Bot Reviews: Studio Series Voyager Soundwave (Bumblebee Version)

I started with the smallest of the Bumblebee Movie Prologue Weirdos, and now it’s time for the biggest one, Soundwave. He managed to spend his limited amount of movie screentime thundering onto the battlefield, talking in his classic modulated voice (though Jon Bailey subbed in for Frank Welker), and ejecting Ravage, as he’s known to do.

If you didn’t like the Prologue character’s designs, he embodies the low points of them: A slavish dedication to the G1 design, remnants of an alternate mode he doesn’t have, a layer of greebling, and kind of odd proportions due to the slapped-together-during-reshoots nature of the designs. Me, I feel none of that, and I love this design, including all the conceptual weirdness, which gives it a specific kind of charm and vibe, and seeing it replicated in plastic like this is a high point of Studio Series, and something I never thought they’d actually make. So, let’s see what we’re working with.

Robot Mode

Thick, imposing, and thunderous, Soundwave’s big for a modern Voyager, like Wreck-Gar was. It’s not just that he’s literally big, it’s that his stacked proportions give the impression of size and bulk. He’s a big guy, and he looks lumbering and powerful, though probably pretty slow.

He’s also unbelievably faithful to the film’s design, almost to 3A Action Figure levels, with only concessions for pegs and screws to mar what’s otherwise a spot-on replica. He copies all the design’s oddities and quirks, like his chunky proportions, and how his head’s kind of big for his body, by Transformers standards. The sculptwork also copies the way the design seems to be covered in layers of armored panels, all greebled up.

One thing I like about this is that, outside of his upper torso, there’s a concerted effort to avoid any perfect vertical or horizontal lines on him, everything’s diagonal, or on some kind of angle, shaped any way other than a box. Despite that, he keeps suggestions of his G1 tape deck altmode, in the form of a tape door on his chest (that’s pointedly not a perfect rectangle), and relief patterns on his pelvis that sort of suggest tape buttons.

Soundwave’s got a really interesting face and headsculpt. The familiar G1-style mouthplate, visor, and head crest are all there, albeit detailed up, but he’s also got antenna-ears, and cheek-vents that sort of suggest Bayverse Optimus, as he appeared in his first three films. That, and, as a lot of the Transformers Internet has pointed out, the shape of his visor, and the “brow” above it gives him a sort of sad, worried look.

Aside from looking beefy, he feels beefy in-hand, again, by modern Voyager standards, and manages to avoid obvious hollowness (chest aside), except for the insides of his thighs, which compensate by doing a seldom-seen clever trick of sculpting those hollow bits with tech detailing.

For deco, Soundwave’s main colors are a dark blue, a very dark gray, and white, with accents in red, silver and gold, as well as a smoke-colored tape deck door. And, like the sculpting, this is a really impressive deco that hews extremely close to his film design in a way mainline figures rarely manage to. Outside of maybe adding some Siege-style metal tarnish to him, all his colors seem to be here, and I don’t see this guy getting some kind of Premium Finish treatment.

Curiously, his eyes are painted red, despite the fact that he’s got a translucent window on his head for lightpiping, but that’s probably because it’s smokey plastic, on the same sprue as his tape deck door. Speaking of that tape deck door, there’s a really good bit of deco I want to point out. He has red panel lines on the inside of the door. Not only do they look really cool, but they manage to disguise the hollowness of his interior by adding visual interest. It’s a smart choice for a figure that doesn’t come packed with a tape to fill that space.

For a slabular bot, Soundwave can really move. He’s got multi-directional ankles, and double-knees with a really far range to them, even if the white bit in the middle of them likes to come out at odd angles.

Those Cassette Deck buttons of his are on a hip-skirt, which can raise and lower to make his thigh, hip, and waist articulation work unimpeded. The beefy nature of his legs means he just looks natural doing a vintage Masters of the Universe-style squat.

Up top, he’s lacking wrists, but that’s due to transformation. He’s got standard elbows, and shoulders that are a little odd. They’re big boxes that need to flap open for transformation, so he actually has two forward-and-backward shoulder joints, one inside the box (which moves the panels as you move it), and one outside of it, attached to his torso. Only the joint attached to his torso has outward shoulder movement, though, so it feels like that’s the “correct” one to use. Finally, the head’s on a fully-ranged ball joint.

For accessories, as seen in the film, Soundwave’s got his shoulder weapon, and it’s got an interesting design. Instead of a missile launcher, it resembles a gatling gun more than anything else, with its mass of sculpted in chambers along its side, and circle of bullet-holes up front. It doesn’t attach to him by the shoulder, but instead, it’s on a grey bracket that attaches to one of two War for Cybertron-compatible weapons ports on his back. This means, instead of it moving side-to-side, he can raise and lower it. Pop it off, and there’s also weapons ports under his arms you can dangle it from, for underslung machinegun action. In addition, you can close the bracket into the weapon, which reveals a second peg that makes him able to hold it in his hands.

As I mentioned in his review last week, Studio Series Ravage comes with an accessory that’s meant to be used here, a silver missile you can mount on the end of this weapon, to look like the G1 figure’s missile, though that went in his hand weapon, rather than his shoulder cannon. It wasn’t in the movie, but it looks good on him, even if it goes against the minigun look of the design.

Soundwave’s second accessory is a long handheld rifle, painted a dark, muddy brown. He holds it well, and you can also stash it on his back, like Bee Movie Optimus, or again, sling it under his arm.

Finally, he has an actual gimmick! Like Siege Soundwave and Netflix Soundwave, you can press a button next to his left shoulder, and his chest will spring open (though unlike those figures, he can’t reach it with his own hands). Box-mode Ravage is designed to fit in there, though it can be a bit of a tight squeeze, but this is partially dependent on how tightly you manage to compact the Cat Box.

A unique feature to this Soundwave that I really appreciate, which mitigates Ravage being a tight squeeze, is that it’s actually possible to flip open the panel on his back, and access the chest cavity from that side, too, to push Ravage out, if you need to.

It’s a sort of safety system that I appreciate, and makes stashing him there unusually satisfying. The only downside to this gimmick is that it’s not compatible with any of the recent Generations Micromaster cassettes. They may be half the thickness of ravage, but they’re too tall and wide to fit in the compartment from any angle. With no other Bee Movie cassettes in existence, and Legacy continuing to support the Generations Cassette ecosystem, it looks like this is going to be a one-off gimmick.

Transformation

Soundwave’s transformation is surprisingly involved considering what he changes into. A lot of massaging is needed to get everything to settle into position, especially his folded-up legs, and then more massaging is to get everything to peg into place . It’s a transformation that you can do pretty fast, but then you spend double the amount of time making micro-adjustments to the arms and legs to try and get everything to fit just-so. Ironically all the joints are tight enough that stability isn’t really an issue, it all holds together just fine, you just start to notice pegs aren’t in.

As a small thing, those shoulder panels love to pop off during transformation. They pop right back on easily, but they could have used a pin. Beyond the transformation itself, yes, he can do the lamppost mode, and it works pretty well for him.

You just need to use his shoulder panels to hide his head, which is already part of his transformation.

Altmode

I feel bad starting with this guy and Ravage when it comes to covering the Bumblebee Prologue Wierdos. See, none of this group outside of B-127 and the Seekers had alternate modes designed for the film, so the HasTak design team made entirely new vehicle modes up for these Studio Series figures, with the restrictions of keeping the robot modes screen-accurate. And pretty much the whole range of Deluxes worked out impressively well, considering those restrictions. This guy, though, just didn’t, and basically fails to look like much of anything except a folded-up robot.

They tried to hide it with a lot of panels, a new cockpit, and a couple other new details, but it’s really just a big square slab of folded-up stuff, in what I guess is supposed to be some sort of hovering vehicle.

I may be a bit biased, since, before the figure was even out, I saw a digibash of this guy into Perceptor, which placed the Gatling gun accessory in the center of this mode, making it easily read as “space tank,” but it’s something the actual figure can’t do. Regardless, I’ve heard it called a “crab” thanks to the mandible-like appendages on the front sides, but crabs have full claws, and limbs, and stuff like that.

I’ve also heard it called a reference to Soundwave’s Cybertronian mode from Tom Scioli’s Transformers vs. GI Joe, but outside of them both being floating slabs, they don’t really share any details.

Whatever it is, it at least holds together really well, at least, thanks to the tight joints compensating for the finicky tabs, and it still feels solid as a brick in your hand (plus it’s shaped like one, too).

For features (and to make the alternate mode look complete), you can mount one of his weapons on each side of the alternate mode, which does help make it look a bit more like something. But on top of that, there’s multiple screw holes on the top/front of the vehicle you can also use to mount them, and I think that makes it look more like a double-barrelled tank than the official configuration.

Like, it’s not all bad, it’s solid, and it looks good with the guns, but it’s still kind of not anything. But what does help it gel is its gimmick, which I actually love. So, Ravage can still fit into the cockpit in box mode, and in fact, you can transform the figure without removing him. And when you press the button to Soundwave’s springloaded door (now located on his underside), Ravage will drop out, like a bomb. It’s kind of hard to demonstrate in photo form, but here’s my attempt:

It’s so odd to see an actual gimmick like this on a mainline toy, and I kind of love it, it makes the whole thing come together on a level that the visuals do not. Just press the button, and drop the cat-bomb. For other features, you can flip open the cockpit from the top and stick a small figure in there, if Ravage isn’t there already, though most Transformers stuff is big enough that it forces the driver to go open-cockpit.

Overall

Soundwave’s s the same kind of mix of highs and lows as Ravage, but more pronounced. He’s got a basically flawless robot mode.

It’s a weirdo design, so if you don’t like that design, you won’t like this, but if you do, it’s a screen-perfect representation that looks good, is chunky, poseable, and fun. And while he’s meant to work with Ravage, he manages to look somewhat complete on his own, unlike, say, Siege Soundwave (the last one packed without a cassette). And if you do get Ravage to go with him, you get to access a few other features. But the alternate mode really is pretty dire. And unlike Ravage, who had a purpose for his altmode, this really is just nothing. And it’s the only real misfire, design-wise, in this subline of figures. But also, it has a fun dropship gimmick, so who can say if it’s really that bad?

Me, I don’t think the naff alternate mode sinks the figure. He didn’t transform in the movie anyway, so I don’t plan on really using it very much, and his robot mode is perfect and fun. If you similarly don’t mind the altmode, I recommend him anyway, and if you do mind, you should see if making it drop springloaded cat bombs makes you feel better.

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