Scorponok
(Deluxe) [Movie]
Scorponok's robotic scorpion mode is freaking amazing, to put it simply. He's very close to what he looks like in the movie, with great proportions. His legs are a bit undersized, but that's his only problem in that respect and it's not that bad. His paint apps are great-- the miniature "CAUTION" and "FUEL" signs, the silver, gold, and gunmetal paint apps all over him-- it all looks really nice. And his mold detailing isn't anything to scoff at, either-- he definitely looks like a killing machine, with his pointy twisted claws, his drills behind said claws, his VERY highly-detailed face, the "drill" that makes up the core of his body, the armor plating-- heck, it all looks good. The color scheme is realistic and "metal-colored" like many of other movie Decepticons, but this particular combination of grey, black, and brown goes really great together and is rather eye-catching. His articulation is also pretty good for a scorpion, too-- he can move at the shoulders (at three points), the elbows, at the base of each claw, at the base of each leg, at the tail at five separate places, and his head can move up-and-down slightly, which makes for a surprisingly varied number of poses he can assume in this mode. Scorponok also features two gimmicks in this mode (and in his robot mode, too). The first one is that if you press on the trigger on the top of his tail, the stinger will launcher forward about an inch, to "skewer" anyone in front of him. The other, far more impressive, gimmick pretty much involves the rest of his body-- as you roll Scorponok along on a flat surface, his claws rotate as well as the drill that makes up the core of his main body. This automatic movement can work either way, too-- rotate the drill to rotate the claws, or visa versa. It's impressive how this works even with articulation in the shoulders and elbows, and emphasizes Scorponok's "sand shark" digging aspect very well. In addition, Scorponok can latch on to Voyager-class Blackout in Blackout's vehicle mode and, when Blackout's rotor button is pushed in, Scorponok's claws will spin in unison. The two toys are definitely out-of-scale with each other, though, and it admittedly looks rather goofy with Scorponok squashed under Blackout like that.
Scorponok's "robot mode", however, is a piece of sad sack. It's literally just his scorpion mode standing up, and was clearly less than an afterthought. The sides of his main body become short, odd-looking legs, but other than that he's the exact same. His tail can't swing up over his main body, his scorpion head looks really odd mounted in a normal humanoid position, and the scorpion legs hanging off the sides of his robot legs look really bad. His legs can move at the hips (at two places) and at the knees, otherwise his articulation is the same in this mode. A much better "fan mode" robot mode is easily doable, though, and I've included a picture of it because I think it's a much better option than the official robot mode-- it looks very alien like you'd expect from a creature like Scorponok, but it looks a LOT less like his scorpion mode standing up. Basically, you tilt his head to the rear position, straighten out his scorpion arms and extend out the claws to form the robot legs, unfold the official robot mode leg pieces and position the scorpion legs around them as seen above to look like claws (and thus form his "fan mode" robot arms), and then his scorpion tail becomes his head. I think it looks pretty cool, and to me it's what Scorponok's "real" robot mode is, none of this afterthought nonsense.
