Jazz

Lockdown

Wave 2 Deluxes

As soon as you open Jazz you will be taken aback by how small he is. This is going to happen, no matter how prepared you think you are. This guy is dwarfed by POTP Battletrap, I would very happily put my money where my mouth is and say this guy is the smallest deluxe figure ever produced by a notable margin. And at UK retail this guy ran me £20! The price to plastic ratio is getting ridiculous.But, that’s almost all the negativity I have in me, because this guy is an absolute delight of a figure! After about 5 minutes of going “wait this cant be true” and standing him next to deluxe and legends figures around my room I finally sat down with him and messed about with him. And I didn’t stop for ages. Jazz absolutely looks the part, the biggest thing he is missing for screen accuracy is his shoulder spoiler, and I do wish it had been there. With how he transforms, 2 more joints could have made this happen. Other than that his chest is well proportioned and looks brilliant, his arms are slim but not frail looking and the legs looks strong without being too bulky, a trap both the human alliance and 07 deluxe fell into. Every surface that becomes car is painted silver, giving him this really appealing look overall. I thought the backpack was going to get to me, but the translucent blue is just quite appealing to the eye, and does a good job blending away the braisen chunk of car shell.Poseability wise he has a ball jointed head with a beautiful range despite its small size. His shoulders are an interesting array of hinges and swivels but they give you basically a full ball jointed range and his elbows are a ball joint connected to a hinge allowing for almost a full double jointed curl. No waist joint, and given how he transforms I can almost forgive that, but I’m sure one could have been worked in. Big ball jointed hips, a thigh swivel and a knee joint that gets you your 90 degrees. Finally he has a properly deep ankle tilt, but they are connected to his shin detailing, so going too far can break up the sculpt. Overall these joints add up to a truly expressive little figure, even in spite of his missing waist. His left hand is sculpted to hold his signature gun shield supersoaker-looking weapon, while his right hand is a movie accurate 4 fingered claw affair. You can actually fold away his left hand and tab the gun onto the stump if you want. His right hand has a similar stump but it’s the wrong size. I don’t understand how they missed that opportunity.The transformation is a joy. The little guy looks like he is gonna be all shell, but he busts out a series of flips, turn and tabs you weren’t expecting making the transformation probably the most fun of any of the SS deluxes to date. As soon as its over, you just want to do it again.But, if you do that you’ll miss out on his delightful vehicle mode. I would be remise not to mention no that in this mode his size is even more noticeable, like mother of god look at that picture. Now that’s out of the way, doesn’t he just look the bomb? The silver paint finish makes him seem really premium next to other figures, and they picked a lot of details out in black and red paint. From vents to headlamps to the insignia on the bonnet, this vehicle mode tops off a great little package. I mean, there is weapon storage, but Ill just show you a picture and then we can never speak about it again.Jazz is a strong recommend. He is a delightful figure. Everything is pinned, everything is painted, he feels like a huge leap forward in terms of quality from wave 1. His only let down is size. Yes, I know its accurate, but I keep bringing it up because it’s the same price for less. The paint helps make up for it, but I keep coming back to it because it’s the only big negative. If you can get over paying studio series prices for a figure this size then you will be incredibly happy with your purchase, I certainly was.So lockdown then. Lockdown is pretty big and dense for a SS figure. His sculpt is mean and totally looks the part, in terms of accuracy to the movie he is unquestionably superior to the last deluxe lockdown we got. His head sculpt is perfect. His chest, while a little flat and entirely faux, is painted incredibly well and looks accurate to me. The legs are a little blocky but are well detailed. The arms are an interesting one though.Looking at him in a neutral pose, his upper torso seems a little cluttered and messy. It’s a visual trick, his arms can move quite freely, but there is no gap between the bicep and the chest which looks odd. This chunk is also much smoother than the rest of the arm and indeed the rest of the robot, and this is because it is the only piece of visible vehicle from the front. To hide the wheels, half of the bicep rotates 180 degrees and a panel flips out to fill in some details. It looks neat on its own, but the wheel getting in the way is why the chest looks so cluttered. If you undo this step the proportions look better, and he doesn’t look too much less accurate, but you lose some elbow possibility. Also, undoing this step robs him of his only interesting piece of transformation. I guess display him however you think looks better. And finally, his backpack. It’s disappointing to say the least. 70% of his vehicle is badly folded up in there, it’s as thick as his torso! So overall the robot mode looks pretty good, but functionality wise it’s a mixed bag.(proper way)(improper way)The same can be said for the poseability. He is very standard. His head is ball jointed, but clashes with his collar if you go too far either way. Shoulders are fine if a little inhibited backwards due to the turtle shell. His elbows and knees are both 90 degrees the hips are a bit stiff but give you a full range forwards and out to the side. Again, backwards you get some shell clashing. There is no ankle rocker, but he can use the transformation joint as a forward pivot which can be quite helpful. Finally he has the waist I wanted jazz to have. Ahh well. On paper his poseability is fine, but frankly if we’re talking plastic he feels a bit limited. Its hard to explain without having him in hand, but everything moves just a little rougher than you would like.His weapons are a bit underwhelming. His sword is nice, and you can tab it onto the forearm for an Optimus Prime imitation, but its unpainted and a little boring. His hook is so alsmot good. Unfortunately it’s a little too big and it pegs on awkwardly. It has a panel to try to make it look like its transformed out of his hand, but its so flat that it just looks like he is awkwardly holding onto a hook. He can also tab this on onto his arm, but it doesn’t improve anything. If it tabbed on sideways over his hand it would have been amazing, but as is it’s a little disappointing.So overall in robot mode he is a mixed bag. He is good and tall, and in a pose he looks suitably menacing, but he just doesn’t have the same level of tactile fun the other studio series deluxes had (do you have time to talk about my lord and saviour Jazz for a few more minutes?).Transformation really isn’t much to write home about. A couple of neat flips in the arms, but the legs fold away exactly as you would expect. His head folds into his chest, and speaking of the chest there is one incredibly perplexing transformation step. The central mass of his chest pushes back to give the car clearance, but it only pushes in by a couple of millimetres. It is difficult to get this panel in our out, and the effect is minimal. The chest still looks kinda flat either way. I like what they were going for, and it could have been a neat step, but it just feels like making the chest transform so people don’t complain.All that said, Lockdown makes and incredible car. The huge amount of mass hidden in that backpack means this Lamborghini is freaking enormous compared with the other SS figures, especially jazz and bee. Like Jazz, he has a paint finish on the vehicle, but unlike Jazz only the tail lights and hood insignia were picked out leaving him looking quite bland. But in the end the vehicle sculpt is great and he is satisfying in hand.So overall, lockdown is an impressive looking figure but he falls down a bit in hand. His transformation is a bit bland but his robot mode looks the part from the front. He is a really good size but taken as a whole I was a little disappointed. He is in no way bad, and he will look killer alongside prime, but I wanted this guy to be as kickass as Megatron looks and he just isn’t. He is just average with a good character attached, but that’s enough sometimes. If you like his design, you’ll like the figure well enough, and if you like the character he is better than the TF4 deluxe gremlin, but he doesn’t really go beyond.The wave 2 deluxes are a mixed bag. I adore Jazz, despite expecting disappointment, and I was a little let down by Lockdown but he is still pretty good. Interestingly though, I really do feel I need to recommend the wave, not just the figures. Between them they fill out the mass of two deluxe figures, but on his own Jazz might feel overpriced. So that’s my recommendation; if you can only get one, and you can get over the size, buy Jazz. He is loads of fun. If you cant get over the size of Jazz, buy them both. Once you have them both in hand you’ll see the mass is there, its just been redistributed for the sake of scale.