Black - Plastic - Life: Generations IDW Goldfire

Wednesday, 11 December 2013

Generations IDW Goldfire - Pictorial Review

Death in G1 Transformers was not a common thing. Having children as the target audience, the dark tone and storyline were not introduced in the series, up until Transformers The Movie (1986) where almost everyone died. Literally! Death was everywhere, I s**t you not!

Pic Credit : Web

Apparently after 2 years, killing a bot is actually easy
Pic Credit : Web

While some stay dead, making way for newer characters, some return as either their ownself eg Optimus Prime, or they are being reformatted into new bot, eg Megatron to Galvatron, much stronger and powerful (at least till the end of the episode). A lot of people debated whether the later can be count as death since the bots were alive prior to the reformatting. But lets keep it short and consider it as the death of the character itself

Pic Credit : Web

Part of the rescue team led by Rodimus Prime, Bumblebee and the crew fall into the trap set by a Transformers-Hating couple by using the body of the deceased Optimus Prime as bait. Exposed to the hate plague, the Autobots ran amuck and started battling each other. Severely damaged by the Superion, Bumblebee body was reconstructed by the Quintessons, saying that he's no longer a 'Bumblebee' but a 'gold bug' (referring to the shiny body) thus dubbed Goldbug by Optimus Prime

The resemblance is uncanny!
Pic Credit : Web

In Package

Generations IDW Goldfire is a repaint of IDW Bumblebee with exactly the same accessories aside from a new head

The bio describing IDW Goldfire (Goldbug) where Bumblebee was reconstructed after being damage, during his time leading the Autobots

Goldfire's artwork based on the toy itself

The comic book included mostly focused on the events leading to the reconstruction of Bumblebee to Goldfire

Alt Mode

First of all, I won't be going into details as the mold has been reviewed here, IDW Bumblebee

I didn't expect this at all but the combination of this mold and the paint job really made me fall in love with Goldfire

Unlike IDW Bumblebee, Goldfire had a solid feel to it while the former felt a bit hollow and 'thin'

The back of the car is fully painted unlike some Hasbro releases, might be due to fact that the part is visible in robot mode

As I said before, am not a fan of having huge weapon attached to the alt mode. However this does look nice

Comparison

With IDW Bumblebee

A lot of improvement between Bumblebee and Goldfire

Robot Mode

Goldfire is a straight repaint of IDW Bumblebee, 2nd of the 3 variants of this mold. Goldfire was given a new head unlike Takara's attempt to take on Goldbug with UN-07 United Bumblebee (which fans saw as a fill-in for Goldbug character)

Back View

Beautiful head sculpt for Goldfire but pity he doesn't come with light piping, only painted eyes. Though this is not an issue for me

This, however, is an issue! Goldfire's gold color plastics is full of jetting defect, as you can see here on his chest. The defect aren't really visible through the camera but that's a clear (and a big) one. More about Jetting Defect (thanks to my wife for shedding some light about this type of defect)

Articulations wise, he's exactly the same as IDW Bumblebee so no need for explanations. But a few pictures wouldn't hurt. Why? Because he is gorgeous!