retro review - Beast Machines Hammerstrike

"What? Transformers made from animals instead of vehicles and stuff? Doesn't sound so great, throw it to Kenner division, maybe they can make a quick buck or something."
Beast Wars, Machine Wars, Beast Machines... seeing a pattern? Coming soon: "Wars Wars"
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andersonh1
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retro review - Beast Machines Hammerstrike

Post by andersonh1 »

Not a new figure by any means, but new to me.

The Maximals that were half the Beast Machines line didn't appeal to me at the time, with a few exceptions. I was not interested in Beastformers. I had gotten into collecting thanks to the Beast Wars cartoon, but I wanted a return to the Transformers I remembered from my childhood, which turned into vehicles. Hence, I did purchase just about every Vehicon in the line, but avoided all but a few Maximals. I found them ugly and garish. The aesthetic simply didn't appeal.

Things are different now. I've been collecting BMac Maximals and while they're still generally ugly, misshapen amalgamations of plastic that generally resemble robotic animals, I have come to appreciate the look of the figures, certainly more than early Beast Wars, which are still very unconvincing to me. Animals don't seem authentic with panel lines and robot bits for underbellies. But like Transmetals and TM2's, the Beast Machines animals make no pretense at being the real thing. They're cybernetic in nature, and it shows. Nowhere is that perhaps more evident than with Hammerstrike, one of the last basic Maximals produced if I remember correctly.

Beast Mode: Hammerstrike is a Hammerhead shark. The shark is almost skeletal in appearance, and is almost a cousin to TM2 Dinobot in that respect. The base color for the figure is a darker beige, with dark blue and orange fins and nose. The shark's teeth are painted white, and while the upper jaw is fixed in place, the lower one can open and close, though the mouth cannot completely close. The gills are open on either side, and there is a red and blue "cowling" on either side of the dorsal fin, one of which has a white BMac Maximal insignia printed on it. The spark crystal is on top of the head, and pressing it causes the orange section of the shark's nose to spring forward a quarter of an inch. I presume this is meant to be a blade, given how it functions in bot mode. There is a copper chrome section on the head just below the beige area that houses the spark crystal.

Articulation: The side fins can "flap", the jaw opens and closes, and the tail can bend to some degree, due to the fact that it's the robot legs sitting one on top of the other. It's not a lot of movement, but it's adequate for sharky poses. :)

Transformation: A bit cheaty, in that the hammerhead section of the shark detaches and forms a weapon. But it's a cool weapon, so I'll let that go. The handle of the hammer, which is unseen in shark mode, is molded to roughly resemble a spinal column. The blade makes more sense here, so that Hammerstrike is armed with a proportionally large hammer that can double as an axe.

The shark tail splits to form the legs and feet, while the sides of the shark where the gills sit become arms and shoulders with a little origami. The chrome portion of the head folds down to form the chest and abdomen, leaving the waist connected to the head by a little piece also carved like a spine. The skeletal motif continues. The robot head is sitting on the underside of the spark crystal, and is one of the strangest Transformer faces I've ever seen. It's dark blue, with dark red eyes on either side, and what is almost a probiscus in the middle, made of the same orange translucent plastic that is found elsewhere in the figure.

Robot Mode: I look at Beast Machines figures and wonder if the movie designers looked back at this line for inspiration. Hammerstrike has very non-humanoid proportions and features, and if it was a vehicle, would almost fit right into the movie line. If you look at it head-on, the overall effect is amost an X-shape, with the two tail fins forming feet, and the two side fins forming shoulder spikes. The one bit of copper chrome is dead center, with the barely-recognizable-as-a-head head right above it. The arms are attached to the fins, and have no elbows, and no real hands. The hands, as such, are actually a two-pronged claw, with the lower prong designed to hold the hammer weapon. The two lower halves of the shark jaw are attached to the inside of the wrists.

The figure is reasonably posable, but it's already such an abstract representation of a humanoid form that it can't really strike a dynamic pose and look all that different. The lack of elbows hurts in this regard.

Overall: I really like Hammerstrike. Admittedly, it's a monstrosity, and is one of the most abstract Transformers you're ever likely to see. It really pushes the envelope, even for a Beast Machines Maximal. At the time it was in stores, that didn't appeal to me. For some reason, it does now. The shark is almost a jumble of parts rather than a shark, and if it had a darker base color than beige, it would perhaps hold together better, visually speaking. The only other Transformer shark I have to compare it to is Skybite, and it's superior in many respects. It manages to be flexible and to avoid being a shellformer, unlike Skybite. The bot mode barely looks like one with the clawed arms and strange face, but it's oddly appealing all the same.

Hammerstrike will never be everyone's cup of tea, but I'd recommend him for the cool little shark mode, if nothing else.
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