Bot Reviews: Transformers: Generations Selects Voyager G2 Ramjet

I’m always up for a Generation 2 homage, and the main reason for that is that’s where I started with the franchise. Specifically, my first Transformers experience was watching the Generation 2 cartoon every weekday morning before school (after Bonkers and Bobby’s World). It was, of course, G1 reruns, but included new CGI scene transitions, and importantly, began with a computer-generated credits sequence that’s burned into my brain, in which Optimus Prime transforms and does battle with an unusual purple and blue Decepticon jet.

It turns out, this jet was the Generation 2 version of Ramjet, as seen in the back catalogue of nearly every G2 toy I had (admittedly, not many). This Seeker was originally a part of the second-year “conehead” team in G1, and was known for being a dumb brute (nothing unusual for the cons) who liked ramming into things with his hard head. While his fellow Seeker, Starscream got a G2 repaint that preserved the essence of his colors, Ramjet’s G2 release decided to give him a total makeover, replacing his mostly-white deco with a deliciously 90’s purple, blue, and black makeover.

As a unique Seeker deco, any line of modern Seekers that goes on long enough will get to it eventually, so, naturally, the old Classic Deluxe tooling got repainted into it, though it wound up being a rare, expensive Collector’s Club release, too rich for my blood, though I did gaze longingly at it a few times.

Luckily, a better option has presented itself (and much earlier in the seeker-repaint-lifecycle), now that the Earthrise Seeker tooling (discussed here) has been repainted into him. This is the first time I’ve handled a Conehead retool of it, too, so I’m interested in it on two different levels.

Robot Mode

I’m still very fond of this base tooling. It’s the old Classics Seeker writ large, with more joints, and that vibes with me. And it’s different enough from the standard tooling of the Seeker Elites I already own to be interesting to me, thanks to a fair amount of retooling.

Ramjet’s wings have been entirely removed from his torso, save for a swivel with a tiny slice on the end for them to attach to, and are now mostly located on his lower legs, totally changing the silhouette. Another thing that I didn’t notice until he was in hand was that his shin/knee panels have been retooled to be taller and flatter, too, in the name of G1 animation accuracy. And, of course, he’s got a new head, covered in a cone.

In a bit of design weirdness, it’s a fake jet nosecone, while the real one still hands off his back, though the one on his head has extra panel-lines on it that suggests it isn’t really the same part.

Admittedly, part of me wishes they’d gone “G2 opening accurate” and given him a traditional vented seeker head (and/or kept his wings on his torso), but I like the sculpt he has, and his pursed-lipped expression is oddly funny.

Of course, the colors are the star here, and he looks great in equal parts black, purple and blue, which all contrast each other nicely. He’s a little garish, but not as garish as G2’s worst excesses. It’s just a good, lush, bad guy color scheme, outside of the nostalgia. He’s also got some silver accents, a clear purple cockpit, and a detail I appreciate, toy-accurate gold eyes.

That being said, it feels like they didn’t go as far as they could. The original G2 Ramjet had a lot of sticker detail that isn’t present here, most visibly on his feet, shins, and cowling, and it’s a little disappointing they didn’t attempt to replicate it via tampos, especially after the old Collector’s Club one did. Still, the colors that are present do look really nice, and give me the Good G2 Vibes.

Something I appreciated about this tooling is its nice, sturdy handfeel, on top of big, stable legs, made even more stable with the giant ankle-wings. He’s still missing a waist joint, a big miss in the modern era, but everything else is present and bendable. I particularly appreciate his wiggly ball jointed head, and the fact that his big feet let him assume running poses really easily.

Ramjet’s only accessories are his two null-rays on his arms, which he can take out and hold in his hands, too.

They’re the same null rays as the Seeker Elites, in homage to how the G1 cartoon gave him the same weapons, instead of the original toy’s retooled guns (and his G2 toy, despite having new missile launchers, shared them with G2 Starscream, so the symmetry still fits). Outside of that, he’s got War for Cybertron weapons ports on his feet, lower legs, ankle-wings, lower and upper arms.

Transformation

There’s no big changes here, even with the retooled wings, though I did find this transformation a bit easier both ways, particularly when it comes to that tricky torso. It helps that the back/shoulder part of the torso feels like it’s made out of materials that are a shade more flexible than on the previous toolings, helping that squeeze-and-plug feel a lot less worrying.

There’s a slight new trick with those longer leg panels when going to jet mode, in that they now plug into his pelvis-plate via some grooves. While we’re here, make sure you plug the inside-back of his knees into his leg panels, so everything closes up properly in robot mode.

Jet Mode

Those retooled wings changed the vibe a bit in robot mode, but they REALLY changed the vibe in jet mode, turning him from a standard-looking fighter jet into a narrow, spear-like triangular shape. I dig the angular little winglets in the back, and the big turbines (and yes, his tail fins are supposed to curve inward a bit).

 

A tiny, tiny gripe that I still have with the sculpt is that the tiny swivels his winglets are on are still asymmetrical, with the right one having a line through it, makine me instinctively think I’ve cracked it. Well, that and the fact that the torso’s still blatantly there from the bottom, but is as tucked in as it usually is. Besides, on this made-up, colorful jet, it feels less out of place.

From the top, Ramjet’s colors are now more solidly divided into purple, blue, and black than they were in Robot mode. His only other adornments are a few tampographs. Surprisingly, the G1 Decepticon symbols on the tops and bottoms of both his wings are actually accurate, the original toy had no G2 logos on him.

The other tampo they included is his name, in silver, along the side of his cockpit. On one hand, I love the throwback to that era of disguise-invalidation, but on the other hand, it does keep him from being repurposed as anyone other than himself (unless the character is a big Ramjet fan).

Again, while it’s a good deco, I wish they’d kept some of the other sticker details the G2 original had on his wings, and beside his cockpit. He’s a bit too plain to my eyes (not to mention, he doesn’t have that tank-turret-looking accessory the G2 figure had).

Other than that, well, he swoops well, feels solid in my hands, and you can pop his null rays out of his wings and put them further up on his body, in addition to the War for Cybertron port on the back of the jet.

Overall

On one hand, this feels a little perfunctory as far as homages go, and I keep thinking there’s more they could have done one way or the other. Make it “animation-accurate” and give him a Starscream or Skywarp head instead, or make it toy-accurate and tampo some of those stickers on, maybe even tool up his different accessories. It’s not exactly low-effort, but they definitely kept it a bit too simple.

That being said, what’s here is good. I love these colors, both as a G2 update and just in general, and they’ve been dropped onto a tooling I already liked, with just enough new parts to keep it interesting (and, thanks to Earthrise’s bad exclusive distribution, this is probably the easiest Conehead to get). If you like the colors, or the tooling, you’ll like this version, as I do.

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