The Fallen's vehicle
mode is some kinda intergalactic cruiser officially... unofficially, it's
just his robot mode vaguely configured to look like a jet. Really, it's
hard to decide which parts of him are robot kibble, since it's so obvious
pretty much every part IS one of his limbs. The legs sort of splay out
to become the wings, which is the weakest part of the design, in my opinion--
feet do not make good wings, folks. I cannot see them as anything besides
feet. The arms form most of the main body of the jet mode, and with the
large silver "pipes" molded on them, they actually make semi-believable
thrusters, and inversely are probably the strongest part of the vehicle
mode-- though the robot hands still pop out obviously from the front of
them, sadly. Most of his other parts pretty much just jam together around
the middle of the vehicle mode, with the robot head "hidden" behind a tiny
see-through extra visor... which needless to say, hides the robot mode
pretty poorly. The nosecone-- pretty much the only part of the vehicle
mode that's actually part of his vehicle mode-- looks pretty nice,
though, and a bit insect-like while definitely looking evil and a bit like
a face. (Oh, and he also has three fold-down landing gear, too.) The color
scheme is a bit more green than he is in the movie, where he's more rock-colored,
but the orange fiery lines and transparent red plastic looks pretty nice
against that gray, and the metallic gunmetal gray helps tie him into the
"stone" look in the movie at least a bit. It's not a fantastic color scheme,
but it's not bad, either.
The Fallen's robot mode
is definitely what his design was based around (especially since he never
transforms into vehicle mode in the actual movie). They definitely took
a very different direction from the original incarnation
of The Fallen, with his look very insect-beetle like, and a bit Egyptian
in some areas like the head and a lot of his detailing reminds me slightly
of that style as well. The head is a bit small, but otherwise, he's fairly
accurate in most respects to his onscreen version-- long, multi-toed legs,
a kinda of lanky look and with some odd little flip-out bits from his elongated
waist that can connect to his elbows. I don't recommend actually doing
that, though, as it really limits his articulation and honestly looks kinda
weird. His articulation is pretty good if you don't connect his waist to
his elbows, though-- he can move at the shoulders (at three points), elbows
(at three points), wrists (at two points), hips (at two points), knees
(at two points), and ankles. His toes also technically move, but they have
the same really frustrating "auto-close" toes like Movie
1 Voyager Megatron that spring shut as soon as he's not standing on
something, which I still see absolutely no reason for. His lower legs could
use a bit more movement, though, as particularly around the ankles they're
a tad stiff and don't have as wide a range of motion as you'd think. He
can also rotate at what I'd initially want to call the "waist", but it's
actually closer to his neck given his odd body structure. The Fallen's
face is well-detailed, if not entirely accurate to his onscreen persona,
and his eyes sadly don't "glow" even though they're made of transparent
plastic because of his quite honestly superfluous "gimmick"-- "solar panels"
(i.e., transparent red pieces of plastic) that fold out from behind his
head, upper arms, and a little bit form his lower arms. Honestly though,
they're just a few transparent panels, and nothing to really get excited
about-- especially since they don't automatically fold out or anything
and it keeps The Fallen's head from moving. Meh. As you'd expect for someone
with The Fallen's.... interesting... vehicle mode, he has pretty much no
vehicle mode extras in this mode-- just his nosecone, which folds up nicely
behind his main body.
The initial release
of the Fallen has a pretty decent robot mode, but his inaccurate color
scheme, incredibly weak vehicle mode, and a few niggling structural/gimmick
problems prevent me from really recommending him. If you have to get a
version of him, I'd get the 2010 blue remold instead, but I really wouldn't
recommend any version of him unless you're a huge fan of the character.
Review by Beastbot