Transformers: Titans Return Rewind

  

By now, I’ve gathered up a couple of Titans Return figures of various size classes. A few Deluxes, a Voyager in Galvatron. And I’ve even wandered into the Scout or Legends class with Rewind here. My sole motivation for purchasing Rewind was to pair him up with Chromedome, when I eventually get him, because, thanks to a More Than Meets the Eye/My Chemical Romance mash up t-shirt from Ript Apparel, my wife is now super amused by the conjunx endura.

That concept is one that has many, many conversational miles on it by now, and truthfully, you’re either a fan of it or you really, truly hate it, a middle position apparently not possible. I myself wasn’t sold on it initially, but eventually came to like it. But, in my own defense, I have never understood the need for Cybertronians to engage in things that approximate human romance-based relationships. That may be more of a topic for a future post, but to cut to the chase, after some time of mainly disinterest as opposed to displeasure, dislike or distaste, I came around to the conjunx endura, and actually find it pretty charming. I am, after all, a romantic at heart, and Chromedome and Rewind seem so genuine, so . . . cute together.

Let me not beat around bushes any longer: I do not like Rewind at all.

The Titans Return line features Leader class figures for both Soundwave and Blaster, and thus, a fair compliment of their minions. Rewind is the general humanoid mold, shared with Rumble at present and certainly the eventual Eject and Frenzy repaints. Rewind has three modes: robot, an alt mode that is some kind of tablet or smartphone or mp3 player, and a third tank mode. The device alt mode serves the purpose, in terms of play pattern, of the vintage cassette mode, as apparently both of the Leader figures have opening tape deck chests to store and deploy the minions. But, another too well worn conversation is the idea that in 2016, a tape deck is more of an attention drawing alt mode than a disguise, as it was in 1984 and 1985. It makes sense that the cassette minions would eventually have to upgrade their disguises, as we have seen in other lines prior to this one.

Rewind in device mode is fine, but let’s not be ridiculous here: he turns in to a rectangle. I can’t even pretend to be impressed by this. The execution of this mode is dependant on stickers that, when transformed and aligned, apparently form the screen of a smartphone or tablet. Rewinds’ stickers show a mini cassette, and so it seems more reasonable to me that his alt mode is something along the lines of a digital recorder or a mini cassette recorder. I mentioned this on a fan board, and was told that Hasbro has said at several panels that he turns into some kind of device, and thus, my assessment was wrong. See, my mistake was not asking Hasbro what the correct way to enjoy my toys was. Imagine how stupid I felt.

The stickers on Rewind are shiny and nice, but real flimsy. They started to tear on mine simply by being removed from the package. Not exactly rough play.

Tank mode is really lame. It is accomplished basically by fanmoding the device mode and then clipping the gun onto the front. Had this been a fanmode, I think it would have been pretty neat to do in person once or twice, but it still wouldn’t be anything that would be noteworthy. I’ve pontificated before on Transformers figures that have to do multiple things, and how something always suffers for the sake of the other modes. But one of Rewinds’ modes is a robot, which is pretty much the mandatory mode. Another of his modes is a rectangle. The third mode could have done well, based solely on the idea that the primary alt mode is a flat rectangle. I recognize that the tank mode is most likely an afterthought, included to give a figure like Rewind playability on its own, independent of Blaster or Soundwave, and while it doesn’t work terribly well, it works terribly, but well enough.

One thing about the tank mode that is legitimately cool is the way the cannon attaches. There is a 5mm peg on the underside of it, so that the robot can hold it in his hand. But at the non-barrel end, there is a pair of bumps on the plastic that act as a hinge when plugged into the tank turret. This is a pretty cool development: rather than simply plugging the hand peg into a hole, or just attaching in some static fashion. This hinge allows the cannon to move up and down, although the turret itself doesn’t move.

The transformation is so simple it’s painfully dull. But, again, I’m not sure anyone could get their hopes up for this, as it is a square-ish robot that turns into a rectangle.

As for the robot mode, that is not without its problems. The head is a good looking sculpt, and even has a full 360 degree swivel, which, to be totally fair, I was not expecting. He’s got that Rewind/Eject chest design, so there’s that. But other than that, there’s not a lot to like about robot mode either. He has no bicep, so his arm goes from large, square shoulder to laughably enormous forearm. The arm swivels right beneath the shoulder but with the idiotically large forearm there’s not much he can do in terms of posing with it. I don’t think the forearms are a big deal, but they are ugly. In the grand scheme of the toy though, this is hardly the most egregious issue.

Apparently Rewind is super popular on some of the fan boards where they don’t take too kindly to the opinions of other people that they don’t agree with, so people are hurt personally if you say you dislike him. My personal interest in the figure is basically just to display alongside Titans Return Chromedome. For my needs, this figure is fine, because all it’s really going to do is stand on a shelf next to a different figure. But I am really displeased with it. Sure, I’ve spent $10 on worse toys in my life, as if that is some kind of defense for this one. Yes, I know it’s a toy for a child. I know all of that. I don’t like this figure at all. I think the design is more focused on the interactivity with the Leaders than it is on being an individual toy, and I am fully aware that that is a major, major reason that this toy and others of its kind exist. I’m sure that if you bought the Leaders and a handful of these little guys, the play would be great and fun and all of the stuff it’s supposed to be. But I really am disappointed with this toy. All his modes are flawed, and he doesn’t do anything well. He’s going to be just fine for what I want him for, and with that, I’m happy. But this is not a good toy at all.