Bionicle Stars Tahu and Universe Cheetor

You're listening to the GeekCast Radio Network,

a podcast. Cliffjumper, commence countdown. Five.

Four. Three. Hello and welcome to the 34th episode

of Toycast sponsored by www .bigbadtoystore .com

where you can save from 20 to 90 % or over 1

,000 items I am your host if you and Mike is

putting me fresh off of his quick London is general

techno. Hello. Hello there. How are you? I'm

good yourself Pretty good. I guess you are now

a world traveler sir. Well, I was already a world

traveler. I've been to Europe already so Wait

just told me off -air. You've never been to London.

This is the first time you went Yes, I'd never

been to London. No, but there's an entire continent

aside from the UK. So true. That's true So how

was the trip it was good took in a lot of shows

saw some outrageously priced toys over in the

UK Which makes me have really really pity those

guys who are collectors over there or Even the

kids, mind you, because they get less selection

because the UK doesn't get as much stuff and

then they pay higher prices. Which means that

they're less likely to get the higher priced

stuff like the leader primes and such. Everything's

more expensive there. The other day I had recorded

with Brian Kilby of Radio Free Cybertron. He's

a really cool guy. I recorded episode 33, which

by the time this goes up, it would have been

out. Just wow. Some of the stuff that Transformers

puts out here or over there, either way it's

too expensive. Like here for us, in North America,

stuff that you get from Japan and stuff is just

way too much. In these days, stuff for them also

costs way too much. That's gonna really suck.

Yeah, it does. I imagine. So did you go to Big

Ben? Oh yeah, I saw it. I saw pretty much all

the big sites. Went up on the London Eye. Really,

really good view. The thing, too, when we went

up was that it was like twilight when we went

up, so all the lights were coming on. So for

a second there, I thought you'd say that vampires

are jumping out of the woodwork No, but I mean

like all the lights were coming on the Sun was

going down. So really good view Although what

did suck though was just the Or rather sorry

sorry not suck but what was neat too is I went

to there's a film museum in London and I saw

all kinds of cool film props and sets there a

lot of neat stuff And then, you know, there's

other museums as well, like the Science Museum

is great. British Museum has all these artifacts,

which are pretty cool. And then, yeah, as I said,

I took in a whole ton of shows, like musicals

and such. Some very good stuff there. Huh. Well,

not much going on here. Is there a difference?

Now, you know, I'm sure you've had Christmas

over here before, but is there a difference,

like, Experiencing Christmas over there versus

over here. Well over there was kind of low -key

When we were celebrating stuff, I mean It's Christmas

has kind of become low -key for us just because

we generally spend it traveling somewhere Last

few the last few years anyway, we haven't spent

being at home for Christmas. So I mean, it's

a bit of a different experience in that sense

All right, why don't you go first? All right.

Well, I've decided to review something that's

not transformers Just I mean, I've got plenty

that I could review but it's toy cast. So let's

see what else I could pull out and I'm going

to take a look at one of the figures from the

Bionicle stars series of toys now for those who

aren't that familiar with Bionicle It was a toy

line that Lego put out Let me just look up the

year here. Yeah, it was a toy line that came

out a while back, like more of an action figure

type thing than anything. It came out back in

2001 in the U .S. and it's had a whole bunch

of associated fiction with it. It was very different

from LEGO's other offerings in that it was kits

that would build specific specific characters

originally they used a lot of Lego Technica ish

pieces in them and there were the hero you build

the heroes and then you could build the different

creatures that were the villains and such and

then they had Taya all kinds of tie -in fiction

like all the characters have like all these exotic

names which are of the type that like anything

else if you're you can only really keep track

of it if you're into the franchise somewhat because

of all the names and such and like none of them

are I mean at least with Transformers fans a

lot of the names are straightforward English

words or puns and stuff like that but Bionicle

instead uses a whole ton of made up stuff kind

of like I guess Lucas does for Star Wars hey

hey hey knock it off he does I don't know why

everybody all of a sudden between this you know

we need to well actually episode thirty three

was the first episode of new year for toy cast

but you know uh... tip all of a sudden the end

of two thousand nine beginning of this year twenty

ten people all of a sudden just start bashing

lucas every i'm not bashing lucas i'm just pointing

out i'm just uh... come making a comparison here

i'm not bashing the idea that the names are made

up all in point that is that similar in that

To like all the extras in those movies and that

in order to keep track of anybody you need to

Pay some degree of attention to the franchise

But I mean, I'm that was never a huge Bionicle

fan I read a bit of the fiction because my brother

got like a magazine at the time So I was generally

familiar with it a bit we got and I actually

got one of the first Bionicle figures the Tahu

figure from the original line of Bionicle, and

he was one of the six Toa, and they were like

the heroes in the series that were fighting against

the other guys, and one of the gimmicks that

they had was you could buy masks that would give

them all different powers and such, which we

never did, of course. We just had the ones that

we got, but they were neat figures and such.

And anyway, this year, 2009, is marking the end

of the Bionicle line. After all this time, it's

been a very successful line for LEGO. It's evolved.

They've kept the fiction going and such. They've

had some stuff on TV, I think. They've done a

whole bunch of direct -to -DVD movies. It's been

a very successful property for them, and they've

decided to retire it gracefully, it seems. And

they're giving it one last hurrah with the Bionicle

Stars line. which is basically re -releasing

all types of updates of a whole bunch of classic

characters. And I decided to, alright, after

a bunch of convincing on Twitter by a few of

the people that I follow, specifically, I believe,

Starthshadow especially, who got me to get this

figure, I decided to pick up the Bionicle Stars

Tahu Just to see what the, be able to compare

the two, the original to the new one. And just

to see how it evolved and such. It seemed almost

fitting to get one from the beginning and one

from the end. Anyway, onto the actual figure

itself. One thing I noticed right away is that

they've definitely gone down in terms of difficulty

to put together. The originals, they felt a lot

more like Lego Technic type kits. And and the

really big thing was that the original ones all

had a action a lot gimmicks in them where they

had some sort of geared mechanism that would

Do something like say move the arm for instance?

That you would assemble again. That's very reminiscent

of stuff with Lego Technic toy line. This one

is none of that but the bionicle figures One

thing I'd heard that they're really good for,

and I can definitely see why, is ball joints

for kit bashers. And that is because these things

are chock full of very good ball joints. Pretty

much all the joints on this guy that are movable,

they're all ball joints. They're all pretty tight,

and he's got them in very good places. He doesn't

have elbows or knees that move, but he's got

his wrists are ball joints, his shoulders are

ball joints, his legs are attached by ball joints.

He's got his ankles are ball joints and his head

is on a ball joint So really he despite the fact

that he doesn't have elbows or knees it doesn't

really suffer for that because he can still do

a lot of poses because of all that ball jointing

and He he's got very big leg feet so he can hold

pretty much any pose you give him Which is very

nice It's a lot more of an action thing. It's

a lot more of a build your own action figure

type thing. I'd say That you get this you're

basically buying a kit with all the parts to

build an action figure Like the complexities

definitely gone down on these but that doesn't

mean that the toy has really suffered for it

So it still looks pretty cool. It's still definitely

a bionicle figure And they've still got the mask

gimmicks intact for this one Tahu comes with

two masks. He's based off of the original Tahu

homage to that because they actually did several

different Tahu figures in the toy line, just

as updates as the series progressed. Like he

was the character who was Toa of Fire, he was

leader of the group. And what they've done is

he's got a fire sword like the original had,

although this one, it's not an arm that's attached

to a geared mechanism, but it's a as I mentioned

before, but it actually benefits from that in

posability, because the originals, they were

posable, but I think these ones definitely beat

them out in terms of posability, and the sword

definitely looks a lot cooler. It's a two -piece

sword in that you attach the hilt to the bottom

of the hand and the fire sword to the top of

it, but it adds a lot because it looks like an

actual sword with a hilt. Also for accessories,

he's got his mask, like the original hat. He

comes with a red mask, like the original, and

he also comes with a gold mask as well. Now,

I guess in the original series, the gold masks

were collecting masks, and then the gold masks

represented the amalgamation of all the different

masks, because different masks granted different

powers to the Toa. I think he looks best with

the gold mask myself, although the biggest thing

I don't like about this figure that I liked about

the originals more is, whereas on the originals,

if memory serves, I think that they cast the

head in grey plastic and then the eyes in a different

one, but on these, the heads are completely clear

plastic, like the eyes, and even though that

doesn't really matter much because you're generally

putting the masks on these guys, I still think

it kind of detracts to not have a head that's

a solid color. Yeah. But that's just me. But

yeah, also there's a gimmick for these guys where

there's a collect them all gimmick in that if

you get all of the Bionicle Stars Toa figures,

each one comes with a different set of piece

of golden armor that goes on a Tahu. So if you

get all of them, you can give him... Yeah, it

looks like that. You can give him... Shoulder

golden shoulder armor shield and chest armor

as well if you get the other ones I Mean I have

no plans on getting them but As someone who's

sat out most of the bionicle tool pretty much

the whole bionicle toy line I have to say that

This figure I don't know how it measures up to

bionicle figures in the last few years because

of Obviously, looking at the differences between

something from the beginning and end of the toy

line, there's a lot of differences, so I don't

know when it evolved and how and everything,

but it's a very solid figure to mark the end

of the line. Really, I'm actually kind of surprised

LEGO's retiring it because you'd think they'd

want to keep milking it even more, but apparently

they're still going to be continuing the fiction

in some form. which I imagine is good for the

fans. And again, I know very little about the

fiction other than that they've got fiction that's

been ongoing, and that's gotten somewhat complex

in terms of storytelling. But the fiction's gonna

keep going despite the toyline ending, and who

knows? I suppose that in another decade, this

is gonna be retro, so they'll probably end up

bringing it up, bringing it back then. Yeah,

true. Well, that sounds pretty cool. I don't

know, every time I see those commercials for

Bionicle, I'm like, really? What? Why the really?

Just curious. Well, I don't know. No kid, Legos

were something that could build like giant blocks.

They weren't like... Legos were the unattainable

things when I was a kid as far as painting like

this giant... You know, you see the Lego commercials

with the giant spaceship and the little Lego

guys running all over... Oh yeah, Lego was awesome.

You know, I'm not saying anything against Lego

at all. I love Legos, you know, they were, you

know... They were what I was playing with when

I was that age, but you know, it just... I don't

know, I just... But keep this in mind though

with the Bionicle toy line. It's less of a Lego

set and more of a toy line that's made by Lego.

True. I mean if you look at the boxes, Lego's

logo is downplayed on the boxes. Like it's not

like Lego sets where you've got like a big Lego

this, Lego that. You've got a little Lego logo

at the bottom of the front of the box and at

the bottom of the back of the box, but Bionicle

is the big word that's prominent. Right, right.

Really, it's yeah, it's no different than that.

It's really it's just another toy line I'd say

that just happens to be made by Lego Lego It's

a lot more like just a standard boys action figure

toy line than it is a Lego toy line and it shows

just in the design of the figures and the fact

that they've got fiction and and directed DVD

stuff and such like it was taking a very different

approach to marketing it and To be honest, honestly,

I'm kind of wondering if part of the reason they

might be folding it is that they're just trying

to refocus around their core business, which

is LEGO. True. Yeah, that's probably what it

is. Yeah, even though it's a successful brand

and it's got brand name recognition and stuff,

but I can see them retiring it simply to give

it some chance to breathe. They've learned a

lot of lessons from Bionicle, but... Who knows

maybe they'll bring it back in a few years time

or bring back a toy line. That's a successor

to Bionicle Yeah, maybe I mean I know that I

was reading the Lego. They've actually a few

years back They were having financial troubles

because they spread themselves too thin in terms

of they were in doing all kinds of stuff that

wasn't part of their core business and they were

starting to Lose money after decades of never

posting the loss I hope that God Hasbro never

does crap like that. Sorry? I said I hope that

God Hasbro never does crap like that. Like what?

Post -losses? Well, no, but I mean like going

a certain direction and keep going in that direction

even though they may lose money on it. Well,

to be fair though, Bionicle was never a money

-losing direction, I think. It was always a very

successful line, but Lego got into a position

where They were just, they just had their hands

in too much stuff. Like, for instance, they were

running all these theme parks and doing games

and stuff. And then they sat back and said, look,

what do we do? They trim the fat wherever they

could. Like, nowadays with their theme parks,

their theme parks, they don't actually run them

anymore. They license them out. And it's the

same with the games. They don't actually do any

of that stuff in -house. They license it all

out to their partners. So it saves them, yeah,

so it's pure money that they're seeing. Yes,

that's true. They don't bear any of the actual

costs of development. That's true. Do you have

any other final thoughts on this figure? Not

really, other than... Bionicle, really, it's

something that, for me, I was kind of too old

to get into it at the time. Like... That was

the tail end of when I was getting toys when

this came out, Bionicle, but really, for a lot

of people, for a lot of kids though, I'm sure

that Bionicle was a fairly influential part of

the childhood, so it's kind of sad to see this

line end. And hopefully when Lego eventually

brings it back, they do it somewhat well. Because

realistically, it's going to, there's no question,

I'm pretty sure it's going to come back in the

future in some form. It's just a question of

when and how. Yeah, that's kind of like the Robot

Heroes line that has versus going away permanently.

No, Robot Heroes is different because it's a

sub -line of a brand. I think a better comparison

would be something like, say, how stuff like

Masters of the Universe has been retired from

time to time. Yeah, that's true. I'm going to

be talking about Universe Cheetor. Ooh, the meth

kitty. Yeah, the meth lab kitty is more like

it. I've been sitting here the entire time you've

been talking about your bionicle figure trying

to get this jackass into robot mode and it's

just not happening. Oh, I don't find him hard

to get into robot mode. It's just that his robot

mode is too so horrendous. True, but I wanted

to see so I could actually make an accurate,

you know, descriptions even though I've seen

pictures of the robot mode I wanted to see on

my own actual toy that I that I have I wanted

to see what it looks like get like his waist

and stuff up but I like get the the kitty head

where it's supposed to be so it shows I don't

I honestly never had a hard time transforming

him myself but I just don't like the way he looks

in robot mode if you look at him anyway but the

front right Oh, no, I completely agree with that.

His backpack is fucking ridiculous. It just is.

So you wanted to talk about him? Well, he's one

of the toys I haven't talked about, so I might

as well talk about him. Okay. I'll just let you

talk about it since you're the one who wants

to talk about it and then give my thoughts after.

Well, I mean, you know, give your thoughts along

the line. You know, I just think they could have

done something way different as far as the robot.

I think personally I think that the figure suffers

from over ambitious design and that the way they

approached it I think was they that's an example

of you know how you can have figures where the

robot mode is the primary focus so the alt mode

is sacrificed I can't think of any examples right

now off the top my head but I'm sure there's

been figures like that in the past Yeah, they've

done vice versa with this. They paid too much

attention to the alt mode and not enough attention

to the robot mode. Here, I'm turning the video

on for Skype because I want you to see what the

hell I am with this thing. There it goes, I think.

I hope. Yeah, I mean, the thing that's with the

cheetor though is, yeah, he's... Okay, yeah,

yeah. They? Yeah, he's not quite there. No, he's

not quite there at all, whatsoever. Nope. Yeah,

this is one of those toys where, it's like same

thing when I did Hound. I couldn't get Hound's

waist to where it's supposed to be. Said screw

it and I just put Hound back in Jeep mode. So

I think Cheetor may end up back in cat mode.

Well to be honest, there's nothing wrong with

that. With Cheetor, he's a figure that was clearly

designed because the way I think that they did

it when they were designing them is they looked

at the original Cheetor figure and they said

that what can we improve on this and that was

the alt mode. They wanted to make him a more

realistic cheetah. The original figure was more

of a tiger than a cheetah. Like, I don't believe...

If Protoman was here, he'd be able to fill us

in more, but from what limited stuff I know,

the mold originally was not intended to be designed

as a cheetah. It was designed as another cat.

But... And yeah, it doesn't really work well

as a cheetah. Does his waist thing flip up? Yeah,

it does. This thing here? Yeah, it flips up.

Well, it ain't flippin' up. And it locks in and,

uh... It locks in when you fold the head down

and stuff Well, see that's the thing. Well, what

the hell am I missing? Am I supposed to split?

Oh, I think let me Am I supposed to split this

piece apart which piece or no that doesn't split

apart Fold the head fold the whole top of them

down Okay Ah Let me see. He's about as down as

he can go. Yeah, I think that's about right.

Can you turn him on the side? Yeah, I'll grab

mine after the show and show you properly. I

don't know. I like the cat mode. The cat mode's

cool. Where I think it really started to go wrong,

just going off of... looking at it was when they

decided to get ambitious with the cat mode and

do things like put a little tab at the back that

opens and closes the mouth? Well the other thing

with that tab though is it also with it well

can't do it now oh that's the wrong tab that

was the tab for his head the thing with that

is where it opens and closes his mouth it's also

it changes his eye color too another piece of

design that they wasted money on to change the

eye color from green to red Were you aware why

they did that? Isn't it something that happened

in the cartoon? No, it has nothing to do with

the cartoon. It has to do with the toy because

the original toy had, when it was released, there

were some that had red eyes and there were some

that had green eyes in cheetah mode. So they're

homaging the original toy. Huh. With that? Well

that's fine. They can do that all they want and

whatever. I don't know. I just... This is not

the cheetor that I envisioned outside of the

cat mode. This is not well No, I mean the cat

mode is a massive improvement on the original

cheetor toy I've got the original cheetor so

I know right and I'm not and I'm not saying anything

against the the alt mode for this but robot mode

is left something awfully to be desired I think

the big problem with the robot mode is the big

back hump which That could have been compressed

when they were designing it, except that they

decided to put that tab there for opening and

closing the mouth. Yep. So that keeps it from

moving anywhere? Yep, it does. I honestly have

no clue. But overall, he does have a really excellent

cat mode. Oh wait, I think I just made a breakthrough.

Holy crap. Break anything, but something went

somewhere where it wouldn't go before but anyway

Yeah universe cheetor get him for the cat mode

only Or if you're a completist and cheetor fan

like I mean myself I I'm just trying to think

the cheetor figures that I don't have are The

I don't have the Voyager Beast Machines figure

The McDonald's Cheetor from the Beast Machines

line. I guess they don't have the Knight Slash

Cheetor either of the Knight Slash Cheetor mold

figures either. But I have representations of

the original Transmetal and Transmetal 2 Cheetors,

plus the Supreme one. And Titanium. Transmetal

1 Cheetor, the one when he first went Transmetal,

not the yellow and black. Yes. the other one.

How easy or hard is he to transform? The Transmetal

Cheetor is a great figure. I got him when I was

a kid. He's a great toy. The biggest problem

I had with him, and this is more due to the fact

that the way my brother and I played with our

figures, was just that his hands got really loose

eventually because they were ball jointed and

because the hands are formed from the cheetah

head. Okay, right and they eventually started

to fall off easily and I've even lost one of

the hands so I've got a T door I've actually

gotten another one that's mitten box that I haven't

That I picked up at TF con that I can't bear

that I haven't been able to get myself to open

Why not? Well because once I brought it home

I was like do I really want to open this? So

right now it's just sitting in my in a drawer

It's still in box. Did you get it through a trader?

No, I bought it so How much did you buy it for?

I think I paid like 20 Canadian or something

Not bad considering. It's a 10 year old. It's

a 10 year old toy Like I said overall you should

get universe cheetoar mainly for for the cat

most Be asked cheetoars go. I think the best

one is the transmittal one. The transmittal 2

figure is also very good And I'd also put the

Titanium Cheetor up there as well for the Best

Beast Machines Cheetor. I think they, with the

Transmetal 2 one, because I had him, I had him

mint on card, and I sold him because it just...

After I saw the show, after I saw what the cartoon

version of Transmetal 2 Cheetor looked like,

they really skimped on the black, on the figure.

They made him more yellow and gray than they

did black. Well, they also took some liberties

with the design in that on the show in that mainframe

mug slimmed down the hump a bit. I don't know.

It's just weird. But as far as that figure goes,

though, it's got a very nice transformation that

figure. OK. The Transmetal 2s, overall, they're

good figures. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I

think we're going to close this one out. Not

much really else to talk about. So thank you

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