It is no secret that I've had an issue with the current form of the "CHUG" (an overarching fan-made term to describe the collection of toylines not explicitly tied to a media project, the term is an abbreviation of four toylines. Classics, Henkei, Universe and Generations, Generations being what lines like Siege, Prime Wars Trilogy, Thrilling 30, and other lines fall into) bracket of Transformers collection. The reason? The word Generations. It's a plural, meant to mean "more than one of something". But what are the toylines in Generations mostly consisting of? Generation 1 characters with designs either reminiscent of or even a modern copy of their Generation 1 designs. While this isn't a bad thing for characters who don't get releases often, seeing the big faces barely changing in design aesthetic is frustrating, especially when a design from after G1 could fit in very well to the current line.
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| I would include Optimus's one, but I can't find that one, or a good quality version of his box art that isn't a picture of the box... |
"So, our line has Voyagers who can become Leaders, and we need an Optimus Prime. What do we do?"
"Why don't we take one of those Primes that combined with their trailers?"
"No wait, I've got it, we do the same design again, but the Truck becomes the torso while the arms and legs are in the Trailer!"
"Didn't we do that last year?"
"Yes but the truck can be its own standalone robot, and we can easily get an Ultra Magnus out of it for when he wins the poll."
"But sir, the monkey's winning the poll, by a lot."
"... Frag, someone try and make that monkey, we'll do a black repaint of this Optimus instead."
"Can I at least give the black one arm guns?"
"Only if it's an online store exclusive"
"Deal"
That being said, it looks like someone actually did remember that Generations was a plural, and gave a pair of Autobot Leaders that do bring in some later generation representation. An Ultra Magnus with an Alternate mode inspired by the Robots in Disguise 2001 Ultra Magnus, and an Optimus that draws inspiration from the Cybertron/ Galaxy Force Optimus Prime, a toy that I still maintain is one of the best general retail Optimus toys released, and even contend with Masterpiece Primes. How do they hold up when compared to their older incarnations though?
Starting in truck modes, and when combined with their trailers, they look good. Magnus I think looks better, as I'm personally not a fan of the grey plastic chunk used to help secure Optimus to his trailer. It stands out badly compared to the red and blue. Honestly, in the complete truck modes, it's clear that Prime suffered a lot to be a retool of Magnus, and one part of it is how the shoulder pads are stored. There's no secure connection for them to go into, making them quite tedious to store when going between modes. I do appreciate that the truck cabs are remoulded between versions, but the engineering stays the same, and neither truck looks good on its own thanks to the way the arms work. It's not something you'll notice though when the trailers are attached. There's nothing in the way of steering for either of them, which is a shame, but that comes down to how they're connected. It's a shame, but at least there aren't any awkward ports in the cabs for it, but there are lots of weapon ports to arm these two up to oblivion, as is the way of Siege.
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| Ignore the fact that I forgot to fold out Orion Pax's hands |
For the base robot modes, and I do say that because like with Power of the Primes, the Leader Class toys come with armour to turn a Voyager class sized toy into a Leader class toy, but unlike Power of the Primes, there are more parts forming for these two, but I'll come back to that later. As for the two themselves, the proportions aren't great, due mostly to the gimmick, but they're decent Optimus Primes, including the Magnus bot because, for those who don't know, the original Ultra Magnus toy was a white Optimus Prime, with power armour forming from the trailer. That being said, due to the depiction in the cartoon, many toys ignore this feature, and either has him as the truck and trailer as one entity or as a white repaint of Optimus. Rarely do we get a toy that can do that, it's something that even the Masterpiece line didn't do. As such, I'm willing to overlook a lot of the proportion issues for the sake of having this feature, even if it means we get design cues that bring back memories of Energon Optimus Prime, and his big gut. The only difference here is that it's entirely hollow, whereas Fattimus had electronics in him.
The reason for the proportion issues come from how the gimmick is executed in this line. Whereas in Power of the Primes, the smaller figure would transform into a dedicated combined mode and attach to the armour, which was an otherwise independent transforming robot, here, the trailers break apart into several smaller piece to go into specific places. While this causes issues for the smaller bot (at least in the case of these two), it does lead to a really strong looking combined mode, with no glaring forms of kibble to be seen on either of them (though the grey plastic chunk comes close on Galaxy Prime). These two have a strong presence to them thanks to the designs that inspired them. I do like the fact that it's the G1 look for Magnus' robot mode, due to the fact that the RID01 toy suffered a lot for the sake of combining with that line's Optimus Prime (something that many other toys have suffered from). Articulation is the same as their base robots for the most part, with only minor reductions due to the armour. The big issue I have with the articulation is the forced A stance the two have.
On the whole, the two toys are fine, which is kind of a shame in the case of Galaxy Prime, as a part of me hoped for more, just due to how good the original toy was and still is. The truck mode suffers the most, while the robot mode is a nice looking Optimus, it doesn't do much to look like the original Cybertron Optimus other than the chest and the arm plates (that I didn't include in my picture). Many of the issues it has come from him being a retool of Magnus, which at least means he's got a strong base to work from, but it stings to think of how much better it could have been if it wasn't tied to that limitation. As for Ultra Magnus? He's a strong Magnus all around, and it's nice to get one with the armour gimmick again. A part of me would have liked them to go all the way with the RID design, but update it now that it doesn't need to be armour for Optimus, but this is still a nice compromise, and it's refreshing to see someone on the design team remembered that the line can represent more than G1.
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