Bot Reviews: Transformers: Studio Series 86 Deluxe Jazz

You know who needs to be in more modern Transformers fiction? Jazz. Back in the 80s, he was Optimus Prime’s second in command, and managed to be one of the few 1984 Autobot Cars to actually get a decent level of characterization in both the cartoon and comics. He loved Earth culture, especially music, was smooth and showy, and yet, despite his carefree nature, was extremely competent in action, hence his important role in the Autobots. Sometimes I think that getting killed off in the 2007 Bay film sparked a ripple effect in related media, hence why he’s still around, but often in smaller parts.

At least Jazz has gotten plenty of updated figures over the years, as a perennially popular design. He doesn’t have a Masterpiece yet, though, thanks to Porsche not wanting to license the car out (it’s a whole thing, chronicled here). Around 2010, he had a Generations (well, Reveal the Shield) figure, shown below, that would have been pretty good, but he came with a torso that didn’t want to lock in, and that kind of spoiled the whole package.

A couple years back, he also got a kind of crummy (or so I’m told) Power of the Primes figure, that was both very loose and made of a lot of clear plastic. So, he’s overdue for a good G1 iteration, in my books. And, G1 updates being cyclical, he’s gotten a new figure….in the Studio Series 86 line, supposedly based on his tiny little role in the Animated movie.

Make no mistake, this is definitely meant to fit in with Earthrise and Kingdom, it just got shunted over to Studio Series instead, on the technicality that he was in the film for a little bit. In fact, the whole deal with Kingdom and Studio Series 86 is an odd one, with a near-complete Movie Cast Update being shared between the two lines, seemingly wherever there was room. But, no matter the label on the box, it’s a new G1 Jazz.

Unboxing and Backpack Note

So, Jazz comes out of the box with his backpack unfolded, instead of collapsed, and the instructions tell you how to fold it in.

Here’s the big point of contention: His backpack is almost entirely made of clear blue plastic, including the hinges that the collapsible parts on it swing around on, though they’re connected with a sliver of white plastic. Frankly, the first time I went to collapse it was a terrifying experience, as the whole thing feels very breakable, and I’ve definitely seen reports of it snapping online. I’ve since figured out ways to fold it up that don’t feel as break-y, and they’re this: Never put pressure on the translucent plastic when possible, just on the white connector, and when folding in the roof, make sure the doors are pointing downwards and slightly inwards, so they don’t bump the roof.

I’ve gotten the hang of it, but it feels like they could have designed this better, and it’s still got a fragile feeling to it. It seems distressingly easy for someone pulling this out of the box and transforming it blind to just snap it clean off.

Robot Mode

Like all of Studio Series 86, most of Earthrise, and Kingdom’s G1 guys, this is 100 percent Sunbow, designed to match Jazz’s TV series animation model really closely. And it’s impressively dead-on.

Like, his torso’s a bit bulkier, he’s got a bit more backpack, and he’s a little greeblier when it comes to his surface detailing, but it’s otherwise pretty much an exact match for his animation appearance. He’s got the typical G1 hood-chest, and wheels on his legs and shoulders, but thanks to the commitment to animation accuracy, his doors stay folded away, and can’t be deployed like wings, as on his original figure, many other G1 cars, and his Reveal the Shield release.

Granted, those deployed doors are not animation-accurate, but they looked nice, and having the option, like on Maketoys’s Downbeat and Maestro (third-party Masterpiece takes), would’ve been nice. On the upside, he’s got a great headsculpt, with his serious expression beneath his blue visor.

That impressive accuracy extends to his colors, too. He’s mostly a combo of black and white, and paint apps add silver on his shins and feet, blue on his pelvis, blue on his headlights, silver on his grill, a red Autobrand on his chest surrounded by a blue square, and, of course, a silver face beneath a blue visor.

Sometimes, following animation model color guides too closely results in a figure coming off too plain (Masterpiece Ratchet’s fields of unbroken white comes to mind), but Jazz is lucky enough to have an animation model that’s already pretty colorful. The only app he’s missing from his cartoon model is the stripes on the wheel covers on his legs, but it’s barely noticeable.

There’s something strange about how he feels in-hand, though. There’s a certain hollow, panel-y flimsiness to him that I’m not fond of, and while it’s hard to put my finger on what exactly it is, it’s a feeling most War for Cybertron toys manage to avoid.

Maybe it has to do with his knees, which do have a specific issue: His shins have pegholes inside them, which are supposed to peg into his knees, but in practice, they don’t like to stay attached, even if I carefully line them up and squeeze down, meaning when I move his knees, his shins often come undone. On the upside, they stay together when he’s at rest, it’s only when moving his knees that they come undone. And overall, this is still a much less annoying issue than Reveal the Shield Jazz’s floppy, untethered torso.

The flipside to this knee issue is that he otherwise has really nice articulation. He’s got a neatly-full Siege Suite of joints, minus wrist swivels due to transformation, and he looks good with them. They blend well with his Sunbow-y design, and let him pull off cartoonish poses really well.

Jazz’s one lone accessory is a gun based on his G1 cartoon model, cast in white, but painted silver. He can hold it in his hands, and it’s got a couple of pegs on either side of the base, for stashing it on his back for quick retrieval.

Aside from that, he’s got a couple more War for Cybertron weapons ports beneath his feet….and that’s it.

This is a definite case of me wishing he had more going on for accessories and features.

He feels like he’s missing a certain something, and the cartoon certainly left room for him to include more stuff, like fold-out speakers, or a wrist gadget (and he didn’t ever use a weapon in his TFTM appearance, so this isn’t a play at film-accuracy). At the very least, he could have used more weapons ports, so we could arm him better ourselves. As it is, he feels a bit featureless.

Transformation

So, I’ve already talked about Jazz’s backpack, and how it was initially a terrifying experience. But outside of that breakage worry, this is mostly just a slightly more complicated version of his G1 transformation. Flip up the hood, fold the arms underneath it, compress the legs, unfurl that backpack to form the roof, and you’re done. The one tricky bit is making sure that his compressed legs are aligned with his hips just right, because it’s one of those situations where the whole thing won’t come together unless you get that right, and you find yourself undoing a bunch of steps to figure out where it went wrong.

Oh, and it turns out that if you get everything lined up just so, you can squeeze the back of his roof down so there’s no gap between it and the car body.

Vehicle Mode

Officially, this isn’t a licensed Porsche, it’s a fake car that resembles it without being one. That being said, I’m not sure how they got away with this, because it’s really, really close to a Porsche.

The specific raging livery on him is a bit different (14 instead of 4, no Martini logos), the spoiler’s a mildly different shape, there’s a few different greebles on the surface, but, like, 90 percent of the look is there. I worry they’re flying too close to the sun.

An upside of this altmode being so accurate is that it’s also very animation-accurate, save for the 14, and some missing stripes on the black wheel covers, though I wonder if that was another attempt at license-evasion.

I feel like some of his mostly-unbroken whites don’t quite match under some lighting, but it’s not as much of an issue as on Earthrise Sunstreaker. Outside of that, he’s well-painted, including details like his headlights, and wheel rims. After Reveal the Shield Jazz got hit with a shrinking paint budget that left his entire back end unpainted, I appreciate these little details.

For features, Jazz manages to roll pretty well, although the forearms beneath him are really close to the ground, so he just barely made it.

You can also peg his gun onto his roof for an attack mode, and once again, that’s it. I hate to keep saying it, but I still find myself wishing he had a bit more going on.

Overall

Jazz isn’t bad, and does a great job of looking the part of his animation model, but outside of that, feels a bit hollow, though I don’t mean it literally. Some collectors resent the War for Cybertron Trilogy for hewing so close to accurate cartoon replicas, for doing figures that are “box-checkers,” as it were, but mostly, that’s not something I really felt. This guy’s the first time where I felt that. It feels like he should do more than what he does, and he feels just a bit janky, with his unstable knees, and breakable backpack.

But, in the true spirit of a box-checker, he works best when he’s hanging out with his Sunbow pals, looking Sunbow-y. Still, I think he edges out the old Reveal the Shield Jazz, by marginal virtue of holding together a little bit better, though that’s not much. He’s not terrible, he just feels kind of obligatory, and if you’re not in need of a new Jazz, or aren’t trying to specifically fill out a Sunbow cast, there’s not much here to recommend on its own, especially when the rest of the line is doing a whole lot better.

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