Bot Reviews: Transformers: Studio Series Voyager Starscream (Bumblebee Version)

Everyone who saw the Bumblebee had something to say about that opening sequence on Cybertron, with its cavalcade of cameos of G1 designs filtered through the movie aesthetic. Despite each one only being onscreen for a few moments, there was an immediate demand for figures of them. But that entire sequence was added in reshoots, much later in production, so the Bumblebee movie toyline (and the Studio Series) didn’t contain any of the Cybertron-only characters at first. Studio Series is only getting around to these Movie Prologue characters now, about three-ish years later, with an entire wave of them coming soon. I’m not sure if figures like this say more about the Studio Series getting really long in the tooth, and needing to make deeper cuts to keep the line going, or are a testament to the Bumblebee movie’s popularity.

Meanwhile, this version of Starscream actually came out last year, and the fact that the rest of the Prologue Cameos are getting figures motivated me to loop back around and get him. Like the rest of the group, Starscream was onscreen for, maybe, 30 seconds total (generously,) but unlike most of them, he didn’t even get any lines. He stood there, transformed, then did an attack run on a platform, and that was basically it (Optimus hopped onto a seeker and crashed it into a platform in a second flashback, but it’s hard to tell if it was Starscream or not). Mostly, people remember Blitzwing looking like him, and to be fair, Screamer’s movie character model does look like it was modified from Blitzwing’s (most of the Prologue Characters were modified versions of the Earth-based cast’s robot modes, since the scene was thrown together so late in production.) Personally, I really like the look of these prologue designs, so I decided to dive in.

Robot Mode

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Despite their similar design, this is a totally different tooling from Studio Series Blitzwing (reviewed here), with zero parts shared between them, thanks to Starscream transforming into a different alternate mode. Even little parts that you’d think were the same are subtly different sculpts.

It’s still a bit funny looking at them side by side and seeing all the little details they share, though. Really specific details like orbs on his toes, the wheels around his cockpit, and those double-vented shoulders are directly copied. Screamer has larger wings, though, and pylons on his shoulders, and a million other smaller design differences, thanks to his Cybertronian nature.

On its own merits, this is an odd-looking design. There’s traditional G1 Seeker design cues here, to be sure, like the cockpit chest, back-mounted wings, and shoulder pylons, but the whole thing’s kind of bent and warped. Something about him makes him seem almost hunchbacked, and those large, twisting wings make him feel vulture-like to my eyes.

He’s not exactly sleek like some Seeker designs, but he’s certainly menacing. All of these Movie Prologue designs were a bit odd-looking, thanks to their bashed-togetherness, but they synthesize into something with personality, like this one does. It helps that he’s really nicely screen-accurate, a benefit of being released much later than the initial burst of Bumblebee figures.

Starscream’s got a funky face, too. His head’s got the traditional seeker-vents on the sides, but his face itself is a squinty-eyed, frowning, wrinkly mess of displeasure. He looks like a real sourpuss, like he’s easily annoyed, and pouty. Someone said Steve Blum’s Prime Starscream voice would suit him.

Starscream’s colors are pretty standard for the character, despite his nonstandard design. He’s got light grey, navy blue, and bright red plastic, with smaller black bits, and painted bits in silver, red, grey, and yellow, plus a clear orange cockpit-chest. I do wish he didn’t have a fake cockpit that’s opaque right above the clear real one, it clashes noticeably, just like it did on Blitzwing.

In hand, this is a meaty-feeling Voyager, and he manages to be hefty, solid, and stable. And unlike Blitzwing, his backpack actually stays on, and doesn’t pop out and destabilize the torso, so he’s got one up on his predecessor in that category.

A fortunate thing they do share is almost the same great articulation, so he’s got nice bonuses, like ankle tilts. His waist can be unlocked much easier than Blitzwing’s too. A really interesting bit of articulation on this guy, though, is that his wrists don’t swivel, they bend. And I really like that bend. It immediately gives him a kind of sassy, foppish personality.

It’s his accessories that are a bit of a letdown. One thing that’s sure to bug people, and does kind of bug me, is his skinny little null-rays actually can’t fit on his arms. Instead, they’re accessories that peg onto his wings. What’s worse is that they’re a loose fit, and constantly feel on the verge of falling out.

That being said, you can peg them into rectangles on his wings that are meant for his altmode, in almost the same spot, to make them more stable, but now their pegs and hollow undersides are sticking out.

He can hold them as pistols, at least, though they’re a bit of a loose fit in his hands.

He also has the same sort of three-barreld arm-gun as Blitzwing, made to look like his arm morphed into it, but it doesn’t fit very well.

Blitzwing’s plugged into pegholes on his forearm, in addition to fitting into his hand, while Screamer’s just plugs into his hand, and his forearm’s a bit too big.

So it stays bent, and falls out easily, which is a bit of a bummer.

For an interesting bit of undocumented storage, there’s a fold-out panel on his backpack you can sort of stash it on.

You can point it downwards to make a rocker booster, as above, or point it upwards to make a back-mounted weapon.

Again, it’s kind of a rickety connection, though, and prone to falling off after a bit of movement.

Transformation

This is an adventure that took me awhile to figure out. It’s just really long and involved, and the made-up nature of his altmode means it’s hard to eyeball when you’ve got something right or not. But there’s a lot of fun little bits, like unfurling his wings.

But there’s also hard bits, like the top of his altmode unfurling out of his lower legs, and needing to be carefully aligned into place. His gun plugging into the bottom of the altmode helps make the undercarriage make sense, at least.

Jet Mode

In this form, Starscream’s a reinvention of the classic Tetrajet design, last seen on the Siege Seekers.

This is a love it or hate it altmode, thanks to its sort of gangly, awkward design that’s even stranger-looking than the robot mode. But, check out this concept art, it really did look like this, we just barely got to see it in the film proper:

Basically, it’s a lump of technology with wings, with a big, underslung gun to compliment the wing-mounted null rays, with the only major point of design departure being that there’s a lot more junk on the underside of the physical version.

And, surprise surprise, I personally like it, because of its oddness. If the Siege take on the design made me think of Star Wars, and other 70s and 80s sci-fi movie vehicles, this one reminds me of a spaceship from a latter-day production, from the 90’s and 2000s, or perhaps a video game. It’s not aerodynamic, because it’s mean for Zero-G combat, where it can spin freely and shoot its guns.

For colors, there’s no real major changes from his robot mode, but his clear cockpit looks a lot nicer in this form. One surprising detail on him, though, is how pointy his nosecone is. Granted, it’s rubberized, but it’s just solid and needly enough that it feels a bit unsafe for a mass-release toy that’s marginally marketed to kids. You could take an eye out with it.

For stability, once you get everything locked in, this mode holds together surprisingly well, the only fiddly point being a couple of panels behind his cockpit that like to come loose, but don’t make the figure come undone. And a benefit of his underslung mass of robot bits is that while he has no landing gear, he can rest on the bottom of his altmode just fine.

Here’s a cool thing: That underslung wad of parts? It may be a bit of an eyesore, but it’s also a perfect hand-holding point. You can grab it by that part, and swoosh it around.

It’s surprisingly fun for a non-gimmick that might not even have been intended.

Overall

No two ways about it, this version of Starscream’s an odd-looking design in both modes. He’s a looming, hunched vulture of a robot, with a sassy, sour disposition, who changes into a chunky gunboat of a spaceship. That’s also exactly what he looked like in the movie, and whether or not you like this whole figure depends on whether or not you’re into this design. And I’m into it. It’s different-looking, it’s got personality, and it tells a story about a character with no screen time, even if that story is unintentional.

More importantly, as a figure, he’s solidly designed and constructed in both modes, his only weak points being his accessories are all kind of loose, and a bit of an overcomplicated transformation. So, basically, if this is a design you vibe with, then you’ll be happy to know that the figure beneath it’s a solid one.