DJ (Re)Plays With: Transformers: Dark of the Moon Voyager Class Fireburst Optimus Prime
In 2011, after the success of Revenge of the Fallen, the third in the line of Transformers live action movies, Dark of the Moon, was unleashed upon the world. Once again being a monstrous financial success, of course merchandise was another big push for the toy franchise. While newer, debuting characters got their chance to shine in the line (mostly) with toys largely in step with the previous line, returning characters like Optimus Prime got something of a different design philosophy behind them. Rather than just do the screen accurate song and dance like they had already successfully achieved, the designers went for pure, stylized versions of the characters that didn’t have to worry about being true to parts placements while still being fun toys to transform and play with. It is with this in mind that they created the several different versions of Optimus Prime for the third movie, from the actually excellent Deluxe class toy to the giant mass of plastic that might actually kill someone if it fell on them that is “Ultimate” Optimus Prime, with the Voyager class Optimus Prime somewhere in-between the two.
But that’s not the one I’m talking about today.
No, I’m talking about the insane redeco of it from a little later in the line – I present Transformers: Dark of the Moon Voyager Class Fireburst Optimus Prime.
Even more than the first movie’s Voyager toy, Fireburst Prime doesn’t even bother to try and be a proper depiction of the truck from the movie beyond the general shape. The original version of this toy has several solar panels on the hood and roof of the car molded from translucent plastic, and gigantic, ludicrously sized gas tanks on the sides. This version takes all of that and replaces the usual shade of blue with a much darker, navy tone, and rather than his at this point iconic flame deco, Prime’s hood and cab are covered in orange, crackling electricity styled deco. All the transparent blue plastic has been replaced with orange, and with his weapon stored on the fifth wheel hitch in the back, Optimus uses the term monster truck with a different but still fitting depiction. It almost seems like a vehicle that you’d see in a post-apocalyptic world, except instead of being scavenged and put together with duct tape and a prayer it was rolled off a factory line. I’ll give the vehicle mode this much – it’s a bad ass looking truck I’d love to drive in a video game’s open world to get around.
And it…actually doesn’t roll too well because sometimes the undercarriage gets in the way. Huh.
Transformation is easy enough, and doesn’t even bother trying to hide the fact that it uses fake windows and other truck part kibble to turn into robot mode. The focus on this toy was definitely on play and ease of transformation without being too simple, and it shows. While I love the puzzle play aspect, I can understand why they did because as awesome as the RotF toys were, if I were a kid playing with these toys, having all my Autobot and Decepticons lined up and ready to duke it out, it would be a giant bummer to have to stop and spend an hour to transform all of them before getting on with it.
Anyway, in the end, you get an Optimus Prime with a very different silhouette than usual, taking the way the truck mode was stylized and multiplying it ten fold. He has incredibly long legs with massive feet, mostly in the heels, and a shrunken down torso. The ludicrous gas tanks aren’t even trying to hide, instead just sticking out of his back like a pair of rocket boosters, and his forearms are massive, being made entirely of the truck’s hood. His head is a convincing enough Prime head, but a little squashed than for movie Prime. It’s a little puzzling why they bothered painting his orange light piped eyes over with blue, though the effect of having this crackling orange energy barely contained behind his eyes isn’t bad. He has quite a bit of nice detail in his sculpt overall, and the bit of gunmetal grey on his “abs” and chest between the usual red is a nice way to have it pop out, even on such a small torso. Optimus comes with the standard articulation one would expect (swivel head, arms, elbows, biceps and wrists, hips, knees, thigh cut) along with a waist joint and some more slight ankle tilts. His elbows however are severely impeded by his hood parts and front tries getting in the way – they can move and have full range, but a lot of stuff will inadvertently be moved around to let it happen.
Accessory-wise, he comes with his MechTech (that would be this line’s buzzword for weapons that transform) blaster that looks nice enough, but let’s face it, it’s true purpose shines when you pull the tab down and turn it into a crackling orange Energon axe, with the long blaster’s barrel turning into a long enough handle to hold said axe with both hands. The detail on the orange translucent plastic is nice, and while it doesn’t quite compare to the Animated incarnation’s version of Optimus’ axe, it’s a wicked looking weapon considering how much murdering Movie Optimus gets up to. A warning though – earlier versions of this toy’s weapon do not come with the extra catch on the tab, causing the folding axe blades to go flying out or get horribly misaligned if you’re not careful, so that’s worth noting.
So, for all the compliments I gave this toy, and as much as I appreciate how just crazy this version of Optimus Prime was deco’d, I don’t know if I’m actually too hot on it. It’s a great axe accessory, the vehicle mode is pretty great, and I like how they totally went for the highly stylized look, but the weirdness of his proportions and how huge his feet and forearms are just throws him off for me. I don’t hate it either, and he has a great companion piece in the similarly crazy looking Cyberfire Bumblebee, but that’s just the deep diving fan in me talking. I mean, he’s not a bad toy at all, but if you’re trying to go for a Movie Optimus Prime, your money is best spent elsewhere, unless you just like the idea of Murder Prime.
So, the third movie came and went, making money hand over fist. It seemed like this might be the end of the movie franchise for awhile, but when each movie makes about a billion dollars, that was obviously not something that was going to realistically occur. With an extra year between movies and some time to breath, a fourth movie was soon in development. On the toy front, after going through a particularly rough time period where the toy designers and engineers had a valiant but tough battle with “The Economy” in the line, it looked like they were coming out of it mostly intact after all. While a new movie meant new characters and new designs to tackle, there was, however, one issue that had come up at the very beginning of all this movie business that for one reason or another, they decided to tackle now, years after the fact.
