Transformers Studio Series Shatter review

Shatter is the best part of Bumblebee in my opinion. She's one of my favorite antagonists along with Megatron, Lockdown, and even Sentinel (sorry, fans still upset by Ironhide's death). She's intimidating, has one of the better robot designs in the movie, and she's a fairly new character that could rival Windblade if she gets expanded across the Transformers universe. I also liked that she didn't have much of the Saturday Morning Cartoon feel that the Beewun approach went for, as she could almost fit in with Lockdown's crew had she survived. So despite my dislike on the Beewun flick, I was pretty excited to see how a Studio Series Shatter would turn out. Dropkick's first figure was already a big pile of crap, so Shatter couldn't be any worse, right? RIGHT?!

Here is Shatter in her car mode. It's a pretty slick looking muscle car that captures that raw aggression from 80s street drivers. I dig the red and black color scheme, hot rod engine, the roof lights (despite those lacking paint), and the silver paint for the trim on the front. This is overall a very nice looking car mode, even if the tires could be a bit bigger and use some silver paint.

I don't really like the kibble from the back much since it kind of ruins the silhouette, but the red triangle detail near the doors could really use a second coat since it looks noticeably darker compared to the red on the door. At least the 722 is nicely opaque, though it makes me wonder why the red triangle isn't.

For the weapon storage, the guns can be placed underneath in vehicle mode and stored on the inner forearms of the robot mode. They work fairly well in terms of weapon storage.

Here is Shatter next to the other characters in the Bumblebee movie (excluding Optimus Prime because I didn't have him back when these pics were taken). I think the scale with these three is sort of off. Dropkick's helicopter mode isn't supposed to be Blackout's size, but he should be a bit bigger. Bumblebee, on the other hand, could be a bit smaller to work better.

Transformation isn't too great. It's more like the car mode didn't want to have its parts fully integrated to make the transformation feel more worthwhile, so it awkwardly ends up becoming as bad as the original tooling for AOE Crosshairs. I mean, the doors just hinge to the back of the thighs, the front quarters of the vehicle mode are pitiful pieces that don't really do so well at replicating the winged design she has, and the backpack is super offensive. I am happy that her chest design has a faux engine and some lights because it would look a bit incomplete without that piece.

Robot mode looks pretty bad. It's almost like it's going for that sleek nature of the character design, but it ultimately doesn't work because of how shrouded the figure is in kibble that doesn't even want to be used in a cool way. It's almost like the altmode pieces avoided being used for any kind of proper integration for the robot mode. The chest area looks decent, but the legs are ruined by the thighs and the backpack is so cluttered that it makes the toy look like it came from a really bad Deluxe figure from 2007 or ROTF. Sure, the paint apps are nicely done, but they don't make up for just how weak this robot mode is. And remember that faux chest piece I mentioned? Don't expect it to stay on too well unless you're super lucky. The same goes for the "wings", which could come off when you try to detach them from most of the front of the car mode.

Face sculpt is not accurate to the movie. Admittedly, I've only seen the movie once, so I'm not sure if this was a scrapped head or one used in the movie. Either way, it's certainly not that TerminatorXNightbird face sculpt that she was known to have.

Articulation is not too hot. Head is on a ball joint, the shoulders move front and back as well as in and out, though they're likely to pop off at times. The biceps swivel and the elbows bend. Hips move front and back but they barely move in and out, which is very embarrassing for a Deluxe figure that came out years ago. The knees swivel above the hinge, and there is some ankle pivot. So on top of the quality control issues, there's also some pretty awful leg articulation to speak of. It wouldn't have been too bad if it was on a figure that didn't prioritize articulation too much, but this is a Generations figure from 2019! It's very inexcusable for its outer leg movement to be so badly limited, yet this version of Shatter does just that.

The weapons she comes with are two arm-mounted blasters, and they don't look too good in-hand. While there are some decent details added on it, they look a bit unnoticeable when attached. Most integrated weapons attempt to stand out from the arm they're on, but in this case, not so much. I also have the wings detached and make some form of recreation of the character's design in the movie, though it's no better, honestly.

This figure has yet another reuse because Hasbro wants to get rid of the inventory of this toy in old packaging...need I say more?

Here is Shatter next to her fellow Decepticon, Dropkick. I still stand by the fact that Dropkick's the worst figure of the line, but Shatter (and WWII Bumblebee, honestly) are close to being as bad. He problem is that while Shatter at least doesn't look as awful as Dropkick does, she still suffers from the quality control and more limited articulation.

Given how these characters were one of the better aspects of Bumblebee, it really sucks to see that these figures look pretty bad. 

Here they are next to Bumblebee. I guess Bumblebee is the better of this trio, but that's not really saying much.

Here we have Bumblebee taking on the Decepticons in this image. While you can get them in some decent battle poses, the awfulness of Dropkick and the weaksauce hip articulation for Shatter ruins it all.

Much like with Dropkick, this figure's had the potential to be neat for fans of the character, yet the combined forces of the inaccurate head, quality control, and the embarrassing articulation make this toy one of the Studio Series line's worst entries, yet. If you want to get this figure for some reason, try getting it on clearance, but don't get your hopes up high.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐