Phil's Beast Machines Cheetor Review


Cheetor

Cheetor was on of the first mega sized Beast Machines toys released along with Tankor. Why release Cheetor as a mega ? All his previous incarnations have been deluxe toys, he serves as the main hero character at the deluxe price point - a slot later taken by Hot Shot (Armada, Energon & Cybertron) Bumblebee (Classics & Movie) His form is greatly altered for BM becoming much longer and thinner in beast mode. Front ankles & knees bend, the limbs turn above the knee, both shoulders turn as well as fold out to the sides. One of the shoulder pads moves causing the corresponding paw to move about covering a quarter circle in front of it. The chromed head with red lightpiped eyes moves causing the mouth to open when it does and there is a bending joint towards the rear of the body. The tail turns and bends in two places. Back legs move at the hip and have a limit ball joint at the first knee. The second knee bends as does the ankle.

TF: Straighten the rear legs out, extend the lower leg, collapse the body, stand and watch the toy fall over. Open the chest up slide the beast head in and the robot head out. Close the chest. Pose with tail in front arm as a sword. I know I've forgotten something as the arms have to end up on opposite sides in beast mode to robot mode but it doesn't matter cos I'm told nobody ever reads this bit anyway !

Robot mode is very unstable. Hard to stand up and very hard to stand in anything other than a neutral position. The arms inherit the front legs articulation while the back legs become the robot legs.

Doesn't look like Cheetor, hasn't got the vital feature of the show version - the two swords - is too big and very unstable. So for an encore they make a bigger and more unstable version. Not clever. Thankfully at the third attempt a decent BM Cheetor was produced - the wonderful Night Slash Cheetor. If you want a BM style Cheetor by that instead while you wait for it to be repainted in yellow with clear green.


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