animated swoop

[Hot Rodimus]

Just picked this guy up the other day and I am impressed.

I was a major Swoop fan back in the day and used to own the incredibly fragile G1 figure ( who is no longer with us) so to pick this guy up I was excited.

Swoop looks pretty good in Alt mode though his legs are a bit too long compared to how they should be or how he looks in the cartoon, just a minor niggle but overall this is a pretty cool looking mode.

Transforming him to robot mode is a piece of cake and once done the robot mode looks sweet!!! Pretty much a perfect representation of how he looks on the screen. He has a ball and chain for a weapon which is really cool though I think it would have been even better if it had a real chain like on the proto pics on the back of the packet instead of the plastic links you actually get.

My only gripe with this figure is what appears to be a production fault. Kind of hard to explain but Swoops wings are hinged on his back which allows for his transformation. One wing has a cover over the screw which is in the hinge and the other does not, when viewed from the under side this problem is still present put the sides reversed so it seems to me that during production part of swoops wing was manufactored incorrectly. I have seen about 8 other figures in the shops and they all have this fault and all the package pictures on the net show the same fault too. It is not a major problem but does visually detract from what would otherwise be a perfect figure.

I am pretty much in love with this one, aswell as the other dino's and I give it a 8/10

[GoktimusPrime]

I rate Snarl as my favourite Animated Dinobot and Swoop as a close second. Grimlock is just fail and so not worth its Voyager price tag.

Now I say that Swoop is a close second because although I consider Snarl to be a better toy, Swoop is a pretty ambitious endeavour. It's not an easy feat to make a thin alt mode like a pterosaur transform into a bulky humanoid robot. TF jets also face the same dilemma. While the robot arms on the wings do bring back bad memories from Transmetal Terrorsaur, unlike TM Terrorsaur the robot arms can at least detach from the wings and the wings end up dressing up the back of the robot mode instead of dangling from the robot arms. I also think Swoop has the nicest weapon of the Animated Dinobots.

Perhaps I should encourage my Animated Swoop to join my Transmetal Terrorsaur's tabletop role-playing game group.

[loophole]

Swoop is a very figure one my fav's

[Hot Rodimus]

I agree, Swoop is very sexy in Bot and Alt mode and he definitely has the best weapon.

I know your not a Grimlock fun Goktimus but I still suprised that Snarl is your favourite. He is very cool despite his ugly club that could have used an additional colour but Swoop is just so damn good.

I really like Grimlocks figure, the arms annoy me somewhat and he does have a hole in his chest in dino mode but he is still a very accurate depiction of his toon charater and just looks like a bad ass.

Snarl would be my least favourite, but dang all three of em look damn good posed together on my shelf.

Goktimus, does your swoop have the fault I was taking about?

[SilverDragon]

Goktimus, does your swoop have the fault I was taking about?

I'm not Gok, but my Swoop has it too. Since loads of people have talked about their Swoops having it, it's not a fault, it's supposed to be like that.

Still looks screwed up, though.

[Hot Rodimus]

Weird man, I didn't notice it at first, I mean I was just stoked to have a swoop again, wasn't until I got him home and opened him up that I noticed. At first I was really ticked off and emailed Hasbro...... since they are on holiday until the 12th according to the auto response email I got I didn't get a reply and just left it.

It does look weird to me and I think that even if it was supposed to be like that it shouldn't, but overall I am still very happy with the figure overall

[GoktimusPrime]

I know your not a Grimlock fun Goktimus but I still suprised that Snarl is your favourite. He is very cool despite his ugly club that could have used an additional colour but Swoop is just so damn good.

I don't dislike all Grimlocks... depends on which continuity you're talking about. I like G1/G2 comic Grimlock. Don't like Animated Grimlock cos he's an even bigger 'tard than G1 cartoon Grimmie. Bleecch. (-_-) (seriously, Animated Grimlock makes G1 post-S2 cartoon Grimlock look like a genius).

You've just explained there why I like Snarl - he is a pretty cool toy despite the lack of detailing on the club (and too much detailing on the eyes!). Swoop is a very very close second for me. Think of the difference between 1st and 2nd place in last year's Melbourne Cup... it's that close.

[Hot Rodimus]

ok well Hasbro got back to me, actualy it was the toy designer himself with the explanation on why Swoop has the screw showing on one of his wings.

from the email:
This is Eric Siebenaler, the designer of the toy that you are referring to. Thanks for taking an active role in letting us know what we can do better.

I’m attaching photos of the product in question and would like you to confirm if they match your description. If so, the toy is correct. If not, then there may have been a slight mistake/or an engineering change-up in the manufacturing process. This sometimes happens to ensure consistent safety standards. Other changes may have been made to ensure that production costs were met (i.e. The screws are covered in my Grey model photos, but the finished toy has actual screws).

As it were, if your toy does match the pictures that I’m sending to you, there is no production fault. There is an explanation for why the joints are screwed in from different sides of the wings on this toy. This is actually a very clever engineering system designed to minimize manufacturing errors. Explanation - Left and Right wings look pretty similar... Left and Right wing Joint pieces look very similar... In efforts to minimize confusion of “which parts go where?”, the screw setting has been designed to fit one way on the Left set, and another way on the Right set. This method makes it very difficult to Mix up opposite parts.

Thought the pics he sent me were cool too

[i_amtrunks]

Pretty snazzy to get a response from the designer himself.

A perk of Eric being in the country I suppose!

[GoktimusPrime]

That and being to hang out with him was, as Cheetor would say, Ultra Gear!