Bot Reviews: Transformers: Authentics Bravo Optimus Primal

The sticker shock is real these days when you’re collecting Transformers. Mainline Deluxes and Voyagers still feel feasible, but Leaders are edging towards triple-digit Canadian prices, while on the small side of things, Core-class minifigures are inching up to 20 Canadian, making it hard to justify what they cost, especially when you’re in your 30s with rent, groceries, and gasoline to worry about. Because of that, Transformers Authentics always interested me. Basically, Authentics is a line of Transformers, in various sizes, that are designed to be cheap, with the “Authentics” name denoting the fact that they’re meant to compete with bootlegs and knockoffs, and be sold in the unusual spaces those tend to pop up in, rather than your Wal-Marts and such. For whatever reason, though, I’ve rarely seen them in Canada. I think I saw some in a board game store one time, and that’s all I can recall until now. But my local grocery store, of all places, had a peg of the smallest size of them (called “Authentics Bravo” on the peg, but not on the box), and I decided to give this one a whirl. The fact that he cost $7.99 Canadian certainly helped. And the fact that he’s Optimus Primal, of Beast Wars fame, of all things, also helped.

The rest of the Authentics cast tend to be a selection of G1 A-list characters, Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, etc., but having the Maximal leader from Beast Wars show up was enough of a novelty to draw my attention. I guess between Kingdom, and Rise of the Beasts, he’s become enough of an A-lister to make it into this line. Like anyone who’s been in the fandom long enough, I’ve heard enough whinging about Hasbro “cheaping out” on figures (trust me, this is not a new sentiment, they’ve been saying this since the 90s), so it’ll be interesting to see what them *actually* cheaping out looks like.

Robot Mode

Like the rest of the smaller Authentics figures, Optimus Primal’s at an odd scale. He’s bigger than a Core-class, but smaller than a Deluxe class, and stands almost the exact same height as an old Bay-movie-era Scout-Class, or an old Beast Wars Basic (appropriately enough).

Speaking of Beast Wars, the sculpt of this figure is Optimus Primal’s original animated design, extremely accurately scaled down, which is interesting, because the rest of the Authentics line uses more generic “Evergreen” designs for their figures, but I guess that didn’t exist for Primal.

I think this worked out better, because taking the same design used on his Kingdom Voyager (reviewed here), and shrinking him down like this looks pretty nifty. Looking closely, there’s a bit of stylization, namely some tech detailing etched into the furry parts of his body, like his shoulderpads or forearms, but it’s mostly a very faithful porting of his TV show design, including his oddly ornate chest panel, piston-shins, and the extremely Prime-looking headsculpt, save for the gap in his mouthplate for a mouth. It’s surprisingly detailed for what’s here! And more importantly, it just looks like the guy. I look at it and go, there’s my miniature Garry Chalk.

The colors, meanwhile, are where they depart from this frankly impressive level of show-acuracy, and opt for a more stylized approach, likely since the paint budget isn’t enough to do his correct colorscheme.

He’s mostly cast in glossy black plastic, with a few pieces in silvery-gray, and his head (and accessories) cast in a dark blue that his classic design didn’t feature. His whole chestplate’s also been colored in that new shade of blue, instead of its original white-and-red coloration, and he’s got accents of red and silver to finish him off. And, honestly, he looks pretty good. A big worry on a budget figure is that it’s going to look under-painted, and this more stylized set of colors managed to get him covered in a way that makes him look complete at a glance. Granted, there’s a lot of tech detailing on his limbs that’s just left completely unpainted black, but to me, that just evokes his Rise of the Beasts colorscheme, which is partially why this version exists anyway.

Now, his build quality  is where I’d expect to see the obvious results of his cheap construction, and…it’s not bad? Certainly, he feels lighter and less solid than a standard Transformer in this size, but not by much, really. The plastic that he’s made out of feels different from modern Generations stuff, but instead of feeling like a knockoff, it actually feels like the kind of glossy material the older Prime Wars Trilogy-era Generations figures were made out of, a far cry from the kind of bootleg you can crush with your fist. The big, obvious concession to budget is really just how hollow his forearms and lower legs are, and even then, there’s a lot less of that cost-cutting than I expected.

Meanwhile, the articulation is somehow simultaneously better than I expected, while also serving up some of the figure’s few flaws. So, firstly, he’s got way more joints than I expected, and they’re nearly all ball-joints. Bottom to top, he’s got rocking ankles, knees, hips, a waist joint, shoulders, elbows, even a ball-jointed neck. I was expecting there to be some obvious joints missing on him, but there aren’t, and he’s even debatably more articulated than the Beast Wars Basics and Movie Scouts he’s the same size as.

I say debatably, because there’s a big point of contention: His elbows. They’re on ball-joints, but the way the forearms are sculpted, they actually only have a tiny range of motion, and can barely bend, mostly just swivel. There’s enough there to do a bit of arm posing, but not enough to do the expected gestures that come with elbow joints. It’s a very odd engineering choice, because it doesn’t feel like a budget cut, and seems to just come down to the forearms being sculpted kind of wonky. Meanwhile, the possible problem of making an all-ball-joints figure manifested on him in the form of his right knee being on the loose and floppy side.

It’s not so loose that he can’t pose with it, but it is worrying, and makes me acutely aware of potential QC problems, and the idea that these ball joints might loosen with time.

For accessories, the first surprise is that he has any at all, most Authentics don’t. The second surprise is what they went with: A pair of nondescript laser guns, cast in extremely rubbery blue plastic (the same plastic his head is made out of). They come packaged pegged onto his back, suggesting they’re an equivalent to the character’s deployable shoulder cannons.

And sure enough, you can pop them out, and peg them into holes on either side of his head, to put them in “deployed” position.

You can also take them out, and put them in his hands as pistols if you want, though the shape of each gun’s back end, combined with the rubberyness of the plastic, makes it easy to look like they’re drooping.

It also highlights his lack of elbow articulation, since he can’t do as many cool two-gunned shooting poses as I’d like.

Personally, I’d rather they gave him his twin swords instead, mostly because he has the character’s forearm-mounted lasers sculpted into his forearms already, so he’s got the ranged side of his attacks covered. Still, the fact that he even comes with anything, and the fact that you can actually do multiple things with those accessories is exceptional in and of itself.

Transformation

Surprisingly, this is just a simplified version of the Kingdom Voyager’s transformation, which itself was just a slight variant on the ‘96 Beast Wars original’s transformation. Maybe that’s why he’s so poseable and full-featured, because this isn’t a complicated transformation at all. You’re twisting the waist, swapping the heads (with the same “backpack opens and head swings around” feature of the Kingdom one), squatting him down, and adjusting a few details, nice and easy.

The closest thing to a wrinkle here is that you have to make sure to twist his waist as the first step, to leave clearance for his backpack to open, and that’s about it. It takes 30 seconds, but is complex enough to feel substantial.

Gorilla Mode

At the end of it, you have an ape, of the traditional knuckle-walking variety, mostly made out of re-arranged robot bits, with only a new head and chest.

Compared to the robot mode, this is definitely a “new take on the character”-type design, instead of faithfully animation accurate. That probably comes down to all the tech detailing sculpted into his fur, which seems to have been molded in to make the obvious leftover robot mode parts on his legs, waist and shoulders blend in better. I’d say the biggest flaw in the sculpt is the butt-flap of fur that folds over his reversed robot legs doesn’t really cover them, or blend in a meaningful way, but it’s fine, it’s fine.

Upfront, his headsculpt’s interesting. He’s got tusks on his gorilla face, and an expression that seems to ride the line between friendly and fierce, and mostly makes him look kind of resigned. This man’s tired of parenting his crew’s loud personalities. An interesting detail I missed at first, too, is that he has his robot-mode antenna sculpted onto the sides of his gorilla head, like a specific bit of concept art from The Last Knight (yes, he was going to be in that at one point, apparently.)

For colors, despite being mostly re-arranged robot parts, he manages to feel a bit different. His dark blue’s completely vanished (minus his accessories), and it’s been replaced with a new shade of light gray on his chest and face, along with red gorilla eyes. The unpainted black tech detail combines with these colors to make me think of his Rise of the Beasts iteration, even if nothing else really matches it.

His articulation’s about the same as his robot mode, maybe a bit more limited. You can’t twist his waist anymore, and his thighs are meant to stay in place, but he’s got all his other joints. His new head’s still on a balljoint, but is sculpted in a way where it can only look up and down, and not side to side. Speaking of limits, I again wish I could move his elbows a bit more than they’re capable of, if only so he can knuckle-walk more convincingly. Still, he’s got way more articulation than I’d have expected, and it’s even possible to stand him up like a biped.

He’s still got his twin lasers in this mode, and the instructions suggest stashing them on his back, though you could always just set them aside for a more realistic gorilla. Either way, you can do all the same stuff as in his robot mode, including Giving the Monkey a Gun.

Also, pegging them to his back facing upwards makes for a more convincing attack mode now.

Overall

I’m surprised at how much I like this. “Tiny Optimus Primal” was always going to be an easy sell to me, but for eight dollars at this scale, I was expecting a lot more obvious cost-cutting. But no, this is just a good small toy. He poses pretty well (outside of those oddly limited elbows), looks nice in both modes, and doesn’t feel obviously flimsy. You can tell he’s not being produced at the same level as a mainline figure in this scale, but at the same time, he’s far from a knockoff, and considering he’s about half the price of a much smaller Core-class, makes for a very appealing package. Heck, most of the caveats in that sentence didn’t need to be there, he’s just good on his own merits.

I don’t know if the rest of the smaller Authentics are on this guy’s level (I suspect not, looking at pictures, and remembering they were all designed a lot earlier than him), but this is a good one, and for that price, if you see one, honestly, just pick it up. Have a little monkey man for your desk, live a little.

For over 100 Bot, Non-Bot, and Retro Bot Reviews, click here to view my archive.