade would have been... repetitive, to say the least. Luckily, Hasbro instead decided to go a darker route when it came to RotF Whirl's blue, so he doesn't look nearly as "same-y". For those who still want Whirl to have pale blue, though, that's now his secondary color (mostly visible in robot mode), though it's been lightened up to the point where it's nearly white now. Both colors, depsite being different shades of blue, go together very well due to the high contrast, and the couple of areas of black, gray/silver, and yellow help to shake things up a bit more, particularly in vehicle mode. That said, the black used near the front of the vehicle mode doesn't stick out from the dark blue enough, and I feel that paint app would've been better used elsewhere. The most ingenious paint app on this toy is definitely Whirl's "production number" on his side-- N073A0. Looked at normally, it means nonsense. However, look at it UPSIDE DOWN and it's very close to spelling out "OVELON", the name of the line G1 Whirl's mold originally appeared in. Is that some really nice obscure homaging or what?
    No mold changes have been made to RotF Whirl per se, but he does have the same mold alterations made to Movie Evac-- namely, the gun and modified head. I really would've liked a one-optic head, though, since that was a bit part of G1 Whirl's "look". (It should also be noted that, for some reason, the rear "cage" piece of my Whirl is missing, so although that piece isn't included in the above pics, it's still on the toy.)

Decepticon Bludgeon

Allegiance: Decepticon
Size: Deluxe
Difficulty of Transformation: Medium
Color Scheme: Dark jungle green, moderately dark muddy brown, and some transparent violet, charocal black, and pale glossy bone white
Rating: 9.3

(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 original Movie Wreckage toy. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the original Movie Wreckage toy here.)

    When most people think of G1 Bludgeon, they think of the yellow Samurai skull-faced dude, but that's G1 Bludgeon's Pretender shell-- his actual, "core" form inside the pretender shell was a tank with a similar color scheme to this RotF toy. So, although this isn't a tank per se-- it's a military transport instead-- the alt mode is close enough, and given the blades it's not that far of a stretch to call it Bludgeon. The dark green works quite well as a main color, and the muddy brown contrasts well with it-- it's a very "military" color scheme, to be sure. The transparent purple is also a GORGEOUS shade, used sparingly as it is, and looks particularly good on Bludgeon's swords. The black also looks fairly good in comparison to the other colors, but it's more of an "impure" charcoal black, which I don't like nearly as much as a more "solid" black. As far as the paint apps go, he looks fairly good in robot mode-- I like the bone white on his already skull-like face to emphasize its look-- but it's almost bereft of paint in vehicle mode, which, given that it's all green, looks more boring than it should have been
    No mold changes have been made to RotF Decepticon Bludgeon.

    The "Master of Metallikato" set has two of the best color schemes on some pretty darn good molds (particularly in regards to Bludgeon). It's a bit more than if the toys had been released seperately at retail, but it's not that big of a markup. Highly recommended if you don't have any previous versions of these molds-- otherwise, mildly recommended.

Review by Beastbot

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