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Has it finally happened? Have Hasbro and Takara finally gone off the deep end and, gulp, surrendered to the Power Ranger masses? Say it ain't so! 'Galaxy Force' has been floating around for a while now as the name for the new Trans line... and I was petrified. Nightmare images of Autobots in primary colors with horrible articulation came to mind. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Over the last few days, promo-shots and an official press-release regarding the new 'toon were released in Japan and have been making it state-side. So, how bad is it? Shades of 'Armada' revisited? Well, the 'toon... from the synopsis I read that was translated (i.e. you had to read rather slowly to get past the clunky grammer of a literal translation) it sounds like 'Armada'... BUT IN SPACE. Ok, whatever. So what about the TOYS??!??!?!?!!! Well, that's another matter entirely... and hopefully this is a good sign...
'Galazy Force' conjures images of space, high tech... and Power Rangers. Ok, let's drop that last part and concentrate on the first two, much more pleasant parts. Early shots for the figures are VERY promising and show Takara has no plans on taking 20 steps back after the huge leap forward taken with 'Energon'. The line at this point has about 20 figures, with Galaxy Convoy and MASTER Megatron leading the charge for their prospective sides. Naturally Starscream has to be thrown in, but a big surprise was a character named Vector Sigma! This should be veeeeeery interesting to see how that works out when the toys reach stateside.
Keeping with the high quality work of 'Energon' the figures all have very detailed sculpts with enough panel lines, vents, and other details to drive a painter up the wall. Also the articulation based upon the promo shots also looks very, very good; lots of elbows and knees all over the place. Woohoo!
The forms the figures take keep with the space/futuristic theme. Convoy is a snazzy version of a semi-truck, Starscream is a butt-kicking fighter plane, so on and so forth.
Ok, so you aren't quite jazzed yet. 'Great, ANOTHER freaking toy line that we gotta pay a ton for since it's not in the US yet.' Patience folks.
Personally, the big deal is the GORGEOUS version of Optimus Prime. He's got four seperate modes. Yep, four. Ok bad news is two are kinda lame. One is this flying truck mode; the cab and trailer are attached, the sides of the trailer drop to form 'wings'. Yeah, it looks as goofy as it sounds. Also there is what appears to be the artillery mode. Fold the trailer in funky ways, make it into a giant cannon. Whatever. Of course there's the usual truck mode, which is very nice to see. Ah, but the armored mode... that's another story. Someone on a post said this is very Gundam-esque, and it's very, very true, but in a COOL way. The trailer folds into a giant chest plate and backpack for Convoy which features two MASSIVE guns that are mounted at hip-level on Optimus. These cannons aren't like the whimpy missile launcher on God Ginari. Nope. this is SERIOUS artillery folks. The entire look makes up for the 'eh' quality of the other two transformations.
So when are these coming out? The press release stated the 'toon will be out early next year, and e-tailers are taking pre-orders NOW for December release. As far as a US release, I would think something is planned since Takara and Hasbro both work together to create the Transformers lines. Hold on to your hats, 2005 looks like a good year. Woohoo!