While each new trailer or snippet I see of Transformers: The Last Knight heightens the foreboding I feel for the upcoming film, some of the toys Hasbro is releasing to go with the movie aren’t half-bad. Officially announced yesterday, converting Cybertron is coming to light our darkest hour.
Converting Cybertron, which seems to be the name Hasbro is currently going with for this $149.99 Toys’R’Us exclusive, should look familiar to long-time Transformers fans. That’s because he’s a redeco of one of my favorite figures, 2006's Transformers: Cybertron Primus.
Primus is Cybertron, and all Cybertron is Primus, or at least that’s how it went in the Unicron Trilogy, a series of three CG Transformers cartoons that ran in the mid ‘00s. Molded long before Hasbro started pumping out toys like last year’s nearly two-foot tall Fortress Maximus remake, 11-inch Primus was a beast that turned into a ball.
Converting Cybertron (but secretly Primus) is a bit of light retooling and some color-swapping of that glorious 2006 toy. Hasbro’s decked out the figure in orange, purple and black, with a wealth of translucent details making a cool toy that much cooler.
Converting Cybertron features lights, sounds and firing weapons unlocked via a special key, which you can see sticking out of the planet’s pole below.
See the blue clear plastic sticking out of the side of the key? One of the major gimmicks for the original Cybertron toy line was that each toy came with a planet key that made special things happen. Looks like Hasbro’s stuck to the plan for the redeco.
I probably won’t see the movies, but at least the toys have gotten me curious about the underlying fiction. For instance, the $49.99 leader class Dragonstorm figure features two robots, Cybertronian knights Dragonicus and Stormreign.
The two both transform into dragons, but can also be combined to form one triple-headed beast, which they should have called Tripredicus or something but instead named Dragonstorm.
Pretty nifty, huh? Maybe there’s hope for the movie lines after all—but can even Primus save us from the simmering menace of Skullitron?
Skullitron, Primus and Dragonstorm will be available this summer.