The titular villain of the first Transformers sequel was notorious for his actions, whether it was betraying the Dynasty of Primes in the past or doxxing Sam Witwicky in a way that was actually more terrifying than Mysterio doing that to Spidey in the MCU. He waited for Optimus the Last Prime to die in order to get his revenge and take the sun away from the Earth, all with a harvester, his Matrix, and his most loyal follower, whose name removes the -us from the "first" Decepticon's old title of Megatronus. He may have died at the hands of Optimus, but he's back with a brand new figure to boot! It's time to realize that this is not your planet to rule; The Fallen shall rise again!
Here is The Fallen with his backdrops, which I believe are the same ones from all of the various figures that were representing Operation: Firestorm during the end of the movie. It'd be cool if he got either the interior of the Nemesis, where he claimed "The Last Prime is dead!" or even the sun harvester that he stood on as he initially prepared to claim our sun.
Here is The Fallen in his vehicle mode. It's more or less the same yoga schtick that we've seen before but with the new arm attachments that, while not perfect, do at least make the vehicle mode seem a little more interesting. You can also store the two halves of the Void Sceptor. I appreciate they tried to make the arms look like thrusters a la G1 Jetfire and the cockpit of being more alien, and the shape of the spaceship looks like the Decepticon logo. Otherwise, this alt mode is nothing that special. I think Megatron's altmode as well as Shockwave are better.
For a size comparison with a different figure, here he is next to fellow Revenge flyer Starscream. While he is a Leader and Starscream is a Voyager, The Fallen isn't that big in his altmode, trading mass in favor of being wide instead. Also keep in mind that Starscream is a fairly big Voyager, so The Fallen is big, but not for the reasons you'd think since we're still in the era of Voyagers with benefits.
And here he is with his old self. Neither of them really have that great of an altmode, as the character never transformed nor even had any altmode in the movie. Still, I have to give it to the Studio Series version for being sleeker in design, even if the hands are still exposed. The appendages later used in robot mode also add to the alien aesthetic, and at least the...fuselage?...has less clutter on it than with the old toy. And the colors on the new Fallen are much better than on the original; much like Voyager Megatron in the same line, he was greenish gray when that was never the case for the actual movie. A lot of monochromatic characters had to use some color break up in the toys that was inaccurate. If Shockwave was logical (heh) while the Dinobots were absurd, then that makes the Fallen more along the lines of middle of the road.
Transformation is sort of like the Voyager, but it's new tricks include the arm appendages going onto the back while the ends with balls attached to the sockets have the more jointed ends go on the back. The part covering the face now becomes the torso, the legs are on an assembly that swings down rather than move downwards on their own, and the feet don't have springs. I feel like the lack of a more involved transformation is at fault of the altmode being made-up as he never had one to begin with, but at the same time, I understand they wanted to prioritize the robot mode not out of laziness but for screen accuracy. And said robot mode looks great! He captures that shadowy, slender stature that was present in the movie, even if he usually crouched a lot. The sculptwork is impeccable as always, the proportions are correct, and the arm appendages, while a bit awkward are first glance, actually look fine in-hand. They fit in nicely with the aesthetics, and if you look closely, he has a bit of transluscent plastic, yet it looks opaque from a distance; it's a good aesthetics choice if you ask me. And while he may be mostly dark, his blue and orange accents break up the darker colors and yet still fit in nicely.
Head sculpt, or I should say the mask, is nicely done; it captures the look of the character very well with the ancient alien aesthetic, and the eyes, while lightpiped, are piercing and intimidating. The blue on the...whiskers?...sideburns?...frills?...might seem garish at first, but they work compared to Allspark Blue since they're metallic and are actually part of the coloring of his face. His articulation consists of a ball and hinge-jointed neck for him to look up and down, left and right, as well as cock his neck to extend or shorten it; he can even look side to side. Shoulders move front and back, in and out (the transformation hinge can be used if you want), swivel at the biceps, bend at the elbows, hinge at the hands, and swivel at the wrists. His appendages can hinge like butterfly wings as they move in unison with the arm movement going front and back, and when they move in and out, the appendages hinge upwards in a kind of Mech Alive style (which is fitting since that gimmick was part of the movie's toyline he was a part of). Furthermore, the ends with the ball joints are attached to sockets that not only move within the sockets but also hinge to add an extra bit of mobility. As for the legs, they move front and back, in and out, swivel at the thighs, bend at the knees, and pivot at the ankles. The toe movement is manual this time, and the Void Sceptor can split in two so you can have one half of it go in the desired hand and attach the other one to complete it.
You can have him give you his face as the mask is removable, featuring a nicely detailed and kind of monkey-looking face that features light-piping that's coming from a hairdo on top of his malformed face. Even the jaw articulates so he can say something garbled before Prime proclaims his rise and The Fallen living up to his name.
For a robot mode size comparison, he scales perfectly with the combined Jetpower Optimus Prime and the battle damaged Megatron, who got his deserved face damage after what he did to Prime. They scale perfectly with one another, and I like that The Fallen, while not a 1-foot tall action figure, still remains taller than either his brother or his disciple.
I like the fact that I can recreate the final battle where Prime shows he's taking names, or in this case, faces, as be damages Megs' face and takes The Fallen's. And it only tool Hasbro 3 years to do that, one year more than getting Joly to have him electrify and transplant those afterburners!
No spark for Optimus to hold, sadly, but I'm sure DNA Design will make some accessories for him along with a Matrix and a bit of the harvester.
And for another comparison for the robot mode, he beats the old toy by a landslide. And yes, my old toy is missing his right foot because IDK where it went, but who cares now that this new Fallen is taking over! I may have some gripes with the engineering and maybe the lack of some accessories, but I'm happy with how this guy turned out. I think this is the best Hasbro-made Fallen we'll ever get, especially since I kind of don't want an MPM version of him since it'd be needless if he'll be even more accurate than the already accurate toy, so I'd prefer if ThreeZero instead did a DLX figure that'll scale with the other figures in that line and the MPM series. Imagine how nice that would be for us since it'd make for a still accurate yet not needlessly transformable figure. Get this guy if you see him in-person or online; he'll make a great gift this holiday season!
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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