Transformers Studio Series Airachnid review

Airachnid feels like the kind of character who comes across more like an anomaly amongst her fellow cast members. The main quartet of characters we focus on are part of the usual Hasbro mandate, Alpha Trion and Sentinel Prime made sense to showcase some history for the title one earned and the other stole, and the setting felt closer to the G1 aesthetic with very few nods to other lore here and there. Our spy cam spider woman feels so out of place amongst the other characters, no doubt due to her alt mode choice and almost appearing like a Decepticon rather than anyone else. That's even ignoring the likes of Darkwing and the High Guard! It's easy to attribute this to her design, being based on the Prime series, is much sleeker and unique amongst the more traditional robot designs everyone has, but what about in-universe? Could she have been a normal fembot who was corrupted by the Quintessons into her current state? Did she willingly change into this design? Was she always like this since the day she was forged? For any questions we have about her, I doubt anyone would answer them since the movie flopped anyhow. So let's set aside her true purpose of key dangling for any non-G1 fan service and see how she turned out for her review!

Here we have Airachnid in her VTOL drone mode. This works best as not just a nod to her helicopter altmode in Prime, but also as a surveillance drone going around Cybertron. The design works perfectly for the aesthetics of the planet's inhabitants, and I love that there is a trio of propellors to make her more alien and aerodynamic. The back one rotates freely, but the others are merely sculpted in place. The little guns around the front could pass off as additional cameras, though it makes me wonder if she is meant to use range weapons if anyone attacked Sentinel. The only weird thing would be the front section being somewhat hollow, but that may be accurate.

For a vehicle mode size comparison, she has a fair bit of competition next to Sentinel Prime's nonexistent-in-the-movie alt mode. Granted, her slender design means she can take spread what mass she has into the same drone mode she is in, but in her defense, Sentinel Prime is a small Voyager.

Transformation is surprisingly involved for a TF One figure. Unlike the others who feel predictable or have issues with certain engineering choices, the design let's people figure out where they should twist or rotate certain parts before they either go in the right direction or are tabbed in place properly. The legs, both her normal ones and the spider ones on the back, feel like the right kind of puzzles that the One designs sorely needed, and it can all be thanks to her not being based on the G1 series. As for the robot mode, it's almost like the Maleficent-esque attributes were removed in favor of making her appear more like military hardware between the simple red markings on a solid grey body, the digitigrade legs (with added heels for stability reasons), built in arm cannons, and overall appearing more like an endoskeleton, she feels truly comparable to a mass-produced robot that tech corporations test with the army before making consumer-friendly versions for the showroom-type of audiences. She isn't entirely devoid of any identity, though, as she still has the fembot build with thiccer thighs that would make Elita-1 envious if she wasn't busy acting like the Corporate-Hollywood-Approved-Girlboss trope towards Orion. The spider legs are able to be positioned however you like, though I don't think you can give her a spider mode that easily without any mods that go beyond the usual fan modes one can accomplish with an unaltered toy. All in all, she wins the bot mode creativity department compared to her cast mates.

Her head sculpt is both reminiscent of a Xenomorph for the side profile, no doubt to make room for the eyes, but the face oddly seems close to how the TFP robots appeared, and it almost feels like Prime Arcee than it does Airachnid. I like that the eyes are painted lavender, but what is new for her is that the pupils are sculpted rather than leaving her with the more traditional blank optics we saw with other characters. Her articulation consists of ball joints at the neck, shoulders, and hips, swivels at the biceps and above the knees, and hinges at the elbows and knees proper. Though she can't move her hips out because of the limited space from her thighs, slightly separating the thigh plating can help remedy that.

For a robot mode size comparison, here she is next to Sentinel Prime. The movie has her slightly taller than him, but not only does the discrepancy seem negligible for the most part, but you can use the Prime Changers Sentinel for better scale (I won't because I don't care about that line). Honestly, as someone who was increasingly disappointed with every subsequent TFOne release, this manages to be the very best figure representing that movie we have ever gotten. Not only is the design one-of-a-kind, but she is also complex in her engineering and has no glaring issues we saw with other characters, from lousy cop outs to poor quality control. I recommend you get her, even if the movie sucks in your eyes.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐