Autobot
Tailgate (Prime)
(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 Prime legion Cliffjumper toy. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the Prime legion Cliffjumper figure here.)
Tailgate here is a bit
of an homage to the Generation 1 character of the same name, who was a
"Mini-Bot" in the original series and was a car fairly similar to Prime
Cliffjumper's alt mode. But even beyond that, this redeco actually made
a brief (shadowed) appearance in the Prime cartoon itself-- in an Arcee
flashback episode, you can tell from a couple of shadowed glimpses you
get of her previous partner Tailgate that they were re-using the Cliffjumper
show model, so it makes sense that they'd release Tailgate as a redeco
of Cliffjumper from that respect, as well. Anyways, this redeco largely
takes its color cues from G1 Tailgate, with white and a fair amount of
black being the major plastic colors. By itself, that would make him pretty
boring, but the excellent shade of metallic blue really goes just right
with both the white AND black, contrasting against both since it's somewhere
in the middle of the color scale, being neither particularly light nor
dark. This excellent shade of metallic blue is used on Tailgate's robot
face and chest, rear end in vehicle mode, and-- in a more visually interesting
twist than simply copying his G1 color layout to the letter-- a really
nice-looking blue "flame" paint app on the front half of so of the hood.
There's also a bit of silver to help round things out (on his front bumper
and face). I wish his side tailpipes and taillights in vehicle mode were
painted, but other than that all the major details are painted, and the
colors are spread fairly evenly across Tailgate's toy in both modes, so
even without the flames being as prominent in robot mode he still has a
nice color layout there, as well.
No mold changes have
been made to the "core" toy when compared to Cliffjumper, but the Cyberverse
weapon has been changed, to the standard double-barreled Autobot weapon
that's included with several other 2012 Legion-class figures. As opposed
to the regular pale red, its color is a rather nice-looking pale light
green shade, and it goes fairly well with the other colors on Tailgate--
a bit better than a red weapon would have, at least in my view.
Prime Tailgate's mold
is, unfortunately, one of the worst of the 2012 Legions, but Hasbro's done
quite a lot to pretty it up for this second release, with some dynamite
metallic blue paint apps (the cool "flames" app on the front hood looking
particularly nice). Recommended over Cyberverse Cliffjumper; just be advised
that the color scheme is what's pretty about the toy, not the mold itself.
Review by Beastbot