Unicron Head Pack-In

Allegiance: None
Color Scheme: "Cheese" yellow, dark bluish gray, dull silver, and some dark fuchsia, black, yellowish off-white, and light green
Rating: 6.1

    Packaged with some of the earlier Primus releases, the "damaged Unicron head" pack-in is roughly the size of Armada Unicron's head with tentacles coming out the bottom. This extra is detailed very, very well, with the skull internals looking extra cool, and definitely evil enough to be Unicron, what with the sharp teeth and all. The half-and-half skull/normal face was also a great idea and makes Unicron look all the more evil. Besides the blown-away half of the face, other "battle damage" is apparent, such as chipped and cracked horns, cracks and chunks blown off the back end of the helmet-head, and exposed wiring on few of the tentacles. The tentacles themselves are a bit too thick proportionally, however, even accepting that they need to support the head-- I couldn't see all these thick tentacles fitting inside Unicron's neck back when it was attached to his body. The coloring and paint apps on the Unicron head are pretty good and certainly more then adequate, though a few oddities do occur besides the obvious "Why isn't he in his Energon colors?". For one, the normal half of the face is dark gray, while on the Armada toy it was nearly white. Also, there's a nice dull silver spray on the front halves of the horns, but the back halves are not painted at all. It's not all that noticeable, but it is a bit odd. Otherwise, the paint apps are great-- I especially love the charcoal black wash on the damaged parts of Unicron's helmet. One big downside, though, is that the Unicron head has no movement at all-- I was at least expecting it to be able to rotate around where the tentacles met the head, but no such luck. However, as a freebie, you really can't go wrong with getting the Unicron head-- it's especially cool to "orbit" it around Primus' planet mode like it did in the '80s movie.
 

Cybertron Primus

Allegiance: None (Because he has no Autobot symbol on his body, I'm assuming he's got a silver Autobot key and Autobot packaging because A. He's a good guy, albeit not an Autobot and B. They didn't want to create a new Cyber Key and packaging background for just him. 'Sides, the guy predates Autobots and Decepticons, how can he himself be an Autobot?)
Size: Supreme
Homeworld: Cybertron
Cyber Key Code: sp8u
Difficulty of Transformation: Hard
Color Scheme: Light milky gray, dark dull navy blue, dull flat grayish blue, silver, black, sky blue, and some dull metallic bronze, dull goldish yellow, and translucent aqua-blue
Rating: 9.5

    The maker of the Transformers race finally gets his own toy, and his alternate mode is of the Transformers' home planet, Cybertron! All in all, Primus' planet mode is very good, considering the thing also turns into a robot. For one, unlike Armada Unicron, the planet is pretty close to a sphere, all the way around-- however, to keep Primus from rolling all over the place, four rather ingeniously-placed "towers" on the underside of the planet act as a de facto stand for it. There's also four towers on the top side of Cybertron that have Minicon ports on the top of them, along with a Minicon port on three of the four sides of the planet, each near the equator. As you'd expect from a planet-sized Transformer, Primus is PACKED with mold detailing, with little cities, buildings, towers, and roads all over this mode. An especially cool treat for big-time Transfans is that some of the buildings are recognizable! One is the mushroom-shaped building, Kolkular (seen in The War Within comic book series), near the equator; another is the capital city of Iacon, on the opposite side of the planet as Kolkular (in fact, the only place the Iacon city was really laid out visually before was in the Transformers Ultimate Guidebook, on two pages-- now THAT'S obscure!); and it also appears that the building structures around the speaker port near the north pole is the Council Citadel from the Beast Machines TV show, though I could be wrong on that last one. There's also tons of paint detailing on the cities and various other structures on Cybertron's surface, which is also pretty cool and helps to break up al the gray and blue. There are two gimmicks that can be activated in this mode-- if you insert the Cyber Key into one of its two slots on the sides of the planet, the "wrist guns" from Primus' robot mode will lift up and extend, giving Cybertron some BIG guns! Also, Primus comes with the Omega Lock, the ancient artifact from the TV series that, when all four Cyber Planet Keys are placed in it, unlocks Primus' true form. And it does the same here-- put the Omega Lock into its slot at the top of Cybertron, and a bright red light comes on inside the Lock. Push it forward, and the top half of the planet splits apart, allowing you to begin Primus' transformation as a "outer space" sound is emitted from the speaker. There are two problems I have with the planet mode, however, one major, one minor. The major one is the pretty big gap in the sides of the planet about halfway between the north pole and the equator, due to the large cannons used in robot mode. It's rather unsightly from all but a few select angles-- I would've preferred leaving out those cannons if it meant this gap was closed up, or at least somehow relocating the cannons to the underside of this mode, where they wouldn't be nearly as visible. My minor problem with the planet mode is that the robot hands aren't quite covered up, and they don't mesh in color with the surrounding pieces.
    Primus' robot mode is definitely the main draw for the toy, as it comes with a load of weaponry and has quite a few gimmicks. The overall color scheme is now more apparent in this mode, with a light sky blue added to the mix, mainly on the main body. The gray, silver, and a bit of yellow are nice colors, if not the most eye-catching, but hey, there's only so much you can do when the general colors of Cybertron have already been set in stone for 20+ years. I do have to say, though, that I don't think the light sky blue fits quite in as well with the other colors-- maybe a dull golden-yellow in its place would have worked better and fit a "mighty creator" better. Primus' exquisite mold and paint detailing carry over to this mode, so no problems there. The head sculpt is very good and fits a creator for the most part, but giving him a robo-beard like Unicron has would've helped him look more ancient. His proportions are pretty much spot-on, though his legs could've been just a TAD longer. His articulation is also very good-- he can move at the head, shoulders (at two points), elbows (at two points), waist, hips (at two points), knees (at two points). His fingers can also move at TWO points each, and his thumb on each hand can move at one point. About the only thing really missing is wrist articulation. Primus' planet kibble is both good and bad, in a way-- the planet halves on his back and his shoulders, both with building-spikes on them, look great and actually add a bit to Primus' overall look, even if they do inhibit arm movement a little. The big "butt flap" of planet kibble hanging off of him doesn't look that great, however, and the feet and heels don't look all that hot, given that they're just small portions of the curved planet surface. However, other than that, the designers have done wonders getting all the parts of a sphere to fit in so well with a roboot. The planet parts on the sides of Primus' legs house a push-out (non-firing) piece of plastic with missiles molded into it, and they also each house an extendable miniature claw-arm with a Minicon port on the side of it. Primus also has some big giant-building-sized guns in his lower legs-- however, to get these and the weapons on the sides of his legs to be facing forward, you have to rotate the leg-planet parts by inserting the Omega Lock into its slot on each leg and cranking it around. It's not that big of a deal, but it is a bit of a bother to have to use the Omega Lock again beyond just jump-starting the transformation from planet mode. The Omega Lock also has to be used AGAIN at the final step of the transformation, by pushing up with it in the slot on Primus' chest to pop the head out and spread the arms apart. However, at least this time you get blinking eyes and a "firing lasers" sound effect. Primus also has one last gimmick available in this mode-- both of his larger cannons mounted over his shoulders each fire a spring-loaded missile. Not exactly original, but a figure this big needs some missile-firin' power.
    Primus also has a third mode, a "battle station" mode, though it's hard to imagine a planet-sized battle station... not to mention it doesn't look anything like a battle station, anyway. It's pretty much just his robot mode with a few steps taken to transform it partially back to planet mode and then laid on its stomach. No features that are only accessible in this mode or anything of the sort, so this can easily be chalked up to another third mode that was added in at the last minute and doesn't add anything to the toy. (Though the flip side of that is that it doesn't take away anything from the other modes, either...)
    Overall, Primus is an excellent toy of a character that's needed one for a long time, and is one of the best toys of the Cybertron line. As far as "best TF toy ever", I'd still reserve that for Unicron, seeing as how Unicron's robot mode is a little better than Primus' (though Primus' planet mode is better than Unicron's), and Unicron's planet mode is a little more playable than Primus' is. Primus still comes awfully close, though, and is worth every penny of his $50 price tag. Highly recommended.

Review by Beastbot

(Note: In some later releases of the figure, Primus was packaged with four Minicons, each from a separate Classics line Minicon Team. These are not reviewed here, but rather in the Classics Toy Review section.)

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