Phil's
Movie Landmine
and
Revenge of the Fallen Dune Runner
Review


Landmine

There's a few pics of Landmine at the 2005 Boards

You'll be talking about Landmine for a few years as one of those landmark releases in terms of releases stepping forward.

Landmine is a sort of dune buggy/jeep thing, complete with machine gun mounted above the roof. The first "step forward" feature on the top can be found in this mode: he's got independent sprung working suspension ! This has been done on Alternators before but IIRC it's the first appearance on a deluxe toy. Nice feature.

TF: Turn the car over, put your thumbs in under the doors and pull out to form the arms. Legs are formed from the back of the vehicle in a standard Windcharger type way - fold the top of the car down at the back to form the lower legs. Fold the drums on the front of the legs down to form the feet. Push down on the rear lightbars at the knees to cover up the top half of the lower leg. Push the real wheels into the legs and then fold down pegging in behind the feet. Back to the arms - you'll note the seats have come away with the arms (along the inside) linked by a bit of green plastic. Fold this out to form the forearm and then TF the seat into the hand by folding the base of the seat out and bringing the back down. Another feature imported from Alts: Making use of the seats. Push the front wheels in towards each other and then fold the front of the vehicle down to form the robot's chest. Fold the head down, and then fold down the flap behind the head. Leave the machine gun mounted on the back as a shoulder cannon or place in the hands as a hand gun.

Articulation: limits ball at the neck, swivel waist, ball jointed hips, bending knees and "ankles" - see bellow - a joint that allows shrugging shoulders at the body plus a ball joint on each shoulder, a low ball jointed elbow, ball jointed wrist and a hand/opposable thumb arrangement where there's a joint at the hand and the knuckle on both sides. The "Ankles" are in inverted commas as the feet are the 2 barrels off the back of the jeep and the rear wheels - this arrangement allows that entire assembly to pivot. However Landmine effectively has roller skates for feet - the barrels have tiny wheels in the bottom of them - so you can just about wheel him along on his feet. The larger wheels at the back do seem to come unpegged quite a bit though ! Both front and back safety/light bars also have a habit of popping off which is annoying.

Gun can be customed - the bit of plastic connecting the gun to car can be detached and put back the other way round. This allows for a better fit in robot and vehicle mode but removes the shoulder cannon option.

The only real gripe is the colour - muted grey/green/blue with black deco. It looks colour and formwise more Decepticon than Autobot, especially with that head - looks like some sort of wire mask !

Overall: Very good. Some real innovation for the size. Get one.

Landmine is a Movie Deluxe wave 6 toy released with Cliffjumper & Camshaft. He was also available in Japan as Movie toy numbered MA-19 where he came with an additional Allspark cube.


Dune Runner


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