Transformers Age of Extinction Voyager Class Grimlock: Better late then never

Things are going to get back in order for the next few weeks, April is going to be a hiatus for this site, but I'll explain that at the end of the review. For now, lets get this guy out of the way, so I can review something other then a Dinobot next week.

Unlike the last two AoE Dinobot reviews, this one is going to cover both the special edition and the general retail version, cause I recievedthe general retail version of Grimlock, Slog and AoE hound for free, so thank you to the person I got them from (I do remember your name, I'm just not saying here as a just encase you'd rather remain anonymous). What are the differences? Paint and plastic, engineering's exactly the same. While the special edition keeps to the theme of the box set with a lot of silver plastic and transeluscent plastic, broken up with bronze paint, the general retail release is mostly bronze plastic, silver plastic, grey plastic and the odd bit of black used sparingly. It's not movie accurate but is more visually interesting to look at, unless you get the a light on the special edition for a Nite Lite T Rex. Articulation is basically all in the legs due to the way it transforms, but these two surprisingly have a gimmick in them, unlike (from memory at least) any other Age of Extinction main line toy. Their lower jaws can open and close with the press of a button and... its even less entertaining then it sounds, and forces their mouths open all the time. Still neat that they have it, I do miss gimmick intergration in transformers. Both of them have a two part club weapon that is forcefully intergrated into the dino mode, giving the T rex modes spears for tails on the ends of their actual tails. While the back's quite messy, its an overall solid T rex mode for a Transformer.

I told you the weapon storage looked stupid

The robot mode on the other hand, I outright hate, with a passion. Is he the worst Transformer ever? No, far from it, but there are design choices that do really annoy me. I will give credit where its due, at least they do more then just "do a Grimlock" for the transformation, even if the arms are still the dino legs and the tail is the robo legs, And the fact that they did give it ankle tilts is a point in its favor. However, the arms and the back, I hate the figure for those alone. The back is understandable, as the kibble problem is due to the gimmick. In robot mode, it means he has the T rex jaw and half the neck as his butt. Not the end of the world, seen far worse, but it would have been nice if it could have cleaned up a bit more. The arms on the other hand... I should state that all the upcoming problems come from how Hasbro wants you to have Grimlock transformed, you're supposed to tab the dino feet into the back of his arms, locking the wrist swivel. Not the end of the world, but due to how they handled the hands, you either get elbows and hands that only look good when posing Grimlock to do some fisticuffs and not holding his still stupid weapon, or having the hands oriented the right way and not getting an elbow. You can have both by untabing the dino feet, but it baffles me that they wanted you to have the toy set up in a way that only gives you one or the other, when the easiest fix was to cut another slot into the Dino shins. Problem solved.

The arms are really what kills it for me, and I know it sounds petty to say that because of how easy it is to fix. The problem with it comes from the "intended way for it to be transformed". Visually, what I've said about the other two applies here, you can thank the movie designs for that. The weapon itself, while movie accurate, is a complete joke as it never stays in one piece (either of them, both versions have the exact same parts in the exact same colours). What's sad is that he's not the worst of the AoE Dinobots, but we'll come back to him in a few months... maybe... hopefully... look, we get things a lot later then US online retailers, I can only go so fast with these. Coming up on the main site is the Mega Man 3 review, you can find the Mega Man 2 review here: https://mediaholicreviews.blogspot.com.au/2018/03/mini-mega-man-marathon-march-mania-mega_14.html

For April and May, due to the MAYvel content, and the prelude to it taking up April, content for the Toybox will be on hold. I've tried three posts a week before, it wasn't fun. The three Sundays after Easter Sunday will not have posts on here. The content schedule is currently

Mega Man 3: Main site (21/03)
Power of the Primes Wave 1 Pretenders: Toybox (25/03)
Mega Man 4: Main site (28/03)
Lego Doctor Strange Sanctum Sanctorum: Toybox (01/04)
Spider Man: Main site (04/04)
X-Men: Main site (07/04)
Spider Man 2: Main site (11/04)
X-Men 2: Main site (14/04)
Spider Man 3: Main site (18/04)
X-Men 3; The Last Stand: Main site (21/04)
Ant Man:  Main site (25/04)
Lego Avengers Infinity War Hulkbuster Smash Up: Toybox (28/04)

While content for the Toybox in May is still being decided/ obtained, the main site's content is as follows

Captain America Civil War: (02/05)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (04/05)
Doctor Strange: (09/05)
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2: (16/05)
Spider Man Homecoming: (23/05)
Thor Ragnarok: (30/05)

Transformers content on the Toybox (encase it wasn't obvious I'm writing this in a way so that I can copy it into the MM3 review for Wednesday) is planned to resume in June with the remaining PotP's characters from Wave 1 (exception being Rodimus Prime as I plan to review him alongside Rodimus Unicronus), along with Combiner Wars Bombshell, Chop Shop and Titans Return Kickback in the PotP Skrapnel review. I'm not sure when I'll be able to tackle Wave 2 of Power of the Primes, and if there's somehow a gap between finishing Wave 1 and when Wave 2 is released, then I will review some non PotP's figures, or more non Transformers figures. The Toybox is kind of a "go with the flow" thing. Anyway, see you next time!