Discover Top Posts Tagged with #transformers studio series

Very Excited about Nautica's Brand New Toy that isn't a Retool of any Old Figures this time, I Hope

(Even though its Annoying that they made Another Deluxe Fembot Figure and Not a Voyager, Leader or Commander)

#transformers #mtmte #autobots #fembots #nautica #studio series #idw comics #maccadam #transformers studio series #transformers idw #transformers generations #the transformers #autobot #fembot #transformers nautica #more than meets the eye

sorry i’ve been busy

warning: gay robots below

congrats on his transition

#transformers #optimus prime #transformers g1 #transformers studio series #transformers toys

Ok Hasbro make reactivate Windblade as a voyager class with a flip up battlemask please

#windblade #transformers #transformers reactivate #transformers studio series #concept art

My new Studio Series 86 Megatron next to the old Siege Megatron.

.... It's not even fair really is it it?

#else_speaks #Transformers #Megatron #transformers toys #transformers g1 #maccadam #transformers studio series #transformers siege

Studio Series 86 Soundwave

Having kicked off the 2026 lineup a bit early, Studio Series 86 The Transformers: The Movie Soundwave arrives in big boy Leader class, proving to be a substantial upgrade from the Netflix/Earthrise figure while still coming with the little buddies you know and love.

Soundwave is something of an interesting release, as he reaffirms an aesthetic shift happening with SS86. It started in the likes of Optimus and Megatron, but it’s in full swing here. They’re moving to more of a Masterpiece style, with smoother surfaces and less greebling. It’s not completely absent, but it’s still a far cry from what we saw in the WFC Trilogy. I don’t mind the look, but it is a bit of a strange thing to do in a lines… fifth year, god. Creates a bit of a divide, y’know? Especially since there aren’t that many characters left to do. Wells runnin a bit dry there fellas.

Shifts in design philosophy aside, I find him to be so much better than the previous Netflix mold. It was a weird, misshapen, halfhearted retooling of the SIEGE figure that ultimately felt incomplete. Like, the front of the cassette player wasn’t flat. You had one job man. The Studio Series rendition presents no such qualms, being built from the ground up. He’s sculpted damn near perfectly, the head being an especially strong point. It’s hard for Soundwave not to look handsome, granted, but this is no exception. He’s a rather bright blue in comparison to both previous efforts and the movie itself, as well, a nicely saturated tone that really pops. It not technically being movie accurate is a discussion we’ll get to later…

Articulation wise, he proves to be pretty expressive. His head can tilt up a decent bit (certainly more than what most can offer), he gets double butterfly joints at his shoulders, shoulders that come quite far up, double jointed elbows, wrists and opening hands. His hips can spread flat, and go nearly all the way forward and the same distance back. The hinges for his kip skirts prevent a clean 180°, but it’s by a very minor margin. His knees are the most standard, “only” coming in to a flat 90°, but his feet make up for it with a swivel and healthy ankle tilt. While he’s got a great range of movement, his hips are maybe a tad loose on my copy. Wider stances can cause them to give out under his own weight, but it’s not an absolute or any kind of guarantee. Just something to keep in mind. His biceps and the second bend in his elbows are rather tight, by contrast. Overall I find myself struggling a touch to get him into poses that feel fluid. They all come off as at least a tiny bit stiff in a way that’s hard to pinpoint or remedy. Though it’s not like he doesn’t have the range for something flashy.

For accessories, he’s equipped with his classic pair of blasters, though the main one has the silver bit sideways instead of vertical. I… think it’s so that it’s not essentially hidden when he’s got his arms straight down. He also comes with… the cassettes? Are they accessories? I’m counting it since Laserbeak can, as is tradition by this point, sit on Soundwave’s arm. Not very well, though. There’s a single peg he can slot on to on each arm, but it’s the suggestion of a connection. It’s a loose fit and with the way his feet fold, trying to push him down onto it doesn’t work well and the whole thing is all a bit of a hassle just for him to get nudged off with far less effort. But like he can do it tho.

Laserbeak and Buzzsaw are completely identical, except for what color their bodies are painted. Which, it is paint. That’s not cast plastic. It’s a gorgeous finish, but. Y’know. Maybe keep it in mind. Otherwise literally nothing else is different. Or at least supposed to be. The only other discrepancy between the two that I can find is that Buzzsaw’s eyes feel a touch more pronounced? But I think that’s more to do with the way they got painted, Laserbeak’s eyes not getting filled in quite the same way, rather than it being an intentional deco difference.

Due to them being literally the exact same toy I’ll be referring to them more or less collectively. What applies to one will go for the other. Which, on that note, they’re uh… not terribly articulate, astoundingly. The head can move a bit, which lets them lean in for some scritches, but it still can’t go far. The wings can move forward, and you can bring them down on the transformation hinge, but they don’t bend back at all, nor do they go up. They’ve also got pretty wide wingspans. They more or less sit one way and that’s it.

Ravage is easily the more articulate of the two cassettecon molds included, in part thanks to the slew of hinges and small swivels that comprise him. All four of his legs can swing back and forth, you can spread them out a fair amount, his body can crumple up a bit, for lack of a better term, and he gets a tail. You’re still not going to get anything too crazy out of him but he can pull a beeeeg stretch.

Most interestingly for the cassettecons is that there is, somewhat strangely, some very blatant partsforming. Now, granted, partsforming is absolutely nothing new for Soundwave’s micro-cassette partners, been there since G1, etc etc, but modern Generations generally avoids it, with at least most of the SIEGE era micromaster-cassettes finding a way around it. Including Laserbeak and Ravage! Should partsforming crop up nowadays, the designers do what they can to either hand wave it or provide some other kind of context for it. Say, re-contextualized as weapon storage (no matter now dubious it may be) or presented as a whole other thing like the combiner frames. Here though… yeah, no, that’s good ol’ fashion partsforming.

Laserbeak and Buzzsaw have their classic thruster-blaster combos, which are… whatever. It’s a bulky additional assembly which is understandable enough to make separate. SIEGE changed the look a fair bit in order to integrate it, you won’t hear me argue that. Ravage, meanwhile, ends up as especially strange, as it’s not just the missiles on his sides, it’s his whole tail. That’s not an insignificant chunk of him they stole his ass wtf. So it’s even more blatant partsforming for him. That doesn’t even get the excuse of being a weapon. Not a proper one, anyhow.

My biggest problem with these additional bits is that, somewhat obviously, they don’t stow anywhere in cassette mode, and managing the cassettecons can be enough of a hassle as it is. I don’t need even more pieces floating around. Now, they do all get 5mm pegs, which allows you to plug them into the peg holes on Soundwave’s back, but you can at most do two. I guess you can have him hold the third? Which. It… seems like they’re trying to play these off as weapons for other figures. You can stick it in someone’s hand and bam, it’s a gun. C.O.M.B.A.T. baybee. But. That’s not mentioned anywhere? It’s not showcased on the box, and it’s not in the instructions (though, somewhat amusingly, they do include opening Soundwave’s tape deck door, putting in a cassette, and closing it as three separate steps, all as a part of his transformation). Not exactly hard to intuit, but still. “You figure it out” isn’t exactly the best strategy. It really doesn’t absolve the larger problem, either. Ravage’s butt is still a whole separate piece.

Also, uh, no tissue paper roll this time. All the accessories were in a clear plastic bag. I saw it in Big Convoy’s box so that may be the standard going forward. Also, also, all of the cassettecon weapons were in their component parts. The condor blasters were the two sides and a joining peg, whereas Ravage was his tail and the missiles. Some assembly required, it seems.

For transformation, Soundwave follows a pretty typical affair. Hard to reinvent the wheel, and all. Head tucks in, arms fold back, legs come up, you know this song and dance. Some flair is added with how the panels on the back work, being used to cover up his guns, and the legs have a bit going on. The front of them end up as the outside of the cassette player in an unusual deviation from the norm, with the knee pads folding in to keep his silhouette square. Er, rectangular. Though there’s nothing to lock them in place in robot mode, so you can push them in while just handling him. Another oddity is that while the panels on the back of his legs hold the classic power switch and volume slider details, they end up completely hidden away in cassette player mode. Another nicer touch, the feet have a small piece that folds out from the heel to seal up the top, keeping things flush. I will say, I am a bit worried about the silver paint on his feet chipping. There’s not a lot of clearance between them and the inside of his legs. Snug, to say the least.

The cassettes are a fun affair in their own right, offering that interactivity we all know and love. Some of us maybe a little too much. Ratbat cannot be good enough to be worth that much headache I’m sorry guys. I know the Perceptor pack-in stuff is bullshit but christ-

The condors have their heads tuck into the body, followed by the wings coming forward, which lets the legs come up to the sides, and then the wings can fold over themselves. Ravage sees his hind legs fold up, his front legs rotate forward, his front half spin around, which then lets you fold the front legs into his side before you split his head in half, much like the Masterpiece rendition. Both conversions are good clean cassettecon simplicity and leave you with some lovely little rectangles. My only complaint is that there’s no real good spot to grip the condor’s heads for going back to bird mode, save for between the head and the painted body. I think you can glean why that doesn’t feel great. They all fit into Soundwave’s chest nice and neatly, with no major clearance issues to speak of. The condors like going in feet up but I assume that’s more due to how the wings and feet are folded up more than anything else.

Now, while I’m happy that Buzzsaw is here and was included from the get-go, as apposed to a mysteriously missing SIEGE release despite being in the cartoon and having to wait until the last year of Legacy, but he is a bit of a weird case, as… he wasn’t in the movie. Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film here never once showed up on screen. Even Snarl made it in. He was probably mostly included as an easy way to get a third cassette and help justify the Leader price point, they just run the mold twice to get both him and Lazerbeak, but still, it’s weird. Further on movie accuracy oddities, as I mentioned earlier, Soundwave uses a blue that’s a fair bit brighter than what we see in the film. Which, it’s not a huge deal, but… why?

Studio Series has always been under a higher degree of scrutiny compared to “main” Generations, because it, at least initially, toted itself as “screen accurate”. That was a big focus and partial selling point of the line. Brand new toys of characters from the movies, rendered more accurately than ever before. While a noble goal, I’m also sure most folks can understand some degree of leeway in that, as these are toys that need to exist as physical objects in the real world and are developed on a budget, vs the digitally rendered 3D models many of them are based on. There are limits. It can only go so far. You can’t always fit every single tiny little detail in there, compromises often need to be made, and some designs prove to be a much bigger hurdle towards that aim of accuracy. Most of the cast of Age of Extinction and The Last Knight have notoriously kibble light designs and bullshit transformations that don’t agree with toy engineering.

By and large, the designers have been pretty successful, but at the end of the day… it’s still Generations. It’s just more Generations. It’s under the Generations banner. The people behind it work on other parts of the brand. Most of the figures released in Studio Series are designed to fit alongside the “main” Generations releases, all of them in scale and compatibility, and anything that’s not the live action movies in overall aesthetic. SS86 started as overflow of Generations. When they were developing Kingdom, it was originally going to be the line for the 86 movie’s 35th anniversary. Then they realized it was also a big anniversary for Beast Wars and wanted to do figures for that, but they were already full with no space left in the line, so to make it all work they put most of The Movie figures into a new subline in Studio Series. So a good chunk of that lineup, especially initially, were just Generations figures. They’re designed with similar mindsets and restrictions and requirements and mandates and budgets and all that sort of stuff.

I understand that there’s a whole cavalcade of decisions that go into each individual toy and the lines as a whole. Things are not done in isolation and trying to boil a choice or result into a single reason is disingenuous. Nothing was done at random or “just because”, there’s intent behind nearly every single aspect of a figure even if sometimes that intent is hard to discern. If something doesn’t look the way it does in the movie, there was probably a reason for that, and I’m certainly not going to say “oh what’s the point of releasing it in Studio Series if it’s not accurate” because sometimes certain things can’t be done (86 Megatron is a prime example), and again, it’s just Generations. It’s another avenue for releasing more toys. But. Like. You’ve gotta pick one fellas.

If figures released under the Studio Series banner are noticeably inaccurate to the source material, than either Hasbro is failing to meet the promised design expectations of Studio Series, or they’re lying to us. Neither- neither is great, obviously. As for some examples of those inaccuracies, I’d say 86 Devastator is a good start. In the movie, the treads are part of his torso, and completely purple. On the toy, the treads are indeed attached to the torso, but Bonecrusher’s treads are entirely green. Didn’t even do the Unite Warriors trick of painting the insides purple. Again, I understand why it’s like that, but it’s a very noticeable discrepancy. Other examples include 86 Optimus’ tits not being anywhere NEAR pointy enough, the WFC (the game) Seekers and their cheeto chest, multiple vehicle modes not being licensed, and plenty of other details having to be changed due to similar such licensing issues. I mean, for gods sake, Hot Rod is red. That’s more to do with SS86’s origins as a non Studio Series line, but still. Movie accurate my hot pink ass.

Now, again, things not being accurate by and large isn’t a huge deal. The issue mostly lies with how things are framed and labeled. That stuff can make a big difference in how a detail may be perceived. When you specifically say that a guy is from a certain piece of media, comparisons are going to be drawn to how they look in the media. Legacy has caught some flak for similar reasons. When you say that this is Bulkhead from the Prime Universe, and then he barely resembles that incarnation, people are going to have some problems. Cyberverse Chromia looks nothing like her appearance in the actual series aside from also turning into a bike. BUT, never once did they ever advertise those figures as being based directly on their on screen appearances. These are new takes on the likes of Animated Optimus and Prime Arcee. So Hasbro can make whatever toys they want, they can make Soundwave whatever goddamn shade of blue they like, but please stop lying to us.