Retro Bot Reviews: Transformers: Generation 2 Grimlock

Despite first getting into Transformers through Generation 2, I actually didn’t have a lot of figures from the line at the time. So when I see vintage G2 stuff at TFCon, it’s hard to say no, at least until I look at the price tag, or check the quality. In this case, though, the stars aligned, and I found this guy in incredibly good shape, for a decent price (specifically $95 Canadian, for a 90’s toy that’s loose, but complete, and extremely mint-condition).

So, Grimlock! As a big robotic T-Rex, we naturally all know and love him, whether it’s the caveman-ish simpleton brute from the original cartoon, the more eloquent warrior from the Marvel Comics (who started talking like a caveman one day for no reason), or any one of his myriad other incarnations. Something about a cool robot dinosaur just transcends cultural and fandom borders. And on the toy side of things, there’s been tons and tons of updates of him, but never a reissue of the original 1985 G1 figure, because the tooling is supposedly either lost or broken. That means that this 1993 repaint is actually the most recent release of it. Like a lot of early G1 guys, he was given a fresh coat of paint in the 90s, as part of Generation 2’s attempt at re-starting the brand. So, character I like, old figure I’ve never owned, cool 90s makeover? Sounds like a winner to me. Let’s see how he holds up, through a modern lens.

Dinosaur Mode

G1 toys always seem to be a different size in person than I expect they’re going to be (usually smaller), but Grimlock’s about the size I was expecting in this mode. He’s more-or-less the scale of a modern Deluxe-class figure, and feels like he fits in with the Kingdom and Legacy Beast Wars updates in the same size class.

And considering how tiny a lot of his ‘84 and ‘85 brethren were, it almost feels like he’s in scale with them, as an oversized creature.

Anyway, Grimlock’s a straight-up robotic T-Rex, same as he always is, and you can pretty instantly see why this wound up being iconic, in all of its Mechagodzilla-esque retro-robot glory. He’s all panel lines, and armor, and bits of techie detailing, all done up in a really blocky, classic way. I particularly like the smoky transparent neck, with all of the internal machinery visible, it’s very Microman-esque.

It’s also a design that was pretty animation-accurate to begin with, and hasn’t changed much over the years, when later figures have done updates, so there’s details like the two little cylinders on his back (actually transformation joints) and the particular shape of his two-toed, one-heel-spurred feet that feel instantly familiar, if smaller.

I’d say the biggest thing that’s changed over the years is the T-Rex headsculpt. All the same details are there, but the original toy’s version is both a bit more bulbous, and a bit more mean-looking than the cartoon’s kind of doofy-looking head, which is what I’m used to seeing on modern updates. 

As for the colors, while Generation 2 was known for gaudy, bright excesses, that wasn’t really the case here. Basically, they just swapped his main color of metallic silvery-gray for a tasteful dark, navy blue. Just so no one um-actually’s me, I’ll also note that this is the third version of Grimlock they did during Generation 2. In G2’s first year, Hasbro were really into doing color variants (like the red and yellow Bumblebees and Cliffjumpers in Generation 1), so they initially released Grimlock in his usual silver, before switching it up to a light blue in later waves, and then finally, this dark blue. This version’s the most common of the three color schemes (and therefore the cheapest on the aftermarket).

That said, it’s just a nice shade of blue in person, and I like it on its own merits. The only other bit of deco this Generation 2 version added was a yellow G2 Autobot symbol on his tail, along with the word “Autobot,” also in yellow, something nearly every G2 figure had on them (and the only way to tell the silver version apart from a vintage G1 release).

The rest of him’s rendered in his original colors, meaning silver and gold chrome (this sample having both intact was a selling point), as well as a little bit of red for his eyes, and some smoky transparent plastic. And, like a lot of G1 figures, a bunch of extra detailing is provided by foil stickers slathered across his body. There’s an Autobrand on his forehead, and one on his belly, but it’s mostly additional retro-tech detailing, in a bunch of different colors. It adds to the really specific aesthetic he’s got, but they’re also prone to wear and tear over time, which brings me to build quality.

This is one of those G1 figures that doesn’t feel like it was built to last, and I lucked out by getting a fairly pristine sample. It’s a tooling that originated in the Diaclone toyline, and those always feel less sturdy to me than the Microman ones, or the 1986-and-onward Transformers-original ones. In Grimlock’s case, he’s got those stickers, and he’s got the multiple shades of chrome on his limbs and tail to worry about, as well as a generally less brick-y handfeel than those aforementioned more durable G1 guys.

Plus, my sample’s got a loose left hip, which makes standing him a bit of a challenge, though I’ve unscrewed it to look, I can fix it with a layer of dried crazy glue, or floor polish. Still, this is one I handle a bit more gently than most of my G1 guys, especially since there’s probably never going to be a reissue of him. At least he doesn’t feel like anything’s particularly breakable, he just seems vulnerable to the ravages of time, and I wouldn’t trust him to take a tumble off a shelf the same way I would Soundwave, Blaster, or Hot Rod. 

On a more positive note, he turned out to have way more articulation than I was expecting. Let’s go joint by joint: Shockingly, he’s got knee swivels, which combine with those hip swivels to allow him to walk fairly convincingly.

His toes (both front and rear) can also swivel inwards. Further up, the shoulders of his tiny Rex arms are also on swivels. Finally, not only can his mouth open really wide (no flamethrower, though), but his head can raise and lower, too.

In fact, while he’s meant to be the old-fashioned, anatomically incorrect tail-dragging kind of T-Rex, it’s totally possible, between the head and legs, to put him in the modern T-Rex position, and it looks equally correct, which I wasn’t expecting, and which genuinely impresses me.

Even the tail (which isn’t articulated at all, but it needs to split to transform) is sculpted in a way that still looks good when his torso’s horizontal.

For features, there’s not much in this mode, since he can’t stash his accessories.

But he does have one curious little undocumented extra: The smokey clear panel on his back can flip out and up, into a cockpit chair, intended for a Diaclone minifigure, back when this figure was supposed to represent a piloted mecha.

If you’ve got a comparable minifigure, you can bring the gimmick back to life (I’ve found that Titan Masters work pretty well).

In fact, that’s probably why the dino can assume the horizontal running pose, so the pilot can ride on top. 

Transformation

Grimlock’s transformation is another thing that hasn’t really changed much over the years, so if you’ve handled the Masterpiece, Power of the Primes Voyager, Legacy Core, or (so I hear) the Studio Series 86 Leader, you’ve got the idea. Fold back the head, unfurl the torso into wings, move the belly up to make the robot mode chest, compress the legs to get his fists out, and do a complicated set of motions to his tail to turn it into legs. It fits nicely into that territory of “simple enough to perform casually, but involved enough to feel satisfying.” There are a couple wrinkles later revisions did fix, though. It really feels like his belly/chest piece is supposed to go further back into his upper torso, and I had to check photos online to confirm that, nope, that’s it.

And when changing him back to his dino mode, you need to collapse his hips into a straight line, and the joint to do so is very tight, and difficult to do, but not impossible.

Robot Mode

In this form, Grimlock’s again the size of a modern Legacy Deluxe, and I mean exactly the size, when compared to one that isn’t deliberately being really short, or really tall.

He’s also impressively got a Normal, Proportionate Humanoid shape, which really isn’t common for G1 figures, who tend to have wonky proportions, or be composed entirely of boxes, but not him. Well, okay, his head’s kind of odd. It’s a bit undersized, and set really far back on his torso, like a good half-inch behind his shoulders. It feels like there should be some way to bring it forward. 

As for the rest of him, again, the Sunbow animation model didn’t really change much, just simplify, so this is a fairly cartoon-accurate design already. I think the biggest change for the cartoon was just omitting the tail-halves hanging off his lower legs.

Technically, he’s got a bunch of kibble on his back, since his dino head and torso are just hanging off there, but it’s so ingrained into his character design, with the torso halves being wings, that I don’t immediately read it as such. 

For colors, while all the same ones are present, the balance of them has been changed. His gold chrome chest now dominates his deco, and he’s got little red shorts beneath them, making the G2 hue-swap of gray to navy blue a bit less overwhelming. There’s also some black added for his legs, hands and head. The head’s got a painted red visor, rather than the show’s blue, and the black admittedly kind of washes out the headsculpt’s detail (the small size of it doesn’t help). He’s still got a ton of techie sticker detail slathered all over him, including a new autobrand on his chest, and it’s all detail the show model omitted, or simplified.

His build quality in this mode’s got ups and downs. That loose dino hip joint’s now his shoulder joint, which is a plus, and his robot legs are much tighter. On the other hand, he’s a back-heavy figure without much in the way of heel spurs, so I find it challenging to keep him standing up, and he’s prone to falling backwards if the table he’s on shakes.

Additionally, his backpack of dino parts don’t really lock in, or have a set position, but just hang there, making them feel a bit messy. In particular, the torso “wings” can only go far enough to look like wings if you don’t fully lower the dino head, and he gets too back-heavy to stay standing if you have them that far back anyway (plus, one of them has another loose joint on my copy). And, again, he still has a more fragile handfeel than his blockier Microman and 1986-plus brethren, even with a small amount of diecast metal entering the equation (specifically, his, uh, pelvis. The red parts of it.)

Articulation’s about what I expected for a G1 figure, after his surprisingly bendy dino mode: Up top, it’s just swivels on his shoulders, and his dino knees are covered up by his slid-up lower legs, so he doesn’t have elbow joints this time around.

His legs, meanwhile, are kinda-sorta articulated. His hips can do the splits….

and his thighs have a bit of wiggle that gives him a little bit of forward-backward motion. Thanks to his transformation, too, he’s got operating knee joints, and to my surprise, he’s actually pretty stable when you pose him in a kinda-sorta-walking pose.

In other words, there’s not much here, but it’s standard for the time, and the oddly poseable dino mode definitely makes up for it.

For accessories, Grimlock’s got two well-known implements of destruction. Fist, there’s his double-barrelled handgun, just as nicely-sculpted as later versions…

and secondly, he’s got a big, red, brutal-looking broadsword, signature weapon of the Dinobots, and one thing the show omitted.

Each Dinobot had a slightly different sword, so while they were all the same kind of triangular broadsword, the specific bits of greebling around the hilt are unique to him.

He can hold each of these accessories in either hand (they’re smaller than 5 millimeters, so only he can hold them), though the sword likes to fall out, since there’s sculpting on the hilt that stops it from descending as far into his hand as it ought to. They both look good in those hands, though! You’ll also notice that he’s missing another accessory from the G1 original, a second gun that could fire small missiles. The G2 release omitted it due to safety standards, and I’ll admit, I kind of wish they’d added a bigger, gaudier, more safe-for-90s-kids launcher in its place, like they did with several other G2 reissues

Overall

This version of Grimlock’s a study in contrasts. On one hand, it says something about how well they nailed the look and engineering of this guy the first time around when nearly every update of him (minus just the Classics ‘06 one, I think) just bass-boosts the design and transformation of this one, rather than do something different. It’s a figure that stood the test of time, conceptually, and it’s even got a few pleasant surprises, like how articulated his dino mode is. On the other hand, on his own merits, he’s got a fair bit to criticize.

Some G1 guys, like Soundwave, Blaster, or the original Optimus Prime, are easy to recommend in 2024 as still holding up, but this is one that’s been outpaced by modern figures. It mostly comes down to things like his fragile-feeling construction, and his general lack of stability, especially in robot mode. I think a subtext to how I feel about him is that the loss of the original tooling means he’s never getting reissued, so I’m more concerned with his durability than I would be with your modern Vintage or Retro collection re-release.

As for this Generation 2 version, it’s a fairly simple palette-swap from one color to another, but it’s a color I like more than the original, and it adds a little something to the vibe. I do find myself wishing they’d gone a bit more 90’s with it, like the canceled yellow-with-stripes version that the recent Toxitron Collection version of him is referencing, but that’s because I like wild 90’s decos (and in fact, one reason I opted for this one is because $95 was still less than what vendors at TFCon were charging for the Toxitron one). At the same time, the subtlety of the color-change gives him wider appeal, and as the most-common version of the tooling’s final release, this is probably the cheapest, most convenient way to own a G1 Grimlock. And, for all my whinging, it’s a piece of history I’m happy to handle, as well as a piece of Generation 2 that child-me would have loved to own. I’m glad to add him to my shelf, but I’ll put him near the back, for when he inevitably falls over again. 

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