![]() The wings can move a little as the might on a robotic bird, but Laserbeak is not really a bird in the show. Soundwave would have had to be a Voyager size toy for Laserbeak to have much detail, but he is ok in his role as more of a part of Soundwave than a separate character. There is a little transformation required the wings rotate back and have to be adjusted to the correct angle. Laserbeak is colored to blend into Soundwave, and placed in the chest portion, just looks like part of the detailing on the robot. The head looks good, but is a little hard to position correctly as it has a spring on the neck to aid in a very minimal auto transformation. And I agree, as it would be so easy to snap off some fingers or for a child to break his arm, if it were in hard plastic. This has to be for durability, not safety. A portion of the forearm area and his hands are cast in a flexible plastic. Aside from his small size, he has a menacing look and his unearthly long arms and fingers look great. When transformed, Soundwave is very cartoon accurate. I prefer to keep his arms folded up, but others like to have a longer wingspan. The wingspan of the drone can be increased by unfolding Soundwaves arms. Laserbeak can be incorporated into the drone (Soundwaves chest), or sit on top, like a mini drone on a larger drone. No robot under an airplane here! There are some definitely alien aspects to the drone, but nothing that shouts robot part. As with the other microns, you have to build this one with snap together parts and put stickers on it.Īs for Soundwave, he is very cool. It is a staff, almost like a trident missing its middle point, that transforms into a scorpion. Unlike many other Hasbro vs Takara releases, where the Takara version is made up of plastic with a glossy paint app, these two versions have almost identical plastic parts. I like aspects of each, but overall, I prefer paint apps to stickers. In the end, the stickers and paint apps of the two are very similar. The RID version has paint apps, while the AM one has a sticker sheet. The only difference between the two molds is that the AM version has some weapon peg ports, including two near the base of the wings that look like some kind of gun pods. The two toy versions of Soundwave so far are the RID version and the Arms Micron version. He is more like a part of Soundwave, which he kind of is, as he is a part of Soundwaves chest when not active. Laserbeak is seen less and has less personality than his G1 counterpart. He speaks in pictures and actions, and generally gets his point across very clearly. While his mechanical voice has been one of his main identifying features, I like how he is mute on the show now. His personality on the show is also spot on. I like this choice of an alt mode because a surveillance UAV fits Soundwaves job so well. More specifically, his alt mode looks to me like a hunter-killer surveillance UAV called an MQ-9 Reaper. Now we come to the Prime version of Soundwave: a UAV. Although I do understand that a Cybertronian lamp post would not make a very exciting action figure (see “More Than Meets the Eye”). But even though the video game figure is very cool, it does not fit his job description well. I have high hopes for this upcoming figure. The Voyager version (yet to be released) will have disks that can be launched from the chest compartment and then turn into Soundwaves various minions. This is reminiscent of how his G1 weapons turned into batteries and were stowed in the battery compartment in the tape recorder, with the addition of the functionality of the old tape compartment. The Deluxe version stows his weapons (which look like batteries) in a chest compartment. An interesting one that I actually like is an SUV looking Cybertronian vehicle from the recent video game series. Many of his newer alt modes do not fit his job description well. His original tape recorder mode fit this job very well. Also, when I look at a new Soundwave figure and character, I want to see him retaining his job as a surveillance expert, spymaster and intelligence expert who is completely loyal to Megatron. While some newer versions have has minions of some sort, they have fallen short of the originals. (I know all my old original G1 tapes are in a box… somewhere…I hope.) And what made Soundwave even better were all the cassette tapes he had as minions. For my Classics collection, I have ended up using a reissue G1 Soundwave, with Encore edition tapes. There have been very few versions of Soundwave that even come close to the old one. Hasbro pretty much trapped themselves when they made such a great G1 figure. Soundwave has always been one of my favorite characters, so I was both eager and apprehensive to see him on Transformers Prime.
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