It's been a very long time since I've bought any Transformers toys based on the live action movies. It was probably 2007 since the last time I made a movie related purchase so I'm even a little surprised that I have a Rise of the Beasts themed post here on the blog! The marketing efforts at retail for this new movie has been pretty epic thus far and apparently I've gotten sucked in as you can see. Several of the Walmart stores in my area have a large end cap cardboard display, however I've only see the voyager assortment (Optimus Prime & Optimus Primal) once or twice. Maybe this is good news as the figures are selling well?
The Rise of the Beasts packaging shares the open box concept thanks to Hasbro's plastic free packaging initiative. The front right side features large up close artwork of Optimus while the left side features the Transformers logo. The Rise of the Beasts logo resides underneath the figure. The back features two shots of Optimus, robot and vehicle mode. You can see the transformation process can be completed in just 20 steps. The bottom area features multi-language legalese jargon.
Even though I could see a portion of the figure inside the box, it wasn't until I got Optimus out of his cardboard prison that I could truly appreciate the overall design. I've never been a huge fan of the movie designs as it was too much of a departure from what I was accustomed to, however after seeing the first teaser trailer for the Rise of the Beasts movie I was intrigued. Seeing the figure in Walmart only fueled that curiosity I had and I'm glad I took a chance.
Optimus retains most of his iconic look, from the red chest and arms, truck cab windows and grill on the chest to the blue legs. The head sculpt still has that movie look, but has evolved over the years and looks better in my opinion than it did back in 2007. The figure has a pretty clean look and not much kibble. I know some may not like the look of the front wheels folded up on the back, but it doesn't bother me. The only part of the robot mode that I don't care for are the two gray pieces on the back/side of the arms. Small gripe as the rest of the figure is pretty solid.
Optimus comes packaged with a black rife. It's more slim than the rifle his Generation One self carried, but it still gets the job done.
From an articulation stand point, this is a very modern action figure / Transformer. Thanks to a combination of various ball and hinge joints the figure has multiple points of articulation through and through. I'm not the most creative in posing my figures, but I had no issues in coming up with various poses with Optimus...just not good enough to share in this post.
Movie Optimus Prime has seen a few different iterations over the years, but when the series received a "soft reboot" with the Bumblebee movie a few years back, Optimus' vehicle mode went back to a more iconic look with that of a flat nose truck cab. Thankfully that look has carried over to his Rise of the Beasts design, those I do believe there are some tweaks. The top of the cab features gunmetal panels over the blue translucent windows. The headlights have been lowered to the bottom bumper making the grill look a little larger. Looking straight on at the cab I think it has a great look. Once you get to the back, well that's a different story.
I mentioned not caring for the gray pieces that were on the back/side of the arms in robot mode and in vehicle mode they don't look any better. I'm not sure what purpose they serve, but they look like wings of some sort and I just don't care for them.
The robot feet fold up and onto the back of the legs forming the back end of the truck mode. There is a connector for a trailer, however I've yet to hear if a trailer is in the works or not. I'm not sure if the trailer included with Earthrise Optimus Prime would be compatible or not due to the height of the backend of this version of Optimus. The whole backend of the vehicle just looks a little sloppy to me, which is a shame as the front looks pretty great.
Prime's rifle can be stored in vehicle mode by placing the 5mm peg on the rifle into the hitch on the rear of the truck. I do like it when a figure's accessories can be self contained within the figure.
In closing, before I get to the obligatory comparison photos, I was rather pleased with this new version of Optimus Prime. Granted my expectations were fairly low going in, this isn't a bad toy. Is it perfect? No, far from it actually. It could easily use more paint apps for example, but I found this to be a fun movie based toy. I'm not sure where in my collection I'll put him since I've still yet to unpack and set up my Optimus collection, but I am glad I gave the toy a try.
