It’s a match made in geek heaven. A marriage between Star Wars and Transformers. Two of the biggest perpetuators in keeping people from growing up, together at last. As Hasbro owns the rights to make toys for both franchises, they were free to commit to the most wonderful sacrilege ever by turning Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and other classic Star Wars characters into robots in disguise.
It works like this: Take a Star Wars character who has strong affiliation with a certain Star Wars vehicle. Make said Star Wars character into an action figure than can be transformed into said vehicle. Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking that there’s no way to do this without making both the figure and vehicle look really, really stupid. Put your fears to rest. Okay, they do look kinda stupid, but in all the right ways.
The vehicle forms are top notch, so much so that you’d have no reason to suspect their ability to transform if you didn’t notice the big “Transformers” banner on the bottom of the packaging. (Admittedly, they’re kinda clunky when you get them out of the package, but I’ve decided to overlook this.) The vehicle forms are reminiscent of the Kenner diecast vehicle line of the late ’70s/early ’80s, albeit larger and more plasticky. With price points above fifteen bucks, we’d of course demand something more than a few cool looking Star Wars vehicles. Our demands were met in a big way. The vehicles don’t just transform into Star Wars characters — they transform into totally Transformerized Star Wars characters.
Let’s use the Vader figure as an example. Starts off as a superfine Vader TIE Fighter, complete with tiny-sized Darth Vader action figure that fits perfectly in the cockpit. After transforming, the figure looks like the end result of Vader and Starscream fumbling through Brundlefly’s happy pod, with Vader’s classic mask being the only unaffected body part. Everything else, from his legs to his arms to his Dark Jedi groin, have been robotized to the point where Obi-Wan’s waxing about him “being more machine than man” now sounds duh-level redundant. While keeping the color scheme and trademark details of the Star Wars characters intact, the figures all draw from the much-loved template of any Transformers figure worth a damn, from big, blocky legs to fists that look like cute little pitted olives.
The still fairly new collection has already become pretty broad, with figures ranging from Anakin (transforms into his starfighter) to General Grievous (turns into a wheel bike). So yeah, they’re covering the original trilogy and the prequels, partly because Hasbro likes spiting purists, partly because Hasbro bigwigs are often just drunk enough to think that anyone would want a transforming Anakin.
They even made a Boba Fett, who might just be the best in the set, transforming from the CULT SMASH Slave-1 vehicle into a CULT SMASH Boba Fett, and the kicker is, in robot mode, the tiny Boba Fett figure that’s meant for the vehicle’s cockpit visibly rests just under the big robot Boba’s head. It’s a sea of Boba Fetts, with heads of different sizes and other CULT SMASH surprises.
What I’m digging most about the figures is my newfound reason to introduce the many nephews in my life to Star Wars and Transformers at the same time. Every time one of their birthdays come up, I’m gunning to bring them a little piece of me with Star Wars and Transformers toys. Problem is, Hasbro’s Star Wars line caters very much to collectors, and there’s very little chance of getting an “OH FUCK YES” out of a kid who wasn’t already enamored with the new movies. And the Transformers…well, whenever I try giving those out, the kids just cry at me when I can’t figure out how to make them work. With these figures, you don’t have to necessarily be in love with either franchise — they just look so damn cool and totally personify the progressively-becoming-lost glory of the plain old action figure. Having a Darth Vader figure go apeshit on the rest of your toys is one thing. Having Darth Vader go apeshit on your other toys before transforming into a plane and flying away to skirt reprimand is something else, and that something is “OH FUCK YES.”
UPDATE: Based on the comments, sounds like you’re more interested in CULT SMASH Fett than Vader. Check out the pics below…
Note the tiny Fett trying to assert himself from within the cockpit.
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I can understand someone not liking them AS figures, but not liking them because they screw up some purebred great white story by existing? That’s just silly.
wow. i had no idea these were out, i think you just made me cream my pants. hah, no really though these are sweet!