Yet another beautiful Transformers transforming toy from the Leader Class line of Hasbro/Takara-Tomy. This time its the Leader Class: Starscream from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen movie that came out in 2009. This particular toy was released in 2009 in time for the movie and was made in Vietnam.
In the cartoon series, Starscream was an F-15 Eagle jet (based off the Takara Diaclone toy), in the live-action movie series he was updated to be an F-22 Raptor. Judging from Starscream’s design in robot mode, its quite obvious that the producers of the film designed the robot based off the fighter and not the fighter based off the robot. This resulted in Starscream in the movie version to look short, squat, boxy and angular in robot mode. Starscream also sports alien like tatoo markings on his fuselage to easily differentiate him from the garden variety F-22 of the US Airforce.
The Leader Class Starscream toy is far from being short however, as it is in similar height to the Leader Class Optimus Prime from the same toy line. And compared to the other Leader Class toys, this one is a tad bit wider. I actually had to make up space for this in my display case so that it would fit. At first glance I thought this toy would have a hard time standing up because of its top heavy design and small feet, to my amazement however I found out that this wasn’t so. Center of gravity is actually quite low on this one allowing it to stand easily.
Features wise this toy can transform from robot mode to airplane mode without need for any attachments or extra parts. It sports a detachable gun in its arm that can be fitted with a replica rocket that can also be fired by spring action. Like mentioned previously, this toy comes with two spare replica rockets that can be fitted into Starscreams gun for firing (one at a time), in airplane mode the rocket can be slung underneath its wings by way of a peg/hole.
Like other Leader Class toys, this one has some speaking action going on. In robot mode, pulling down on the pilot canopy will allow Starscream to say : “No one can defeat Starscream” as well as “The Decepticons will crush the Autobots.” During Airplane mode there is the additional jet sounds when the voice button is pressed (located at the top side fuselage near the pilot canopy)
Let’s talk negatives now. This isn’t a perfect rendition of an F-22 in Airplane mode in case you are wondering. Proportions don’t perfectly match the F-22’s lines. The landing gear is no way picture perfect either. I also had a hard time storing the gun underneath the fuselage in airplane mode. Still trying to figure out how to do this. Transformation sequence its a tad bit hard so this isn’t something that you can’t give to a young boy and expect him to transform it smoothly. I actually liked the manual of Starscream, versus the one from the Leader Class Sentinel Prime, as I could easily read it to transform it.
Despite that this is actually a very beautiful and sturdy toy with great details placed in each of its molded parts. I have to say that a little bit of nostalgia hit me when I was doing this review because this toy reminded me so much of the old toys I grew up with, especially the 1/55 VF-1S Valkyrie by Takatoku/Bandai.
Now they don’t make toys like that anymore (can’t believe I’m saying this). Back then toys were sturdy because plastic and metal were still cheap, but of course they didn’t actually match the line drawings due to limitations in manufacturing technology at that time, no Computer Aided Design Software and Computer Aided Machining to make accurate prototypes. Another thing going for it is its size, rule of thumb for me is that the satisfaction in owning a particular toy is proportionate to the size of the toy…and yes I am trully statisfied with this one.
God Bless Takara/Tomy for making huge, complex transforming, awesome looking and sturdy toys for the Leader Class line. As always, I still stand in awe with the complexity of the transformation sequence of the toys in Leader Class.
More of the review can be found in the succeeding pages.
