Trailcutter
(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 commander Ironhide toy. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the Prime commander Ironhide figure here.)
Trailcutter is an homage
to G1 Trailbreaker, with a partial name change for copyright issues. Trailcutter
is actually an extensive Beast Hunters-esque remold of the commander Ironhide
toy. Most of the obvious remolds are done in vehicle mode; for starters,
there's some pretty wicked-looking, rather huge (proportionally) spikes
sticking diagonally out of the roof, along with more "armored-up" truck
detailing on the top midsection, with stuff like "bolts" on the windows
and all that. The front section of the vehicle mode has also been remolded,
with two guns on the side and a port in the center that alows this mold
to hold on the front the new weapon-- a gray, spikey push missile launcher.
(It's not that impressive, but it does its job for a toy of this scale.)
The front bumper has also been remolded to look much more heavily armored,
and there's a cowcatcher-like spikey armored thing on the front as well.
For robot mode, the head is a new sculpt, featuring a rather fierce-looking,
somewhat rounded facesculpt with a large red visor (but with eye-like sides)
and a large silver chin. It looks pretty good, homaging Trailbreaker in
most respects, though I feel it's slightly overly cartoony for the Prime
line. The shoulders have also been remolded with simpler, more angular
detailing with compared to Ironhide. Unfortunately, in robot mode the remolded
roof from vehicle mode makes the pieces that hang off the toy's lower arms
even more unsightly and large, and the cowcatcher-shoulder halves are a
bit too oddly bulky and large as well.
As far as the color
scheme, the overall scheme of black and silver/gray is generally solid,
though I wish that there was more silver paint and less of that really
blah light milky gray plastic. The light metallic silvery blue works pretty
well as a "default" color for the vehicle windows. However, the accent
colors-- such as the yellow diagonal stripes in vehicle stripes, the silver
guns, the gold headlights, and the light red highlights in robot mode--
are what really make this toy pop visually, giving some much-needed color
contrast to the figure. He's generally well-painted in both modes, though
having a few less of his parts cast in black plastic would've helped too,
methinks.
Prime Trailcutter is
my favorite version of this mold, with some great, spikey Beast Hunters-y
changes to make the Ironhide design look like a completely new character,
and enough paint apps to break up what would be a fairly boring color scheme
with some great eye-catching accents. Unfortunately the robot arms-- already
the weak point of this mold-- suffer even more from the remolding done,
but otherwise it's a pretty solid update for Trailbreaker.
Review by Beastbot