Bot Reviews: Transformers: Legacy Leader Laser Optimus Prime

It’s 1995, and there’s two things I want for Christmas: A copy of Star Trek: Generations on VHS, and a Transformers: Generation 2 Optimus Prime, like the one the kids at school had.

I got the tape, but as for the Optimus Prime, what I unwrapped wasn’t the reissue of the G1 toy with a black trailer that I’d been expecting (not that I knew it was a reissue of an older toy back then), but a long nosed truck with a fuel tanker behind it, called “Laser Optimus Prime.”

I’ll admit, I was disappointed it wasn’t “the one from the show,” but once I got it opened and stickered up (I have a really vivid memory of doing this in my Nonna and Nonno’s basement), I’d discover how fun he was. Nowadays, all that’s left of him is an upper torso, the result of being capital-p Played with. So, yes, Laser Optimus Prime was the last large figure released in Generation 2, a capstone for the entire line. Between his articulation (this was at a time when most Transformers were still bricks), his light-up gimmick, his big battle base that shot a metric ton of plastic, and his generally cool-looking design, he was (and in some circles, still is) considered one of the Best Transformers Ever. It says something about how much of an impact the figure left that he’s actually received multiple updates and homages over the years, despite never having really appeared in any major Transformers stories, and despite being an alternate form of Optimus Prime in a franchise where almost all of his new figures are typically G1 updates.

First, there was a little Deluxe figure in 2011’s Transformers: Reveal the Shield, redesigning the cab robot to be a bit more sleek and angular, a bit more Bay-movie-esque. He was a pretty good figure, even if he wasn’t the best homage. Next, there was a Titans Return version, released in the same boxset as Nautica (reviewed here), re-imagined as a triple-changer. He was….not a great figure, but did a few things that made him a better homage.

And now, surprising everyone (who’d have thought he’d get another update?), Legacy kicks off with a full on, mostly-newly-tooled leader-class version of this laser-blade-battling 90’s hero. This is the one Legacy figure I was waiting the most for, so I’m eager to break into it. Before I start though, there’s two things I want to mention: Firstly, Leaders are getting expensive. This guy didn’t hit triple digits in Canadian dollars, but after taxes, he’s almost there. So these aren’t purchases I make often, which puts the onus on them to really be “worth it,” so that’s in my mind while I open this guy.

Secondly, for some people, the whole point of Laser Optimus Prime was his cornucopia of gimmicks, especially since, as a “capstone” figure, almost every gimmick in Generation 2 was present on him in some way (heavy articulation, light-up parts, an air-powered missile, a trailer with a spring-loaded autotransform, “rippling” spring-loaded missiles, and a twisting disc launcher). This guy, being aimed more clearly at collectors than at kids, has none of that (plus, shrinking budgets means that he’d cost a ton of money if he did). To some people, this dooms the figure right out of the gate, and it’s a take I understand. That being said, as an adult collector, while I do like it when a figure has a fun gimmick, that’s not necessarily why I, personally, collect. I like figures for their aesthetics, their articulation, and their transformation these days, and missiles and lights aren’t a priority. So, if that sinks it for you, fair, but that’s not the lens I’m looking at him through. Anyway, enough rambling, let’s pop him open and see what a Legacy Leader is like.

Truck Mode

His box may not have a window anymore, but, refreshingly, he’s packaged in his alternate mode, something I’ve always preferred in my Transformers, despite most modern ones opting for robot-mode packaging. A shame that was the refreshing bit, because outside of that he gave me a bad impression out of the box, mainly because of how…anemic he feels. It’s all in the trailer, really. But I’ll get to that.

So, this version of Optimus changes into a long-nosed truck (the first time he did so). Parts of the legs are from the Earthrise tooling (discussed here) (which, itself, included some Siege Optimus bits), and you can tell, because those little cylinders on his thighs still like to slide in at the slightest provocation.

But the rest is new, and this truck cab is a lot longer than the Siege and Earthrise versions.

In terms of its fidelity to the G2 original, it’s not a bad likeness. The nose, the grill, the headlights up front, the smokestacks, even the frontmost wheels imitate the sculpt pretty accurately.

It gets ropey around the back of the cab, in terms of both the homage, and the sculpt in general, thanks to two big blocks in the form of his arms just taking up room. I really do wish they just went at his sides like the original figure. Still, the cab’s not bad, and even manages to be impressively weighty.

It’s the trailer that feels kind of frail and withered. It’s a bit smaller even than Earthrise Optimus’s (presumably to compensate for the bigger cab), and like that one, it’s light, and made out of a plastic that doesn’t feel very substantial. I tried to put my finger on why this bothered me, and I think it has to do with how proportionally smaller it is compared to the cab of the G2 original, and how it’s a more elaborate trailer than G1 Optimus’s Box on Wheels, so its small, light hollowness sticks out more.

Still, at least it’s nicely sculpted, with tons of panel lines and tech details around the front, sides, and back, and a (non-functional) replica of the original’s disc launcher uptop.

Moving back to the front, the colors of the cab are pretty slick, and positively understated for Generation 2. He’s got a black body, with a red nose, and interestingly, instead of the gradient fade from red to black that the original had, the red on the front is in a flame pattern, a reference to the 2010 Deluxe, which itself had those flames as a reference to his Bayverse form. I like nested homages like that. Outside of that, he’s got a nicely shiny silver grill, and silver headlights, which even have a tiny bit of yellow trim around them, plus silver on the smokestacks, and wheel rims.

Curiously, his left door just has a silver Autobrand on it, not “Optimus Prime” like the original, or a G2 logo like the 2002 reissue. Outside of a few more red bits (beneath the doors, on the back), he’s got a bit of gray on his legs, blue on his feet, and translucent blue windows. It’s a good look, a sort of inverted Optimus colorscheme, and it’s positively conservative compared to the typical excesses of the times.

 

Moving around the back, the trailer is a pretty straight combination of dark gray, black, and red, with a bit of silver on his rims. The big story, though, is what it’s missing, namely the big mural on the side of the original trailer, of Optimus burning down a forest, beneath his name in big letters. On a figure with a fairly subdued colorscheme, this provided him with a pop of that gaudy 90’s style, and was an iconic part of his look, so it’s kind of sad to see it completely absent here, and it’s a big knock against his look, to me. Granted, the last time they did an update that included the mural (Titans Return Laser Prime), it was a kind of chintsy-feeling sticker, but at least it was there.

For features, the trailer plugs into a little hitch in the cab, though it’s really there by gravity, rather than a totally solid connection.

Like the Earthrise trailer, it can also freestand, in this case via a red column you pop out, where the hitch usually is.

Uptop, meanwhile, you can pop out one of the two round “disc launchers,” which is also styled to resemble a double-barrelled laser gun, a sort of hybrid of the launcher and the original figure’s laser cannon. As per the instructions, you’re able to fit it on the roof of the truck mode, for an attack mode, on a War for Cybertron-compatible weapons port, a gimmick I’m glad is enduring past the trilogy.

And endure it does, because there’s a lot of those ports on this guy. Outside of the one on the roof, the cab has two on each side of it, and two on the backs of the arm-blocks. Meanwhile, there’s two more on each side of the trailer, and an additional two ports on both the front and the back of the trailer, giving you enough material to arm this thing up into something worthy of the 90’s.

In terms of weapon storage, he comes with a clear blue sword that’s meant to stash beneath the cab, like on the original figure, but mine actually couldn’t out of the box, because it became bent from the way it was stored in the packaging, something I’m told is a common problem. And, the easy solution (thanks, Sarah) is to boil some water, pour it into a mug, with the accessory, and make Sword Tea.

Once it’s good and warm, you can bend it into its correct position, and hold it there until it cools off. After that, I was finally able to stash it in the trailer.

His other accessory, a clear blue round thing with a handle, which I’ve nicknamed the Pizza Axe (it’s not based on anything the original figure had), is also meant to clip onto the back of the cab, in a couple specific spots, though stashing it there blocks the trailer from plugging it in.

If you want it stored, but also out of the way, you can stash it inside the trailer, though, by leaving it where it goes in the figure’s base mode.

Transformation

At first, transforming the cab into robot mode feels kind of overly complicated for a design that was once simple, but it also does some clever stuff. The most interesting bit of it is how his totally absent torso gets assembled and inflated into existence like a tent.

The most frustrating bit, meanwhile, is getting his arms out of the truck cab, because it’s a game of navigating them around an area with very little clearance. Speaking of those arms, his truck mode’s actually a little mistransformed in the package, in that you’re meant to fold two panels on his robot mode knees up, and clip them into the bottom of the truck mode’s arm-boxes. Compared to the fiddly cab, the trailer is really simple. You fold it out into an upside-down T, and then the roof does a clever set of folds and twists to form the central tower.

Robot Mode

Laser Optimus Prime stands a little bit taller than his Earthrise iteration, even before you take his big, blocky shoulders into account.

And, like the truck mode, this is an impressively faithful replica of the original figure’s design quirks, giant shoulders with molded lasers on them, fake truck-chest, the whole nine yards. Continuing the theme of mixing which Laser Prime he’s an update of, the details on his chest (clear windows with a visible matrix), and his lower shoulders specifically recall the altered stickers of the 2002 reissue of the original figure.

A tiny detail of the sculpting that I also appreciate is that there’s rocket boosters sculpted into the bottom of his backpack, so he no longer needs to borrow Sideswipe’s.

I’m also particularly impressed with his headsculpt for not just being G1 Optimus again. This is a subtly different take that’s specifically meant to evoke the original Laser Prime’s headsculpt, and it’s bulkier, with flared antenna.

His colors are similarly spot on. While it’s the same set of colors as truck mode, he’s got a lot more grey on his body, and a lot more blue, thanks to his fists and abs. Again, the silver paint on his chest is specifically meant to evoke the chrome of the 2002 reissue, and this time, they’ve also spread his silver to his shoulders, along with a little bit of yellow.

It’s a combination of colors that feels like it should be kind of dull compared to the dynamic red and blue of the G1 original, but something about him makes it work. The one point where the deco fails, though, is his eyes. Basically, they repeated that same issue Earthrise Optimus Prime had (which the Netflix repaint in these photos rectified), where the blue used on them is too similar to the rest of his head, so they vanish into darkness.I think the idea is that his eyes were supposed to be lightpiped like the G2 original, since they’re clear blue, and there’s a couple pin-sized holes in the back of his head, but holding his head right up to a lamp only produces the faintest glow, too dull to even capture on camera. This is one time I’d rather they just painted over the lightpiping. In fact, he’s got the kind of head you can pry apart, once these photos are done, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

His big visual problem, though, is related to his build quality, and it has to do with how they handled his arms. See, the original, and most updates of the design, have his arms attached to his big shoulder blocks, and have them move with him. This figure opts to make the shoulders immobile pieces, and attach his arms to shoulders underneath them. This means that he has no peripheral vision, thanks to those shoulders, but I knew that going in.

What does bug me, though, is how his arms feel like they’re withered and atrophied, thanks to them being weirdly small, and jutting out of his body at way too low of a location. It’s hard to capture on camera, but it’s a really odd visual that doesn’t suit him at all, and it’s easy to make them look bad, especially considering that, even down to the hands, they’re just slightly too small.

I’ve found that I can mitigate their proportional weirdness, at least, by detaching them from his body and letting them “float” about halfway through his shoulder blocks, on the strut they’re on, and that’s how I’ve taken most of the pictures here (excluding the above). But still, it doesn’t look or feel great. I’m no engineer, but there had to be a better way to handle this. At least the rest of him feels solidly constructed.

And, at least he’s nicely poseable, too. Having Earthrise Prime’s legs means he gets their ankle tilts, and highly bendable knees and hips. And, credit where credit is due, his weird arm and shoulder setup does come with wrist swivels, important for a sword-wielder like himself, and panels on those immobile shoulders that swing upwards to make sure his arms aren’t blocked. Lastly, his head’s on a balljoint, so he can look up and down a little, too.

For accessories, he’s got his fair share. Firstly, that clear blue sword from his alternate mode can now fit in his hands (which, by the way, have no articulation, something I miss after Earthrise Prime).

Disappointingly, it looks a little bit undersized for him in this mode, less impressive than the longer swords basically every other version of him comes with. That being said, the swiveling wrists and general dynamic poseability of him at least makes it so that he can do some cool swordfighting poses with it, which helps a lot.

He can also hold that round, double-barrelled gun from his trailer, and again, it feels kind of like a pea-shooter in his hands.

Next, there’s that weird Pizza-Axe thingie, which looks more like one of those signs you hold up at an auction than a weapon.

However, it does have a useful function, in that you can plug his sword into the top of it for a combined weapon.

I’m not sure that the look of it, with the weird round base, works for me, but it does give his melee weapon some much-needed length and heft.

Lastly, flipping his transparent chest open lets you get at his Matrix of Leadership, something the 2002 reissue and the 2010 Deluxe suggested with detailing, but neither included, so it’s neat to see it here.

Interestingly, it’s a differently-shaped Matrix from the design that Earthrise Optimus, and a bunch of other WFC-era figures came with, more oval-shaped, and less of a rectangle.

It’s still got a transparent blue crystal, with flat gold and shiny silver paint for the details, and still includes a hollow back, for mounting on appropriate pegs. In fact, there’s a specific alternate use for it on this guy: It can attach to the pizza-axe thing.

It doesn’t seem too impressive at first, but when it’s made into the base of the combined weapon, you get a Matrix-powered sword, a cool visual that suggest some kind of Anime Super Attack.

For other features, in an interesting new twist, you can actually flip up his molded shoulder lasers to reveal clear blue missile racks.

As far as new features go, this is one I’m a fan of, it suits the character and the era.

Prime’s also still got WFC ports all over him, including the seven from his truck mode, plus an additional two on the bottoms of his feet. The instructions suggest mounting his pea-shooter gun on several of them, as well as sticking it onto the barrels of the cannons on his shoulders.

But this guy was definitely meant to be armed up with as many Weaponizer guns as you can stick on him, and he wears them well.

Trailer Base

Again, this is kind of disappointing in it smallness and plainness. Basically, it’s an upside-down T, with a tower in the middle upon which his pea-shooter mounts, with a tiny ramp and repair claw at the base of it. I tried to put my finger on why this base mode bugs me so much, compared to, say, Earthrise Prime’s Combat Deck, which was also kind of shrunken and plain, and I think it comes down to this: Earthrise Prime’s trailer base, while it lost a few features of the G1 original, managed to preserve the core functionality of what it was, which was a container for someone to lie down in and get repaired by a tower, or for a car to roll out of. Plus, it managed to value-add a few features, like a removable, mountable tower, and ramp-shield.

The point of the original Laser Optimus Prime’s base was that it was basically a fortification he, and other warriors, could hunker behind, which was armed with a bunch of weapons to hold the enemy at bay.

The fact that this version’s now really small compared to Laser Prime himself means that it doesn’t really feel like the kind of base he, or robots his scale, can hunker behind, unless he’s rolling with Minibots and Micromasters.

On top of that, the fact that the various weapons on the original are nearly all missing, without even sculpted suggestions, means that the context of the original is lost in translation, it’s just a little slab of plastic on the ground, which you can stash his robot-mode weapons in, though, outside of flipping the Pizza Axe up into a shield, don’t really do anything. You can sort of use the new repair arm, with its two joints, to repair tiny vehicles on the ramp, though.

It’s also really odd that said ramp isn’t compatible with the Earthrise ramp system, even Kingdom Rodimus Prime kept that functionality. For other features, you can rotate the tower in the middle, and for some reason, it can pop off on a War for Cybertron peg. It doesn’t really add much functionality, though, since the hole left in the base is too deep to accept most accessories (I immediately tried plugging Rodimus Prime’s gun turret into it), and while you can mount his repair/gun tower on any available port, it’s not quite flexible/transformable enough to convincingly be anything other than a big tower.

There’s one silver lining to this base, though, and it’s a big one. I don’t know if it redeems the whole thing, but it wound up making it way more fun for me: It’s covered in War for Cybertron ports that, unlike the base of the tower, are ideal for accepting weapons. There’s four on each of the two sides of the base, plus a peg on each side of the tower. The mounting point for his gun on top of the tower can also accept some accessories, it’s another deep hole that requires a long peg. Honestly, this whole thing made more sense to me once I started adding accessories to it (I used my three Powerdashers as fodder). It’s even possible to loosely recreate the weapons the original figure had on his base.

The whole thing still feels undersized, but it’s certainly more fun when it’s covered in weapons. I don’t know how I feel about the idea that this trailer only “works” if you’ve been collecting compatible accessories, but I did have fun with it.

Overall

This is such a weird figure. I’ve done a photo gallery, I’ve fiddled with it a lot, and I still can’t decide if I like it or not. There’s some good here, in that he’s a (mostly) good homage to the original design, Weaponizing him is fun, and his cab is (mostly) really solid. On the other hand, he really, really feels like he’s on the losing end of a battle with the budget, with his bad-feeling and bad-looking shoulders, and his shrunken, featureless base mode, that only becomes fun if you have access to a big pile of parts to add to it.

Like I said uptop, I don’t mind the removal of his gimmicks or features, but I do feel like there needs to be something added in terms of value. G1 Optimus didn’t lose a lot in the transition to Earthrise, and the stuff added (his articulation and sculpt, the Matrix, various War for Cybertron-centric features) felt like a fair tradeoff. Even taking the gimmicks out of the equation, this new Legacy Laser Prime feels like he doesn’t add much to the table, maybe a little more robot-mode articulation. Well, okay, he does add “is more available than the original, and cheaper than that one’s $170-Canadian-Loose-And-Incomplete-On-eBay price tag.” But even taking comparisons to the original out of the equation, he’s got just enough jankiness to him that I’m feeling a bit sour about paying modern Leader-class prices, compared to, say, Kingdom Megatron, the last Leader-class guy I got. I almost wonder if they could have omitted the trailer and sold this guy as a Voyager instead, like how the Reveal the Shield Deluxe was just the cab.

I guess what I can say here is that, while there’s fun to be had, he’s got a lot wrong with him, and if you’re not specifically after an update of Laser Optimus Prime, you’re better off waiting for a sale, or a trailer-less release, if that ever happens, though that’ll still include the weird arms. As for me, I think the Powerdashers are just going to permanently live on his base for awhile, and I’ll act like they came with it.

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