Death's Head
08-10-11, 07:02 PM
Masterpiece Skywarp had a rather sad retail history in the UK. An Argos exclusive, he was available for all ten seconds at full rrp before quickly disappearing in 2009. Twelve months down the line, the figure reappeared heavily discounted and available for a song, thus making him the cheapest Masterpiece figure ever. Quite what the reason behind this bizarre activity was is open to conjecture, but I was happy to snap up one.
The Hasbro version of Masterpiece Skywarp is a straight repaint of Masterpiece Starscream. Unlike the Japanese release of MP Skywarp, this version doesn’t have a unique facial expression which leads one to conclude that this was a simple cost exercise on behalf of Hasbro. For those who care overmuch, I’m sure there’s a lengthy piece on the tfwiki.net’s page that goes into laborious detail on this point. The major change between the Japanese and western versions is the adoption of a more slavishly ‘G1’ (and therefore less realistic) colour scheme. I have to say, I rather like having Skywarp rendered more faithfully to his original toy’s colours if only because the Japanese Takara version was just too black. Although the gloss finish to the Japanese iteration would have been a nice carry over to have.
The robot mode that Skywarp comes packed in is excellent. It’s a very good match for the character’s cartoon and comic book versions. The detailing is excellent from the stoic face, to those wiggly little fingers and thumbs to those great big guns of his. He looks superb. The flashes of purple and silver offset the black nicely and make him a sharp looking presence in the Decepticon ranks. As with all the Masterpiece figures, Skywarp has a range of motion and articulation that’s impressive and fluid but there are areas where he can’t make much use of it. Whilst as nowhere near as bad as on the Classics Seeker mould even here the wings can hinder movement of the arms somewhat. The feet are also slightly limited in what they can do due to their design. The real downside has to be with some of the kibble particularly the two large pieces of fuselage that dangle about off his hips. There’s really nothing you can do with these to make them look good or keep them out of the way. It makes handling Skywarp something of a pain. I wonder if really these parts would have looked so bad if they just were fixed to his legs or folded up in someway. It sort of looks good when you’re posing him for flight and want to do him the indignity of posing him as such on his display base, but otherwise, it’s a bit of a failing for the toy.
Getting Skywarp to his F-15 jet mode is a fiddle. Whilst it gets easy with a few goes, its not a pleasant sequence to go through, challenging and rewarding yes, but something that I enjoy doing? No. Mainly its because Skywarp is a panel-former. He has so many moving parts and shifting pieces that have to be lined up just so to make the aircraft mode together. There are also two parts to this sequence which on my version fall off with gay abandon every time you transform him – those wee black bits visible on his shoulders there. Whether this is something common to the mould or more likely something that just affects my example, I don’t know, but they fall off with the slightest touch. When you finally get there, the jet mode is a sexy beast. I like the F-15. Perhaps is familiarity, but it just has a very nice shape and feel to it, like a very well made paper dart. The slight boxiness to it helps give it character, and Skywarp’s natty silver and purple really bring it to life – as do those wacking great Decepticon insignia. I like that you can swap out the robot mode weapons for some more suitable Earthern missiles too, although this touch of realism does look a bit out of place on the Hasbro version. Skywarp also comes with a Dr. Arkeville figure rendered totally in black and fixed in a seated position so he can sit in the cockpit. I’m not impressed with this in all honesty. You can barely make out any detail on the figure and he’s so small and easy to loose you wonder why anyone bothered. There’s also a clip for attaching the gun mode Megatron that came with MP Prime to the cockpit if you’re into replicating bits from the cartoon.
Despite the lack of die cast (not suprising with all those moving parts – where would you put it?) and a slightly fiddly transformation, Skywarp is an impressive fellow and a great updating of the character.
965966
The Hasbro version of Masterpiece Skywarp is a straight repaint of Masterpiece Starscream. Unlike the Japanese release of MP Skywarp, this version doesn’t have a unique facial expression which leads one to conclude that this was a simple cost exercise on behalf of Hasbro. For those who care overmuch, I’m sure there’s a lengthy piece on the tfwiki.net’s page that goes into laborious detail on this point. The major change between the Japanese and western versions is the adoption of a more slavishly ‘G1’ (and therefore less realistic) colour scheme. I have to say, I rather like having Skywarp rendered more faithfully to his original toy’s colours if only because the Japanese Takara version was just too black. Although the gloss finish to the Japanese iteration would have been a nice carry over to have.
The robot mode that Skywarp comes packed in is excellent. It’s a very good match for the character’s cartoon and comic book versions. The detailing is excellent from the stoic face, to those wiggly little fingers and thumbs to those great big guns of his. He looks superb. The flashes of purple and silver offset the black nicely and make him a sharp looking presence in the Decepticon ranks. As with all the Masterpiece figures, Skywarp has a range of motion and articulation that’s impressive and fluid but there are areas where he can’t make much use of it. Whilst as nowhere near as bad as on the Classics Seeker mould even here the wings can hinder movement of the arms somewhat. The feet are also slightly limited in what they can do due to their design. The real downside has to be with some of the kibble particularly the two large pieces of fuselage that dangle about off his hips. There’s really nothing you can do with these to make them look good or keep them out of the way. It makes handling Skywarp something of a pain. I wonder if really these parts would have looked so bad if they just were fixed to his legs or folded up in someway. It sort of looks good when you’re posing him for flight and want to do him the indignity of posing him as such on his display base, but otherwise, it’s a bit of a failing for the toy.
Getting Skywarp to his F-15 jet mode is a fiddle. Whilst it gets easy with a few goes, its not a pleasant sequence to go through, challenging and rewarding yes, but something that I enjoy doing? No. Mainly its because Skywarp is a panel-former. He has so many moving parts and shifting pieces that have to be lined up just so to make the aircraft mode together. There are also two parts to this sequence which on my version fall off with gay abandon every time you transform him – those wee black bits visible on his shoulders there. Whether this is something common to the mould or more likely something that just affects my example, I don’t know, but they fall off with the slightest touch. When you finally get there, the jet mode is a sexy beast. I like the F-15. Perhaps is familiarity, but it just has a very nice shape and feel to it, like a very well made paper dart. The slight boxiness to it helps give it character, and Skywarp’s natty silver and purple really bring it to life – as do those wacking great Decepticon insignia. I like that you can swap out the robot mode weapons for some more suitable Earthern missiles too, although this touch of realism does look a bit out of place on the Hasbro version. Skywarp also comes with a Dr. Arkeville figure rendered totally in black and fixed in a seated position so he can sit in the cockpit. I’m not impressed with this in all honesty. You can barely make out any detail on the figure and he’s so small and easy to loose you wonder why anyone bothered. There’s also a clip for attaching the gun mode Megatron that came with MP Prime to the cockpit if you’re into replicating bits from the cartoon.
Despite the lack of die cast (not suprising with all those moving parts – where would you put it?) and a slightly fiddly transformation, Skywarp is an impressive fellow and a great updating of the character.
965966