Phil's
Revenge of The Fallen Brakedown
and
Hunt For The Decepticon Oil Pan
Review

Revenge of The Fallen Brakedown

I like my Transformer toys to do what it says on the tin. If Optimus Prime's a truck he needs to be red. Bumblebee is yellow and small (not like the movie version), Sideswipe is a red Lamborghini,Prowl's a police car and Ironhide's a van. The Movie line frequently forgets these ideas and many others. Breakdown is a white Lamborghini Stunticon with Blue robot parts. So is ROTF Brakedown. They get it right for a minor character and get some of the others so, so wrong. (Ratchet) Brakedown apes his predecessor's vehicle mode down to the coloured stripe and Decepticon symbol on the bonnet.

TF: Turn the car over. Pull both sides of the car out to the sides and back a little to form the arms. Fold the front of the car down under the back to form the legs. Fold the legs forward and then the waist back bringing the legs back under the car. Separate the lower legs, rotate outwards, fold the bonnet halves back and fold down the feet. Fold the arms down to the sides and extend the elbows. Fold the roof of the car back and swing the windscreen round to cover the rear of the roof. Fold the robot head up.

Brakedown's robot mode completes the homage with plenty of blue robot parts and a head that bears a resemblance to the original complete with red face. The head is on a ball joint as are the shoulders at the body which also have an upwards bending joint at the arm. The arm has a bicep swivel, bends twice at the elbow and has ball jointed wrists. No waist joint, but ball joints at the hips, a thigh swivel, bending knee and ankle. The toy's problems in robot mode stem from it's proportions - the head's too big and the arms too long - extended straight out they drop down bellow the knees.

The colours and car are right, it doesn't look too much like a movie robot but the proportions are a bit odd. Worth a look especially if you can find it in one of the offers that's been on.

Oil Pan

Oil Pan swaps Breakdown's white for orange and blue for purple. Now you might think that this is a bit like a failed attempt at doing Stunticon Breakdown's team mate Dragstrip, but what this really reminds me of is Pretender Bludgeon (who has already had a NEST version this year). The white paint on the face makes it look like a skull and the colours are dead on.

So Oil Pan will be my new Bludgeon. All he needs is a sword.

Repaints

Go on, give us a G2 Brakedown!

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