“It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them” (Megatron, maybe)
Size: Deluxe
OUT NOW
“Oh, how it pains me to do this!”
I always thought Starscream was the most worthy of Decepticon leadership, as he was actually the only one spending most of his time deceiving others! At least Starscream is the leader of Transformers repaints, with each and every of its incarnations being repainted and/or remolded at one time or the other. The Classic releases gave us around three dozens versions of the same mold, including Japanese and convention exclusives. Fall of Cybertron finally gave us a brand new deluxe mold for seekers: depending on your love for repaints, this might or not be good news.
“Sometimes, cowards do survive”
Fall of Cybertron Starscream reminds me a lot of the original War Within design, which was later used for Cybertron in 2004. It’s a sleeker take on the same concept, and it works quite well: shoulders in particular are less bulky, allowing for a wide range of poses. Articulation is pretty good all around: as for most other figures from the line, the main complaint in the lack of a waist joint. Ankles are not fixed, but you might miss that joint if you didn’t know it was there! The shoulder joint has some excess outward range due to the transformation, but it’s not a real problem. Overall, very good poseability.
Accessories include two gatling guns that can be attached to vehicle mode or joined together. They look great. The colorscheme looks good to me, and the silver details on the gatling guns looks great. A really good robot mode, indeed.
“Astrotrain has requested that we lighten our burden”
Starscream’s vehicle mode is OK, and continues the diet imposed on the bulkier Cybertron design. While reverse wings might not appeal everyone, the twin guns do a lot to improve the overall appearance. The main problem is the terrible laziness showed in NOT hiding the robot mode’s head: it’s just standing out, in open air, with nowhere to hide, and its main function is to actually distract from a gap in the vehicle mode. Luckily this alternate mode is nice enough to distract you from its defects. An undocumented feature lets you detach the blue tailfin to attach the joined twin guns underneath. The result is… underwhelming, so I didn’t even bother to take a picture.
“I am not really so bad, you know. Megaron, he is the evil one”
Fall of Cybertron Stascream is a very good toy, and a great Cybertronian version of our favourite Seeker. This mold will probably see a dozen repaints in the next few years, and I welcome them: this is a great robot mode, and the vehicle mode is nice enough to warrant more presence on the shelves. There are some shortcomings in the design, but they are largely compensated by the rest. Recommended.
Until next time,
Rikkomba
