Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Worst toy of the line?, July 21, 2008
Durability:1.0 out of 5 stars Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars
I picked up the Transformers Animated Starscream toy as a desk ornament, mostly. With the overall quality of most of the other toys in the series, I figured they would certainly do a good job with one of the most popular characters in the series. I was quite wrong, apparently.
First I will cover the good points, as few as there are. The toy looks decent in robot mode. He stands well and is properly balanced with stable joints in the legs. He has the standard spring loaded rocket launcher type weapons on his arms that seems to work well. Those are pretty much all the positives I can think of.
On the negative side, it's hard to tell where to begin. The toy suffers from the now-common Hasbro paint and mold flaws. The coloration is somewhat ugly with the nasty shade of blue they used for the base plastic, and the bad shade of maroon for the details doesn't help. There are various bad joints with random loose areas in the arms and swivel joints halfway down his thighs that pop out way too easily. The most glaringly awful mold problem is with the hands, which suffer from fingers and thumbs that pop out way too easily and really don't pose into much of anything decent.
The auto-trasform function is a mess. It doesn't work right and you still have to push in or pull out parts that are supposed to move into position on their own, such as the nosecone part. Don't worry, this won't last long. Eventually, the entire mechanism will break and you will have to push and pull all the parts into place. By "eventually", I mean after you transform him back and forth twice, if you are lucky.
For such an overly complicated transformation,you would think the jet mode would look decent. Instead it looks okay at best from above and looks like a horrible mess on the underside. There is a single landing gear wheel that doesn't really do much to support the jet when it's "landed", which results in more of a "crashed into the ground" or "sitting on a clump of garbage" look when it's sitting on the shelf. The launchers that form the arm cannons are a large part of the problem. They are too big and end up shoved under the jet so awkwardly that they don't sit right. On top of this, the show has them on the wings and not on the bottom of the jet. This part of the toy would have worked a lot better if they had just used detachable launchers that attached to his arms in robot mode and wings in jet mode.
All in all, this is a terrible toy that seems like something that was done last-minute without the necessary testing and correction needed. It's definately the dark blot on the first series of Transformers Animated toys.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A nice figure with so many problems, September 12, 2008
Durability:1.0 out of 5 stars Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars Educational:2.0 out of 5 stars
Oh Starscream, you never change. You'll always be the immortal, backstabbing power grabber.... May you never change.
Let's start with the good things, shall we?
Firstly, his colors and sculpt are really nice. This is actually universal to the entire line, with rich, bright, and detailed colors that don't seem unnatural or absurd. He also matches his cartoon counterpart about as closely as one could ever hope to make him. This is impressive, and a testament to how much toy technology has improved over the past 25 years.
Secondly, he has a bunch of articulation in his arms and legs, allowing him a wonderful range of dynamic motion. There ARE problems with it though.....
Onto the bad!
Firstly, his transformation into a plane is unnervingly hard, and the part fit is mediocre at best. You have to fight to get many of this pieces in place, especially his legs, and the whole thing feels tenuous at best. While holding him in jet mode, I half imagine he'd erupt into a mangled pile of plastic. It doesn't help that Hasbro still sticks with the trend of astonishingly unhelpful transformation directions. What's worse is that his transformations aren't even that hard, in theory at least, so HOW did they mess this up?
Secondly, while he may have lots of articulation, nearly all of it is loose, floppy and even detachable. To make matters worse, he has some of the strongest ratchet joints in his hips and knees that I think Hasbro could ever hope to produce. Why is this a problem? Well, you need extra force to move the ratchet joints which puts pressure on the already weak rotational joints, in some cases making them completely come off. BOTH of his legs have popped off on mine, and and have never really returned to normal since then.
Thirdly, his balance is terrible. He's VERY top heavy, and his feet are quite small, which causes him to stand in awkward lopsided ways. This problem is further worsened by his loose, unmotivated joints. You'll be fighting with him for a while before he stands in any way that could be considered appealing.
Overall, I'm saddened by this toy. I think Hasbro could have done so much better, but simply didn't feel like it. I do applaud some things they're doing better, such as more natural looking colors, and better plastics, but the figure still feels poorly constructed. I simply can't suggest him. Children will no doubt break him into at least 5 pieces, or be frustrated by his fickle plane transformation. Collectors will hate his articulation. Unfortunate.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Big Transformers Fan But Not This One, November 11, 2008
Durability:1.0 out of 5 stars Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars
I read the awful reviews about Starscream and didn't believe any of them since every other Transformer product is so good. We got home, took it out of the package and the leg wouldn't move so every time you tried to transform him, his leg ripped off. Needless to say, my 4 year old son was extremely bummed out. Everything people are writing in about this product is absolutely true. I haven't had ANY problem with any of the other characters we own (Megatron, Bumblebee, Bulkhead) but something definitely isn't right about Starscream. Head the advice!
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