Starscream's F-22 Raptor alternate form is okay from a directly top-down view, but looks really unconvincing at any other angle, due to his rather obvious undercarriage junk. His robot legs-- and especially his robot arms-- stick out very blatantly from the bottom and rear of this mode, with there being no real attempt to hide the hands at all from normal view, even the aforementioned top-down view. His robot head also sticks out from the back end, though this is a far less obvious and annoying piece of kibble as the legs and arms. Proportions-wise, though, this mode is alright, at least when you ignore all the kibble-- the wings, nosecone, and the like are all of the appropriate size, though there's a ovular gap right in the middle of the jet due to Starscream's transformation. The color scheme of light dull tan and gray is hardly attractive, but it is realistic, which is certainly what the movie look is going for. The silver stripes on the front of the wings and the nosecone at least at a little bit of much-needed contrast to this mode, at least.
    In robot mode, however, any positives Starscream had in vehicle mode are lost. He looks like a swollen deformed tick, and just about everything that CAN be wrong with him-- outside of the aforementioned color scheme and mold/paint detailing, which is actually very good on his chest-- is. His arms are the goofiest-looking part of his body by far, being a completely different shape on the upper half than the lower half, and still looking ludicrously skinny compared to the huge main body anyways. The feet are also too skinny (and short proportionally, but they're supposed to be the latter). His head molding is... I don't know what's going on with it, it's like they molded Starscream's optics in and then weren't sure what to do with his mouth so they just threw a bunch of random details on it, it only vaguely resembles Starscream's actual mouth in the movie. His body is also almost paper-thin, given that it's essentially the underside of his alternate mode you're looking at with the limbs unfurled, and he looks really fragile from a side view, especially since his waist and legs actually rotate backwards during transformation and stick out from behind his main body. This was mainly done so that the cockpit would show through the hole in his stomach to approximate his "cockpit-chest" design in the movie, but it just looks really poorly-done here. Starscream can move at the hips, shoulders, and elbows, and his movement is pretty restricted at the hips, so you can't get a whole lot of poses out of him, either. Not to mention that no matter how you pose his arms, they still look weird....
    Legends class Starscream is the worst of the Legends figures, and probably the worst mold to come out of the entire movie line. He doesn't look TOO bad in vehicle mode, if you ignore all that unsightly kibble underneath, but in robot mode he looks absolutely ridiculous no matter which angle you're viewing him from. Not recommended except for hard-core completists-- get the Voyager class version instead.

Review by Beastbot

Back to Transformers Movie Toys Index