Transformers Beast Wars (Reissues): Rattrap

Ah, Beast Wars...the segment of the Transformers brand that literally saved the brand from fading out of existence, at least at retail. Being released after the failed attempt of the Generation 2, the Transformers got a face lift and injected new blood into the brand. Gone were vehicles, replaced with dinosaurs and other animals. The line was a hit, especially with younger kids and created a whole new era of fans. However how would the "Geewuners" like myself react to the line? Would they embrace it? Hate it? Or just be indifferent? Stick around as I walk down memory lane with the latest line of reissues from Hasbro, celebrating 20 years of Beast Wars.

The tread of what is old is new again is played out again in the Transformers brand with the latest relaunch of the Beast Wars brand. Exclusive to Walmart stores in the US, the first wave featured 4 toys:  the "Ultra" class Optimus Primal and Megatron, "Deluxe" Cheetor and "Basic" Rattrap.

The line seems to have been met with mix reactions and ho-hum sales. The first wave seemed to warm the shelves pretty good in my neck of the woods with all of them eventually hitting clearance, some deeper discounted than others. I actually paid full price ($24.99) for Rattrap, but eventually would find him at local retail on deep clearance ($7). I liked the spring loaded transformation gimmick of the early Basic size Beast Wars toy and Rattrap is a character you must own if you are building out your Maximal ranks.

Hasbro chose to mimic some of the early Beast Wars packaging w/ the rocky type shaped blister bubble. Kenner would later phase this blister out and go with a smooth bubble. The card back reuses the red reptilian scales with the large classic green eye behind the toy itself. Even the classic Beast Wars logo remains at the top of the blister card. 

Flip the blister card over and this is where we have some obvious changes to the original. Like with most modern Hasbro toys, multiple languages have been shoehorned onto the packaging. So much so that we've lost his original Bio...which is a real shame because as a kid this is how I determined how their character would be when pulling out my toys and playing on the floor of my bedroom or in the living room. The category stats have also been reduced from 8 categories to just 4, however the individual rankings of these categories remain the same.

As mentioned above, I was a fan of the early wave of Basic sized Beast Wars figures for many reasons. 1) The original price point of $5 was friendly on my high school senior wallet. 2) The designs, while a little more simplified than the Deluxes were still fun. 3) No complex transformations - just left a lever (or tail in this case) and instantly you have your robot mode.

Hasbro did a good job capturing the deco of the original toy. While I don't have an original any longer to compare it to, this figure is mostly how I remember in terms of paint applications. the feet look a little more like a pastel pink than I recall. The figure seems solid with good strong plastic. Outside of a copyright mark on the mold, I'd be hard pressed that many would be able to tell the difference between this reissue and the original.

The only real drawback I've found with this toy, and it seems to be the case with others that I've seen reviewed, is that the front legs don't hold together well. You can see in the image above the rather large gap just behind the neck. It's not a deal breaker, but still a little disappointing.

Transformation from rat to robot is as easy as simply lifting Rattrap's tail. This will trigger the spring loaded transformation, pulling the sides of the beast mode out and folding the animal head down. All that is left is folding down the legs the rest of the way and posing his arms.

Rattap comes with a small gun and like with the rest of the early waves of Basic figures the weapon can be stored on the toy itself. If you look carefully at the image above you'll see that the gun is actually made of two pieces that are stored on each side just above the back feet. I love the idea of accessories being self contained within the figure. I can't tell you how many small action figure accessories I lost as a kid.

This version of the iconic character is far from perfect, but it's a great rendition despite being the first toy. The Kingdom version scales the figure down even more and is a fantastic toy, but if you're like me and were with Beast Wars from day one, this is a must own toy. While this reissue was overpriced in my opinion (which probably hurt the sales), it's a mighty fine version of the toy if you aren't one of those who has to own the original. I found no issues with the robot mode and he now stands proudly amongst his fellow Maximals in my Beast Wars display. Most Walmart stores have already moved away from this first wave of toys as their Spring reset has been completed at the handful of stores I've visited, but if you luck out and find him on clearance for $10 or less, jump on it. Even after all of these years, it's still a fun toy.

Transformers Beast Wars (Reissues): Cheetor

Ah, Beast Wars...the segment of the Transformers brand that literally saved the brand from fading out of existence, at least at retail. Being released after the failed attempt of the Generation 2, the Transformers got a face lift and injected new blood into the brand. Gone were vehicles, replaced with dinosaurs and other animals. The line was a hit, especially with younger kids and created a whole new era of fans. However how would the "Geewuners" like myself react to the line? Would they embrace it? Hate it? Or just be indifferent? Stick around as I walk down memory lane with the latest line of reissues from Hasbro, celebrating 20 years of Beast Wars.

The tread of what is old is new again is played out again in the Transformers brand with the latest relaunch of the Beast Wars brand. Exclusive to Walmart stores in the US, the first wave featured 4 toys:  the "Ultra" class Optimus Primal and Megatron, "Deluxe" Cheetor and "Basic" Rattrap.

The line seems to have been met with mix reactions and ho-hum sales. The first wave seemed to warm the shelves pretty good in my neck of the woods with all of them eventually hitting clearance, some deeper discounted than others. I myself scored this Cheetor for $6 back during some of the Christmas 2021 sales. I wasn't going to bother picking up any of these (outside of Rattrap) because I owned the originals and while I love Beast Wars, some of these early toys just didn't do it for me. For $6 though I couldn't resist and thought at least Cheetor here would make a good addition to the Maximal shelf I was working on putting together in my display after moving last summer.

Hasbro chose to mimic some of the early Beast Wars packaging w/ the rocky type shaped blister bubble. Kenner would later phase this blister out and go with a smooth bubble. The card back reuses the red reptilian scales with the large classic green eye behind the toy itself. Even the classic Beast Wars logo remains at the top of the blister card. 

 
(Left: reissue - Right: original)

Flip the blister card over and this is where we have some obvious changes to the original. Like with most modern Hasbro toys, multiple languages have been shoehorned onto the packaging. So much so that we've lost his original Bio...which is a real shame because as a kid this is how I determined how their character would be when pulling out my toys and playing on the floor of my bedroom or in the living room. The category stats have also been reduced from 8 categories to just 4, however the individual rankings of these categories remain the same.

I never was a huge fan of the character of Cheetor or his original Deluxe class toy. I think his youthfulness and exuberance just got on my nerves while watching the show...I much more prefer Rattrap and his quips and cynical nature/comments. It's amazing though on how twenty years can change one's perspective as coming back to this toy after all those years I'm finding that it's not nearly as bad I as remember. The Kingdom toy is a beautiful rendition of the character, however the original still has something to offer.

Hasbro did a good job capturing the deco of the original toy. While I don't have an original any longer to compare it to, this figure is just as I remember in terms of paint applications. The figure seems solid with good strong plastic. Outside of a copyright mark on the mold, I'd be hard pressed that many would be able to tell the difference between this reissue and the original.

The original Beast Wars Cheetor was known for having a few variants - namely the color of his eyes. The original came with green eyes, as does the reissue, but blue and even red eye variants exist as well.

Transformation from beast mode to robot mode remains unchanged. Remove both the tail gun and the "gut" gun from underneath, rotate the waist 180 degrees and fold out the legs, fold down the front legs underneath the body, pull up and separate the arms from the behind the head and flip them forward 90 degrees, pull down the beast head to reveal the robot head. Finally pose your figure as such and insert your weapon(s) of choice into his fists.

I never cared for the proportions of the robot mode. The beast head is too big and just hangs off the front of the robot. Looking at him straight on it's not as bad, but looking at the figure from an angle and it looks a little awkward.

I have always loved Cheetor's head sculpt however. I wish however they were able to incorporate some light piping into those eyes as I think that would have been fantastic, but the included "mutant head" makes that impossible as it sits just behind the robot head. I always thought the whole idea behind this "mutant head" gimmick was silly, but in the spirit of capturing the original toy in all it's glory, this feature was carried over to the reissue.

Cheetor is an important character in the Maximal's ranks and his original toy is still pretty solid. Is it a dead ringer for how he appeared in the original Mainframe animated show? Of course not, but that doesn't make it a bad toy. The biggest knock I can give this figure is the original MSRP of $25. Compare that against trying to pick up a loose, vintage piece on the secondary market and it's not that bad. At the of this post, most Walmart stores have probably already ran their clearance as his shelf space was replaced with the retool of this mold, Tigatron. I'm still debating if I need Tigatron in my collection as currently my Maximal shelf is pretty tight, but I'm glad I eventually picked up Cheetor (and that I was able to resist paying full price!) as a BW display just isn't complete without this young cat.

Transformers Beast Wars II: C-13 Big Horn

Looking back I loved Beast Wars. When I was just coming back to Transformers I was able to catch the tail end of Generation 2 toys on clearance at various stores. Shortly there after I was first introduced to Beast Wars on a visit to Toys R Us. I didn't have access to information like I do now so I knew nothing of the series or the toys. Fast forward a bit and Takara released their own series of Beast Wars in Japan simply called Beast Wars II. I was already enamored by the animal choices Hasbro had chosen for release here in the States and one of those was a bison called Bonecrusher. For whatever reason I never bought him and as time went on I started to regret that decision. Thankfully Takara decided to use this mold for their line - with a better color scheme.

Bio:  Big Horn always dashes forward recklessly and hates to turn his back on the enemy, and it sometimes causes him to play into their hands. He also has a gentle side which appreciate the nature. He especially favours red flowers and has painted his body red. He has Buffalo Missile with his tail as the trigger. By having his comrades adjust the trigger timing and pull his tail, he can increase the accuracy because he himself can concentrate on setting his sights on the target. He has a habit of stomping his feet.

Strength:  9  Speed:  9  Rank:  8  Firepower:  8

Intelligence:  6  Endurance:  9  Courage:  7  Skill:  8

Takara opted to go with overall darker colors. The back and silver look fantastic on the bison. The robot bits were changed from cream to red and unfortunately those red parts tend to stand out a bit more.

This picture made the tag line of "robots in disguise" pop into my head. Can you see Big Horn's eyes "peeking"?

Transformation into robot mode is fairly simple and there is a good bit of articulation for a mid 90's figure. The red is a stark contrast to the rest of the figure, but I like it. It gives me the sense of rage which just seems appropriate for him.

Take a look at the robot head. I've got a lot of Transformers and never have I seen another face like this. I love how the bison's hair gives him a brow...kinda like the rocky brow the Fantastic Four's Thing has. The horns protruding from each side of the head and the open mouth makes this a memorable face. 

The mouth is exposed as such as it doubles as his weapon. A lot of the early Beast Wars figures had self concealed weapons. His mouth doubles as a spring loaded rocket launcher.

If there is a downside to this is the fact that it gives him a backpack of sorts. The way the launcher works is you pull on the tail. See how it looks almost like a trigger? Pulling on the tail will elevate the head and launch the missile from this mouth...quite far actually. The figure has good balance so this firing mechanism doesn't hinder the robot's stability too much.

This is a fun figure and I personally like the color changes over the American version. He isn't that hard to find either as he was also packaged in one of those versus sets paired off against Starscream & BB.

I will also mention this figure was released in Japan as a Lucky Draw item. He is supposed to be blue in color, but because of it's rarity finding the toy let alone the actual toy is very hard...assuming it really exists.

Transformers Generations (Takara Tomy): Rhinox

The good thing about behind a little behind in my posting reviews of new toys is that I don't have to be so elaborate.  What I mean by that is most of you that visit this site have probably already read or watched reviews and have seen tons of pictures of Hasbro's new Generations Rhinox toy.  So I figure why bore you with more of the same.  I'll just post some pretty pictures and give a little commentary.  So are you all set?  Then let's go!

Let's start with the packaging.  This is actually the first Takara Tomy version of any of the current Generations toys that I've imported.  I would have loved to have bought a few of the others in the series, but you know money doesn't exactly grow on trees.

Packaging for the most part resembles Hasbro's release, minus a few alterations.

Kudos to the artist that provided this awesome art work.  I'm so glad they decided to wrap the art around the corner of the box as opposed to leaving just half of the art on the box's front.

I don't remember Rhinox's original Beast Wars tech spec ratings, but I'm a little surprised to see his Intelligence and Fireblast ratings to be less than 8.

Right out of the package I was impressed with this toy.  I opted for the Takara Tomy version for it's premium paint deco, but man is this mold impressive!  I love it when my figure looks as if it could have walked right out of the show/movie and into my hands.  It's so nice to finally receive a show accurate Rhinox figure after all of these years.  Seriously, wow.

Even the back of the new mold looks like it did in the Beast Wars television show.  Talk about paying attention to detail on every level.

Beast Wars was all about the balance of the organic and the techno organic and the designers I feel did an excellent job of capturing this.  In robot mode you can see all sorts of exposed metal, gears and such.

The money shot.  If the beautiful, show accurate paint apps weren't reason enough to buy this release over Hasbro's, the surely the weapons put you over the top.  Am I right?

With the exception of the robot bits exposed on the back sides of the legs, the designers did a great job concealing the robot.  Other than the panel lines and the green robot bits, it's hard to tell this is a Transformer.

Rhinox's ears and horn are cast of a rubbery plastic.  I'm not sure if this was done for safety reasons, or to help keeping those bits from easily breaking off.

If you've haven't already picked up this toy then I have to ask "what are you waiting for?"  It's a fantastic update of a great character and it's a fun toy.  I don't always recommend paying more for the same toy just to have a pretty paint job, however this is one of the first toys in a long time where I highly recommend the Takara Tomy version over the Hasbro version.  All that's left is to get the new upcoming Rattrap figure and pair Rhinox, Rattrap, Cheetor and my TRU exclusive Beast Wars Optimus Primal and the crew of the Axalon will finally be re-united!

Transformers Henkei!: Cheetor C-12

Transformers Henkei! is Takara Tomy's version of Hasbro's Classics/Universe line of Transformers.  In typical Takara fashion most of the figures received premium paint applications and some of them had chromed pieces.  I went a little crazy and imported near the entire line.

Hasbro released new deluxe molds of the Beast Wars characters Cheetor and Dinobot under the Universe banner.  Takara Tomy opted to include these characters in the Henkei! line, albeit at the end of the line.  Neither of the toys sold well for Hasbro.  While Dinobot can be fairly expensive on the secondary market these days, Cheetor is a little more affordable - no matter which version you go after.  Up until the recent Generations voyager Rhinox toy was released, I really had no where to display Cheetor.  So once I acquired Rhinox I wanted to snap some shots of him w/ Cheetor...and Dinobot if I can ever find a decent priced specimen.  Initially I didn't care either way for Cheetor, but after messing around with him for this review I have to say I have a new found appreciation for this new mold.

You'll have to excuse me skipping over the packaging.  His blister card packaging is packed away and I just didn't have the time to go digging it out.  One of the things I hated most about the original Beast Wars Cheetor mold was the fact that the beast mode was fat!  Cheetahs are some of the fastest land animals and as a result are pretty lean animals.  Takara remedied this with a new Cheetor mold.  I know a lot of people just don't like this toy, but if you give it a chance it has a lot of good things going for it.

In beast mode the toy features several points of articulation.  It's no secret I'm not the best when it comes to posing my TFs, but here you can see how Cheetor can get low to the ground as if he's ready to pounce on a Decepticon or go running across the landscape at break neck speeds.  Shoulder, hip, knee and toe articulation give you free range of motion to pose him however you'd like.

Cheetor does have a large chest in beast mode as you can see from the above picture and especially from a side view.  That aside I personally think the beast mode looks a lot like an actual cheetah.

Cheetor does feature one "action" element.  On the back of his neck is a button that sits flush with the body.  When depressed his mouth opens and his eyes change from green to red.

If you don't know, the red eyes are a homage of sorts to the original Beast Wars mold.  Both Hasbro and Takara originally released Cheetor with red eyes, but as a running change later made the eyes green.  Perhaps this was done to better match his CGI counterpart on the television show.

While I don't normally care for action features, this is a subtle touch and one that doesn't necessary detract from the toy overall.

Cheetor carries his slender and sleek look over to robot form.  If I'm being completely honest with myself there are several aspects of robot mode that I don't care for.  While the over robot looks pretty good, it's hard to get past his his robot arms carry beast mode leg kibble and his large paw feet.

And oh, did I mention his honkin' huge "backpack"?  Thankfully his feet are large enough to help balance the robot where he can stand un-assisted.

Takara opted to chrome Cheetor's head where as Hasbro went with a flat colored plastic.  The gold chrome does stand out, but surprisingly it doesn't look gaudy in person like I thought it would.  I like how the feline traits carry over to this robotic face as well.

Located on each side of Cheetor's legs are these unsightful "pouches", however they do serve a purpose.  Each pouch opens up to reveal a shuriken like throwing star.

Pull out one "blade" and the others fold out simultaneously.

I prefer Cheetor's beast mode over his robot mode any day, but he still blends well with the new Generations Rhinox no matter how you pose him.  I can't wait to complete this pair w/ the new Generations Rattrap coming soon.  Just as I opted for Takara Tomy's versions of Cheetor and Rhinox, I too will probably go for the "premium" deco Takara Tomy's version of Rattrap will most likely sport.

This updated Cheetor toy is far from flawless, I get that.  What I don't understand is the extreme hate from a lot of the fandom over this mold.  In my opinion the most show accurate Cheetor toy to date is still the first Beast Wars Transmetal.  I didn't care for this Transmetal 2 look or Beast Machines.  I've heard some think that Cheetor might not receive a new mold in the near future, but I'm OK with that.  I can overlook the weaknesses of this mold and focus in on the excellent, well articulated beast mode.  Thankfully whichever version of this mold you may go after neither are terribly expensive on the secondary market.