Toy Review: Generations Powerdive
Series - Transformers
Sub-line - Generations
Size/class - Voyager
New/remould/redeco - Redeco of Autobot Alliance Highbrow
Wave - ?
Released here - N/A (Sinophone market exclusive)
Approximate Retail Price - $45-50?
Approximate Size - 20cm
Allegiance - Autobot
Alt-mode - Modified P-38 Lightning WWII fighter plane
Main Features/Gimmicks - spinning rotors
Main Colours - Dark green, grey, purple, gold
Main Accessories - 2 gatling guns
Stock image
As a redeco of Highbrow, I won't go into details of the mould/design but rather focus on changes/differences in this version. See the Highbrow review thread (hyperlinked above) for more comments about the original mould itself.
This toy is an absolutely beautiful repaint of Highbrow. The rotors are a maroon/burgundy red which homages the bright red rotors of G2 Powerdive but in a far more muted way (which was never really good at; ah, the early 90s ;)). It does have purple with the missiles, landing gear wheels and gatling guns, but they're sparse enough that it works with the colours of the toy and doesn't look too silly. The twin boom mounted engines and nosecone are silver, as are Decepticon logos on the top of the nacelle and aft stablisers. The cockpit canopy is painted grey and blue resembling the face of a snarling shark, and the cockpit window itself is transparent red, showing off the internal scultping details of the cockpit itself. It also has "<DC" tampographed on the front as a further homage to G2 Powerdive; although the alt mode choice is more of a homage to G2 Ransack; so in this way Generations Powerdive serves as a 'dual homage' to both G2 Rotor Force Decepticons.
The robot mode reveals more grey and gold colours. It has a new head with a dark green helmet, silver face and transparent light piping eyes. It also has a flip down visor, and the eyes continue to light pipe through the visor quite beautifully.
My gripes about this toy; as with Highbrow, the arms are stumpy and somewhat cumbersome. But the rest of the robot mode is quite good. As with Highbrow, the primary charm of this toy is the alt mode as a WWII era fighter plane which is a rarity among Transformers which is chock full of modern supersonic jets. The nacelle does sit in a 'backward' position compared to an actual P-38 Lightning, and there's an additional turbine on the front of the nose; I suspect this was done as a further homage to G2 Ransack's Chance Vought F4U Corsair mode. My other gripe is the toy being marketed as Generations but using what to me looks and feels like a movieverse mould. This toy is gonna be slotted into the movieverse in my personal collection, as this mould feels too movie-esque to belong to Classicsverse to me.
Overall, this is a great redeco of a nice toy. I would actually say that this toy is worth importing if you can get it at a good price. :)
