The toy is highly articulated and with a great range of motion. Starting from the top, his head is on a ball joint that allows him to look up, down, and turn side to side.
 |
| Don't mind the dust... |
His shoulders are universal joints that allow for front and back rotation, and outward movement. In addition, the shoulders can slide further out from the body to allow for greater outward movement.
 |
| It's like he's doing calisthenics |
His elbows are single hinges that allow about a 90 degree bend.
 |
| He can throw things |
His wrists rotate and have a hinge that allows them to angle inward. Each of his fingers are individually articulated at the main knuckle and his thumb is on a ball joint.
 |
| Honestly not sure if those scratches are part of the mold or not |
Moving on down, he has a ratcheted waist swivel. His thighs are are more universal joints, that allow for a 90 degree outward movement (he can pull off a full Van Damme), almost 180 degrees of front and back movement, and 360 degree rotation.
His knees are double hinges that allow for almost 180 degrees of movement, Finally, his ankles are ball joints and his toes are hinged.
 |
| Can climb stairs? Check! |
 |
| Toe articulation is a huge deal |
He can recreate some fairly dynamic poses, but his construction causes some issues. His chest and lower legs are made of die cast metal. He's fairly heavy, and unfortunately the ball joints in his ankles (at least on my copy) are not up to the task of holding him as soon as his center of gravity moves away from dead center. It's not uncommon for him to assume a "Smooth Criminal"-like front lean.
 |
| Tell us that you're okay |
Surprisingly, because of the weight of his lower legs, he actually won't fall over. Another issue are his hands. While the articulation in the fingers is nice, they don't provide a tight enough grip to hold his large rifle very well. In certain positions, it's fine, but often it's a very limp-wristed looking grip. Future masterpiece figures would get around this by molding tabs into the handles of the weapons that sat in groove in the palm providing a much better grip.
Based heavily on the animation model from the original cartoon, the figure included as many callbacks to the cartoon as possible many of which only appeared in a single episode or in the animated movie.
First off, his energon ax. Used during a fight with Megatron in one episode very early in the series.
Flip up communicators in each forearm. One with Bumblebee and the other with Starscream... for some reason.
 |
| Ring Ring Ring. Banaphone! |
Megatron in gun mode, which Prime wielded in a single episode.
 |
| Teamwork |
Taken from the animated movie, his chest opens up to reveal the Matrix of Leadership. It even lights up when you push a button on his shoulder.
 |
| "You got the touch!" |
Lastly, a button on the back of his head allows his mouth plate to move up and down as if he was talking.
In addition to all of his gimmicks, Optimus has some nice "working" details, such as pistons in his elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles.
Of course, it wouldn't be a real "masterpiece" of a figure if it didn't actually transform right? He transforms into cab-over-engine semi, featuring working suspension in his wheels.
Unfortunately, where the original toys strive for accuracy in the vehicles at the expense of the robot modes, MP-01's reverses that with a great robot mode and a pretty iffy vehicle mode. It's not horrible, but the way the front lights are recessed is a pretty gregarious oversight.
MP-01 was released by Hasbro in the US and Takara in Japan. They are mostly identical, with the main exceptions being the US version has some "battle damage" paint applications and shortened smokestacks (due to toy safety laws. I replaced mine with some third-party replacements). In Japan, MP-01 was followed up in 2005 by MP-02 Ultra Magnus, a mostly white repaint of MP-01. This was a reference to the "inner robot" of the original Ultra Magnus being a white repaint of the original Optimus Prime figure, though in most variations of the Transformers fiction, the inner robot of Ultra Magnus is never shown. Instead it merely merges with the trailer to become Ultra Magnus.
In 2006, the next masterpiece mold was released: Masterpiece Starscream.
No comments:
Post a Comment