Review #27: Classics Voyager Class
Jetfire / Skyfire
In the past, except when it came to third party products (where I thought it might be helpful to see how well the third party did in portraying the character they set out to portray) I have avoided including comparisons of a toy to past versions of the toy, or pictures from the animated show that were of the character that the toy is portraying. The reason is that for the most part, I want to see how well the toys stand on their own. But this is something special.
This is Jetfire.
Or is it Skyfire?
A character and toy with a history this convolouted, I thought he was worthy of a slightly different look.
Thanks to a few pictures borrowed from TFWiki.net, let us take a look at how Jetfire, or Skyfire, was portrayed in the G1 days.
This is Jetfire.
Or is it Skyfire?
A character and toy with a history this convolouted, I thought he was worthy of a slightly different look.
Thanks to a few pictures borrowed from TFWiki.net, let us take a look at how Jetfire, or Skyfire, was portrayed in the G1 days.
Jetfire, as he apeared in a comercial for the toy, and looking suspiciously similar to a mech from a different show...
|
Meanwhile, Skyfire, as he looked in the original G1 cartoon.
|
So when the Classics line came out in 2006, and Hasbro wanted to include a toy that was a reimagining of the G1 character, I suppose there was a bit of a conundrum. Which version of the character do they go by? The toy, Jetfire? Or the character in the show, Skyfire?
Or what if... what if they tried to do both with one toy?
Or what if... what if they tried to do both with one toy?
Here is our first look at Classics Jetfire. (That was the name of the toy, and the name I am more familiar with for the character, so it shall be the default name used in this review.) He's a good looking jet, with (if you ignore the slightly obvious robot arms against his side under the wings) very little obvious robot kibble on his underside, always a concern with jet based Transformers. Like most others in the original Classics line, he features a rubsign, here located on the top of one of his wings. However, unlike many of the original Classics line, he also featured a few actual Autobot logos painted on him! These are on the undersides of his wings, however, so they won't really be visible in my photos until we get to robot mode.
|
His wings can be moved forward or backwards a bit, and he features retractable landing gear. The landing gear feature actual wheels for him to roll on. I felt it important to mention this, as it isn't always the case with landing gear on Transformers jets, although I will admit I would have been quite disapointed if they had gone cheap on the landing gear on a Voyager class figure. A final feature of note on this mode are the little guns on either side of the cockpit: they can be turned to aim either upwards or downwards.
My Jetfire has a slightly complicated sticker history.
Once upon a time, I decided to take some left over stickers I had from a Macross toy, and augment Jetfire to increase the Macross homage qualities of the toy. Thus, I placed a Macross "kite" logo on the wing that did not have a rubsign, I added some detailing to the sides of the nose cone (the "101" numbers, the pilot name "Mikio.Y", the little red triangular "Danger" logo, and the yellow "Rescue" arrow), the "U.N. Spacy" text on the tail, and a warning sign visible in the side view photo a bit behind the guns on the sides of the cockpit.
Then, quite recently, Reprolabels came out with a set for this guy! They had many stickers to add to this guy. The most promanant in jet mode would be a sticker that covers up half of what was the cockpit, shrinking the cockpit down (and making him look a bit more Skyfire‑ish) and causing the jet look like it is much larger by comparison. (This sticker may have been inspired by Takara's deco for this toy when they released it in Japan. They featured this smaller cockpit by having what was the rear half of it on the Hasbro release painted over.) Also for jet mode they featured three choices of faction symbol: Autobot, Decepticon (Jetfire, or rather Skyfire, since this was in the show, was formerly a Decepticon, but being a peaceful scientest he switched sides when the darker motives of his fellow Decepticons became clear), or Macross "kite" logos! For behind his cockpit (on what will become the robot's chest) I chose an Autobot logo. If I hadn't already had a Macross logo on one of the wings, I likely would have added one now. There is a red rectangular sticker to fill in (most of) a white patch in the red stripe behind the cockpit. Finally, visible on the front view photo, the circles on either side of his body under the wings were originally unpainted white; they now have a sticker inside of them to add some dark colour to contrast.
Much more sticker fun will be seen in later modes!
Now... remember I hinted I may be comparing this Jetfire to other toys? The time has come for the first of those photos! Sadly, I don't have a G1 Jetfire. (I had one as a kid, and have fond memories of it, but as "Jetfire" this toy has never been reissued and originals from the '80s that are in anything resembling decent shape are not inexpensive on the secondary market.) But I do have a reissued version of the Macross toy that Jetfire was based off of, a VF-1S Valkyrie. (Or VF-1S Veritech, for the Robotech fans.) And to get an idea what an updated version of Jetfire may have looked like if it had stuck closer to the toy design, I have more modern Valkyrie toys as made by a company called Yamato. (Of course, these are highly complex, delecate, and expensive toys, the Yamato Valkyries, so even if Hasbro had wanted to stick closer to Jetfire's toy designs, there's no way we'd have gotten anything like these!)
In these photos, the reissue of the original (also affectionally known by fans, likely because of its blocky proportions, as a "Chunky Monkey") is on the left, Jetfire is in the middle, and the Yamato Valkyre is on the right.
Once upon a time, I decided to take some left over stickers I had from a Macross toy, and augment Jetfire to increase the Macross homage qualities of the toy. Thus, I placed a Macross "kite" logo on the wing that did not have a rubsign, I added some detailing to the sides of the nose cone (the "101" numbers, the pilot name "Mikio.Y", the little red triangular "Danger" logo, and the yellow "Rescue" arrow), the "U.N. Spacy" text on the tail, and a warning sign visible in the side view photo a bit behind the guns on the sides of the cockpit.
Then, quite recently, Reprolabels came out with a set for this guy! They had many stickers to add to this guy. The most promanant in jet mode would be a sticker that covers up half of what was the cockpit, shrinking the cockpit down (and making him look a bit more Skyfire‑ish) and causing the jet look like it is much larger by comparison. (This sticker may have been inspired by Takara's deco for this toy when they released it in Japan. They featured this smaller cockpit by having what was the rear half of it on the Hasbro release painted over.) Also for jet mode they featured three choices of faction symbol: Autobot, Decepticon (Jetfire, or rather Skyfire, since this was in the show, was formerly a Decepticon, but being a peaceful scientest he switched sides when the darker motives of his fellow Decepticons became clear), or Macross "kite" logos! For behind his cockpit (on what will become the robot's chest) I chose an Autobot logo. If I hadn't already had a Macross logo on one of the wings, I likely would have added one now. There is a red rectangular sticker to fill in (most of) a white patch in the red stripe behind the cockpit. Finally, visible on the front view photo, the circles on either side of his body under the wings were originally unpainted white; they now have a sticker inside of them to add some dark colour to contrast.
Much more sticker fun will be seen in later modes!
Now... remember I hinted I may be comparing this Jetfire to other toys? The time has come for the first of those photos! Sadly, I don't have a G1 Jetfire. (I had one as a kid, and have fond memories of it, but as "Jetfire" this toy has never been reissued and originals from the '80s that are in anything resembling decent shape are not inexpensive on the secondary market.) But I do have a reissued version of the Macross toy that Jetfire was based off of, a VF-1S Valkyrie. (Or VF-1S Veritech, for the Robotech fans.) And to get an idea what an updated version of Jetfire may have looked like if it had stuck closer to the toy design, I have more modern Valkyrie toys as made by a company called Yamato. (Of course, these are highly complex, delecate, and expensive toys, the Yamato Valkyries, so even if Hasbro had wanted to stick closer to Jetfire's toy designs, there's no way we'd have gotten anything like these!)
In these photos, the reissue of the original (also affectionally known by fans, likely because of its blocky proportions, as a "Chunky Monkey") is on the left, Jetfire is in the middle, and the Yamato Valkyre is on the right.
I'm going to try to keep my comments mainly focused on the Transformer toy here, but if I may be allowed to digress for a moment... The original "Chunky Monkey" is a classic toy that, dispite some obvious compromises (such as the large metal bars on the sides of the cockpit for the leg transformation) is a toy that still stands up today, and if hypothetically they were mass produced and sold in America (and thus a resonable price) would still, almost 30 years after it was designed, be an excellent and fun toy to hand to a child. The more modern Yamato version... This is no child's plaything. This is a toy intended as an adult collectable, and looks like a masterpiece. It is so excellently designed that when it is in fighter mode, I would forgive someone unfamiliar with it for thinking it was just a toy jet and not knowing it could be reconfigured into something else. These can be delicate, though, and especially earlier releases of toys using this base mold had a few things (especially the shoulders) that could be prone to breaking.
Back to Jetfire, though!
Back to Jetfire, though!
In Super Dimension Fortress Macross, towards the (first) climax of the show, for what was assumed to be the final battle against the enemy forces, the Valkyries were equipped with what were known as "fast packs," armor with built in boosters and additional missle batteries that added greatly to their speed, maneuverability, and firepower. Thus did they become Super Valkyries.
The original Jetfire toy came with the accessories from the Macross toyline that were used to do this with the toys. Thus, when Hasbro was updating him for the Classics line, they decided to give Jetfire similar accessories once more. |
He has a large thruster pack that snaps onto the top of his jet mode, and two little pieces that attach to either side under his wings. The two pieces on either side each have a clear blue missle that goes into them and that can be fired on a spring loaded launcher. The two large thrusters on top of the jet each conceal a large cannon that can be brought out from within. In what may have been an intentional homage from a clever toy designer (but was more likely just a happy accident) if you keep the cannon on one side hidden and deploy only the one on the other side, it works as a rather nice call back to a varient of Super Valkyrie that only apeared in the theatrical version of Macross, the Strike Valkyrie.
Prior to the Reprolabels set being made, I had already put Macross logos on the sides of the boosters. Reprolabels provided the previously mentioned three logo options for the sides of the boosters on their sticker sheet, but I saw no great need to replace the stickers I had already put there. Also from Reprolabels visible on these attachments are five little chrome blue accents on the boosters (most visible looking at Jetfire from the front), a white stripe over the top and down the sides of the boosters, a bit of additional red on top of the boosters (on the pieces that swing out to become the cannons), and some additional red accenting on the under-wing attachments.
Sadly, I don't have the necessary attachments to make a Super Valkyrie out of my "Chunky Monkey." I do have them for one of my Yamato Valkyries, however! So below are some comparison photos of the two of them. (Hopefully you should be able to figure out which one is which!) Amusingly, it seems I forgot to put out the landing gear on the Valkyrie... fortunately, it just naturally sits at about the right angle. Still, if I was slightly less lazy, I'd shoot a few new photos. But I hope you'll forgive me if I just make due with these.
Sadly, I don't have the necessary attachments to make a Super Valkyrie out of my "Chunky Monkey." I do have them for one of my Yamato Valkyries, however! So below are some comparison photos of the two of them. (Hopefully you should be able to figure out which one is which!) Amusingly, it seems I forgot to put out the landing gear on the Valkyrie... fortunately, it just naturally sits at about the right angle. Still, if I was slightly less lazy, I'd shoot a few new photos. But I hope you'll forgive me if I just make due with these.
Now, before we move onto robot mode, there is something else I'd like to try...
"What the heck," you may ask, "is that? A jet with arms and legs? Why?!"
Well, dear readers, this is my attempt at a GERWALK (Ground Effective Reinforcement of Winged Armament with Locomotive Knee-Joint) mode. (Also known in Robotech as Guardian mode.) This is an iconic intermediate mode of the Valkyries in Macross that was also included on the G1 toy Jetfire's instructions as an "alternate transformation." Often with aircraft based Transformers, it is fun to see if a GERWALK mode can be acomplished. Of course when it comes to an updated version of Jetfire, it is hard to not want to have one of these. |
Not a bad looking GERWALK mode, but not without problems. The tail section has nothing to support it in this mode and looks a bit floppy. The legs, arranged in this way, do not have any effective knee joint. Finally, this GERWALK is a bit front heavy, and can only stand if you have the front half of the feet closed one click... leading it to having a stance that has an upward pointing nose, which looks a bit awkward. Still, considering that this is not at all an official transformation of this toy, it isn't that bad looking! Of course, actual Valkyrie toys don't have the same issues with GERWALK modes.
Interestingly, I have heard that this mode was not part of the original planning for Macross. Aparently, when the people behind the show were playing with a prototype of the toy, they stumbled upon this configuration, liked it, and decided to use it! Anyway, as for how it looks with the atachments...
Not too bad looking... but, of course, the boosters make the already weekly supported tail section even more floppy, and make the figure a bit more off balanced. It is definitely cool that a GERWALK can be jurry rigged from this toy... but likely not a mode I would plan on using for display.
Again, the toy actually designed to be able to do this unsurprisingly does it much better.
Again, the toy actually designed to be able to do this unsurprisingly does it much better.
That being said... while the actual Valkyries do it better, and while I am likely never to display Jetfire this way... it is one of those things that to me it is just cool knowing that, in theory, it can be done.
Now, onto robot mode!
Now, onto robot mode!
Well, here he is. This toy in robot mode definitely looks more like the cartoon character, Skyfire, then it looks like the original toy of Jetfire. Especially the design of the head and the asthetics of the chest, it really gives a "Skyfire" vibe. This isn't a positive or a negative, it just is what it is. Some people may like that. They may be saying, "Finally! A good toy representation of the character from the show!" Of course, others may be saying, "This isn't the Jetfire I remember! Boo!" To that second group, I say, worry not... wait until later in this review! But for now, let us look at this robot.
His articulation is a little... awkward. He has excellent head articulation. It can turn 360 degrees, and look up. Nothing in his waist, alas. Would have been nice, especially on a Voyager class toy, but I can see how the transformation would have made that difficult. The arms and legs are where it gets a little peculiar, however. The shoulders and hips are fine. No ball joints, but the joints that are there can get the job done. The elbows and knees bend about 90 degrees each, and that is fine. The wrists have a swivel, and that is fine. It is the mid-limb swivel on each limb that is off. Most Transformers featuring such a joint, it is between the shoulder and elbow or the hip and knee. On Jetfire, they are right below the elbows or knees. This gives you mid-limb swivel joints that are fine for fairly neutral poses, but are odd looking and less then usefull for more dynamic poses. Other then that, though, things are pretty standard. |
Of course, Jetfire has a few more Reprolabels that can be seen now that we're in robot mode. (They were mostly visible in the makeshift GERWALK mode, too, but I wanted to save their discussion untill we were looking at an official mode.) He has stickers on his shoulders and feet that are remenicient of some of the stickers from his G1 toy, and there are now white stickers covering up the black plastic on his landing gear (now the fronts of his knees) and the outside of his fists. The painted on Autobot logos can now be seen on the undersides of his wings, the Reprolabels set provided options to change those to either Decepticon logos or the Macross logo if you wished.
Here Jetfire is once again with the Macross Valkyries. Forgive me again for letting my comments drift to these other toys, but I think it says a lot about the Chunky Monkey toy that, while dispite the awkward joint in the legs, this Jetfire has better leg articulation, because of the awkward joint in the arms a toy that is twenty years its senior has better arm articulation! As for the Yamato Valkyries' articulation... well, I'll just let this old photo of them reinacting Rocky Horror speak to that:
|
Above I indicated those who would have prefered this toy's design to take more from the original toy would find something to please them later in the review. The time for that is now, as we look at the robot mode wearing the atachments. Especially with the helmet on, he now looks much more evocotive of the original toy (although different enough, obviously, to escape the ire of those holding the Macross licence). The backpack makes him a little back heavy, but it helps that when the cannons are deployed, they can be aimed forward. (And again, doing this with only one is highly evocotive of the Macross film's Strike Valkyries.)
One last piece of Reprolabels addition I should mention is related to the armor, even though the stickers are on the robot himself. Because of differences in how the toys transform, the piece of armor that is on the side of a Valkyrie (or the original Jetfire) in Fighter mode that ends up on the robot mode's legs with this toy ends up on the arms. Thus, this Jetfire has no atachments of any sort on his legs. Reprolabels provided a group of red stickers that fit in with the molded detail on the sides of Jetfire's legs, but come together nicely to form a pattern that looks like it was intended to homage the armor that his original toy would have been wearing there. (You can see the equivelent armor on the legs of the Yamato Valkyrie below.) |
Size comparison time! Sailor Moon wanted a quick break, so a more apropriate DVD case is filling in. Here is Jetfire wearing all of his armor, along with all of the Valkyries guest staring in the photos for this review. (From left to right: a "Chunky Monkey" Bandai reissue of Takatoku's 1/55 VF-1S Roy Fokker; a Yamato 1/60 VF-1J Hikaru Ichijyo, now wearing the missile-isious GPB-1S armor; a Yamato 1/60 VF-1A Maximilian Jenius; a Yamato 1/60 VF-1S Roy Fokker TV Version Super Valkyrie with Roy sitting on its shoulder, although in fiction by the time the Super Valkyrie was introduced, this mech was being piloted by Hikaru rather then Roy; and finally a Yamato 1/60 VF-1A Hayao Kakizaki. Not in the photo to the right, but featured as Janet Weiss in the Rocky Horror photo above, a Yamato 1/60 VF-1D.)
|
So, Jetfire. Overall, a good toy. Somehow, they managed to make him work well as a homage to both the original toy and to the cartoon character of Skyfire. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but they pulled it off! The figure is hampered a bit by the very unfortunate placement of the mid-limb swivel joints, but that doesn't take away from Jetfire enough for me to not enjoy having this figure and happily recomend it to my readers as well. For children, they are less likely, I should think, to be bothered by the awkward articulation and this would be an excellent toy. Of course, being a release from over half a decade ago, you're unlikely to find it for a price you'd want to pay for a child's toy. Adult collectors, however, willing to pay a bit more... at the time of this writing, the lower end on that wretched hive of scum and villany known as eBay at the moment seems to be between $50 and $60, which while certainly quite high compared to what he would have retailed for, isn't really that bad for a seven year old Voyager class toy of a popular character. So I'd say get him, find yourself a pose that works with his joints, and enjoy!
Review added 19 May 2012 by Yotsuya. Please comment!
Review added 19 May 2012 by Yotsuya. Please comment!