Well, Thundertron is certainly a unique toy in the Prime toyline! He's the only beastformer in the line before the "Beast Hunters" segment took over, and he's the leader of a brand-new faction-- a band of space pirates called the Star Seekers! (Unfortunately, there weren't any other of his band released, at least at mass retail. Apparently the Star Seekers were going to be a faction introduced part way through the series, but the concept got sidelined in favor of the new Predacons. Regardless, at least he got to be in a few novels.) Thundertron's beast mode is supposed to be a techno-organic lion, but it looks a LOT more like a wolf, with its relatively lean proportions and mane that's not really all that puffy or large, looking more like his wolf head is simply sunk into the sides a bit. Overall, this mode looks quite good, though it's a bit too obvious from its construction that Thundertron's back end are simply his robot legs bent and pointed downwards, what with the hips for the back legs being way too far forward on the main body, like they're extending out from the sides of the upper stomach area. There's an attempt to hide this with the long, stylized "blade"-style plastic pieces on the sides of his upper back legs, but the illusion is broken easily if you don't look at him at the right angle. There's also rather odd chunks of extra... stuff... on his upper front legs, which fold out into his robot arms. On a lesser note, his rubbery tail is also a bit shorter than I'd like, and starts at the midsection, which, again, looks weird. These issues aside, though, Thundertron looks quite menacing, his long claws and other blade-like details being quite appropriate for a "Pirate" leader. His color scheme is white, blue, and gray, and is pretty decent, if not the most eye-catching. I particularly don't like the light milky gray, though at least it's not THAT prevalent on the toy. He's also got some nice paint apps, like the silver "fade" apps on his rear section pieces, some nice bronze-gold and bronze-orange paint apps behind his front claws, and a very well-painted wolf--er, lion-- face, with blue paint giving emphasis to the brows and gold to the cheekbones and snout. The jagged blue/white lines that go down the sides of his mane and shoulders also look pretty darned cool. Thundertron's mold detailing is also quite intricate for a Prime-universe toy-- yes, there are large areas where there's relatively little detailing, with a slight stylized look on his rear armor bits, but he's got quite a lot of pistons and the like on his legs, and patches of finely-detailed, technorganic-looking "fur" on his shoulders, behind his front claws, and on his main body. For articulation in this mode, Thundertron can move at the rear shoulders (at two points), at the rear armor pieces, and at the knees and ankles (at two points) on the rear feet; and at the knees and ankles (at two points) on his front feet. Unfortunately because of his transformation, he can't move his head, jaw, or shoulders on the front legs, which is a bit of a bummer at this size. His tail can also move up and down at the point where it connects to the body. Thundertron's "Powerizer" weapon is a claw weapon which-- when you pull back on the blue chunk of plastic above the claw-- causes a large transparent blue cutlass to swing forward in front of the claw, with a red LED light coming on near the base of the sword. The red LED SHOULD light up the transparent plastic, but it doesn't light up much of it at all. Plus, you can't lock the weapon into the "cutlass-deployed" mode, which means that most of the time you'll just have a long, backwards-pointing cutlass, which just looks weird. I wish they had put that budget towards a more effective weapon/gimmick.
    Thundertron's transformation of his rear/lower section into robot mode is very straightforward and is pretty much just folding out and around his legs, while his beast head comes forward and down to reveal his robot head. This means that his robot mode shares an awful lot of details with his beast mode, and-- particularly below the waist-- looks too "sameish" as said beast mode-- I wish some more details were unique to this mode. That said, the unconventional way his arms transform-- with his front claws locking in and flanking his shoulders in a really cool manner that enhances his silouhette-- is pretty different from their beast mode configuration, though the flipside of this is that it can be a little puzzling the first few times transforming said arms back into beast mode. This is definitely the mode that had the most emphasis from a design perspective, with only his tail really being a bonafide "extra" in this mode. His proportions are generally quite good, and I love how the long blade-like pieces from his lion mode form a "pirate coat" around his lower section. His head design is also incredibly intricate and awesome, his technorganic "fur" looking like slicked-back hair and a long beard, with gold paint drawing out the "mustache" detailing amidst that beard as well. His forehead is more angular and has some blue detailing on it that makes it look a bit like some sort of pirate brim, and really it just makes him BURST with character. I also like the aqumarine "mane hair" accenting his head-chest along with the blue-and-white stripes that make the sides of his body. The only weakness I feel he has with his proportions are that his shoulders are a bit too low proportionally, and the detailing on them tends to "run in" with the claw pieces that partially cover them, and is definitely the weakest point of this mode. Thundertron can move at the neck, shoulders (at three points, though they can be fiddly), elbows, inwards at the wrists, and at the hips (at two points), knees, and ankles (at two points) and at the rear heel-toes on his feet. Beyond his lame Powerizer weapon, Thundertron's right foot can actually detach, giving him a bonafide pirate "peg-leg". Meanwhile, the foot can actually be used as a claw weapon-- yes, he can actually rip off his own foot and beat you with it! This is such an ingenious design choice, it's one of the highlights of the toy for me. Thundertron has standard 5mm holes in his fists, but also on the sides of his lower arms and on the sides of the blue block of his Powerizer weapon, so you can arm him with other regular-scale Prime weapons on a fair number of different areas. Thundertron's Powerizer weapon can also hook into his back and SUPPOSEDLY light up some of his robot innards with the blue transparent plastic and all, but it doesn't remotely work.
    Even though the back/bottom half of his two modes definitely look too similar, in general Thundertron is breath of fresh air for the Prime "Robots in Disguise" portion of the line, giving us not only the first beastformer in the line but one who has an incredibly unique robot mode with tons of cool "pirate-esque" accents, including a "coat", a peg leg, and a long pirate-like beard feel to his face. Even though his beast mode has a fair number of drawbacks, if you're at all a beastformer or a pirate fan, this incredibly unique toy is a must-get.

Review by Beastbot

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