Bot Reviews: Transformers: Studio Series Deluxe Devastation Optimus Prime

One of my odd little collecting fixations is that I’m always compelled by a Janky Small G1 Optimus Prime. I used to own the Robot Masters version, and the old Classics Deluxe, for example. Both weren’t great, but were certainly interesting to me, for some reason.

Maybe it’s that I admire the efforts to turn the Sunbow version of everyone’s favorite big red bot into a marketable small toy, maybe I find the ways they fail interesting. That’s why I was initially interested in this smaller Studio Series Optimus Prime. And I was even more interested when I heard some word-of-mouth that, despite appearances, he was actually secretly a really fun figure. That said, these days, I don’t deliberately drop money on possibly-bad things too often, so I didn’t actually bite on him for a couple of years, until I finally managed to snag this loose one at TFCon for a song, finally giving me a chance to see what all of the fuss was about.

Based on his appearance in the Transformers: Devastation video game (which just means he’s his G1 cartoon self, that’s what the game was doing), this Optimus was an “A-Level” release, meaning stores could order solid cases of just him, along with that year’s Bumblebee, so he wasn’t hard to find, and honestly still isn’t on the aftermarket, meaning this review’s still relevant, dammit! Anyway, let’s figure out where this miniaturized version of the big bot landed.

Robot Mode

It’s funny how my eyes play tricks on me with this guy. Stand him up next to other Deluxes, and you can see that he’s actually pretty tall for the size class. But on his own, he still feels tiny. Maybe it has to do with taking an Optimus design that’s usually pretty big, and shrinking it down. 

Speaking of design, this is pure Sunbow Cartoon Optimus. He’s a man made of boxes, but they’re soft boxes, if that makes sense. He’s got blocky proportions, but no hard angles, everthing’s a little marshmallow-y. I’m really fond of the vibes that his headculpt communicates, in particular.

This is the kind, fatherly Optimus, who tried to play basketball, who gave Spike sage wisdom, and who loved tossing bad one-liners around. The sculpt just gives off those good vibes, in a way a lot of other Optimuses fail to, which is especially impressive. 

That said, those vibes are fighting a tough battle against an extremely visible budget crunch. Optimus has got a ton of obvious hollow parts on his thighs, legs and his arms, visible from most angles.

The figure tries to hide his altmode wheels, but four of them awkwardly stick out sideways from his legs, with the last two crunched up in a messy pile of parts at his lower back.

For every pristine bit of detailing, there’s an eyesore. The whole thing still comes together, but it’s in spite of the visual shortcomings. 

Prime’s colors, meanwhile, are pleasantly cartoony. He’s got the usual red and blue, with a very light gray, almost white, as a third plastic color, and all three colors are sort on the pastel side, adding to his Sunbow vibes. For paint, he’s got accents of yellow, a slightly darker gray, and light blue, as well as a white Autobrand on his shoulders. His chest windows, meanwhile, have a bit of “cell shading,” in opaque blue and white. This was an important visual quirk of Devastation’s art style, and it’s not usually something I’m fond of on physical figures, so I’m glad they went for the light touch here. In fact, there’s a premium version of this tooling out, as a part of a three-pack tracking the figure’s development, with much more elaborate cell-shading, and I actually don’t care for how that version looks.

As for this guy, the sculpt may be budget crunched, but the colors definitely aren’t, and he comes across as really complete. 

Prime’s build quality is mostly pretty good, too, albeit with one frustrating exception. I’ll start with the good. Picking him up and posing his joints, I immediately understood his appeal. The materials and construction of him just feels good to handle and manipulate.

He’s a bit on the light side when it comes to his weight, and his wheels make a rattling as you move him around, but he’s just got that ineffable quality of good construction, until you get to his abdomen. The sides of it are meant to tab into the grill that makes up his abs, but those tabs are loose, at least on my copy, so picking up and posing him with my hands there immediately makes them start to slide out.

It’s not the worst problem, and I can slide them back in easily enough, but the fact that it’s in a place where it happens most times I pose him makes it a very visible black mark. 

On the upside, his poseability’s pretty great, another instants of the chatter being true. Well, mostly. His thighs bug me, because they don’t swivel at the hip, like they usually do on Transformers these days. They’re locked facing forwards, and instead, his knee joints incorporate a side-to-side swivel, in addition to their usual type of swivel. It doesn’t hamper him to much, it’s just a strange choice. Something that does hamper him, though, is the pile of truck parts at his lower back blocking his waist swivel, another annoying eyesore. Beyond that, bottom to top, he’s got deep ankle tilts, clamping toes and heels due to his transformation, universal hips, elbow and bicep swivels, a neck swivel, and really expressive, mobile “butterfly shoulders.” No wrist swivels, though, but range of motion on the joints he does have is another point in his favor. Between his handfeel, and their range, he’s the kind of figure that seems naturally meant to always look dynamic, even if that does expose all those hollow bits he’s got. 

For accessories and features, there’s a big absence here: He doesn’t have his Ion Blaster, a.k.a. The thing every G1 Optimus is supposed to come with. The thing is, we know it was costed out of him, because that premium version I mentioned earlier includes one. Now, granted, I immediately gave him one of Legacy Deluxe Optimus’s two weapons, and it suits him perfectly.

Still, the fact that he didn’t have one out of the box is a strange choice.

What he does have is his Energon Axe, but this particular version’s kind of…not great.

The sculpting on it includes speed lines sticking out of the back, implying it’s mid-swish, as it would often look in the video game, but, like, I just don’t think it looks great like that, and I’d rather it have been sculpted more neutrally.

On top of that, instead of being translucent, it’s cast in red plastic and slathered in yellow paint, and the visible red bits still on it (including a peg on the side of it) manage to really break the illusion that it’s made out of energy. I’d rather they had just included the gun, instead. 

On the flip side, despite his small scale, Optimus includes opening chest panels, with a Matrix stashed inside.

Granted, it’s unpainted white, and it’s kind of a pain to pry out of him, but its inclusion is a nifty bonus.

Take it out, and there’s even a 5-millimeter port sculpted in the back of it.

Not only that, but he uses the same trick as Studio Series Transformers One Optimus, where there are little tabs on the sides of it that fit into little cuts on the sides of his fists that let him properly hold it.

Well, kinda hold it. It’s admittedly a loose fit that’s hard to set up, which doesn’t look great next to Transformers One Optimus’s much better implementation of the feature.

On one hand, spending so much partscount and engineering on this feature feels like the reason why he doesn’t have his blaster, and so much visible waffling on him, but on the other hand…this is such a nifty set of features at this scale, that I kind of don’t care

Transformation 

Like every modern take on G1 Optimus, the abstract of this Prime’s transformation is just the G1 conversion, plus a waist twist, and then a bunch of little fiddly details.

Fortunately, those details are easy enough to figure out, and there’s no tricky, or frustrating bits. There’s even some satisfyingly tactile motions to be found in his legs, including the way you rotate big blocks around to get his truck wheels in position, and flip out two pieces that form his trailer hitch. And at the end, it all comes together solidly.

Truck Mode

Welp. The mark of a Janky Small Optimus is always a messy truck mode, and there’s no exception here.

The general shape of him is right, sure, but there’s just so many problems. Out front, there’s a big gap between the grill and bumper that makes him look like he’s got a mouth, and another gap between his windows and headlights. At the sides of him, there’s these big empty gaps where his fuel tanks should be, with tons of hollow plastic-saving sculpting exposed. At the back of him, the back of his robot head is completely uncovered, and his robot thighs ruin the illusion that his truck bed is anything but a pair of legs.

It’s not great, but it is interesting, and I kind of like the messiness. He doesn’t have the budget, but by gum, he’s gonna try. 

For colors, he’s mostly the same as robot mode, including the fact that he, despite everything, feels decently complete in the paint department. He’s got red, light gray and blue where you’d expect, and painted bits of yellow and silver on his bumper and headlights, in addition to tire rims that are cast in silver. And for build quality, if nothing else, he at least holds together solidly. I appreciate that his tires are just cast in plastic, too, after some recent reports about rubber tires on modern Transformers (like my beloved Legacy Deluxe Optimus) possibly melting? I’ve not had that issue so far, but it’s a non-issue on this truck, at least. 

For features, this messy truck can roll nice and smooth on his wheels, making a clattering model-kit-like noise as he does so. And while it’s kind of hard to pry his truck windows open, you can still access his Matrix.

At the back of him, there’s a dedicated slot to plug in his energy axe on his truck bed, and just…like…I get it, but that ugly red tab on the axe wouldn’t be there if they didn’t do it.

Meanwhile, he’s got a pair of shallow 5-millimeter ports amongst that exposed hollow fuel tank detailing, so you can arm him up a little bit, if you’ve got spare weapons.

Finally, like Legacy Deluxe Optimus, he’s got a round hitch behind him, specifically so he can tow the old Earthrise Optimus trailer, or any of its many repaints (I’m using the one from VNR Optimus, myself).

Like Legacy Optimus, he actually scales really well with this trailer, and it feels meant for him. Too bad LegOp’s got first dibs.

Overall

How to rate this? Here’s the thing: There are three statements I can make about this Optimus that are all simultaneously true:

1. He is full of problems related to an obvious budget crunch.
2. He is actually a really fun figure in spite of all that.
3. He is not worth full Deluxe price.

I like him a lot! He has great sculpting and vibes in robot mode, better than many other cracks at the design, and he’s really fun to pose and play around with. He makes for an excellent desk toy, or something to carry around with you when you travel. He’s even fun to transform! On the other hand, he’s chock full of hollow bits, stuff that was budgeted out, and he’s got a vehicle mode that’s just a real mess, even if, again, it’s fun to transform him into it. 

I’m glad I got him, but also, I’m keenly aware that I paid 20 Canadian Dollars for him, tax-free, instead of the standard modern Deluxe price of $ 39.99 CAD, before taxes. I basically got him for less than half price, and if I’d paid full price, I definitely would have felt ripped off. So, it’s a strange recommendation. Can you find him loose? Can you get a deal on him? Then by all means, get yourself one, he’s fun. Full price? Maybe hold off on him. There’s that three-pack that I recently mentioned, plus rumors of an eventual Nemesis repaint in Studio Series, so you’ll certainly have time to make the choice.

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