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I am a child of the 80s - while I appreciate the story telling of Beast Wars, the original toys never really did anything for me. From an engineering perspective though, I have come to appreciate that this was the first Transformer line to introduce ball joints into the equation, something that all lines since then have benefitted from.
So you can appreciate that getting Masterpiece figures from that particular line isn't exactly a priority for me. But, things do happen and you say to yourself, "I guess it's time to jump in on this". Such was the case with this figure, MP-38 Beast Convoy.
So there are technically three releases of Beast Convoy (Optimus Primal to the Western World). There's the first on, MP-32. which featured the character in colours that recreates his look in the CGI series. MP-38, this figure, which recreates the look of the original toy and comes with different accessories and one less face, sold under the Beast Wars 2 subline. Finally, there's MP-38+ Burning Convoy, sold under Beast Wars, which carries on the fine Japanese tradition of either Black, Gold, or Red recolours of Leader figures, with the red tradition going back I believe all the way God Ginrai. That one appears to have the same accessories as the first one, but with a radically different colour scheme. I don't exactly think it sold particularly well, as I was seeing it even at Gamestops here in Canada.
Retailing for 12,960 Yen, I believe this was in line with the original figure. As mentioned, slightly different accessory load out as well as paint work:
- 1 x Main Figure
- 2 x Gorilla Face (Neutral, Angry)
- 1 x Mutant Mask
- 2 x Face Plate (With and Without Mouthguard)
- 2 x Cyber Blade
- 1 x Dual Blade
- 1 x Skull Mace
- 1 x Bracket
Jumping a bit ahead, the bracket is used so you can technically mount all the weaponry to the back of Beast Convoy in robot mode. However, it's really fickle so outside of a photo op or so, you're probably not really going to use it. You can mount the Cyber Swords to the side of his back, just like the old toy.
Right away you can see the influences of the OG toy colours, though to be fair I'm not 100% sure if this is an homage to the original toy, or, more likely, BW2 Beast Convoy might have actually featured the toy colours for its character design.
The Gorilla alt mode of Beast Convoy certain looks better than the original toy, which was of course used before to replicate the look of the CG character. This much I knew already. What I didn't know was how many compromises had to made to make the Beast mode work, as I think there aren't too many MP Beast figures without some sort of robot kibble in Beast mode. Sure enough, the robot legs are very noticeable. I will try to be kinder about this sort of thing because quite frankly, most Beast mode forms aren't exactly that great for hiding bulk. That's why the Transmetal and Transmetal 2 figures ended up being better, as they didn't really have to bother hiding anything.
To help facilitate a better look Gorillia mode, if not well hidden one, is the inclusion of butterfly joints at the shoulders that not only facility better range of motion in robot mode, but also allows for the arms to position themselves more naturally while in Gorilla mode. There's also a hinged joint in the pelvic section that allows for the position of the legs to be adjusted correctly such that they touch the floor correctly. Unfortunately, they were unable to include knee joints into this mode. The head is mounted on a ball joint, though, which allows for some posing options there.
The two Gorilla faces aren't exactly going to win any awards for realism, but that's not really the point of them. When they were coloured to CG standards, photos showed them to be very close to what we got on screen. This is pretty much just a toy colour repaint of that, so it gets a pass from me.
Transformation into robot mode will definitely bring back some memories of the original toy. It's not going to be an exact replica, but it's certainly closer than the G1 counterparts.. pick one, any one
Robot mode is again not exactly the same, but unlike the G1 stuff, much closer to the original toy. Of course, by that time, I think Hasbro and Mainframe (the company that produced the show) were probably working a bit more as a unit to make sure the characters on the show resembled their toy counterparts as much as possible... mostly.
Season one Black Arachnia got robbed as a toy.
The overall silhouette of Beast Convoy in robot mode is very clean (again, no surprise given that the original toy wasn't that bad, and I'm almost confident that the robot modes were designed first before the Beast modes. Proportions is probably the biggest change, with a better approximation to the CG model. I just don't think the scale is the same as with the G1 stuff, as I seem to recall Optimus Primal being tiny compared to G1 Prime, which makes sense considering he's the size of a Gorilla (the episode where he combines with the G1 Matrix to form Optimal Optimus comes to mind). I'm guessing all the Beast figures are using this one as the reference.
Other than the figure being toy coloured, you might also notice that the weaponry is toy coloured; that is, basically only one colour. The Cyber Swords were certainly much nicer looking on the MP-32 release, but we get an extra weapon here and a Mutant Mask, and only trade off one face plate in exchange.
Another nice improvement to the weapons is that now the Skull Mace is on a length of metal chain rather than on a piece of string. It can be used with and without the chain portion deployed.
While all the melee weapons generally remained large and impressive, the projectile weapons sadly took a bit of a hit. Like with many other figures, I'm guess it had to do with making the parts fit within the confines of a cavity. That's one of the things that made the original toy so fun though - it was really funny how much of an arsenal this guy had, especially when you compare it to Optimus Prime or even Rodimus Prime.
The spring mounted shoulder and wrist guns were definitely my favourite parts of the selection, as they were so stupidly big. The wrist cannons are OK, I guess, but those shoulder pieces look like they took a major downgrade in order to fit.
One new thing that was added to this figure is Beast Convoy's jet pack. He was certainly doing a lot of flying in the show. It's a simple panel flip that reveals some thrusters - I don't recall any sort of major animation when he flew in the show, so this is good enough for me.
Unlike other MP figures, your choice of face is more based on your desire for a look rather than expression. I've not watched Beast Wars 2, so I don't actually know if the face with the mouthpiece is the look or not. The original toy came with just the one with a mouth piece, and my understanding is that this open mouth version was added to the show character to allow for better emoting. The ear pieces on the head are definitely show inspired, as the original toy ones were more square.
The Mutant Mask was a gimmick on the toys from the first Season of the Beast Wars show, and my understanding is that there were plans to incorporate this feature into the show but they didn't have budget. Whether or not these were used in BW2 is again something I don't know. What I can say, however, is that unlike the original toy, this Mutant Mask is actually a mask. Works the same way - turn the head around and slap it on. The difference is that this mask is removable whereas the original toy had it mounted to a collar that would rotate around the neck.
Looking at it, the mask kind of reminds me of Inferno from the Beast Wars line.
Articulation is, again, better than the original figure, but not by much. If anything, this is a testament to how well the original Beast Wars figures were designed. New to this figure are working hands, wrist rotation, ankles, thigh swivel, and the butterfly joint for the shoulders. There's also a pseudo ab crunch but it's at the groin so things will look weird.
Speaking of weird, unfortunately you may have noticed that one thing that they didn't get rid of are the really weird dislocated elbows of the figure. Of course, if they didn't do that then the elbow mechanism would have to be really complicated to support Beast mode. That's probably the one thing that is the low point of this glow up.
Paint wise, its the usual good looking finishes so long as you're not inspecting with a microscope. I do have some flaws on mine, but because this is used it's hard to say if this was a QC issue or if this is play wear. Overall, though, it looks quite solid.
Build Quality wise, because there's really no finicky parts on this figure, things came together quite well. No issues with joints. Tolerances were good on tabs and other general QC issues. The biggest flaw i found was that it was quite difficult to get the Mutant Mask to go onto the bracket that holds all the weaponry. Otherwise, there's really not too much that can go wrong with this design, provided competent people are put in charge of the production. Another smaller issue is that I find the ankles on mine a bit loose, but again, I'm not sure if that's QC or if that's playwear.
MP Beast Convoy is a lovely toy that improves on the already strong fundamentals set out by its original iteration. It makes sense that a good toy wouldn't have a bad Masterpiece version (more on THAT point another time), though I do wish they fixed the design of the elbows. I know for me, while the Beast mode isn't perfect (it's kind of funny, to be honest) my MPs from this line up wouldn't spend much time in that mode anyway, unlike the G1 characters where they are licensed so there's expectations. There's a few more from Season One of Beast Wars I'd like to get, but I'm hoping they get onto the Transmetals soon because for me, that's where the magic all starts toy wise.
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