Bot Reviews: Transformers: Beast Machines Mega Cheetor

If memory serves me right, in the final years of the 20th century, there was once a website called the Toyark, which had nothing to do with the general toy-news website that’s out there today. It was simply dedicated to a fan (or fans?) taking nice photo galleries of Transformers, something that’s common today, but a novelty back then. Some time before Beast Machines made its debut in the year 2000, the site obtained an early copy of the new, Mega-class Cheetor figure, and I remember pouring over the images for it, time and time again. That was one of the first steps towards shifting from being a kid to a collector, the next step being me and my cousin going out of our way to buy the entire first wave of the Beast Machines line when it dropped (the first wave between us, we each picked different figures). ‘Course, we still played with them, so it was a halfway thing. Point is: This version of Cheetor stirs up some real specific memories.

Beast Machines was an odd, controversial chapter in the Transformers franchise, coming off of the immensely popular Beast Wars, and presenting a sequel story that was a lot darker, more complicated, and made a lot of bold, sometimes unpopular choices in its writing and characterization. Frankly, as someone that sat through many legitimately bad Transformers shows and movies after this, we didn’t know how good we had it, complaining that our complicated philosophical sci-fi morality play took too many risks. On the merchandise-related side, there was a separate controversy: Thanks to the show’s character designers seemingly working off of extremely early concept art for the toys, we wound up with a toyline of characters that often bore only passing resemblances to their TV show designs, to a level unseen since the beginning of Generation One.

But, again, time has softened this, and in the modern era, a lot of these creative, offbeat figure designs (the theme was techno-organic Maximal animals versus sci-fi Vehicon vehicles) are regarded on merits other than media-accuracy. And that’s how I’m looking at this guy today, a figure that turned out to be my favorite find in a very generous care package of odds and ends.

Beast Mode

On the show, Cheetor had mostly grown out of being a carefree kid, and matured into a leader, though he still had a lot to learn, and this bigger action figure reflected that growth.

And big is the right word, because he’s impressively large, dwarfing most modern Voyagers, the closest size-class equivalent.

Of course, this is mostly possible because of how skinny and lanky he is. This is a heavily-exaggerated, alien version of a cheetah, with a wasp waist, huge bent-back rear legs, a very long tail, and other exaggerated traits.

In terms of his sculpting, it’s hard to specifically say what they were going for. In-universe, he’s “techno-organic,” a new breed of Transformer that hybridizes flesh and steel, but I never particularly saw that in the sculpt (and the Beast Wars Transmetal 2’s really reflected that idea better). Instead, I’d call him more of a Transmetal 1-style robotic animal, full of intricately designed panels, translucent details, and bolts and rivets that make me think of one of those Boston Dynamics robot dog monstrosities.

He does have a bit of asymmetry going on in his arms, though, thanks to one of them having a geared gimmick, making his spiked shoulders uneven, and the shape of his upper arm and elbow joint a little different, too. Up front, his headsculpt’s clean lines make me think specifically of one of the Voltron lions, or a Megazord. In probably his neatest bit of sculpting, his right shoulder contains his “Spark Crystal,” an aesthetic gimmick that began in Beast Wars that represents his spark.

It’s a red, transparent half-marble, with a Beast Machines Maximal logo floating inside it, and in Cheetor’s case, is surrounded by a bit of gold chrome, and held beneath a clear plastic dome. It doesn’t do anything, it just looks cool, though I always wondered what would happen if someone shot him in the shoulder. Maybe that’s what happened with Brawn.

For the rest of his colors, he’s mostly a cheddary yellow-orange, with transparent green (and painted green) details, along with black spots wherever they could fit them, and for more asymmetry, a pink Maximal logo on his left thigh, if you didn’t see the Spark Crystal.

In addition to the Crystal, he’s got a bit more clear red on the top of his head, and for his eyes.

Of course, the big, questionable choice here was the generous use of gold chrome on the cheetah’s belly, and his entire head, something that would get slowly phased out during Beast Machines. The problem, as I said back when I reviewed Transmetal 2 Prowl, is simply that this kind of chrome was doomed to scratch, chip, and flake off over time, something fans were just starting to notice in 2000. I got very lucky with this sample, he’s only got some chipping at his cat ears, and on one of his teeth, but, as I’ll get to later, it’s sort of an inevitability, and a big point against the construction of this figure. It’s not “gold plastic syndrome” bad, or “transparent plastic on a load-bearing joint” bad, but it’s a big concern.

At least the rest of his build quality is really solid, with only a bit of wobble in his waist, and the rest of the joints all being nice and tight. Between that, and his quadruped nature, he does a good job staying standing.

See, one big advantage of this guy not trying to be a realistic cheetah, and not even trying for media accuracy, is that he’s surprisingly well-articulated. I’ll go front-to-back on this one. His front paws can open and close, and are on ball-joint wrists, as is his right elbow (his left is on a swivel), and his shoulders. His head is also on a ball joint, and there’s a second joint behind that, giving him impressive head motion. Around the middle, he can bend left or right at his wasp-waist, as well as rotate at his hips.  His rear legs have balljointed hips and “upper knees,” while his “lower knees” are on swivels. Meanwhile, he’s got rotating ankles, and single-piece toe joints. Finally, his tail has two swivels in it, and can rotate at the base. In other words, even by modern Generations standards, this is an extremely bendable cat, though it can be challenging to keep him standing if you get too crazy with it.

For gimmicks, I’ll start with the small ones. All the red on Cheetor’s head is for good old fashioned lightpiping, and it works like a charm.

Next, moving his head in either direction makes his cat mouth open and close, rapidly enough that he looks like he’s talking.

 

Finally, the big gimmick: Pressing inwards on his left shoulder-spike activates a geared claw-swiping gimmick, though the motion of it makes me think more of a cat shoving a glass off the table.

One good thing about it is that it doesn’t impede articulation, as you can still spin the elbow outwards and inwards, and listen to the clicky gears grind (okay, maybe I should avoid doing that too much, though you need to for transformation). While it generally works pretty well, being a bit too enthusiastic at cranking the lever can make the arm rest in a different position than when it started, necessitating a clicky rotation back into place.

Transformation

There’s a fairly big problem here, and it’s the chrome again. To back up, though, the transformation itself is pretty simple. You’re standing him up backwards, reversing his arms and legs, spinning and compressing his waist, and then doing a re-arrangement of his torso that swaps his heads. The problem is that unless you are proceeding very carefully and eyeballing every bit of clearance, it’s more likely than not that you’re going to scrape the chrome somewhere on him, most likely on one of his heads.

Basically, he’s doomed over a long enough timescale to pick up scratches and shedding, thanks to how he transforms, and which parts are chrome. On one hand, nothing lasts forever, toys are transient, I’m certainly not going to avoid transforming him (though I will be careful). On the other hand, it really underlines what a bad idea chrome parts on figures were, and if they were just made out of the same yellow plastic as the rest of him, there wouldn’t be a problem.

Robot Mode

Once again, this boy’s *tall*. For one thing, you’re actually supposed to extend his feet at the ankles, on literal stilts, to give him even more height. He towers over most modern Voyagers, and even some Leaders, though again, he pulls it off by being really skinny.

There’s less immediate details to talk about here, since most of him is really just rearranged from his cheetah mode, with the same arms, legs, and whatnot, though they’ve all been reversed due to the transformation.

He’s got some new details on his chest, suggesting a typically heroic big-pecs-and-abs build, though the details are more nondescript metal armor. Uptop, his new head’s a more humanoid-looking cat face, but still definitely feline, with the big triangle eyes, cat-smile maw, and button nose. Between that, and the paint under and around his eyes, there’s something about it that reminds me of a grimly serious turn-of-the-millenium superhero, appropriate here.

 

And that’s the only bit of deco really worth talking about here, since it’s all largely the same. At least his face isn’t 100 percent chrome this time.

His build quality is just a little bit jankier in this mode, due to his waist, and legs. His waist doesn’t really seem to have any way to snap or lock in, and while it doesn’t come undone, or de-transform or anything, it wobbles really freely when you pick him up. His legs, meanwhile, are a tricky balancing act, between his new stilts, their odd, bent back shape, and his general topheaviness. Still, his Transformers Wiki toy entry going “you’ll never get him to stand” is a huge exaggeration, it’s just tricky to get that balance to happen, and good luck doing anything more elaborate than having him stand there.

At least he’s got giant heel spurs now, and you can always un-extend his stilts to give him a lower center of gravity if you want him, say, walking or something.

So, I purposely haven’t really talked about his lack of animation-accuracy, but there’s one element I have to note: On the show, and in basically all promotional material, Cheetor had very prominent signature weapons in the form of two curved, handheld swords, looking kind of like Beast Wars Basic Optimus Primal’s. This guy, of course, doesn’t come with those, which is a bit disappointing. In fact, no Beast Machines Cheetors came with them until year 2 of the toyline (and that figure was the wrong color! That line was a real mess). Instead, you take his tail, and tab it into a specific hole only found on his right hand, as a whip-type weapon.

Or, like, a curved sword, I suppose.

That’d make more sense, since the top of the box proclaimed that he had “sword-fighting action!” In other words, once his weapon is plugged in, you can use the same geared arm gimmick as his cheetah mode, and have him swing around his weapon. It actually works really well, and something about the extra weight and mass of him being armed even makes the gimmick stay aligned a bit better, I think.

Oh, also, if you were ever a teenager on the internet in that time period, I’m sure someone pointed out that his swinging arm action could be used to mime an extremely rude gesture, as well.

And, there’s two more gimmicks in this mode, or rather, duplicate gimmicks: His robot-mode head has the same pair of features: A good set of lightpiped eyes…

…and a jaw that flaps open and closed when you rotate his neck, in a way that makes him look more shocked, and less chatty.

Overall

It’s really hard for me to separate the figure from the time period it came out in. This particular Cheetor was a real Event in Transformers for me. And it feels good to have a (fairly) fresh copy, and experience it all over again.

He’s not particularly animation-accurate (the basic silhouette is right, but almost none of the details match up, including the weapons), but what he actually does look like is kind of interesting and odd, and a slice of the generally unusual, alien aesthetic of the time period. And he’s an impressively large, impressively bendy (particularly in cat mode) figure, with a subtle set of gimmicks that bring the whole thing up a notch. Now, if only he wasn’t so hard to stand up in robot mode as a consequence of his design. Scratch that, I can deal with it, instead, I wish they hadn’t cast a bunch of his parts in chrome, and have them specifically be parts that rub together during transformation, dooming him to self-destruction, and making it impossible to find an undamaged copy unless you’re popping open a mint box. But maybe there’s something a little poetic about the transient nature of these plastic ‘bots. Or maybe I’m just trying to justify a bad design choice. Either way, outside of that, I think this guy still holds up, and his weirdness and quirks only make him more endearing. I see loose ones on Ebay for 60, maybe 70 Canadian, and if you can find a complete one, and they’ve got decent chrome (it’s never going to be perfect, you’ve just gotta accept that), I’d say it’s worth a dip for a concentrated dose of the year 2000. Heck, it’s making me think about picking up a few other highlights of the line.

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