Originally written in March, 2020.
Provided everything actually comes out when it’s supposed to, 2020 is shaping up to be Arcee’s year (at least), between her Earthrise, Cyberverse and Masterpiece series, with Ocular Max’s proto-colors repaint of Azalea on the way, too. To think, there was a time when there was a shortage of the character.
Despite being a major character in the original movie, and other subsequent media, Arcee’s G1 toy was, famously, cancelled, and she wouldn’t receive a G1-accurate toy until 2014. Sure, there were alternate-continuity and Beast-era versions of her, but her original pink-princess-Leia-barbie-sedan form wouldn’t be seen in plastic form until 2014, in Transformers Generations: Thrilling 30.
Thrilling 30 was the first of the Generations lines to go really wild. It was the franchise’s 30th anniversary, and it legitimately included a little bit of everything in the mix. Naturally, it made sense for Arcee to get her first proper G1 figure ever in this like. Because it was the first G1 Arcee ever, this release was in massive, massive demand (I know, I was there). On top of that, it was released in the final wave of Thrilling 30, thus making sure that basically no one ever saw it at retail (tail-enders tend to be hard to find). On top of that, I’m pretty sure the figure was never actually released in Canada (along with the rest of the line’s final wave), and I wound up purchasing my American copy at Fan Expo one year. Luckily, the figure’s been repainted and re-released a few times since then, so she’s a bit easier to find. Let’s see how she holds up in 2020, on her own merits, especially when the upcoming Earthrise figure looks to basically cover the same ground.
Robot Mode
Arcee’s kind of short and tiny, roughly the height of a smaller Siege deluxe. It feels appropriate for her classic animation design, though, especially when scaled with other modern Transformers: The Movie characters.
Most of Thrilling 30’s G1 designs were either ripped from the pages of IDW comics, or more creative re-interpretations. However, with Arcee, they went straight to “G1 animation model,” which makes sense when it’s her very first figure. Well, almost.
See, sculptwise, she’s a pretty close match to her classic cartoon appearance, save for her torso. She’s got kind of a weird stomach and hip area, in that it’s sculpted really….humanized, with an obvious bellybutton and abs, like she has an exposed human stomache. It’s a little weird, and feels a bit off on a design that otherwise goes for cartoon slavishness, and looks kind of strange on a robot woman. That being said, it’s not as much of a visual distraction to me as it sounds, and certainly less obtrusive than whatever questionable cheesecake nonsense they decided to do with the Masterpiece design.
Another unavoidable fact of her design is that she has a really big backpack of car parts behind her. The fact that this is based on her cartoon design means that she was always going to be a humanoid lady figure with a car on her back, because the original design wasn’t the most toy-friendly, and they clearly tried to minimize that backpack as much as they could (compare it to the Earthrise one, where they just straight-up pop it off). It does look better and more compact than Siege Chromia, and other modern female Transformers that feel the need to adhere to that same “woman with a vehicle on her back” design philosophy (which is something we should leave behind these days, except when a figure’s specifically trying to copy an old design, like here).
All that aside, I still really like the rest of her robot mode’s sculpt, and I really like her headsculpt. They did a very good job of capturing the friendly nature of the G1 cartoon character. Plus, she has lightpiping that works really well for her size, and makes her eyes glow a pleasant blue. You’ll see plenty of photos here where her eyes catch the light.
Another area they decided to deviate from extreme cartoon accuracy is the colors. Sure, at a glance, they look right, until you compare them to a screenshot.
She’s still a pleasant shade of muted pink (sidenote: It was quite refreshing in 2014 that they had the guts to make her pink), with white as the secondary color However, her cartoon model has grey as another secondary color, whereas this figure drops the grey (save for her face vents and accessories) in favor of bits of blue and black, and in a slightly different configuration. This is hardly a complaint, though, in that the new secondary colors really make the figure pop, and just look good. Once again, shout-out to the face for giving her subtle painted lipstick and painted vents. More importantly, the colors feel right, and you wouldn’t realize they aren’t 100 percent accurate unless you were looking at a screenshot.
Here’s a bit of black magic to her engineering: She has a big backpack, and tiny little feet, and yet has zero problems staying standing up. I can’t explain it, but she’s stable and solid as a rock, something a lot of modern big-backpack figures can’t pull off (she can’t pull off the standing-on-one-foot midair kick, though). In terms of the rest of her poseability, she isn’t quite up to modern standards, in that she has no waist joint, wrist swivels, or ankle tilts. That being said, she does have sideways knee and upper arm joints, giving her a bit more poseability than most. And she stays standing in most poses, too! I’ve got no idea how they managed it, it shouldn’t work, yet does.
So, let’s talk about accessories. She has two different guns, both based on different G1 weapons, and both painted up with bits of grey and pink on top of their black, something that feels like a nice extra. She also has a pair of transparent blue swords, which are actually a bit of a tribute to her IDW comics iteration, who used them as weapons (even if the rest of her IDW design was different from this).
The swords are also sculpted with guns on the end, and mounting tabs, so that they can be ranged or melee weapons. She has a number of rectangular holes on her body to stash all of her accessories, including her thighs (for holstered guns), forearms, and shoulders.
However, there’s one big problem she has: Her hands. She can hold all four of her accessories in her semi-open hands just fine. However, there’s a deliberate bit of plastic blockage that stops these weapons from sliding out of the other side of her fists, meaning she can only hold her guns at the base of their handles, making them look awkwardly high-up.
There’s no way around it. It just doesn’t look very good. Furthermore, the plastic blockage is small enough, and located inside such tiny hands, that I don’t really feel confident in trying to sand it down, or otherwise remove it. Here’s the kicker: Apparently the earliest releases of this figure had a different hand-sculpt that let her hold her accessories properly, as seen in this Seibertron.com photo:
However, there was a running change for some reason to these hands, and every subsequent re-release of the toy has had them. It’s a big blemish on an otherwise good-looking figure.
Transformation
Well, it’s a shellformer, but it’s an easy shellformer, and I was able to figure it out from memory without instructions. You basically unfold her backpack, and compress and fold up her body underneath the car, with her legs providing structural support to the sides of the car’s body. It takes a bit of fiddling to make sure the car wheels touch the ground, but it can be done. Similarly, the back section of the car likes to pop out until you have everything just-so. Still, it’s easier than it sounds, and remarkably satisfying. Also, her guns can stash beneath her car mode, though the instructions don’t tell you how. Here’s how it should look:
Vehicle Mode
The original Arcee transformed into a retro-50s-futuristic-looking Barbie-esque space convertible, and damned if the design team didn’t just decide to go all-out in replicating that sculpt near-perfectly.
It’s got the swooshy curved lines, the little fin uptop, and everything. I’m fond of the fact that they sculpted in a full driver’s compartment, complete with seats, a steering wheel, and a clear windshield.
it’s not quite animation-accurate, with a too-small driver’s compartment, and her unfolded legs semi-visible along the car’s sides, but it looks cohesive, and strongly invokes the original. Colors-wise, they once again took some liberties, making her a bit less pink, a bit more white, adding some black, and including blue painted headlights, all decisions I feel were for the better.
For gimmicks, it’s a bit dicey, but she can roll on four black wheels if you made sure her robot parts were properly stashed. She also still has four weapon-mounting ports on her cars sides and back respectively, if you want to turn her into Barbie’s murder-mobile, or trip some Junkions.
Overall
Honestly, six years later, I think this figure still mostly holds up. I take some issues with her weird robot torso, and her inability to hold her weapons in a good-looking way is a bummer, but really, she’s still mostly well-sculpted, and well-painted, and surprisingly well-engineered. Just being able to stand with her backpack is miraculous, and she’s that rare shellformer that’s not hard to transform.
The appeal of the upcoming Earthrise one seems to be less of a backpack, and a more accurate body sculpt and colors (no strange belly), but I wonder if it’ll manage to feel as premium in-hand as this one did, because it definitely feels like they put extra work into it, given its historical importance. If the Earthrise one wasn’t coming, I’d definitely recommend this one. As it stands, I’m almost on “wait and see” mode, and look forward to comparing them. (2020 update: Not much longer to wait, now).
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