Re: The G1 figure review thread
Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 9:55 pm
Okay, I'll contribute an actual review here, because why not? Obscure character go!
Pretenders Snarler: Scored this guy a few years back for three or four bucks. Not complete, mind you, but still. He's obscure enough that the guys at the Vintage Stock didn't actually realize he was a Transformer, they just thought he was a big green pig toy.
Pretender outer shell thing: Snarler's a really good sized wild boar in borderline-psychedelic colors wearing body armor. The head on this guy seems disproportionately huge, it's almost as big as the rest of his body. It works, though, it almost gives him an Ed "Big Daddy" Roth feel. The Pretender shell's pretty detailed, there's a hair texture all over it, there's really neat sculpting for folds of skin under his eyes, he's got big warty knobs along the size of his head, and big mean curved tusks. Then he's got...it's either body armor or mechanical parts going on here, the sculpting doesn't really make it clear. It looks like it could just be a high-tech harness, but you could go either way, depending on preference. There's a few bits that snap onto the shell, a couple of bits of shoulder armor with...I want to say "spikes", but they're flat-tipped, and a rifle that pegs into a hole on Snarler's back. Now, mine just had the one shoulder armor piece, and is missing the gun. Also, the gun, I could see why it detaches, gotta be used by the inner robot and all, but I can't see any earthly reason the shoulder armor's detachable. Even without those things, though, you've got a pretty fierce looking warthog critter here. Until you take into account the color scheme. Snarler's mostly a dark teal, with blue-green tusks and shoulder armor, and silver body armor. Add in bright orange eyes, and near-florescent green hooves and a horn of the same color coming out of his head, and you've got something that just screams "Late G1 color scheme", all right. Still, it's not so crazy that it's overly distracting (and not that I would mind it a bit if it was), but these colors actually do work for the pig.
Inner Robot: Just split the outer shell down the middle, and get the robot outta there. Easy as anything. The inner transformer basically is in robot pig mode inside there, so that's where I'll start. The robot pig's pretty neat, really. The head's a neat-looking bit of designing, it's got a visor instead of eyes, and a drill standing in for a snout. There's extra pointy things on either side of the snout to give the impression of tusks. It winds up looking equal parts robot pig and piece of mining equipment. The rest of him's about what you'd expect from "Late G1 robot pig mode", basically robot-stylized beast, but it works well enough. Late G1's interesting color choices happen again here, the head and butt are purple, the shoulders and back legs are brown, and the forelegs and tail are dark blue, with dark blue stickers to add detail on the shoulders. It's a bunch of odd color choices, but they're all fairly subdues, so he doesn't come off as too garish. Transformation here's about as simple as it gets. Fold the butt down to be the robot legs, try to fold the back legs so they're out of the way, fold the head back to hang off the robot's back and reveal the robot head, then fold the front legs down to get the robot hands to point out. Now, this robot mode...well, it doesn't quite work. It's got big chunks of the pig kibble just hanging out everywhere. The pig head just becomes...not even a backpack, just a big pig head hanging out by the back. The front legs hang down off the arms, and interfere with even a G1 toy's limited poseability. If you try to lower his arms, the pig forelegs just run into the rear legs. Then the lower legs of the robot are all one piece, but supposed to resemble two, the tail being at the center of this unifoot does sort of make them look more like two parts, so that's something. Overall, though, the robot mode's the least interesting bit of this toy.
Overall, though, I like this thing. The Pretender shell has a lot of character, and the robot pig mode has some interesting design things happening. Hardly a must-have, but certainly an interesting curiosity. Pretenders may have slacked on the inner robots, but the fact that they have these big weird outer shell forms can add to their coolness. So with Snarler, you probably don't need to go nuts trying to find him, but hell, you could do a lot worse.
Pretenders Snarler: Scored this guy a few years back for three or four bucks. Not complete, mind you, but still. He's obscure enough that the guys at the Vintage Stock didn't actually realize he was a Transformer, they just thought he was a big green pig toy.
Pretender outer shell thing: Snarler's a really good sized wild boar in borderline-psychedelic colors wearing body armor. The head on this guy seems disproportionately huge, it's almost as big as the rest of his body. It works, though, it almost gives him an Ed "Big Daddy" Roth feel. The Pretender shell's pretty detailed, there's a hair texture all over it, there's really neat sculpting for folds of skin under his eyes, he's got big warty knobs along the size of his head, and big mean curved tusks. Then he's got...it's either body armor or mechanical parts going on here, the sculpting doesn't really make it clear. It looks like it could just be a high-tech harness, but you could go either way, depending on preference. There's a few bits that snap onto the shell, a couple of bits of shoulder armor with...I want to say "spikes", but they're flat-tipped, and a rifle that pegs into a hole on Snarler's back. Now, mine just had the one shoulder armor piece, and is missing the gun. Also, the gun, I could see why it detaches, gotta be used by the inner robot and all, but I can't see any earthly reason the shoulder armor's detachable. Even without those things, though, you've got a pretty fierce looking warthog critter here. Until you take into account the color scheme. Snarler's mostly a dark teal, with blue-green tusks and shoulder armor, and silver body armor. Add in bright orange eyes, and near-florescent green hooves and a horn of the same color coming out of his head, and you've got something that just screams "Late G1 color scheme", all right. Still, it's not so crazy that it's overly distracting (and not that I would mind it a bit if it was), but these colors actually do work for the pig.
Inner Robot: Just split the outer shell down the middle, and get the robot outta there. Easy as anything. The inner transformer basically is in robot pig mode inside there, so that's where I'll start. The robot pig's pretty neat, really. The head's a neat-looking bit of designing, it's got a visor instead of eyes, and a drill standing in for a snout. There's extra pointy things on either side of the snout to give the impression of tusks. It winds up looking equal parts robot pig and piece of mining equipment. The rest of him's about what you'd expect from "Late G1 robot pig mode", basically robot-stylized beast, but it works well enough. Late G1's interesting color choices happen again here, the head and butt are purple, the shoulders and back legs are brown, and the forelegs and tail are dark blue, with dark blue stickers to add detail on the shoulders. It's a bunch of odd color choices, but they're all fairly subdues, so he doesn't come off as too garish. Transformation here's about as simple as it gets. Fold the butt down to be the robot legs, try to fold the back legs so they're out of the way, fold the head back to hang off the robot's back and reveal the robot head, then fold the front legs down to get the robot hands to point out. Now, this robot mode...well, it doesn't quite work. It's got big chunks of the pig kibble just hanging out everywhere. The pig head just becomes...not even a backpack, just a big pig head hanging out by the back. The front legs hang down off the arms, and interfere with even a G1 toy's limited poseability. If you try to lower his arms, the pig forelegs just run into the rear legs. Then the lower legs of the robot are all one piece, but supposed to resemble two, the tail being at the center of this unifoot does sort of make them look more like two parts, so that's something. Overall, though, the robot mode's the least interesting bit of this toy.
Overall, though, I like this thing. The Pretender shell has a lot of character, and the robot pig mode has some interesting design things happening. Hardly a must-have, but certainly an interesting curiosity. Pretenders may have slacked on the inner robots, but the fact that they have these big weird outer shell forms can add to their coolness. So with Snarler, you probably don't need to go nuts trying to find him, but hell, you could do a lot worse.