Bot Reviews: Transformers VNR Optimus Prime

Some would say that the last few years of Transformers collecting have seen them make way too many Optimus Primes. Studio Series, Legacy, Missing Link, Reactivate, there’s been a big red and blue wave.

But you don’t hear too many complaints about how many of them there are, because a lot of them have come out really, really good. I thought I’d take today to talk about one of the stranger Optimii to hit the market in the last while: VNR Optimus Prime, a figure without a home. See, leaked listings and cryptic comments from the designers tell us that VNR Optimus was supposed to be a branded Amazon collaboration, kind of like that Target Optimus Prime that just came out. That’s why he changes into a branded, licensed Volvo VNR 300 truck, of the model commonly used by Amazon to deliver their goods. But for whatever reason, the collab fell through, but only after HasTak had already invested in designing, engineering and making a brand-new tooling, which means they wanted to release it *somewhere,* if only to get back the money they spent making it. So, Christmas 2022 saw the strange, fun release of “Holiday Optimus Prime,” a snowy, jolly, candy-cane-wielding robot who inexplicably changed into a licensed Volvo.

The word was that he was a shockingly good figure, beneath the holiday decor! Then, in 2023, he received this normal-Optimus-colors repaint, which, by the way, got a very delayed release in Japan, only coming out in December 2024, so I’m still gonna count him as a recent release. 

Anwho, the oddness around his release also extends to his packaging, which just has generic “Transformers” branding, without belonging to any specific toyline…but the instructions name him as a Transformers Collaborative.

Maybe they decided a Volvo collab wasn’t as exciting as Ninja Turtles, or Back to the Future, or Knight Rider. But, whoever he was, the word once again spread around that he was a real good figure, so I decided to belatedly check him out (and also, I wanted his trailer to give to Legacy Deluxe Prime, as a bonus). 

Truck Mode

As befitting a figure where the vehicle mode is a draw, Optimus comes packaged in his truck mode. Now, I’m not a big truck-model-knowing-guy, but I have 100 percent seen this specific model of truck on my local Toronto-adjacent streets and highways, or at least models close to it, with the same diagonal slash with a circle in the middle on the grill. I’ve even seen at least one in red!

So many Transformers with licenced altmodes tend to change into flashy, luxury stuff, but there’s an appeal to seeing one change into something more mundane, that you’re more likely to see in the world outside your window. The only other time I can think of them doing this is with Chevrolet Aveo Swerve, literal decades ago.

While the concept is great, I did immediately find the actual vehicle mode a bit lacking right out of the box, if only because it’s strangely small. If it wasn’t for the really long truck bed on the back of the cab, I’d think the front section was really a Deluxe, when the figure is supposed to be a Voyager with a trailer, like Earthrise Optimus.

Part of it is that I’m comparing him to the old First Edition Transformers Prime Optimus (another red long-nosed truck), who absolutely dwarfs him, but to be fair, that toy’s like 15 years old (and I’m even older, sheesh). He’s also noticeably smaller than Legacy Laser Optimus, though, who’s also a longnose.

Still, I think the small size happened to make room for all of the extra flourishes that the truck mode sculpt has (plus, he really expands in robot mode, but more on that later). Those extra flourishes include the nicely-sculpted grill, all the different side mirrors, lots of model-kit-like details. It’s the back of the truck that’s especially impressive.

See, usually on an Optimus’s alternate mode, the back of the truck, and especially the truck bed, are treated like “free parking” by the designers, and used to stash as many robot mode parts as they can cram in there (with Studio Series Rise of the Beasts Optimus being the nadir of this trend).

That’s not the case here. Ths truck bed is completely flat, with no robot details visible, and even has taillights, and mudflaps with “Volvo” written on them.

The back of the cab itself is also detailed and sculpted up like a truck, instead of being made of robot parts, and in an interesting twist, actually has a clear rear window, through which you can see his hidden Matrix of Leadership. All together, this is probably one of the cleanest Optimus Truck Modes I’ve ever seen, in general.

The colors, meanwhile, are mostly what you’d expect from an Optimus. I say mostly, because while he’s got a lot of red, there’s way less blue on him than usual, and a lot more black, along with some silver highlights. Most of the truck cab is bright red, and it’s all done in unpainted matte plastic that maybe doesn’t look as nice as painted red, but is also way less prone to QC problems, scratching and chipping, so I always prefer this approach.

The dark blue’s limited to a couple of panels on his sides, and most of the truck bed’s cast in black, along with his wide mirrors, grill, and tires, with silver being used for his singular smokestack, accents on the grill, and hubcaps. Finally, he’s got clear windows, through which his robot feet kinda-sorta pretend to be seats, clear headlights, and tiny accents of yellow above his windows. It’s about as complete as it should be, and if anything’s missing, I don’t really notice.

His build quality’s kind of mixed, unfortunately. A big visual issue I have with my copy is that the whole truck cab splits down the middle along a vertical seam, and no matter how many times I transform it, or adjust it, the split is a little askew, and his left side is a millimeter higher than the right. It’s not the worst problem, but I definitely notice it from the front, the way the yellow above his windows is uneven.

I don’t know if I rolled bad QC, or what. The other major instability is that truck bed of his, which looks nice, but is made up of a bunch of parts that don’t really lock or tab in. So, the mudflaps closer to the body, the truck hitch, even a big transformation joint in the middle of the bed all move around pretty freely, and are loose enough to come out of place when you, say, use the truck hitch.

It doesn’t make him unusable, but they really should have added some tabs or pegs or something here and there to keep it together. 

For features, he rolls decently, but the real feature is, of course, the trailer that he comes with. It’s a repaint of the G1-style trailer that originally came with Earthrise Optimus Prime, and in fact, I’ve never reviewed it in my writing before, just talked about it back when I stickered a copy up with some Toyhax labels. So, collector reception of the Earthrisetrailer was mixed, mostly because the designers were clearly fighting with the budget when it was made, so it wound up being kind of….anemic, features-wise.

And sure enough, it does feel like it’s made of plastic that’s thinner and more flexible than what you’d expect. Still, I think I like it better here than I did on the actual Earthrise Optimus. Part of this is because VNR Optimus’s smaller scale means that the trailer doesn’t feel too small for him, like how it also scales well with Legacy Deluxe Optimus.

Another factor is that it’s actually got a bit more color on it than the Earthrise release, with the stripe on the side being filled in, and the back door being solid black, thanks to how the plastic on this release was sprued out. 

For features, it attaches to the hitch of the truck just fine. An interesting thing about that attachment is that there’s a newly-tooled adapter added to the bottom of the trailer, since the hitch in VNR Optimus is further back than on Earthrise Optimus, and most other modern Optimii. The trailer still works with them, though, because they made it so you can just pop the adapter off.  

For other features, one relevant thing in this mode is that nobody needs to pull the trailer, because there’s two little support struts that can flip down and keep it flat when it’s not being pulled. At the back of the trailer, while you can flip down the door, you actually have to crack open the trailer first to untab it, which feels like a bad design choice.

Here’s one place where the trailer’s small size causes problems, though, since most Autobot Cars are too big to fit in there.

Even most modern Deluxe Minibots don’t fit! I managed to get Netflix Bumblebee in there, but Legacy Gears was too big. 

Transformation

Something I said the last few times I reviewed an Optimus, is that most modern versions of the guy basically have the same transformation, where it’s just the G1 toy transformation, with an added waist twist, and then a ton of little extra unique steps. One novelty to VNR Optimus is that he bucks the trend, and transforms completely differently from his modern brethren. Have you ever heard of an Optimus where the truck bed doesn’t become his legs? His doesn’t. It just folds up into a backpack. Instead, the long nose of the truck is where his legs are, and unfolding them is the most complicated part of the figure.

It’s a lengthy conversion, with a ton of steps, and a ton of little panels to adjust, but it’s intuitive enough that I can handle it without instructions, even if about half of it is spent fiddling with those lower legs, which, by the way, seem to almost double his mass in robot mode, thanks to the Great Unfolding.

For a couple of tips when going back to truck mode: Make sure you remember to unfold his abs into two separate panels, otherwise his whole chest section won’t fit. Also, remember to rotate his head back around, or the truck’s back end will hold together even worse than it already does

Robot Mode:

VNR Optimus feels like an unlikely counterpart to Studio Series Transformers One Megatron, because of something they share in common: Their really long legs.

There’s some gams on this guy. Like Megs, Optimus doesn’t feel disproportionate, but he is probably really good at running. 

So, what we’ve got here is a Voyager-sized robot, standing just a hair taller than Earthrise Optimus, that’s recognizably the big red guy, but with a design that’s dedicated to remixing the Optimus look, in a way we haven’t really seen since the Prime Wars Trilogy.

Granted, he’s got a (very good) Optimus headsculpt, the usual truck window chest (with visible Matrix) and grill-abs (both fake parts in this case, though the chest window does make the truck’s rear window), and a couple other signifiers, like details at his waist, but other than that, this is a very different design.

Even when a modern Optimus is remixing the classic look, like with Rise of the Beasts Optimus, or Transformers One Optimus, they usually keep details like the solid blue truck-bed legs with wheels on them, or the smokestacks on the shoulders. On VNR Optimus, his lower legs are big, stompy boots made out of the front of the truck, and most of his wheels are on a fairly unobtrusive backpack.

I think it’s the lack of stacks, or towers, or anything on his shoulders that throws me the most, because of how it changes his silhouette away from what I’m used to. Still, I’m not complaining about the changes, and it’s impressive how he still reads as the character. 

Like I said before, the very traditional headsculpt helps. It’s different from the Earthrise version, and feels like it’s specifically trying to be ‘86 movie Prime, in a way that even the new Studio Series 86 one isn’t. The figure’s even been designed so you can pop the head off, and give it to Earthrise Optimus if you want. 

For colors, it’s interesting how much the transformation changes the mix on him. Most of the black has been folded away into his backpack, and we’re left with a pretty traditional Optimus colorscheme of red, additional blue, and newly-exposed gray parts, with far more yellow accents to go with the silver. Not only that, but the red on his arms and chest is actually glossy paint, giving those parts a very different look from the red on the truck cab (and luckly, I got no QC problems). It’s interesting how much they used the transformation to change things up. 

For build quality, he’s way more solid in this mode than truck mode, since his cab is split between his legs, and his troublesome truck bed folds away and clicks into his back. All of his joints are nice and tight, and his stability is….interesting. So, his feet are kind of small, and while they do have heel spurs, the big piles of truck cab on the back of each leg unintentionally act as support anyway, since if he falls backwards, he’ll only tilt back like, a half a centimeter, and just rest on it instead. Probably not what they intended, but hey,  it works.

Speaking of poseability, he’s got a lot of it, and the fact that he’s so skinny and person-shaped means that it’s all pretty unimpeded, giving him a big range of motion. He’s got ankle tilts, knee swivels, universal hips, a swivel waist, enough joints around his shoulders and elbows to make both universal, swivelling wrists (impressively), and a neck swivel. Guy can move!

It does seem like he ought to have double-knees, but it’s an illusion, since the second joint’s used for the transformation, and locked up tight in robot mode. If I had one criticism, it really feels like he ought to have opening and closing hands. Earthrise Optimus does, and he was the exact same size class as this guy, who’s also trying to look and feel like a premium package. I think it mostly bothers me because his having closed fists really hampers how he can interact with one of his accessories, which makes for a handy transition.

For features, firstly, you can flip Prime’s chest down to access his Matrix of Leadership, stashed in a techie-looking bed of clear plastic. While it has the same basic look as the Earthrise Matrix at a glance, it’s a lot more shallow, and made of clear plastic that’s been painted over silver, gold and blue, so it’s very much a new tooling. There’s a peghole on the back of it, that for some reason, is too big to be five-millimeter compatible, so it can’t take part in any Weaponizing fun. And, like I mentioned above, Prime’s lack of opening hands means he’s got no way to hold it, unless you, say, balanced it on one of his arms.

So, nice that it’s here, but I wish it did anything. Next up, he’s got the same Ion Blaster that Earthrise Prime had, cast in black.

It felt a little small for Earthy, but since VNR isn’t exactly the cartoon’s design, it feels more natural here.

You can fold it in half, and try stashing it on his back via a peg on the side of it, but it works better if you unfold it, and store it by the handle. 

Of course, the big accessory is, again, the trailer, which you can split open into a miniature Combat Deck for him to stand in and around.

The big criticisms against this trailer were always that, firstly, it was really small, secondly, the plastic on it was oddly thin, and thirdly, that there was no color on the interior at all, it was all solid gray. And, well, most of that’s true here, still.

But, they did fix the color problem, sort of, by making some of the trailer out of black plastic, so there’s some actual color blocking. It’s still a bit plain, but, much like his Ion Blaster, the fact that this isn’t a normal cartoon-style Optimus makes this whole thing read as a spin on the original combat deck, rather than an iffy recreation.

And there’s still a lot going on with it, too!

The repair-drone-creature-thingie at the back of it has a triple-jointed “neck,” with the top joint able to swivel sideways, too, making it very expressive. It’s got a couple little claw arms on ball joints (they’re a bit too big to hold most accessories, though), and two ports at the front of it for blast effect.

In an interesting addition, you can also just pop the entire thing out of the trailer, and it’s got enough 5 millimeter pegs on its base that you can mount it on Optimus himself, like some kind of companion creature.

You can also pop a bit of the ramp at the front off, and have Optimus mount it on his arm as a shield.

The trailer also has eight weapons ports inside it, for stashing accessories, though I admit, they’re all close enough together that you’re probably not getting eight whole weapons in there.

Also, technically, you’re supposed to stash his Ion Blaster on the underside of the trailer in truck mode, but a) there’s no reason you can’t fit in in the trailer, and b) it looks….kinda awkward there.

Speaking of ports, Optimus has four of them between his forearms and shoulders, one on his back, and, oddly, four on the backs of his thighs, if you want to get creative with the weaponizing.

It’s not something I’d expect from a one-off novelty figure like this, and I appreciate that they included it.

Overall

Okay, so, I mostly got this guy for the trailer, but I’m happy I got a chance to check him out. Overall, this is a good, solid take on Optimus Prime, one that’s elevated a bit by the novelties of his real-world altmode, and his unconventional design. I like that he’s very G1-styled, despite not being his G1 self, and you could easily make him the leader of your G1 Autobots.

Heck, if I’d gone in on collecting the Legacy updates of Transformers Prime characters that shifted their designs to be more G1, I might have got this guy to be a new version of his Transformers Prime self, since it’s a similar altmode, and he even pulled a trailer in one episode of the show.

On the other hand, the market’s crowded by Good Optimus Primes, and this isn’t on the level of, say, the Legacy Deluxe, where I go “everyone needs to own this,” and not just because VNR Optimus is more expensive and harder to get.

He’s a good figure, make no mistake, but there’s a lot of good Optimuses, and the only things this guy really has going for him is that unique altmode and layout, plus, he’s got just enough wrong with him (the unstable altmode and such) that he’s not really a perfect 10. Still, I like him, and if you’ve got a good excuse to get one for a decent price, like I did, you’ll have fun with a solid figure, just don’t expect some kind of transcendent cultural reset, or anything. It’s just a truck-robot. Still, I can’t help but wish that the tooling wasn’t locked behind Volvo licensing, and that it was the current go-to longnosed Optimus Prime whenever Target or Godzilla or whoever needed a random repaint, instead of the inferior Legacy Laser Optimus one that’s currently seeing a lot of use.

Maybe it’d be worth HasTak’s money to retool this one to remove the Volvo-ness of this one, if only so there would be more avenues to grab one.

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