Toy Review - Burn Out (Legacy)

[GoktimusPrime]

Diaclone Universe BURN OUT
Series - Generations
Sub-line - Legacy
Hypo-line - Velocitron Speedia 500 Collection
Size/class - Deluxe
New/remould/redeco - Repaint/retool of Legacy Skids
Wave - 2.5
Released here - August 2022
Approximate Retail Price - $35
Approximate Size - 13cm
Allegiance - Autobot
Alt-mode - Honda City Turbo hatchback
Main Features/Gimmicks - combinable weapons
Main Colours - black with gunmetal grey and red accents
Main Accessories - Energon gun-axe, pulse rifle, double laser caster

NOTE: This toy is a redeco of Legacy Skids; refer to that thread for comments about the original mould. This review thread will focus on differences made.















Burn Out features a new head based on the Diaclone Car Robot Honda City R's head (i.e. Crosscut and Reboost's head design). However, the original Diaclone toy that this toy is based on was the black variant of the Honda City Turbo; of which the blue variant was used by Hasbro to become Skids. The upcoming Masterpiece Dia Burnout toy features a Diaclone-accurate looking head, however, for some reason Hasbro's decided to go with a an inaccurate City R head instead of the City Turbo. Obviously they've pre-tooled the City-R head for an upcoming Crosscut repaint of this mould (and perhaps Reboost too); but I'm not really sure why they've chosen to use the City R head on Burn Out. This doesn't personally bother me; probably because I'm not a Diaclone aficionado, but it might bother some people who would prefer a more Diaclone-accurate head design. Although as a G1 fan, it is also inaccurate to Burn Out's G1 appearance where she did have the same head as Skids. Of course... even Skids' head alternated between the City R and City Turbo design, so... meh. Maybe that's why I'm not fussed.



Visually there's too much black happening on this toy, although that is more Diaclone-accurate... except for the hands. The gunmetal grey is still pretty dark and doesn't pop against the black so well. The fists are gunmetal grey instead of red, despite the fact that the OG toy for both have red hands. Really don't know why they didn't gang mould the fists together with the feet and crotch. It does look nice in vehicle mode, giving a sort of A-Team 80s vibe. The panels are a mix of glossy and matte black, which may bug some people; I personally could not care less.

OVERALL: Burn Out is comparatively the weakest of the Velocitron collection in terms of execution; although the standard in this little line is quite high. Overall this toy is quite well done, so if this is the runt of the litter than it shows you just how well the Velocitron set is done. These are minor gripes that don't personally bother me, but I don't see why they couldn't have just used the same head as Skids and moulded the fists in red. The inconsistent shades of black is a technical flaw, regardless of what I think about it. In terms of value for money, I do think that this toy is well worth the Deluxe price point. However, people who are after a more Diaclone-accurate Transformer toy might want to take greater deliberation before purchasing, and perhaps even consider skipping this toy in favour of the Masterpiece (I'll have both ). But if these sort of things don't bother you, then go ahead and buy it now!

[dirge]

I find the charcoal of the shins/arms etc is easy to miss - but it differs from both Burnout's black _and_ the same bits on Skids (also black).

I'm very aware the head doesn't match the Diaclone head - I spotted it immediately - but I don't so much mind; I'm just glad we got Burnout.

I find it hilarious that Hasbro's livestream referred to Burnout as female but Hasbropulse refers to "he". I guess it's like FIRRIB/FIBRIR - you can choose what works for you

[GoktimusPrime]

I find it hilarious that Hasbro's livestream referred to Burnout as female but Hasbropulse refers to "he". I guess it's like FIRRIB/FIBRIR - you can choose what works for you

I don't quite agree with that. The majority of official sources refer to Burn Out as female. The product description has mistakenly referred to her as "he" once, but the Hasbro Pulse livestream repeatedly referred to her as female. It's a one off anomaly; similar to say Starscream teleporting in the G1 cartoon, or Rattrap appearing in his pre-Transmetal form at Dinobot's cremation etc. The FIRRIB thing happened because not only did Sunbow mix up Rumble and Frenzy's colours, but they did it consistently to the point where, unfortunately, it's become a canonical fact in the G1 cartoon.

It should be noted that BotCon Burn Out is a non-sentient mecha who happens to be piloted by a female human (Dia). I suspect that MP Dia Burn Out may follow suit. However, in other official canon, Burn Out is a living female Cybertronian; either way, Burn Out is referred to by the gender of the pilot (female) or the Cybertronian (female). Similarly, Lift-Ticket is considered a male Transformer despite being in a similar situation as Burn-Out. Lift Ticket also started off as a lifeless mecha piloted by a male human pilot (Cline), and then other canon have portrayed Lift-Ticket as a living male Cybertronian. I wonder if some official source accidentally referred to Lift-Ticket with a female pronoun, would that be considered canon?

If you want to regard your Burn-Out as male, that's entirely your choice. I'm going with female as that's the intended gender for this character, with the one-off use of "he" being an isolated error. Or you could regard Burn-Out as gender fluid. At the end of the day, it's an action figure, not an actual person.

[GoktimusPrime]

For anyone who may care, according to the manga on the official TakaraTOMY page for Legacy Dia Burnout, she's a non-living artificially intelligent mecha operated by a human pilot (Dia). As this is a comic book, I don't know if the voice is male or female (which tends to be how other scifi robots have "genders," like the droids in Star Wars). The Japanese language doesn't rely too heavily on pronouns, and during Cosmos' dialogue (as the race announcer), he doesn't use any pronouns.
https://tf.takaratomy.co.jp/products...tf_tl/tl-ex-02
But yeah, I guess this means that Legacy Burn Out is officially genderless. Unless Hasbro's bio has gendered pronouns?

[Tha_Phantom]

For anyone who may care, according to the manga on the official TakaraTOMY page for Legacy Dia Burnout, she's a non-living artificially intelligent mecha operated by a human pilot (Dia). As this is a comic book, I don't know if the voice is male or female (which tends to be how other scifi robots have "genders," like the droids in Star Wars). The Japanese language doesn't rely too heavily on pronouns, and during Cosmos' dialogue (as the race announcer), he doesn't use any pronouns.
https://tf.takaratomy.co.jp/products...tf_tl/tl-ex-02
But yeah, I guess this means that Legacy Burn Out is officially genderless. Unless Hasbro's bio has gendered pronouns?

Hasbro's bio refers to Burnout as he, but as noted by Dirge the people who actually worked on the toy used female pronouns on the product livestream. There is also precedent for this character being female with the previous Botcon release and Takara not stating either way doesn't make her "genderless" but just unspecified at this point in time.
That said, Takara have done things like gender-swapping Airazor before and it didn't change Hasbro's continuity. As far as I'm concerned whatever Takara does is only official for their market and ditto for Hasbro - they can choose to adopt things from each others continuities, but it's not a given rule that they must.
Anyway, to me Burnout is female. I don't see why people* are making a big thing of this, Transformers doesn't have an "abundance of female characters" problem. We can let this one slide.

*not having a dig at you Gok, I'm speaking generally here.

[GoktimusPrime]

Nah yeah, that's fair enough. As TakaraTOMY's canon establishes Burn-Out as a non-sentient A.I. robot, it is technically genderless. But yeah, if Hasbro intends for Burn out to be female, then that's absolutely valid. I prefer Hasbro's bio TBH; I'd rather Burnout be a living Cybertronian than a lifeless piloted machine. I'm not a big fan of these attempts at shoe-horning Diaclone canon into Transformers, but anyway, we fans can choose which source we prefer and it never hurts to have choices.