Elita-1 is one of those characters that doesn't pop up as often, and don't count on her to make an entirely new incarnation apart from Animated Blackarachnia or her brief appearance in Revenge of the Fallen. If anything, Arcee and Chromia have been much more popular. Obviously, Chromia was not as frequent in new universes as Arcee, but she did at least pop up in a new cartoon without becoming a new character (basically, she showed up in Cyberverse with her IDW design). That being said, Hasbro has given the G1 iteration a few toys of the character, first in the form of a Cybertron Thunderblast repaint and recently in the Netflix WFC line. In-between those two was a Voyager Class figure in the Power of the Primes line. Yes, it's kind of hesitant to revisit that line after not only having the superior War for Cybertron series but also the Titans Return series, which I think is the best Prime Wars line. Regardless, it is something we can look back on to see what did and didn't work. Does Elita-1 work well?
Here is Elita-1 in her jet mode. From the top, I like the design of it, as it feels very unique for her and quite fitting for the character design. The parts that are an honest-to-Primus portion of a jet work well enough. I especially love the colors used, especially when they make for a nice balance between looking feminine and badass at the same time. The sculpted details that are there are pretty lacking compared to the stuff we'd get in the WFC Trilogy, but most of the details are in the form of stickers. I hate them. The chrome stickers clash badly on the plastic, and they don't stay on as well as they do fit in a decently aligned place. I'd wish to have a Reprolabel set that makes the jet mode better but the one we have doesn't look as good. These stickers are neat in concept but poor in execution.
The undercarriage is where the altmode doesn't work all that well. People complained about how the shortened arms and folded up legs are not hidden with the Siege Seeker mold, but this is even worse! The feet look kind of slapdash on the undercarriage, but the arms do not contribute to the transformation and basically lay there. On top of that, the head is just facing the back. If this was the Aero-Bot figure from the Playskool Gobots line, it'd be acceptable since the main purpose would be the fun chunkiness as well as lights and sounds. But this is a collector's item, and even if it was a mass-released one, it failed to be good with the aerodynamics even compared to Silverbolt from the Combiner Wars line.
Here she is next to Earthrise Starscream, a character that shared the same figure Elita-1 has. I like how different the designs are from one another; while Starscream is more traditional as part of the WFC trilogy making new figures of G1 guys, Elita's instead a new, sleek design that I feel would look even better if she had no brick underneath her. The differences in how the wings, thrusters, and fuselage look makes them distinct overall, though I have to admit that while it's a bit lame that the Earthrise Seeker mold borrows the transformation of its decade and a half older counterpart from the Classics line, at least the undercarriage is nowhere near as awful as it is here. It even gets worse if you add the robot feet.
Transformation is very basic. You just straighten the legs, tab in the gap cover for the inner part of where the knees hinge, shift the fuselage off the front, and swivel the wings around. If this was from Armada or Energon, it'd be perfectly fine, but as far as the engineering is concerned when compared to Voyagers made around the time it was made, it's even simpler than Motormaster. The resulting robot mode is actually not quite bad. While the design is bulkier than the norm for her, It fits well along with the likes of RID15 Strongarm. They're quite fitting for a character who could lead her fembot team, especially when they help her stand out compared to the other fembots. The colors are once again a strong highlight of the figure, and the kibble itself is perfectly fine here. The backpack is distracting for Starscream since he had a faux chest, but it works a little better for Elita-1 (but only a little because of how under-engineered the figure is). The figure has stickers for the forearms, shoulders, and part of the chest. Only the Autobot insignia stickers look fine.
Head sculpt is very nicely done. The Prime Wars trilogy began to do a better job with capturing the look of the characters made in the line than before, and the design it has is better than the G1 version. Even if her forehead looks like Shockwave's chest. Her articulation is pretty average for a figure of the line, with a head that is on a ball joint, shoulders that move front and back on ratchets as well as in and out on ratchets, bicep swivels, elbow bends, hips that move front and back, in and out, thigh swivels, and knee bends. Her articulation is way less than most figures in the line. Her shoulder spikes can be used as guns, and you can place the feet on the wings for some stupid reason. Yeah her weapon choices suck.
As far as reuses are concerned, this figure barely had any repaints. And honestly, that's fine with me. Starscream came first, and he is definitely worse than Elita-1 in plenty of aspects. The proportions on him looked RIDICULOUS! The attempt to mix the Popeye aesthetics with the normal G1 design made it look worse than the normal G1 design, and the stickers being chrome silver on white plastic looked even worse than with Elita-1. Also, LOOK AT HOW LONG THOSE NULLRAY POSTS ARE ON THE SHOULDERS. I did not lose any sleep over this guy having no Seeker repaints because man did he look stupid! I don't care if his torso looked like Moviescream with the Coronation head, this is really pathetic!
For a size comparison, here she is in-between Earthrise Starscream and Optimus Prime (who is the Netflix version) and the WFC Netflix Elita-1 figure who is a retool of Arcee. She is taller than the Air Commander and likely taller than Optimus Prime. It's kind of amusing but it makes sense given how she serves as a torso for a combiner. I have to say that while the POTP figure may not be as accurate to the cartoon as the WFC Netflix figure tries to be, I honestly prefer this design or at least the concept of it. It's much more unique and she doesn't have to be too skinny.
The transformation into the torso mode is certainly more involved, which is weird because one would expect the normal robot transformation to be as involved. The arms become the thighs a la Superion, but now the backpack is used in becoming a chest similar to that f Movie Starscream. In fact, this was why the toy began as Starscream since it was meant to homage that version of the character. And that may explain why the feet are done up like that. As for Elita-1...well, with a certain number of figures I guess she can be called Elita-Inf1nite, but let's be honest and say it doesn't fit her. The robot mode works better for her than it does for Starscream, but the torso mode proved that the two were designed with certain modes in mind. Now, new to the POTP teams are the feet, which are better than the Combiner Wars versions due to them having ankle pivots as well as a height boost. The hands of the figures that are legs can be used as heels. Oh, and the Enigma of Combination can be stored on the chest. It's basically a shell version of a Titan/Prime Master.
Head sculpt is also nicely done, and it's even better than the original version! Her articulation is the same as before, but with the added improvements of double-jointed elbows, wrist swivels, slight finger articulation, and ankle pivots as well as swivels for the 5mm ports. Now I don't think I mentioned this but I don't think I want to get the other fembots because the Moonracer mold sucks. I don't want to buy 4 repaints of it just to make a fembot combiner. I already own Siege Chromia and don't like her much. As for Elita-1 herself, she makes for an interesting purchase even in spite of her flaws. If you see her for a cheap price, get her. Otherwise, wait for Legacy to solve the issue.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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