Originally Posted by
SilverDragon
Swoop is great. I shall tell you why.
PTERANODON MODE
Swoop's alternate mode is a Pteranodon, a flying reptile that lived 65 million years ago. As TF Pteranodons go, it isn't particularly realistic. The legs are far too long, and the wings far too narrow. Also, their mouths did not have teeth. However, this is Animated, so I'll let the last one slide.
He's blue, grey, red, and gold, which are colours he shares with the other Dinobots, so that they have a uniform look. I feel that the colours work for him. On the back of his wings he has circuit-board style patterning, which seems to be something a lot of Animated toys have (e.g. Ratchet and Snarl). It's actually kind of cool, and serves to reinforce the fact that Swoop is robotic.
Swoop is articulated at the neck, wings, legs, and feet. The neck can move up and down (not side to side), the wings can move down (but not straight up-Swoop won't be totally flapping his wings), and the legs and feet are ball-jointed. Also, his mouth can open and close, and his front and back claws can move independently of each other, allowing Swoop to perch on things to some extent.
Overall, it's a good Pteranodon, although there are some things, such as the wing articulation, that could be fixed.
TRANSFORMATION
Swoop transforms in a way that people with Beast Machines toys will find familiar-essentially, he stands up and switches heads.
The limbs stay where they are (the legs extend a bit while the arms unclip from the wings), while the wings fold down and the upper torso splits and moves upward to enclose the beak, which folds down to reveal Swoop's robot face. The torso then clips onto the backplate of the wings to stay in place. Finally, Swoop's neck extends.
ROBOT MODE
Swoop's robot mode retains all the colours of his beast mode. Despite the Animated stylings, he has many visual homages to his G1 incarnation-notably the crest and the beak on his chest.
He is very much an example of the Animated aesthetic, being thin and spindly in a way that most Transformers before now haven't been. It's very much a non-traditional design-although this does not mean that Swoop doesn't look good. In fact, the aesthetic comes together to produce a very distinctive design that oozes character, especially with the face and the cape that the wings make.
Swoop comes with a mace and chain weapon. Like the other Dinobots' weapons, it has a volcanic appearence, being riddled with orange seams. Apparently it can be made to have pop-out flames with a modification (the flames were disabled apparently due to safety concerns). I may just try this, but then again, maybe not. Either way, it's a nice weapon (it swings around quite well) and certainly a unique one (how many TFs have mace-and-chains, anyway? I know Deathsaurus does). There is one significant drawback-he can't store it somewhere in beast mode, which is annoying since it makes it easy to lose it if you don't keep track of where it is.
Thanks to the fact that he's nearly all ball-joints, Swoop is extremely poseable. This has its drawbacks, though-the ball joints make it annoyingly easy to pop bits off, especially his head, which you then have to put back on and then pull his neck out again since it's likely that it got pushed back in while the head was reattached.
I really like this robot mode. That is all I can really say.
VERDICT
Swoop is an example of the Animated aesthetic at its most obvious. This, of course, will probably turn off many people who don't like it. Those of you who do like it, get Swoop. I recommend him.
9/10
Yes, I'll admit I'm a shameless Animated fan who isn't really going to say anything bad about it-but that's because it's so good, like this toy.
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