Transformers: Masterpiece Soundwave and Friends

I’m not entirely sure how to classify this release. The original Masterpiece Soundwave got a domestic release as a Toys R Us exclusive, packaged with all five of the (then current) cassette minions. But this is not that release, as I was never able to find one and was never interested in it to the point that I was willing to spend the over $200 the set typically went for on eBay. Around the middle of 2016, it was announced that a “special edition” of Masterpiece Soundwave was going to be released in the Asian market, and that it was the Toys R Us version, complete with minions. That is the version that I own, and I got it for a cool $160, which is not that far off the original Toys R Us price.

So, I guess, get ready for the review that everyone already knows about, as this toy has been out for a long time. I had always heard excellent things about this figure, and was really happy to get a chance at it without having to pay a crazy aftermarket price. He’d been on my C2E2 hunt list for two years, and I did see him there once, but again, prices.

"Pretty sure I did this once..."

This is, frankly, the Soundwave for the Soundwave fan who wants everything. The gang’s all here (minus Ratbat), Soundwave is of the expected Masterpiece quality, and from top to bottom the set is faithful to the G1 original, even managing to transform in generally the same way, albeit with some updates and additions that give that oh so familiar yet brand new and exciting feel to the transformation. As most Masterpiece figures except for the Seekers do, Soundwave is packed with a slew of pieces. He comes with an Energon cube. An Energon cube. Because in a few G1 episodes, Soundwave produced them magically from his chest during Decepticon energy raids. The accessory kinda wedges into the outer rim of the tape deck door chest piece, and holds pretty snuggly. He also comes with a hand replacement piece, but what it is I don’t remember. He comes with both of his standard weapons, both of which transform and store in the back of the tape deck as batteries, but the shoulder mounted missile pod is actually attached to the robot via a moveable arm that swings up and over the shoulder. It’s one of those old familiar moments that has a cool new update. It cuts down on the partsforming, if that’s something that you really care about, as I know some people really do. I don’t, and I’m happier about this update for the sake of it being something different, and a small difference, yet one that is noticeable. An “oh, wow” moment during transformation.

Soundwave also comes with a gun mode Megatron weapon. This is not the first time we’ve gotten such an accessory, as it was packaged with the original MP-01 Optimus Prime, but this one is in scale with the new Masterpiece scale, the original being too big for figures produced since MP-10. This piece is useable by most Masterpiece figures, so it’s a cool part for sure. 

In robot mode, Soundwave looks every bit like G1 Soundwave. The tape deck door is spring loaded, and just as with the original, it is activated by a silver shoulder mounted tab. An incredibly cool thing is that Soundwave’s arms are poseable enough that he can press the button himself in robot mode, and so it’s possible to recreate those G1 moments of Soundwave unleashing his team for action. Such a cool thing, really, for as simple and expected as it is. The rifle is a little bit long, longer than I feel it should be honestly, but there’s no way to collapse it even a little to make it shorter in hand. This is not a big deal, it’s just something that I wish were possible. The gun pulls out from one of the radio batteries, and it looks good and everything. I just think it’d look a little better if it weren’t so lengthy, if the barrel could be compacted just a little. Soundwave has excellent poseability, with all the expected joints, plus a waist swivel, which I was not expecting. I figured the entire torso would just be a single piece, but it’s not.

 

Alt mode is a plastic rectangle that tapes fit in. That’s kind of it.

Nah. Alt mode looks excellent, like the real thing (for those of us old enough to remember portable tape decks or Walkmen) and it has a good transformation scheme that is oh so familiar yet adds a few flip over panels and such to fill gaps in tape deck mode. The tape deck has much less of a ‘robot folded up into this’ look, on par with the general motif of the Masterpiece line. The buttons are pressable, but they don’t do anything, and likely depress because they are a single plastic piece that is just leaning in the direction of the applied force. It’s a nice touch, but a “who cares?” one at the same time. The tape deck door opens to fit one cassette minion at a time, and both of the standard robot weapons fit into the back of the alt mode disguised as batteries.

All five of Soundwave’s primary guys are included in this set: Rumble and Frenzy, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw, and Ravage. All five of them transform into cassette tapes with one side painted to resemble said tapes. Since they come in two paired molds and a single, let’s look at Ravage first.

I do not care for Ravage. He has a clever transformation that generally mimics the original one, but the body comes together by folding the flat tape in half lengthwise. Ravage looks ok, but really just ok, and he is not aided by the looseness of all four legs, making it difficult for him to stand up for any prolonged time. His missile pods are molded into the rear hips, which is neat, but he is sort of dull to look at because he is mostly black. Yes, I know what G1 Ravage looks like, but there is no secondary color on Masterpiece Ravage to provide any separation from the black, and so he’s just bland looking. Just some grey or something on him to break up the black probably would have made a real world of difference. As it is, Ravage seems like a real victim of unfortunate circumstances. He is a fine little figure, and his design is pretty ingenious considering what we’re dealing with here.

And I feel that I need to take a second and talk about “What we’re dealing with here.” Soundwave’s minions are essentially Legends class Masterpiece figures, and while that should be pretty amazing to most people, upon their release they were actually pretty derided for being what they are. There really is only so much that figures of this size are going to be capable of being and doing, and I found myself, particularly with Ravage, casting disparaging glances at it when I determined that it was not up to my personal Masterpiece standard. To be clear, the other two molds are just fine, and actually pretty solid, but playing with Ravage for about five minutes just left me thinking “that’s it?” And that’s probably not fair to Ravage, or the other figures honestly, due to their size. While we often do get treated to some really outstanding figures in the Legends size class, affixing the Masterpiece title to a package or a figure raises the bar for what we expect to find. The Cassettes are Masterpiece grade Legends toys, limited only by their size. They all have cool and interesting transformations, they all offer the Masterpiece level extras or goodies –for Ravage, in the form of the incorporated missile pods – and generally have an aesthetic on par with the Masterpiece line. I find it kind of more helpful to think of them as accessories for Masterpiece Soundwave than as Masterpiece Frenzy and Laserbeak, and once I shifted my gaze on them to be more consistent with that idea, I began to appreciate them more. All except for Ravage, who is just not impressive no matter how you slice it.

The humanoid mold of Rumble and Frenzy feel less than Masterpiece quality. Their plastic is a bit thin, and they are basically just arms and legs on ball joints. They look great, but they also do look like their plastic is thin. The transformation is different from the G1 versions, but it is a sensible and rational pattern. The heads flip up rather than popping up from the shoulders as on the originals, which is a great change, since there must be hundreds of G1 Rumbles and Frenzies who can no longer hold their heads up due to worn out springs and necks. The poseability is simple, but one surprise comes in the form of a midsection that is revealed by pulling the robot torso upwards from the shoulders, revealing abs. This makes the figure just slightly taller but more importantly, changes the general profile into something less stubby and squat, giving a more human look that really does increase the overall appearance. It was a real good decision on the design end. Both Rumble and Frenzy come with a pair of large tubes which fit over their arms as pile drivers, and I cannot tell you how much this pleases me. The pile drivers have moveable heads on the one end, so the figures can be posed with them in various stages of driving piles. The parts don’t attach to the figures so much as they balance on the ends of half transformed arms, so they are not very stable, and the extra weight causes the figures to pitch forward or back at times. It takes some bending of the legs to get things just right, and even then, the pile driver parts have a tendency to wiggle their way off the arms if you walk by the cabinet too often. This is another one of those moments where you have to stop and remember that, even though this is Masterpiece Rumble and Frenzy, they are Legends class toys, and there’s only so much they can really manage. The pile drivers also house paired blasters that Rumble and Frenzy can either wield in hand or peg into the cassette wheels on their backs for that classic G1 look. The pile driver parts combine with an endcap piece that not only keeps them together but also allows them to be mounted on Soundwaves’ forearms as additional weaponry. Even with the shortcomings of the pile drivers, Rumble and Frenzy are rather good little toys.

 

"First we crack the shell, then we crack the nuts inside!"

Buzzsaw and Laserbeak are the clear minion winners. They have a great transformation pattern, as they both essentially blossom outwards when their wings unfold, and this makes them the most solid and sturdy of the three molds. While the necks are a little stumpy, and the wings are virtually unposeable, these two look the best in robot mode. Each of them features fully integrated weapons as well, just like Ravage, and the way the weapon pods fold out of the cassette mold is nothing short of sublime. I remember this being a real big talking point when these figures were first released, hailed as a triumph of design, and even now, after how many years, it is a real satisfying moment when you experience it for the first time. The heads also house small flip up cameras, hearkening to the times when Laserbeak would be spying on Autobots and record them (most notably in the 1986 animated movie). It doesn’t really flip all the way up, and when it is deployed it takes a helping of imagination to really make it work, but the attempt itself is a terrific one. Even if it doesn’t work 100%, it is a noteworthy and appreciated effort, and, again, this is a Legends size Laserbeak that absolutely torches more modern or current attempts at Legends class minion toys.

The only one I own is the pitiful Titans Return Rewind, and there is not a single whisper of contest between that figure and Masterpiece Rumble and/or Frenzy. I’ve only seen the Titans Return Laserbeak and Ravage figures, but they don’t even remotely compare to these. Yes, yes, yes: those are toys that work with the play pattern for the Titans Return line, and that’s great. They look like garbage. I can’t imagine that these figures would exist, and Hasbro would just never bother to release them as THE Generations Cassette guys. But, part of that is the Curse of Soundwave. If there is a Soundwave, there is going to be a desire for the cassettes. But “no one cares about cassettes anymore.” So, we get all manner of things the cassette guys turn in to: data disks, data slugs, “tablets”, and so on. And it is a fairly understandable problem, as the Soundwave/Blaster system is prime real estate for integrating other figures, even if the fandom can move beyond the minion cassette formula. The best take on this since the G1 days has honestly been Masterpiece Soundwave, aside from G1 reissues. Yeah, ok, the tape deck is ancient, fine. Everyone seems to know this except for the people who are always rehashing this. If the tape deck is no longer viable, and there is still a desire to integrate Rumble et al into Soundwave’s motif, then do a better job of finding a way to make it work, instead of pumping out things that are trying to placate pretty much all markets.

If the Soundwave play pattern is really so impossible to replicate in the 21^st century, maybe it should just be abandoned rather than keep trying to force it. I think Transformers: Prime had a good Soundwave idea, with the chest mounted drone and that being pretty much it. Maybe a full complement of minions is unnecessary for sustaining the concept. However, I do also understand the allure of such a concept for the company, as it ensures greater sales and a built in play pattern, independent of whatever the larger, line-wide set up is. So maybe Soundwave is destined to perpetually be in this weird position where he’s never quite done right because of efforts to make him somehow analogous to G1 Soundwave, even when those efforts fail. It’s the curse of the honest perfection of the G1 toy, as well as the curse of that perfect toys’ being a representation of the technology of its time.

Kick out the jams.

By now, there are probably few people who had a real interest in this figure(s) who have not paid enormous price hikes or whatever to obtain one, and as an entry in the Masterpiece line I feel that the jury made its decision on this guy a long time ago. There have been a few reissues in this line over the course of the past year, but this Soundwave was not a part of that group. This was, in the Asian markets, the first opportunity to get the whole set at once, and so is not so much a reissue as it is like a special edition or release. By now, everyone either has this, or wants it, or doesn’t; I’m even writing about it four months behind its release. I had a real interest in this figure from the very start, years back, but as I said, the amazingly inflated prices on the secondary market always pushed me away. There was just no way I was going to pay over $200 for this and feel good about it. Really glad in the long run that I waited, as I got to experience this figure for the first time after the hype and fanfare had died down. For as great as he is, Masterpiece Soundwave is basically an upsized and better articulated version of G1 Soundwave, and I fear that, knowing myself, trying to form an opinion of him back when he was all the rage may have lead me down a path of thinking he was just “ok” in the face of the gushing and glowing praise he was garnering those few years back. As is, I got to experience these toys far from the crowd, and even though it may sound stupid, I feel that added a little to my enjoyment and appreciation of them. Soundwave is terrific, the cassette guys are good for what they are. No one needs prompting when it comes to Masterpiece figures, at least not this type of non-repaint, core character release, but I think everyone would benefit from having Masterpiece Soundwave in their collection.