Hasbro Masterpiece Grimlock (MP-3)

With the Age of Extinction movie featuring Dinobots, Hasbro decided it was going to monopolize on this - by re-releasing nearly every Dinosaur transformer they have that even bears the slightest resemblance to the four featured in the movie. (like Beast Wars Basic Terrorsaur/Lazerbeak as Strafe) And for SDCC, Grimlock, Slug/Slag, and Snarl got released in their G1 Dinobot color schemes complete with oodles of gold chrome. (Strafe too in Swoop's toy colors. Sadly no love for Slog/Sludge, but his retail toy is already silvery grey with some red and black) Of course this also presented an opportunity for Hasbro's next numbered Masterpiece figure. And thus the re-release of Grimlock in Hasbro's markets. Is he worthwhile? Let's take a look at the lovable bad ass leader of the Dinobots Hasbro/TakaraTomy are likely never going to bother doing anytime soon and see.



Grimlock's alternate mode is that of a robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex. The more astute readers may notice that his posture is definitely not that of the other Tyrannosaur Transformers I've covered previously, that he's mostly upright with his tail (almost) dragging on the ground. That's not accurate with how this dinosaur actually looked at all! And this would be correct... with how we currently think Tyrannosaurus Rex stood when it roamed the Earth 65 million years ago. However, this outdated posture was what people thought it stood like up until the early 90's, (up until Jurassic Park anyway) and is accurate with the original toy, cartoon, and Marvel comics.

Now that I've made that point perfectly clear, Grimlock is cast in silvery grey plastic, with a bit of clear plastic around his neck and on his belly. Silver paint on his arms, a bit of gunmetal along the sides and in his mouth, and a big old red Autobot symbol proudly stamped on his chest. He's blinged out with silver chrome on his claws, teeth, and tail, and gold chrome all around his belly. These parts are every bit the fingerprint magnets you'd expect them to be. The polished gold in his hips and toe claws is all die-cast metal. How is this different than the previous Hasbro Masterpiece Grimlock you ask? Very. This version is almost identical to the original Takara MP-8 version as far as I can tell, aside from slightly blunted teeth and claws for safety reasons. However, he does not come with any of the show referencing accessories despite still having holes in his hands to hold the serving tray and the hole in the chest for the bow tie.

Grimlock does retain all of his gimmicks though. His head can open to switch between the shown blue eyes and the red eyes of the original toy among other media. His jaw ratchets open, revealing a little flamethrower inside his mouth, and can snap shut by pushing his left cheek, though not with nearly enough force to hurt anyone's fingers foolishly left in his mouth. Pushing up on his hips is supposed to cause his head to look up... but it doesn't move nearly as far as the instructions seem to imply. Finally, twisting his tail left and right at the base will make his head swing in the same direction.



Transformation Is pretty much the same as his original toy, with the exception of the tail completely folding into his legs rather than hanging off the sides. Getting his right hand out is a pain in the butt for some reason. When the lower body slides up into the upper body, the Autobot symbol in his chest slides up into view. His robot mode introduces black and red plastic, and a crotch of die-cast. I had to disassemble his pelvis and sand some mold flash off one of the hip pivots to get the ratchet in there to work properly. A floppy hip pivot is a bad thing. I don't know if all of them suffer from this, but it may be best to be prepared just in case. I do like how the dinosaur head uses that slot in his head for the intelligence transfer device this version doesn't come with to plug in to his back so it doesn't move about. I also like how a part of the back ends up folding into his foot to fill it in and add some more stability to his articulation, which he features about 26 points of. This is a little asymmetrical, however - his left hand can open at the index finger and the other three fingers at the base knuckle only, but his right hand only has a ball jointed thumb which his left hand has as well.



But of course there's still some gimmicks to look at in robot mode! There's a switch on the back of Grimlock's head that changes the beautiful chrome eyes between blue and red. And he comes with the Dinobot Crown of Leadership, which is just his crown from the Marvel comics. It fits snugly on his noggin, but needs to be removed whenever you want to change his eye color as it blocks the switch. And then there are his two weapons: the twin 'stunner' lasers rifle and his energo sword. Both have a clear plastic peg and a tiny peg off to one side. The clear peg goes into Grimlock's right hand, where pushing a button on the back of his upper arm activates a red LED in his fist to light the weapon. It barely works with the gun even in complete darkness, but who cares? It works brilliantly with the sword! (still, MP-8X King Grimlock's sword looks better with its orange blade rather than the clear one of this version) The other peg plugs into the tiny hole on the side of his left hand since he can't really hold the clear peg in that hand. The interesting thing about this gimmick I find is how his LEFT arm features the same restrictions his right one does aside from the additional joints in the hand itself. That's smart, and isn't even all that restrictive.

So now for the conclusion. Is Masterpiece Grimlock worth it? For $80 or so at Toys 'R' Us, yeah, especially when this version looks so much like the Takara MP-8 version. However, he fares better as a stand-alone piece, as he's only about the same height as MP-10 Optimus in robot mode, and thus is not in scale with any of the Masterpiece figures. But if you need the other Dinobots to go with him, there are unofficial options albeit only Bullsfire making Dinobots to be in scale with this figure. If you're fine with just Grimlock, this figure is no bozo, this figure is KING! (and he has the crown to prove it)

With MP Grimlock, I like the eye gimmick but not what they did to one of his hands, for a light up gimmick! Over all, he pretty cool, when I transform him, most of the time, I tend to keep the crown on his head and it stays there inside of his chest on the robot mode head, perfectly safe and sound!

I don't particularly mind his right hand, as usually he's holding his sword in robot mode so his hand would be closed anyway. Would have been kind of nice to have the option to turn the light on and keep it on, though I admit I probably wouldn't bother buying batteries for him if they weren't already included and installed. Those little batteries are expensive! I also leave the crown on most of the time, as it only ever needs to come off when one wants to change his eye color. I had it off for the robot mode pic since it's just the base robot, and wanted to show all three of his included accessories along with the red eyes. (too lazy to show off the red eyes in dinosaur mode)

No point showing off the red eyes in Dino mode, because as I recall, not once has that form of Grimlock, ever had the red eyes, where's the Robot mode in the comics, tends to use the red eyes because it just seems to make him look cooler and more bad ass!