Transformers Studio Series TFOne Starscream review

It's been over a year since Transformers One was a thing? I think I already talked about how I'm not the biggest fan of the movie, and while I would have done a rewatch, I never got around to it since I was busy working on other reviews and exercising at the gym. I mean, they were replaying Batman Returns at Planet Fitness and I would easily see that movie anytime of the day. Anyways, Starscream's a character that I did like watching in the movie since he wasn't prone to the current trend of making the cast feel like memes just for the hell of it. Hell, Steve Buscemi's role as the High Guard representative felt more like it had some thought in him, unlike the decision to use MCU actors just because they were in the oversaturated franchise. Would it have been cool to see Starscream lead the Seekers and fight against the Autobots? Yes. Are we going to get that in a sequel? Nope. Will I make fun of the fanboys crying over the movie flopping and blaming Michael Bay instead of continuously supporting the movie in the box office? You bet your ass I will, but first I need to review this figure.

Here we have Starscream in his Cybertronic jet mode. While it looks similar to the design we saw from the Bumblebee movie, down to the underslung cannon, it is more refined and has a bit of a Cybertron/War Within look to the design that worked great for the Seekers. In an era where Hasbro is really trying so hard to keep the G1/evergreen influence as strong as possible, they're probably doing the smallest number of tweaks as possible to keep them around for as long as Hasbro does on their hill. At least here, the jet mode looks decent, and the undercarriage is nothing too unsightly.

Here he is next to Sentinel Prime, who was said to have an altmode similar to the Seekers during some of the promotional materials outside of the movie. Obviously, he never transformed in the film, and all of his toys made their own takes for toy sake. 

Transformation is fairly involved for a Seeker, though it mostly involves folding parts into each other like with the wings and torso. The red pieces that serve as the robot mode pylons seen on the robot torso come off easily at times, and the size of his torso makes it annoying to tab him in properly as well. He does remain solid once everything is locked in place, but the spacing could be done better. This especially applies to attaching the blue weapon between his arms. The robot mode is accurate to the design, once again being a more rounded take on the G1 design but with even more Cybertronic elements that scream "this is totally fresh and new we swear". Drained imagination and creativity aside, this is accurate to how he appeared in the movie, though as with all TFOne characters, the colors aren't metallic and thus lose that but of sauce that was one of the few things I did actually like about the film. Yolopark and Blokees have you covered on the sheen, meanwhile Hasbro is stuck with a decent shade of red and blue and a grey that is ever so close to beige with how warm its hue is. Sure the figure has to deal with the potential harm from paint chipping, but anything would help over nothing. Same issues I had with the beige on Optimus.

His head sculpt sucks. I just want to punch those lips so hard because of that dumbass mewing meme. His articulation consists of ball joints at the neck, shoulders, and hips, with swivels for the biceps and thighs, and hinges for the elbows and knees. A lack of a waist swivel common with Starscream figures, but not including wrist rotation AND ankle rockers?! Even if it was a smidge, it would help a bit! Also, I would rather have the gun be just the blue piece without the grey part angling it down. At least he has the null rays.

For a robot mode size comparison, here we have him with the dude who messed his voice up before becoming the Decepticon leader. Much like Megatron, Starscream would greatly benefit from a coat of paint to help him better match his appearance in the movie, especially since removing points of articulation could theoretically mean using the budget elsewhere, right? Honestly, I didn't have that much of a high hope for Starscream given that the decision to make the TFOne cast mostly Deluxes was going to harm any engineering potential. The size class would work for him, but not with the parts either clashing or popping off without the right amount of space needed for his transformation. I don't have any high hopes for the repaints if we get any Seekers, and unlike Animated Starscream, owning one is more than enough.

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