Death's Head
23-08-11, 08:52 AM
Dinobot is a great example of the early years of the Beast Wars line. He’s a solid little plaything, with a nice transformation and fun weapon accessories. I’m not going to pretend that the beast mode is a phenomenal success – the rather obvious robot legs and feet do give the game away, but at least the designers had the good sense to render them in translucent plastics rather than turning out another unfortunate lump like Cheetor.
The beast mode is very nicely detailed, with scales and markings, plus excellent painted teeth and eyes and mouth. The effort put into other areas like this go a long way to forgiving that bulky underside. Unlike a lot of the early Beast Wars toys, Dinobot has a fair amount of articulation in beast mode. He has moveable arms, legs, toes and ankles and a jaw that opens and closes too! He’s every bit as animated and vicious looking as his real-life counterpart.
The transformation sequence is great too. The tail unclips from his backside, the beast legs rotate through 180 degrees to form the robot arms, the robot legs fold down and rotate around, with some nice ‘heels’ flipping out of the feet to improve balance and the beast head folds down to form the robot’s chest. The tail then splits open to reveal a spinning blade weapon. The centre section can be removed to be used as a sword and the tail then forming a rotating shiled/ slicing weapon (pushing a button on the side causes it to spin around).
The robot mode is a little cluttered and it’s a shame those robot arms don’t ‘lock’ into place as such which can become a bit irritating when you try and move the arms about at those tight shoulder joints. The battle mask feature is also a cumbersome, and on this figure, unwanted addition. As it’s rendered in translucent plastic, the detail is washed out (it’s an attempt at carrying over the raptor head to the robot mode) and it just looks a bit poo. The robot head itself is great. It bears no relationship to the animation model, but that’s only going to annoy the sort of people who insist that Ironhide and Ratchet’s toy’s need ‘proper’ heads. I like that on the toy, the robot head is very Grimlock-like (appropriate since the toy was repainted and renamed as such a few months after this release), suggesting that Dinobot may indeed be a descendant of the original Dinobots.
With some decent action features, a good overall design and some excellent use of the jointing technology available at the time, Dinobot is a worthy addition to any Beast Wars collection and worth seeking out over the slightly ugly Grimlock repaint. It’ll be a cheaper option too!
357358359
The beast mode is very nicely detailed, with scales and markings, plus excellent painted teeth and eyes and mouth. The effort put into other areas like this go a long way to forgiving that bulky underside. Unlike a lot of the early Beast Wars toys, Dinobot has a fair amount of articulation in beast mode. He has moveable arms, legs, toes and ankles and a jaw that opens and closes too! He’s every bit as animated and vicious looking as his real-life counterpart.
The transformation sequence is great too. The tail unclips from his backside, the beast legs rotate through 180 degrees to form the robot arms, the robot legs fold down and rotate around, with some nice ‘heels’ flipping out of the feet to improve balance and the beast head folds down to form the robot’s chest. The tail then splits open to reveal a spinning blade weapon. The centre section can be removed to be used as a sword and the tail then forming a rotating shiled/ slicing weapon (pushing a button on the side causes it to spin around).
The robot mode is a little cluttered and it’s a shame those robot arms don’t ‘lock’ into place as such which can become a bit irritating when you try and move the arms about at those tight shoulder joints. The battle mask feature is also a cumbersome, and on this figure, unwanted addition. As it’s rendered in translucent plastic, the detail is washed out (it’s an attempt at carrying over the raptor head to the robot mode) and it just looks a bit poo. The robot head itself is great. It bears no relationship to the animation model, but that’s only going to annoy the sort of people who insist that Ironhide and Ratchet’s toy’s need ‘proper’ heads. I like that on the toy, the robot head is very Grimlock-like (appropriate since the toy was repainted and renamed as such a few months after this release), suggesting that Dinobot may indeed be a descendant of the original Dinobots.
With some decent action features, a good overall design and some excellent use of the jointing technology available at the time, Dinobot is a worthy addition to any Beast Wars collection and worth seeking out over the slightly ugly Grimlock repaint. It’ll be a cheaper option too!
357358359