Fans Toys FT-05 Soar

After months of inactivity on the review front, I'm back. Now let's review ourselves an Iron Dibot... er, Dinobot.



Here we have Fans Toys FT-05 Soar in his robotic Pterodactyl mode. This is, of course, the cartoon accurate blue version with the red head, grey things that are desperately trying not to look like the robot arms, silver legs and gold chromed beak and feet that Swoop had in the cartoon. The wings are also chromed in silver and his eyes are chromed in cyan just like Scoria before him. Unlike Scoria, Soar's eyes are separate from the beak. This is because you can swap the top half of the beak for a clear plastic version of it if you want to get your Diaclone on! (or more G1 toy accurate for the FT-05T version) The wings can also be swapped for silver painted versions if you want, but since Scoria was so unapologetically chromed, (not that Slag even cares for much more than a mock "Excuse me!") I see little point in switching Soar's wings.

If you DO want to swap the parts, it's as easy as removing a single screw on each wing that's better accessed in robot mode and three screws inside Soar's mouth. There's only the one eye piece in the head, so make sure you don't leave it out when putting the other beak on. (and make sure the ratchet piece for the jaw is still there) And here's where mine has a couple of issues. The rearmost screw in the mouth is stripped. It won't even come out of the screw-hole and doesn't hold the back of the beak at all. It may be wise to pick a beak and stick with it. The other issue is that the right panel that's supposed to tab into the side of the head and hold the beak in place doesn't stay at all even without any beak attached to it. This is more aesthetics as so long as one of these tabs stays in it's not going anywhere, and even without either of them it still stays in front of the robot face well enough, but it's a little annoying. I'm pretty sure it's just mine, but I thought I'd point it out.



Soar can stand without his included two piece display stand, which provides a pair of 5mm ports for the sword to plug into, but it's... tricky. His feet are quite small, especially the heel in the back, and he's tremendously back heavy, so he needs to lean forward and have his wings tucked forward or else he'll fall on his back and start demanding that old geezer bot Kup to tell him the good part of his latest story. This is because his robot mode lower legs are on his back - and are mostly die-cast metal. The chest panels, robot shoulders, Pterodactyl feet, and robot heel are also die-cast metal, so he's really heavy. I also really like all the articulation in the neck for soaring poses.



No alternate mode comparison this time, he's cumbersome as it is. So instead we'll just move on to robot mode. The transformation is relatively simple, but there's some really clever bits like how the chest expands to make room for the Pterodactyl beak. Be sure to pop the gold panels in front of his legs out first before going back into beast mode, as they're very thin and aren't meant to take much stress. Also, remember to bend the joint ABOVE the knee to fold up his legs, or else they won't line up properly on his back. Once in robot mode, there's no question this is supposed to be Swoop from the G1 cartoon. He is gorgeous, if a little long in the forearm and short in the upper arm. There's not really any new colors in this mode, but he is very solid, no floppy shoulders like the initial runs of Scoria. (Fans Toys did make replacement shoulder parts available for a little while, and FT-04T and FT-04X apparently have the corrected parts implemented, so I'm not holding that against him)

How about some gimmicks? Like Scoria before him, Soar's sword can light up at the push of a button on the pommel of the sword once you open it up and put some little watch batteries in. I don't have nor care about putting batteries in there. He can hold it without his wrist looking broken, that's a plus... though mine doesn't seem to want to stay tabbed in his hand all that well. Not that it matters once his fingers are wrapped around it, as he's not letting go of it, but still. The launchers on his wings don't fire, they're just for show, but the tiny peg can be flipped over for a handle to let Soar wield them in robot mode. The sword can plug into a screw hole on his back for storage, something I don't think their Sever (Snarl) does. (I can't really say as I don't have him yet and Stomp/Sludge is still on preorder) The stand is still usable in this mode, plugging into his ass for flight poses. It gets a little more disturbing when I point out his face can be swapped from the shown neutral one to a smiling one via a similar trick to the old MP Seekers except swinging the face forward and then twisting. I usually just leave it in the neutral face.

For articulation, Soar has roughly 44 points, about half of it located in his hands. His waist is a little limited by the beak, but you can raise the beak to compensate. His hips have MP-01's front and back hip skirt trick to hide the actual joint itself while also opening to get out of the way when needed. His shoulders though are a little too tight, squeaking and screeching a bit when swung up and down. Matt Booker has shown a guide for applying some shock oil in the joint itself to silence the squeakiness. Mine squeak a bit, but nothing too horrible.

And now for that size comparison. I didn't feel like going over to pick up Scoria who's currently in an argument with Grimlock over Beryllium baloney vs. Cesium salami, so instead we have Quakewave and Soundwave.



That seems about right... logical, even.

So overall, I like Soar. Fans Toys learned from some of Scoria's little problems and made sure not to repeat them for Soar, though I will say Soar's gold chrome is MUCH richer than Scoria or MP Grimlock's golden chrome. I like it, but I'm not sure why it doesn't match the previous figure. I want to say Sever's gold is again different, but without him in hand I can't say for sure. Soar's cost was about the same as Scoria's, so he's pretty easy to budget for if you're going for all the Iron Dibots... all five of them! There's also Bullsfire's (I think I spelled it right) version, but it cheats a bit by having the Pterodactyl legs be separate from the robot legs and is meant to scale with the existing Masterpiece Grimlock... though I haven't heard anything more out of them. Undoubtedly Gigapower will do their version soon, which will be a little bigger and like the original toy just like their Guttur. (Snarl) But Fans Toys remains at the top of the third party Masterpiece style transforming robot dog pile. Hell, they've got Insecticons, Hound, and Perceptor in the works! ...not sure if I'll pick any of them up, though.

Excellent review! I've been meaning to pick this guy up myself. Hopefully within the next 2 or 3 weeks anyways..

the FT Dinobots are amazing but they are just a tad too tall for my liking. Not to mention the steep price they have. I'm sure they are worth every penny. They look outstanding. I just wish they were a weee bit smaller.

Galvatron wrote:the FT Dinobots are amazing but they are just a tad too tall for my liking. Not to mention the steep price they have. I'm sure they are worth every penny. They look outstanding. I just wish they were a weee bit smaller.

Well they're meant to be in 'proper' scale with MP-10, and that means they're pretty big. Still kind of dwarfed by Star Saber, but then he needs to be huge to still feature his original toy's gimmicks. I should really pick him and Ultra Magnus up some day.

they all make MP Grimlock look small. They should of tried matching his scale.

Galvatron wrote:they all make MP Grimlock look small. They should of tried matching his scale.

MP Grimlock is small, though. It's always been a complaint about him since he first came out years ago. Besides, they're working on the ultimate solution: FT-08 Grinder. Their own Masterpiece style Grimlock that's to the 'proper' scale with MP-10. And initial runs of Scoria had those super booties to bring Grimlock to about the same height in robot mode, though I have mentioned in my review of Scoria how this solved one problem but created another.