DJ (Re)Plays With: Transformers (2007) Voyager Class Robo-Vision Optimus Prime (Target Exclusive)
Ten years. An entire decade. That’s how long it’s been since the very first Transformers Live-Action movie was released, and for better or worse, they’ve managed to shovel in enough money that, at the time of this writing, we’re very quickly coming upon the release of the fifth part of the franchise, The Last Knight. Setting aside all the arguments and criticisms of the films themselves – both entirely valid and some less so – the series itself has been very good to the overall franchise itself, leaving an indelible mark on not only the brand’s awareness, but on the core of Transformers, the very toys themselves. The staunchest, most die-hard original fans will deny it vehemently and probably throw in a few personal insults, but the effect of the process of creating toys for the films and the influx of cash into Hasbro and Takara-Tomy’s already brilliant engineering departments is something that can’t be denied.
Let’s face it, like it or not, the film has a very different aesthetic from the Transformers media that came before it, and trying to apply not only that visual design into a toy, but into a toy that can change between both a robot and a vehicle, and THEN having that vehicle mode be a licensed product that keeps the auto manufacturer happy is no small task. In the world of toy design, having to create a toy based off nothing but pre-production artwork and prototypes is certainly nothing new, but if I’m remembering correctly, the team at Hasbro had to do so with this movie in half the time they usually have to go through all the steps of production, and keeping that in mind, the ’07 Movie line is a solid little line that does about as well as you can expect. I intend to look at each line leading up to the release of The Last Knight, and after some thought settled into looking at one toy they all have in common: the smaller sized, “Voyager” class Optimus Prime.
For normal people in the audience, The Voyager class is the 20-ish dollar range, though a decade of economic changes and oil market price fluctuations makes that not entirely accurate.
I settled on this particular style because, one, it’s Optimus Prime and that seems like a good baseline to have, two, because the other consistant character released in these movies is Bumblebee and deciding which one to do per line would be maddening, and three, because it’s less obvious than the Leader class. Honestly, Hasbro and Takara put a lot of effort into those pricier, bigger toys, but I find what they do to these smaller scale representations of Optimus and what they had to compromise on and what they could do different at this scale more interesting in terms of this series of articles. I’m going to take a look at each of these Primes, do a fairly straight review of them, but also kind of point out how things have changed from one movie to another in terms of design, accuracy, and just how good of a toy it is, all of that nitpicky stuff aside. I’ll also see how well these have – or haven’t – aged, and give both props and criticisms to things I maybe am only noticing now, years after the fact.
This time, I’m going to look at the Movie One Voyager Class Optimus Prime, specifically the Target Exclusive Robo-Vision version. In all honesty, the only difference that makes is that he has nicer silver paint over his gray plastic, a better contrast between his red and blue, and a nicer flame deco than the standard release – everything else I say can apply to most other versions of this toy.
Starting with the vehicle mode, it’s a decent enough representation of Movie Prime’s alt mode, though in a somewhat more “squashed” form. Like, the cab and front end are just fine, but the rear axles seem to be a lot shorter than the real truck would be. The best way I can put it is if they had made a cartoon series after the movie, and then made a toy line based off of THAT. This Optimus is changed just enough to suddenly not have to have the Peterbilt trademark on the box anymore and doesn’t have to worry about dealing with real life physics, while still looking like the thing in the movie that the kids love so much. It’s a kinda chunky looking truck that looks like it could totally just drive straight through concrete walls without any trouble, and aesthetically I’ve always dug the way they went for this version. The red and blue plastic are nice enough and while the flames aren’t as intricate as the real-life prop or on the Leader class, they’re applied very well and it all really does have a striking appearance as you roll it around on a table or floor. Other than rolling, there are two things this vehicle can do; one is that it can be partially transformed into an “Attack Mode” that mostly consists of rotating the running boards and smokestacks forward and turning them into ludicrously large guns on the sides of the hood, M.A.S.K. style. It works, I guess, though it looks more silly then intimidating. The other thing is that you can open the driver side door.
No, really, that’s neat because there’s a little tiny silver colored driver wearing a cowboy hat behind the wheel, but when you open the door, said driver disappears via flip-up seat, because -gasp!- it is in fact a holographic driver! Close the door, and he flips back down into existence. It’s silly, it’s pointless, and doesn’t do anything else, but what the heck, it’s neat and I love it.
A small note about the transformation – the gimmick of the movie’s line was something called “Auto-morph,” where by turning or moving a certain part of the toy would cause other smaller parts of that area to automatically transform along with it. In this case, transforming the legs would cause a few separate panels to movie and re-shuffle out of the way into place as you locked the main leg together. It works well enough, though like all of the other toys in the line, you have to be careful not to force the movement in the wrong direction, or else pieces might snap off in the wrong direction. Prime isn’t a huge offender of this like a few others toys in the line, but it’s worth noting.
Transforming this guy is not especially difficult, but does require a much different set of motions then the leader class toy. While that figure strove to be as accurate as it could in terms of accuracy for both forms and in the actual transformation scheme (within reason for the latter), it still ended up somewhat chunkier and bigger than the fairly sleek heroic form Optimus has in the film. This version does the opposite – it completely sacrifices some of that accuracy in vehicle mode and does things completely different in transformation, and as a result, the final completed Optimus Prime is a much sleeker, yet less accurate version than shown on-screen once you finally look at it. Notably, it cheats by having a completely fake truck window chest, with the real window (and front hood…and wheels…and grill…) hanging off his back like a backpack. Still, he has a well sculpted face with just the right details painted out in silver, and those light piped eyes are a nice tint of blue that pop out of that face. His antenna are a tad bit shorter than I’d like, but they’re long enough. The silver paint on this version of the toy also helps break up the red and blue and helps them stand out and keeps the toy from just looking like a sea of one color or another by highlighting the little techy details on the surfaces rather than muddling or murky-ing them up in a drab color.
With that, it’s a decent enough representation of Optimus from the film, once again through the filter of making it more like a cartoon toy redesign. It actually looks like what most people expected these movie toys to look like, as opposed to the solid effort at accuracy that the Leader class did. For 2007, his articulation is not bad for a Transformer. His neck is on a 180-degree swivel, he has two swiveling shoulders as well as a 90-degree swivel in said shoulder for the arm. Each arm has a full bicep swivel, elbow joint, as well as a wrist swivel. No waist joint which really isn’t a surprise, but two ratcheted his joints and a swivel on the legs, as well as a thigh swivel somewhat cleverly hidden in some tech detail molded “cups,” and a simple knee joint round out the articulation. It’s nothing to write home about, but it has a decent range for this time period. He’s certainly not going to be going into any of the wilder fight scenes that Optimus got into in these films, but with some manipulation of a couple of transformation steps in the arms he can pull off some decent poses beyond the stock “I’m standing right here.” and “Guns Out!” He can also pull off the “Hands crossed behind back while wistfully looking into the horizon” pose better than any other toy in this series save one.
Accessory-wise, his two smokestacks transform into twin guns, though ones that don’t even remotely look like his arsenal from the film. They can stay mounted on his backpack as shoulder mounted spring-loaded missile launchers, or taken off and pegged into his wrists, taking care to make sure the handles slide into his open palmed hands as dual wielded blasters. I actually don’t really like the look of these too much as guns, preferring them on his back, but in that configuration, they don’t swing down all the way and end up always at a 45-degree angle up at the lowest. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if his neck could tilt up a little, but as it is, he’ll always be shooting those missiles in an arc, usually accidentally since the springs on these are getting a little weak after ten years. This can be mitigated somewhat by undoing the transformation of the backpack a bit to raise the guns up higher, but it’s still not entirely parallel to his shoulder, and aesthetically it also now more obvious there’s just a whole front quarter of a truck hanging off of his back.
I will say, when I first got this in the fervor of that first movie’s toy line release date, I wasn’t so much disappointed by it as much as I just completely ignored it, despite spending the money on it. Back in those days I was, shall we say, less judicious in my purchasing habits, and I quite literally bought one of everything in the mainline because I was totally sold into the zeitgeist amongst TF fans being excited about this movie version of the franchise coming out. I was so focused on the Leader class that I just didn’t give this thing a second thought. Despite that Leader Optimus Prime being eclipsed by the next movie’s version, I still have to admit that that is still the better toy between it and this one. It might not have as sleek a silhouette as the Voyager, but it just does a better and more impressive job of representing the character. Still, this is not a bad toy at all, and now in hindsight, it’s kinda neat what they accomplished on this toy by taking a different angle on it.
Overall though, if for some reason you were getting into the movie line this late in the game, this wouldn’t be one of the toys I’d go for, though on the other hand it can be picked up for a decent chunk les then it’s original asking price provided you don’t care which re-release version you get. Later Optimus Primes in multiple size classes – including a smaller one – just do a better job in representing the character, and are just better, more fun and interesting toys then Movie One Voyager Optimus Prime. It’s a solid effort back then, but with everything that cam e after it it’s not worth looking at unless you already bought it and like me just forgot about it.
With a strong showing in its theatrical run and bringing the Transformers franchise back into the public eye in a way it hadn’t been in a long time or, arguably, ever, of course a sequel was coming. Money was made hand over fist, and while plenty can be said about how the film itself went, the toy designers and engineers at Hasbro, keeping in mind what they learned from the first movie, took a close look at the new characters coming, and with a healthy dose of capital into their R&D budgets, got to work.
