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Well, they really managed to do it!
For the past two years, Hasbro has been releasing Studio Series versions of the movie Constructicons, starting with Rampage and finishing with Overload. If you've been patiently buying them all (or go for the full-team box set they just fricking announced, grumble grumble), you can finally build a movie Devastator!
click to embiggen
Assembling the big guy is not easy. The instruction sheets for the individual figures show the (sometimes complicated, sometimes minimal) steps for changing them into the bodyparts, so that's not so bad - it's the actual assembly that's hard.
Like, Scrapmetal and Hightower plug together to form the left hand, but because Hasbro wanted the robot to be poseable,
both the tab and the slot it fits into are on moving pieces, meaning unless they're aligned laser-perfectly when you try to push them together, they're going to swing out of place. Plus, Scavenger's whole deal is such a mess in general, you won't know you have him converted properly until you try to put Mixmaster on. And the parts that form the chest (Overload's former legs) don't actually connect to anything, so they just stick up into the air. While it's not shown in the instructions, the pieces you have to remove from Rampage and Scrapmetal can be plugged into Devastator's backside and left thigh, respectively.
Some pretty substantial changes have been made to Devastator for this release. The Studio Series figures are about movie-accuracy, but Devvy definitely isn't. Look at every other Revenge of the Fallen Devastator, and you'll see a hulking brute that can't even stand up straight,
a monster with the posture of a gorilla due to his unfathomable bulk. His head was nearly as big as the rest of his torso, and he had tiny feet. This toy can't claim any of that.
Studio Series Devastator is proportioned more like a normal Transformer - that is, "like a human." He's got very thick limbs, but the head is comparatively small. Presumably they were worried about the toy being stable, because the feet are huge; in fact, it's like the feet and head are each the size the other should be. It does mean he's able to stand vertically, instead of clomping about on all fours,
so that's something. Fully built up, he stands more than 14" tall (and that was with his legs given a fairly wide stance, too).
Overload's body provides the bulk of the support and the articulation, which is why everything on that toy was so stiff. We also get elbow hinges thanks to the connector ports on the arm-bots, and both feet have rocker ankles so the'll stay flat even when you move the legs to the side. There are two joints in the mouth, allowing the center of the jaw to move independently of the outer edge, though ideally there'd also be hinges that allowed the chin to split in half like the vampires in Blade II. He really needs to open wide to consume everything around him!
By virture of being built from eight individual robots, Devastator has great detailing. It's one thing to sculpt pieces of a design to look like they're on loan from a different source, it's entirely
another to actually have them come from that different source. Hasbro was also able to spread the cost of the paint apps out over those same eight figures, so lots of the small details get picked out, like ladders and wiring. The gift set version has additional apps on the hands and feet, representing dirt and scuffs. No version of him includes his big metal balls.
In making Studio Series Devastator, Hasbro sacrificed film-accuracy for a better toy. Was that the right choice? Well, we can't really make that decision for you. If you want a toy that's going to look just like the movie, those already existed; if you want one that's more playable and complex, but still looks a lot like the movie, here it is. Personally, I'm as excited to finish building this Devastator as I was to finish building my first. It's going to take a little while to get used to the improved posture for this character, but getting one that can split into individual, fully functional Constructicons is just too awesome.
Rampage | Scrapmetal | Long Haul | Hightower | Mixmaster | Scavenger | Scrapper | Overload
-- 12/15/20
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