Transformers: Titans Return Blur

 

There is so much stacked against Titans Return Blur for me that it’s not even funny. Not traditionally a Headmaster character, not a character I have much connection to, not a toy that I was particularly enthused about when news of it first surfaced. Seems like a largely needless injection of a gimmick into an update of a G1 character.

Then why does Blur wind up being so terrific?

I had walked past Blur and Scourge so many times upon the initial discovery of Titans Return toys in my area. So devoted to skipping them was I that I was beginning to get annoyed by finding them so frequently, as they have been shelfwarming at practically every store I’ve been to for weeks and weeks now. I liked the way Blur looked, a sleek, speedy robot and a pretty accurate realization of a pretty unattainable alt mode. I think that this is actually the first toy of an actual G1 Blur, outside of the actual G1 Blur, to be made. Sure, Animated, but the general aesthetic of that series means that that Blur wouldn’t count as a G1 update. Standard practice has been to take a sports car Transformer and make a Blur out of it, regardless of looks or results. “Recently” (2011) we had the Generations Drift repainted into a more realistic Earth mode Blur based on a comic book appearance, and that figure has always been fine by me. A good enough representation of a character that I don’t have real feelings about, and so was never feeling much of a push to find a better one. But then, there was Titans Return Blur.

Blur is a lanky, slim figure that, aside from the paintjob, captures the G1 character perfectly. The colors are off, as this is a blue-green paint, and Blur is a light blue and white. That’s cool, for me at least, and believe me, this figure does a whole lot right which helps you overlook color changes.

Titanmaster Hyperfire is another Titanmaster figure, and does a good job of being a face. One really interesting, really cool touch is that face mode has an extendable forehead fin, just like G1 Blur, that slides out in head mode, so that it doesn’t disrupt the Titanmaster ‘figure’. The Titanmasters are not of particular interest to me, so I’m generally refraining from talking about them much outside of how nice the face mode sculpts look, and Blur’s face looks nice and sharp. But this sliding head fin thing, that’s awesome. It doesn’t click into place or anything, so I guess it’s just a friction joint, which is slightly alarming. One of these days that friction will wear out, negating a really excellent feature, and basically rendering this a robot head rather than Blur’s head. But, that’s a ‘one of these days’ kind of issue. Hyperfire grants Blur a boost of speed.

Robot mode is good and poseable, except for the feet. Basically a flip-down toe and a flat heel make Blur a bit tough to pose in wider leg stances; it can be done, but not as easily as some of the recent Transformers, which have been going more and more with an angled foot to allow for more A stances and less need to be at constant attention. The overall body is slender, not as hefty as the other Titans Returns figures is seems, a svelter look for a svelte character. I think this is achieved via that shoulders, which peg in to the torso, and swing downwards during transformation. Since the shoulders and arms are not attached to the torso in a static fashion as they are with a figure like Hardhead, the illusion is created that the figure is actually thinner than the others. It is, but not some much that it would be noticeable on its own; it’s like an optical illusion. The robot mode has a very Flash kind of quality, and despite this slender nature and appearance does not look like a fragile character or toy at all. He comes with two accessories: a blaster and the front end of the vehicle mode, which apparently doubles as an arm mounted shield in robot mode, and also forms a turret for a Titanmaster figure, the same way that Skullcrunchers’ rifle and tail do. Bleah. I’ve said this before, but this is not a successful gimmick for me. Full points for the effort of trying to integrate some many things into the figure. Kudos for basically inventing a play pattern that didn’t exist in the G1 originals, and for implementing it in such a way that has no impact on the larger figure. That is truly great: despite my dislike of the gimmick, the Titanmaster weapon seats don’t affect the Transformer at all. They are absolutely something extra, something related to yet not required of the larger toy, which makes them just harmless extras to ignore rather than unwanted feature to be dealt with. But for me, the gimmick just does not work. Specifically for Blur, I don’t like the arm shield configuration for the front end piece, as it winds up being just a large chunk of plastic. If it were hollowed out more, and were capable of fitting over the forearm rather than just plug in to it, it may work better, like a giant boxing glove kind of thing. But as it is, it’s just a large Pyramidhead looking block on the arm, and I’m not feeling it. Fortunately, it can hang off the back of the robot, and flips up into place during transformation, so it’s even less of an extra piece than Skullcrunchers’ tail section is, which involves partsforming. This is an excellent design idea on Blur.

 

Vehicle mode is a futuristic race car. The Titanmaster rides in the central cockpit, which includes a flip out seat, which forms Blur’s abs, essentially. A rear fin flips out from one of the legs, providing the characteristic Blur vehicle silhouette, and it is a winner. The transformation is really inspired, and as I was transforming him the first time, I really, really enjoyed myself. There are good transformation schemes, and there are really satisfying transformation schemes. Blur is incredible satisfying. All of the Titans Return figures I’ve experienced so far have had good transformations (well….maybe not one of them), but Blur is really nice in this regard. The legs split open in a fashion very similar to what we got accustomed to with CombinerWars Dead End and his repaints, and the arms unpeg and flip over to nestle inside divots in the rear end of the car shoulder section first.  This is an incredibly well engineered toy for its size, and transforming it is one of the best toy experiences that I’ve had in some time. 

Blur is probably the figure that changed my mind about Titans Return as a line. My buying requirements for this line were pretty simple: in order to be purchased, a figure must A) be a Headmaster traditionally, B) be a character I have an interest in, and C) be a figure that stokes my interest. Very few of the advertised offers in the first two waves of the line meet these requirements, and Blur meet none of them. But after playing around with Blur, I realized that my preconceptions about Titans Return were shaping up to be wrong, and jumped in to the first two waves of Deluxes completely. There are a few figures coming soon that don’t do anything for me, and I will probably skip regardless of this upgraded outlook, but Blur so far has been a total game changer for me. This is one of the best figures I’ve handled all year, and I am incredibly happy that I picked it up. I can’t recommend this figure enough, and while it sounds incredibly lame to me, I’d almost say that you should buy this guy, even if you also have no interest in it. It is a great figure all around, and I personally can’t imagine what there is to dislike about it. I mentioned the Generations Blur repaint earlier, and even if you’re a real fan of that one, Titans Return absolutely blows it out of the water. The first time I handled this figure, I thought of the Generations version, and thought “Well, I don’t need that one any more.” I’m not one to replace my figures, meaning that if a new version of a character comes out, I don’t buy it with the intention of getting rid of the previous version. But with Titans Return Blur, that is exactly what my thought was. I like the Generations version, but I can’t think of a more redundant figure in my entire collection right now than Generations Blur.