Revenge Of The Fallen Jetfire, Leader Class

[DRIFTER]

Leader Class Revenge Of The Fallen Jetfire


Well, after weeks of fruitless hunting, I've found him. Leader Jetfire. My favorite transformer character gets the movie treatment. I, as a self proclaimed G1 purist, am going to treat this as any transformer instead of constantly comparing the G1 Jetfire to this Jetfire. I'm doing my best to accept his movie appearance, and truth be told, while it ISN'T G1 Jetfire, it has grown considerably on me. With that, let's dig into my next review....ENJOY!

-At A Glance-
Pros: Good movie accuracy, HUGE beautiful Jet mode, some very decent posing available.

Cons: Combined mode is LACKING, "chicken legs" have weak ratchets, back heavy,
severe kibble in Alt. Mode





Robot Mode: In a word: Menacing. He truly reminds me of a decepticon rather than autobot. He looks evil, right down to the glowing red eyes. I have a picture on down the review that shows his evilness. That being said, the design itself, while not in step with ANY of Jetfire's previous incarnations, is intriguing. It does look like a cool design, although I still think SOMEBODY is getting sued for copyright infringement on Poggle the lesser. I haven't seen the movie yet, but it is my understanding that he's an older transformer, kind of like G1 ironhide, only grumpier. However, I never pose him with the cane, and since I've yet to see his on-screen persona, I guess it becomes much easier for me to think of him as a fast lethal death machine which helps me swallow the toy's faults much easier.



Speaking of on-screen, I can say that he shares in Prime's faith fullness to his on-screen partner, right down to the hunched over legs and pimp-cane. From the screens from the movie that I've looked at, he looks almost dead on to his movie counterpart. Anyways, enough of this "design" BS lets dig into articulation!



Head swivels from side to side about 45* either way & CAN stay to left or right with a little "strategical beard placement".

Shoulders can ratchet joint upward*think shrugging in reverse* a solid 60* before hitting kibble, Arms ratchet bend upwards and outwards unlimited range of motion. Elbows bend 90* ratchet, 360* swivel. Wrists rotate 360* unlimited, and his claws can open and close.

Hips can ratchet outward about 75*, ratchet forwards and backwards unlimited, thighs swivel unlimited, knees bend about 60* on a weak ratchet, and feet can move forward or backward about 30* either way.


Now, articulation is great, but a few things hold him back from being like prime. For one, you need to use caution when positioning his feet because the ratchets in his knees are NOT that strong, and due to the back heavy nature of the toy, it is quite easy to knock him over if you don't take to time to distribute the weight evenly. Due to the weight of the toy, and the ever weakening nature of the knees, a few years down the road, I can imaging this guy becoming a floppy mess, but I'll deal with that when I come to it.





Just messing around and playing with him is, admittedly, fun. Something about him allows for some unique looking poses. And although the knees do spoil some of the poses, he still has lots of neat scary awesome looking ways to display. A neat little feature, if you look at his thighs, and swivel them, you can see moving "hydraulic cylinders" inside. I thought it was neat. Also, he come with not only a cane to beat up on helpless whippersnappers, but also a wrist mounted chain gun. So he can be both lethal AND pimping. Watch out for the pimp slap! Seriously, this is, far and away, my favorite mode of this 'former.



Alternate Mode:



First of all, prepare yourself for a grueling wrestling match when trying to transform him. Getting all the panels to line up perfectly is a hassle, possibly as bad as prime, but after a few times through, it isn't so bad. Now, The SR-71 Blackbird(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71) is one of my favorite aircrafts. The sleek unique design suits Jetfire perfectly. Bay got this part RIGHT! It is, to my knowledge, the BIGGEST transformer jet we've ever gotten. In the picture, that is a 15" ruler, so if I had to guess, I'd put him somewhere around 18" total. Calling it Massive doesn't do it justice. I'm planning on getting some hercules hooks to display it in jet, seeing as it looks plain awesomely stunning.....





....Until you look at it from the side. Then the mystery of "robot in disguise" begins to unravel. If you flip it over, all hope is gone. This is, to me, a sloppy cover up. Sure, they can't all look like MP screamer, but couldn't they have at least TRIED to cover it up? Well, no use arguing now, and I won't bash it any further, the pictures speak for themselves.

There are some cool looking details and insignia to be seen, my favorite is the infamous Skunkwerks logo. We also see some decepticon emblems that have been scratched out. Apparently, you can scuff your emblems, but you can't hide the menacing face! Also, underneath the cockpit, we see some text that says something along the lines of "warning, this aircraft contains explosives in passenger compartment" and above that, we see the name "Lt. Colonel Brawley". I'm not sure if this is an actual colonel or not, a quick google and wikipedia search don't reveal much. Last, we can see the letters "JTFR" and the number 17972. Again, I don't see any immediate significance to the number, but it would be interesting if it were the secret file number of the blackbird back in the day or something.

EDIT: I've found a reference to the number. It is the number of the actual blackbird that set the transatlantic world record way back in 1974. That COULD do some dating to Jetfire's first landing on earth. In any event, this is a VERY COOL easter egg. LINK-> http://www.habu.org/sr-71/17972.html



Accessories/Gimmicks:
Okay, where to start! Man, he does a lot. Alright, well, let's do basics first. His wrist mounted chain gun does indeed shoot a missile. Push down the golden lever on his chest and his head rocks side to side while his eyes and chest light up. A softly spoken irish man says "Jetfire's mah name." It sounds funny and non-menacing. Again, I haven't seen the film yet, so I'm not sure if that is an accurate voice to his on screen counterpart. Mid-transformation, you get the classic transformation sound. Lastly, in jet mode, we get to hear a super-sonic flyby of the SR-71 which is effective and well placed for play-time decepticon fly-bys.



Now, we come to my least favorite mode: Super Prime. I decided early on that I WOULD NOT take this mode into consideration when deciding on a final rating. "Why? That's not fair!" some may say. I'll tell you why. Because, if I subtracted points from Jetfire for it, then it would only be fair to detract points from Prime too. And I'm just not willing to tarnish my near perfect perception of Prime for that. Having said this, if you value your positive opinion on Hasbro's design department, you should stop reading NOW and NEVER combine the two if you do get them both. the result is disappointingly frustrating, to say the least.





First, the combination of the two is just boneheaded. I mean, essentially jetfire humps prime from behind. Putting THAT aside, his finished mode is FULL of kibble. Kibble that goes of for ages. To worsen this, prime loses almost ALL leg movement when combined. And the final death stroke for this mode comes from the whole figure having to tilt slightly forward, making for an unstable mash-up of X-rated transformer lovin'. From the front it looks okay and even cool, but the side and rear views are just discouragingly sloppy. The instructions don't say that the back pieces need to be in any sort of particular pose, so there's lots of room for improv. I did my best.



In this mode's defense, it is large, it DOES have a neat "walking sound" when the button on jetfire's back is pressed, it DOES look good from the front, and as a statue, it DOES serves a purpose. But, if this was marketed as a bot itself, I can't help but think it would be a shelfwarmer. Luckily, it is only a bonus to two awesome bots.

Overall:
At the end of the day, you've got to ask yourself: Is he worth 45 dollars? Well, to me he is. I do plan on keeping him, but be forewarned: He is NOT for everyone. I can see where a lot of people wouldn't like him as much as I do. Just know when you buy him that you will NOT be getting the same quality seen in Leader Prime or Human Alliance bumblebee. I'd only recommend him to somebody who loved the movie character or somebody who liked the design and alt mode in general. Seeing as my favorite character is Jetfire and one of my favorites aircraft is the SR-71, it was a must buy. Now, if you agree with my method of not taking into account the combo mode when giving the rating, you should find jetfire worthy of the solid 7.5 I'm giving him. He is the best incarnation of jetfire we've had since G1 save for his Classics edition, but he is not flawless. Enjoy the closing pics, and tune in next time to hear this old windbag rag on about another hunk of plastic!



Showdown at the O.K. corral....



Brother, we must join...."lol whut?"



Clash of the titans!



FEED ME YOUR BABIES!!! RARRRR!!!

[Master Megatron]

Great work, DRIF. Glad you posted this. I love this guy as well.

Buuuuut... I did find a way to make the combiner mode more stable, and more articulate.



And...



I'm able to get a ton of poses out of that. Love it man. This improves the figure immensely.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I keep the shoulder pads transformed like the instructions on mine. That image is from another member at another board.

This post has been edited by Master Megatron on Jul 6 2009, 10:45 PM

[DRIFTER]

Wow, that looks AWESOME!!! Going to have to try it out most definitely. Thanks for the tip, will post back with results.

[Ultra Magnus]

*is waiting for Drifter's pics of that mode*

now THAT might convince me to buy him

[DRIFTER]

I'm not sure how he even has those nosecone pieces on the shoulders like that....maybe he disassembled Jetfire? Fear not, I'm working on it.

[Master Megatron]

I didn't position my cones like that. I did it the way the instructions had it.

[Bumblemus]

very cool I like him

[DRIFTER]

VS.







Alright y'all.....did that leg mod that MM recommended(lifesaver) and then saw some room for improvement. Did a mod of my own to the shoulders. Here's the result. If y'all like it, you get a quick tutorial.








Some action shots....








Well this is just PRIME...








Hope you like the shots of new and improved power-up prime.

[Master Megatron]

HOLY SH*T!

Nice work DRIF! I might just do my shoulder pads that way! Awesome pics man! I love it!

I love how versatile this mold is in terms of rearranging parts! It's epic!

[DRIFTER]

Thanks, here's a quick tutorial. Made a new thread because this one had tons of pics already....

http://z7.invisionfree.com/Transfanatics/i...?showtopic=2176

[Armorglide79]

Not bad, but not $45 dollars of cool, IMO

[DRIFTER]

^So a lot of people say.

[Master Megatron]

JETFYRE IZ TEH AWSUMS!!!11!12

[DRIFTER]

Ssssssh, all teh cool kids think he's a lame old fart. Don't spoil the surprise.

[Ultra Magnus]

if you can find him on sale, then even i actually recommend picking him up. i paid $35 and dont really feel ripped off at all for having paid that.

[Terrorking]

I was fond of the character in the movie, though i feel he's not the same Jetfire, kind of the same way that BW Megatron shares the name but isn't actually Megs...anywho badass combo my friend.