Transformers is about Robot Mode Scale now, and honestly that's the highly-addictive drug I've gotten hooked on.  And while I am definitely into robots who can stand next to each other and look the correct height -- so much so that I've re-bought so many live-action movie robots in Studio Series thus far -- sometimes it means getting a slightly ... worse...? Grimlock than I have already?   Masterpiece Grimlock is pretty dang similar to Studio Series '86 Grimlock, and I even have the fancy Marvel Comics-colored one, with the silver finish and the blue-for-black and the crown.  But it's a head or two too tall, and word is Studio Series '86 is gonna give us the other four Dinobots in turn, and I can't have one of them looking out of place.  

Because, honestly, having a full set of appropriately huge Dinobots is a long-dormant dream of mine.  I mean, it's been fine to have the Dinobot combiner Volcanicus fill in for them, since robot scale means a little less when they're all combined into a super robot.  There's some wiggle room there.  (or rather there isn't, since a combiner has to fit vertically on a shelf, so that limits things)  

Volcanicus shouldn't worry.  I've already found alternate display space for him.  He's a combiner and I love combiners, so he was never really in danger of disappearing into a bin.  

Anyway, Studio Series '86 Grimlock is pretty close in feel to Masterpiece Grimlock!  They're about the same size, and they're roughly the same visual design, and they transform very similarly.  SS86 Grimlock's a little chonkier, and the tail-to-legs transformation is a little less fussy, and he's missing the Turn-Head-Wag-Tail gimmick, nor is he electronic, and he doesn't come with a sword.  Cartoon Grimlock?  Didn't actually have a sword!  He had his double-barreled rifle in his model sheet and no sword.  And so SS86 Grimlock only comes with the rifle.  

He does come with Wheelie, though!  A small, nontransforming Wheelie that exists entirely to be fit onto the top of Grimlock's dinosaur neck or robot shoulder.  He's sculpted into a permanent squat because, again, he's a little prop.  His arms are posed just enough you can get him to aim his slingshot in plenty directions.  (The slingshot does remove from the fist and I think it's a 3mm port)

I have a perfectly fine Wheelie who's not sculpted permanently into a teabagging stance and can also transform, so I think I'll keep that one around for display.  But for those of you who missed out on Titans Return Wheelie from several years ago, this is your chance at him again.  

What's better about SS86 Grimlock that isn't his precise scale?  Well, he's cheaper than MP Grimlock, for one.  Most of his joints are ratcheted, while my Masterpiece's joints are all friction-based and getting kinda floppy after twelve years.  I like the range of motion his robot mode dino-rib wings have.  His articulation is a little more solid.  There's a 5mm port for effects parts inside his dinosaur mouth.  He can steal the Masterpiece's sword (since it also used a 5mm port) and crown (it barely balances on his head, but that was true of the masterpiece too honestly).  

Both still transform into that ugly-ass dinosaur mode, though.  I mean, we all know dinosaurs were birds, but it's weird when you see a T. rex waddle around like an upright duck.  However, he's releasing at the same time as Beast Megatron and Fossilizer Paleotrex, so it's not like there aren't other style options for Transformers tyrannosaurs!  See, they also come in both flesh and naked.  (And both with more realistic posture.)

there's just been so many grimlocks that transform this exact same way from the exact same terrible dinosaur to the exact same robot mode, you guys

Live-action Grimlock is, uh, sort of there in the movies!  He's in about 2% of Age of Extinction, during which Optimus brutally beats him until he submits and then rides him around town a little, and then he's also sort of in The Last Knight, where I think he disappears like a third of the way through.  

Thankfully, a giant robot T. rex toy is something that sells itself on its own merits.  

If you have any other movieverse Grimlock toy, throw that thing in the garbage.  This is it.  This is what you wanted.  What were those other previous movieverse Grimlock toys even thinking?  They are mere boys in the world of men.  

Studio Series Grimlock is large and massive.  In robot mode he's a little taller by a smidge than the usual Leader Class, and also pretty wide.  And he looks amazingly decoed, even though he's really mostly the same plastic color all over and most of him is covered with a metallic green paint wash.  It's the incredible sculpted detail and the beefy proportions that make him look impressive, and to the eye it cheats him even bigger than he already is.

It does some weird yet impressive stuff in service of making him look as much like the movies' CGI model.  There, he has a full dinosaur head on each shoulder.  Like, a copy-pasted entire Tyrannosaurus rex head, even though he transforms into, you know, a single-headed Tyrannosaurus rex.  All of his earlier toys unsurprisingly split the head in half for transformation and put each outward-facing head on each shoulder.  This toy says nah.  He has both full heads.  But only one actually transforms into his actual Tyrannosaurs rex head.  The other splits open and integrates into his tail.  

The tail is also formed out of his right arm (which ends in a spikey ball) and his coattails.  These three elements -- the head halves, the coattails, and the arm -- sort of loosely form a pretty good tail shape.  It's a better solution than the usual approach, which is "oh hey look, actually this tail pops off and becomes a weapon!"  It's interesting and fun AND it means that a third of the toy's mass isn't being used for a weapon -- it all becomes robot mode, baby.

In dinosaur mode, Studio Series Grimlock is the best thing my kids have ever seen.  I kind of have to keep it out of view or they go nuts.  (I, of course, let them handle it with supervision, I'm not a monster, but I can't have them being crazy for hours of the day.)  I don't blame them, because it's a great stompy dinosaur toy.  The only thing I think is missing is I wish its head could turn side-to side, or even up or down at all.  The transformation prevents it, but I still feel a need for it.  This is why Beast Wars Tenth Anniversary Megatron is still one of my favorite Tyrannosaurus rex Transformers -- the full neck articulation.  

As with the other Studio Series toys, it comes with a cardboard display stand/background.  It's less appealing paired with this toy than the others only because Grimlock is so large.  He barely fits against the backdrop in robot mode, and his dinosaur mode is entirely too wide to fit onto the stand.  But this is damning with faint praise.  He's a large toy, posed on his bent knees to even fit into the packaging, and this is ultimately good.

Beyond those small complaints, there's very little wrong with this and so much right.  It justifies the entire Studio Series line all by itself.  

Power of the Primes Grimlock has... two out of three good modes.

Unfortunately, the bad mode is the dinosaur.   You don't want the DINOSAUR to be bad.  That's like why you're here.  It's his milkshake in his yard.

I'm just staring at this bent stick they're calling a Tyrannosaurus rex and, like, no, guys.  No.  It's slightly less bad if you're cool with 1980s cartoon Grimlock, who always stands up-right like a dog begging for scraps, since this toy tries to do that.  It still doesn't hit the mark very well, but it gets closer if that's how you're evaluating it.  But if you want it to look like an actual dinosaur, not so much.

However, every terrible, terrible compromise made to the dinosaur mode has its roots in making this design work as a pretty great combiner torso.  Why does Grimlock have these odd, misshapen dinosaur hindlimbs?  Because that's where the Combiner Wars-style arm attachment ports go.  Those are elements you can't just shrink away because they look odd.  They've gotta go there, and they have to be that exact size.  The leg attachment ports are inside his robot feet, which is a nice bulky area that accommodates the port well, thankfully.  It does mean he's got big-ol' feet jutting out of the underside of his tail, a tail that otherwise tapers from torso to tip successfully.  

The result is a combiner torso that plugs together tightly and looks pretty nice.  It looks even nicer if you take some spare Power of the Primes combiner hands and plug them into his abs.  (And you will have an extra pair, since each limb comes with a hand, and, well, combiner robots only need two hands.)  You can also plug the hands into the back of the two combiner feet that Grimlock comes with to serve as extra heel support.  It's your choice!  (Or maybe do both, if you eventually have enough POTP Deluxes.)  

There's some strong ratcheting joints involved, and with more teeth settings so that you don't have to choose between 90 and 45 degree angles on everything.  This solves some Combiner Wars-era stability problems.  

The robot mode is pretty good.  Not great, but it works and it looks like Grimlock and it's not fantastically awkward or ugly.  The double-jointed elbows (needed for torso transformation) really help give him some nice "dukes up" posing possibilities.  

Other than the two combiner mode feet, he does not come with any weapons.  No sword.  But the feet kind of look like Wolverine claws when attached on his forearms, sort of.  There's also an Enigma of Combination pluggy-in thing.  It's like the Prime Masters in the smallest pricepoint, but it doesn't transform.  It's just the plug-in element, and it's there only to fuel imaginative play, rather than activate any toy gimmickry.  

He has factory-applied foil stickers.  They're not good foil stickers, but they're not toy-ruining, either, like Starscream's.  But I'll get to him later.

In short, Grimlock's dinosaur mode is garbage.  His robot mode is good and his torso mode is great, and the torso mode is likely the thing that this Grimlock will do that won't be replicated in later Grimlock toys, sooo... priorities, I guess???  There are so many other Grimlock toys, meaning if you need a better non-combiney Grimlock, those exist.  There will definitely be more Grimlock toys in the future, as well.  But if you want to form a giant Dinobot combiner, this is your Grimlock.  

Transformers Asia Kids Day Platinum Edition Robots in Disguise Premium Grimlock and Bumblebee 2-Pack – Exclusive

You probably haven't seen me talk about many Robots in Disguise toys here, and for a pretty good reason -- I don't really buy many!   I mean, the cartoon's okay, and the toys look okay, but early on, before the toyline hit, it became apparent that I would be more frustrated with the toyline than I would find enjoyment out of it, due to my particular eccentricities.  

You see, it was going to be a pretty small line, as far as "real" toys go (the non one-step or two-step guys), and they were all going to be Deluxe Class-sized.  So I'm sitting there, looking at this coming line-up, realizing that if I was going to start collecting these guys, I was going to have to get used to having a Grimlock (who is very large in the cartoon) who was the same size as every other toy.  And that chafed my bum, I realized I could save myself a lot of storage space and money, and decided that I was cool skipping on it all.  I mean, minus Strongarm, of course, OBVIOUSLY.  Strongarm is great.

But at some point last year, Japan's version of the toyline decided to go balls-out and make everyone a properly-transforming larger Grimlock that's not a one- or two-step toy.   They grabbed Fall of Cybertron Grimlock (who may or may not be the same character depending on who you ask and how you look at things) and then retooled the crap out of it.  New torsos, new robot legs, new shoulders, new fists, new heads -- there was a lot of new stuff to make him look like Robots in Disguise Grimlock instead of "basically G1-style Grimlock" -- and kazam you have a Grimlock who technically solves my Grimlock Problem or, perhaps, my RID collection problem.  

And then Hasbro brought him over, put him in a Platinum Edition set with a redecoed RID Bumblebee, and now Entertainment Earth has him as an exclusive in the United States.  Entertainment Earth also sent me these two to review!  So here I go.

Let's talk about Bumblebee.  If you have a Transformers Prime Vehicon toy (from the RID subline, not the First Edition) then this Bumblebee's going to feel very similar as far as transformation processes go.  The roof folds up on the back of the robot legs, the arms pull out from the sides, and the rear bumper hangs off the back of the head.  There's a sword that stores underneath the car mode.  I got one the regular retail version in the take-home bag for Toy Fair 2015, but this is the PREMIUM EDITION!  Mostly that means he's in a more metallic gold-ish color instead of canary yellow and he has a handful of new paint operations.  There's black on his feet, there's red on his headlights, there's some silver on his sword... it's not a lot added here.  But he's not really the main attraction; Grimlock is.

Fall of Cybertron Grimlock was not a well-received toy, and the retooling present in this version sort of addresses the perceived problems.  His dino hips/robot shoulders accordion out during transformation, and it's incredibly easy to get them so untransformed that you can't remember how to inch them back turn by turn into the way they're supposed to go.  It's one of those things where you wish you could leave a trail of breadcrumbs for yourself to find your way back home, but this is a plastic robot toy's shoulder apparatus, so that's not really possible.  However, the retooling done to make Grimlock into another Grimlock removes the need to untransform the shoulders so much to get him back and forth between robot and dinosaur modes.  All the possibility for over-accordioning his shoulders is there, but so long as you temper yourself, you can probably avoid getting lost in the woods.  

The other thing people didn't like about the toy was how empty he is if you look at him from the bottom in dinosaur mode.  You know that scene in Pete's Dragon where they put a big sheet over the dragon and he runs around and you can see a dragon-shaped sheet and there's nothing underneath it?  No, you don't know that scene, because I'm really old and nobody has watched Pete's Dragon in thirty years.  But the toy is kind of like that, trust me. 

Honestly, that part I don't mind too much.  Like, I'm not gonna be shoving my eyeballs in this toy's underside anyway.  He's gonna stand upright on the shelf, not hanging around lying around on his back, exposing how little robot he has under there.  If you have a bunch of RID Mini-Cons, though, this problem is partly addressed.  There's ports tooled in there for you to fill him up with specific Mini-Cons.  I don't know what they are because, again, I haven't collected much RID.  But it's nice that you can do this if you have the toys available to you.  

The original FOC Grimlock also had electronic lights for when you open up his jaw with a lever behind his head.  This RID retooling has neither the electronics nor the lever to open his jaw, which is sad.  The new dinosaur head does have an opening jaw, however, with both the top of the skull rising a little and the jaw itself hinging down more.  You have to -- gasp -- use your finger, though.

Grimlock still comes with Grimlock's sword and shield.  They don't suit this version of the character very well, but you can pretty easily forget you own them.  I'm sure some other toy could borrow 'em.  

Unlike Platinum Bumblebee's seemingly scant bit of paint, Platinum Grimlock feels covered with it.  Lots of details here and there, from silver and green and charcoal to yellow.  That and the retooling is where all the money went, and it's all very pleasing.  He doesn't look unfinished, and I don't think I see any deco that my mind thinks is missing.  

If Platinum Edition Grimlock/Bumblebee pleases your noodle, you can find him on Entertainment Earth's website for sale!  

Hey, you guys!  Entertainment Earth has a fancy new exclusive toy set!  It’s one of those Platinum dealies where you get all the paint and whatnot, so if you saw Deluxe Bumblebee in stores last year and were like, okay, but what if this thing were painted, or if you saw Deluxe Grimlock and were like, okay, but what if this were scaled to Bumblebee correctly – these are your guys.

I will have one soon!  And I will talk about it too much then, I’m pretty sure.  You know how I am.

Once everyone found out that Grimlock was gonna be in Fall of Cybertron, of course everyone wanted him as a toy.  I mean, hello.  And hopefully not as a stinkin' Deluxe!  Voyager or go home, Hasbro!  Well here he is, guys!  Your Fall of Cybertron Voyager Class Grimlock!

And he is of agreeable size to overwhelm Shockwave and bite his hand off, yes.

He's not quite the Grimlock of the mind's eye, however.  In fact, I think in general folks seem to be kind of disappointed in him.  I think he's all right, but let's go over what some of these stated disappointments are.

First of all, there's the tail.  This I think is kind of unavoidable.  Grimlock's video game model has a long-ass obviously-segmented tail, similar to Transmetal Megatron's.  Now, that has to transform into robot legs somehow.  The video game model got to cheat that tail away and have the legs sort of appear out of nowhere, but this is a $22 toy, so breaking the laws of thermodynamics is kind of out of the budget.   What Hasbro and/or TakaraTomy decided to do was just give Grimlock real robot legs and then sort of sculpt the segmented stuff down the sides.  This results in a better looking robot mode, but his dinosaur mode obviously has two legs shoved up its ass.  It's not elegant-looking.

Another thing that bothers folks is how hollow he is on the underside of the dinosaur mode.  The toy needs a lot of room for the amazingly elaborate shoulder jointing to have room to maneuver, so if you look at the toy's underside, you'll notice a whole lot of empty space.  I was kind of expecting this, especially since Animated Grimlock a few years ago had a similar deal.  I suppose there could be a big clamshell deal going on with the torso, but considering how the dinosaur head and neck collapses into the back of the torso in robot mode, I dunno if that would have worked out well in both modes.

Grimlock is also not painted as much as folks hoped.  He's got gray thighs and hands when they should be black (or gunmetal gray in this case) and so he looks a little sparse.  I'll probably fix that later, myself.  (Not sure if I have gunmetal gray hanging around or if I gotta go buy some.)  He's got plenty of paint everywhere else, though.

That's what other people say about him.  Here's my positives and negatives.  First of all, oy, those complicated shoulder joints count for both.  First of all, they exist so that the dinosaur hind legs can bury themselves inside the torso at an angle instead of being inelegantly bolted to the sides of the torso as they are on most Grimlocks.  I like that!  I don't like how this gets me into trouble.  Since the jointing is so complicated, I once wormed them so far away from how they were supposed to be oriented that it was kind of rough to get them back.  I also wish his sword and shield were bigger.  They're so massive in the video game, and so dinky on the toy.  They're not required to be a certain size to stow in dinosaur mode, so making them a bigger size would have been more satisfying.  One thing that I do very much like are his electronic lights.  They glow up real super bright in both modes.  It might be a function of the LED light being red.  I think I recall those glow the best.  You gotta yank back and pull hard on the lever to get it to go, though.

He's basically every Grimlock toy ever, but with a sword and shield.  He transforms exactly how you expect with some few minor surprises, the end.

(And, yeah, it's likely tyrannosauruses had feathers of some kind.  Feathered t-rex remains haven't been found, but feathered remains of their ancestors have, even as adults.)

Yesterday I mentioned that Soundwave was the first of five nominees for the Transformers Hall of Fame.  Nominee number 2 is Grimlock, who is equally unsurprising.  I mean, yeah, once voting opens, Soundwave has this locked up, but Grimlock is the only guy who could possibly ever steal it from him.  Even though he won't.

Just like Soundwave's Hall of Fame bio, Grimlock's also drops some new information about him.  His speech impediment has been explained various ways before.  In the Marvel stuff, he didn't talk right because talking right was for prissy losers.  He talked badly because he wanted to.  In the original cartoon, he didn't talk very well because he was a primitive creation of Wheeljack.  (In fact, one could say that without a trip to Vector Sigma to endow him with life, he wasn't actually truly alive, but merely a complex machine.)

The Hall of Fame bio claims that his speech is fucked up because Scorponok damaged his voice processor during a battle.  Well, okay, let's add that one to the pile, I guess.

Hopefully, Dinobot will be tomorrow's nominee.  If not, I may be kind of fucked (I'll explain later), but if he is revealed to be a nominee sometime this week, I wonder what crazy retconned trivia we'll learn about him.  Is he Megatron's son?  Did he earn his rigid grill structure for pulling off a successful heist?  Will we finally learn what a steses pod is?

Who knows.  Other than us, potentially sometime tomorrow morning.